Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

I'd only do that if the better job allowed me to slack more.

That's rough, buddy.

According to Gbaji, I only work a job and pay my bills because of "inertia".

I am literally too lazy to stop working and go on welfare.

That's a compelling argument from a guy who has clung to the same job he miracled into with a high school education.

Kavekk forgot his password and had to restart as Kavekkk.






Add 14,174 to Kavekkk for full post count.

Edited, Apr 9th 2015 7:31pm by Bijou

Again, the numbers are just examples to illustrate the concept. As I said. I didn't want to complicate the issue by talking about all the factors that are involved with those decisions. I just wanted to use a simple set of numbers that would clearly show the fact that if you have to give up some benefit in order to work, it will influence that decision.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, there are a host of factors. If I listed them all, I'd be posting even larger posts than I usually do. And for the point I'm making the exact quantities aren't important. What is important is the fact that to whatever degree the assistance helps someone, it also hinders their upward mobility. Even if we just take the $9,200/year you just listed, that's $9.2k/year of economic advancement that the recipient must gain prior to seeing any standard of living improvement. That's a heck of a negative effect.



I'm not sure what living wage has to do with what I'm talking about. Similarly, I'm not talking about just "getting a job", but how much effort someone is going to expend improving their work situation. If you can gain the same economic condition working 20 hours a week at a minimum wage job as you'd get working full time at the same job, would you work full time? Are you going to spend the effort to start a new job that pays $5k/year more money, if you know that just means that your benefits will be cut the same $5k/year? Some people will, of course. But some people will not. And those people will affect the resulting statistics.

Yup. The biggie is the very very shallow total amount between about $15k/year and $30k/year (I guess that's actually $29k). Very little economic benefit for what is arguably the hardest income increase range to hurdle. That income range usually involves either working a heck of a lot more hours (as you mentioned), or improving your education/training to move into a more career oriented job. The former is often just plain nearly impossible given the time constraints involved (doubly so if we're talking about a single mother here). The latter requires significant time and effort that isn't rewarded right away normally, but when you stack in the negative effects of the dwindling welfare benefits, it's brutal. You're going to go to night school for a couple years on the off chance that you might swap your part time near minimum wage job paying you ~$15k/year for an entry level position that might start at ~$25k/year and really only net you a very small increase? Obviously, in the long run that's the right choice, but in the short term that's a really hard choice to expect people to make.

The chart also illustrates just how large the welfare benefits really are. I hadn't even realized they added up to that much. That's kinda ridiculous really.

Or just aren't available at all to a single male.


There's a reason things like homeless shelters exist.

Funny that your answer failed to address in any way the question I asked. Want to try again?



That makes no sense. I said that it affects the choice. So it increases the odds that they will choose not to do better. Saying "but it has no effect unless they choose not to do better" is circular. If I mark the price of chocolate cake down 50%, it will affect the rate at which people will choose to buy chocolate cake. Arguing that this doesn't do anything because the people still have to choose to buy chocolate cake is ridiculous. Of course they have to choose it. The point is that by changing the relative costs of things you can influence people's choices.

Why do you keep trying to tap dance around this?



it doesn't seem stupid to the person who's getting $20k/year in benefits for $10k/year worth of work. It seems to him like he's getting twice as much money as he would otherwise.

You're correct about "hitting rock bottom". But that assumes someone who's already been above that condition. The view looks totally different from the perspective of someone who was born at rock bottom, has lived their entire life at rock bottom, and who lives in a community full of people with the same experience. It's interesting to me because it seems like every time this subject comes up the common argument assumes that we're talking about someone who's already making a good living choosing to go on welfare instead. That's not the case I'm talking about though. I'm specifically talking about generational poverty. The children who grow up in homes funded primarily by welfare and in neighborhoods full of other children in a similar condition. Those children are less likely to learn the value of labor, less likely to be aware of the much better lives they could have, and much more likely to have been taught that welfare is an acceptable long term condition.

For those people, the choices don't look as obvious as they might to the rest of us.



They didn't.



That wasn't the issue. I was addressing your statement that black people opposed "privatization of public schools". You have an amazingly consistent habit of responding to something other than what I actually said.




I think the mistake you keep making is equating ignorance with stupidity. If I teach someone that salad is bad for him, that person will believe that salad is bad for him. He's not wrong because he's stupid. He's wrong because I lied to him. Same deal here. Black people are lied to by the political Left. That doesn't make them stupid. It makes them victims of a lie.




And yet. Uncle Tom. Heck. Your own mischaracterization of the voter ID and the VRA is rhetoric and social pressure. You can insist that this isn't what is being used to pressure blacks to vote Dem, but you yourself repeat the very same rhetoric. Are you even aware of this? What's funny is that I keep asking you to provide objective arguments for/against these thing, but you invariably fall back on emotional appeals and vague claims of "bad things" that the GOP's policies would result in.

I'll also repeat the point about how such things are often expressed not in terms of how the Dems policies are "good", but because they oppose GOP policies which are "bad", usually including only very vague explanations of why such things are "bad" in the first place. It's a strange way of doing things, don't you agree?



Except you've failed to connect the dots by providing an objective argument that voter ID laws violate the VRA, or are even "bad". You just assume they are and move directly to declaring that the GOP is "gutting" the VRA. Actually, you go backwards. You start by saying the GOP opposes the VRA, then use voter ID as the proof of this. Again though, you haven't argued that voter ID violates the VRA. The Supreme court ruled that it doesn't, yet a whole leg of your "GOP hates blacks" is based on not just this assumption, but an assumed motivation behind it. It's not just that voter ID violates the VRA, but that the intention of voter ID is to violate the VRA, and the motivation for that is based on hatred of black people.

That's a lot of assumptive steps you're making there, with little or no evidence to support them. Which is why I keep going back to "you think the GOP isn't good for black people because you've been told that repeatedly". You start with that assumption and interpret every action of the GOP within that context. But along the way, you never stop to evaluate the assumption itself, much less whether those actions really represent support for it. Your cart is ahead of your horse.



I did not argue that this was the reason for poverty in black neighborhoods. Ever. I never even expressed it in terms remotely similar to that. Once again, you are zeroing in on skin color. I'm not. I've been talking about poor neighborhoods. My argument has been all along that the crime stats we see are based on the poverty levels in the neighborhoods in question, not the skin color of those living there. The relation between the crime stats and race is the result of a statistically higher percentage of black people living in high poverty areas. But the crime stats aren't because they are black. It's because they are living in poor neighborhoods.

I've literally explained this at least 5 times now. You are the one who keeps trying to make this about people's skin color. I'm the one continually pointing out that once you account for the disproportional poverty/race stats, the apparently disproportional crime/race stats largely disappear.

White flight from middle class neighborhoods is irrelevant because we can assume that the resulting black neighborhood will also be middle class, right? If we're just talking about skin color with no economic component, that is. Why would the result become poor if the people moving in have similar incomes to those moving out? They wouldn't Now, if we're talking about poor people (of any color) moving into a previously middle class neighborhood (which happens sometimes as property values shift, and populations move around), those who have higher incomes will tend to move out of the now increasingly poor neighborhood. But, again, that isn't about the skin color of those moving in, it's about the economic conditions. If I live in a neighborhood that used to be full of single family homes on nice wide streets, and over time, apartment buildings start cropping up, and duplexes formed, and property values start to go down, I'm going to move from there to a higher cost neighborhood if I can afford it. More significantly, as property values decrease in the neighborhood, the people moving in will tend to be lower income people and those with higher incomes will tend to move into other neighborhoods that they can afford that have fewer apartment buildings and more single family homes.

Over time, just the natural movements of people will result in these economic shifts. No need for white flight to explain it. It's only if you choose to look just at the skin colors of those involved that you'll see a racial pattern. But that's because that's what you're looking at. What appears to be "white flight" is another artifact of the preexisting difference in economic disparity between black and white. And just as I've been saying all along, the solution isn't to blame the cops, or the city, or the white folks who moved out, but to try to figure out how to eliminate that economic disparity. And IMO, welfare doesn't just not do this, but arguably makes it worse over time.



Yes. There are several topics going on. And in this one, we're discussing whether or not welfare creates and/or perpetuates the relatively high rate of poverty among black people. You're the one who keeps responding to one topic by spinning off onto another. You've done it three times just in this set of responses. Stop and frisk is a different topic. We can talk about that as well, but when I ask a direct question about welfare and poverty, maybe you should respond to me by talking about welfare and poverty?

I'll ask again: Why do you suppose there are so many predominantly black high poverty and high crime neighborhoods? My argument is that the welfare system perpetuates that condition. What is yours?

Edited, Apr 10th 2015 7:16pm by gbaji

Maybe feminists could take on this blatant inequality between sexes?

The common scenario is that the single mother gains welfare support and the single male "boyfriend" lives with her and mooches off the benefits. At the risk of cross topic shenanigans, this also has a host of negative effects on marriage and relationship choices. That's a whole topic by itself, of course.

What if the kid wants to be raised by Santa Claus and Playboy models?

If the kids want to be raised by Playboy models, then the mother should get custody since the father has bad taste in porn.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Funny that your answer failed to address in any way the question I asked. Want to try again?

Your original claim was that it was a bad sign of honesty for the Democrats to use the "Appeal to popularity" fallacy with "fear of reprisal". I responded that Republicans use the same tactics. You, an obsessed race baitor, said that it was different because we're talking about race. I countered to say that the Democratic Party does NOT call people uncle Toms and race traitors, but that is the party's base. So, that means that your claim and position is false. You are wrong. I am right.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

That makes no sense. I said that it affects the choice. So it increases the odds that they will choose not to do better. Saying "but it has no effect unless they choose not to do better" is circular. If I mark the price of chocolate cake down 50%, it will affect the rate at which people will choose to buy chocolate cake. Arguing that this doesn't do anything because the people still have to choose to buy chocolate cake is ridiculous. Of course they have to choose it. The point is that by changing the relative costs of things you can influence people's choices.

Why do you keep trying to tap dance around this?

Gbaji wrote:

it doesn't seem stupid to the person who's getting $20k/year in benefits for $10k/year worth of work. It seems to him like he's getting twice as much money as he would otherwise.

You're correct about "hitting rock bottom". But that assumes someone who's already been above that condition. The view looks totally different from the perspective of someone who was born at rock bottom, has lived their entire life at rock bottom, and who lives in a community full of people with the same experience. It's interesting to me because it seems like every time this subject comes up the common argument assumes that we're talking about someone who's already making a good living choosing to go on welfare instead. That's not the case I'm talking about though. I'm specifically talking about generational poverty. The children who grow up in homes funded primarily by welfare and in neighborhoods full of other children in a similar condition. Those children are less likely to learn the value of labor, less likely to be aware of the much better lives they could have, and much more likely to have been taught that welfare is an acceptable long term condition.

For those people, the choices don't look as obvious as they might to the rest of us.

Everything affects your choice. Your claim is that the government created welfare to keep blacks down as an extension of Jim Crow and black people don't realize its harm. I've countered to say that it's only harmful if you allow it to be, just like credit cards and loans.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

They didn't.

Wait. Are you saying that the decision by the Supreme Court didn't happen or it wasn't the Republicans who brought it forth to the court with the decision being down party lines?

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

That wasn't the issue. I was addressing your statement that black people opposed "privatization of public schools". You have an amazingly consistent habit of responding to something other than what I actually said.

What part of that confuses you?

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

I think the mistake you keep making is equating ignorance with stupidity. If I teach someone that salad is bad for him, that person will believe that salad is bad for him. He's not wrong because he's stupid. He's wrong because I lied to him. Same deal here. Black people are lied to by the political Left. That doesn't make them stupid. It makes them victims of a lie.

Ignorance is simply not knowing the truth. Stupidity is denying the truth. So, when people like you, Romney, GW, Paul Ryan and Rand Paul attempt to "explain" to blacks why the Republican party is better for blacks (which is exactly what you're accusing DEMS of doing by the way), you are calling blacks stupid for denying the truth.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

And yet. Uncle Tom. Heck. Your own mischaracterization of the voter ID and the VRA is rhetoric and social pressure. You can insist that this isn't what is being used to pressure blacks to vote Dem, but you yourself repeat the very same rhetoric. Are you even aware of this? What's funny is that I keep asking you to provide objective arguments for/against these thing, but you invariably fall back on emotional appeals and vague claims of "bad things" that the GOP's policies would result in.

I'll also repeat the point about how such things are often expressed not in terms of how the Dems policies are "good", but because they oppose GOP policies which are "bad", usually including only very vague explanations of why such things are "bad" in the first place. It's a strange way of doing things, don't you agree?

I've provided objective reasons, you just deny them. The VRA and voter IDs, while related are not the same thing. You obviously have no idea how the VRA was constructed and then gutted. Blacks tend to support gun control, against war, for early education, reducing drug penalties, for affirmative action, against stop and frisk, for minimum wage, against privatization of schools and jails, etc. You ignore ALL of this and focus on social support. Ironically, if you list all of the GOP candidates that would be labeled a RINO, JEB, Christie, Ron/Rand, etc., those are the exact people who have or could pull the most minority vote. So the GOP pushes away all of the candidates that appeal to minorities then claim it's the DEMs deception that is controlling minorities, not their policies. Let that sink in.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

I did not argue that this was the reason for poverty in black neighborhoods. Ever. I never even expressed it in terms remotely similar to that. Once again, you are zeroing in on skin color. I'm not. I've been talking about poor neighborhoods. My argument has been all along that the crime stats we see are based on the poverty levels in the neighborhoods in question, not the skin color of those living there. The relation between the crime stats and race is the result of a statistically higher percentage of black people living in high poverty areas. But the crime stats aren't because they are black. It's because they are living in poor neighborhoods.

I've literally explained this at least 5 times now. You are the one who keeps trying to make this about people's skin color. I'm the one continually pointing out that once you account for the disproportional poverty/race stats, the apparently disproportional crime/race stats largely disappear.

White flight from middle class neighborhoods is irrelevant because we can assume that the resulting black neighborhood will also be middle class, right? If we're just talking about skin color with no economic component, that is. Why would the result become poor if the people moving in have similar incomes to those moving out? They wouldn't Now, if we're talking about poor people (of any color) moving into a previously middle class neighborhood (which happens sometimes as property values shift, and populations move around), those who have higher incomes will tend to move out of the now increasingly poor neighborhood. But, again, that isn't about the skin color of those moving in, it's about the economic conditions. If I live in a neighborhood that used to be full of single family homes on nice wide streets, and over time, apartment buildings start cropping up, and duplexes formed, and property values start to go down, I'm going to move from there to a higher cost neighborhood if I can afford it. More significantly, as property values decrease in the neighborhood, the people moving in will tend to be lower income people and those with higher incomes will tend to move into other neighborhoods that they can afford that have fewer apartment buildings and more single family homes.

Over time, just the natural movements of people will result in these economic shifts. No need for white flight to explain it. It's only if you choose to look just at the skin colors of those involved that you'll see a racial pattern. But that's because that's what you're looking at. What appears to be "white flight" is another artifact of the preexisting difference in economic disparity between black and white. And just as I've been saying all along, the solution isn't to blame the cops, or the city, or the white folks who moved out, but to try to figure out how to eliminate that economic disparity. And IMO, welfare doesn't just not do this, but arguably makes it worse over time.

Gbaji wrote:

Yes. There are several topics going on. And in this one, we're discussing whether or not welfare creates and/or perpetuates the relatively high rate of poverty among black people. You're the one who keeps responding to one topic by spinning off onto another. You've done it three times just in this set of responses. Stop and frisk is a different topic. We can talk about that as well, but when I ask a direct question about welfare and poverty, maybe you should respond to me by talking about welfare and poverty?

I'll ask again: Why do you suppose there are so many predominantly black high poverty and high crime neighborhoods? My argument is that the welfare system perpetuates that condition. What is yours?

One concept at a time. Black people leave a poor neighborhood and move into a middle class neighborhood. White people leave. When the white people leave, the value of the house and community decreases because no one else wants to live there. What do you do to prices of merchandise that no one buys? You reduce the price. As other houses prices go down, so does your house. Then the people who are paying for the house, now owes more money than the house is worth. Do you understand this?