[quote]phaethon wrote:
Raising children properly is productive. Certainly not all people with jobs are productive, and not all people without jobs are unproductive. We all know there are plenty of destructive rich assholes around.
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I agree, there are good and bad people on both sides of the spectrum. The point I think is significant though is that the rich are often the ones shaping our country’s laws and policies. It may feel gratifying to blame our problems on welfare moms and illegal immigrants, but I think it’s foolish to blame those with little control over how things are done for our problems. For example, the architects of economic policy, primarly with wealthy business elite, are responsible for our high unemployment, not the millions of people that lost their jobs. Millions of unemployed people lost their jobs not because they were incompetent or unproductive, but rather because of an economic crisis.
[quote]phaethon wrote:
Hence, why in my policies I listed I said we need to place tough regulations upon advertising etc…
Yes. By changing poor peoples culture. What do you think would happen if every day the adverts weren’t about buying stupid shit but about saving money and working hard?
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I completely agree that advertising needs to be regulated more, but unfortunetly regulation has become a taboo subject in America today. In the early 1980’s there were discussions in Congress about how advertising to children was inherintly deceptive, but the usual “personal responsibility this, the last thing we need is a nanny state that” argument was used to block any reform. Actually not only was reform blocked, but industries (toys, sugar, etc.) that would have had to change their advertising practices worked hard enough to have the FTC’s power to regulate child marketing taken away.
In the last decade there have been similar attempts to regulate marketing on food products toward children, especially in the light of childhood obesity. Instead of just stopping reform, food companies decided this time to stop reform and at the same time claim that they were the good guys.
If you’re in to documentaries and want to know more watching Consuming Kids and Killer at Large, they’re both on YouTube.
[quote]phaethon wrote:
While it would be a slow process they could certainly have significant political influence. Take the religious right or the NRA as examples.
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The religious right and the NRA happen to be two of the wealthiest organizations present in our country. Not only that, aside from a few exceptions for the religious, both of those groups usually find themselves on the same side as big business.
You’ve probably noticed a common theme among what I’m saying, which is that corporations shouldn’t dictate how our country is run. Things are even not politically possible unless a fairly large sector of concentrated wealth is willing to get behind you or we have massive popular movements; that is not a working democracy. Poor people have virtually no political power, primarly because it’s extremely hard for them to organize in a meaningful way. On the other hand, you bet your ass that the wealthy organize, and they have been since this country’s founding.
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations:
"The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects differet from, and even opposite to, that of the public. [They have] generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public…
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently those of workmen. But whoever imagines that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. Masters, too sometimes enter enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution."
[quote]phaethon wrote:
For instance if you took 42 trillion from the richest segments of American society and gave $1 million dollars to each of the the 42 million people on food stamps society would be no better. Within 30 years 90% would be poor again. The rich would be discouraged from being productive and so productivity would drop.
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I agree, there’s no greater way to increase poverty than to subsidize it. I’m not advocating pulling a Robin Hood, things need to be done drastically different than they are now. I think welfare should be expanded, but not before it gets completely redesigned. Make community service a requirement for unemployment, make it so its impossible to buy drugs with welfare, stuff like that.
