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Donald Trump and Angela Merkel will join 2,500 world leaders, business executives and charity bosses at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland which kicks off on 23 January. High on the agenda once again will be the topic of inequality, and how to reduce the widening gap between the rich and the rest around the world.
The WEF recently warned that the global economy is at risk of another crisis, and that automation and digitalisation are likely to suppress employment and wages for most while boosting wealth at the very top.
But what ideas should the great and good gathered in the Swiss Alps be putting into action? We'd like to know what single step you think governments should prioritise in order to best address the problem of rising inequality. Below we've outlined seven proposals that are most often championed as necessary to tackle the issue – but which of them is most important to you?
- Provide free and high quality education
- Raise the minimum wage
- Raise taxes on the rich
- Fight corruption
- Provide more social protection for the poor
- Stop the influence of the rich on politicians
- Provide jobs for the unemployed
Do you think these ideas are enough, or are there any better ideas to close this wealth gap ? You too can participate and vote for the idea that, you think, works best.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:44PM (60 children)
American conservatives love to talk about "equality of opportunity" but some kids are born into families where it's never an issue paying for healthcare and education while some babies are born into families that can barely afford food. No one gets to choose which situation they'll find themselves in, it was a roll of the dice; we didn't even get a choice to play the game or not. If you start out life malnourished, with marginal healthcare, and with education permanently out of reach you have not been given an equal opportunity. Taking care of health care and education are the two immediate and obvious fixes we can make that will do the most good for the most people as quickly as possible.
To paraphrase a quip from Gandhi, probably apocryphal, when someone asks me what I think about equality of opportunity, I respond that it would be a good idea.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:53PM (2 children)
Oh, hey, and we're working on that with school vouchers, allowing the more wealthy to claw back their school tax dollars and put them together with private money to put their kids in more expensive schools than are provided for the general population. Also know that these privatized schools are essentially free to discriminate based on academic ability, mental and physical disability, and of course ability to pay. While these privatized schools pull away the better students, parents and teachers, the public school system will be shrinking in funding and ability to deliver a competitive education. It won't be long before we've got a major chunk of the population who simply can't access a competitive education due to circumstances of their birth, and that should go a long way toward keeping the poor in their place, unable to move up in the world for generations.
That is what we've been driving toward for the last 30 years, isn't it?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:47AM (1 child)
It's so outrageous that successful people get to do what they want, just because they earned more than us! To have freedom, everybody else has to move at the rate of our dumbest and laziest and least capable like you! Otherwise it would UNFAIR!! Whaaa!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:14AM
Did you know all those strawmen you burned are going to be waiting for you in Hell? And they have some creative ideas about where you can stuff all that hay...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:53PM
I know how this works out. The poorest Americans, and anybody who overstays a visa or jumps the border, can also have the privilege of getting a PhD in Gender Studies from New York University and then have their balls cut off for free.
People appreciate things they earn. People waste things they are given for free.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:14PM (34 children)
My grandfather was born on a farm in Iowa. It was probably about 1910. He was one of seven kids. The house consisted of a single small room with a dirt floor. There was no plumbing, phone, or power. They couldn't afford a horse, donkey, ox, or tractor. They had a mule. They grew crops to survive. They had to stuff cardboard in their shoes when there were holes, even in winter, because they couldn't afford better.
All seven kids went beyond a Bachelor's degree.
It wasn't some magic privilege. They worked their asses off. At the time they were even recognized and hated. There were signs on businesses that said "No Irish", and there was no hiding the red hair and freckles.
Everybody worked hard and saved. They put the first kid through school, and then the second, and so on. They bootstrapped themselves out of poverty and subsistence farming.
Healthcare? Hah! There was no healthcare. Malnourished? Yep, that happens with subsistence farming, and a couple generations prior there was that whole potato famine in Ireland. Education out of reach? It would have been if they didn't save and work their asses off like responsible Americans, because at the time you couldn't just sit at home and watch video of MIT lectures for free or head over to Khan Academy for free. It's pretty shameful if you think poor Americans have it bad today. Most of the world has a situation that is delightful compared to what my grandfather endured.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:25PM (9 children)
Ripping yarn, and also totally irrelevant. Other people suffered worse and succeeded in the past, therefore we shouldn't do anything to mitigate suffering or unfairness today. That's a fallacy (relative privation [wikipedia.org]).
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:46PM
Yours is the assumption that a list or fallacies is relevant outside of a high school debate team contest. Scoring points isn't the goal here.
In the real world, relative privation actually matters. I can and I will dismiss the idea that things are so bad and terrible now.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:00AM (7 children)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:20AM (6 children)
This is just wrong. Seriously, self-deluding wrong. Who do you think gave (note, gratis, if not under the Homestead Act) land to these "self-sufficient" subsistence farmers? Yes, the government, after they got done stealing it from its native occupants and rightful owners. So I am going to demand, as a Native American, the right to self-help in pushing these damn Washita off my land, and I demand you withdraw the government subsidies (Farm price supports, the entire Dept. of Ag.) from them, and any protection by armed forces or police. "Without requiring a government nanny"!! What the fuck are you, some Vienna Circle Libertarian Sophmoron?
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:54AM (5 children)
Themselves. Farms don't spontaneous form out of the aether.
What makes you think the native occupants owned the land? Where's the foundation for that assertion?
Non sequiturs don't help your argument a bit. You can demand whatever you want to demand in a land of free speech. Just don't be surprised when the rest of us don't care.
The language is appropriate, so not seeing the need to care that you're worked up over "government nanny".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:20PM (4 children)
So yes, you are a libertarian moron. Thanks for clearing that up! Your persistent adherence to ignorance leaves only simple derision as an option. Though people routinely try to help you anyway.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:46PM (3 children)
Ah yes, the gracious way of announcing to the world that you've lost the argument.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @10:31PM (2 children)
Moron :) I wasn't the one arguing the point, that person gave up when it became obvious you were just soapboxing and denying things you don't like.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday January 22 2018, @10:48PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:39PM
That is exactly what you are doing. Basically take every insult you hurl and if you're honest you'll find out you're mad at yourself.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:48PM
And...? Your point is??
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:55PM (15 children)
What a load of shit.
My uncle went beyond a bachelor's degree and he was unemployed his whole life. My mother went beyond a bachelor's degree and she spent half of her working years unemployed. I went beyond a bachelor's degree and I am spending half of my working years unemployed.
My father went beyond a bachelor's degree and he is the only member of my family who worked his entire life. The rest of my family should be so lucky.
Degrees weren't worth anything to my uncle, and working your ass off doesn't accomplish anything. It takes two to make a contract, meaning no matter what you do, your success ultimately depends on someone else being willing to pay you or you end up with nothing.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:36AM (12 children)
So, tell us, you entitled snowflake - what were the degrees for? And, how far beyond a bachelor's degree are you talking about? You do realize that uneducated, unwashed people manage to earn decent livings, because they work in fields that are in demand. Maybe if you weren't to proud to pick up a shovel, you could be employed. Tell me, what do you think of DACA? Should be bring more Mexicans across the border to do the jobs that you don't want to do, so that you have more time to whine about being unemployed?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:21AM (11 children)
I dunno, old man! What were the degrees for? What can you do with degrees in mathematics, library science, computer science, professional degrees of the middle class.
We're talking about master's degrees for all! Except my grandfather, he was a dentist. He was such an unsuccessful dentist that the IRS audited him because they couldn't believe a dentist could have income so low. That's right, I'm a direct descendant of Zoidberg, DDS.
I'm never too proud to shovel shit. Nobody will hire me to shovel shit, because with my tech degrees and my faggy nerd demeanor, they expect I'll stop shoveling shit as soon as I get a tech job. Nobody will hire me for a tech job either. They tell me I should take my nerdy skills and my years of tech experience and go shovel shit. The circular reasoning is perfect in this fucking game of keep-away the job-creators play.
I hear the tech field is in demand. That's a lie. I hear the tech field pays well. That's also a lie. Maybe the Mexicans are getting the tech jobs? Or was it the Blacks, or the Chinese, or the Indians? You're old enough to be an old racist bastard, maybe you know how racist exclusionary hiring works?
Education! Good god, ya'll, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing....
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:31AM (1 child)
Runaway's a real piece of work isn't he? Modded +1 because people need to see the vicious circle you're describing, even if the asshole you replied to would never acknowledge it. Don't worry, he'll end up in Hell where he belongs soon enough...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:58PM
Why would he go to Detroit? He's a Texan.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:02AM (3 children)
So - your entire family has masters degrees, and the lot of you are unable to find work. There is something seriously wrong - and at least part of that is the business culture today. But, I can't help wondering if you're not part of the problem.
Apparently, you're something of a racist. I ask a question, and all you can think about is race? WTF? So, what race are you? You seem to be not Black, or Chinese, or Indian, because you're pointing fingers at all of them.
Zoidberg? Never heard of him - did a search - all I find is cartoon and cosplay references. So - you're not a real person, right? You're a cartoon character trying to describe real life?
So, to cut to the chase, you're full of shit, just blathering on about how unfair life is. Sorry, sux2bu.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:25PM (2 children)
Egads yer an idiot.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 21 2018, @10:27PM (1 child)
Well, yes, of course I'm an idiot. And, some random idiot on the internet has led a more successful life than you and all of your doctorate relatives. The only times in my adult life when I didn't have gainful employment, were those times when I didn't WANT to work. Those times were always to brief though - I plan on taking a month off, and a week goes by, I get a phone call. "Runaway, we really need some help here - can you be here Monday?"
Yep - I'm an idiot. But, I've never painted myself into a corner!
Tell me - have you ever thought about just LYING on your resume? In fact, don't do a resume. Just do the standard "application for employment" that most uneducated people use. I'll lie in a heartbeat. I get the feeling that the interviewer doesn't like veterans, I don't mention being a veteran. He doesn't like farmers, I don't mention that I started out on a farm. He doesn't like guns, I don't mention guns. At least, I don't mention these things until I"m on the job site, doing whatever I was hired for. And, when in business for myself, I just didn't mention ANY of that shit to customers. So - you're "over qualified", right? Don't mention your degree. Or downplay it - just tell them you've got a little community college behind you. The bastards are happy to lie to you, don't feel guilty for lying to them.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:42PM
Nothing like personal anecdotes from a baby boomer to throw salt on the wounds of people struggling. Gee as a regular white guy who went through the military you never had trouble finding work? Say it ain't so? What are all those college grads doing? They must be sitting on their asses all day waiting for a hand out, otherwise they'd totally have decent careers going!!!
Clue bat incoming, they'll probably steal your shitty phone while they're at it.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:03AM (4 children)
Apparently it doesn't go far in your family. Too bad you wasted your time. My family did quite well by education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:35AM (3 children)
If this guy had a wider concept of reality I'd make a *whoosh* airplane noise, but I think airplanes might have too far a reach for this one. Maybe simple biographies from a variety of cultures, an extended course.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:47AM (2 children)
I figured the previous post was bullshit. Turns out it was bullshit. Who knew? ... Who knew?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:40PM (1 child)
When everything you touch turns to shit it may be time to do some introspection.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:44PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:52AM (1 child)
On the way home from a job interview, he ran a red light and got hit by an 18-wheeler. He did however get a job offer, post-mortem.
She decided to be a mother.
You decided to be a mother.
He had to support you and your mom.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:30AM
Nice try, idiot.
My uncle was gay in a time when it wasn't hip to be gay yet.
My mother was female in a time when it wasn't empowering to be female yet.
My father was Archie Bunker when, guys like him, he had it made!
Me, I'm white in a time when it's not cool to be white anymore, bro.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:00AM (3 children)
My dad was born post world war II. He went to a state university in the late 1960s. At that time, you could "work your ass off" flipping burgers or pumping gas for minimum wage through the summer and EARN FULL COLLEGE TUITION for the fall and spring semesters.
The times, they are a changin'.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:42AM (2 children)
Actually, times haven't changed as much as most people believe. My youngest son pretty much paid his way through college. He has minimal college loan debt, Mother and I helped as much as we could, but he paid most of his own education.
To be fair, I'll note that he has a gift for making things work in his favor. He can buy and sell a vehicle, and make money doing so, even if the vehicle is a complete POS. The kid has always seen opportunity, and exploited it. So, he didn't exactly depend on minimum wage jobs while going to college.
People who insist on Ivy League schools aren't going to work their way through college like your dad, or my son. Minimum wage jobs? No way.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:50AM (1 child)
Oh, my Dad didn't work his way through school, his mother spoiled him rotten, bought him sports cars, paid for school, etc. Of course, in the 1960s she was able to do this with the money she made as a hairdresser. The point I was after was that, IF he had worked through the summer at a minimum wage job, he could have paid his own tuition for the whole year at a prominent state school.
It seems that things you need: education, food, shelter, transportation, healthcare, have all been inflating at rates much higher than mid to low level incomes have inflated ever since somewhere in the 1970s.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:13PM
What is the median student loan debt for a bechelor's degree? Google is of little help other than to say the problem is bad. You'd think the statistics would be easy to find.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Whoever on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:29AM
Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?
Terry Jones: You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TJ: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TJ: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, 'Money doesn't buy you happiness.'
EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
TJ: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!
TJ: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TJ: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
TJ: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by theluggage on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:23AM (1 child)
OK, so instead of a single small room in Iowa in 1910, imagine they're in 2 or 3 reasonably-sized rooms in a housing block somewhere in a rust belt. Where the flying fuck do they plant the potatoes? There's only one crop that is high-value, low-volume enough to be profitably grown in those conditions (if they nick the electricity for the glow lights) and its still frowned upon in many jurisdictions (although it should restore your faith in humanity a bit to know that some people do still make the effort). Apart from that, do you think there's enough non-concreted-over ground for the 200 inhabitants of the block to grow their own food (and graze 20 mules?) and if there was, do you think they'd be allowed to?
I mean, you're quite right that people in the past were more physically resilient - but in other ways, I think opportunities for "social mobility" and entrepreneurship peaked sometime in the 20th century, and a lot of ladders have been pulled up since then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:44PM
But but but TECH! They can educate themselves and start up a small business!!! Sheeit, we have anecdotal evidence for every goddamn thing to show just how lazy and entitled every "poor" person is. It worked for me, why can't you do it? Must be your fault...
/s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:35PM (5 children)
Did the parents not have the opportunity to get a job before having children? Isn't socialising irresponsibility... irresponsible?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:09AM (4 children)
Here in the real world, where pregnancy spans three fiscal quarters, a woman can have a job when she becomes pregnant and lose her job before she gives birth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:19AM (3 children)
Which is a risk for everyone, which is why we have savings or at least a buffer.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:28AM (2 children)
Yes she did get a job but now we're going to move the goalposts and say she should have had savings or at least a sugar daddy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:43AM (1 child)
Yes we did have plans to raise a families but now find ourselves working 6 months of the year to pay welfare to the unemployed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:38PM
Its like you know your argument is shit so you make it extremely ridiculous to compensate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:38PM (14 children)
Perhaps some of the families that can't afford food shouldn't have 5 children. Google "Angel Adams" and her 13 or so children that she insists someone else needs to pay for. No, she needs to pay for them--but she never will because her only purpose in life is a useless baby factory.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:05AM (6 children)
So you punish the child for the sins of their parents? Very Old Testament of you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:27AM (3 children)
The world is going to punish the child, then punish us for her sins. And this story will be repeated a billion times. The moral of the story, what you SHOULD HAVE LEARNED, is to do something about it before the child is conceived.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:38AM (2 children)
Mandatory abortions for mothers in poverty. Doing something about it! Tough on poverty!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:33PM (1 child)
There's no need for that. Give them the choice of zero aid or permanent sterilization.
Meanwhile give out free condoms etc. The parents who are more responsible will then have the number of children they can afford to feed and raise.
While the irresponsible ones will starve or be sterilized.
When you have billions of people on the world it's not so important to help reproduce the genetic material of those who can't learn important stuff like not having more children than you can afford to feed and raise.
Time to focus on quality and not quantity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:23PM
Psychopath
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:34AM (1 child)
Here are some ways I can think of to get a handle on this.
- Sufficiently advanced feminism. Yes, womyn-born-womyn can spit out babies, and with great power comes great responsibility. This only works if we provide women with no-cost contraception.
- Forced sterilization. Require women to be married before they may have children. This is not Yahweh/Diana-compatible.
- Children the parents cannot support are taken from both parents and raised by the state. This is not Yahweh-compatible.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:47PM
How about cheap contraception? Isn't that good enough?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:17AM (6 children)
There will always be exceptions.
But if you let your policy be determined solely by trying to counter the exceptions, you get bad policy.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:55AM (5 children)
To the kind of people who want that sort of policy, this is a feature, not a bug. There is a visceral disgust these people have for the poor, and they'll do anything they can to salve it--the disgust, not the problems of poverty. If that includes turning their back and inching their way to democide of the poor, so be it, as long as they don't have to look at the poor.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:10AM
I’m so glad to hear you’re willing to pay for their daycare. How virtuous of you!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:25AM (1 child)
Do you want more people to be poor? Subsidize poverty, and you'll get more poor people. They breed.
It could be considered evolution. If the environment changes to include welfare or child support, those who best exploit the new environment will leave the greatest number of descendants. Over time, these mental attributes become numerous in the population. In the long term this is unsustainable, leading to a crash. Civilization is going down.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @10:38PM
Only idiots like you buy into social darwinism. All the examples of poor people managing to claw their way out of a system designed against them won't change your mind, you cling to the idea of "welfare mamas" and ignore the ways we could solve those problems.
Do you know WHY there is a welfare trap? Because Republicans are assholes that refuse to be decent human beings, so all the welfare programs were encumbered with "reasonable" measures trying to bring accountability back in. So, if a single mother gets a part time job then she can no longer receive benefits. However, if her benefits pay more than the job then she obviously won't take the job! Thank you assholes for making it difficult for people to improve their own situation, good job, golf claps all around! I also just really enjoy having the assholes who set up the system for failure use that to destroy it even further.
You are the type of person making the world a worse place and by god you think up is down and you're a tough loving saint! Blegggghh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:24AM (1 child)
You don't understand welfare. [spectator.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 22 2018, @05:51AM
Yes, yes, and the Klan was largely Democrats once. What's your point? Times change, people change.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...