The Debt Limit Debate

[hanelyp]

Teahive, you don't get it. Demand exceeds capacity to produce, and will expand with production capacity. Always has and always will. An unemployed person is an un-utilized economic resource. A person will be employed in accordance to their capacity to produce value. That so many are unemployed today is a symptom of the cost of employment exceeding expected value production.

Welfare may increase demand for goods and services, but it also perversely increases the price of such services by removing the recipient as a producer of value.

[Teahive]

Demand exceeds capacity to produce

Aggregate desire exceeds capacity to produce. Demand is something else, and it does not exceed production capacity, otherwise capacity would be maxed out and every employer would be hiring all the time.

By the way, maximum employment does not imply maximum total output. Individual productivity is affected by many factors.

[williatw]

Here is a Republican I could like for prez in 2016, and there aren't many of them Rand Paul:

http://www.saysuncle.com/2013/02/06/ran ... president/

And:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Paul# ... _positions


Detect more than a strong hint of Libertarianism in his positions, not suprising considering his daddy.

[Maui]

Teahive, you don't get it. Demand exceeds capacity to produce, and will expand with production capacity. Always has and always will. An unemployed person is an un-utilized economic resource. A person will be employed in accordance to their capacity to produce value. That so many are unemployed today is a symptom of the cost of employment exceeding expected value production.

Welfare may increase demand for goods and services, but it also perversely increases the price of such services by removing the recipient as a producer of value.

I haven't read the rest of this conversation, but any discussion of whether welfare is good for the economy is missing the point, IMHO.

It would be better for the economy if we allowed for child labor, but the focus isn't (or shouldn't be) solely what is better for the economy, but what is better for our way of life as a whole. I agree that capitalism leaves us all better off, in general, than otherwise, but I think we should always keep in mind that doesn't make capitalism fair. There are a lot of people scrubbing floors at McDonald's that work harder that a lot of multi-millionaire's out there.

I'm all for finding ways to weed out people that selfishly feed off of entitlements without putting in an honest effort to be productive, but I also strongly believe it's wrong to allow honest people to suffer on the streets against the risk of letting some free-loaders get away with it.

I know two people on unemployment right now. One has no plans to find work until it runs out and lies to remain on dole... the other, our neighbor, is an older man that doesn't quite have all his marbles (making him not all that attractive of a hire). He spends most of his time depressed and fretting about being unemployed. While the behavior of the former burns me up, I would never agree with a plan to save me $ or boost the economy by taking the first person off unemployment if it meant our neighbor would loose his benefits as well.

[Diogenes]

I haven't read the rest of this conversation, but any discussion of whether welfare is good for the economy is missing the point, IMHO.

It would be better for the economy if we allowed for child labor, but the focus isn't (or shouldn't be) solely what is better for the economy, but what is better for our way of life as a whole. I agree that capitalism leaves us all better off, in general, than otherwise, but I think we should always keep in mind that doesn't make capitalism fair. There are a lot of people scrubbing floors at McDonald's that work harder that a lot of multi-millionaire's out there.

I'm all for finding ways to weed out people that selfishly feed off of entitlements without putting in an honest effort to be productive, but I also strongly believe it's wrong to allow honest people to suffer on the streets against the risk of letting some free-loaders get away with it.

I know two people on unemployment right now. One has no plans to find work until it runs out and lies to remain on dole... the other, our neighbor, is an older man that doesn't quite have all his marbles (making him not all that attractive of a hire). He spends most of his time depressed and fretting about being unemployed. While the behavior of the former burns me up, I would never agree with a plan to save me $ or boost the economy by taking the first person off unemployment if it meant our neighbor would loose his benefits as well.

You are going to have to take from someone else's work to pay for the benevolence you want.

[paperburn1]

You are going to have to take from someone else's work to pay for the benevolence you want.

Some sacrifice is necessary to maintain a civilization, the only question is where the line is drawn. a society need to take care of those that contribute but can no longer do so but there has to be limits on we have,That is what is happening now. Limits to high.

[Maui]

You are going to have to take from someone else's work to pay for the benevolence you want.

Wow, that's harsh. And if you were in the same situation, you really feel like fair's fair if you got thrown out on the streets?

Perhaps that doesn't concern you because you have family to provide a net if you need one. Not everybody has family that is able to provide such a net.

[kcdodd]

Teahive, you don't get it. Demand exceeds capacity to produce, and will expand with production capacity. Always has and always will. An unemployed person is an un-utilized economic resource. A person will be employed in accordance to their capacity to produce value. That so many are unemployed today is a symptom of the cost of employment exceeding expected value production.

Welfare may increase demand for goods and services, but it also perversely increases the price of such services by removing the recipient as a producer of value.

I haven't read the rest of this conversation, but any discussion of whether welfare is good for the economy is missing the point, IMHO.

It would be better for the economy if we allowed for child labor, but the focus isn't (or shouldn't be) solely what is better for the economy, but what is better for our way of life as a whole. I agree that capitalism leaves us all better off, in general, than otherwise, but I think we should always keep in mind that doesn't make capitalism fair. There are a lot of people scrubbing floors at McDonald's that work harder that a lot of multi-millionaire's out there.

I'm all for finding ways to weed out people that selfishly feed off of entitlements without putting in an honest effort to be productive, but I also strongly believe it's wrong to allow honest people to suffer on the streets against the risk of letting some free-loaders get away with it.

I know two people on unemployment right now. One has no plans to find work until it runs out and lies to remain on dole... the other, our neighbor, is an older man that doesn't quite have all his marbles (making him not all that attractive of a hire). He spends most of his time depressed and fretting about being unemployed. While the behavior of the former burns me up, I would never agree with a plan to save me $ or boost the economy by taking the first person off unemployment if it meant our neighbor would loose his benefits as well.

Perhaps your analogy to child labor is way closer to the mark than you realize. What these kind of things do is effectively prohibiting the existence of poor workers. It says, if you can't make X amount of money, then just don't work at all. In exactly the same way that we say you must be Y years old to work. So, until you can do something to earn X, do nothing. The difference is that people get 1 year older every year until they get to Y. What exactly is happening to poor people every year to get them to X?

[Diogenes]

You are going to have to take from someone else's work to pay for the benevolence you want.

Some sacrifice is necessary to maintain a civilization, the only question is where the line is drawn. a society need to take care of those that contribute but can no longer do so but there has to be limits on we have,That is what is happening now. Limits to high.

Society ought to provide a basic safety net, but they should not make it comfortable or desirable for people who have the ability to support themselves. For the disabled we should provide some sort of decent support on a permanent basis.

[Diogenes]

You are going to have to take from someone else's work to pay for the benevolence you want.

Wow, that's harsh. And if you were in the same situation, you really feel like fair's fair if you got thrown out on the streets?

I was on my own when I was 16. I've managed to crawl upwards ever since on my own steam.

Perhaps that doesn't concern you because you have family to provide a net if you need one. Not everybody has family that is able to provide such a net.

Over the years, the members of my family have been more on the receiving end of government help than on the giving end.


I'm the one they all keep coming to when they need extra help.



I think society should provide a safety net, but I want it to be nothing more than what I would ask for were I destitute.

A bed to sleep in (not a Section 8 house) some food, (Not a credit card with money on it) and shoes and clothes if I should need some. (Goodwill/Salvation-army is just fine. H*ll, that's where I get most of my clothes anyway. I'm not too proud to wear someone else's castoffs. )


Keep me alive with the minimum burden on those who carry me until I can start carrying myself again. Life on the dole should not be comfortable. It is counter productive to both the citizen and the state.

[Maui]

Perhaps your analogy to child labor is way closer to the mark than you realize. What these kind of things do is effectively prohibiting the existence of poor workers. It says, if you can't make X amount of money, then just don't work at all. In exactly the same way that we say you must be Y years old to work. So, until you can do something to earn X, do nothing. The difference is that people get 1 year older every year until they get to Y. What exactly is happening to poor people every year to get them to X?

I think my point went right over your head. I fully agree that social safety net programs are not "good for the economy". But that's not the point of them!

My point is that policy decisions shouldn't always be dictated solely around "what is best for the economy"

[kcdodd]

It didn't go over my head. But it did go over yours. Unless you think that what is best is that the poor, should stay poor. Economy be damned, these programs can only serve to keep the poor right where they are.

[Maui]

I was on my own when I was 16. I've managed to crawl upwards ever since on my own steam.

Good for you... I mean that.

Over the years, the members of my family have been more on the receiving end of government help than on the giving end.

I'm the one they all keep coming to when they need extra help.

Then I can certainly understand you being more pre-disposed than me to keeping people from free-loading off the money you earn. That would be frustrating. I count myself as lucky that my family is productive.

I think society should provide a safety net, but I want it to be nothing more than what I would ask for were I destitute.

A bed to sleep in (not a Section 8 house) some food, (Not a credit card with money on it) and shoes and clothes if I should need some. (Goodwill/Salvation-army is just fine. H*ll, that's where I get most of my clothes anyway. I'm not too proud to wear someone else's castoffs. )

Keep me alive with the minimum burden on those who carry me until I can start carrying myself again. Life on the dole should not be comfortable. It is counter productive to both the citizen and the state.

Okay. Then you are not as harsh as sounded to me at first. I certainly understand your point of view. As paperburn1 says, it's a matter of level and on something like that, you can never have everyone agree on what is the precisely correct "level".

Only, really, I think the problem is not so much "what level", but instead how not to make the safety net an encouragement to stay out of the workforce. I know it so happens that the level of the safety net directly correlates to this, but I think no one would disagree if we could find a way to keep the level where it is, but weed out the dis-honest free-loaders. Easier said than done, I know.

[Maui]

Unless you think that what is best is that the poor, should stay poor.

My neighbor is trying everything he can to get a job. Less unemployment benefits will not help him to get un-poor quicker.

What is true in aggregate is not always true on the individual level.

[kcdodd]

So you are saying there is not a single job? It's hard to believe that. Maybe what you are saying is that he can't get one that pays more than his unemployment. So instead of doing that, he spins his wheels. But also, my point is more that there is no way to not spin your wheels in these programs. You get money, but not training, education, or anything so that you can change fields, increase ability, etc. to get past the strings the unemployement comes with.