Median Incomes fall for 5th straight year, inequality at record highs

[OICU812]

Originally Posted by rmissourimule

A job would work much better than a government handout. If the government would get out of our pockets we could spend it more wisely and therefore put more money into the economy. If you are familiar with the multiplier effect you would know it works like this at a ratio of about 5X1. Remember the old saying "the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker..."

Adam Smith spoke of this at length and is the bedrock of modern capitalism. We act in our own perceived best interests. And therefore we are all richer as a result. The alternative is collectivism as practiced in the societies of the Soviet Union, China under Mao and Cambodia under Pol Pot. Which is better? Those systems or our system where we have freedom to act within the law. I believe the answer is quite obvious.

Totalitarian governments are not known for feeding the poor nearly as well as free societies. In fact many starve to death as the ruling elite live high on the hog.

Look at our current government, the ruling elite, as in the politicians and bureaucrats, don't care how many people fall onto hard times and become the new poor. As long as we have social welfare programs to catch the poor then their fate is no longer of any concern to the ruling elite. The failure of their policies don't matter as long as we have the social welfare safety net.

Even if the ruling elite start to feel the pangs of guilt for the poverty and despair that their failed policies are causing, they can just expand the welfare state, and assuage their guilt.

[rmissourimule]

Originally Posted by freemkt

??? Most adult food stamp recipients actually do have jobs.

And a lot of them don't. The government needs to stop meddling in the free economy and and allow it to work its way of this government created dependency. This is downright shameful and unAmerican.

As I said, my grandparents didn't have two nickles to rub together and worked as sharecroppers. My father left home with a 7th grade education and traveled the nation looking for jobs, working in Alaska, the Oklahoma oil fields and eventually working his way up the construction ladder to a general foreman at various construction projects, among other activities. He never drew an unemployment check, food stamps while rearing three children. He an my mother owned their own homes, he drove new or nearly new cars and it was shameful to rely on government hand-outs. This was the America that used to be. Then the "Great Society" was loosed upon us and we see the miserable despicable results. Trillions of tax dollars wasted and this is what we get? I'd say that was a Faustian bargain we may never escape.

So tell me, who was better off? My father or some food stamp recipient who is dependent on government?