The huge deficits are due to bad spending ideas in periods of slow or know growth, which is governed, it seems by the age of the countries industries and businesses, and its growth rate. If you have no population growth, it seems foolish to be pulling such investments... as it is almost certain that economic growth won't make the borrowing 'profitable.'
??? I don't see this at all.
For instance, the steel industry in this country underwent a massive conversion in the 80's. It's virtually brand-new in terms of technology, especially in Pennsylvania.
But it's not doing so hot.
And it employs a miniscule percentage of workers, today.
If the huge deficits are simply due to other attributes of the industries that are not impacted by all the spending ... then
stop the spending. It's not doing any good.
I refuse to concede that most of those below the poverty line are criminals, I think that that is gross exaggeration.
You said cyclically impoverished, and I took you to mean the cyclically impoverished. Unfortunately I know too many people who are actually in that situation to concede that most of them aren't doing something like this.
In fact most of them are.
In LBJ's day they thought if we could just give them sustaining money, they wouldn't engage in crime. In fact that's not the case. In general most people consider "what I'm doing today is ok". So if you send them more money, they'll take that money, sure.
But they won't be changing what they do.
If you want to induce change, then the money
must demand the change.
I think Republicans, sometimes make this mistake.
I think the bank tellers who cash the welfare checks can tell you a lot more about this situation than any partisans.
I've lived under the poverty line and above it. I'm familiar.
Some merciful programs can assist those who choose a life of low level criminality to survive. But, if they wanted to be rich, they could sell coke rather than weed, or steal money from a bank rather than old ladies... They could kidnap foreigners rather than just pimping street children... Social programs aren't for and aren't ussually used by the most ambitious people, criminals or not. The people you're worried about here are small potatoes, so to speak.
It creates the environment. Lots of small potatoes is a field of spuds.
Yes, we need to be even more rewarding to the virtuous, but we need to include the amount people are comfortable making and consuming in that. And how we reward them for living on a low per capita amount is clearly going to be complicated, but this understanding will help... greening countries to facilitate their evolution. Its sort of like a ag subsidies that are used to pay farmers for leaving a field fallow. The government can do stuff that these people like, while rewarding their competitiveness in this area, possibly with infrastructure (universities, parks, etc).
Sorry, I'm sure you think I'm not terribly concerned about farmers either. The point of fallow land was
supposed to be to avoid a dust bowl. Now it's for coddling farmers, propping up prices, preventing foodstuffs from getting so low-priced that farmers can't sustain themselves.
I'm really skeptical of this. Industrial Farming is a boon to industry. The price-propping makes land more expensive, makes housing more expensive, adds increasing property taxes. Kicking up the cost of ...
farming.
If there were a more responsible way of letting the air out of this socialized part of the economy I'd be very interested in pursuing it. It's a massively aged part of the socialist economy, and most farmers know it.
Many of them won't participate in federal programs any more, having discovered it damages their ability to compete.
And yes, I come from an agricultural part of the country, too. I lived in 15 different places before I got out of school.
I think a huge part of this is going to be people in more populated areas, especially during slow times, accept shorter workdays, and expecting employers, governments, and the community to meet their needs.
Ah, you mean accepting diminished returns. And what do their children do when they can't go to college because of "diminished returns"? What do their families do when those governments don't meet their needs? What do people do with the reduced security involved in depending on a system -- that has never been dependable?
To me trusting the government for this can be worse than the disease of poverty. Because this kind of trust returns you to poverty cyclically. By definition, it
is cyclical poverty.
After all, what is the point of the US system... With so much infrastructure, so many homes, so many jobs, so many businesses, but never improving workdays or decreasing productivity? Now, our productivity was poured into making itself wealthier, when it should have transitioned, either into focusing on the family, or on the human family... and probably both.
The point is trying to tackle the next generation of needs.
The government doesn't do this.
If the point of work were leisure you might want to decrease productivity. Is the point of work leisure or comfort in your opinion? Or is it growth to provide for continuing generations?
Is it my comfort? Or their survival?
With our birth rates so low, we need to understand our societies almost like celibate groupings as far as the nature of their work. BUT, obviously, most of these people have chosen to not have children for their own enrichment, which plays a highly destructive role in society. I guess there's no good way to put that. It is said that there is no way to practice vice virtuously...
I've plenty of comments here, but it's fairly clear to me that people choose not to have children because they aren't interested in being responsible for them. Money's not the object. The perceived roles of parents don't have a reward in the community, and the behind-the-scenes responsibility for kids is not considered a reward in itself.
As I live and minister to one quintessential tribal area that's well-documented, I feel a certain right to comment on this at least.
nice sequence of events
