Politics US Edition (2021!)

[Malcador]

10 minutes ago, majestic said:

Really? I've never tried driving a white hot poker through my scrotum, and I'm resonably certain I wouldn't like it. But if you want we can try that on you?

Why must you kink shame.

[Amentep]

18 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

And there is nothing about the mail form I find attractive LOL!

That's not what the envelopes and stamps say.

[Gromnir]

14 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Oh come on it was funny LOL

not really. is perpetuating a common misunderstanding while attempting to be funny to camouflage. see how darkpriest defends? is like a gd meme, no? if you defend serious, then is not just meant as a joke. this kinda ****e is why saturday morning cartoons well into the 70s were including patent offensive humor wherein minorities were expected to see the humor. "LOL" how very vol.

2/3 o' all snap recipients is short-term-- 6 months or less. that 2/3 includes children. is individuals and families needing short-term help. the remaining long term recipients includes a significant % o' very young, very old and permanent disabled persons. nevertheless, the notion that SNAP/food stamps is some kinda handout for the unworthy persists.

yeah, there is a free rider problem, but is not near as significant as many suggest. one reason why the free rider aspect has not been addressed after so many decades is 'cause of the children, old people and disabled persons. 

so, which one o' those groups deserves to be mocked by dp or gd?

20 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Why decide on having children, if you have problems keeping yourself afloat? 

so, address the problem, but until you come up with a solution you got many hungry children who still need be fed today and tomorrow and the next day. 

am curious to hear what is your Constitutional solution to "irresponsible" people having children. will no doubt be fascinating.

HA! Good Fun!

[Darkpriest]

10 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

not really. is perpetuating a common misunderstanding while attempting to be funny to camouflage. see how darkpriest defends? is like a gd meme, no? if you defend serious, then is not just meant as a joke. this kinda ****e is why saturday morning cartoons well into the 70s were including patent offensive humor wherein minorities were expected to see the humor. "LOL" how very vol.

2/3 o' all snap recipients is short-term-- 6 months or less. that 2/3 includes children. is individuals and families needing short-term help. the remaining long term recipients includes a significant % o' very young, very old and permanent disabled persons. nevertheless, the notion that SNAP/food stamps is some kinda handout for the unworthy persists.

yeah, there is a free rider problem, but is not near as significant as many suggest. one reason why the free rider aspect has not been addressed after so many decades is 'cause of the children, old people and disabled persons. 

so, which one o' those groups deserves to be mocked by dp or gd?

so, address the problem, but until you come up with a solution you got many hungry children who still need be fed today and tomorrow and the next day. 

am curious to hear what is your Constitutional solution to "irresponsible" people having children. will no doubt be fascinating.

HA! Good Fun!

If I'd have an easy solution, then I'd get a noble prize. 

There is no easy and fast solution. 

One thing is sure, the more people rely on handouts and the longer they are, the harder it gets to get rid of underlying issues, as you will get generations knowing life on handouts as an intrinsic part of their life. This unfortunately will perpetuate and expand the problem. 

Once you keep people on handouts, if the population of such grows and a small percent gets activated economically, then you get more homeless, which in turn require even more resources to take care of, etc. At some point, things spiral out to a point of no return, and the only thing resulting from that will be more conflict and more brutal conflict. 

The expansion in technology won't cover for all resource related issues. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Darkpriest

[Gromnir]

Just now, Darkpriest said:

 

One thing is sure, the more people rely on handouts and thenlonger they are, the harder it gets to get rid of underlying issues, as you will get generations knowing life on handouts as an intrinsic part of their life.

again, the vast majority o' snap recipients is 6 months or less.

also, if the problem as you identified were irresponsible people having children, then curbing the so-called handouts solves nothing and results in the immediate new problem o' many hungry children, old people and disabled persons.

mistaking symptoms for causes and when asked to address causes you deflect. how droll.

HA! Good fun!

 

[BruceVC]

2 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

If I'd have an easy solution, then I'd get a noble prize. 

There is no easy and fast solution. 

One thing is sure, the more people rely on handouts and the longer they are, the harder it gets to get rid of underlying issues, as you will get generations knowing life on handouts as an intrinsic part of their life. This unfortunately will perpetuate and expand the problem. 

Once you keep people on jandouts, if the populationnl of such grows and small percent gets activated economically, then you get more homeless, which in turn require even more resources to take care of, etc. At some point, things spiral out to a point of no return, and the only thing resulting from that will be more conflict and more brutal conflict. 

The expansion in technology won't cover for all resource related issues. 

Gromnir he makes some valid points, handouts are not a sustainable solution

We have a massive problem in SA where 31 % of the population live on social grants and its creates a massive drain on our already stretched fiscus and weak tax base 

 

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/how-many-people-receive-social-grants-south-africa-sassa/

[Darkpriest]

18 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

again, the vast majority o' snap recipients is 6 months or less.

also, if the problem as you identified were irresponsible people having children, then curbing the so-called handouts solves nothing and results in the immediate new problem o' many hungry children, old people and disabled persons.

mistaking symptoms for causes and when asked to address causes you deflect. how droll.

HA! Good fun!

 

You are asking for a solution to be drafted ad hoc within minutes, clearly you can understand that whatever I would say, you could latch on and discredit with ease. Not going to entertain that. 

 

As for symptoms and causes, one can think in this context simiarly to chicken and egg question. 

Is the certainty, that they have a handouts cushion make people be more irresponsible as the most painful risk is mitigated, or certain people are simply irresponsible and with handouts we mitigate a worse social outcome of mass of children corpses laying on the streets? 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Darkpriest

[Guard Dog]

24 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

not really. is perpetuating a common misunderstanding while attempting to be funny to camouflage. see how darkpriest defends? is like a gd meme, no? if you defend serious, then is not just meant as a joke. this kinda ****e is why saturday morning cartoons well into the 70s were including patent offensive humor wherein minorities were expected to see the humor. "LOL" how very vol.

2/3 o' all snap recipients is short-term-- 6 months or less. that 2/3 includes children. is individuals and families needing short-term help. the remaining long term recipients includes a significant % o' very young, very old and permanent disabled persons. nevertheless, the notion that SNAP/food stamps is some kinda handout for the unworthy persists.

yeah, there is a free rider problem, but is not near as significant as many suggest. one reason why the free rider aspect has not been addressed after so many decades is 'cause of the children, old people and disabled persons. 

so, which one o' those groups deserves to be mocked by dp or gd?

so, address the problem, but until you come up with a solution you got many hungry children who still need be fed today and tomorrow and the next day. 

am curious to hear what is your Constitutional solution to "irresponsible" people having children. will no doubt be fascinating.

HA! Good Fun!

Oh I don’t have one outside some form of public assistance. And I wasn’t thinking our dark friend was being serious. That sounded a lot more like tongue-in-cheek to me because it is staking out a somewhat indefensible position.

on a somewhat tangential note I’m sure you will recall ( not firsthand obviously) how home gardening was strongly encouraged during World War II. Too bad there isn’t some easy way to make that popular again. While that will certainly not solve anyone’s food shortage every little bit does help. There was another idea that some communities have latched onto and that’s community gardens in public spaces. I would be willing to donate the use of real estate to something like that as long as the municipality stepped up and took care of the insurance costs it would entail.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Guard Dog

[Malcador]

Might be tricky to find suitable space for that in some cities.  Here in Toronto some community gardens have been lost because yuppies need condos, heh.

[Darkpriest]

2 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Oh I don’t have one outside some form of public assistance. And I wasn’t thinking our dark friend was being serious. That sounded a lot more like tongue-in-cheek to me because it is staking out a somewhat indefensible position.

on a somewhat tangential note I’m sure you will recall ( not firsthand obviously) how home gardening was strongly encouraged during World War II. Too bad there isn’t some easy way to make that popular again. While that will certainly not solve anyone’s food shortage every little bit does help. There was another idea that some communities have latched onto and that’s community gardens in public spaces. I would be willing to donate real estate to something like that as long as the municipality stepped up and took care of the insurance costs it would entail.

While that part was meant to be just that-a bit of humor, there is a real issue with handouts overall. 

Which are helpful to people and improve society's evolution and sustainability and which make people helpless and lead to an eventual catastrophy. 

 

[Darkpriest]

2 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Might be tricky to find suitable space for that in some cities.  Here in Toronto some community gardens have been lost because yuppies need condos, heh.

The key word is, "in cities", perhaps we should move to a less concentrated population model? 

[Guard Dog]

I’ve had this idea and I don’t remember if I brought it up here before. I probably have. Food stamps are food assistance but they’re really not. It’s just money. We are giving people money and then trusting them to use it for food. And healthy food at that. I think another way to go would be instead of giving them money we give them food.. I don’t know how it is today but when I was in the service the United States government paid about $.90 per meal for MREs. So we figure up what the cost per meal is of food assistance right now and decide if it would be less expensive to just give them food. Obviously this would require the government to make contracts with baby food or develop some type of baby food packaged meal or meals appropriate for kids. An MRE is designed for an adult after all. It probably would be wise to reduce their calorie count to because they are meant to be eaten by troops in the field. But U get the idea. Rather than giving them money which may or may not be properly used you give them literal food.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

6 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

The key word is, "in cities", perhaps we should move to a less concentrated population model? 

Well you completely lost me there. Telling people where to live is way too far into social engineering for my taste. Besides I live in a rulral area do you think I want a lot of people around me?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Food stamps are food assistance but they’re really not. It’s just money. We are giving people money and then trusting them to use it for food.

It's not "just money". You can't use it anywhere like cash. You can only use it to buy food.

Which isn't to say that there aren't grey markets where people barter their food assistance for cash so they can buy things like tires.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

The key word is, "in cities", perhaps we should move to a less concentrated population model? 

hehe. You ever try to buy a house? Or raw land? I'm guessing no.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Achilles

[Darkpriest]

2 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Well you completely lost me there. Telling people where to live is way too far into social engineering for my taste. Besides I live in a rulral area do you think I want a lot of people around me?

Not telling, but "promoting"

[Guard Dog]

1 minute ago, Achilles said:

It's not "just money". You can't use it anywhere like cash. You can only use it to buy food.

Which isn't to say that there aren't grey markets where people barter their food assistance for cash so they can buy things like tires.

Or loopholes. They’re allowed to take cash back off of it also. So you go in the grocery store buy a 12 ounce soda and take back $20.

[Darkpriest]

Just now, Achilles said:

hehe. You ever try to buy a house? I'm guessing no.

I have one, but it was inherited. I was buying apartments myself

[Gfted1]

UBI would fix all the US problems. Make it happen, captain.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Guard Dog said:

Or loopholes. They’re allowed to take cash back off of it also. So you go in the grocery store buy a 12 ounce soda and take back $20.

My understanding is that you can use EBT to get cash back if you are also on a cash relief program. You cannot if you only have SNAP (which is what we were discussing).

Not an expert on the subject though, so I may be mistaken.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

I have one, but it was inherited. I was buying apartments myself

 Ah. Another sad case of someone coming from generational wealth who truly has no idea how the other half live. Makes sense.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Achilles

[Gfted1]

Just now, Achilles said:

Ah. Another sad case of someone coming from generational wealth who truly has no idea how the other half live. Make sense.

Wait, none of your ancestors ever owned a house!?!?! Thats pretty sad actually.

[Guard Dog]

Just now, Achilles said:

 Ah. Another sad case of someone coming from generational wealth who truly has no idea how the other half live. Make sense.

W

 

5 minutes ago, Achilles said:

My understanding is that you can use EBT to get cash back if you are also on a cash relief program. You cannot if you only have SNAP (which is what we were discussing).

Not an expert on the subject though, so I may be mistaken.

I believe snap allows $20 per day. I know EBT does but I don’t know what the limit is

[Guest]

Just now, Gfted1 said:

Wait, none of your ancestors ever owned a house!?!?! Thats pretty sad actually.

Great-grandfather built a homestead with his brother which was then passed on to my grandmother who sold it upon his death so that she could live her best life in a rented beach-side condo in SoCal.

So yeah, one ancestor for about one generation.

Everyone else in my family worked for a living and died poor.

[Gfted1]

Just now, Achilles said:

Great-grandfather built a homestead with his brother which was then passed on to my grandmother who sold it upon his death so that she could live her best life in a rented beach-side condo in SoCal.

So yeah, one ancestor for about one generation.

Everyone else in my family worked for a living and died poor.

Bummer! Im poor too but somehow Im on my third house ownership, and I plan to leave it to my kid when I retire to Mexico.