quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Stats on this are really hard to find... But if you google up "teen pregnancy" You'll find that, indeed, teen pregnancy is tied to poverty.
It is. "The Dole" is not poverty. It is an anti-poverty measure. We have a much more paltry system than other modernized countries, we also have worse teen pregnancy rates. That's it own issue, not a counterpoint.
quote:Oh, and while we're at it, please produce evidence that societies with a real dole system don't have this problem because that's not what my, brief, research says.
What is your 'brief research?' What is the research at all? That's what I'm opening by asking. What backs up the assertions you make about what the dole transforms economically disadvantaged people into? How does it contrast with the way things actually work in nations like Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, France, etc?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
katharina: Expect an email from me. Until further notice could you not respond to Rabbit? Also, I'm not OK with how readily you are insulting other posters. You are even disrespectful to those who agree with your ideas, but not your presentation. You need to calm down, and do it very soon.
Posts: 1194 | Registered: Jun 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't plan on relying on Social Security at all. I have co-workers who collect it now and it really is not enough to live off of.
I was brought up being told by my parents, school teachers, professors, and even a music theory teacher to invest as much in a 401(k) as possible.
I think it is important to bring up one thing about the OASDI tax. While we have been at the 12.4% rate (Employee and employer portions) for years now, the cap generally goes up each year. From 1980-1989 the wage base went from $25,900 to $48,000. From 1990-2000 it went from $48,000 to $72,600. Just in the past decade we have jumped from $72,600 to $106,800, where it has stayed since 2009. (Most likely due to the economy) In the past 20 years we have jumped over $80,000 in the wage base.
The wage limit has been going up to keep up with inflation. Removing the cap completely would be an option, though if the money had been managed better in the past it would not need to even be considered.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just have no idea how the whole money-to-old-people situation is going to work itself out. You can have theories, but a lot of it is going to be dependent upon economic flashpoints, and what parties of what ideologies hold what positions and what clout for those points in time decades in the future. At any rate, I think, money will continue to be spent on the welfare of old people. We'll just agonize for a long while over how the hell we want to do this, and there will be plenty of dysfunction in the meanwhile.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm one of those 'younger' people who doesn't think Social Security will be around when I retire. I subscribe to Tom's philosophy on it, and I've felt that way since I started working (and paying the taxes).
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: I'm one of those 'younger' people who doesn't think Social Security will be around when I retire. I subscribe to Tom's philosophy on it, and I've felt that way since I started working (and paying the taxes).
While I suspect it will be around, it would be foolish to count on it. So keep doing what you're doing and save. Even if you do get it, that's just that much more you will have.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: I'm one of those 'younger' people who doesn't think Social Security will be around when I retire. I subscribe to Tom's philosophy on it, and I've felt that way since I started working (and paying the taxes).
Same here. I don't expect to get much, if anything out of it, but I fully expect that I'll have to pay into it for another couple decades when I'd rather just put that money into a 401K for myself.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
What I find most troubling about this thread reflects a pervasive misconception that is all too common in American culture - the idea that wealth is somehow a sign of virtue and that poverty necessarily reflects a lack of virtue. Sure. In some cases people "deserve" to be either wealthy or not, but for every "welfare queen" I can show you someone who has done everything "right" and still can't get ahead. Or some person, born to well off parents who has had it pretty darn easy. Especially now, with the income gap getting larger and larger, perfectly virtuous people are suffering.
Yes, we absolutely should provide more and more consistent help for children but the idea that we should take that help from "undeserving" old or ill people is wrong. Before we put that "on the table" can we look at some of our other priorities? We could start with tax cuts for the wealthy and defense spending.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Yes, we absolutely should provide more and more consistent help for children but the idea that we should take that help from "undeserving" old or ill people is wrong.
I'm a little confused, Kate. Who's saying we should take money away from needy old or ill people? Katie's position, for example, is that the needy old and ill should be cared for by a program that is more openly welfare than SS claims to be.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
There are multiple posts in this thread that either suggest that old people should be a lower priority than children or that if they are old and poor that's their own damn fault.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am not referring to just Kat but to statements like:
quote:My point is that the services and programs for children are piece meal, messy, full of holes, and cut before the programs for old people, who should have saved. Frak that. Switch the priorities.
quote:As for old people, they should have spent their youth either raising kids to take care of them or socking it away in savings. Instead taxes (including payroll taxes) looted them dry. Or they pissed it away on cars and big screen tvs, which is their own damn fault. Either way I don't feel obligated to take care of them either.
and
quote:The grandchildren are left wanting because their grandparents didn't save.
Two of those were from kat and one from Pixiest but they are hardly alone. I idea that wealth reflects virtue is as old as this country. I am saying that we needn't abandon the elderly in order to help children. There are a lot of other places to find the money. Yes, we should switch priorities but not just switch who gets help.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't know why you're surprised. This is a defining aspect of Internet politics.
An Internet conservative is one who believes that anyone making less than they do is a lazy, good-for-nothing welfare leech who steals all their money from the working man and deserves any punishment we can give them.
And an Internet liberal is one who believes that anyone making more than they do is a greedy, thieving con artist who steals all their money from the working man and deserves any punishment we can give them.
Once you come to terms with these definitions, some of these posts will seem a lot less shocking. Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Speed, I am not shocked. As I said, the idea that wealth is a reflection of virtue is a particularly American idea - it really did come over with the Mayflower. It doesn't just pervade the Internet; it has pervades American culture and politics for as long as we have been here. Look at Prosperity Theology for example. Heck, look at Benjamin Franklin. "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Can we guarantee that?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:ere are multiple posts in this thread that either suggest that old people should be a lower priority than children or that if they are old and poor that's their own damn fault.
Rather, I think Katie's argument is that levying a regressive tax on poor people with children to pay for the retirement of people who've had a lifetime to amass retirement savings is, in her view, reprehensible.
I don't see any suggestion that money equals virtue in this observation.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
There is the assumption that the fact that they need assistance when they are too old to work is their fault for not saving. Hence, a lack of virtue.
edit: And, again, I am not talking specifically about kat.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I certainly wouldn't agree with it without some qualifications. There is a huge "as best as they can" clause that needs to be added and and understanding that we are not solely responsible for providing for ourselves nor for providing solely for ourselves.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
*nod* And would you agree that children do not have a responsibility to provide for themselves, but that parents have a responsibility to provide for their children?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
*nod* So if old people are responsible for themselves, and if parents are responsible for their children, then we as a society -- by taking from parents who are caring for their children to give to old people who are caring for themselves -- are making it harder for both groups to fulfill their responsibilities.
The issue for Katie is, I suspect, not whether old people should be left to die in poverty, but rather whether it is an effective and moral mechanism to tax the families of children in poverty to provide for those old people. In making that determination, one's responsibility for the welfare of one's self and/or others should be a considered factor.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
And I am saying that there are other choices. We don't really need to choose between hungry children and hungry old people. We may need to choose between hugely wealthy children and hungry children or between lots of tomahawk missiles and hungry children. The reason we (not again just kat but as a society) think that the moral choice is between hungry children and hungry old people is because we can pin the fault for their hunger on their fault.
I was a mild libertarian when I was young. As I got older, I found the problem with that was children. Children certainly didn't deserve to starve; that wasn't fair. As I got older, I realized that life wasn't all that fair for grownups either and many of them didn't deserve to starve either. Even older and I learned that "deserve" doesn't really enter into it.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I would suggest that the issue today is very rarely actual starvation. It is more likely to be selling one's house and moving to a flat, or perhaps moving in with one's adult children. Independence is valuable and I would myself hate to lose it, but it is not so obvious a moral claim as starvation. Paying to keep food in someone's mouth is one thing, or a roof over their heads; but paying to keep a particular roof is a bit more dodgy.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:The reason we (not again just kat but as a society) think that the moral choice is between hungry children and hungry old people is because we can pin the fault for their hunger on their fault.
You know, I don't think this is the case. Very few of the people I know who support removing entitlements, for example, do so because they think the poor suffer from moral failings.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
You don't think they should have saved? Must we absolve someone of all their mistakes before we help them, or can we help them while recognizing that they may have made mistakes?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't mind using some of my income to support fellow citizens as they get old and retire. Part of the problem with Social Security that I see, however, is that it's perceived as an account I'm paying into for my own eventual retirement. The fact that I'm forced to pay into it without any promise of benefiting from it is galling.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think that some of them havesaved and that some of them couldn't have saved. And that whether they saved or not, we have an obligation to help them. Too often, we use their perceived failings as an excuse to not help.
"Why should I help them? It's their own fault."
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
Yes, yes. We were discussing programs for the middle-class majority, numbered in the tens of millions. Not for the few thousands of homeless. I did say "very rarely", not "never". I suggest that SS, intended for every resident, is a very blunt instrument relative to the problem of homelessness.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
IIRC, there are enough social programs and safety nets in place that homelessness is rarely a financial issue. Rather, even in Canada, a majority of homeless suffer from mental illness which prevents them from taking advantage of various programs for financial assistance. There was a study where there was a silly number (like 4%) of seniors that simply didn't claim benefits to which they were entitled.
Thus, the recommendation is normally to beef up centres that treat mental illness and provide healthcare rather then bluntly attack the problem with more money for seniors.
Edit to add: There was an interesting government program in Quebec where they actually track down seniors that deserve money and then give it to them.
quote:IIRC, there are enough social programs and safety nets in place that homelessness is rarely a financial issue.
I've volunteered in a homeless shelter and I do not believe this is true in the US. It probably is in Canada and Europe, but in the US homelessness is quite commonly a financial issue.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem is that if you have benefits to which you're entitled but you don't claim them, then you're still in poverty (or have financial issues).
Raising the level of benefits doesn't particularly help in this case because they're not getting to the people that need it anyway.
ex:
quote:In December 2001, under-subscription to the OAS and GIS made the headlines and Canadians learned that approximately 300,000 seniors eligible for the Guaranteed Income Supplement, the Allowance, or the Survivor Allowance did not receive these benefits. A Toronto food bank had raised the alarm when people 60 and over accounted for 10% of its users and only a minority of these individuals knew about and were receiving GIS and Allowance benefits.
quote:The sums in question are considerable. For example, the 50,000 seniors who are eligible for OAS but do not apply sustain a total income loss of $250 million a year. It is more often women, particularly elderly women, who fail to apply for the GIS – a group that is most at risk of living in poverty.
It is true as The Rabbit indicates that the problem might be different in the States, but I'd be surprised if this wasn't a major problem in the States as well because I wouldn't expect it to be any easier to apply for benefits in there.
posted
Mucus, One of the things I did as a volunteer in the homeless shelter was help people get connected with programs that could get them housing. They were mostly NGO programs because the US really doesn't have adequate tax payer funded programs for the poor.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think there should be more money put into programs to help the homeless. I know some would say "Get a job" but if the person has no place to live, no changes of clothes, no/little bathing, it is extremely difficult to get a job and keep it.
If the person has mental illness that would prevent them from receiving training or holding a regular job, there are multiple non-profits out there that are willing to help. There is one here in town called Opportunity Village that deals specifically with people that are mentally ill, retarded, or disabled. I LOVE that charity, they do so much to help those in need, and I donate to them as often as I am able.
It is important to remember that some people prefer to be homeless. There have been some articles and radio interviews here in Las Vegas over the past year with the people that live in the tunnels under the city. A lot the people enjoy that life, and who am I to tell them they have to get a home and a job?
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Anyway, the reason we shouldn't heap entitlements on the children is the fact that the entitlements we've already given them have created a society where no one needs to take care of their family anymore. Who asks "But who will take care of me and my baby?" No one because the answer is obvious. The government.
What do you think should be done with children whose parents can't take care of them (or don't exist)? For the sake of argument, assume the kids live in an area with no charities around to take them in.
quote:As for old people, they should have spent their youth either raising kids to take care of them or socking it away in savings.
I don't understand. Is there supposed to be some law that says kids have to take care of their parents?
quote:Destineer, how would you provide for children without also providing for their parents?
In the case of health care, it would be easy. We already provide for the elderly without providing for their families. Give the kids the equivalent of Medicare.
This isn't my idea, I should add. David Brin has proposed it as a way of incrementally bringing about single-payer national health care. I think it would stand a good chance of succeeding.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I don't understand. Is there supposed to be some law that says kids have to take care of their parents?
there should be one. it would be more moral and more just than what we have now - random strangers supporting random strangers.
Posts: 570 | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Should the law require you to support your biological parents, or your legal guardians when you were a kid? The latter, obviously, one would think. What if you had several different legal guardians? What if your legal guardian was a brother or sister just a few years older than you? What if you'd been abused as a child and had a restraining order out against your parents?
If you have multiple kids, should they all chip in equally, or at some rate determined by their income? Should someone with more kids make more money from the system? What about if your kids all die in a car accident?
These considerations aside, think of the incentive this would create for people to off their parents (or pull the plug on them).
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I don't understand. Is there supposed to be some law that says kids have to take care of their parents?
there should be one. it would be more moral and more just than what we have now - random strangers supporting random strangers.
At least here, these laws already exist. They're just not used very often.
quote:China is considering a law that would force children to visit their elderly parents. And here in Canada, nearly every province has a law on the books allowing parents to sue their children for financial support. We meet a daughter who is being sued by her mother.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Mucus, One of the things I did as a volunteer in the homeless shelter was help people get connected with programs that could get them housing. They were mostly NGO programs because the US really doesn't have adequate tax payer funded programs for the poor.
*shrug* We have equivalent programs like that too. It just doesn't seem like there are many homeless elderly that need these programs, the homeless are disproportionately younger.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I don't understand. Is there supposed to be some law that says kids have to take care of their parents?
there should be one. it would be more moral and more just than what we have now - random strangers supporting random strangers.
That's inane, sorry. A law legally obligating you to take care of your parents? How is that moral? Its like allowing you to indenture someone to you by birthing them. Using the force of law to compel that makes people want children for the worst reasons.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: ... What if your legal guardian was a brother or sister just a few years older than you? What if you'd been abused as a child and had a restraining order out against your parents?
If you have multiple kids, should they all chip in equally, or at some rate determined by their income?
Usually it's an actual parent not a guardian. And if your parents didn't take care of you (e.g. abused as a child) then the law doesn't apply. ex
quote:Every child who is not a minor has an obligation to provide support, in accordance with need, for his or her parent who has cared for or provided support for the child, to the extent that the child is capable of doing so. R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, s. 32.
A good summary
quote:"The obligations that of each of the defendants (adult children) have to their own families will take priority over any obligations that they owe to the applicant;
"Any assets and income which are available to the (adult children/defendants) from their spouse or former spouses are not to be taken into account when determining whether, on the basis of their responsibilities and liabilities and their reasonable needs, they also have an ability to maintain and support the applicant;
"Evidence of abandonment, abuse and estrangement can be taken into account as one of the factors in the objective evaluation of the application;
"The length of the period of estrangement is also a factor to be taken into account in the objective evaluation of the application and the consequent ranking of the needs of the adult child; (and)
"A parent should first look to spousal support and, only if such support is not available, to then look to possible child support"
quote:Originally posted by Parkour: ... How is that moral? Its like allowing you to indenture someone to you by birthing them.
It's (was?) the Christian thing to do. Family values and all that
quote:"A father, by the law of God and nature, is bound to support his son and è contra, in case the father is impoverished." Justice Windham, Manby v Scott
posted
That's the last thing the laws of the country need. it would inspire people to become parents for the wrong reasons, while adding nothing to the right reasons. If christians want to make legal contractually binding obligations on their children to be retirement policies (for them specifically, and specifically just for making children) and call this moral and just, go let them try that in some other place and let us know how well that works out.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
This gets back to my question, then. What if you're adopted later in childhood? Do your bio parents as well as your adoptive parents have the same claim on you?
Mucus, how much is this law enforced? I mean, we had anti-sodomy laws for a long time and in a sense it "worked out," because nobody paid attention.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Also, WTF? I agree with Parkour that on principle, these laws are unjust. Moreover, the exemption for abuse has to have some standard of proof involved. So what if your parents were abusive and really good at covering it up? You'd be obligated to pay. Or what if they were bad parents, but their transgressions fell short of the legal definition of abuse (or provable abuse)?
Far better to have society in general support them than have the burden fall on the kids whose lives they've already screwed up.
Edit to add that, frankly, a very high proportion of parents are bad enough not to deserve special financial help from their kids. I had great parents myself, who I'd give a lot for, but if I think of my grad school friends, for example, maybe a third of them had one or more parents who don't deserve any special help from their kids.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Mucus, how much is this law enforced? I mean, we had anti-sodomy laws for a long time and in a sense it "worked out," because nobody paid attention.
In the latter half of that interview, the lawyer at the Family Law clinic mentions that she's used it in actual courts four times in the last 27 years. She also mentions that in the majority of other cases, she uses it as a threat instead of actually having to litigate since most people who have resources can be shamed into doing what's right instead of having to go to the courts.
Multiply that by the number of clinics, so we're not talking an big number but its not a negligible proportion either considering how few elders (as I've said all along) have these kinds of financial problems in the first place.
After all, the law is not to give a parent "special help" but simply to avoid actual impoverishment. And with so many safety nets in place, there are relatively few that manage to miss every one and actually be in a position to use this law.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Why in the world would we choose to let either America's elderly or America's children suffer in poverty? It's not like these are the only two options. This is the wealthiest society in the history of the world. Its absurd to pretend we can't afford to take care of all of the people who are too young, too ill or too old to take care of themselves. The choice isn't between whether we let children go without medical care or cut social security benefits. There are lots of other options. We could raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans or even across the board. We could cut military spending. We could adopt a single payer health care system that would get health care costs under control. And I'm sure there are a million other options out there.
The choice isn't between children and grandparents -- its between taking care of the needy and the pursuit of luxuries.
[ March 25, 2011, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
