The case against relative poverty and the minimum wage

Started by The Observer, October 29, 2014, 03:13:31 AM

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The Observer

Absolute and relative poverty

There are two ways of looking at welfare, absolute and relative.  Absolute is self-explanatory and is the absence of basic requirements needed to sustain life. Relative on the other hand is a socialist construction and is welfare that is given based on a comparison to the living standards of others, whether working or not. It's why in the riots that occur and the looting that invariably follows; the unproductive seek to gain a materialistic lifestyle in comparison to those that produce. In all riots, the main targets are not those stores that enable basic essentials, but electric, brand name and electronic goods stores.   
   
One suggestion is that governments subside basic essentials such as food, electricity and clothing with the money now given as welfare, which would prevent absolute poverty, but also instill a message that cell phones and plasma TV's are for those who work and not essentials designed to maintain life. This would also produce a lower cost of living for those who produce and avoid the burden put on businesses to provide higher salaries or increase the minimum wage.

The minimum wage and inflation

The problem with private wealth is that, understandably, everyone wants more. In any salary increase the business doesn't lose profit, it simply passes on the increase to the consumer. So in effect you're +% salary increase just pushed up prices by +% and that applies to all businesses and all salaries across the board. It's called inflation and it's why your salary has increased, business profits have increased, but many are complaining they're poor and haven't got a living wage. In other words, the more money you demand, the less you can buy.

Many socialists advocate that businesses shouldn't increase prices but only salaries and so increase the wealth of the individual, but that is never going to happen. When the minimum wage is $25 an hour but a cup of coffee is $12 we can all say we're rich, but we'll still have the same argument about a living wage as prices will rise to match the salary increase. When the lowest salary is the same $25 an hour and a cup of coffee is $3, that's when businesses and the economy start to collapse.

Supply and demand

A business won't intentionally price itself into bankruptcy with high prices; it will base its prices on affordable salary levels and the higher they are the higher the price will be. So, by a continuing demand for more wealth, the rich are becoming money richer but their increased wealth only buys them what a dollar was worth when made and not what it's worth in the future and it's why, despite a relative welfare system, the poor say they're getting poorer, but only in relation to everyone else, because they can't demand increases and have to pay the higher prices.

Money itself is not a good indicator of wealth and that's because it simply indicates how much purchasing power an individual has at any one period in time and not the future. It's why despite salary increases and business profits, what you can buy today you could have bought ten years ago for half the price, when your salary was also half of what it is today. If all salaries were cut in half tomorrow, but so too were prices, you'd still have the same purchasing power with less wealth.

Compared to every other generation in history even the poorest amongst us is super rich. Yet it does seem as if in the absence of any form of individual struggle, aside from an endless quest for materialism, we are all the poorer for it.

TboneAgain

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 03:13:31 AM
Absolute and relative poverty

There are two ways of looking at welfare, absolute and relative.  Absolute is self-explanatory and is the absence of basic requirements needed to sustain life. Relative on the other hand is a socialist construction and is welfare that is given based on a comparison to the living standards of others, whether working or not. It's why in the riots that occur and the looting that invariably follows; the unproductive seek to gain a materialistic lifestyle in comparison to those that produce. In all riots, the main targets are not those stores that enable basic essentials, but electric, brand name and electronic goods stores.   
   
One suggestion is that governments subside basic essentials such as food, electricity and clothing with the money now given as welfare, which would prevent absolute poverty, but also instill a message that cell phones and plasma TV's are for those who work and not essentials designed to maintain life. This would also produce a lower cost of living for those who produce and avoid the burden put on businesses to provide higher salaries or increase the minimum wage.

It's easy to get tangled up in the terminology. I don't quite understand why you appear to be using "poverty" and "welfare" interchangeably. I think you actually meant to use "poverty" throughout, based on your context.

Your conception of riots is that of a very young person. I lived in Dayton, Ohio during the 1960s race riots there (and everywhere) and the most common targets were grocery stores, including the Kroger store where my mom used to buy our food. (It was looted and essentially destroyed in the process.) Also, you cast a rather over-wide net with your definition of riots. Mob-robbing a shoe store is organized larceny, not rioting. Protesters in the 1960s didn't steal TVs because TVs were almost as big as washing machines and weighed hundreds of pounds back then. When city blocks burn to the ground and areas of a city become impassable, THAT is rioting.

As far as subsidizing basic necessities... why? How is that the prerogative or the duty of the United States government? Your proposal is pure socialism.

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 03:13:31 AMThe minimum wage and inflation

The problem with private wealth is that, understandably, everyone wants more. In any salary increase the business doesn't lose profit, it simply passes on the increase to the consumer. So in effect you're +% salary increase just pushed up prices by +% and that applies to all businesses and all salaries across the board. It's called inflation and it's why your salary has increased, business profits have increased, but many are complaining they're poor and haven't got a living wage. In other words, the more money you demand, the less you can buy.

Many socialists advocate that businesses shouldn't increase prices but only salaries and so increase the wealth of the individual, but that is never going to happen. When the minimum wage is $25 an hour but a cup of coffee is $12 we can all say we're rich, but we'll still have the same argument about a living wage as prices will rise to match the salary increase. When the lowest salary is the same $25 an hour and a cup of coffee is $3, that's when businesses and the economy start to collapse.

Here you have descended into confusion and misunderstanding.

An increase in my salary of X% does not translate into a price increase of X%, simply because my salary is only one factor in my company's costs. Some businesses (e.g. housecleaning, landscaping, truck farming) are relatively labor-intensive, and thus more sensitive to changes in salaries or wages. Other businesses (e.g. large-scale commodity farming, energy production, internet servers) are more capital-intensive, and more resistant to changes in labor costs. In other words, it's a lot more complicated than your presentation indicates.

What you describe is not inflation in any case. Inflation is a thing that can only be done by the entity that supplies (in the old days, prints) currency, and that is the US federal government. Inflation refers specifically to the act of inflating the money supply. Increasing prices is not inflation, but rather a reaction to it. As the Fed increases the amount of money in circulation at a rate far beyond the concurrent rise in GDP, more dollars are chasing goods, prices go up, and each dollar becomes less valuable. It's the fiscal version of supply and demand -- bloat the supply of dollars and demand for them (their value and purchasing power) goes down. Since the early part of the last century, the Left has worked tirelessly to change our money, our dollars, from a simple medium of wealth exchange -- which all currencies are supposed to be -- into a political tool. Over the past six years, our government has been using the Fed to do two stunningly stupid things -- crank out new money at an astronomical rate (close to a trillion dollars a year) and artificially hold interest rates at nearly zero. There are more extreme examples of currency manipulation (google Zimbabwe, for example, or Weimar Germany), but they merely reached the point of collapse more quickly than we will. But we will.

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 03:13:31 AMSupply and demand

A business won't intentionally price itself into bankruptcy with high prices; it will base its prices on affordable salary levels and the higher they are the higher the price will be. So, by a continuing demand for more wealth, the rich are becoming money richer but their increased wealth only buys them what a dollar was worth when made and not what it's worth in the future and it's why, despite a relative welfare system, the poor say they're getting poorer, but only in relation to everyone else, because they can't demand increases and have to pay the higher prices.

Money itself is not a good indicator of wealth and that's because it simply indicates how much purchasing power an individual has at any one period in time and not the future. It's why despite salary increases and business profits, what you can buy today you could have bought ten years ago for half the price, when your salary was also half of what it is today. If all salaries were cut in half tomorrow, but so too were prices, you'd still have the same purchasing power with less wealth.

Compared to every other generation in history even the poorest amongst us is super rich. Yet it does seem as if in the absence of any form of individual struggle, aside from an endless quest for materialism, we are all the poorer for it.

Businesses don't base their prices on salaries or wages. Prices are based on production and distribution costs, categories that include dozens of factors in addition to salaries and wages. Money and wealth are two completely separate concepts, and there is no such thing as "money wealth."

But in your rambling discussion, you stumble upon the fundamental principle of inflation -- though clearly you don't realize it. You talk about current value of a dollar, and THAT is what the GOVERNMENT depends on when it prints fiat (unbacked) money. As just one example, Weimar Germany used this principle to knowingly devalue its currency in the years following World War I. Faced with unthinkable reparation demands (mostly at the insistence of the French), Germany responded by literally printing trillions of marks, completely unbacked by any actual wealth, with which to pay the reparation bill. Within a few years, the Weimar economy and its currency literally collapsed and the German middle class almost ceased to exist -- BUT the reparations bill got paid. Here's what a 5 BILLION mark postage stamp looks like:



In today's world, Uncle Sam is spending somewhere close to $4 trillion every year, but collecting in taxes just a bit over $3 trillion. Redistribution programs are the driving factor of this imbalance. (Even "pay as you go" programs like Social Security, as just one example, don't get paid as they go. SS has never been solvent since it began in 1935.) The difference is being made up with unbacked fiat money, dollars printed without anything standing behind them in terms of actual wealth. Every dollar Uncle Sam prints today yields today's dollar value to Uncle Sam, but every dollar he prints over and above a corresponding increase in national output is a dollar that weakens all the other dollars out there. The really mind-bending concept is the fact that there is no limit today on how much fiat money the Fed can print.

In general, I'd say you should get hold of an ECON0101 text and do some reading.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; IT IS FORCE. -- George Washington

The Observer

Poverty is absolute – welfare is relative. The use was intentional.

I was not referring to events that happened in the 60's, but riots that occur in an era of relative poverty. America or Europe, the targets of looters are the same.

Subsidize necessities because you do have socialized welfare and that welfare is better spent on subsidizing necessities than being spent on items relative to those who produce. I'm not an economist; my post is more to do with the social.
Salaries are part of production costs; it's why many businesses are seeking elsewhere where labour costs (amongst the other variables like taxation and regulation), are lower. I'm interested; if wealth is not measured in money, how is it measured?

About three quarters of your post is completely irrelevant to the subject. I'm sorry you had to spend so much time on it.  :smile: 

Solar

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 03:13:31 AM
Absolute and relative poverty

Compared to every other generation in history even the poorest amongst us is super rich. Yet it does seem as if in the absence of any form of individual struggle, aside from an endless quest for materialism, we are all the poorer for it.
Oh look, liberal guilt. The Chinese aren't living up to your Marxist ideology and it's killing you.
Have you not noticed, the entire world wants what we have? Why is China the fastest growing country in the world?
Because those greedy bastards want all the trimmings of a capitalist system, and rightly and deservedly so.
Official Trump Cult Member

#WWG1WGA

Q PATRIOT!!!

TboneAgain

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 06:57:16 AM
Poverty is absolute – welfare is relative. The use was intentional.

Don't be silly. Almost the exact opposite is true. Certainly poverty is relative, as the term is tossed around in the US. You said this in your first post: "Compared to every other generation in history even the poorest amongst us is super rich." I'll add to that by pointing out that the poorest among us in the US are unthinkably wealthy in the eyes of most inhabitants of the Third World, at least half the planet's population. Maybe you should invest in a dictionary before you spring for the Econ book.

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 06:57:16 AMI was not referring to events that happened in the 60's, but riots that occur in an era of relative poverty. America or Europe, the targets of looters are the same.

Um, I caught on right quick that you weren't referring to the riots in the 1960s. I think I said exactly that already. And what is this with "riots that occur in an era of relative poverty?" Didn't you just say a couple sentences ago that "poverty is absolute," and distinct from welfare, which is relative? Are you trying to say that poverty is absolute and relative at the same time? Add to your shopping list a book on critical thinking.

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 06:57:16 AMSubsidize necessities because you do have socialized welfare and that welfare is better spent on subsidizing necessities than being spent on items relative to those who produce. I'm not an economist; my post is more to do with the social.

I'm sensing that English is not your first language. The fact that we have welfare is evidence of the socialization of the nation. That is a BAD thing. As I stated before, there is absolutely nothing in our Constitution that authorizes the federal government to take my wealth at gunpoint and give it to someone else. It really doesn't matter very much what the redistributed money is spent on. What matters is the fact that redistribution by force is taking place at all.

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 06:57:16 AMSalaries are part of production costs; it's why many businesses are seeking elsewhere where labour costs (amongst the other variables like taxation and regulation), are lower. I'm interested; if wealth is not measured in money, how is it measured?

Wealth is not measured in money -- that's perfectly backwards. Money is measured in wealth, the wealth that backs it, the wealth it can command. I even tried visual aids in my last post to get this through to you. I showed you a postage stamp -- the kind you might stick on a letter to your mom -- that back in the early 1920s cost five billion German marks. (Please keep in mind that the mark was the basic unit of German currency, as the dollar is ours, and the pound sterling is for GB.) The actual cost in wealth terms of delivering a simple letter in Germany hadn't increased. The value of the mark itself -- as measured by the wealth it could command -- had collapsed.

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 06:57:16 AMAbout three quarters of your post is completely irrelevant to the subject. I'm sorry you had to spend so much time on it.  :smile:

Maybe you could spend a little more time and effort figuring out what your subject actually is. That way you'll be better able to judge what's relevant and what's not.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; IT IS FORCE. -- George Washington

The Observer

Quote from: Solar on October 29, 2014, 07:01:38 AM
Oh look, liberal guilt. The Chinese aren't living up to your Marxist ideology and it's killing you.
Have you not noticed, the entire world wants what we have? Why is China the fastest growing country in the world?
Because those greedy bastards want all the trimmings of a capitalist system, and rightly and deservedly so.

Do I detect a bit of trolling here Solar?

The Observer

@TboneAgain

There are two definitions of poverty, absolute, in which people die through lack of necessities and relative, in which a welfare socialist State subsidizes people to a minimum level, or above. What's silly about that? It's basic first year sociology. Perhaps it's my mistake for not explaining it in detail, but I assumed that any replies would have a basic knowledge of definitions. Parts of Africa live in absolute poverty; the emergence of a western welfare state alleviates that in the west. My point is that the welfare state, a socialist creation, has gone too far and people now rely on it as an entitlement and not as a necessity to stop absolute poverty.

Some sort of welfare is required in an era of mass unemployment and with the tens of millions involved; charity itself wouldn't stop a mass revolution, simply by the numbers involved. Every western nation, like it or not, has some sort of welfare, it's why there aren't dead bodies littering the streets. Absolute poverty is why Russia, China and many countries in the modern era have revolutions.

Read my post again, "Compared to every other generation in history even the poorest amongst us is super rich." You're simply repeating what I said and pretending you've just thought of it.

"Um, I caught on right quick that you weren't referring to the riots in the 1960s." Then why spend a paragraph going on about it?

"I'm sensing that English is not your first language." What has that got to do with the post? I'm afraid it is though, English/English, not American/English.

"Wealth is not measured in money -- that's perfectly backwards. Money is measured in wealth . . ." ? Well, I'm glad I get paid in money, which buys me a house and which I can sell for money and so prove I have wealth. The selling cost of my home will be conducted using money and the money received will be the wealth I then own. The house I own is not an indication of my wealth, but is dependent on what someone else pays for it and how much they will offer, surprisingly with money, which is an indication of their wealth.

My suggestion to you: Ever thought about starting off with a basic degree in the social sciences? I'm available to teach, it's what I do for a living. 

taxed

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 03:13:31 AM
Absolute and relative poverty

There are two ways of looking at welfare, absolute and relative.  Absolute is self-explanatory and is the absence of basic requirements needed to sustain life. Relative on the other hand is a socialist construction and is welfare that is given based on a comparison to the living standards of others, whether working or not. It's why in the riots that occur and the looting that invariably follows; the unproductive seek to gain a materialistic lifestyle in comparison to those that produce. In all riots, the main targets are not those stores that enable basic essentials, but electric, brand name and electronic goods stores.
Huh?  Welfare is a government subsidy, funded by stolen tax-payer dollars.

I can't speak to riots, because I've never been in one. 
 
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One suggestion is that governments subside basic essentials such as food, electricity and clothing with the money now given as welfare, which would prevent absolute poverty, but also instill a message that cell phones and plasma TV's are for those who work and not essentials designed to maintain life. This would also produce a lower cost of living for those who produce and avoid the burden put on businesses to provide higher salaries or increase the minimum wage.
It sounds like you have no idea what a free market is.  There's this thing called "nature", and she makes people hungry and desire more as an incentive to increase their skill sets.  You are advocating to move me closer to slavery by devaluing my labor so others who seem immune to nature can continue to breath and multiply more government dependents on money stolen from me at the point of a gun.  No thanks.

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The minimum wage and inflation

The problem with private wealth is that, understandably, everyone wants more.
That's not a problem.  That's a good thing.  Those that really want it figure out how to capitalize on the free market and obtain wealth.  Incentive is a very powerful thing, and it brings people out of poverty and empowers them.

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In any salary increase the business doesn't lose profit, it simply passes on the increase to the consumer.
Ummm, not really.  Labor cost affect prices, but if company A is paying $1mm for labor, and company B is paying $500k for labor, and all things equal in regards to the goods and services, then company A will suffer because they can't just "pass on the costs to the prices" and all is well.  Businesses have to manage their margins, while keeping their prices competitive.  I was going to ask if you've ever owned a business, but you have answered it already.

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So in effect you're +% salary increase just pushed up prices by +% and that applies to all businesses and all salaries across the board.
No.  You don't seem to understand some basic business concepts.

Quote
It's called inflation and it's why your salary has increased, business profits have increased, but many are complaining they're poor and haven't got a living wage. In other words, the more money you demand, the less you can buy.
Oh dear.  You are circling the right idea, but you're not quite there yet.

Quote
Many socialists advocate that businesses shouldn't increase prices but only salaries and so increase the wealth of the individual, but that is never going to happen. When the minimum wage is $25 an hour but a cup of coffee is $12 we can all say we're rich, but we'll still have the same argument about a living wage as prices will rise to match the salary increase. When the lowest salary is the same $25 an hour and a cup of coffee is $3, that's when businesses and the economy start to collapse.
I think it's adorable that you're trying to appear as if you understand all of this, but your confusing basic concepts, like minimum wage increases with general wage increases.  Normal wage increases may be due from any number of factors, like the employee was promoted, or improved their skill sets, or blackmails his boss, or whatever it may be.  That's internal labor cost stuff.  Minimum wage increases are mandated by the government, and those affect inflation, prices, etc.  The free market would keep inflation in check naturally.

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Supply and demand

A business won't intentionally price itself into bankruptcy with high prices;
You said something correct!!  I just wanted to give you kudos, so you don't think I'm trying to be hard on you.

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it will base its prices on affordable salary levels
Oh lord you are so adorable!  No, sweetie, that's not how businesses base their prices.

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and the higher they are the higher the price will be.
Labor costs cut into the margins, yes.  See, you're at least in the ball park.  Well, you're really stuck in traffic trying to park while the game is in the 2nd inning, but you're getting there.

Quote
So, by a continuing demand for more wealth, the rich are becoming money richer but their increased wealth only buys them what a dollar was worth when made and not what it's worth in the future and it's why, despite a relative welfare system, the poor say they're getting poorer, but only in relation to everyone else, because they can't demand increases and have to pay the higher prices.
This is so convoluted and foreign (no pun) to me that I don't quite know how to address it.

Quote
Money itself is not a good indicator of wealth and that's because it simply indicates how much purchasing power an individual has at any one period in time and not the future. It's why despite salary increases and business profits, what you can buy today you could have bought ten years ago for half the price, when your salary was also half of what it is today. If all salaries were cut in half tomorrow, but so too were prices, you'd still have the same purchasing power with less wealth.

Compared to every other generation in history even the poorest amongst us is super rich. Yet it does seem as if in the absence of any form of individual struggle, aside from an endless quest for materialism, we are all the poorer for it.
I'm a free market capitalist, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
#PureBlood #TrumpWon

TboneAgain

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 05:14:23 PM
@TboneAgain

There are two definitions of poverty, absolute, in which people die through lack of necessities and relative, in which a welfare socialist State subsidizes people to a minimum level, or above. What's silly about that? It's basic first year sociology. Perhaps it's my mistake for not explaining it in detail, but I assumed that any replies would have a basic knowledge of definitions. Parts of Africa live in absolute poverty; the emergence of a western welfare state alleviates that in the west. My point is that the welfare state, a socialist creation, has gone too far and people now rely on it as an entitlement and not as a necessity to stop absolute poverty.

Some sort of welfare is required in an era of mass unemployment and with the tens of millions involved; charity itself wouldn't stop a mass revolution, simply by the numbers involved. Every western nation, like it or not, has some sort of welfare, it's why there aren't dead bodies littering the streets. Absolute poverty is why Russia, China and many countries in the modern era have revolutions.

Read my post again, "Compared to every other generation in history even the poorest amongst us is super rich." You're simply repeating what I said and pretending you've just thought of it.

"Um, I caught on right quick that you weren't referring to the riots in the 1960s." Then why spend a paragraph going on about it?

"I'm sensing that English is not your first language." What has that got to do with the post? I'm afraid it is though, English/English, not American/English.

"Wealth is not measured in money -- that's perfectly backwards. Money is measured in wealth . . ." ? Well, I'm glad I get paid in money, which buys me a house and which I can sell for money and so prove I have wealth. The selling cost of my home will be conducted using money and the money received will be the wealth I then own. The house I own is not an indication of my wealth, but is dependent on what someone else pays for it and how much they will offer, surprisingly with money, which is an indication of their wealth.

My suggestion to you: Ever thought about starting off with a basic degree in the social sciences? I'm available to teach, it's what I do for a living.

We've had our fun. I have better things to do.

I just can't find the time to argue with you over your own arguments about what your own words and statements mean. When you can figure yourself out, let us know.

Anyone who equates money and wealth is a shallow fool, a clueless dolt, an economic moron.

Parting advice -- seriously, get a basic economics text and read it. Pursuing the practice of sociology without the barest familiarity with economics is pointless -- and that appears to be what you're doing.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; IT IS FORCE. -- George Washington

taxed

Quote from: TboneAgain on October 29, 2014, 05:40:01 PM
We've had our fun. I have better things to do.

I just can't find the time to argue with you over your own arguments about what your own words and statements mean. When you can figure yourself out, let us know.

Anyone who equates money and wealth is a shallow fool, a clueless dolt, an economic moron.

Parting advice -- seriously, get a basic economics text and read it. Pursuing the practice of sociology without the barest familiarity with economics is pointless -- and that appears to be what you're doing.

Dammit.  I was hoping you knew what he's talking about.
#PureBlood #TrumpWon

TboneAgain

Quote from: taxed on October 29, 2014, 05:42:06 PM
Dammit.  I was hoping you knew what he's talking about.

Ha! I was hoping maybe HE knew what HE was talking about. Clearly that is not the case.

I caught some of his ideas, but they're all inside-out and upside-down.

Tell me true. Did I waste my time?  :tounge:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; IT IS FORCE. -- George Washington

taxed

Quote from: The Observer on October 29, 2014, 05:14:23 PM
@TboneAgain
May I jump in?

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There are two definitions of poverty, absolute, in which people die through lack of necessities and relative,
I've never witnessed such a thing, but OK.

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in which a welfare socialist State subsidizes people to a minimum level, or above.
There is never a "minimum level", but OK. 

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What's silly about that?
It's just wrong.  I know it may sound like you're learning something in the classroom, but in the real world, it doesn't apply.

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It's basic first year sociology.
Oh, that does explain it.  I thought you were trying to talk about reality, but you were talking about a fantasy world inside academia.

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Perhaps it's my mistake for not explaining it in detail, but I assumed that any replies would have a basic knowledge of definitions.
I understand, no worries.  I thought the same thing about someone understanding basic economics.

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Parts of Africa live in absolute poverty;
Who cares?

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the emergence of a western welfare state alleviates that in the west.
No it doesn't.  It creates and grows poverty.  Poverty is created by the government.

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My point is that the welfare state, a socialist creation, has gone too far and people now rely on it as an entitlement and not as a necessity to stop absolute poverty.
It hasn't gone to far.  It did what it is designed to do.  Welfare is not a practical solution and never has been.  If you want to start some classroom drama, tell your professor that.  If you do, bring a few extra shiny apples, because you'll need them.

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Some sort of welfare is required
Wrong.  Free market capitalism is required.

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in an era of mass unemployment and with the tens of millions involved;
Free market capitalism fixes that.

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charity itself wouldn't stop a mass revolution,
Revolution?  Huh? Where? What?

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simply by the numbers involved. Every western nation, like it or not, has some sort of welfare,
I don't like it.

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it's why there aren't dead bodies littering the streets. Absolute poverty is why Russia, China and many countries in the modern era have revolutions.
Wrong.  Welfare creates and spreads poverty.  Your academic understanding of economics and human nature circumvent your ability to conceptualize this simple reality.

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My suggestion to you: Ever thought about starting off with a basic degree in the social sciences? I'm available to teach, it's what I do for a living.
For me, I'm a math/science/engineering type of guy.  Social sciences are for women who want to get a piece of paper and feel special, while living off mommy and daddy.

Oh wait..........  YOU are the teacher?  Oh dear.  I'll never understand why you uneducated types insist on becoming teachers.  It's too bad you don't have a skill you can teach.
#PureBlood #TrumpWon

taxed

Quote from: TboneAgain on October 29, 2014, 05:52:43 PM
Ha! I was hoping maybe HE knew what HE was talking about. Clearly that is not the case.

I caught some of his ideas, but they're all inside-out and upside-down.

Tell me true. Did I waste my time?  :tounge:

Well, I was going to just say "ditto" on your posts, but I didn't want you to feel like you were the crazy one.
#PureBlood #TrumpWon

The Observer

Quote from: TboneAgain on October 29, 2014, 05:40:01 PM
We've had our fun. I have better things to do.

I just can't find the time to argue with you over your own arguments about what your own words and statements mean. When you can figure yourself out, let us know.

Anyone who equates money and wealth is a shallow fool, a clueless dolt, an economic moron.

Parting advice -- seriously, get a basic economics text and read it. Pursuing the practice of sociology without the barest familiarity with economics is pointless -- and that appears to be what you're doing.

"Anyone who equates money and wealth is a shallow fool, a clueless dolt, an economic moron."


When the attack is against the poster and not the substance of the post, it generally means you're up against someone who writes a long post about something entirely different (economics), pretends it's about the social and then wonders why no one else understands. I'll let you into a secret, its part of a summarized adaptation of my postgrad thesis, in times when we were still allowed to say such things. Off you go and don't forget what I said about learning.

TboneAgain

Quote from: taxed on October 29, 2014, 05:59:40 PM
Well, I was going to just say "ditto" on your posts, but I didn't want you to feel like you were the crazy one.

I've gotten sorta used to feeling like the crazy one. It goes with the territory!  :tounge:

This child TEACHES for a living? Teaches what? Don't you find that frightening?
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; IT IS FORCE. -- George Washington