Can we have some wacky Democrat stuff just for balance?

[boutons_deux]

http://www.ibtimes.com/greedy-thief-...-scene-1532912

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/u...ldren-21479439

your typical democrat voters

the black banana thief is probably an independent non-voter

the adopters from Confederate TN are probably Repug Christian Bible thumpers/indoctrinators/brain-washers.

iow, you got nothin

[RandomGuy]

The intended purpose, and the one, no doubt, sold to the American People was that these policies would reduce the poverty level; lift people out of poverty.

What I would hope any policy would do is not make being born into poverty an lifelong sentence, which it currently is for more and more Americans.

Since the policies we have agreed (I agree, btw), have been implemented, the poverty rate has lowered marginally. What has risen dramatically, however, is the illegitimacy rate. What has also risen dramatically is the prison population (which is fed disproportionately from the lowest classes of society.

The child most likely to live a life of poverty today is one born in poverty to a single mother. We have more of those every single year. We send them to crappy schools, don't put any decent role models around them...we are stewing a cycle of poverty that shows no sign of slowing. We now have generations of Americans living under roofs that are ALL receiving government assistance, and none have jobs. Forget about what that is costing in terms of tax dollars; LOOK at what is being created and perpetuated!! My daughter's loser boyfriend: (anecdotal, I know, but the trailer park he lives in is full of these stories): Single mother; he never remembers her working - collects food stamps, and a welfare check; Grandmother lives at home, collects a SS disability check (back)- but she's about to age out of that; the boyfriend drops out of high school, injures his back training for MMA; and now HE collects SS disability!!!

I honestly don't know what policies to propose, but I have some thoughts; will get back to them next week - ultimately it seems we might have gone astray from "first, do no harm" with our policies; they are doing, in fact, a GREAT deal of harm - and not to the people paying the bills, but to some of the people, ostensibly, the plans were put in place to help

Respectfully:
The plural of anecdote is not "data".

The problem is that these kinds of outrageous stories get repeated and remembered. Their impact on perceptions relative to the overall populations involved tends to be disproportional in my experience.

Stories of quiet desperation from the working poor tend not to be talked about as much. When was the last time you and your relatives gathered around and gossiped about someone with 2 jobs, and still required some form of assistance to keep the lights on?

Whenever we end up discussing these programs, we alway start running into the wall of "ok, so we agree, but how do we tweak the programs?"

Most of us, and that includes myself, have almost no idea about how much we spend, who gets the money, how, and why. We should though.

I agree in principle that people should work, if able.

I agree that kids tend to do better with mothers and fathers, to my memory the data support that.

What I do not agree on, is that the war on poverty is a "failure". As boutons rightly pointed out, the poverty rate would be far, far higher, in the absence of these programs.

My gut says that your explanation is far too simplistic, and what is going on is more complicated than mere "en lement dependency".

[RandomGuy]

the black banana thief is probably an independent non-voter

the adopters from Confederate TN are probably Repug Christian Bible thumpers/indoctrinators/brain-washers.

iow, you got nothin

It is a common meme among the more racist parts of the right wing.

"typical Obama supporter" or "typical Democratic voter" are the kinds of things that get forwarded in emails and are particularly useless.

It is so lame and unoriginal, I have stopped clicking on the links, and simply ignore them. Since the mental midgets that post these things are just looking for attention with cheap, gimmicky shots like that, simply ignoring it without comment is the best way to fight them, IMO.

[RandomGuy]

So giving people food stamps somehow magically lifts them out of poverty? Give me a break.

Yes, actually it does.

It uses the magic of something called "addition".

This magic works something like this:

Poverty level of income: 18,000 per year for one person.

Income before food stamps:
17,000

Food stamp income:
1,200

Here is the magic, try to follow along, if you can, and I know this is hard to understand for some people.

17,000 + 1,200 = 18,200

If this is too magic is too hard for you, try this link for a magical online program that will magically do this "addition" for you:
https://www.google.com/search?q=onli...7j0l5.3090j0j8

[101A]

Respectfully:
The plural of anecdote is not "data".

The problem is that these kinds of outrageous stories get repeated and remembered. Their impact on perceptions relative to the overall populations involved tends to be disproportional in my experience.

Stories of quiet desperation from the working poor tend not to be talked about as much. When was the last time you and your relatives gathered around and gossiped about someone with 2 jobs, and still required some form of assistance to keep the lights on?

Whenever we end up discussing these programs, we alway start running into the wall of "ok, so we agree, but how do we tweak the programs?"

Most of us, and that includes myself, have almost no idea about how much we spend, who gets the money, how, and why. We should though.

I agree in principle that people should work, if able.

I agree that kids tend to do better with mothers and fathers, to my memory the data support that.

What I do not agree on, is that the war on poverty is a "failure". As boutons rightly pointed out, the poverty rate would be far, far higher, in the absence of these programs.

My gut says that your explanation is far too simplistic, and what is going on is more complicated than mere "en lement dependency".

I didn't intend to suggest "en lement dependence", and the negative connotations that has for the person(s) receiving the en lement. Actually, my premise is even simpler, and is, I believe, a truism: "You get what you pay for.". That is, ANY program designed to assist a certain class of people is going to cause more people characterized by that trait. For example: Single Mothers. Our assistance programs make it easier for an unattached woman to receive benefits for herself and her children; therefore, we have (many) more single mothers. Now, of course, there are corresponding cultural changes that have occurred over the past 50 years - makes it hard to determine how much the assistance programs have contributed to the undesired results (or, for that matter, helped encourage the cultural changes themselves).

As for the wealth inequality - extreme graphs that are inevitable when we have an economy based on consuming; Most Americans spend all of their money; they do not accrue wealth; they stay in debt; Many Americans, even with high incomes, don't actually accrue any wealth to speak of. Don't know how you fight that - forced savings? Property confiscation?; because even with extreme income redistribution; you wouldn't get corresponding equality of wealth distribution.

[RandomGuy]

I didn't intend to suggest "en lement dependence", and the negative connotations that has for the person(s) receiving the en lement. Actually, my premise is even simpler, and is, I believe, a truism: "You get what you pay for.". That is, ANY program designed to assist a certain class of people is going to cause more people characterized by that trait. For example: Single Mothers. Our assistance programs make it easier for an unattached woman to receive benefits for herself and her children; therefore, we have (many) more single mothers. Now, of course, there are corresponding cultural changes that have occurred over the past 50 years - makes it hard to determine how much the assistance programs have contributed to the undesired results (or, for that matter, helped encourage the cultural changes themselves).

As for the wealth inequality - extreme graphs that are inevitable when we have an economy based on consuming; Most Americans spend all of their money; they do not accrue wealth; they stay in debt; Many Americans, even with high incomes, don't actually accrue any wealth to speak of. Don't know how you fight that - forced savings? Property confiscation?; because even with extreme income redistribution; you wouldn't get corresponding equality of wealth distribution.

I think you are still vastly over-simplifying the problem still.

Our biology determines that we will always have more single mothers. The fact that we didn't used to have as many, assuming that is true which seems reasonable, strongly implies that in the past something was wrong.

"ANY program designed to assist a certain class of people is going to cause more people characterized by that trait."

So what?

We simply discontinue any kind of benefits program for people who need it, because you might have marginally more people needing the program?

Your solution is forced marriages? No thanks, that is even worse.

[boutons_deux]

"Our assistance programs make it easier for an unattached woman to receive benefits for herself and her children; therefore, we have (many) more single mothers."

where's your DIRECT CAUSALITY proving that only assistance to single mothers causes more single mothers?

where's your DIRECT CAUSALITY that only unemployment benefits causes people to lose their jobs?

[TSA]

Yes, actually it does.

It uses the magic of something called "addition".

This magic works something like this:

Poverty level of income: 18,000 per year for one person.

Income before food stamps:
17,000

Food stamp income:
1,200

Here is the magic, try to follow along, if you can, and I know this is hard to understand for some people.

17,000 + 1,200 = 18,200

If this is too magic is too hard for you, try this link for a magical online program that will magically do this "addition" for you:
https://www.google.com/search?q=onli...7j0l5.3090j0j8

Technically you are correct, but using your figures (which are wrong by the way) to argue someone is out of "poverty" because they're now $200 over the poverty level is disingenuous.

[101A]

I think you are still vastly over-simplifying the problem still.

Our biology determines that we will always have more single mothers. The fact that we didn't used to have as many, assuming that is true which seems reasonable, strongly implies that in the past something was wrong.

"ANY program designed to assist a certain class of people is going to cause more people characterized by that trait."

So what?

We simply discontinue any kind of benefits program for people who need it, because you might have marginally more people needing the program?

Your solution is forced marriages? No thanks, that is even worse.

Easy on the Strawmen there RG; I have proposed no solutions, yet with each problem I suggest with the current system, you jump to some conclusion about a remedy I might propose.

[RandomGuy]

Easy on the Strawmen there RG; I have proposed no solutions, yet with each problem I suggest with the current system, you jump to some conclusion about a remedy I might propose.

My apologies, that came out a bit harsher than I intended.

I really do agree for the most part with your viewpoint, I just don't see any solutions that might make things measurably, demonstrably better. The hard part in these discussions is even defining the problem. It makes it hard to get solutions. I would hope that we have studied poverty to death by now, and might have SOME decent data as to the root causes. Maybe, maybe not.

Part of the problem is that people seem to want to make reality of the situation fit existing ideologies, and that always s things up.

I think the much simpler cause of poverty in the US is a lot more basic: poverty in the rest of the world. I don't think that the lot of poorer people in the US will ever get any better until living standards in the rest of the world catch up, and poor people in the US can compete for the kinds of jobs that low and unskilled people do in Asia and Africa.

[RandomGuy]

Technically you are correct, but using your figures (which are wrong by the way) to argue someone is out of "poverty" because they're now $200 over the poverty level is disingenuous.

Sorry, I didn't feel like looking up the actual figures, they weren't quite necessary to make my (snarky) point.

It isn't disingenuous at all, it is simply the way such things are measured. To be clear: that person, whatever the actual figures for poverty are, is still poor.

I would guess, though, that your claim is probably based on a bit of ignorance as to the underlying economic concepts, no offense.

That is an easy thing to rectify though. First a diagnostic question.

As briefly as you can:

How is the federal poverty line set?

[TSA]

Sorry, I didn't feel like looking up the actual figures, they weren't quite necessary to make my (snarky) point.

It isn't disingenuous at all, it is simply the way such things are measured. To be clear: that person, whatever the actual figures for poverty are, is still poor.

I would guess, though, that your claim is probably based on a bit of ignorance as to the underlying economic concepts, no offense.

That is an easy thing to rectify though. First a diagnostic question.

As briefly as you can:

How is the federal poverty line set?

How much to feed a family of four for a year x 3.

It's an outdated formula as a current household's food cost are closer to a fifth of their budget, not a third. Health care, child care, housing, transportation etc is not factored in. The poverty line is grossly underestimated which I why I stated that these people aren't out of poverty just because they fall on the other side of some bull line that is set.

[boutons_deux]

How much to feed a family of four for a year x 3.

It's an outdated formula as a current household's food cost are closer to a fifth of their budget, not a third. Health care, child care, housing, transportation etc is not factored in. The poverty line is grossly underestimated which I why I stated that these people aren't out of poverty just because they fall on the other side of some bull line that is set.

How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty


http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/pover...w/measure.html

[RandomGuy]

How much to feed a family of four for a year x 3.

It's an outdated formula as a current household's food cost are closer to a fifth of their budget, not a third. Health care, child care, housing, transportation etc is not factored in. The poverty line is grossly underestimated which I why I stated that these people aren't out of poverty just because they fall on the other side of some bull line that is set.

Hmm that is not my understanding.

The level, as I understand it, is based on a basket of goods, much like the inflation index.

Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year.[6] The largest of these expenses is typically the rent required to live in an apartment, so historically, economists have paid particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices as a strong poverty line affector. Individual factors are often used to account for various cir stances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually.

absolute poverty is a level of poverty as defined in terms of the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold

Of course those are wiki links.

Trying to find how "poverty" is actually calculated.. . that was fruitless. Boutons found how the statistics are compiled but not the underlying determination of the line.

Closest I found was this summary do ent, a 6MB scan of a study done in the 1970's.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/m...pdf/tp_iii.pdf

It was found here:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/m...ncy/index.html

Funny enough the pdf study includes a line from Lewis Carroll's "Alice Through the Looking Glass":
"When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, no more and no less" -Humpty-Dumpty (Pg 13 of pdf)


I don't think it is just "food X3" though.

If you have a specific link, please post it though. it is worth getting to the bottom of.

[boutons_deux]

How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty


http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/pover...w/measure.html

Income Used to Compute Poverty Status (Money Income)

• Includes earnings, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, public assistance, veterans' payments, survivor benefits, pension or retirement income, interest, dividends, rents, royalties, income from estates, trusts, educational assistance, alimony, child support, assistance from outside the household, and other miscellaneous sources.
• Noncash benefits (such as food stamps and housing subsidies) do not count.
• Before taxes
• Excludes capital gains or losses.
• If a person lives with a family, add up the income of all family members. (Non-relatives, such as housemates, do not count.)

[TSA]

Hmm that is not my understanding.

The level, as I understand it, is based on a basket of goods, much like the inflation index.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold

Of course those are wiki links.

Trying to find how "poverty" is actually calculated.. . that was fruitless. Boutons found how the statistics are compiled but not the underlying determination of the line.

Closest I found was this summary do ent, a 6MB scan of a study done in the 1970's.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/m...pdf/tp_iii.pdf

It was found here:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/m...ncy/index.html

Funny enough the pdf study includes a line from Lewis Carroll's "Alice Through the Looking Glass":
"When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, no more and no less" -Humpty-Dumpty (Pg 13 of pdf)


I don't think it is just "food X3" though.

If you have a specific link, please post it though. it is worth getting to the bottom of.

I'll look later. Heading to golf. But that is what I remember reading and it was the same formula used from like the 60's.

[TSA]

Also, I believe boutons is the formula for poverty threshold, not Federal poverty level.

[boutons_deux]

census bureau defines the poverty levelS, 48 of them

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/pover...d/thresh11.xls

[RandomGuy]

census bureau defines the poverty levelS, 48 of them

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/pover...d/thresh11.xls

That is the number, yes, but how did they choose those specific numbers?

I assume there is some methodology better than monkeys with darts. (ok *hope* would be a better word)

[TSA]

Not sure if the method has changed but this is what I recall reading regarding poverty level. Now I can't say for certain it is still the same but I know the calculations are different than figuring for the poverty threshold done by the census bureau.


http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/faq.cfm#differences

How was the poverty line developed?

The poverty thresholds were originally developed in 1963-1964 by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration. Orshansky took the dollar costs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s economy food plan for families of three or more persons and multiplied the costs by a factor of three. She followed somewhat different procedures to calculate thresholds for one- and two-person units in order to allow for the relatively larger fixed costs that small family units face. (The economy food plan used by Orshansky is included in a 1962 Agriculture Department report.)

Orshansky used a factor of three because the Agriculture Department’s 1955 Household Food Consumption Survey found that for families of three or more persons, the average dollar value of all food used during a week (both at home and away from home) accounted for about one third of their total money income after taxes.

In May 1965, the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity adopted Orshansky’s poverty thresholds as a working or quasi-official definition of poverty. In August 1969, the U.S. Bureau of the Budget (predecessor of the Office of Management and Budget) designated the poverty thresholds with certain revisions as the federal government’s official statistical definition of poverty.

More information is available on how Orshansky developed the thresholds and their subsequent history as the official U.S. poverty measure.

[BradLohaus]

Where are these thriving single mother dominated societies? The only way to give the children of a single mother the same advantages as a two parent family is to take money from two parent families and give it to the single mothers (on average, of course, but that's all that matters overall.) But wait, the payers into the system might start having fewer kids than the takers. Crazy incentives.

I'm surprised that advanced societies didn't figure this out centuries ago and start shaming single motherhood to try to stop it...

Or you could just take from everyone their means and give to everyone their needs. If only the Marxists had realized what a roadblock families and religion are...

[boutons_deux]

Where are these thriving single mother dominated societies? The only way to give the children of a single mother the same advantages as a two parent family is to take money from two parent families and give it to the single mothers (on average, of course, but that's all that matters overall.) But wait, the payers into the system might start having fewer kids than the takers. Crazy incentives.

I'm surprised that advanced societies didn't figure this out centuries ago and start shaming single motherhood to try to stop it...

Or you could just take from everyone their means and give to everyone their needs. If only the Marxists had realized what a roadblock families and religion are...

Again, you LIE that single parent poor households are the problem. Put a good, loyal but unemployed father in the house, and what does that improve?

And if the loyal, in-house father had a TY JOB, the family of 4 would still be in poverty and living on public assistance.

I read an article where a new Walmart advertised for 600 jobs, and over 20K applications submitted. Sounds to me like 20K wanted to work, rather than be St Ronnie's LIE of welfare queens driving cadillacs. THE ( TY) JOBS JUST AREN'T THERE.

[boutons_deux]

still waiting for those WACKY quotes, policies from WACKY Dem politicians...

[BradLohaus]

I don't lie, it is a problem.

Me from a thread awhile back:

I just googled this.

Editor's note: Today's guest editorial is from the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. Imagine asking a young woman if she wants her children to do poorly in school. Or to go to prison. Or to use drugs. Or to live in poverty. It's a good bet more than 70 percent of women and girls would say they don't want that for their children. And yet, The Associated Press reports that 72 percent of black children are now born out of wedlock -- and statistics show children of single mothers of any race are more likely to experience all those troubles and more.



One single mother interviewed for the AP story said she thinks marriage is a good idea -- but that "what's good for you might not be good for me." Ah, but that's not the question. The question is, what's best for the child? The facts, spelled out in study after study, don't just say two-parent families are better for kids -- they scream it. The 1990 report, "Putting Children First: A Progressive Family Policy for the 1990s," by the Democratic Progressive Policy Ins ute, is a landmark on the topic. The authors courageously reject the politically correct notion that "questions of family structure are purely private matters. ... The consequences of family failure affect society at large. We all pay for systems of welfare, mental and physical disability, criminal justice and incarceration; we are all made poorer by the inability or unwillingness of young adults to become contributing members of society; we all suffer if society is unsafe and divided and if our children are poorly educated." Notwithstanding conduct between consenting adults, society, they write, has a right to question "alternative lifestyles" that affect everyone -- in particular those that involve the raising of children. ... Nearly three-quarters of single-parent children experience poverty in their first 10 years of life, the PPI report says; only one-fifth of others will. Moreover, the report says, when you factor out single parenthood, there is no link between either race or income level and crime rates. ... Why would anyone knowingly do that to their children? If the answer is that they don't know what they're doing, then shouldn't we be able to tell them? After that, how much of the problem is self-indulgence and a refusal to delay gratification? ... It follows that choices those families make should be fair game for discussion.

http://www.times-herald.com/Opinion/...ildren-1399509

[BradLohaus]

Obama and Holder have a good one going:

Experts slam DOJ letter telling schools to implement race-based punishments

Education experts decried a new memo from the Departments of Justice and Education that instructs public schools throughout the country to cease punishing disruptive students if they fall into certain racial categories, such as black or Hispanic.

The letter, released on Wednesday, states that it is a violation of federal law for schools to punish certain races more than others, even if those punishments stem from completely neutral rules. For example, equal numbers of black students and white students should be punished for iness, even if black students are more often y than white students. (RELATED: DOJ to schools: It’s racist to punish students for behaving badly, texting in class)

Here is the relevant section of the letter:




“Schools also violate Federal law when they evenhandedly implement facially neutral policies and practices that, although not adopted with the intent to discriminate, nonetheless have an unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race.

Examples of policies that can raise disparate impact concerns include policies that impose mandatory suspension, expulsion, or citation (e.g., ticketing or other fines or summonses) upon any student who commits a specified offense — such as being y to class, being in possession of a cellular phone, being found insubordinate, acting out, or not wearing the proper school uniform.”

The Daily Caller asked several education experts to weigh in on the letter’s recommendations; all three raised serious concerns about the ramifications of changing school disciplinary procedures to engineer equal outcomes across the races.

Joy Pullmann, managing editor of School Reform News, told TheDC that any notion of equal racial discipline is obviously flawed.

“It’s ridiculous to assign quotas for discipline based on race,” she said. “If we did that, for one thing, we’d have to believe that Asian students are severely under-disciplined.”

Andrew Coulson, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Ins ute, said the letter’s policies, if implemented, would actually harm black children, by making the classrooms they inhabit “more chaotic.”

“The kinds [of kids] who just want to be free to learn in peace, who are not disruptive, have their education injured by the disruptive kids who remain in the classroom,” Coulson told TheDC. “And since African American kids are more often assigned to schools like that, they’ll be the ones most hurt.”



Coulson previously testified before the U.S. Senate that establishing disciplinary racial quotas would be disruptive to students, but his advice was ignored. “Pivotal research” was omitted from the recent memo, he said.

“They risk harming the education of a lot of kids,” he said.

Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Ins ute, described the letter as “troubling,” and an attempt to intimidate schools into initiating bad policy.

“As best I can tell, they are telling schools that even if you have policies that are clearly neutral, that are clearly evenhanded, that are clearly designed to create safe environments for students and educators, DOJ still might come down on you like a ton of bricks,” Hess told TheDC.

Hess said it is desirable for schools to eliminate policies that treat black students unfairly, but DOJ’s new recommendations, “have overshot by a mile in terms of their proposed solution.”

“The only possible explanation is that you have got a room full of civil rights lawyers having a field day without talking to the real people, the educators who are going to be affected,” said Hess.

Pullmann also worried about the effect on classrooms. She said she has spoken to teachers who experienced a breakdown in the classroom learning environment when policies like this were implemented.

“Kids of the favored race know they can get away with more, so they misbehave more, and the well-behaved kids lose out on instruction because the teacher is busy trying to manage unruly students she can’t send to the principal’s office,” said Pullmann.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/10/ex...#ixzz2qTB2FRE9