To some extent I agree this is also now the case in other countries. But to my point, and to paraphrase the Op-Ed piece I posted on page#1 of this thread: Today, Europe's rich social welfare programs stifle incentives & personal enterprise, suppresses initiative, and suffocates productivity. Now Liberals in the United States want to go down this path as well. If we do, I believe it will be disastrous for America. My long dissertation on American capitalism was not to be arrogant, but to answer a Brit's question (Franco27). Furthermore before the US became and independent country with its own Government & system of capitalism, the predominate way to achieve success in the world was to be born into wealth as part of a high social class or Monarchy. Social classes are the hierarchical arrangements of people in society as economic or cultural groups. Social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification' which was extremely important in Britain and Europe for centuries in terms of those that had wealth; and those who because of a low social class were limited and therefore could not achieve prosperity. Now, I do not claim there are no social classes or stratification in America, because there certainly is. The point being: It is far easier and there is much more opportunity to move between social classes using the principles of capitalism as practiced today in America. So the slogan "Only in America!!!" may not be as absolute or as wide contrast as it once was, but it still has important meaning & cultural significance without being boastful. In addition, I do wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that many people have developed a sense of entitlement in recent decades, plus the high divorce rate, and a lack of a father's input also are important contributing factors.
Ian, I am not sure where you stood with Mike Harris when he was Ontario premier, I think he was excellent, I voted for him in 1995 and I would vote for him today with the same policies. He was too far right for many people, some of our American friends (Ed, Zackman, Jamie), reading some of my most recent posts probably view me as left leaning. In Amercia I may very well be left leaning, but here in Onatrio I am quite right leaning. Anyway, I believe it was his government that brought in workfare. The other item he brought in which has since gone by the wayside was that the government of the day, by the end of there term was obligated to balance the books. I don't really believe there was any penalty if they didn't, it was a lot of optics, but still, he did it every year he was in power. I heard just yesterday that the McGuinty government will be running a deficit every year until 2018, and will increase the debt from a current 150 billion dollars to 250 billion dollars in under 8 years. We are a jurisdiction with about 10 million people that are carrying a financial burden that we will never pay off, and that is only the provincial burden, add the federal burden to it, and where I am at, there is a regional burden and a municipal burden, four levels of government!!
Zack, I really don't see how you can say that welfare systems " stifle incentives & personal enterprise, suppresses initiative, and suffocates productivity" There is no correlation between the two. Motivated people on welfare will find a way off welfare. Unmotivated people who work will never really excel. It's a myth that all people on welfare are lazy. Unfortunately not everyone will be financially successful. It's not possible. There will always be an upper, middle and lower class with regards to wealth. What is definitely shrinking is the middle. B&B, I've always been a conservative with liberal ideas *L*.... that's why I thought workfare was a good idea. Give people money till they can get back on their feet but they need to do something to earn it. Prison should not be a nice place to life and no one should get "time served". Parents are the primary people responsible for ANYTHING their kids do wrong (besides the kid them self). We have an obligation to help other people in the world with aid but if you're going to F@#$ with us we're going to shoot your A$$. see.... conservative with liberal ideas *L*
Thanks buddy, I really didnt think I could be at first...but lucky for me it has turned out to be great...I fully understand your point, I think it is very responsible to do exactly what you said your doin and why your doing it....as with the kind words you said to me, if more people were as responsible in their thinking as you are, we wouldnt have half the problems, Ive met some people that just should not have kids or dont deserve them and ive met some that just have kids to get more taxes or welfare......Im by no means the best father....but I try like a sum bitch haha....Oh and the one good thing about being a single parent, is I can still do my Temptations trips every year , with no grief haha
I have to add my compliments to you also. I see so many people have kids just because it is socially acceptable. Having kids is a lifetime committment and you stay with them no matter what. I hope that things improve enough in your end of the state that the jobs become more plentiful.
Thank you...ive always been lucky with my family and being taught any one can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a Dad.....though with a great daughter i have its pretty easy, at least until she is a teenager, then we may be back on the gun control issue when her boyfriends start coming around LOL....thanks again, and I hope the economy turns around for everyone, im lucky enough to have everyone be healthy and happy, so ill make due until things get better.....
I'll add my pat on the back too. It's great to hear how much you enjoy being Dad. Sounds like you are both lucky to have each other.
I agree with you that motivated people will find a way off welfare. However the correlation between welfare and the stifling of incentives & personal enterprise, suppression of initiative is what’s called the Welfare Trap. “The principles underlying the welfare trap ultimately stem from the way people make decisions in light of personal valuation of their time and effort. Consider this next example: a man is receiving welfare from the government to the tune of $15,000 per year. He does, essentially, nothing to earn that money and spends his days doing whatever he pleases (within the limits of what he can afford, given the money he is receiving).Eventually, he is offered a job paying $25,000 per year. Should he take the job?At first, the answer might seem to be a simple "yes", due to the obvious material gains: an extra $10,000, which represents an increase of two-thirds in his revenue. However, he would have to pay taxes from his new salary, which might reduce his new income from $25,000 to say, $22,000, and therefore reduce his net gain accordingly from $10,000 to $7,000. This is still an improvement in his material situation, but it comes at the expense of a lot more work: the man would likely have to work 40 h per week at his new job, at an effective wage increase of $3.50 per hour, which is below the minimum wage. Also, he will incur additional ancillary costs such as time and money spent commuting and increased stress. As such, he will weigh the benefits of the extra money against the "cost" he incurs from working. If he decides, as he likely will given the above circumstances, that the extra money is not worth the effort, he has been "caught" in the welfare trap. A more extreme example arises if he is offered a job paying $15,000 a year. If this causes him to no longer qualify for welfare, then after taxes, he will almost certainly have less take-home income than before. He will have a strong economic incentive to refuse the job. This is certainly a welfare trap.” (Welfare trap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Another example:” We now see that between all the phaseouts of welfare benefits she had been receiving and the higher taxes that resulted from her taking on a job paying a higher income, which would incidentally place her roughly at the U.S.' 50th percentile for household income this mother faced exorbitantly high and punitive marginal tax rates in taking on a job that paid just $10,000 more than she made before. In fact, Liebman estimates she faces an effective marginal tax rate increase of 130% for having traded up to that $35,000 per year job. And it was all done by government programs designed and intended to help people with low incomes! Government programs all designed, implemented and executed by elected politicians and government bureaucrats, who never considered that what they were doing could make the people they were trying to "help" so much more worse off. And because of their inherently limited knowledge and focus, negative outcomes like this situation are virtually guaranteed to occur.” (Political Calculations: Breaking the Welfare Trap) So if individuals are penalized for working by the Government through high taxes, often there is no incentive to work more or get off welfare. This was Nolan Finley's point, the author of the Op-Ed.
