Where is America Headed?

[_Jersey Girl]

Cam where are you coming up with the 60$/mo figure for cutting food stamps?

My ass. It was just an arbitrary number to underscore the overall point I was making. For some reason the scooty puffs on this thread are having a hard time with that one.

- Doc

I was actually going to ask if that's where you got it from. Anyway, here's a real life calculation of food stamps benefits and we'll subtract your 60$.

I have a disabled relative who receives 109$ per month food stamps. With your figure, he'd be left with 49$ per month.

I dunno, I don't shop like a normal person any more, but I don't think what he gets even now is enough to cover food for one person for a month. Maybe Ramen.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I have a disabled relative who receives 109$ per month food stamps. With your figure, he'd be left with 49$ per month.

1) I keep saying legitimately disabled people keep the benefit.

2) If $109 ain't cuttin' it, neither will $49.

3) If he or she is also elderly or his or her BMI is under 28 then they're safe from my cuts, too.

I'm just trying to get fat, lazy, “F” heads like LDSFAQs off the dole.

Also, if you really want to get food fascist we could just make the vouchers good for staples like rice and beans. And that's it.

- Doc

[_Xenophon]

Also, if you really want to get food fascist we could just make the vouchers good for staples like rice and beans. And that's it.

I think this is where you get into a real world solution. By most accounts with.I.C. is a wildly successful program that helps a ton of people. It operates as more of a voucher for specific items (you get $30 of produce, 4 gallons of milk, 2 loaves of whole wheat bread, etc.). It is still not a perfect system by any means but it does a pretty good job guiding those that are struggling to get to the nutrient rich foods that we all need.

From the linked article:

Extensive research has found the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to be a cost-effective investment that improves the nutrition and health of low-income families — leading to healthier infants, more nutritious diets and better health care for children, and subsequently to higher academic achievement for students. As a result of the research documenting WIC’s effectiveness, Administrations and Congresses of both parties have provided sufficient funding since 1997 to ensure that WIC can serve all eligible low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children who apply for it.

[_moksha]

Also, if you really want to get food fascist we could just make the vouchers good for staples like rice and beans. And that's it.
- Doc

One gentleman you might like, William F. Buckley, wanted free food limited to powdered skim milk, soybeans, bulgur wheat, and lard. He observed that you could make a very tasty fry bread with those ingredients. That is plenty to keep those disabled, elderly, and young children going - plus it could keep their BMI under 28. Conservatism might not know much about nutritional science, but it knows how to regulate the poor and make America great again!!!

Conservatism, America's schadenfreude.

[_Jersey Girl]

I have a disabled relative who receives 109$ per month food stamps. With your figure, he'd be left with 49$ per month.

1) I keep saying legitimately disabled people keep the benefit.

I missed that when I first read your post. Definitely legit disabled.

2) If $109 ain't cuttin' it, neither will $49.

It's really not cutting it and I know this person's entire monthly budget.

3) If he or she is also elderly or his or her BMI is under 28 then they're safe from my cuts, too.

Safe.

I'm just trying to get fat, lazy, “F” heads like LDSFAQs off the dole.

No kidding right. I'd be great to attach BMI to food stamps. I don't know how you can do that without someone yelling "discrimination!"

Also, if you really want to get food fascist we could just make the vouchers good for staples like rice and beans. And that's it.

- Doc

That doesn't sound entirely bad except for the fact that I think prisoners eat better than that.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Also, if you really want to get food fascist we could just make the vouchers good for staples like rice and beans. And that's it.

I think this is where you get into a real world solution. By most accounts with.I.C. is a wildly successful program that helps a ton of people. It operates as more of a voucher for specific items (you get $30 of produce, 4 gallons of milk, 2 loaves of whole wheat bread, etc.). It is still not a perfect system by any means but it does a pretty good job guiding those that are struggling to get to the nutrient rich foods that we all need.

From the linked article:

Extensive research has found the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to be a cost-effective investment that improves the nutrition and health of low-income families — leading to healthier infants, more nutritious diets and better health care for children, and subsequently to higher academic achievement for students. As a result of the research documenting WIC’s effectiveness, Administrations and Congresses of both parties have provided sufficient funding since 1997 to ensure that WIC can serve all eligible low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children who apply for it.

I think WIC, for the most part, is a great program. No doubt it's a challenge to nail down where the line is vis a vis empowering people with help, but then inadvertently baby stepping them into dependence on the government for a livelihood that, knowing human nature, results in a perpetual adult-toddler who is a lifelong taker rather than contributor to our society.

Anecdotally, my wife worked with a woman who broke down how people from her community would game the system, teach their children how to game the system, had people on the inside facilitating it due to a sense of entitlement, and this just because part of their culture. The woman disapproved of this, of course, but was just honest that it's not going to change unless the system was radically altered or done away with.

Anyway. Like I mentioned upthread this is just one area that King Cam would look at. King Cam would primarily target our military industrial complex and State department for big cuts, but he would also look at everything so everyone shoulders the burden of sacrifice so we can funnel money to projects that result in long-term national efficiency and viability.

- Doc

[_The CCC]

EAllusion:

In other words Internalize all the profits, and externalize all the costs. Drumpf's model for paying people who worked for him. I'd be rich too if I didn't have to pay people who worked for me.

That's not at all what I'm saying.

A business not compensating someone more is not "externalizing the costs." That does violence to what that phrase means. Redistributing wealth through progressive taxation actually hits wealthy business owners, in aggregate, harder than min wages do. That's something to recommend it if you believe redistribution should be progressive. The additional cost of min wages do not distribute through society in as clean of a progressive manner. To the extent that increased labor costs result in price increases, that hurts low income people who did not benefit from the min wage increases the most.

I'm not sure if you believe that you got to arbitrarily set the pay of people who worked for you, but you didn't. The price of labor is normally above min wage laws. Min wages only effect a fraction of low-value labor.

Tell that to the people who used to work for Carrier.

I always pay the people who work for me the amount they charge, plus a generous tip for good service.

Whether it is one person or millions of people a minimum wage needs to be a living wage.

Except that has never been the case in the US. A rising tide raises all boats.

[_cinepro]

I believe the proper model for "negotiating power" as held by the employer is a Monopsony. If you look at that graph you can see that wages increase along with the amount of labor when moving toward competitive equilibrium.

It's easy to explain why a minimum wage will help or hurt once you've assumed a model, the hard part is figuring out what the model should be. I think wages are down primarily thanks to globalization, but I've had similar thoughts as the author of the article for a secondary factor but for a different set of reasons than he gives.

Just as I support the government laws that break up monopolies, I would fully support government actions to break up and monopsonistic labor markets which are keeping wages artificially low (such as the incident where Google, Apple and other tech companies conspired to keep wages for software jobs low).

Of course, someone would first have to show that such a market exists in the United States in a market for low-skilled labor. But it doesn't. The market for low-skilled labor is so large and varied that it would be impossible to control it to the extent that it would be a monopsony. If wages are "too low", it is because demand is low or supply is high (globalization obviously being a huge factor in the supply of cheap labor). And artificially adjusting the price of that labor will predictably raise supply and lower demand, as always happens when a price floor is raised.

[_The CCC]

Not so much. There always is someone willing to work for less, and companies willing to pay less.
SEE http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politi ... -work-less