Yes, we could make all those cuts and changes and afford free higher education for all citizens...or we could maybe not build one or two new aircraft carriers and/or maybe mothball a few other pork barrel military welfare projects (by which I mean unwanted aircraft and/or vehicles) and pay for it all with no tax increase.

Sadly, we won't do any of the above because our system is, if not completely broken, at least being effectively sabotaged by many of those running it.

So you make up out of thin air the most depressing story of what this guy's life might eventually turn out to be, use words of divisiveness (look! he's scrounging off the taxpayer everyone!) and use that to justify pre-emptively killing mentally ill people who fit the definition of "dangerous" by your Dickensian outlook.

You want to talk about people scrounging off the taxpayer then let's talk about corporate welfare and dodgy tax havens, about how starbucks, google and amazon get away with paying no tax when we are taxed on our earnings. You call this ill man a scrounger, when george osbourne's family no less has a dodgy 6 million offshore tax deal to name but one of a million examples.

Or let's talk about this guy's parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters who paid into the social system, earning potentially millions for this country. In return they only ask that their son is cared for with respect and dignity in spite of the nature of his illness, and the social system would still have made a net surplus off their family.

How about we talk about the recovery he made as a counsellor for PTSD sufferers or other mentally ill people? Or how in ten years time he ends up as a lollipop man helping kids cross the street to school. What about all the tax he eventually paid on his subsequent and previous earnings, does that matter?

Your dim, dark prediction and understanding of mental illness AND socialism is fucking archaic. Were you frozen in Victorian Britain and thawed out last week or something? Go back to watching the idiot box, i'm sure the latest episode of benefits street will keep you distracted while cameron and his cronies swindle this country. I don't mean to make this overly political but this is EXACTLY what the politics of divide and rule is all about. The TV programs, the newspapers - with shows and stories about benefits and migrants - they all conspire to convince person A that they should blame person B, meanwhile person Z is laughing their way to the bank. And you lap it up and take it to the extreme of putting PEOPLE to sleep!?

In this country, we all contribute to the social system so that everyone can be looked after. It drives me potty hearing someone complain about taxpayer's money going to ill and unfortunate people when all it would take is one single bad day for that same person to suddenly need all that help and more.

One immigrant having a job meaning one less would be true except that some of them create jobs, the net result isn't as clear as you say.

Studies in other countries find that immigrants cost less in welfare than the rest of the population, I'm not really sure why the USA would be different. Any ideas?

There are far better qualified and knowledgeable people on here (@radx) who could explain that, but i'll try and explain why the video isn't bullshit.

Let's say the government spends a certain amount of money to build a road. That money goes a lot further than you think it does.
- whoever you pay to build it pays taxes on what they earn
- same for whoever you buy the materials/machinery from
- the road will probably be used by individuals and businesses spending money, so you've made that easier for them
- businesses stay afloat and keep trading, people's skills/training are not lost as they become unemployed
- saved yourself a whole bunch of money you would have had to spend in unemployment welfare

Because governments are not like people, they CAN spend money they don't have, to buy things that save them money! It's a simplistic analysis of a road and i'm no road building expert, but the term is "fiscal multiplication" and is used by governments to evaluate an investment. Governments are not like households, they can borrow £1.00 and get £2.00 back from it or more. For example over here in Britain there is a significant housing shortage, and one way of resolving that is by borrowing to invest in affordable & social housing. I think it was suggested that for every £1 spent on house building generates £2.50 back into the economy.

America is a sovereign nation that issues its own floating currency. Greece was not. There is no chance whatsoever of America, UK, Japan etc. becoming like Greece. Anyone saying that's possible is either scaremongering or heard it from someone who was.

I'm not saying the money has been spent or invested correctly, corruption and cronyism is rife in western politics. But that's an argument against government corruption rather than one against investment and debt. This isn't the first time we've tried austerity, it also isn't the highest debt-GDP ratio has been either for the US or the UK. The lessons of history have been you can't cut your way to prosperity, you have to invest towards it. That's the weight of economic thought right now afaik.

Remember kids, if you had the skill and determination to be born in America then you have earned the right for a job!

ps. fuck those entitled welfare leeches taking all our work!

It's certainly a complex economic issue that I won't pretend to have any deep understanding of, I just think the jingoism stinks something awful.

I agree the story in your link is overkill, but I called the cops in a similar situation just last year. Two little girls walking down a busy (15-20 cars per minute) rural road, obviously nowhere near home, neither one over 4 or 5 years. Freaked me right out. I wasn't in it to embarrass anyone like the bitch portrayed in your link, but sincerely worried about the kids. When making assumptions in children's welfare, you're never truly wrong dropping to the lowest denominator.

I don't give to the Big Issue Seller
'Cause he's probably on heroin
I walk past him with a grin
And if I can, I kick his dog

No I don't give to the busker
He's talentless and lazy
He's ruining the country
I think he should get a job

Instead I give my money to:
Walmart, for its tax evasion
Primark, for its child labour
Texaco for the next invasion
Don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to the millionaires
Give my money to the millionaires
Give all my money to the millionaires
And I don't give a fuck about you

No, I don't give to the beggar
That's what I pay my taxes for
The government should shove him through the door
Of a prison cell, or a hospital

I don't give to the homeless pisshead
He'll blow it all on booze instead
Such a waster doesn't deserve a bed
What do you mean welfare is dead?

Because I give my money to:
Walmart, for its tax evasion
Primark, for its child labour
Texaco for the next invasion
Don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to the millionaires
Give my money to the millionaires
Give all my money to the millionaires
And I don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to:
Starbucks, in case they get hard up
BP, 'cause making living ain't easy
Barclays, do they look after me?
And I don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to the millionaires
Give my money to the millionaires
Give all my money to the millionaires
And I don't give a fuck about you

I'm not a historian so i might be getting this wrong, but i'd been led to believe:

a) Germany itself was in debt after WW1, and the economic hardship forced on them in the form of reparations has been postulated as a reason why the Nazi party rose to power in the first place. When people are desperate, they look for someone to blame. Over in the UK, the government have ensured that we're blaming immigrants and anyone on welfare for these economic hardships that were caused by the rich elite and ruling classes, corrupt to the very core and no longer working in the interests of the country and its people.

b) European countries agreed to forget large portions of Germany's debts, because back then we seemed to know that is was pointless to wreck a country and cause untold misery, pain and death to the residents all in the name of profiting off them.

I am so disgusted and overwhelmed by how badly everything is being run, and how obviously it is being run for the benefit of a minority. I hope Greece sticks two fingers up to the lot of them and does an Iceland, followed by every other European country doing something similar. We can't hope to carry on like this, we can't let power hungry psychopaths control the world... we won't survive like this.

Greece accumulated debt in a foreign currency (Euro). Had they been using a free-floating currency with Greece as the sovereign issuer, it would have been much less of a problem. But that's a different discussion.

You brought up retirement benefits. These benefits have been a major talking point over here in mercantilistic Germany. Unfortunatly, a lot of inaccuracies crept into the debate over time. A closer look reveals that it's not as black and white as it is made out to be. One point at a time...

The effective retirement age, if we look at OECD stats, is basically the same for men in Greece and Germany. The age of 56 is often thrown around as the expected average retirement age for workers in Greece, but that's only for the totally messed up public sector. The average for the private sector is significantly higher, as the OECD numbers indicate.

Yet the size of retirement benefits is even more controversial. There are, in fact, some very dubious practices going on in Greece, which result in rediculous retirement benefits for a select group of people, even at very young ages. Decades of nepotism, that's what it produces. But even so, pension expenditure as a % of GDP was not significantly higher in Greece before the GFC than in Germany. When Greek GDP collapsed, expenditures as a % increased, naturally. Some have gotten absurd benefits, but the majority got a pittance. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Greece doesn't have a social safety net, unlike Germany. There is no welfare. Many people have to take early retirement at reduced benefits to have any income at all.
So I'll say it's bad in Germany. Last decade's changes to our retirement system have a metric fuckton of people (~40% of workers) heading straight into poverty when they retire. It's social security for them, and nothing else. Still, it's bliss compared to what the plebs in Greece now ended up with.

However, even all those beautiful OECD stats have to be taken with a grain of salt. Germany has a working bureaucracy. Everything is documented. Greece is a mess. Therefore, all comparisons are guesstimates at best.

Finally, as long as the Greek economy produces enough goods and services, it is for them to decide how to distribute their wealth. If they want a lavish retirement system, so be it. Our governments opted to create a true underclass of the working poor, and gutted a retirement system that made it through two world wars unscathed. If German retirees want to bitch about their benefits, it should be aimed squarely at our governments and their intentional deconstruction of our social welfare state.

Thanks for that update, you are able to provide info that my usual sources just aren't.

The reports I have seen from Greece are similar, they just want it dealt with.

The thing I really don't understand is why the creditors are so insistent that it is ONLY the poor who have to lose out. I mean, the welfare system is a large expense but not the only one... surely they could get a few bob for some of their old military aircraft?

The whole public debt isn't actually that large, at about €29,000 per Greek, and the amount due any time soon is also not that large, it's just inconceivable to me that it could have come to this.

At some point, yes. But for the time being, increases in productivity (automation) are less of a job killer than your everyday policies and ideologies.

Speaking of my own country, the amount of work not being done is enormous, and the aggregate of work not having been done over the last decades is absolutely staggering. The current economic system not only unloaded a great number of burdens onto society, it also never found a way to come up with a way to integrate the aforementioned work. No one is willing to pay for it, so it doesn't get done, period. The most prominent examples would be infrastructure works of all kinds (energy, most of all), ecological restauration and care for the elderly. Our national railroad alone could hire 100,000 people and still be understaffed.

You can have full employment next year, but not if you expect the private sector to provide the jobs within the current system. The public sector could create them, if you use a sovereign, free-floating currency, but ideology doesn't allow for it.

As long as we focus on finding people for a given job, there'll be mass unemployment, no matter what. Reverse the process, create/find jobs for a given people and we might make some headway.

Again, ideology doesn't allow for it. And that's also what made me stop advocating for an unconditional basic income (UBI). The financial details of it can be a nightmare, yes, and it would be a break with a social welfare system that survived two world wars. But the deal breaker for me was politics.

A UBI would mean taking the boot of the peasants' necks. Liberty and (some) equality made real. Love it.
But look at how vicious the Greeks are attacked these days, not just by the elite, but by our fellow worker bees. They're not just burying the last bit of European solidarity in Greece, they're unloading all their frustrations onto the schmucks who had very little to begin with. It's despicable. And it indicates to me that any attempt to introduce a system that would take from people the need to work would unleash unimaginable hatred from the usual suspects. And significant portions of the public would go along with it, given how easy it already is to channel their frustrations towards "welfare queens" and "moochers".

So yeah, a UBI would be lovely. Finally some liberty, finally more negotiating power for the worker (can decline any job offer without repression). But the shit would need to hit the fan hard before there can be any room within the political sphere for it.

The devil is in the details, isn't it?

For instance, what kind of guaranteed minimum income are we talking about?

The context they used (automatisation, labour supply) suggests to me something along the lines of an unconditional basic income. If that's the case, it cannot be compared to a minimum wage at all, since it has effects that go far beyond the labour market and the income situation. It's a massive reshaping of how we organise society. And it becomes a pain in the ass to even conceptualise properly once you talk about how to finance it...

A minimum wage, no matter how decent it is, doesn't even put a dent into the disparity between income from labour and income from capital. It makes life less horrible for those it applies to and it somewhat curtails the welfare queens among corporations who like their wage slaves being paid for by society. Yes, I'm looking at you, Walmart! Still, on its own, it does very little about income inequality, and nothing at all about wealth inequality.

How would I address income inequality?

In German, the words for taxes and steering are the same: "Steuern". If you want to steer the income towards a more equal distribution, taxation might be the easiest way to go about it. Treat all forms of income equally in terms of taxation. Or go one step further and treat wages preferentially to support employment.

However, redistribution will only get you so far. So why not address it at an earlier stage: distribution. Mondragon serves as a successful example of how a cooperative structure puts democratic checks and balances on the wage structure within a corporation. One person, one vote puts the lid on any attempts by higher-ups to rake in 300 times as much as the peasants on the factory floor.

Yet it doesn't do anything about the inequality between wages and capital income. Even a combination of progressive taxation and fixed income-ratios doesn't do much about it. Especially since non-wage income can evade taxation in a million different ways and most politicians in every country in the world seem more than eager to protect what loopholes they created over the decades.

So what's my suggestion? Well, progressive taxation of both income and wealth, living wage plus job guarantee, support of democratic structures at the workplace, international pressure on tax havens (which includes my own fecking country). Realistic? No. But neither was our welfare system until it was implemented.

@bobknight33
here is what i don't get about you or lantern:
1.you state that you are a conservative with a "tea party" flavor to your politics,
YET...
you consistently defend the power of the state to authorize our ever-increasing militarized police force to engage in violence and brutality which often leads to the death of a citizen,often with impunity (such as this case).

this is neither conservative nor tea party,it is fascist.

2.many of your arguments point to obeying a lawful order,be polite and respectful and much of the brutality and violence would end.on this point i totally agree,
BUT....
you totally ignore how "equal under law" has been perverted to only serve the elite and those who can "pay for justice" and how the system of "justice" has been corrupted to target minorities and the economically insolvent (poor) and feed them into the largest prison system on the planet.

they are commodifying the poor,blacks,latinos in the name of profit,all for the same elitist fucknozzles who perpetrated fraud,theft and outright lies,walking away with trillions of our money and not a single indictment.(check that,ONE indictment of a low level banker..whoopdy-shit).

yet i see you consistently BLAME the poor,black and latino.

this is not conservative nor tea party....it is racist.

3.many of your posts deal with a corrupt government.how it is bloated and inefficient.you decry the 'welfare/nanny state" and the horrible misappropriation of funds.

this is a typical,and necessary argument.that is the way of political dialogue and while i am not debating here the finer points nor the validity of your position,i am,however,saying the discussion is a necessary one to engage in.

however,

you,almost without fail,disregard and will actually DEFEND:police brutality and military action on foreign soil.yet BOTH of these institutions are exclusively government controlled,operated and executed.(which is why many of lanterns posts make me laugh).

this is not conservative nor tea party ......... it is the epitome of cognitive dissonance.

my point is:
your arguments and positions are not philosophically harmonious.
they are in direct opposition.your posted philosophies are a direct contradiction to what you espouse.

here is an example of late:
@newtboy tends to post cops behaving badly videos.
you will chime in,almost always,siding with the cop (in one fashion or another).
newtboy will make an argument about exercising your rights.the rights as a citizen in a situation with a representative of the state..
AND YOU WILL ARGUE WITH HIM.

in that instance..newtboy is more a tea party conservative than you are bob.

think about that for a moment bob....
newt is MORE of a patriot and constitutionalist than YOU are.
maybe you are just being a contrarian?
maybe just a bit of trolling?

but...in the end,your arguments make no sense due to their contradictory nature.
you can't be for a smaller,more accountable government and then look the other way when that very same government is over-stepping it's lawful directives.

Interesting that you assume a black woman with four kids is on welfare. My mum had four kids, I wonder what you would have assumed about her?

"WE" is the nation as a whole. Because you wish to separate yourself from the rest of us does not mean 'there is no we', it only means you aren't one of us (or don't want to be).
I live in the real world, where most people are poor planners, and most people don't have the means to plan anyway (more every day, thanks to un-livable wages being the norm). It's not defeatist, it's realist. It would be wonderful if we all had the gift of forethought, perfect knowledge of financial planning, prognostication to be able to know what your needs WILL be, and the income to be able to follow through with financial plans. I live well on 1/2 of a <$30K income and take NO help from anywhere, but most people don't have my advantages or the willingness to live with less, or the time and space to do things like grow their own food, or the property and money/credit to get a solar/wind generation system, even though it saves them tons in the long term, they simply don't have the financial ability to plan long term.
I don't see what your next paragraph has to do with the topic. (It reminds me of the saying 'god only gives you the burden you can carry' which ignores the thousands that commit suicide because their burden was more than they could stand.) One can only rise to the opportunities one is presented with, those that have limited opportunities often have no way to 'rise to the occasion' or 'over come adversity', they can't even overcome their food bills, no matter how hard they work at Wendy's.

I'm for getting rid of 'government cheese' for anyone that does not need it, but removing all programs leaves us back in the 30's with roving gangs of the destitute clogging the streets, expensive abusive state run institutions for the elderly poor, and the economy tanking. I could support a 'means test' or the like for 'welfare' and social security, but it would benefit us all if everyone had access to healthcare, and in the long run would even save those who do pay for it, because as I've said repeatedly, we already pay their bills after the fact (by paying higher bills to cover for those that don't/won't/can't pay their bill). Giving us all access to healthcare outside the emergency room saves us ALL money...and removing the insurance industry middleman saves another 10%-25% that we get NO benefit from.

It's about addressing the real world, not insisting all people should act intelligently and fore-thoughtfully at all times, and designing a system that only works if they do and leads to disaster if they don't. I do not believe people, as a group, are good at planning for their future, and we all do better when at least the minimum of financial planning is taken care of by intelligent educated people rather than left to those who plan poorly. Sometimes that means paying to not have people camped on your lawn waiting to rob you...and it's cheaper to put them in an apartment than in jail. The systems could certainly be better (I'm not holding my breath that they will be improved though), but having no 'safety net' at all has already proven to be far worse for everyone, and the country as a whole in many ways.