PO'ed Veteran

[Loren49]

I feel that the needy should be given the food staples with a small amount of discretionary choices. Food Stamps come with many restrictions but still allow lots of junk food. Even with staples distributed there would be some who trade or sell them for cash.
Note that most all welfare money distributed in a community is spent there and is then spent again by the businesses. Corporate profits are not spent in the local community - many times it goes overseas or just pads someones wealth. They just reap the tax dollar handouts, lobby congress to affect the laws, and reap the profits. Sweettractors - your analysis is an oversimplification - have you actually offered an able bodied welfare recipient $20/hr and had them refuse? I bet the corporate CEO who laid of 300 workers to justify their $2.3 million dollar bonus would not work for $20/ hr either.
Many welfare recipients have serious mental and/or physical issues that keep them out of the work force. There are a good number who are on welfare for a short time and are able to get back on their feet. The option of a large group of hungry, angry people is not good - look at places where that has happened (lots of big fences around the homes of the wealthy in Haiti - and Florida )

A bit of reality in this article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909803-6,00.html

"There are enough who fit each aspect of the composite to unfairly tar all the needy, but the reality of poverty in the U.S. is not what myth would have it. A majority of the welfare recipients in the country are white (58%), and thousands of them—many from high paying jobs, especially in engineering—a�re now discovering the shock of poverty for the first time. Forty-two percent are nonwhite, more than three times their proportion of the population is testimony to the dislocation and discrimination in American society."........"But the fact is that chicanery accounts for a very small part of welfare's cost. The last HEW study estimates that only four out of every 1,000 of those on welfare actually cheat."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909803-6,00.html#ixzz12hdoREWz


"everybody needs someone to look down on"
Loren

 

[sweettractors]

I have tried for years to get these people to help and they will not work for any amount of money because of the reasons I stated above. I can get migrant workers out the ya-zoo and they are hard workers. They are not on the government dole, heck, the government don't even know they are here. I grew up ion the fifties and sixties and when a family fell on hard times, the Church's, Neighbors and family members supported them until they could get back on their feet. I know I am in the minority here, but, I liked the old fashioned way of helping a lot better. My Uncle died in 1959 and left a wife and 5 kids on a unpaid for farm. We all helped until they recovered and my Aunt lived to be 94 and the 5 Kids all turned out fine and are contributing members of society today. Ken Sweet

 

[dmccarty]

The Feds just hit CVS with $75 million worth of fines and another $2.6 million in lost profits because the company did not keep track of products using pseudophedrine. Pseudophedrine is used to make Meth.

"This case shows what happens when companies fail to follow their ethical and legal responsibilities," said U.S. Attorney Andr誕 Birotte Jr. "CVS knew it had a duty to prevent methamphetamine trafficking, but it failed to take steps to control the sale of a regulated drug used by methamphetamine cooks as an essential ingredient for their poisonous stew."

So don't blame the companies. Blame the Feds and the State for passing laws and regulations that the companies have to follow. NC passed limitations on OTC drugs a few years ago to make it harder for Meth production. The number of labs making Meth fell dramatically after the law went into effect.

Meth can and was being made in homes. Production of Meth is very dangerous and can kill. The waste products of the Meth production is also nasty and was just getting dumped where ever. Really nasty stuff. Not to mention what it does to a person.

Later,
Dan

 

[sweettractors]

I have family member serving on the current Grand Jury and the prosecutor told the jurors that the meth charged cases would not go to jail as the jails were full. That really does not give a jury a lot of other viable choices. Ken Sweet

 

[brin]

I have tried for years to get these people to help and they will not work for any amount of money because of the reasons I stated above. I can get migrant workers out the ya-zoo and they are hard workers. They are not on the government dole, heck, the government don't even know they are here. I grew up ion the fifties and sixties and when a family fell on hard times, the Church's, Neighbors and family members supported them until they could get back on their feet. I know I am in the minority here, but, I liked the old fashioned way of helping a lot better. My Uncle died in 1959 and left a wife and 5 kids on a unpaid for farm. We all helped until they recovered and my Aunt lived to be 94 and the 5 Kids all turned out fine and are contributing members of society today. Ken Sweet

I agree with you Ken...I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties as well and folks did take care of other folks back then when they fell on hard times, the government wasn't needed and would not be needed now had " The great society " not created so many welfare dependent folks..

 

[jbooth]

I agree with you Ken...I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties as well and folks did take care of other folks back then when they fell on hard times, the government wasn't needed and would not be needed now had " The great society " not created so many welfare dependent folks..

I grew up in the same time frame. My small rural town took care of it's own. Unfortunately I had to move to an urban area for work and would hate to try my luck at being poor/hungry here. One of the problems is that society has bunched the poor less fortunate (maybe lazy I don't know) people in one area and there are no middle class or rich people nearby to help. It's not hard being poor, if everybody around you is poor. That's all good until a rich SOB moves nearby to give you grand ideas. I don't believe the poor people have changed as much as the rich people who are willing to give a helping hand have disappeared. What has really changed is the standard of living. Not bad giving a person something to eat, but it's a different story furnishing cable TV and a $10,000 car and $3.00 a gallon gas for that car.

 

[Sigarms]

I agree with you Ken...I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties as well and folks did take care of other folks back then when they fell on hard times, the government wasn't needed and would not be needed now had " The great society " not created so many welfare dependent folks..

I have no doubt that throughout the history of man, people in their middle age complained about the current society they live in and wished that "things were they way they were when they grew up".

I even bet people in their middle age years in the 50's and 60's made the comment that things were better in the 20's and 30's whey they grew up LOL

As for laws, and why laws get enacted, watching this video may make you realize why...

YouTube - San Francisco 1905 - 1906 (short form)

 

[MossRoad]

I have no doubt that throughout the history of man, people in their middle age complained about the current society they live in and wished that "things were they way they were when they grew up".

I even bet people in their middle age years in the 50's and 60's made the comment that things were better in the 20's and 30's whey they grew up LOL

Uh, no! That was the depression. My dad and mom always said things were much better in the 50's and 60's than they were in the 20's and 30's.

 

[Loren49]

I agree completely with the concept of helping friends and neighbors. I believe that was the way it was in the 1930s but with no social programs there was suffering, hunger, and homelessness with no place to turn. Most of us did not live in that time and I believe have no clue about how it was when the bank failed, the life savings were gone, the crops failed and people were hungry. Free market did not solve that for years.
The following site shows that there were ten years of unemployment rates over 10% (high of about 25%). How did it work by letting many things fail - how many lives were shattered. Was it really better without a social safety net? No social security, medicare, medicade, unemployment insurance, etc. and thousands of people losing their life savings as hundreds of banks failed. How did total free market work? Look at unemployment in the mid 80s (near 10%)- thought they were the good old days.

Unemployment 1930's vs Today

We've got it pretty good.

Loren

 

[Sigarms]

Uh, no! That was the depression. My dad and mom always said things were much better in the 50's and 60's than they were in the 20's and 30's

Curious as to how old your parents are? My dad is pushing towards 80 and he really doesn't remember the depression.

I do however remember living with my grandmother when my father was overseas serving in the military fighting in a "conflict" (my father made a great life for himself being a "career man" in the military). Both sets of my grandparents came over off a boat after 1900, and I never knew my grandfathers. I actually had three being that my one grandmother (who I lived with) remarried, she having six children, her "new" husband having five children as well, having another child between them. I never met any of my grandfathers being that they all died an early death (two in the coal mines, one due to a lumbering accident).

I mention my grandmother who I knew because

We've got it pretty good

and that is EXACTLY what my grandmother use to tell me all the time.

I also remember her telling me that coming off a boat, living in America (even during the depression) was "easy" to what she was use to in her native land.

To some extent, I have no doubt that each new generation is spoiled compared to the previous generation. Numerous reasons, one being technology.

The way I have it figured, the human spirit, for better or worse, is alive in all future generations to come, even after we're all long gone.