If your poor, good news. The rich are paying your healthcare.

[Sardauk]

TheRealMafoo said:

Sardauk said:

Viper1 said:

Actually it's not every man for himself. You see, America leads the world in charitable donations per capita. We believe in helping ourselves. We depend on each other. It is because our patriotism is so strong that we help each other ourselves without the intrusion of unwarranted government bureaucracy in the process.

It might sounds like an odd concept to those outside the US but it works for us.

It sounds odd indeed

I understand what you mean with the charitable donations... but isn't the risk of this sytem to just maintain a status quo and not proposing real solution ?

In this economical context, how many chances have poor people to reach higher social conditions ?

 

Here in Europe it is a bit a West vs East situation. People got mad when the Union send tons of money to the east (post-communist countries) but it worked. It created new markets and a new economical situation.

The best way to keep someone poor, is to give them money. The best way to "reach higher social conditions", is to give them the opportunity to work there way to it.

Also, when the "social condition" scale slides, everyone is effected, even the poor. When GDP goes up, the poor benefit. When it goes down, they suffer, even if it's not the poor making the additional GDP.

Socializing, makes GDP go down, every time. 

We had a long thread on this once. And it came down to people thought was best for the poor. Would you rather they have an absolute improvement in living standard (meaning vs how they would be compared to themselves under a different government system), or would you prefer then have a better relative standard of living (compared to the rich). 

It's amazing how it fell. The Republicans thought it would be better that there life improve absolutely, and the democrats thought it better that there lived improve relatively, even if it meant they had a lower standard of living (meaning if they only slightly lost standard of living, but the rich lost a lot, the world would be better).

So, in the end, both sides want a better life for the poor. They just disagree on what's better.

 

Of course, that is the key of the problem. But I do believe that helping is necessary at some point.

 

The (cliché) example is the grameen bank, it is working where years of (classical) charity models failed.

 

I'm also again'st giving money (...) but you have to do something ..

Here in Belgium, we have families with multiple generations who never worked... and the socialist party is maintaining them into a mid-poor (assisted) condition so that they keep voting for them... but I don't see that happening in the US.