[Xqjfxmfk]

do you really believe that old age means you will never again be productive...just wait till you get old ...?!

Maybe we should kill them when they are 30........

[epPtsDno]

If we're talking "normal" unemployed (meaning non-elderly able bodied), give them the normal six months unemployment, then they're on their own. If they end up living under a bridge, so be it. However, that doesn't happen in the vast majority of cases. Looking into the abyss is very motivating. People figure out how to get by. I would also limit repeated uses of unemployment. I was having a conversation with a few friends about this, and they were bringing up how they know people who knew how to "surf" the system (work as minimally as possible and stay on unemployment as maximally as possible). This should be detectable and preventable. There would be no welfare for able bodied adults. If you have kids and you can't/won't support them, they'd be subject taken away (especially if they were born while the parents were in no position to support them.) While I have reservations about state or private social services agencies raising kids, kid cannot be allowed to be used as lever to extort benefit money. I think if it gets seen that having kids doesn't get you benefits, you'll see a lot less kids born into poverty.

I'm going to point out something that has already happened (or is in the process of happening) but no one wants to acknowledge: The concept of retirement as it has been known for the last fifty years or so, basically as an extended vacation from late middle age until death, is over. It's just not going to be affordable for the vast majority of people hitting "retirement age". And the gov't is not in a position to try to prop up this concept. SS will at some point have to end it's retirement benefits system, and convert everything to something like it's disability program (SSI). When someone reaches a point where they're physically unable to work, they can apply for disability, subject to rigorous examination. But if they're still able bodied at any age, they won't get benefits.

Okay, I'll take the bait ...

What do you suggest that we DO with all those unproductive types that are dragging you down? And please carry out the argument to the end, and not simply post the easy first step of cutting them loose.

[layedgebiamma]

If we're talking "normal" unemployed (meaning non-elderly able bodied), give them the normal six months unemployment, then they're on their own. If they end up living under a bridge, so be it. However, that doesn't happen in the vast majority of cases. Looking into the abyss is very motivating. People figure out how to get by.

The people you earlier describes as "working and just scraping by" may not realize how easily they can fall into poverty. A lot of it is caused by sinking into debt. And before you say "don't go into debt," tell me how easy that is when you have children.

If you have kids and you can't/won't support them, they'd be subject taken away (especially if they were born while the parents were in no position to support them.) While I have reservations about state or private social services agencies raising kids, kid cannot be allowed to be used as lever to extort benefit money. I think if it gets seen that having kids doesn't get you benefits, you'll see a lot less kids born into poverty. How would those people those people that are just scraping by, already pissed about people not working and getting benefits, feel about paying to raise their children?

If you fell into poverty, would you want your children taken away by the state?

[paypaltoegold1]

Less kids born into poverty if we do not help support them?

What world are you coming from? You realize that they no longer pay more for kids after, I believe, the third, so this is a lame comment.

To turn the table, if we were to regress even further where kids were not guaranteed some sort of medical care and our infant and childhood mortality rate started to climb back up, how much you wanna bet we start going back to "old school" methods in which more kids = a greater chance of having some survive to adulthood?

They still HAVE this in some of the very countries you describe where "we should us them as an example of true 'poverty'" (paraphrase). Seems like true poverty does not make a good prophylactic...

The key here is simple. Money is not needed to be thrown at a problem, but money is not to be eliminated either. Unfortunately, we do not seem to have many that will agree to APPLYING the money in ways that work rather than just shuffling it around to as many different administrators as possible before it gets thrown out the door of a passing crop duster.

[Illisezek]

BBMW - Your comments are incredible. I don't have time to address the all here but I would remind you that we're talking about people living in poverty which encompasses more than just the. They do not always correlate. What about the underemployed and other working poor?

Your comments regarding the unemployed living under a bridge are astonishing. In this economic climate it takes people more than 6 months to find jobs. That surf the system observation is bullshit. This is not a case of motivation it is a case of lack of opportunity.

As for SS it will continue to exist in some fashion. They may raise the retirement age, or eliminate the payroll tax ceiling, but it will continue to exist. The idea that people will work until they die of old age is politically non-viable.

[pepBarihepe]

One of the biggest things that has happened is that the advent of transportation and globalization has made it so that the "traditional" family and even township is no longer a community. You can't get the family to take care of grandpa because Jr is out working in Pennsylvania, the kids are all in different states as well, and the "community" could not care more than the fact that Grandpa does not mow his lawn often enough.

Every so often you get a church group to come in and help, but it is just not a tight family or community anymore....

Now we could go BACK to this, but we would be CRUSHED in the global market.

As for SS, it always amazes me that those that cry out "socialism" at the drop of a hat would be the ones that would actually enjoy a good barn raising. Nothing says "America" like a bunch of people coming together ot help another out......but that isn't socialism.....

[orerviche]

I'm loving the image of hordes under bridges, munching on the bones of the unproductive. Not to mention fenced in masses of young ones, pining for Ma & Pa, crying for food (which of course won't be available to them until they perform 12 hours of work per day).

BBMW: You only took your USA Disposal argument to Step Two: Cutting Them Loose (which doesn't require much more thought than Step One: Cutting Them Off).

You've not told us what society should expect to do with / keep itself safe from the 14,000,000 currently unemployed. By your argument they've proven themselves unproductive by the mere fact that they don't work, and are thereby worthless to society (and you and yours). My original option (a nail through the forehead for one and all) does have those bothersome burial costs, so that's probably no longer viable (given the harsh economic reality we're dealing with). So ...

Should we mulch them up and spread them about as fatteners in the holding pens at the local slaughterhouse? Perhaps round them up and dump them in some holding tank near a Pennsylvania fracking site? Or transport them en masse to one of our island Protectorates, where they can productively sew jeans and t-shirts and work off the cost of their South Seas transport?

So many unproductive types, so many options.

I'm all ears.

[realfan87]

If we're talking "normal" unemployed (meaning non-elderly able bodied), give them the normal six months unemployment, then they're on their own. If they end up living under a bridge, so be it. However, that doesn't happen in the vast majority of cases. Looking into the abyss is very motivating. People figure out how to get by. Do you mean normal employment to include working at places like Walmart for 7 to 10 dollars per hour? The report out this month states that more than 15% of the US population is living in poverty. Other statistics show that more than 9% are unemployed. That means that *many* millions are employed and are already living in poverty. These people don't need to look into the abyss -- they're already in it looking out.

I would also limit repeated uses of unemployment. That's great, and I am sure nearly all of the currently employed people would like to limit their uses of unemployment insurance, which they pay year in and year out.

I was having a conversation with a few friends about this, and they were bringing up how they know people who knew how to "surf" the system (work as minimally as possible and stay on unemployment as maximally as possible). This should be detectable and preventable. There would be no welfare for able bodied adults. If you have kids and you can't/won't support them, they'd be subject taken away (especially if they were born while the parents were in no position to support them.) I don't know where to start. You assume many or even most of the 45 million people living in poverty, including the elderly and children, are freeloading. Some people will abuse *any* social welfare system, and I agree they need to be stopped whenever and however it is possible. But this is NOT the leading cause of poverty or its cure.

I'm going to point out something that has already happened (or is in the process of happening) but no one wants to acknowledge: The concept of retirement as it has been known for the last fifty years or so, basically as an extended vacation from late middle age until death, is over. Ay yai yai...

[MeverikcNils]

Let's not forget to take away their Cadillacs (which they use to navigate their crafty unemployment schemes).

About this: No one wants to acknowledge that "the concept of retirement" is not what it was a generation ago???

Gotta ask: How old are you? And who do you hang out with? You must be on Mars or somewhere equally isolated if this conversation isn't taking place in your world.