From: root@netmail.austin.ibm.com (Chris Moller)
Newsgroups: tx.politics,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: The blame game
Date: 8 Sep 92 15:44:11 GMT
Reply-To: moller@netmail.austin.ibm.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: As little as I can get away with.

In article <1992Sep5.180712.9130@awdprime.austin.ibm.com>, curt@ekhadafi.austin.ibm.com (Curt Finch 903 2F021 curt@aixwiz.austin.ibm.com 512-838-2806) writes:
|>> >>curt@ekhadafi.austin.ibm.com writes:
|>> >>> No more government freebies for anyone who makes over 20k.
|>> 
|>> >(Chris Moller) writes:
|>> >>No more freebies, period.
|>>  
|>> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
|>> >Who pays to bury all the poor people who starve, die from exposure,
|>> >etc?
|>> 
|>> Well Fred, unlike Chris, I'm all for helping the poor.

Actually, I'm not particularly opposed to helping the poor, it's just that
I don't think it appropriate that I, or anyone else, be compelled by law to
support institutional charity.  If _you_ want to donate all your worldly wealth
and time to alleviating poverty, have at it.  Enjoy it.  But don't you think
it's a bit presumptuous of _you_ to be charitable with _my_ money?


I take it as a truism that "the poor" are less productive in terms of their
contributions to society than the "non-poor":  either they have no jobs at all,
or the jobs they do have are not those society values greatly and thus does not
pay well enough to live on.  (This is not a pejorative comment; it merely seems
to be true.)  If such people are to survive, then, it appears that society must
contribute more to their sustenance than they contribute to society.  Obviously,
this contribution to the survival of the poor must come out of any excess pro-
ductivity (i.e., productivity greater than necessary for mere survival) by other
members of society.

Obviously, no society can afford, in the long term, to expend more on its poor
than the "excess" productivity of its productive members.  I'll even maintain
that, since this "excess" is what provides for the growth of society as a whole
(in such things as scientific and technological development, artistic endeavors,
and individual incentive) no society can afford to spend a significantly large
fraction of that excess on the poor.

There are, of course, long-term economic consequences of excessive support for
the poor, of which a couple I can think of off the top of my head:

    Less re-investment capital available, resulting in slower growth of the
    economy, resulting in fewer new jobs, to the ultimate detriment of the poor
    themselves.

    Greater government involvement in society, resulting the compulsory support
    of more otherwise unproductive government employees, resulting in fewer
    resources available for the poor, as well as everyone else.

It looks to me that the US has long passed the economic limits of support for
its poor.


There appears to be, to some, an emotional appeal to "helping the poor".
Unfortunately, the effect of that kind of emotion in econmics is largely
deleterious.  The obvious "solutions" to the problem of poverty espoused
by those possessed of these emotions -- giving money and other resources
to the poor -- seem to be at best well intentioned but simplistic, and at
worst, may represent long term economic disaster for society.

|>>                                                         Too bad our
|>> current system, (which you seem so thrilled with that you want to 
|>> expand it,) doesn't help the poor.  It helps the middle class the
|>> most and the wealthy quite a bit.
|>> 
|>> Liberal or Conservative, surely anyone can see the necessity of
|>> changing this.
|>> 
|>> We can't afford it.
|>> Let's not wait until we're bankrupt to fix it.
|>> -- 
|>> --
|>> curt@aixwiz.austin.ibm.com (Curt L. Finch) | AIX NFS/NIS Field Quality 
|>> My views are unrelated to those of IBM     |        Austin, TX
|>>  FICA doesn't help the poor.  It mostly goes to old people with incomes >$40k.

-- 
IBM pays absolutely no attention to my	|   "America is a mistake, a giant
opinions, ergo the foregoing cannot	|   mistake!"
possibly represent its position.	|     -- Sigmund Freud

Christian H. L. Moller