So don't help them, even though a rich kid has "an easier path than a poor kid", and both of their situations exist through sheer happenstance? I don't know what food stamp slavery is. Sounds made-up.
Just because not everyone's path is as easy as another doesn't mean that you should decide to make things harder for some, to steal from them because YOU think it's unfair. As to food stamp slavery, it's what you are doing when you give handouts to those at the bottom and make it to where they can get by with an unacceptable lifestyle. When people can get by doing little to nothing, oftentimes they choose to keep doing little to nothing. It's another way they stay poor. You see this kind of thing when people ride unemployment out all of the way because it pays almost as much as getting another job and you don't have to do anything in a lot of cases to keep getting it. Also when you subsidize poor people, you make it to where they can get by with lower wages, so there's no incentive for businesses to raise them. If people were literally starving to death due to low wages, they'd have to increase the wage in order to get people to work for them. Every time people dick around with the natural flow of the system there are unintended consequences.
I often wonder about this. My wife works for a gentleman that is very wealthy. Much more than the $100 million someone threw out. On one hand, he has plenty of money. He buys nice things, has vacation homes, rides in a jet, takes care of the people in his family and his friends, etc...but that actually takes a fraction of the money he actually has. He could "afford" to not have a bunch of his money. On the other hand, he's incredibly generous. He's given away large swaths of money that actually make a big, tangible difference to the community. He also earned every dime he has. He started in a small town in Texas with nothing and worked his way up. No "small loan" of $1 million. He started his own business, took risks, made and lost what we would consider fortunes (declared bankruptcy twice before starting all over again). Smarts, hard work, risks, and a little luck got him where he is today. I certainly would not have followed his path personally. Once I got my first bit of money to be "rich" I would have quit and retired. He poured it back into his business and risked it all multiple times. So really I guess...any amount of money he made and earned, I really have no right to say it is "enough". He has employed thousands of people, he has given away hundreds of millions of dollars, and generally made the world a better place. He's not some evil rich guy keeping people down. He is a kind, generous guy that would go out of his way to help many people..so I find it very difficult to demonize someone like him that happens to have earned billions in his lifetime with his own choices. By the way...there are more people worth in the billions than you think there are because they don't show up on any "Fortune" list...
What's your opinion about what Gary Johnson implemented when he was Gov. of NM with food stamps? If you don't know what I'm asking about I'll try to provide a link later (don't have time right now)
I'm not sure what he did with food stamps, so if you get a link when you can, I'll read up on it and let you know what I think.
Mo Money Mo Problems. But seriously, money isn't everything. Would you rather work your ass off 80+ hours a week to make $100,000+ or work 40-50 hours a week doing what you love and make $50,000-60,000 (Assuming you could live off the $50,000-60,000 no issues)? Some people see money and how much you can make as a competition or an endless goal (like working out and how much weight you can push/pull/move). Money can make things easier, but can also make things a lot worse, it can bring out the worst in people. This is of course not to say being broke is a good thing (it isn't). But getting by just fine vs living in excess (some cases extreme excess) are two different realms and I'm not sure true happiness gets better with more money from getting by just fine as a standard starting point. Yes you can buy nicer things, but happiness doesn't (shouldn't at least) tie into material things. At the end of the day, I guess what really matters is, how do you react to your position in the money scale? Are you generous with your fortune? Are you always complaining about your position? Are you doing your best to improve your position? Are you wasting your fortune in unnecessary things or ways? There's a religious quote that goes something like "It is easier for a camel to go through the hole of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven." I try to remember this when I get money hungry or day dream of fortunes. It helps keep me sane and also makes me think of what good I could do if I ever did become fortunate (or unfortunate lol) enough to come across that kind of money.
Most people are off the need for public aid like food stamps within 4 years or less. I agree letting people starve to death is a better idea though.
Give me examples of a country that works well functioning the way you are describing it. I can name you a dozen that have happy citizens with large social welfare programs.
Unsurprisingly, you misunderstand what I was saying, I'm not suggesting that there are no programs that alter the natural flow of the market, I'm just saying you have to be very careful when you do so and that it happens far too often today. There is no way to truly make people's lives equal and trying to accomplish that only leads to the government discriminating against certain groups.....when does that ever end well?
Every subsidy alters the natural flow of the market so that would be nearly any social program. In small doses, they can be great, but when you are doing so much subsidizing that it becomes the majority of what your government spends money on every single year....that's a problem.
EU countries, you mean? In case you have not noticed, the EU is experiencing massive fiscal and monetary problems, in no small part due to the financial costs and the perversion of incentives that come from these huge welfare systems that you speak of. In fact, one of the main reasons the EU elite are so mad about the UK's decision to leave the EU is that Britain is the second richest country in Europe, next to Germany. The UK has, relatively speaking, deep pockets that the EU welfare state was expecting to be able to leech off of and fleece in truly massive fashion in order to keep these increasingly financially unsustainable systems funded. Now with the UK leaving, who is going to pay for this mess? Germany and who else? In fact, in case you had not noticed, the Germans are not very enthusiastic about bailing these other countries out either. Also the EU central bank has already gone negative with their interest rates and is currently funding over $1.7 Trillion in stimulus through their own rather high risk QE program. It appears their central bank has run out of bullets. So it is all very nice and fine that a large portion of the citizens of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France (just to name a few) have enjoyed their free ride on the government dole, but you surely know, the Greeks have already had their benefits severely curtailed, and the rest of the countries listed above are on the verge of having to resort to the same measures. You need to realize that just because people like something, it does not follow that it is necessarily possible to afford to give it to them in a sustainable and everlasting way. There are real constraints on economic resources that exist, regardless of how democratically unpopular that might be.
But the United States is 25th out of 34 countries in terms of entitlement spending, much lower than other countries in the top 10, countries which usually rank higher than the USA in terms of quality of life and low poverty rate. http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-most-entitlement-spending-2011-4?op=1/#-luxembourg-1
Studies show that the happiness associated with increased wealth starts offering diminishing returns at around $70,000/yr. So to answer your question, $70k is enough.
The disparity wasn't as wide with older generations, a larger percent of the middle class was comfortable working in factories or retail; but media depictions probably starting in the '80s differentiated college experience and corporate work environments as uniquely prosperous and sophisticated. Somewhere in there finance and professional services workers insisted on managerial base salaries and entrepreneurial bonuses and commissions.
I find the question of "When is enough money enough?" very similar to asking a basketball player if there's a level of play that is good enough for them. Some would probably chime in and say that making it as a college player was good enough. Perhaps others would say that being able to play professionally afterwards (though perhaps in China) is good enough. Still others would say playing in the NBA was enough. Occasionally though, you'll find people that only being the best is "enough" and you might even find someone who thinks "enough" means being the best ever.
That number changes depending upon where you live. Houston's number was closer to $80K, NY and LA were much higher.
