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Why I usually stay out of the income ineqality discussions

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  • #61
    Originally posted by robrecht View Post
    And the government used to more successfully encourage direct charitable giving through higher and more effectively graduated tax brackets.
    Maybe you can produce statistics to support that assertion. But a question we must answer is whether government can do more good than bad through forcing or chicaning people to give up some of their resources including time. A billionaire who works on making his business ever better (like Walmart or McDonald) may do more good than the government can with the resources that were taxed away from the business or the billionaire.
    The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

    [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

    Comment


    • #62
      Originally posted by Adrift View Post

      Which needs do you believe should not be met?
      I do want to address this one thing, Adrift, and also want to apologize for not wanting to address the rest.

      When I was out of work 2 years ago, I was sitting in line at St. Luke's Church food pantry. I had grabbed my number (#3) behind a lady I happened to know a bit from her working at the Subway I used to frequent before I lost the job I had, and then behind an older black gentleman who was quite chatty. He had developed COPD from working on asbestos laden pipes. He was not capable of working for extended periods of time, and he had a son who was a near complete invalid. They both truly needed the help. Then up pulls Na'Quisha (I swear that was her real name) in her sparkling new car. She grabs her number (#4) and sits down beside us, and pops out her iPhone to call her "boo" about having friends over that night "for dinner on the Church" as she snickered. I was nauseous. She was the type that I would never help with that type of attitude. No idea how she qualified for the Church food pantry, but she must have.
      That's what
      - She

      Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
      - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

      I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
      - Stephen R. Donaldson

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by Adrift View Post
        I don't understand what you mean that there's a push to get more people on welfare. Why would anyone push people to get on welfare? I skimmed your links, and I couldn't find anything that said that people were "pushed" onto welfare, but that "joblessness driven by the recession made more people eligible for help, and also drove more folks who were already eligible for help to ask for it, perhaps because their other support networks were tapped out.", and that "Even with no change in the law, spending will fall as the economy recovers."
        I'll see if I can find a copy of the letter at my office where it definitely sounds like a "we have to use it or lose it" as relates to welfare spending in my county. We discussed this at our local ministerial alliance meeting, because it sounds like "we have more money than we have recipients to use it", and they were asking churches to help get the word out that more government assistance is available.
        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

        Comment


        • #64
          A common method to make incomes or net worth more equal is making the tax system progressive. People considered to be in poverty theoretically pay no tax. Others pay taxes more or less proportional to their net worth or yearly income.

          I know a website has articles that criticize progressive tax systems. If anyone wants, I can summarize them.
          The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

          [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

          Comment


          • #65
            Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
            A common method to make incomes or net worth more equal....
            Let's say I bust my butt working in a coal mine 60 hours a week, and you stay home and watch "as the world burns". Should our incomes be equal?
            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

            Comment


            • #66
              Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
              I do want to address this one thing, Adrift, and also want to apologize for not wanting to address the rest.

              When I was out of work 2 years ago, I was sitting in line at St. Luke's Church food pantry. I had grabbed my number (#3) behind a lady I happened to know a bit from her working at the Subway I used to frequent before I lost the job I had, and then behind an older black gentleman who was quite chatty. He had developed COPD from working on asbestos laden pipes. He was not capable of working for extended periods of time, and he had a son who was a near complete invalid. They both truly needed the help. Then up pulls Na'Quisha (I swear that was her real name) in her sparkling new car. She grabs her number (#4) and sits down beside us, and pops out her iPhone to call her "boo" about having friends over that night "for dinner on the Church" as she snickered. I was nauseous. She was the type that I would never help with that type of attitude. No idea how she qualified for the Church food pantry, but she must have.
              Ok, so, just so I'm tracking, you're saying that this woman probably wasn't in need. I mean, not really. She could have probably provided for herself.

              So its not that you actually believe that there are needs that should not be met, but that those who do not need should not expect extra charity. I think that's something that everyone here (on Theologyweb) will agree with.

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                Ok, so, just so I'm tracking, you're saying that this woman probably wasn't in need. I mean, not really. She could have probably provided for herself.

                So its not that you actually believe that there are needs that should not be met, but that those who do not need should not expect extra charity. I think that's something that everyone here (on Theologyweb) will agree with.
                This was always a dilemma our Church faced when somebody would come asking for help. (Before we partnered with "faith mission")

                There were ALWAYS scams -- people who travel the country milking the Churches for money, using sob stories.

                Some of them were easy to debunk, some not so much, but over riding this was our philosophy that "I'd rather accidentally help somebody who doesn't need it, than accidentally refuse to help somebody in genuine need".

                But, yeah, there are people out there who just scam the system.
                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                Comment


                • #68
                  Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
                  Maybe you can produce statistics to support that assertion. But a question we must answer is whether government can do more good than bad through forcing or chicaning people to give up some of their resources including time. A billionaire who works on making his business ever better (like Walmart or McDonald) may do more good than the government can with the resources that were taxed away from the business or the billionaire.
                  No, I don't have any statistics, just my own personal experience. Individuals and local groups can almost always do more good with their money than the government, which is why higher and graduated or progressive tax rates encourage people to do something with their money rather than merely have it taxed.
                  βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι δι᾿ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον·
                  ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρους, τότε δὲ ἐπιγνώσομαι καθὼς καὶ ἐπεγνώσθην.

                  אָכֵ֕ן אַתָּ֖ה אֵ֣ל מִסְתַּתֵּ֑ר אֱלֹהֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מוֹשִֽׁיעַ׃

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Originally posted by robrecht View Post
                    No, I don't have any statistics, just my own personal experience. Individuals and local groups can almost always do more good with their money than the government, which is why higher and graduated or progressive tax rates encourage people to do something with their money rather than merely have it taxed.
                    That's one of the biggest problems with projecting funding based on tax changes -- it ASSUMES that people are going to be dumb and keep on doing the same thing, and NOT adjust to "the new rules".

                    If you want LESS of something, tax it -- if you want MORE of something, subsidize it.
                    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                      This was always a dilemma our Church faced when somebody would come asking for help. (Before we partnered with "faith mission")

                      There were ALWAYS scams -- people who travel the country milking the Churches for money, using sob stories.

                      Some of them were easy to debunk, some not so much, but over riding this was our philosophy that "I'd rather accidentally help somebody who doesn't need it, than accidentally refuse to help somebody in genuine need".

                      But, yeah, there are people out there who just scam the system.
                      Yeah, I understand that. My mother is a paid counselor at a large church, with a congregation that's more than half from the inner city, and she's heard every sob story in the world. Many legit. Many not. They have a process of weeding out the scams from those with a legit claim. Claimants have to fill out paperwork, receive counseling, have been a regularly attending members of the church, and then there's also sometimes followup counseling. Some of this can be expedited if the need is pressing, but its still pretty thorough.

                      She's been a counselor for 20 years now, and she's said that early on she would fall for just about all of the sob stories, but that her pastor would review the claims before any actions were made, and usually caught on to the scams. Now she can smell them out a mile away. It can make some people hardened over the years, especially when those who are caught in their scams leave mock furious at the church, complaining that they've come here for X amount of years, and that they deserve so and so, and that they're never coming back again, etc. But my mom has such a passion for people that I don't think she's let those experiences affect her. Its always rewarding to see people who really have a need come up out of their situation when offered a helping hand.

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                        Yeah, I understand that. My mother is a paid counselor at a large church, with a congregation that's more than half from the inner city, and she's heard every sob story in the world. Many legit. Many not. They have a process of weeding out the scams from those with a legit claim. Claimants have to fill out paperwork, receive counseling, have been a regularly attending members of the church, and then there's also sometimes followup counseling. Some of this can be expedited if the need is pressing, but its still pretty thorough.

                        She's been a counselor for 20 years now, and she's said that early on she would fall for just about all of the sob stories, but that her pastor would review the claims before any actions were made, and usually caught on to the scams. Now she can smell them out a mile away. It can make some people hardened over the years, especially when those who are caught in their scams turn leave mock furious at the church, complaining that they've come here for X amount of years, and that they deserve so and so, and that they're never coming back again, etc. But my mom has such a passion for people that I don't think she's let those experiences affect her. Its always rewarding to see people who really have a need come up out of their situation when offered a helping hand.
                        I fell for one because they had a baby crib on top of their car, supposedly all their worldly goods in that baby crib, and small barefoot children with them... they told me a sad story about her mother passing away, and they needed to get to the funeral, blah blah blah... I helped them with a tank of gas, groceries... no cash...

                        Then I went next door to the Assembly of God Church to talk to the pastor who was a friend of mine, and this SAME CAR pulls into the parking lot. When they got out, they must have had tunnel vision or something, because they seemed not even to SEE me, but started telling a completely DIFFERENT story to my pastor friend, with even a totally different destination city. I just stood listening to the story, then asked them when the funeral was, and the woman looked at me and asked, "What fune....." and froze. You should have heard the rambling attempt to reconstruct their story to make things all fit together.

                        At one Church, we had 4 Church vans to pick up kids and elderly. Sometimes, if it was an apparently able bodied person stopping and asking for help, I would say, "you can wash our Church vans for us, and I'll pay you [whatever] --- often they would cheerfully agree, and we'd get the bucket and car wash stuff, but as soon as I got back into the building, they would drive off.

                        Yeah, it's crazy.
                        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                          Let's say I bust my butt working in a coal mine 60 hours a week, and you stay home and watch "as the world burns". Should our incomes be equal?
                          Maybe both my legs were amputated, so I could not work in a coal mine. However, I run an online business, so that our incomes are roughly equal. Anyway, "As the World Burns" is on for only one hour each day not including Saturdays and Sundays. I have been finding it not enjoyable lately, so I think I'll stop watching.
                          The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

                          [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
                            Maybe both my legs were amputated, so I could not work in a coal mine. However, I run an online business, so that our incomes are roughly equal. Anyway, "As the World Burns" is on for only one hour each day not including Saturdays and Sundays. I have been finding it not enjoyable lately, so I think I'll stop watching.
                            You're dodging. How "equal" should our incomes be?
                            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              People who work hard ought to earn more, but there ought to be a minimum level of income for those who cannot. If your hard worker gets paid close to minimum subsistence level that means there's something wrong with your labor laws, not your welfare system.

                              Comment


                              • #75
                                So who decides what's "enough"? And how do we determine who "can't work"? People fake disabilities all the time.
                                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                                Comment

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