At 10:54 AM 11/27/96 -0800, Dave Kinchlea wrote:
On Wed, 27 Nov 1996, Clay Olbon II wrote:
This is provably bullshit. Look at the HUGE numbers of people in this country who make the economic decision to do nothing and go on welfare vs. going to work. Examine carefully the economic performance of the US vs the
I don't know how much people get on welfare in your country but I suspect that it is even less than in this country (Canada). Anyone who truly believes that people make the `economic decision to do nothing and go on welfare vs. going to work' has, in my opinion, no &^%* idea what they are talking about. Just try to *live* on a welfare wage for a few months to see how silly this thought is. While there may well be a few `welfare-moms' (which is not necessarily a bad thing, taking care of children is an investment for society), the vast majority of people on welfare (at least here) would *much* rather get a decent job and work for their money. There are, perhaps, a few people who would rather not work for minimum wage (who find it impossible to feed their family on that) but I suspect that those folks are few and far between.
The average welfare benefit (including food stamps, medicaid, and all the other myriad programs) is $10/hr. Compare to a minimum wage of $5/hr. Offer most welfare recipients a minimum wage job and they will laugh in your face. (In fact, here in Michigan most employers are already paying several $$ above minimum wage, and often these jobs are unfilled).
More bullshit. You don't know what anyones motives are. To ascribe your motivations to Bill Gates is unrealistic.
But you claim to know the motives of those on welfare: pot->kettle->black
I don't claim to know the motives. I am examining empirical evidence. As the welfare benefit increases, more go on welfare, as it decreases, less go on welfare. Someone is making economic decisions, consciously or unconsciously. Clay ******************************************************* Clay Olbon olbon@ix.netcom.com engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc. **********************************************tanstaafl