I think the Stossel show where he dressed up as a bum for three hours and begged on the streets illustrates the situation well. He made over $50/hour. No taxes. No deductions. So, in Phoenix, I started to look at the "bums." Mostly, they were dressed in clean clothes, appeared to have showered before they went to work on the begging corner, were well rested and plenty of energy to walk up and down the stopped cars lane---limping in one direction and walking just fine in the other after the cars drove on.

"If you want something to grow, feed it."

Great quote

I was just thinking of this quote today as I walked by a man with a sign. As long as we have a media that reports the plight of the poor and how government and you should be doing more. We'll continue to have more people convinced to stay poor.

"Communism helped men cope with poverty, but could never get men out of that poverty."

-- Will Durant, "The Story of Civilization."

I was talking with a police officer who works with the "homeless" in SOFL .... he said that many of the homeless are making $40-70 per hour collecting donations at intersections.

Here's my proposal: As a condition for receiving the government aid made available to the poor, an individual who is unemployed should be required to provide his labor in return for his aid. At every level of government, there is labor required: for government buildings, cleaning the offices, emptying the wastebaskets, washing the windows; for government roads, gathering and disposing of trash and rubbish, filling potholes, clearing clogged storm drains, repairing broken curbs; collecting garbage for disposal at the landfill; working at the landfill to spread and cover garbage; working at the recycling center to separate types of recycleable materials; etc. The unemployed could do these jobs in exchange for the government aid. That way, the bloated bureaucracies employing bloated workforces of highly-paid, unionized workers could be slimmed down. The unions wouldn't like that, but, so what?

Here in Phoenix the "Homeless" problem has been all over the news lately they have said that the shelters down here have seen a $400% increase. I know we see homeless people all over town, although we usually get a big increase here because of the mild winter weather, there do seem to be a lot more than we have ever seen before. Casualties of a war to gain power to control others.

If people don't have any skin in something, it has less value to them and they won't value or take care of it. They'll just expect more.

I begin to have a little more sympathy for the
homeless since I see how the government drives
people out of their homes. About a year ago, the
City of Richmond put a "Condemned" sticker on
my apartment (which was part of a row house).They
claimed one of the walls was falling down (not
true; a few loose bricks). But even if it had
been, it was none of their God-d****d business.
I tried to get another cheap place; the rental
agent said he didn't have any more cheap places
like that. So now I am paying almost twice as
much rent as before. And I got some message
from Ms. Lady Bountiful, who apparently bought
the house, about some arrangement; to me it
would be like receiving stolen goods,stolen from
the former owner. She can leave me alone. I
don't really want anything to do with her.

What is is that saying about fishing, that if you give someone some fish they will eat that day, but if you teach them to fish they will eat tomorrow and the next etc. My apologies to the original version.

Hello Blarman,
We subsidize the indolent and tax the productive. Basic economics: You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax.
Regards.
O.A.

this is super, blar;;; Thank You! -- j

Unfortunately, lassaize faire politicians used a rational like that to prevent anyone from aiding the Irish during the potato famine of 1845. I am generally a fan of everything about lassaize faire (except its spelling), but when someone is starving to death - feed them, do not lecture them.

The problem is that we are not handing out MRE's. If that was all that Federal Aid consisted of, we would not have a problem.

Jan

I think we have all forgotten good old fashioned values. This world is all about conmen and confiscating government. It makes me sick. I am afraid to create new things, because someone else will benefit from my work. I stay down here in middle class, at least here I can still enjoy the green grass and natures beauty. I'll work until I die, and I'm OK with that, but I'm gonna try real hard to not work for anyone else again.