Topic: Should we kick more people off welfare? (Read 2689 times)

That was an one-time measure (which has been revoked long back) by the Kuwaiti government. Kuwait used to receive a huge amount of money (they are still receiving some of it), in the form of repatriations from Iraq. The government decided to handout a part of it to their citizens, as a form of  compensation for their suffering during the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

It's a tough call, while there are certainly individuals who have good intents and want to establish a better life for themselves and deserve social assistance just as often there are those who abuse the free government aid to further get themselves wasted on the taxpayers dollar with no respect for money or willingness to take responsibility (Scum)

Social assistance is a good tool to help people get out of tough situations if they deserve it but just as equally it can be exploited which is why its concerning when new immigrants get a job quit or claim injury to their knee when the work is to hard for them then decide to just get government payments by switching between doctors, or saying it was the government that brought them to the country and that they should give them money for doing that. (Sickens me sometimes that sense of self-entitlement when they sure as heck haven't got off their lazy buts to do anything about it)

If they don't want to get off the bootstraps do some hard work and participate in making the country better then I would prefer they send them back, but just as equally those who are down on their ropes and serious about getting back up deserve that safety net.

In summary it depends on how it is used and who uses it just as much as anything else.

Kuwait could do this because they enjoined themselves to America through big oil. It was the petrodollar that made this work for them.

What's interesting is, this is the same kind of thing the U.S. is trying to make happen in Iraq. It is slowly working. Within the last two weeks, a USDollar is worth about 1145 Iraqi Dinars. Previously it took 1160 to 1190 Dinars to buy a Dollar. This doesn't really predict anything. But it is a trend that might continue... the Dollar dropping in value against the Iraqi Dinar.

This is what happened in Kuwait in the mid '90s. But it happened a lot faster in Kuwait back then than it is happening for Iraq now.

Think about this. Work to live life is rather easy. All people need is land and a little help from their neighbors. We could be living the easy life if there were no taxes, and if the government opened up the unused land to the people.

Debt when it is from legal lending institutions (banks) is fake. It is creations of new money. Actually the banks owe the debts to the people. Payments people make in paying off the fake loans are moneys the banks owe back to the people.

Interesting. I'm a fan of the basic income too. And it seems practically every party already has thought about it and created their own system. It simply can work when done.

I did not know that kuwait did something like that. Why isn't that taken as a model role for what would happen when a basic income would be paid? I mean there should be many things you can learn from that happening. What happened with the work done. Did they work less or more and so on.

Where do you life where "is always lack of manual labor"? That is definitely not true. I mean you mean paid labor. Otherwise it would not make sense to take their welfare away and force them to work without them being paid for it then.

No, in my country every work that can be taken is taken already. Even worse, even jobs that only would pay 1/10th of a normal hourly wage has to be taken by force. Otherwise no welfare. In fact it does not help at all.

Since I don't have a country (I had one but I left it), I want this for the whole world, and people may want it or not, it's coming. Countries which provide the most generous welfare packages are also the countries with the biggest debts.

Then be prepared to a huge social unrest that will kill the country for sure. You definitely can't take that away.

And every party trying that will be dead instantly.

And yes... Ehtiopians are the big example right? I guess you don't care about all the people that die there because of hunger and missing medicine. I doubt you really want that for your country.

You can't simply lower the welfare in order to make bad jobs more attractive. The welfare should be a minimum that is needed to life and take part on life. At least in my country that is the case. Though when you take into account that your rent for the flat is paid and your medicals then it is easily more than the average job.

Most people still want to work because they want to feel useful. They want to do something with their life. Maybe we need a change there that these parasites does not look like the heroes anymore but instead like parasites. The problem is, politicians already tried that. And it can't be done without blaming legit persons that can't work.

It really is one of the big problems of mankind that has no easy solution i think.

Wow, sounds crazy. And the government isn't acting against? I mean at least the police could follow the selling of medicine. And the normal people should push to stop that things.

I doubt that all politicians are that corrupt in your country that nothing can be done.

Then people without food would do what? Starting to steal like in old times?

The goverments plans to solve these things are so poor, it's not funny. They train people in stupid things on jobs that pay so low that it is pocket money. Since they can't simply create jobs that aren't needed.

If it would be so easy to create jobs then every country would do so. If you say these people have to do it somehow then you will create big unrest only.

There is no such easy solution.

There is a big problem with cutting these benefits. What will you do with these people? Most of them doesn't have any competitive or at least some marketable work experience and skills, this kind of people used to have low work-moral, so even if someone would willing to employ them, they would be a pain in the ass for their employers. Probably keeping them on benefits is the most efficient way to keep them silent and calm. Without benefits many of them would turn to a violent mob or criminals pretty soon.

Yes OK. So just explain that to  Herbert A. Simon, Friedrich Hayek, James Meade, Robert Solow, Milton Friedman and Maurice Allais .

https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7

Also, when Kuwait gave every citizen 4000$/month for a year the result was the lowest inflation they knew for several years.

You know, it's more complicated than you think.

I forgot those guys who advocate for a BI :

One of the world's most outspoken advocates of a basic income system is Belgian philosopher and political economist Philippe van Parijs. Other advocates include feminist economist Ailsa McKay, German drugstore magnate Götz Werner, Dutch political activist Saar Boerlage, French social theorist André Gorz, American political philosopher Michael Hardt and Italian Marxist sociologist Antonio Negri, American libertarian political scientist Charles Murray, New Zealand economist Gareth Morgan, Finnish politician Osmo Soininvaara, University of London economist Guy Standing, Brazilian politician and economist Eduardo Suplicy.

Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu.
A nice bunch of stupid people who do not understand the "economy basics".


North European countries have much higher taxes and a biggest welfare. People are OK, the economy has not crashed.

It seems most people here are from rich countries. It's really awful how the welfare state appears like the normal thing. I suggest that instead of making cash handouts to the poor, the rich countries would pay them a one way ticket to Ethiopia. There, those folks would quickly learn to make a living, or die.

I've nothing against human nature, but politicians must answer two questions before starting to purchase votes with welfare:

1. Is it sustainable? Can you keep it 50+ years without bankrupt?

2. Are you up to hold the legit retired people when it comes out you can't continue #1 and therefore also can't pay the legit retirement plans people paid now?

@romjpn

You need to study basic economics man! Society is like a market: what you do is what you worth, what you own is your purchase power.
If you give 1K/month to useless people, then $1000 = $0.
Why? Because you are giving something to people that worth nothing, therefore that something becomes nothing. The initial impact of such measure will be more people sit on their ass, as result goods will become scarce as nobody produces them, and those who produce will have to wage way over 1K - otherwise they won't bother doing it and just pick welfare. So inflation will be massive and you hardly will be able to buy a single potato with those thousand bucks.

France tried this with maximum income tax. They failed at the end obviously.

It is not possible to kick people off welfare. This has got nothing to do with compassion and taxpayers do not have a say in the matter, the system simply cannot afford to have too many unbound elements, especially in industrialized countries. Ideally, money needs to be an intrinsic part of the life of every single human being on the planet.

Completely misleading. Those people stay like this because if they would work, they would have little more for a full time job : simply not worth bothering.

That's why I support a Universal Basic Income.
Ask yourself what you would do with 1000$/month. Yeah you could just sit all day long watching TV and play video-games but would you do that ?