All right, let's just get this out of Weremensch's hair. Continue it here.
Mod intervention pre-empted.

Beefotronix keeps saying people need to work, and has said he admires people that work two jobs to scrape by.

Two things. First: you're operating under the false assumption that the jobs are there for the taking. They're not. It pisses me off when I hear people say things like this. I was unemployed for two years because the work simply wasn't there to employ me.

Second: working two jobs is great. No, it isn't. Working two jobs destroys the body, the mind and the soul of the worker. When you do nothing but work, you become an automoton. You are not a person, you are a cog. And moreover, people should not have to work two jobs! One job should supply sufficient compensation to allow one to live, and probably even support a family. It's just plain wrong that 37% of the people that come to the Food Bank looking for food HAVE JOBS. People with jobs should NOT be hungry. I really can't understand how anyone can believe otherwise.

Starting small businesses: my father is a brilliant man. He's one of the few nuclear scientists in the US, and has over thirty years of experience. He has such a breadth and depth of knowledge that there's little competing with him in the scientific field; he's really an asset. But he's not a businessman. He started a business and it flopped - it's basically ruined the finances of our entire family, despite the fact that he was making six figures before that and has been making six figures again for the past four years. We're still recoving from his business failure. It's not something to flippantly enter into. Most people that have been through it will tell you the same.

Welfare is necessary because our society is based on flawed principles. Welfare keeps the human cost of capitalism low; if there was no welfare, people would be dying left and right from hunger, exposure, and crime. Money is the prime factor in decisions, not humanity. This is the downside of capitalism, and it's why we need welfare. You want to do away with welfare, you need to either accept a Dark Ages-style society where plagues slaughter millions and people live in filth, or you need to live in a more elgalitarian, communistic (Not a capital-C, note. It's a whole different meaning) society.

But we don't accept either of those, so welfare is the result. Suck it up.

I'm supplementing my Social Security payments, which are amazingly generous compared to those in the US, I believe.

I aim to start a small business directed at a niche I see vacancy in, and sourcing product that cannot, by it's very nature, be sourced abroad. I have no startup capital, as all our money gets hoovered into daft things like food, rent and car maintenence, so I'm bootstrapping my startup by seeling copies of my drawings in local tourist spots.

The cost of the equipment required to print unit one was in excess of $1500. I got this money by saving my art prize cheques. Talent notwithstanding, I can do art because I am not standing in a breadline with my children.

Personally, I would love for someone like Beefotronix to demonstrate how someone who has no home, no food and no funds can start a business. No, actually, I'd like for them to demonstrate how thousands of such people can. That'd be fun to watch!

Oh man - I can see a reality TV show pitch in there somewhere...

Conservative think tanks like The Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation always cite Hong Kong as a shining example of what a low-tax low-spending, low-intervention regime can do. It's the Freest Economy in the World, they say, and look how rich they are.

Well yes, if you only choose to look at the arse of the elephant. Even the most hardcore capitalist of local financial commentators knows that. Freest economy in the world? Hah.

The trouble with these think-tank surveys is that they only ask about things that foreign companies are likely to care about. No tarriffs, check. Low corporate taxes, check. No capital gains tax, check. Low government spending, check. Rule of law, check.

So, it's quite easy to miss something like...oh...the fact that half the population lives in public housing, and the government subsidises 90% of healthcare costs. How's that, you ask? How can they possibly afford it with such low taxes? Oooh, the land is nationalised! Yes, the government gets all its money from land auctions to property developers!

(Oh, and you'd also miss all the monopolies and cartels that dominate any local market that isn't subject to foreign competition. Free market my arse.)

And if our government didn't pay for all this housing and healthcare, you'd probably see something like what's across the border in Shenzhen. One of the richest cities in China, no social safety net. (Not anymore) Kids begging on the street are a regular sight. Or it'd be just like it was here 50 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of people living in corrugated tin shacks on the hillside with no running water or sewers and stolen electricity, in a massive fire hazard. And dying of things like cholera.

I'll concede that they went overboard with the public housing in the late 90s, building far more than was necessary. The money would've been better spent on education.

Clearly, when the economy is left to its own devices, companies will do their utmost takes to yield maximum profits, and the common man will suffer as a result. While I believe that capitalism is rather effective in creating the jobs to begin with, it doesn't really do a whole lot for the proletariat, and that's where the government must strive to set things right. The most obvious place where this comes into play is the minimum wage, but welfare is also a very important part of that, and shouldn't be ignored.

I used to be a socialist, but have since seen some value in capitalism. Nevertheless, that people toil and yet are left with no money for no fault of their own is something I'm not willing to live with.

I don't think working two jobs is a good thing exactly. I respect people who work two jobs when that's what it takes to save up money to go to school to be able to get a job that pays adequately. Working two jobs should not be necessary in normal situations, though. One job should be enough to live on. However, an unskilled job should not necessarily pay enough for people to be able to afford living alone, or with many luxuries, which is why I oppose ridiculously high minimum wages. The minimum wage should be a baseline for unskilled nonhazardous labor, and be enough for two people on that wage to afford a basic apartment with all the necessities. Ideally, anything more hazardous, as well as anything requiring more skill, should pay more.

Neither do I think jobs are there for the taking. But when there isn't a job available, and you need one, you have to make your own job-- that is, self employment. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that you have no place in civilized society, and that can't be true. There's always something other people are willing to pay to have done. Yes, self-employment is a difficult prospect. But, if it is true that there are no openings for being employed by someone else, self-employment is the only way, and that way must be taken.

If welfare should exist, it should not be something people can become dependent on. It should be based around rehabilitating people from abject poverty, not a sustained trailer park lifestyle.

Companies do do their utmost to yield maximum profits. I support protections for workers, within reasonable limits. However, private business should be primarily a private matter, not subject to very much government meddling. Government meddling is expensive on the taxpayers. Ideally, I'd just have a minimum wage and the fair enforcement of the usual laws. Workers that are exploited should strike and/or find jobs elsewhere to respond to exploitation, primarily. Corporate terrorism against striking/former workers should be punished severely when it happens, but I don't see the need for a great deal of government regulation of labor.

You make it sound like just anyone can start a business. That's completely false. It takes money to start a business, and unemployed people don't have much money. You can try and get a bank loan, but that's difficult. You can also try to find an investor, but that's even more difficult. Even if you do try to find a source of income, there is a lot of risk involved -- most new businesses do fail, and not all people are suitable to run a business.



Are you unfamiliar with business cycles? Just because there's no job for a person currently doesn't mean there never will be one.

That's why I do support protections for unemployed people. There will be a job available in time, maybe. However, one cannot keep waiting and leeching off of whatever the money is coming from indefinitely. If one gets six months unemployment, it should not be construed as "try to get an extension if I can't find a job in that time." It means the person may look for a job for the first part of the time, but may prepare to employ himself if he can't find one.

Bank loans and investments are difficult to obtain, yes, but people can make do without them if it comes to it. Demonstrating competent business with what they do have seems to me to be something that would make it easier to get a loan or investment after a while.

You appear to be advocating that poor people should start up their own businesses. You have yet to actually describe, in detail, how this would be possible. If you have 1) no unique skils 2) no education 3) no home 4) no money, what exactly are you going to sell? Hmm? I'd like you to stop saying people should start up businesses until you either start up your own (from similar conditions) or describe in detail how a poor person is supposed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they can afford neither boots nor straps.

Obviously if you have no skills it will have to be some kind of menial labor kind of thing.

People need food and shelter.
These things cost money.
The government shouldn't be expected to pay for these things indefinitely, thus the government should not do so unless the aid is accompanied by some form of educational opportunity to increase the person's ability to make money, not simply give them money in a manner that allows one to be dependent on this system indefinitely. The government can't afford to do that.

While you're on the unemployment/welfare, gather a couple hundred dollars and buy a refurbished computer. This is the only thing you have to actually buy. Get one of those CDs that offer 3 months free Internet service. Check out a bunch of books on web design at the library. Read them and study the heck out of them. Download some free software like the GIMP and 1stPage, and you are now equipped to do your thing. As long as your support lasts, do a bunch of things for practice and call your friends for critique. When the support runs out, it's time to jump in the water. Don't forget to renew the Internet service. Will you succeed? Possibly not. Many professional web designers have a whole bunch of expensive crap that you don't have and an expensive college education that you don't have. However, you did take the time to learn how to do something somewhat better than normal people, which makes you measurably more likely to succeed at web design than someone who played with Dreamweaver a couple times.

The principles are rather basic here. If you have no skills, first get on some welfare. Then, get a residence, with a roommate if possible. Figure out what you want to do. At all times, keep looking for work, and take the crappy Wal-mart job if you have to. Go to the public library and read all the books they have concerning what you've decided to do. At the same time, start getting whatever equipment you need, as you can afford it. Get some practice time in, if that's relevant. Once you're ready, go start doing whatever it is you were studying. Painting, web design, groundskeeping, furniture building, whatever.

I really have no qualms with keeping welfare, I just hate people who abuse the system. Ideally, I'd replace welfare with "Find someone with money and beg for help", though. The welfare system would be more of a service to help poor people find wealthy people for this process, and get to them.

Over here, the unemployed go into the "informal" sector. They set up a cart with cheap t-shirts, alarm clocks, toys and trinkets. They sell fruit off the back of a van, or sodas out of a cooler on a motorbike or desserts off the back of a bicycle. They sit out on the street with a sign offering to buy back used DVD players for cheap and sell them to refurbishers for the China market. They sell pirated CDs and DVDs. Many of them are elderly, but these days I see young people too (we've been in recession for years). They're most likely doing something illegal, whether selling goods that "fell off the back of a truck", or violating food hygiene codes or just plain hawking without a permit. Good thing the law's not enforced, eh? And they probably only manage to survive by living in public housing.

Just to help me understand your viewpoint beefotoronx, why should the minimum wage not be enouigh to sustain someone living alone. Do less sociable people have less right to eat? And what's your opinion on children, would there be a state-provided child benefit payment? And if not, how do people with kids survive?

Web Design. Riiiight.

My local TAFE college pumps about 120 Web Design graduates a year into the community, and that's ten times as many as there are jobs. Most aspiring Web Designers can't get voluntary work doing what they are qualified to do, let alone make a living out of it.

Kea:
In Australia, the laws are enforced, dagnabbit. :-) Oh - except for pirate DVDs, and there's no way I'm going there...

i'm not terribly surpised to hear that HK has a lot of *ahem* free enterprise, but it seems we have stricter regulaton than the US. A couple of years ago, I watched an Oprah show about rags-to-riches businesses. One of the businesses was a catering business and I was stunned to hear the triumphant etrepenuer telling of their break-through order. She said that they had inadequate refrigerated storage for the size of the order so they stored the food in the living room and on the porch and 'let God do the refrigerating'. Auugh! Botulism, anyone?

Here in OZ, it's against the law to bake home made cakes etc to sell for school/comunity/charity fundraisers, let alone for personal gain.

Our food laws have become so rigid that in the midst of a bad bushfire event, the Country Women's Association branches set to work making sandwiches for the firefighters as they have done for decades, only for some pencil-neck administrator to refuse to let the food be distributed (to volunteers who had been fighting fires without eating for up to ten hours) because he felt that the preparation and storage hadn't been certified as being up to standard.

Oh, BeefatronX - There is a man who created a t-shirt brand from a $50 startup here in OZ. He is such a novelty that he appears on news progams and holds seminars telling people that it really can be done. The last I saw of him, he was on the news stating that he was going to prove that his experience was not a fluke by starting another business - from a substantially larger financial beginning, and with the benfit of his reputation and exerince, of course. I wonder how that's working out for the 'anyone can start a business' guru? It's been a while...

I think Beefo is maybe a bit optimistic about the chances of pulling yourself out of poverty by bootstrapping, but I agree that it can be done. It's just very, very uncommon. It's increasingly easier to reach a goal as you start nearer to it, and many of us struggle as it is, even with all the help we get from our family and society. Take away most of that help, and throw in brutal living conditions, and I wonder how many of us would make it. Hell, I'd probably be dead already from drugs or mouthing off to the wrong guy.
I think it boils down to 2 questions:
1. Are we obligated to help (via the government) those in need of help?
2. What level of assistance should we provide?
I assume the government does it, because otherwise the level of assistance fluctuates too much to be predictable and therefore useful.
I'm not even going to bother with the philosophical red herring about whether poor folks can entrepeneur their way to wealth.
Of course, until the poor get some representation in the government (maybe we could elect some Christians?) it's unlikely that anything is going to change much - it seems to be either "here's some money, go away", or "get a job, you bum".

Omnot, your food hygiene standards sound a little....excessive. What's a little diarreah gonna do? ;P I've eaten all sorts of nasty street food, and never gotten sick from it. Although at least in HK, one can be reasonably sure that the food is actually food (unless imported from China).

In China they have counterfeit eggs, counterfeit soy sauce, counterfeit milk powder (that one actually caused a dozen babies to starve to death before anyone noticed), and counterfeit coca-cola. That's somebody's idea of free enterprise.

There was a local survey here of highschool students that yielded some pretty scary results. The unemployment rate is up to around 7% now, up from 3% before the recession. The manufacturing jobs have all moved to China, leaving less work for graduating kids with less than stellar academic results. (Though 'Graduating' isn't right. 'Failing placement exams for 10th grade' is more like it. We only have compulsory schooling up to grade 9.) About 70% of the kids doing the survey said that they'd be willing to turn to illegal activities if they couldn't find jobs. In the average teenager's mind, this means selling pirated goods, joining a triad gang, or becoming a prostitute.

I read about this random court case a few months ago, where a young woman was convicted of shoplifting. Her occupation could probably be described only as "professional gold-digger". When the judge asked her why she didn't go on welfare, her reply was "People have to be independent. I wanted to support myself." Yeah, by dating a professional gambler (apparently a bad one), ripping off your parents, and shoplifting.

There is a very strong social stigma against being on welfare here, and the payments are very very small - like US$350 per month. It is also fairly difficult to apply for it. Most of the poor do find a way to survive, but to expect them all to survive in ways that are legal, sanitary, safe, ethical, or even adequate is a bit too much. If I had a choice between doing something illegal, and living on the street, I'd probably do something illegal. If you want to throw all these people in jail, that'd probably be even more expensive than just putting them on welfare.