Empty Spaces Waiting For Whites To Move In
| March 2nd, 2007
Are the three events exactly the same? No, of course they’re not. But that doesn’t mean the similarity isn’t interesting….
AngryBrownButch, in a post about gentrification, quotes a interview with a fashionable New Yorker she heard on the radio:
Q: Now, why do you think a neighborhood suddenly takes off like that?
Melena Ryzik: Well, it starts with the low rents. That’s the key thing -
Q: Big spaces and low rents.
MR: Exactly, exactly. And of course I think there’s also the idea for New Yorkers that you want to be the first person to discover something, so there’s a certain cache in having been maybe the first person or the first set of people living over on the Meatpacking district side of things.
# # #
Dodosville on how Europeans settled America:
In case the Europeans weren’t totally convinced that it was OK to take people’s land by force because they didn’t believe in the Christian God, Europeans also decided to redefine what it meant to “occupy” land in legal terms. This justification was probably for some of the more intellectual Europeans as it was a less crude justification than they are heathens, do what you want to them. So the monarchs, clergymen and scholars if Europe got together and said, well, yeah those people are living on the land, but they aren’t really using the land in the way that’s intended. Civilized people built settlements, planted food in the ground, had cattle and other livestock, chopped down forests in the name of progress, and tried to grow as big as they could. The Indians of the Americas weren’t doing that, well, except for the Inca and the Aztec whose settlements were bigger than most in Europe, but we’re not talking about those people – we’re talking about the hunter/gatherers who live in small tribes – those guys weren’t using the land right and it was an affront to nature and God’s plan that people used it in that way. So since they weren’t using the land the way it was meant to be used, it was terres nullus, or empty land, and everybody has the right to take empty land, by force if you have to. It was just what had to be done – it’s the natural order and all those things.
# # #
From a 1982 article in The Link, by Muhammad Hallaj:
The Zionists’ need to convince the world that their scheme victimized no one required them to maintain the delusion that Palestine was a land without people. When they sought Gandhi’s endorsement of Zionism, their emissary brazenly asserted to him that “Palestine itself was a waste space when we went there… No one else wanted it.” Even after the Zionists created their Jewish state they continued to insist that the Palestinians did not exist. “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them,” Golda Meir, Israel’s prime minister, said after the 1967 war. “They did not exist.“
Edited to add: I’ve added bolds to the quotes to emphasize what I was intrigued by: the tendency, in all three situations, to talk about the land as if it were empty and unused. As should be obvious, by noting this similarity I am not saying that the three situations are alike in all other ways.
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Oh darn. I didn’t know Alas was anti-Zionist. I’m very disappointed.
This comment was written by Kai Jones.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Kai, why are you disappointed by that?
This comment was written by Jack.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
What difference does skin color make?
With the exception of some Pacific islands which are still inhabited by the Polynesians who discovered and settled them, every acre of land on earth is stolen property, drenched in the blood of the people who were slaughtered to take it.
White people just had the bad taste to be slow out of the historical starting blocks, and to do their slaughtering in an era where memory and history better record it.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
In reading the “gentrification” posts, I pick out a common thread; that a neighborhood belongs to the residents. Certainly the culture of a neighborhood belongs to the residents, but the buildings belong to their owners, whose major interests are making as much money as they can within the law. They have every right to bump up their rents past the point that the current residents can afford it if they can find new tenants that will pay the new rents. They also have every right to sell out to rich yuppies that want to spend the next few years renovating the properties.
We live in a capitalist society. Things belong to the owners. When the owners rent out things to users, this does not transfer ownership to the users, even if the users perceive that it has. Of course, folks will say that this is an evil of capitalism, but the alternatives will lead to the degradation of the things because, lacking full rights to ownership, the owners will no longer have adequate incentive to keep the things maintained. State ownership and operation of housing also (IMNSHO) depresses the incentive of the tenants to better their status though husbanding their resources and getting an education/working harder/etc. so that they can better their own situation and become able to afford better housing.
Harlem does not belong to black people anymore than it belonged to white people before blacks moved in. Yes, there is very rich history there, and that part of ith worthy of celebration should be celebrated. But that history does not supercede property rights, nor should it. These things move in cycles, and it’s foolish to try to interrupt them.
BTW, let’s not forget the history of some of these neighborhoods. One reason that such neighborhoods are attractive to the yuppie renovators is due to the solid construction of the buildings and the use of materials (stone, hardwood floors, ornamentation) and workmanship in their original construction that are extremely costly to use in new construction. And the reason why those materials and workmanship are present and why the buildings are solidly constructed is because at the time the people who built these buildings had money. In a lot of cases, it’s less accurate to say “this neighborhood is changing from poor people to rich people” than to say “this neighborhood is changing from poor people back to rich people.” If rich –> poor was O.K., why not poor –> rich?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
I’ve recently read 1491. I had already known that the Native American population in large areas of New England were laid waste by European diseases, but I didn’t realize just how widespread it was, or that it was something that spread thoughout both continents repeatedly.
The truth of what Robert says is clear as well. Once one tribe slaughters another to take over the space it lived in, what difference in justification does it make whether or not the next tribe to have done so came from 10 miles away or 6000, or what their ancestry was? I’d propose that there were very few locations in the U.S. or elsewhere that was occupied by it’s initial settlers when the Europeans showed up.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Robert & RonF
With the exception of some Pacific islands which are still inhabited by the Polynesians who discovered and settled them, every acre of land on earth is stolen property, drenched in the blood of the people who were slaughtered to take it.
This is 100% correct. Now, just for fun, let’s hear your arguments against the morality of taxing land rents at the highest sustainable rates and distributing the proceeds equally among all.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Equally among all of whom?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Sooo… what’s your explanation for why it’s okay to say that white people would be the “first” to live in industrial districts?
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Take your pick:
A. Everyone in the world to the extent practicable, or
B. Everyone in the local area, that is, those who are close enough to be reasonably said to be prevented from the use of the land.
If the current owner’s title is traced back to someone who killed a previous occupant to take possession, how does the current owner have a grater moral right to the land than either groups A or B above?
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I appreciate the discussion of the colonialist language used in advancing and excusing gentrification. However, I think RonF hit the nail on the head saying that the another important, sometimes overlooked, culprit in gentrification is capitalism. (Though we disagree because he likes capitalism and doesn’t see it as a problem.) Because of this, one of the best ways to fight gentrification is through good renters’ rights laws. Case in point: my father (white old dude) was evicted from the Seattle apartment he’d lived in for 15 years because it was to be turned into condos now that his neighborhood has obscenly gentrified. This exact thing could not legally happen in San Francisco, where I live, because we have laws that would favor an elderly, long term resident, over speculators. Not that SF laws are perfect, or always enforced, but they’re a start.
The most visible areas of gentrification are ones in which one ethnic group is displaced by another, usually white folks, but this is definitely not the only type of gentrification, and focusing only on the racial aspects of it condenses the issue in a way that makes it harder for us to see some of the structural problems that can be fixed. I believe that the most effective tact to take against the displacement or “pricing-out” caused by gentrification is to work for better renter’s rights within cities.
This comment was written by Stacy.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Jack: because I’m pro-Israel. They’re progressive, they give rights no one else in the region does to women and gays, and they’re a patent and research powerhouse (lots of Nobel prizes go to Israelis).
This comment was written by Kai Jones.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Decnavada:
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Asking for arguments against is putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it? What are the arguments for doing this? Also, could you elaborate on what you mean by the “highest sustainable rate?” Is that the peak of the Laffer curve?
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March 2nd, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Um, I thought the what Robert wrote that I quoted was the argument in favor, but I will try to spell it out even more explicitly, if possible:
1. No one has a moral right to own stuff that was aquired by killing a previous possessor.
2. What I quoted.
3. Therefore, with the possible exception of a few Polynesian islands, no land on Earth is in the hands of someone who has a moral claim to it, or more acurately, a moral claim to deny others the use of it.
4. Therefore, the owners of land must EITHER allow anyone to use “their” land as the others wish, or they must pay the dispossessed (either everyone in the world or everyone who is “reasonably” dispossessed) the Fair Market Value of the land the “owners” are depriving them of.
I honestly thought all of that was obvious.
“The highest sustainable rate” is the maximum amount that someone would be willing to pay to rent the land (FMV rent), or the entirety of the rental income that could be recieved from owning the land, minus the total of the cost to administer the land plus a reasonable Return On Investment from that cost.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Decnavda:
I don’t agree with premise 1. Obviously no one has a moral right to own stuff that he acquired by killing a previous possessor. And you could argue that his heirs don’t have a moral right to own it, either, even after several generations. And I’d probably agree with you on that point.
Where we part company is this idea of yours that if something is stolen once, it’s forever tainted and can never again become private property. Private property is a good thing; we should decide who has the strongest claim to it and say it’s his. Unless, of course, you don’t think that private property is a good thing, in which case you should just say so, because the argument you’re trying to advance doesn’t hold water.
And I think that in most cases people have a pretty strong claim to the land they own. AFAIK, there isn’t much land in the industrialized world that’s been passed down in an unbroken chain of inheritance since the last time it was misappropriated. I’m pretty sure that most of it has been exchanged back and forth at fair market value a number of times since then.
With the original rightful owners of just about all land dead since prehistoric times, it seems pretty clear to me that having paid fair market value for a plot of land constitutes a much stronger claim to it than anyone else has.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Brandon,
Land that wasn’t transferred through inheritance was transferred through sale.
Do sold stolen goods become the legitimate property of the purchaser? If I steal your tv, sell it to a pawn shop, and then Robert buys it, have you lost the right to recover the tv? Have your descendants lost that right if you are unable to recover the tv during your life time? How many sales are required before it becomes legitimate property? Does it matter that people know that the tv was originally stolen?
28 years ago, it was confirmed that most of the land in the state of Maine was transferred from the local tribes to the US under an illegitimate treaty (the treaty was negotiated by the state government, which had no legal right to make treaties with sovereign nations). The state of Maine refused to recognize that this meant that most of the land in Maine still legally belonged to the tribes, but a few years ago, the title companies in Maine declared that the improper treaty was a shadow on all titles in the state and refused to allow the transfer of titles until the treaty issue was settled. The state then negotiated (presumably through Federal intermediaries) a huge compensation agreement with the tribes. Most of Maine was a bunch of stolen tv’s transferred by inheritance and sale for 200 years, and even though the current owners thought that they had legitimate title, they were wrong. The state government intervened to compensate the descendants of the original owners, rather than requiring the return of the stolen lands, but that was for the general convenience, and not because the return could not have been legally required.
That many of the treaties were coerced under threat of war or falsely negotiated does not matter to the legal legitimacy of these treaties (you’d think that falsely negotiated treaties such as the treaty that led to the Trail of Tears and the theft of the Cherokee lands would pose serious legal problems, but no court has treated them as doing so so far), so that is why all land is not legally under the same problem as a stolen tv (or the state of Maine).
Morally is certainly a different story, and morally most land in the US is basically a bunch of very old stolen tv’s.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Mmm, I’d like to take a stab at this,
If rich –> poor was O.K., why not poor –> rich?
Legally, I’ve no arguement. Morally? A large arguement. Because if rich people, who have multiple ways of getting housing because they can afford many different prices displace poorer people because they can’t afford the prices, it forces the poorer people out on the street because there’s nowhere else to go. The richer people could have just chosen to live somewhere else, the poorer people had no such option given to them.
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Kai Jones Writes:
The USA is progressive compared to many places in the world. The USA gives rights to women and gays that are greater than those found in many places in the world.
So should it therefore disappoint you that I’d criticize aspects of US history?
I agree with you that there are many things to admire about Israel. But the myth of “a land without a people for a people without a land” is not one of them.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:09 am
Charles:
Please correct me if I’m getting this wrong, but it seems to me that the argument you and Decnavda are making is (in my words):
Actually, the bit about the land tax is Decnavda’s. I’m not sure what specific remedy you have in mind.
Anyway, here’s a restatement of my argument:
By the way, I’m not sure I approve of the way the law treats stolen property. If the purchaser bought in good faith, either he or the original owner is going to lose out. I suppose there’s an argument to be made that making the purchaser eat the loss creates an incentive to make sure you’re not patronizing dealers of stolen goods, but this argument doesn’t really apply to land. If all land is stolen, then you don’t have the option of buying from reputable dealers, and it’s absurd to expect people to refrain from buying or selling land until the government decides to straighten things out.
So it’s not at all clear that land stolen hundreds or thousands of years ago should be treated the same as a TV stolen last month.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:34 am
Case in point: my father (white old dude) was evicted from the Seattle apartment he’d lived in for 15 years because it was to be turned into condos now that his neighborhood has obscenly gentrified. This exact thing could not legally happen in San Francisco, where I live, because we have laws that would favor an elderly, long term resident, over speculators.
Have your dad move to San Francisco. Oh, that’s right, he can’t; there’s no housing available for anyone who isn’t rolling in money. When the market works, it can hurt people; when the market is forbidden to work, it hurts more people.
Devnavda:
1. No one has a moral right to own stuff that was aquired by killing a previous possessor.
Do you have a moral right to eat? Most foods are acquired by killing the possessor. For fruits and vegetables, I guess you’re “just” stealing the children of the possessor, and eating them.
I suppose we can limit the scope of our moral theory to humans only. (I’ll leave the epic intra-left battle THAT will start in your capable hands; have fun!)
Limiting it to humans, the statement still doesn’t hold. “Killing” is far too broad. Your tribe invaded my tribe’s territory, but we fought you off. Are we now thieves if we take your weapons and use them to defend our land against the next wave of invaders?
And so forth. The premise is indefensible as stated. (I’m not trying to be deliberately obtuse. You’re making a moral syllogism; the terms have to be correct before you can possibly make sense.)
3. Therefore, with the possible exception of a few Polynesian islands, no land on Earth is in the hands of someone who has a moral claim to it, or more acurately, a moral claim to deny others the use of it.
Even stipulating, for the moment, that you can formulate a #1 that bears casual scrutiny, this doesn’t follow. I didn’t kill anyone for my land; the people I bought the land from bought it from someone else who bought it from someone else (x 50) who killed somebody for it, or drove them off. Yeah, you can’t fence something twice and then have a clear title, but after it’s been fenced 1200 times…at some point, ambiguity becomes lack of knowledge becomes de facto legitimate ownership. Using the US as an example, the original thefts of land happened literally ten thousand years ago - and we have no idea who stole what from whom.
To put it another way, if you really believe that Frank Jones of 123 Fake Street doesn’t have a moral claim on his land because his g-g-g-g-g-g-father stole it from the Iroquois, then you also believe that the Iroquois had not moral claim on it, either - because they sure as hell stole it from someone else. We just don’t know who - it’s too far back, and no records to speak of. Yet most all of us would acknowledge that the native Americans had a moral claim to their land.
4. Therefore, the owners of land must EITHER allow anyone to use “their” land as the others wish, or they must pay the dispossessed (either everyone in the world or everyone who is “reasonably” dispossessed) the Fair Market Value of the land the “owners” are depriving them of.
Nah. Because what’s happened in the interim - in the time between the last violent theft and the present - is that we’ve come up with a different way of handling land transfers. We buy it and sell it, usually, and accept on a near-consensus basis that these latter-day transactions have legitimacy. We do this because it’s a lot better that way; fewer corpses in the street, and all that. So now our moral consultations regarding ownership have to do with - as in Charles’ example - whether the right paperwork got done, whether people got paid correctly, and other commercial questions.
Capitalism - making life better since 1776.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:37 am
So should it therefore disappoint you that I’d criticize aspects of US history?
No, but it would be disappointing if you were anti-American.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:32 am
I am anti-American in the sense that I think, in an ideal world, the European colonists who immigrated to this continent would have acted in very different ways, which probably would have put history on some other course that wouldn’t have led to the USA we know today.
I am anti-Zionist in a similar sense.
However, right now both the USA and Israel exist, and history can’t be undone. I would like both the USA and Israel (and pretty much all other countries) to change, but I accept that they exist. So if an “anti-Zionist” means someone who thinks Israel should stop existing, then no, I’m not an anti-Zionist.
Of course, part of the problem here is that the parallel term to “anti-American” isn’t “anti-Zionist,” but “anti-Israel.” The two terms shouldn’t be conflated.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:30 am
No, I suppose he can’t now, but if he had lived there before he would be able to stay. Gentrification foes aren’t necessarily against the fact that people can’t live anywhere they want to, but are usually against the displacement of long-term residents. For good reason, I might add.
This comment was written by Stacy.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:55 am
No, I suppose he can’t now, but if he had lived there before he would be able to stay.
Sure. Retrospectively, it’s easy to find the people helped by such laws, impossible to see the much larger group who are harmed.
Gentrification foes aren’t necessarily against the fact that people can’t live anywhere they want to, but are usually against the displacement of long-term residents.
…And completely blind to the fact that when the displacement does occur, the laws favored by the gentrification opponents are the main reason that there isn’t anywhere else to go.
It would be really nice if we could all lock in the price levels and economic realities of a particular favorable time for the rest of our lives. But creating privileges like that is of necessity going to be restricted to small groups. We can’t stop time for everybody.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:39 pm
With rental agreements, it’s generally understood that the landlord is not required to offer you the chance to renew your lease at any particular price, or even at all. If you’re worried about being priced out due to gentrification, and feel that moving would be an intolerable burden, your best option is to buy a home, which gives you a legal right to remain in it for as long as you continue to make a fixed monthly mortgage payment, and which also gives you the option to profit from gentrification, should it occur.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
What are you, some kind of anti-manifestdestinarian?
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Oh! buy a home! Why , I never thought of that ! I know, I’ll just go rustle up three hundred grand and get going on that project. All my problems with gentrification solved…
(Brooklyn NY)
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I personally don’t think good renter’s rights laws cause rental prices to go up any more than restrictive zoning that favors high-density development or the vagaries of what makes a location desireable to live in (which is what the origianl post is about). The economic causes of high rental prices in large, popular metropolitan areas are so complex that to distill their cause down to laws that attempt to mitigate the suffering of long-term residents is so simplistic as to be basically useless as theory. (You could easily use Seattle as a counter example, given that renters rights are very nascent and rents are still exorbitantly high.) Since good renters rights can co-exist with strong affordable housing requirements, the argument RonF made is a pernicious red herring. Yes, there are always trade-offs in public policy. But more checks on capitalism, especially when considering a vital human need like housing, is far better than crossing your fingers that the free market will provide affordable housing to everyone. It’s simply not designed to do that.
That’s a great idea. My dad really should have thought of that one. I bet he could have found a house that he could afford that would only have been about a 3 hour drive to his work. Or maybe he should have quit his job and gotten a new one at age 70.
I cannot believe that evicting senior citizens because of profit motive is better than the alternative. That’s an ideology I simply can’t support.
This comment was written by Stacy.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Curiousgyrl:
You know about mortgages, right? On average, buying a home costs roughly the same as renting a comparable one, which is why the home ownership rate is nearly 70%.
Stacy:
The rents in Seattle aren’t that bad. Sure, if you want to live in the better part of Kirkland or smack in the middle of downtown Seattle or Bellevue, it’s going to be expensive. But so what? Living in the less fashionable parts of town is no great hardship. You can still get a one-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood for $750 or so, or a two-bedroom under $900.
The buying thing is something you have to plan ahead for. You can’t buy insurance at the scene of the crash, and you can’t buy a house on the cheap once the neighborhood’s been gentrified. And are you really trying to tell us that there’s no place your father can afford to live within a three-hour radius of his old residence?
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Brandon;
Not here it doesnt! And what about the 30% of people who don’t buy homes.–Any thoughts as to why they dont? Even scraping together 10% for a down payment is out of the question for more than a few people. People who read this blog.
These 30% you mention, along with people who can’t afford property takes in their quickly gentrifying areas, are the ones most at the mercy of the gent. process.
And NYC is not some weird exception, just the ubercase of high-speed gentrification. I wouldnt be surprised if SF and Oakland also extremely high barriers to entry into the housing market.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I cannot believe that evicting senior citizens because of profit motive is better than the alternative.
Evicting senior citizens because of profit motive is worse than having a society where housing is unavailable for everyone - including the selfsame senior citizens - because the profit motive isn’t allowed to operate?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Housing in some areas seems to be in a speculative bubble now. People are paying more than they should because they expect prices to keep going up. It won’t last, and prices will eventually come back down in line with rents.
There are any number of reasons why somebody might choose to rent instead of buy. I rent because I’m not sure how long I want to live here, and because I don’t want to risk getting stuck in an upside-down mortgage. I know several people at work who rent as well, and they’re all paid pretty well. The renters definitely aren’t all in the bottom 30% of the income distribution.
Banks are giving mortgages out like candy these days. You don’t need a 10% down payment.
And even if, for whatever reason, you can’t or don’t want to buy, I don’t see what the big deal is. Your rent goes up and you have to move to a different neighborhood. So what? Prices have been going up in my neighborhood, and I’m probably going to move to another one when my lease comes up for renewal. It’s a bit of a hassle, but that’s life. Why should I get to live here when others are willing to pay more for the privilege?
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
From what I can tell, most of the recent research shows that laws like modern-day rent control have more limited effects than proponents prefer, and more limited harms than opponents imagine. The idea that modern anti-gentrification laws have a bigger effect on housing availability than (say) interest rates seems implausible, to say the least.
What neither proponants nor opponants seem to understand is that the rental housing market is incredibly complicated and often not very flexible; there are dozens of factors that go into determining rent. Especially given the relative mildness of present-day rent control laws in the US, it’s ridiculous to point at those laws and say “There! There’s the culprit! If not for those dratted laws everyone could live in Manhattan cheaply!”
And, unfortunately, it’s equally unrealistic to think that legal regulation is going to be able to prevent gentrification. Maybe it does sometimes, in some neighborhoods, but most of the time it’s just going to be one factor of many. We’ve all heard the amazing anecdotes, but studies show that most of the time, the laws have only a small downward effect on rents.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 4th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
curiousgyrl Writes:
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:50 pm Oh! buy a home! Why , I never thought of that ! I know, I’ll just go rustle up three hundred grand and get going on that project. All my problems with gentrification solved…
(Brooklyn NY)
I imagine there are many people in Cambridge Ma. making the exact same comments as you. When I purchased a run down triple Decker back in the late 70’s people laughed at me and pointed out the fact that the numbers simply did not add up. In order to afford the monthly payments, taxes, and upkeep I had to move out of the top floor of my own building and into the basement of a store I rented. I laid down carpet onto a dirt floor used the bathroom in my store and joined the local YMCA so that I might be able to shower.
Cambridge Ma. was under rent control at the time and many areas were considered fairly cheap. My rent before purchasing that house was $190 per month. At those rates the landlord simply could not afford the upkeep. Cambridge is now extremely difficult for people to afford. It took vision and sacrifice to make a purchase in such an area prior to rent control being defeated. The time to purchase a place is not when the property is cost prohibitive. You need to get into an area when the prices are reasonable and build equity.
There are plenty of areas with opportunities waiting to be realized today. Complaining after the fact is useless.
For many reasons some people prefer never to own. In fact. I have a wealthy friend who owns many rental properties yet prefer to rent the space in which he lives. If you are frozen out of the market it is the result of your own poor choices.
curiousgyrl Writes:
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:50 pm Brandon;
Not here it doesnt! And what about the 30% of people who don’t buy homes.–Any thoughts as to why they dont? Even scraping together 10% for a down payment is out of the question for more than a few people. People who read this blog.
I suggested some reasons above. But there will always be others who simply do not have marketable skills which are conducive to earning a decent salary. But most people can scrape together the down payment needed to purchase a home in an affordable neighborhood if they are willing to be flexible.
Stacy Writes:
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
That’s a great idea. My dad really should have thought of that one. I bet he could have found a house that he could afford that would only have been about a 3 hour drive to his work. Or maybe he should have quit his job and gotten a new one at age 70.
I cannot believe that evicting senior citizens because of profit motive is better than the alternative. That’s an ideology I simply can’t support.
Many people do make a 2 or 3 hour drive to and from work in order to live in an upscale home in southern New Hampshire rather than be shut out of the market in Massachusetts.
Those who purchased 5-10 years ago have seen their home more than double in value. The time for your dad to buy was decades earlier. Many people with that vision have sold their homes in Massachusetts and retired in relative comfort on the profits they realized on their primary residence
You seem to think that senior citizens have some special right not to be evicted from a place they can no longer afford. If that seems cruel to you, simply pay the difference. That is exactly what you are asking someone else to do,
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 4th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
oh good lord.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 4th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
oh good lord.
It’s merely the logical conclusion of both libertarian and capitalist philosophies. Sink or swim on your own. If you weren’t prescient enough to make the right (or even best) choices, tough shit. I got mine.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 7:07 am
i think one of the central perceptions of unfairness in capitalism that has gone unspoken here is this:
the owners of rented land who price out tenants for a profit motive are using the privilege of having money to obtain more money at the expense of people who don’t have money. for better or for worse (and i suppose that’s debatable), that is the central problem that the left (which includes me) finds unfair about capitalism. money breeds more money, and those without have a hard time breaking into that cycle (in fact, those with money have an incentive to keep them out with things like high-interest mortgages intended to force foreclosure).
sure, property rights must exist and be respected but haven’t we all heard how the presence of rights implies the presence of responsibilities? where are those in the purely capitalist view? they have to come from laws, since capitalism has little incentive to enforce them on its own.
that’s why san francisco has those laws. they’re trying to define responsibilities that go with the rights. i hope you don’t have a problem with saying that some people have responsibilities?
This comment was written by polymath.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Yes, having money buys you convenience - the convenience of not having to move when the place you rented becomes more than you can afford. Remember that those landlords are not evil money-grubbing denizens of Hell - they’re people trying to make a living, just like their tenants, who are coping with rising heating prices, rising insurance costs, and rising maintenance costs. Most of them are not rich. Most if them are paying their mortgages by renting out units in their own homes. When the market value in the neighborhood goes up, their property taxes go up, and landlords are not a public charity. Yes, we could say that all rental properties should be state controlled, and run as if they are a public charity, but you’d be taking away one of the easiest paths to home ownership that middle class families take advantage of. Some people would prefer that. That’s their right. I personally think that laws that protect tenants from being forced out during their lease terms and that require that landlords provide a habitable environment, coupled with some amount of government subsidized housing to ensure a minimum amount of low and middle-income housing availability is a good way to balance the free market, but at some point there has to be an understanding that when you rent a place, it does not belong to you. Just because you’ve been there forever does not make it any more yours.
This comment was written by ADS.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 10:26 am
I think part of the problem is the variations in the concept of ownership.
If I own a car that I want fix up and sell, or even rent out, I can put any price tag on it that I want. I can get the absolute highest price someone is willing to pay me. I doubt many people actually believe they have the “right” to my car at the price of their choosing, or that I should have to sell it at a discount if the person who wants it is poor. But for reasons that I cannot fathom, some people think they have some kind “right” to live in my rent house and want to limit my ability to raise the rent to get the most money that someone is willing to pay me to live there. That after all is the reason I bought the land in the first place. My rights of ownership of my house (and it is “mine” no matter who is living there) is much more fundamental than my ownership of my car despite the USSCs dilution of those rights.
(I don’t actually have a rent house now, I am just making a point. I used to have a rental for a few years though so I am familiar with this attitude first hand.)
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Polymath:
You could say that, though I would argue that having money can’t really be considered a “privilege” when you’ve earned it rather than inheriting it. Or you could say that they’re using their money to obtain more money by giving the new tenants—the ones who actually are willing and able to pay market rent—something of value. Or you could say that the new tenants that have more money are using their money to obtain a more desirable living space at the expense of the existing tenants.
But let’s be explicit about what the expense is. We’re not talking about throwing people out on the street at a moment’s notice. When your lease expires, you’re generally notified of the new terms at least a month in advance, and the worst that can happen is that you have to move to another neighborhood. It’s no great tragedy.
IANAB, and I’m not clear on the details of how foreclosure works, but I don’t think that foreclosure is anywhere near as good a deal for banks as you seem to think it is. Why do you think banks would prefer loans with a high chance of default?
Interesting. What other rights imply the presence of responsibilities? Is the right to free speech limited by the responsibility not to offend anyone, or damage anyone’s reputation (even with the truth)? Is the right to abortion limited by the responsibility to get the father’s consent first? Is the (alleged) right to free medical care limited by the responsibility to avoid risking injury or illness? Should we pass laws enforcing these responsibilities?
And how’s that working out for them? Have you tried to find housing in San Francisco recently?
Certainly not. I just want responsibilities defined in a way that doesn’t place absurd and arbitrary limits on property rights, like giving a tenant the right to hold an apartment hostage beyond the terms of the lease. Examples of valid responsibilities might include the responsibility to pay market price for the property you rent. Or the responsibility to vacate an apartment when your lease expires and you find the terms of the new lease unacceptable.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Polymath -
From looking over your blog, you’re a math teacher. And from what I can see, a damn good one - good on ya.
Let’s say you get paid $60,000 a year. (I don’t know if that’s absurdly high, absurdly low, or about right; just roll with it.)
Tomorrow, at the Annual Math Teacher’s Conference in New York City, which you couldn’t attend because you have to go pick up your baby (congratulations!!), a meteor hits the assembly hall, killing thousands of innocent math teachers in a pyrotechnic smash of tinkling protractors. Tragic.
A month later, you start getting offer letters in your mailbox from a variety of private and public schools offering you jobs (to replace your fallen colleagues, natch). The offers range from $70,000 to $90,000 a year. Your school, we’ll assume, can’t afford to pay you any more than they do.
If you take one of the offers, are you “using the privilege of having money to obtain more money at the expense of people who don’t have money”?
Or are you simply selling your asset (your work as a teacher, your knowledge and skills, etc.) at the new market price?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 11:39 am
“Privilege of having money”. Gotta love it.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Are the three events exactly the same? No, of course they’re not. But that doesn’t mean the similarity isn’t interesting….
There’s no similarity at all, except for the bare fact that in all three situations, some people are moving somewhere else. That isn’t very interesting.
The reason that gentrifying isn’t remotely like the other situations:
1. Gentrifying = the general word for a process in which private individuals put their homes in a particular area up for sale, while other private individuals look at real estate ads, etc., and then decide to buy those homes in that area.
2. European settlement of America and Jewish settlement of Israel: Not quite so many voluntary transactions going on there; lots of forceful evictions of the rightful owners.
Let me know if there’s an example of “gentrification” where rich white people roam around a neighborhood with guns and force black people out of their own homes.
This comment was written by John Doe.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
What is missing from this discussion is the fact that rents don’t always go up? The South End of Boston where I now own a condo is quite fashionable. A small condo now sells for over half a million dollars. But the picture was quite different before the revitalization. As working class people left this area to buy homes in the suburbs they were replaced by people who had less money to pay for rents. In many cases the owners no longer lived in one of the units and larger homes were chopped up into smaller apartments just to make the rents pay the bills. Crime increased and the area became drab and run down. As a result, rents became depressed.
But when this spiral was at its worse was anyone advocating the rents should be maintained artificially high ? There were no housing rights advocates demanding that tenants pay more than the going rate.Naturaly many residents took advantage of this situation and purchased homes at very affordable prices. As a result of the area making a come back many people with vision did quite well.
So property values rise and fall as a result of many factors. We all make choices based on our wants and needs. In addition we have the right to live wherever we want. But that right is not a guarantee just as I have the right to own a Mercedes, I must still be able to afford it.
There are people who lack the ambition to earn more money or the discipline to save. Others have no desire to take on the responsibility of home ownership. Yet some of these same people seem to feel they should be guaranteed to stay where they are. The responsibility lies with the end user. If you want to stay living in an area make sure you take the steps necessary to do so .
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Robert’s response to premise #1 is laughably bad. Whether or not it implies veganism or vegitarianism has no baring on whether or not it is true among humans. And I suspect that the acreage of land on Earth last taken by the killing of the previous possessors in legitimate self-defense is smaller than the acreage possessed by heirs and assignees of the original settlers.
Private property is a good thing; we should decide who has the strongest claim to it and say it’s his.
The second statement does not neccessarily follow from the first. If private property is a useful good - and it is - the we should assign private property rights in the manner that best for all, not just the few who currently hold it. If the person who has the strongest claim still has a weak claim, we can give them ownership subject to a duty to pay FMV rent to the dispossessed. This is still a strong
private property rights system. It is simply a private property system that is both strong and morally fair.
Robert and Brandon Berg are both arguing for a “last innocent possessor presumption rule”. This claims that the last person to acquire property innocently should be presumed the moral owner of the property unless another specific person or entity can prove a better prior claim. This is a pro-status quo argument. People should be able to keep what they bought unless someone else can prove otherwise.
The probalem is that under the status quo, *I* win the argument. All governments on Earth that have issued titles to land have done so claiming the right to tax that land at whatever rate they wish for whatever purpose they wish. When the last innocent possessor purchased their land, they did so knowing that their ownership was subject to the burden of paying whatever taxes the government levied. That knowledge was reflected in the purchase price the owner paid - if the land was expected to not be subject to taxation, the purchase price would have been *MUCH* higher.
Are there practical arguments against full land taxation? Perhaps, but I suspect all of those are really practical reasons against implimenting it immediately, as opposed to slowly over, say, a 20 year period. But is the last innocent possessor presumption rule a moral argument against full land taxation? Sorry, no. That was a risk that you knew, and paid for, when you bought the property.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Your syllogism having collapsed, and you having no counter-arguments, you jump to the happy assumption that even if you’re wrong, you’re right. OK, I don’t mind playing the game.
The basic moral argument against full land taxation (or any tax) is that governments are intrinsically immoral institutions, because they rely on force and coercion. And you shouldn’t give money or power to immoral institutions, so no taxes for you, Mr. Government.
But we need governments because the alternative is worse. It’s better to have one arbiter of force, which is at least somewhat subject to popular and democratic pressure, than a million thugs running their own private anthills. So too bad for morality; we have a state and it gets to tax stuff.
Pragmatism is thus the relevant ground for argument on any taxation question. And on those grounds, it seems pretty clear that a total tax on rent would be a disaster; nobody will put their property out for rent if they cannot profit by it. If I do nothing with my land, I owe the state nothing and earn nothing; if I maintain it and put structures on it and find tenants and maintain things, I owe the state everything and earn nothing; hmm, which route towards earning nothing shall I take? The one where I work hard, or the one where I sit on my ass? I think the ass-sitting path has a certain appeal.
Ramping up to this happy state of affairs, rather than doing it all at once, would certainly delay the inevitable. But if your end program is total taxation, then your end result is total absence of rentable property on the market. To foreclose the job path of “landlord”, you end up putting a third of the population on the street.
Good plan.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 5th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I defended point 1 of the syllogism, you did not reply. Point 2 was yours. The conclusion, 4, follows the other three.
I did not argue point 3 because I do not think your refutation is really arguable. That refutation is the last innocent possessor presumption rule. As you stated: Yeah, you can’t fence something twice and then have a clear title, but after it’s been fenced 1200 times…at some point, ambiguity becomes lack of knowledge becomes de facto legitimate ownership.
Um, no, I do not think it does. You give no reasons for this assertion, so it is apparently just something a person believes or not. Mr. Berg appears to atempt to give a reason when he claimed that it is necessary to having private property, but I already showed that is not true.
But I have apparently convinced you that the the last innocent possessor presumption rule is not a moral argument against full taxation, and so you have reverted to:
The basic moral argument against full land taxation (or any tax) is that governments are intrinsically immoral institutions, because they rely on force and coercion.
But the counter here is that what is being taxed - property - was created by government force and coersion, esspecially in the case of land held by the sucessors in interest to blood conquest.
And on those grounds, it seems pretty clear that a total tax on rent would be a disaster; nobody will put their property out for rent if they cannot profit by it.
True. I previously (post #13) wrote:
This comment was written by Decnavda.“The highest sustainable rate” is the maximum amount that someone would be willing to pay to rent the land (FMV rent), or the entirety of the rental income that could be recieved from owning the land, minus the total of the cost to administer the land plus a reasonable Return On Investment from that cost.
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March 5th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Robert,
On point three of the syllogism, look again at the example of property in Maine that I gave. 200 years of land transfers did not protect the land in Maine from falling under the shadow of an illegitimate treaty. Property doesn’t eventually lose the trait of being stolen, although it may eventually lose the trait of being provably stolen. If the first person to sell it doesn’t have legitimate title, then no one in the chain of transactions has legitimate title, so no one in the chain of transactions can give legitimate title to the next purchaser. The original owner or their heirs retain the only legitimate title.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 12:58 am
universal declaration of human rights:
article 25.1:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
article 29.3:
In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
i quote these to counter the examples of competition for my job and ownership of a car that came up in response to my previous post. i claim that when it comes to housing (and, for that matter health care and education), the workings of the free market can’t be trusted to fully provide for everyone. all purely capitalistic models for any good or service imply that someone could go without—when that good or service is a fundamental right, that is unacceptable, and we need special laws to protect people from capitalism. i’m actually quite a proponent of free-market solutions for a lot of things (more than most on the left), but not in the case of fundamental human rights.
also, i will accept that the “privilege of having money” is poorly worded. more precisely, i mean that the privilege that comes with having money ought to come with some social responsibility to the communtity that allowed you to make or inherit the money. in my opinion, that includes some restrictions on landlord practices.
also, predatory lending really does happen: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/Mortgage_Fraud/Predatory_Lending.asp
This comment was written by polymath.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 2:52 am
OK. Does it include restrictions on math teacher practices?
If it doesn’t, why not?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 2:54 am
Decnavda:
1. Regarding the sentence starting with, “If the person who has the strongest claim still has a weak claim…” I strongly disagree that the condition holds. If you’ve bought land at market price, that gives you a pretty strong claim to it. And for reasons which I’ve already given, in almost all cases no one else who has any sort of legitimate claim at all to it. This is critical. If someone else had a valid claim to the land, this argument would be problematic. No one does.
2. Government is not an innocent possessor. It simply asserts authority over territory and enforces it by violence.
3. “That was a risk that you knew, and paid for, when you bought the property.” You’re essentially saying that might makes right, that because government has the power to tax now, it will always and forever have the moral authority to do so. No.
Polymath:
1. If you’re going to resort to a naked appeal to authority, you’re going to need a better authority than Eleanor Roosevelt. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a left-wing manifesto, not a list of unassailable moral truths.
2. Again, the “right” in question here is not the right to decent housing, but the right not to have to move to a cheaper part of town. If anyone would like to explain why I’m wrong on this point, I’d be happy to listen. But please don’t persist in framing the issue this way without justification.
3. The free market is perfectly capable of providing housing for everyone, within the limitations of reality. You can only pack so many people into a given area, so prices in the most desirable areas tend to be bid up accordingly. And there are various regulations (building codes, land-use restrictions, etc.) that restrict supply and drive up prices. I’m not saying that the regulations are necessarily bad (and I’m not saying they aren’t), but they do drive up prices. And you can’t blame that on capitalism.
4. The page on predatory lending doesn’t appear to offer any evidence for your claim that banks want borrowers to default. Am I missing it?
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 3:08 am
I think that if there were a fundamental shortage of math teachers (that is, a shortage of people capable of being math teachers, not of people willing to be math teachers), so that extremely high math teacher wages would not bring in additional math teachers, but would instead merely represent a windfall profit for the math teachers at the expense of the possibility of equality in education, then math teacher price controls (probably in the form of requiring long term contracts) would be legitimate. Isn’t this done in professional sports, with restrictions on free agency and head hunting? Although those restrictions aren’t put in place by the government, aren’t the leagues granted exemptions from normal employment law in order to be able to have those rules?
I don’t particularly see the justification for doing this in professional sports, which are not a fundamental human right, but I do see the justification in doing this in education, which is (of course, the justification in sports is much the same if much less important: price controls prevent wage inflation from converting wealth inequality between teams into physical inequality between teams, it’s just that sports matter less than education or housing).
Probably the biggest difference between housing, math teachers and pro-sports is that the wage controls in pro-sports benefit the rich (team owners) rather than the poor.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 3:17 am
Brandon,
Decnavda’s point #3 isn’t an assertion of might makes right, it is an assertion of pricing. The purchase price of property includes the risk that the property will be subject to government regulation and taxation, a risk which has been permanently associated with the property since the government created the property right as a government protected right (generally by taking it by force from someone else, e.g. the Native American nations). If the property were protected from those risks, it would have had a higher sale price when you bought it. To claim that the government doesn’t have those rights to the property is to inflate the value of your property at the expense of everyone else in the country, who benefits from the government’s regulatory and taxation rights on your property.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 3:18 am
I think that if there were a fundamental shortage of math teachers (that is, a shortage of people capable of being math teachers, not of people willing to be math teachers), so that extremely high math teacher wages would not bring in additional math teachers, but would instead merely represent a windfall profit for the math teachers at the expense of the possibility of equality in education, then math teacher price controls (probably in the form of requiring long term contracts) would be legitimate.
Well, good luck ascertaining that flexibly enough and far enough in advance that you can switch your price controls on and off. Sounds to me like all you’ll accomplish is to foul up the market signaling mechanism.
In any case, that scenario doesn’t appear to apply to residential and commercial real estate. Although, technically, the supply of land is finite, there is obviously no fundamental shortage of real property. Higher rents create more opportunities for developer profit, and developers aren’t shy about seeking it out. The only places where massive development doesn’t occur in response to massive price spikes are markets where regulation has blocked new growth.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 3:18 am
By the way, I honestly don’t get the Georgist obsession with land. I mean, I can kind of understand Henry George’s obsession with it—once upon a time, land was wealth, and wealth was land. If you had it, you were set. If you didn’t, you’d probably never amount to anything.
But I don’t get modern Georgists. The world just doesn’t work that way anymore. Land is just one of many forms of capital. You can become fabulously wealthy without ever owning a single square foot of land. There is no landed aristocracy anymore. Anyone who wants land can buy it, but it’s really not a uniquely good investment. If it were, why would anyone bother with stocks?
The short-term effect of taxing land would be a sharp drop in land prices, resulting in a transfer of wealth away from current holders of land. Which doesn’t make any sense, because, again, land is just one of many forms of capital. Why pick on real estate and natural resource investors while leaving all other investors alone?
The long-term effect of taxing land would be not to tax a particular class of people, but rather to tax a particular class of activities, namely those that are land-intensive. This would have the effect of encouraging inefficient economization on land: Highrises would be built too high, crops would be packed too close together, suburban backyards would be smaller, etc. Huzzah! Power to the people!
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 3:53 am
Robert,
Obviously, if it is not a reliable long term problem, then labor price controls are probably not the best solution. However, regulations that dampen signaling mechanisms without completely squashing them are beneficial, for the same reason that dampening mechanisms are frequently beneficial: while we do want the signal to get through, we don’t actually want spikes and crashes in critical resources.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 3:54 am
Brandon,
Personally, I don’t have any particular obsession with land taxing. I’m just nit picking your arguments.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 4:00 am
Personally, I’m just as happy with income and age based housing subsidies as I am with rent control, although I am also favorably inclined towards rent controlled public housing.
It strikes me that a major gap in public subsidizing of housing in the US (which is currently heavily biased against the poor and in favor of the upper middle class in this country, with virtually no section 8 funding, no public housing funding, but tax deductions for mortgage interest on second homes) is that there is very little support for low income co-op apartments (I may be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure many government loan subsidy programs don’t cover co-op apartments, just single family homes).
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 5:45 am
robert…
does the privilege that comes with having wealth include responisibilities that involve restricting the practices of math teachers??
is that really your question?
my point is that
1) if you somehow achieve a degree of wealth, you ought to be respectful of some restrictions on how you use that wealth in the society that allowed you to be wealthy…
2) especially when it comes to making money from business sectors (like housing) that involve providing basic human rights.
i’m not sure what this has to do with restrictions on math teaching.
This comment was written by polymath.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 7:35 am
But there are already restrictions on landlords - they have to abide by the terms of the lease set forth, they can’t evict tenants or change the rent before the lease term is up, they have to provide a habitable environment during the term, and in many states tenants without leases are given enormous protections. The question isn’t whether landlords ought to be subject to regulations - they already are. It seems to me that the point some people here are making is that landlords should be subject to additional regulations that makes it somewhere between hard to impossible to raise the rent on a unit occupied by a tenant at the end of his or her lease term, regardless of whether the market value and/or operating cost of that space has gone up. Is that a fair assesment of what we’re talking about?
This comment was written by ADS.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 8:00 am
2. Again, the “right” in question here is not the right to decent housing, but the right not to have to move to a cheaper part of town. If anyone would like to explain why I’m wrong on this point, I’d be happy to listen. But please don’t persist in framing the issue this way without justification.
Why are people against restricting free market evictions of renters from their longtime (sometimes decades) homes, but for restricting government evictions of homeowners (via rising property taxes) from their longtime (sometimes decades) homes?
Is there something better about one than the other? Because from my perspective, both of them are rotten.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Why are people against restricting free market evictions of renters from their longtime (sometimes decades) homes, but for restricting government evictions of homeowners (via rising property taxes) from their longtime (sometimes decades) homes? Is there something better about one than the other?
Yes. In the former case you have ownership by a private party who presumably earned the ownership of the property through hard work. In the latter case you have a presumption of power by an entity that did nothing to earn it.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 9:18 am
In the latter case you have a presumption of power by an entity that did nothing to earn it.
This is a joke, right?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 9:54 am
1) if you somehow achieve a degree of wealth, you ought to be respectful of some restrictions on how you use that wealth in the society that allowed you to be wealthy…
2) especially when it comes to making money from business sectors (like housing) that involve providing basic human rights.
i’m not sure what this has to do with restrictions on math teaching.
Because YOU have achieved a degree of wealth. You possess a big stock of human capital - a hard-to-learn academic/mental discipline, and the ability to propagate it to other minds. And you make money from a business sector (education) that involves providing a basic human right. You are in a strongly analogous position to the landlords.
So, do the restrictions that you want to apply to their specific sector of the economy, also apply to you?
Or are you special?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Are the wage demands of math teachers creating a scarcity of reliable education opportunities? Are there sudden math teacher rushes that deprive students of math teachers in the middle of the school year?
See, it would hurt you personally, see, see! Is not an effective argument if you can’t construct a scenario that is at all equivalent (or even comprehensible). Anyway, polymath is probably perfectly capable of becoming a landlord (and I am a landlord), so you don’t even need to go making up scenarios.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Charles, Polymath isn’t holding up market failure as the reason that landlords should be controlled, he’s holding up moral sentiments as justifications. Well, the moral sentiments apply absolutely and 100% orthogonally to his own situation.
I want to know if he really believes what he says about the moral sentiments, or whether it’s just rhetoric to bash landlords with.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 11:21 am
>
why is this a reasonable presumption? Most of the landlords I know in NYC “earned” their property through inheritance. Give me a break.
Despite the rich renters mentioned above, most renters work for a living while any landlord “trying to earn a living” via extracting rents does not, by definition.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 11:22 am
my comment was entered badly. I was responding to this
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 11:26 am
there is a social benefit in not forcing people to move every 2-5 years. community hurches, extended families, locally owned businesses etc etc. Its not simply about moralistic sentiments (which is equally applicable to the characterizations of “earned wealth” government intrusion and rights to property as it is to anything else) but also about what kind of cities and society we would like to live in.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Charles:
As a pricing argument, it fails miserably. The probability investors assign to the US Government jacking property taxes up to the levels Decnavda is suggesting is rightly so low as to have little to no effect on pricing. His claim that “if the land was expected to not be subject to taxation, the purchase price would have been *MUCH* higher” is true but irrelevant if he’s talking about current levels of taxation, but false for any reasonable value of *MUCH* if he’s talking about *MUCH* higher levels of taxation. And property prices would be *MUCH* lower if it was expected to be subjected to *MUCH* higher levels of taxation.
This argument applies equally well to all forms of taxation. You knew government could tax profits at 95% when you started that business. You knew government could confiscate all income above $100k when you went to medical school. You knew government could jack up capital gains taxes when you bought that stock. Heck, you knew you might get robbed when you bought that electronic equipment, so burglary must be okay, too.
So it pretty much does boil down to “might makes right,” insofar as Decnavda’s essentially asserting that the right to tax follows inexorably from the might.
And yes, I know you’re not a Georgist. Even if we non-leftists all look the same to you, I can tell you non-libertarians (Decnavda: No you’re not) apart.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Actually, I have not defended single-taxing. Plenty of other forms of wealth are created by government coersion and should be taxed acordingly. The land tax was relavant to this thread because it is a thread about the poor being priced out of their homes, and because Robert brought up what looks on the face of it to be good moral argument for the land tax - the fact that most land on Earth was stolen by force.
Buying land, that everyone knows or should know was stolen by force, is a strong moral claim as long as you paid market price? Well, now you are admitting to some frankly sociopathic sentiments where I, and those of us who do not have Antisocial Personality Disorder, simply have to agree to disagree.
2. Government is not an innocent possessor. It simply asserts authority over territory and enforces it by violence.
Um, that is exactly what I have been arguing…
3. “That was a risk that you knew, and paid for, when you bought the property.” You’re essentially saying that might makes right, that because government has the power to tax now, it will always and forever have the moral authority to do so. No.
Wait, YOU were the one arguing for the right of might - that the title created by might (see your point 2, above) is legitimate, at least after it has been fenced some unknown number of times.
You and Robert keep wanting to have it both ways - You want to be able to buy a blood-saoked title issued by the government at a price that reflect’s the conquer’s right to tax it at any level, and then whine that the violent government is immoral when it coersively levies the tax. You want landowners to benefit from the blood conquest and then call the killer who took the land immoral and send them away when they come to collect the price the landowners agreed to pay. Neat trick.
The long-term effect of taxing land would be not to tax a particular class of people, but rather to tax a particular class of activities, namely those that are land-intensive. This would have the effect of encouraging inefficient economization on land: Highrises would be built too high, crops would be packed too close together, suburban backyards would be smaller, etc.
This ultilitarian argument is bizzare. The land tax would be on the rental value of the land. Land rents not for what it is used for, but for what it could be used for. Why pack everything together too tightly when you have to pay the same tax on the empty lot next door?
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
The fact that the businessmen (correctly) assigned a low probability to the risk of full taxation does not mean they did not buy the risk. And the difference between assuming the risk of high land taxes and assuming the risk of a burglary is that you did not get your property from the burglar.
It does apply to capital gains on the stock, though. Government created corporations. Buying the special benefits of corporation that come from the government’s ability to coersively enforce corporate privledges hardly puts you in a place to whine about thst coersive power when they tax you on those benefits.
No, I am not a right-libertarian. Do you really need to be school in the history of the term libertarian? Believe me, if I could find a better term than left-libertarian, I would, but everything else is taken.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
There is a social benefit to cheap university education for everyone. With much of the expense of education in the form of salaries we should cap all teachers and administrators salaries at, say, $35K per year. Teachers have a responsibility to make some sacrifices for the knowledge that was obtained within the society that allowed them to become educated. This would greatly reduce the cost of education for everyone and serve the greater good.
There is a social benefit to cheap legal services. With the price of legal services appallingly high, we need to cap the hourly rate that a law firm can charge. I am thinking that $20 per hour seems fair. No longer should we allow widely divergent levels of legal services. This would level the playing field and allow those of modest means to get the same caliber of legal services as the wealthy.
There is probably a social benefit that could be argued for press censorship, or and not allowing protestors in most instances. The thing is I am not sure a subjective social benefit is sufficient justification of trampling on other’s rights and the free market.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
agreeing with one policy doesnt mean you have to agree with the others. its a matter of balancing rights.
I personally think that the right to make investment profit is less compelling than the right to make a living wage off of your work, though professionals who didnt have school loan debt could probably do with less money.
In terms of balance of various rights though, I would argue that capping university presidents’ salaries at say, $100K/year and evening out professors’ salaries (the stars dont need $250K but no classes should be taught by adjuncts making $10K) would be a fine way of reducing the cost of edcuation.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
curiousgrrl wrote: Oh! buy a home! Why , I never thought of that ! I know, I’ll just go rustle up three hundred grand and get going on that project. All my problems with gentrification solved…
Well, that’s what starts gentrification - people who have the same problem as you find somewhere where they can afford - like my wife, ms_xeno, did seven years ago, when Alberta wasn’t yet the “Alberta Arts District”.
The real problems come when people who don’t see a need to drive hard bargains for property come in, especially if they come from a place where properties are expensive and condos preferred to houses. That starts the influx of high-end condos replacing apartments.
This comment was written by Aaron V..Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I don’t think that using teacher salaries is a good way to demonstrate how someone in a public service position could sacrifice more to the public good. For Washington State, a starting teacher makes $30k per year and the max salary for a teacher is less than $60k for a PhD with 16+ years of experience. Most teachers are paid very little in comparison to what they could make in the private sector (one reason why I am not a math teacher, although I was accepted to a master’s program). On top of that teacher’s are put in the position of supplying schools supplies, books, classroom decoration materials, and any number of other items. As a child of a teacher I can say that they don’t get rich or anything approximating it.
There was a story recently here in the Seattle area about how property values are rising so fast the owners of trailer parks are selling out to developers. People who previously owned their homes are having to abandon them because they don’t have a place to move them Some of those people are trying to create co-ops to buy the land with mixed results, mostly because they are having a hard time getting enough capital together to apply for a loan.
It’s good to bear in mind that the people being displaced aren’t lazy, they aren’t good for nothing. They are people who work and paid for their homes, whether through rent or a mortgage and now they are being forced out because someone else wants their home and is willing to pay more.
This comment was written by bradana.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
No one can be forced out of a house they own by someone willing to pay more money for it. It they are renting, that’s an entirely different matter since they do not own the property.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Aaron;
its true what you say, but in New York at least, the problem goes beyond the individual decisions of renters, homeowners and small-time landlords. The brokers, the big land owners and the realestate moguls have plans for these neighborhoods for years and those plans dont really include working people or most of the “middle class”. plans for gentrifying my neighboorhood were underway before I was born, more or less.
in 1970’s when this process started in brooklyn a lot of community groups were able to fight back at first, keep thier city services, demand that landlords stop running down their property and evicting people, even draw attention to the rash of fires set by landlords, but that only slowed the process down. I have to admit that I dont see a clear way toward mixed class, integrated, human-scale, community-supportive housing in New York. But I hope somebody smart does.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
curiousgyrl Writes:
March 6th, 2007 at 11:21 am
>
why is this a reasonable presumption? Most of the landlords I know in NYC “earned” their property through inheritance. Give me a break.
Despite the rich renters mentioned above, most renters work for a living while any landlord “trying to earn a living” via extracting rents does not, by definition.
LANDLORDS DON’T. WORK? IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING? What a brilliant thought. Have you ever been a landlord? My guess would be NO!
Part of how I earn a living is by renting out commercial properties. I have never inherited a single piece of land or building. Several of my friends own property in New York with one just purchasing a multimillion dollar condo. They are also building a beach house which is in excess of 11 thousand square feet . ( not a typo) This couple were high school sweethearts with the husband never graduating. They started selling real-estate and eventually became successful builders. They also own dozens of rental properties in Southern New Hampshire. Like me, they worked very long hours to get where they are today.
Although I never received money or property from my parents, my children are all set for life. But they will be acquiring land and property which I purchased or built. These properties have been paid for with money I earned and which has already been taxed. The fact that I choose to give the value of my work to my children should not illicit such
class warfare and envy.
Owning rental property involves risk and work. Just as an area can go up in value so too can it go down. Units require upkeep. If you don’t want the management hassles you pay a company to handle them for you. Obviously this diminishes the return. This only touches on the many aspects involved in ownership. The reality is that being a landlord is a JOB. Go buy a multiunit residential building and tell me how much fun it is after a year. Also, be aware that many people with your view end out selling for a loss or bankrupt.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 6th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Aaron V. Writes:
March 6th, 2007 at 3:05 pm curiousgrrl wrote: Oh! buy a home! Why , I never thought of that ! I know, I’ll just go rustle up three hundred grand and get going on that project. All my problems with gentrification solved…
Well, that’s what starts gentrification - people who have the same problem as you find somewhere where they can afford - like my wife, ms_xeno, did seven years ago, when Alberta wasn’t yet the “Alberta Arts District”.
Bingo. Aaron hit the nail on the head. I mentioned the South End in Boston. The place went from one of the premier areas of Boston to a run down and dangerous area infested with drugs and crime. It is now back to being one of the elite places to live. Many working class people purchased large brownstones at easily affordable prices. When I purchased my first triple Decker it was in a lower middle class area between Harvard Square and M.I.T. Few people saw any potential in these worn down structures. But people with vision and the willingness to work found a small gold mine. I recall a hard working kid who bought
one of the buildings across the street from mine. His parents raised their family in one of the units. Although he worked a full time job as an electrician he found the time to put the effort into that home. In essence, he bought a second full time job. Over 20 years had past when I last saw him. He made a profit of well over half a million on that structure and could easily afford to find a single family home in one of the surrounding suburbs. But instead of that, he purchased several more such units in poorer areas which held potential. He continues to work his full time job and to manage his buildings despite the fact that he could sell now and retire elsewhere.
Twenty years from now we will hear of success stories involving people who started today. There is no dearth of opportunities if one has the desire and the vision. I see them constantly.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Brandon,
I think it was the thread on immigration where you defended TangoMan from charges of racism that I was misremembering as you being anti-illegal immigration. Re-reading it, I see that I had your views on immigration completely wrong. Sorry about that.
But yeah, you guys all look pretty much the same to me. Next you’re going to tell me you aren’t anti-gay. :p
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 1:41 am
Michael in post 79 - There’s a (black) woman who invested in properties on Alberta in the mid-90s, when no yuppie would even stop at the lights in the neighborhood.
The abandoned storefronts she bought 10 years ago are all thriving businesses, mostly independent ones as well. She’s not a bad landlady (she rents to the co-op we belong to), and has been able to take care of ill family members in the South with her rental money.
There is *some* hope - that and convincing residents of soon-to-be-up-and-coming neighborhoods that they can buy houses with standard 30-year fixed mortgages, as well as smacking down those low-ball house buyers who put their ugly litter “We Buy Houses!” signs up everywhere.
This comment was written by Aaron V..Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 6:22 am
My assertion that landlords dont work is less ridiculous than the assertion i was responding, that tenants dont work and that we should presume wealth is “earned.” My purpose was to demonstrate that.
I’m sure running your company takes a lot of effort.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Once you get above the very low near-poverty rental levels, most people who rent CAN own property if they want to.
They may not be able to own property that is as nice as what they can rent.
They may have a longer commute.
They may (as did my grandparents when they bought their first house) have to live without furniture for a decade or so.
They may have to eat cheaper food.
They will almost certainly have to have a longer commute.
They might even have to move somewhere else.
But for a huge proportion of renters, it’s possible to own. None of those things above is a violation of human rights. None of them is so bad that we “shouldn’t ask folks to do it.”
Do you rent a three bedroom in boston? You can probably afford to buy in Roxbury. Do you rent a three bedrom in Roxbury? You can probably still afford to buy in Fall River.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 7:11 am
yes, robert, restrictions on my practice of math teaching absolutely apply to me.
the state in which i live requires that i go through some very specific university training before i can teach in public schools. since i have not gone through that training, i cannot hold a job at a public school (unless i go back and get an education degree). i’ve never even considered the idea that the state should do away with that. i could probably make a little more money in the public schools, to be frank.
i am also prohibited from doing things to my students that would violate some of their rights: i can’t use corporal punishment, although there are plenty of people who think that it would be acceptable if i did. i am legally obligated to tell a higher authority if a student tells me something that might cause any student harm, even if i swore confidentiality to the student.
it’s not the law, but i’m expected to grade fairly and honestly, disregarding my personal feelings for a student—i’d surely be fired if i didn’t.
there are many, many, many moral expectations on teachers—in fact, the constant barrage of moral decisions i make daily is the part of teaching that most non-teachers simply can’t understand. i take my provision of education to my students absolutely seriously because i do consider it a right. and i try to live up to the corresponding responsibilities. (and so do most teachers i know.)
so the answer to your question, i think, is a resounding yes. do people who provide housing for income hold themselves to some kind of moral standard? most, to some extent, yes. but if they don’t we need laws to make them.
This comment was written by polymath.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Bradana said:
There was a story recently here in the Seattle area about how property values are rising so fast the owners of trailer parks are selling out to developers. People who previously owned their homes are having to abandon them because they don’t have a place to move them.
It’s good to bear in mind that the people being displaced aren’t lazy, they aren’t good for nothing. They are people who work and paid for their homes, whether through rent or a mortgage and now they are being forced out because someone else wants their home and is willing to pay more.
First of all, while renters work, they didn’t pay for their home and don’t own it, so it’s entirely legitimate for the actual owner to (at the end of their lease) raise the price and see if someone else will pay more to rent it. This has nothing to do with whether the people in those homes spend their time working their asses off or selling crack.
OTOH, in the specific example you give, the trick is that it is not uncommon that while people in trailer parks own their homes, they don’t own the land they are on - they rent it. They know full well when they put themselves in this situation that the trailer park owner may decide at some point to sell the land to someone who has the intent to do something with that land other than run a trailer park. Sometimes the owner dies, or wants to retire. Sometimes the area gets built up and the park owner’s taxes go up to the point that he or she can no longer keep the land rent at a level that the residents can pay. Sometimes the owner just wants to sell out and get the money.
The fact that people pay rent for a property gives them no rights to that property past those defined in their lease (that’s what the lease is for), and gives them no rights at all past the termination of that lease.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 9:15 am
We have had a couple of trailer parks in my area get redeveloped. One was turned into regular single-family homes, and the other turned into commercial property (Walgreens, gas station, restaurant, UPS store, auto shop, etc.). It was in all the papers, so I found out about this own-your-home/rent-the-land bit. It also turns out that this is common even for single-family homes in Hawaii; the Dole familiy and other such interests own a lot of land there that they have stopped growing (or never grew) pineapples on and have developed instead. I can’t imagine building and paying a 30-year mortgage on a house on land I don’t own, but I guess if you want to live in Hawaii this is something a lot of people have accepted.
That’s a contrast with my house, where if I sold it I would get about $350,000 for it, but the next day the new owner would most likely bulldoze my house down and build a new one. I want to live here until I can’t live on my own anymore, I just hope the taxes don’t go out of sight. The next door neighbor is trying to sell his 10-year old house for about $500,000. He’s not getting it. He refuses to accept that while people want the land, no one wants the house; it’s a “knockdown”, even though it’s a perfectly nice 17oo or 2000 square foot house. The property is only worth the cost of the land, and he’s trying to get money for the house as well.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Polymath - so would you take the higher offers, or not?
And if you did, would you be engaging in economic rationality? Or would you be abusing your wealth, as you claim landlords are abusing theirs?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 10:53 am
whatever we may think of their respective political or moral qualitites, getting paid for a job and making money as a landlord are not the same economic equation.
Individual landlords may be good, bad or otherwise, may spend all day fixing toilets or may let the ceilings fall in on their tenants heads but they aren’t getting paid for that work as work.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I used to live in Andover Ma. Many of the homes including the one Jay Leno grew up in are being purchased and demolished. The same can be said near my beach house. It is not uncommon to buy a very large home in good condition for 1 mil and knock it down to rebuild. In both cases you have wealthy people paying for the retirement of older folks.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 11:11 am
..getting paid for a job and making money as a landlord are not the same economic equation.
I disagree entirely. Is making money in any self-employed manner the same as getting paid for a job?
Why is it not the same economic equation? Maybe I’m not understanding the distinction that you’re making.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 11:20 am
getting paid for a job and making money as a landlord are not the same economic equation.
I suppose not, if you want to draw a particular line around paid third-party employment. What would be the point of that? Do I not have a job because I write my own paycheck, instead of doing what I do on behalf of someone else?
Work is work.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Being an active landlord is work (pretty much the same work as being a property manager), but there is nothing inherent in being a landlord that is work (that is, the person who owns the property, chooses whether to rent it or develop it, and gets the net profit of the rental income is not required to do any work other than that).
That some/many landlords are property managers, etc doesn’t make the owning the land part of being a landlord work. Being an active landlord is work, but if you own rental properties and hire a property management company to actually manage the rentals, then being a landlord is not work. Being a rental property manager is work, but it is the same work whether you own the property or work for the person who owns the property.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
The “owning the land” part of being a landlord doesn’t get you any income, Charles. (Quite the converse; you owe property taxes on the land each year whether you put the land to any economic purpose or not.) Ownership, absent labor, produces negative wealth for the asset holder.
If you want to make money from your asset, you have to manage it - the fact that you can subcontract that work out doesn’t seem terribly relevant. (And speaking as someone who subcontracts to other folks for a living, “just subcontract it out” doesn’t mean there’s no work being done. Quite the contrary.)
It’s the work that creates the income. Capital is just another tool; there’s not much conceptual difference between a hammer and a hectare.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
its work that creates income for the landlord, but its not necessarily his work, and it isnt the fact that he works (or not) that gives him the right to profit. Its parallel to the difference between owning a buisiness (which you can be more or less inovlved in depending on how sucessful it is, and how much profit you make) and working for a wage. your right to profit from your business isn’t dependent on work.
the distinction I’m making is is between rent income and wages. They have a different relationship to work, and I find it strange that renters had thus far been characterized in this discussion as more or less profligate, undisciplined or perhaps simply ignorant of the wonders of homeownership while landlords are framed as “earners,” and people who are disciplined planners and work hard.
with the exception of Section 8 tenants (and even then), a tenant are- almost by definition- workers while landlors, however many hours the do or dont put in, arent.
it is work that makes the money, but not the mostly the property managers work. mostly its the work of workers, who pay rent, that make landlords money.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
mostly its the work of workers, who pay rent, that make landlords money.
This is a truism. It is the work of customers who pay for goods and services, that make everyone money. The renting workers get money for their jobs, and THAT money comes from other workers, too.
Capital - whether in the form of physical tools, mental skills, land, or any other type of asset - must be worked in order to produce new wealth. Idle capital earns nothing, and generally deteriorates or declines in value if left alone.
There is no economically meaningful distinction between rent income and wages.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Actually, it does during gentrification. In a gentrified market, unlike most markets, it is primarily the value of the land (not what’s on it) that is increasing so fast. When the most profitable thing that can be done with a piece of property is to knock it down and put up condos instead, it really doesn’t matter how much work was put into the thing being knocked down.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
An increase in the value of a capital asset is not income.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Robert Writes:
March 7th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Capital - whether in the form of physical tools, mental skills, land, or any other type of asset - must be worked in order to produce new wealth. Idle capital earns nothing, and generally deteriorates or declines in value if left alone.
There is no economically meaningful distinction between rent income and wages.
Correct Robert . The same is true for investent income . If I bury it in my back yard it won’t make a dime . But when I invest it by putting it in the bank or buying stocks I am actively working with that money . That’s why it is work .
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 7th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
some work is productive of new things people can use, some is not. I think there is a meaningful distinction between income which is in the form of wages and income which is investment income; they reflect different relationships to to other people in particular and to society as a whole.
Obviously we aren’t going to agree so I’m going away. But not because I think you’re right :)
This comment was written by curiousgyrl@gmail.com.Report this comment to the moderators
March 8th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Curiousgyrl:
What you’re missing is that saving is productive, just like labor. In fact, saving is what makes labor productive. It’s hard to get much done when all you have is a pointy stick, so we need better tools to increase productivity. For us to get those better tools, someone has to decide to put off consumption for a while and spend some of his hard-earned money to pay someone to make them.
If everyone consumed 100% of his income, we’d rapidly deplete our stores of capital and fall into abject poverty in the space of a generation or two at best, and probably much sooner.
To labor is to forgo the consumption of leisure for money, and it has the effect of making capital more productive. To invest is to forgo the consumption of material goods for money, and it has the effect of making labor more productive. Both are critical to the economy, both are productive, and both are unpleasant, in that they involve resisting the temptation to consume stuff right now. In short, both are work.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 8th, 2007 at 2:35 am
Robert,
I have a 503b (like a 401k, but I work for a non-profit). According to you and Michael, the fact that it is accumulating interest must mean that that is work on my part. I get a statement from them every quarter and I suppose you could claim that reading it is work (oh such difficult toil), but I would continue making money off of it even if I completely ignored the quarterly reports.
Some portion of rental income is used to pay for the work involved in maintaining a property as a rental, but the amount required to pay for that work is largely unrelated to the rent for a property. If you own a house with a nice view of Mt Hood that you rent for $300 a month more than a neighboring house with no view, and then someone builds a skyscraper in your sight line, and the rent you are able to get for the property drops, what connection does that have to the amount of work involved in renting the property?
Rent, wages, and investment income are meaningfully different things, both in common language and in economic theory. I’m not sure why you are trying to claim that this is not the case.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 8th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Actually, it does during gentrification. In a gentrified market, unlike most markets, it is primarily the value of the land (not what’s on it) that is increasing so fast.
I’d contest that. Yes, in areas where the buildings existing on the land will be knocked down you are correct. My neighborhood is one such; if I sold my house for the most I could get for it, the new owner would almost certainly tear it down and build a much larger house on it. But in a great many inner-city areas, gentrification is taking place in neighborhoods that were once well-to-do and then became enclaves of poverty. Because of the wealth and taste of the original owners, the buildings themselves are structurally sound and are made with materials and workmanship that would be prohibitively expensive to duplicate today. The gentrifiers buy these buildings, gut them to one degree or another, and then redo the interiors. I’ve read these stories in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine (complete with pictures) time and time again.
In passing; the presumption here seems to be that gentrification only occurs in neighborhoods composed of renters and of poor and/or minorities. Not so. Large areas in the Chicago suburbs occupied by white middle-class homeowners are being gentrified as well. People will buy a 40- or 80-year old 1200 or 1700 square foot home in a suburb on a 60 x 100 foot lot, tear it down, and build a 3500 square foot home on it that is masonry instead of siding that is another story taller, cast-iron fencing, expensive landscaping (on the much smaller amount of what’s left unbuilt of the lot), etc.
The median cost of housing in the neighborhood thus goes up. The values of housing in the area goes up. The property taxes go up, even for the people who still live in the 1200 or 1700 square foot homes (who now have this monstrosity next door, shading their home, etc.). People find themselves having to pay much more each year to keep the government from seizing and selling their property, even though there has been no intrinsic change in their property. People have had to sell their homes and leave, just as the renters in urban neighborhoods have had to leave their neighborhoods.
The public response has been to get the village boards to pass zoning laws restricting this practice, limiting the size of a house that can be built on a lot. Of course, zoning laws already exist; for example, I cannot build on my property closer to the property line than 10 feet or 10% of the dimension of the lot (thus, since my lot is 264 feet deep, I cannot build closer than 26.4 feet from either the front or the back of the lot). The public has forced the village boards to further restrict the size of homes that can be built in their neighborhoods to keep this from happening. The boards don’t like this, since this effectively restricts the value of homes in the neighborhoods and this restricts the amount of property taxes they (and the school district, and the park district, and the library district, and the mosquito abatement district, and the community college district, etc., ad nauseaum) can collect.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
March 8th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Charles, that one is a lay-up. If part of that investment is paid by an employer it is part of your income package. In other words, it is pay. Part of it is investment money. Unlike burying it in the ground that money is put into the economy and invested in various ways. Many people are offered several from which to choose or they may opt out and invest in another way. Maybe some people put no thought into these things or they toss darts. But most people put thought into it. Regardless, it consists of investment and pay.
Just like investment property it involves RISK and ACUMEN .You might think that my commercial properties simply make money by themselves . But what you miss is all the work that went into the purchase in the first place. I had to look at dozens of properties before deciding on one to actually buy. During the purchase process many of the deals fell through for one reason or another. How many nights did I spend pitching my case for a variance before some local zoning board? I could go on about all the work I did which did not result in an actual purchase. SO the income from realestate investments are the result of a culmination of work and investment which has largely been delayed .Often times it takes many years to realize a profit .
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March 8th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Charles:
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.See my comment just prior to yours. You don’t engage in a positive expenditure of effort to earn that interest, but you do abstain from consuming the fruits of your prior labor, and others benefit from that. There’s something that you’d like to have that you could buy by cashing out your 503(b), isn’t there?
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March 8th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I think the comparison between people that can’t afford to live in place that’s recently appreciated in value and people who land was stolen through violence really trivializes the later.
at the least its melodramatic. Like comparing a fender bender to a malicious hit and run.
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March 8th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
joe;
I see your point, but also think that in New YOrk the simultaneous gentrification and whitening of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn and Harlem–either of which taken seperately have been the largest “choclate city” in the country. What’s heppening here is happening to black neighborhoods all over the country. Now, on the one hand, its not like ghettoization was itself positive, but the export of poor and working class balck people to rundown suburbs removes the only positive element–cultural, geographical and political solidarity-while maintaining the economic isolation which facilitates poor housing, city services, transportation, groceries etc.
so while it is in many ways very different one could point out that this is a nationwie process having the effect of displacing a whole people.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 8th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I’m not saying that the dismantlement of a neighborhood is good. I’m saying that the difference between gentrification and genocide is so large that the comparison is absurd.
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March 8th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
joe;
out of curiousity, are the other two examples comparable to one another?
Also in Amps defense, he is explicitly comparing the logic, not the implact?
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 9th, 2007 at 4:48 am
The key difference I’m drawing is the use of force.
In gentrification no force is used. Price goes up, people don’t want to pay more (or cannot, but that gets tricky) so they move out and are replaced by people with more money. In Michigan I’ve seen this happen to ‘white’ neighborhoods that are mostly houses. My guess would be that if you tried to find the main factor in gentrification it would be money and age, not race. At least not beyond the extent that race and money correlate.
In the conquest of the Americas European’s killed and forcibly relocated everyone that was in their way.
In the creation if Israel the British forcibly relocated everyone in the Jew’s way.
I can see the comparison between the last two. (Not saying I think they’re equivalent. But it’d be a good debate. ) I don’t see how the first one is even close. Maybe in the same family tree, but far removed. Like the chicken is related to the dinosaur.
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March 9th, 2007 at 8:16 am
In Michigan I’ve seen this happen to ‘white’ neighborhoods that are mostly houses. My guess would be that if you tried to find the main factor in gentrification it would be money and age, not race.
Are these Detroit suburbs, or what? Sounds like the same thing I described in the Chicago area. Around me it’s mostly older suburbs (by which I mean that the housing stock is at least 50 years old on average). Young people with at least one high-income career get married and decide that they don’t want to raise their kids in the city or the close-in suburbs; school quality is the #1 criterion there. So they move further out to a ‘burb where the schools are decent and the homes are older and smaller and start gentrification. Lots of those homes are occupied by couples who are at least old enough that their kids have finished school and moved out.
In Illinois, the only municipal services tied to the village or town boundaries are the police. All other services (fire, sewer and water, elementary schools, high schools, community colleges, mosquito abatement, library, etc.) each have their own separate districts whose boundaries are independent of each other and of the village or town boundaries; most districts thus incorporate portions of a few different villages. It makes figuring out your property tax bill challenging, as each one has a separate tax rate and line item. And they all have an incentive to see gentrification progress, as it means more money for them without having to get an increase in the tax rate voted on.
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March 10th, 2007 at 7:02 am
I’m not saying they are the same Joe, but I think its interesting to compare. I think Amps comparison of the logic is useful.
In NYC there is an element of force in that a massively increased police presence and arrest rate for “quality of life” crimes is de rigeur for so-called “changing” neighborhoods like mine. In the time that I have lived here (6 years) the number of million-dollar blocks (blocks where enough residents of the block have been sent to prison that the state spends a million dollars to house and feed them) in the neighborhood has increased by a factor of five, despite the droppping rate of crime in the city overall, and in my neighborhood.
Its not the main factor, and it doesnt apply in every case, but its a factor.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 10th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
robert,
moving from my current teaching job to a similar, higher-paying one is very different from selling a rented house out from under the renters. if i moved to a higher-paying job (which would actually be unlikely because my school treats its faculty very professionally, and i have ties to the community), i would still be teaching students, and my current students would still have a math teacher.
forcing a long-time resident to move takes away a fundamental connection to community (maybe he can only afford to live there because the local grocer sometimes lets him run a tab and he watches a neighbor’s kids in exchange for household help and car repairs). and it’s very possible that finding new housing would be extremely difficult—scraping up the money for 1st and last month’s rent and a security deposit is not easy if you’re living month-to-month and have no credit rating to speak of.
it’s also different in that i wouldn’t be using the wealth i’ve accumulated as a teacher to generate income in the same way that the owner of real estate uses the capital gains wealth he’s accumulated to pocket cash.
i don’t, of course, think that it should be outright illegal to sell land that you’re renting. but long-time residents probably ought to have legal protections that include: several years’ advance notice instead of just a few months, financial help in finding a new place, and maybe several others. i suppose the protections could be scaled in degree based on the the length of residence.
my larger point, i think, still holds: if you’re using the market to provide something you consider a right, then market forces have to be regulated, or poor people will go without their rights, which is contrary to the notion of a right.
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March 11th, 2007 at 12:57 am
moving from my current teaching job to a similar, higher-paying one is very different from selling a rented house out from under the renters… if i moved to a higher-paying job…i would still be teaching students, and my current students would still have a math teacher.
And when a rented house is sold out from under the renters, the real estate is still used to house people, just different people. And the renters find somewhere else to live.
it’s also different in that i wouldn’t be using the wealth i’ve accumulated as a teacher to generate income in the same way that the owner of real estate uses the capital gains wealth he’s accumulated to pocket cash.
But that’s not the analogy. The analogy is that you’re using the CAPITAL you’ve accumulated as someone who is good at math. And it is, in fact, pretty much te same way the owner of real estate uses HIS capital.
You keep coming up with reasons why it’s different, etc., but the reasons don’t hold up. It’s the same conceptual scenario.
my larger point, i think, still holds: if you’re using the market to provide something you consider a right, then market forces have to be regulated, or poor people will go without their rights, which is contrary to the notion of a right.
Yeah, I get your point. But YOU provide something that you consider a right, and we’re using the market to do it. So what regulations do you think should be in place for people who have intellectual, rather than physical, capital, and exploit it in order to earn their living?
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March 11th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Personally, I think everyone has a right to sports cars. And I think I’m entitled to the fastest car everyone else’s money can buy me.
Pay up, suckers.
This debate is over the nature of private property — what property is private (meaning, under the control of its owner) and what property is public (meaning, under the control of the State). If the State has a compelling interest in maintaining “affordable housing”, or whatever people opposed to the free market exchange of real estate are thinking, the State needs to compensate the owner for the value they are losing. Conveniently enough, it even says so in the 5th Amendment, not that anyone pays much attention to that …
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 11th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Good points Furry Cat. I would also point out that you are not losing your right to housing when you can’t afford it. Everyone has the right to own a Rolls-Royce. The fact that most people can’t afford one is a separate issue.
We all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Note the word ‘pursuit.’
This comment was written by Michael.You have no guarantee from the government to be made happy. When Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence he used a phrase coined by Adam Smith. Life liberty and the pursuit of property. The word ‘property’ is used in the original Declaration of colonial rights. So you have no guarantee to property, only the pursuit of it. If you want to rent for an extended period of time make sure you sign a long term lease. Otherwise, you are agreeing to pack your bags when the lease is up.
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March 11th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
and, under that logic, no right to the basic human necessities: food, water, shelter, air and companionship. The question is whether it should be that way.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 11th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Michael,
I herd furry cats. I am not a furry cat that herds other animals …
Curiousgyrl,
You’re correct, in large part because what rights do the people who provide food, water and shelter have? Are they now slaves to the State? The trades person or professional can charge whatever the market will bear, but the farmer, carpenter and bricklayer cannot? Or does the State dictate the wages of everyone so that the farmer can afford to buy a house the same as the banker?
The most I’ll concede is that people have a right to not starve to death, a right to not be homeless, and a right to clean water. They don’t have a right to pick what food they want for free, to live on someone elses property for a price of their choosing, or the right to soda and sports drinks.
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March 11th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
They don’t have a right to pick what food they want for free, to live on someone elses property for a price of their choosing, or the right to soda and sports drinks.
The common sense! It burns!
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 12th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Robert,
Don’t get carried away. I’ve studied Locke AND Marx ;)
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 12th, 2007 at 7:24 am
I haven’t argued any of these things. I’ll also point out that people, even in the US, do not currently enjoy the rights to life’s basic necessities, including housing, that even the conservatives here agree are rights.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 12th, 2007 at 7:35 am
I don’t think there is any ‘right’ to life’s basic necessities in the same way that there’s a right to free speech or a right to self determination. I think that a safety net is a social good because it facilitates entrepreneurship.
The US constitution was created to preserve rights and ensure the common well being. I think welfare falls into the second and not the first.
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March 12th, 2007 at 9:16 am
curiousgyrl Writes:
March 11th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
and, under that logic, no right to the basic human necessities: food, water, shelter, air and companionship. The question is whether it should be that way.
Again, you are using the word improperly. Since you brought up the right to companionship I suggest you use that example to understand what the word means. Yes, everyone has the right to companionship. But that does not mean it is guaranteed by the government. If you can’t find anyone who wants to be your companion the government does not have to step in and force someone to be your friend or lover. You are not losing that right if your not attractive or interesting to another human being.
The same is true for food, shelter, clothing, etc. You have the right to these things even if you can’t afford it.
By the way, it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with understanding the Constitution and language
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March 12th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Hmm. I guess I’m different. In my ranking, the right not to starve or sleep in the street should be a higher, more involiable right than the total sovereignty over property. i realize a lot of people dont agree with me about that–I get it that most in our society see a greater injustice in government rules restricting the rights of property owners or businessmen of any kinds to dispose of their capital in any possible way, than in hunger and homelessness.
But this sad fact never ceases to amaze me, and I kind of hope it never does.
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March 12th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Charles writes:
In a Marxist view “capital” doesn’t perform work, but outside of a Marxist perspective capital does perform work. The value you receive for your 503b is the value of the “work” performed by your property.
Prior to the invention of the self-cleaning plow a plow had to be periodically … cleaned. Under a Marxist (and this is a gross simplification, and therefore invalid …) view, the work is done by “plowmen”, so the “plowmen” are who should get paid, not the “self-cleaning plow”. Yet, using a productivity measure of work performed, the “plowman” with the old plow produces less than the “plowman” with the new plow. Marx argues that the owner of the new plow doesn’t deserve compensation for the productivity increase of the new plow because capital doesn’t work.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 12th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I agree with the constitution that rights are derived from our existence as a common human family, not from a piece of paper.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 12th, 2007 at 9:23 am
curiousgyrl Writes:
March 12th, 2007 at 7:24 am
I’ll also point out that people, even in the US, do not currently enjoy the rights to life’s basic necessities, including housing, that even the conservatives here agree are rights
Of course they have those rights. Again, a right to have something doesn’t equate to being ABLE to have it. Not having the money to live in a mansion does not mean you are being denied the right to buy one.
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March 12th, 2007 at 9:27 am
curiousgyrl Writes:
March 12th, 2007 at 9:17 am Hmm. I guess I’m different. In my ranking, the right not to starve or sleep in the street should be a higher, more involiable right than the total sovereignty over property.
Everyone has those rights. The fact that some don’t take advantage of those rights is indeed sad.
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March 12th, 2007 at 9:47 am
I’ll also point out that people, even in the US, do not currently enjoy the rights to life’s basic necessities, including housing, that even the conservatives here agree are rights.
Er, no we don’t. (Well, maybe somebody else does.)
If you want “life’s basic necessities”, then go out and work to create the economic productivity that makes them possible. Or, alternatively, die.
There are people who cannot work, or whose work is insufficiently productive to pay their own way. Our capitalistic economic system combines with our largely Christian religious heritage in our society to create both the will and the capacity to subsidize these people, and to provide for their life’s needs even without them working for it.
But that isn’t a “right”. It’s charity, from the goodness of our collective heart.
What “even the conservatives” believe is that this charity is, largely, a good thing. The harm it does (moral hazard to the lazy who would rather sponge than toil) is far outweighed by the good it does (innocent people not dying in the street).
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March 12th, 2007 at 10:33 am
curiousgyrl: I’ll also point out that people, even in the US, do not currently enjoy the rights to life’s basic necessities, including housing, that even the conservatives here agree are rights.
Robert: Er, no we don’t. (Well, maybe somebody else does.)
If I recall correctly, Robert lives within the US and curiousgyrl does not. So when curiousgyrl talks about “conservatives here,” she is not referring to Robert or any group that contains Robert.
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March 12th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Oh. I took “here” to mean “this blog site”.
Whaddya mean, this isn’t the center of the universe? Blasphemy!
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March 12th, 2007 at 11:39 am
I think it’s both a charity and a right. A right to something relies on being able to access that thing. Saying one has access to that thing when one can’t actually reach it makes no logical sense. Like having a dog tied up and putting its food bowl in another room. Sure, technically the dog in question has access, if he had the means to untie the leash and get to the food.
If people are unable to acquire that thing, their access has been denied. Bad wording, but an as an example, someone who works and makes a decent amount of money can afford access to housing. I’m not talking about mansions and livable yachts, but housing of the common man. Someone who cannot work or work very little, for example, doesn’t have the same amount of access to housing, which is a basic necessity from the elements.
Rights are a specific types of freedoms to which all people are entitled. The right to life and liberty, freedom of expression and thought, ect.
Hard to have a right to life when you’re dying of starvation. Sorta makes that ‘right to life’ null and void. Isn’t that a reason why genocide is illegal, the right to life? Yeah, extreme example there. Sorta ends that right to life, that.
Saying that a person is free to eat when they’ve no way to acquire the means to get food is not an honest application of a right that is supposed to be established to all people.
That’s like, I dunno, saying someone who can’t tell the difference in American currency because there’s no tactile differences in the bills that they have the same amount of access when the right to use currency is invoked. They don’t.
Since humans need things to survive, housing and food (or the money to buy food) are considered rights to the best of my knowledge. Also, the state, so far as I know, isn’t in the habit of funding charity through state regulations and programs, yet they fund access to food stamps and rent money if they deem that your qualified, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms.
And while the state does manage to squeak out of providing housing or money for housing in many instances, sometimes they get nailed and they have to pay up. But man, they really seem to hate that.
I think it’s also a charity because that’s what most other programs of that nature (food, housing) also rely on the good will of other people’s donations cuz state and nation is, pardon my non-existant French, to damn cheap. I’m thinking food pantries, goodwill boxes, things like that.
Rambled long enough, I think.
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March 12th, 2007 at 11:59 am
a right without a remedy is no right at all–that comes from an early Supreme Court case; Marbury v. Madison if i recall correctly.
in Marbury, though, there was someone who could enforce that right (the court). AND there was someone to enforce that right against–namely, the U.S. Government.
The much-quoted and rarely-detailed “basic human rights” are a lot more difficult. It’s pretty easy when there is a right to not have something done to you. But who decides who gets a “right to housing”? Who decides what that right entails? Who decides where to enforce it?
most of all, who do you enforce that right AGAINST? “Society” is too nebulous.
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March 12th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
A lot of what is being called a “right” here is more properly called an “entitlement”, except that lefties have decided that separating rights and entitlements makes it hard for entitlements to be approved.
There is a right to life — the right to not be killed by the state, and to be protected from, for example, foreign invasion. There is not, however, a guaranteed entitlement to food. If you happen to own some food, you have the right, in most civilized countries, to keep that food and eat it however you might wish (more or less …) because private property rights exist. This was Locke’s point — property is the most basic of all rights, and the “right to housing” comes from THAT, not from an entitlement to a free house.
What I never hear adequately addressed is the rights of the house owners in these gentrified neighborhoods. Do they just get stuck with a run down house forever?
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March 12th, 2007 at 2:01 pm This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.
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March 12th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
What I never hear adequately addressed is the rights of the house owners in these gentrified neighborhoods. Do they just get stuck with a run down house forever?
Why’d they be stuck with it? The spiraling land values generally indicate a surplus of people willing to buy the land. They can sell.
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March 12th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I live in the US btw. I’m from Texas, point of fact. its like the US squared.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 12th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
AW,
I think there remains an important distinction. I have sometimes taken to calling them “positive rights” and “negative rights” to avoid the side track of semantics (”entitlements” etc).
the distinction is this:
Most rights (however they are phrased) are, at heart, a right to prevent OTHERS from doing things to YOU. life, liberty… what those really mean is that someone else can’t take away your life, liberty, etc. A “right to be free” really means that someone else can’t enslave you. And so on. A negative right, if claimed, allows you to stop someone else from doing something that infringes your right.
I believe those rights are the traditional ‘rights” that are referred to. But for semantic ease and to avoid derailing, let’s just call them “negative rights” because they really tell what NOT to do.
neutrality or lack of action doesn’t generally violate a negative right. This is true almost by definition. Negative rights are designed to PRVENT action (why they’re “negative” rights).
“positive rights” are what i might refer to as “entitlements.” I personally see these in an entirely different class. they are rights which allow you to demand that someone else DO something (as opposed to refraining from doing something.) A “right to food” really means that you can demand someone (or some group) give you food. A “right to housing” really means that you can demand someone (or a group) supply you with housing.
neutrality or passivity CAN violate a positive right/entitlement. this is because failure to act on the part of the obliged person is a violation of the rights of the person demanding help.
negative rights generally don’t directly conflict. That’s because most negative rights translate (in an extreme fashion) to some element of “leave me the fuck alone!” Absent criminal laws, etc, it is theoretically possible for everyone to exercise their right to be left alone.
positive rights often conflict. When you have a situation where some people can demand things from others, there will always be someone who is not left alone. in other words, SOMEONE will always have to have their rights reduced in order to “make room” for someone else’s demand.
I call the second set of “positive rights” by the word “entitlement.” It fits,because unlike the traditional “rights”, the person using it is claiming to be entitled to something.
criminal laws represent a situation where a large group of people agrees to sacrifice some of their limited rights to the state, in exchange for the state protecting their rights in general. It’s an interesting exception but not really in the same category as housing.
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March 12th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
It’s easy to think of exceptions to this. For instance, person A has a right to breath the air in her own property. Person B has a right to burn what she wants, as often as she wants, and in whatever quantities she wants, on her own property. As it happens, Person A’s property is downwind of person B’s.
Why is it not in the same category?
In either case, we’re giving up some of our rights — including property rights, in the form of taxes — in order to have other rights be enforcible.
Property rights are not meaningful without a justice system and police force, or something else that serves those functions, capable of enforcing that right. But we need taxes to pay for a justice system and a police force.
The right to eat is not meaningful without some form of food stamp or swipe card program or some other means of getting food to those who cannot buy it. But we need taxes to pay for programs like that.
What’s the difference?
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March 12th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
As I said before, a right does not equate with an ability. Saying you have the right to the pursuit of happiness is not meaningless despite the fact that not everyone can obtain it. Preventing a person from buying the necessities of life despite the money to afford them would constitute a loss of such right. The founders clearly meant that you have the right to pursue these things, not that the government was responsible for assuring that every citizen be able to accomplish them. Note that charities and not government programs provided for the poor. There was no notion of entitlement as to these things when the Constitution was written.
People might argue that this should be the responsibility of a society. But one can’t point to the Constitution to argue their case. There are entitlements in regard to certain aspects of laws. An example would be a right of way involving an easement. Because some words have many meaning does not mean that you can choose to apply them incorrectly. Consult a rhetorician and you will see that I am correct.
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March 12th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
A right and an ability cannot be separated. You can not excersize a right if the ability to do it isn’t available.
For instance, bearing arms. I could say you had the right to use and own a gun, but if I kept all the arms and continued to keep them than that ‘right’ is meaningless.
Happiness is subjective, as such it relies on the judgment of the individual attempting to obtain it and the judgment on wether or not it has been achieved. The right to the persuit of happiness is blocked if that happiness violates other rights. I don’t believe it does. The right to life is not subjective in such a sense as there are medical definitions within the states that define the condition known as ‘life.’ Its opposite is ‘death’ which can also be viewed in medical terms. Since happiness is not a measurable state and life is, denying what promotes or ‘gives’ life to an individual is why I consider it a violation.
(I say death to accentuate that I’m talking about the definition of life, not a subjective belief like happiness. ‘Quality of life’ is a bit different, and while it is also subjective, in this case it doesn’t particularly matter.)
It would only constitute the loss of such a right if the individual(s) in question agreed that the prevention infringed on their pursuit of happiness, since individual happiness is subjective.
If the founder’s statements were clear we wouldn’t be having this discussion as it relates to the 21st century. The constitution has been interpreted many times in various and sometimes contradictory and conflicting ways by the many people who get paid to interpret it as it relates to current situation(s) in the Usa. If I could go back in time and ask the founding fathers how, exactly, they would interpret this thread and what their judgment would be when applying the Constitution and it turned out that they agreed with you, then I would conceed the point.
However, it seems to me, after taking much to long a time to reread the Declaration of Independence, that John Hancock & Co. seem to agree with me.
It doesn’t look like it says they’re denying it to me, since the founders pledged what they have to each other. Since such a pledge was made it a people’s document, why wouldn’t it be also be applicable for the people?
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Since such a pledge was made it a people’s document, why wouldn’t it be also be applicable for the people?
Because they were promising to fight a war together, not (at that moment) establishing the nature of the state which would evolve in the event of a successful prosecution of that war.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 1:21 am
way they end up playing God (Will Smith/Morgan Freeman). Morgan Freeman is regularly cast in these unearthly-hero-wise-man-bigger-than-life … ■Comment on Empty Spaces Waiting For Whites To Move In by ArrogantWorm（Google Blog Search: a-blog） http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/03/02/empty-spaces-waiting-for-whites-to-move-in-a-pattern-of-denial/#comment-255145 I think it’s both a charity and a right. A right to something relies on being able to access that thing. Saying one has access to that thing when one can’t actually reach it makes no logical sense. Like having a dog tied up and putting …
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March 13th, 2007 at 2:28 am
Now we reach the heart of the matters.
See, in technical philosophical terms, I *AM* a libertarian, because I disagree with amp. I DO see a differnece between a negative right and a positive right. I absolutely see that people have deontological, moral right not to be hit by other people that exists prior to the ogvernment and which the government secures, but does not grant.
However, first, negative rights CAN conflict. In nature, I have a negative right to walk where I want to, and so do you. However, we can nnot occupy the same physical space. Conflict.
Which leads to the bigger problem for the right. External property rights - rights to things other than your own body, the way we manage the conflict of negative rights - are a POSITIVE right. A right to own land, or a car, or a copyright, is a right to have the government threaten violence against those who do not respect your exclusive usage. External property rights are NECESSARY to manage conflicting negative rights, but they are a coersive interference with negative rights nonetheless. And for this, the dispossessed deserve compensation.
This is where I see a basic income as a fundimentally negative right, or more properly, a negative duty on the part of the government and property owners to compensate the forcibly disposessed. If you are a homeless person, the government owes you food (or cash) because it is the property laws the government creates and coersively enforces against you that is preventing you from growing your own food.
To answer the obvious question - the difference between your body and external property is that you are “stuck” in your body. Keanu Reeves owes me - and the rest of the world - compensation for denying us the negative right to the use of the land his home is on. If he did not occupy it, we could use it for our pleasure, and he could go somewhere else. But he owes us nothing for denying us any negative right to use his body for our pleasure, because if we exercised such a right without his consent, he would be forced to experience the event and not do otherwise as he pleases, because he is “trapped” in his body.
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March 13th, 2007 at 4:27 am
Amp, the classic example of the conflict between the rights of different people is
“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
You’re right that our society has to try to balance rights. My right to property is balanced against the need to funds to support necessary government services.
The fight starts at the word necessary. Military? Yes. Courts? Yes Healthcare that includes a daily relaxation massage for stress relief?… (yeah that’s silly)
I’m going to move on from the discussion of rights. If people are really interested try this site.. They love this sort of thing.
But are people really saying that people displaced by increased rents brought on by gentrification are being denied a right?
My understanding is that typically people who can’t afford the rent find a place that they can afford. It might not be as nice, it might not be where they want to live but they still have shelter. How have they lost either a right, or the ability to exercise that right? (note: I know that homelessness is a real problem, but I don’t think that’s the point in question.)
Also, how is being forced by circumstance to live in their 2nd choice for housing at all similar to a multi-generational war of conquest?
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March 13th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Amp writes:
Does everyone get one of those swipe cards? No?
Didn’t think so.
So how is “free food” like “free speech”? Although both use the word “free”, one refers to liberty and the other to price. Freedom of choice doesn’t mean the choices have no economic consequences, only that one is able to make their own choices.
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March 13th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Furrycatherder,
Many people have proposed a Basic Income program. Under such a program, everyone would in effect get one of those swipe cards. (Although it wouldn’t be just for food, it would be for all expenses).
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 11:59 am
What’s similar is that in both cases, the language used by the new occupiers tends to pretend that the space they were moving into was empty. That similarity is, to me, interesting, and it’s why I wrote this post.
A lot of people seem not to have gotten that, despite the title of this post. I think I’ll go and bold some text in the quotes, to make things clearer.
As for “rights,” I’m pretty cynical about that. In practice, people have whatever rights their society is willing to recognize and enforce. In any case, I don’t think it’s useful to describe all issues in terms of “rights.” I don’t think that people have a “right” akin to the right to free speech to have traffic slow down in residential areas, but I do think that laws encouraging slow traffic in residential areas can often be beneficial.
The question regarding gentrification isn’t what rights we have so much as it is what we choose to value in communities. Do we think there’s a value in a middle-class couple beinig able to live in the same community for fifty years? Is there a value in young folks starting out being able to live near their community and family, rather than having to move out of the daily life of their parents’ and relatives’ community in order to find a place they can afford to live? Does cultural continuity have value?
If enough people who vote think the answer to these questions is “yes,” then it makes sense to try an act to prevent gentrification from becoming an overwhelming factor, unless what we have to do to prevent or mitigate gentrification will cause even more harm than gentrification itself.
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March 13th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Fair enough, Amp.
Would this be a value only for persons of color, or for poor people, or would this be a value we would defend for everybody? (And if not, why not?)
I live in a very wealthy California suburb, and houses in our town are now out of the price range of 99% of the children who grew up here. There has been a certain amount of local ink spilled on this situation, but no solid workable solutions have emerged, and the kids, including my kids, are accordingly moving away.
Can we do anything about this? Should we do anything about it? (And if the answer is Yes, what exactly would you suggest?) Is all this OK because all the people involved are quite well off, and if so, why is that? Are poor communities, are poor families, somehow more valuable than wealthy ones?
Or is all this just a perhaps regrettable result of market forces, forces which we believe, in the long run, will provide better housing for everyone? Or at any rate, forces we’re not sure what we can or should do anything to thwart?
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Thought-provoking. This reminds me of Shelley v. Kraemer. The court held that homeowners have the right to enter into contracts with their neighbors agreeing not to sell their houses to black, Catholics, Jews, etc; after all, there’s nothing illegal in private parties discriminating. BUT a court will not enforce those contracts, because there is something illegal about government discriminating, even if the discrimination is merely to enforce private contracts.
I also share the view that government should tax property. First, government should tax rents wherever it can just to raise revenues. (“Rent,” in the economic sense of money that can be extracted without altering other economic choices. For example, how high could we tax the income of professional athletes before you would cause them to quit and pursue a different profession? THAT amount is economic rent. Rents are the most efficient (that is, least inefficient) thing to tax.)
Secondly, a government that taxes income should tax property, because property bestows benefits on its owner that is, in function, a stream of income. By owning a house, I conceptually provide housing services to myself, and conceptually pay rent to myself in return. I should therefore have to pay taxes on the rent that would be imputed to me (offset by maintenance costs, depreciation, etc.) The same analysis would apply to my car, my lawn mower, my pencil, etc.
Whether government would use these revenues to provide a social safety net is a wholly separate question for me. But you draw an interesting connection.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Ampersand writes:
Does this mean that after I get my card I can quit my day job and life off my swipe card and retirement savings?
I’m having a hard time understanding why, or how, the government would do this, and who exactly would pay for it.
I’m all for social safety nets, really I am. But I’m not for a program that does what I think is destroy the incentive to be self-supporting. For those who can’t work, sure — food, clothing, shelter, transportation, entertainment stipend. For those who won’t? Enjoy sleeping under that bridge — you might even find some refrigerator-sized cardboard boxes behind the local appliance store. Happy dumpster diving!
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March 13th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Ampersand writes:
But who enforces those “values” and how?
For some odd reason — really, no clue why — homes in my own personal neighborhood have not appreciated much in value, relative to surrounding areas. My house has increased in value 8% in 7 years time. Which is to say, adjusting for inflation it’s gone down in value. If that continues, and I don’t know why it’s happening, so I don’t know when or if it will stop, I imagine people might move away because they view their house as an investment, and getting upside down on a 30 year mortgage is just not fun. But what happens when the market bottoms and prices start rising? Does someone get to say “No, you can’t sell for what you want because then the kids of the parents can’t afford to buy”?
I’d really like some answers to these basic questions. Other than wagging our fingers, how do you see ending gentrification happening?
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Furry, where do you live, maybe we can all afford to move there!
Seriously, government price controls on homes are almost certain to make a horrendous mess of things, if only because government is inherently inefficient.
While we’re talking about “values”, isn’t it a value for a person to work for the same company in the same location for all their working lives? Does that mean we’ll prohibit the company from ever firing anyone, and prohibit workers from leaving for greener pastures? Oh and somehow or other, probably with tax money, prevent this company from going bankrupt?
I believe that this kind of thing was tried. Extensively. It didn’t work very well, to say the least.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
“Inherently inefficient?” No more so than any other large-scale endeavor is. There are some services which the government provides more efficiently than the private market (most famously, medical care).
Opponents of government tend to talk in terms of “prohibiting” things, as if the government’s only means of effecting the economy is the use of outright bans. This is not true.
I don’t believe that the US government has ever tried the policy you suggest (”we’ll prohibit the company from ever firing anyone, and prohibit workers from leaving for greener pastures”).
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Does this mean that after I get my card I can quit my day job and life off my swipe card and retirement savings?
Can you? Sure. But why would you? If you work, you get more money. And the can’t work / wont’ work distinction you favor provides perverse incentives AGAINST work. We could have armchair speculations about this all day, but there have actually been well-done social experiments about this, best summarized at:
This comment was written by Decnavda.http://usbig.net/papers/086-Levine-et-al-NIT-session.doc
Bottom line: A 13% work disincentive on an average take-back rate of 50%. The work disincentive rate does appear to rise and fall with the take back rate. The work disincentives appear to result mostly from territery workers (teens) dropping out of work to concentrate on school (The program was a very cost - effective anti-school drop our program, and it raised grades), secondary workers (moms) dropping out to focus more on the children (infant mortality and children’s health problems decreased), and primary workers dropping second jobs or taking longer to find work when looking for work. Not one example was found in the experiments of a primary worker dropping out of work altogether.
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March 13th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I don’t think it’s possible, or even desirable, to completely “end gentrification” (although I guess it depends on how gentrification is defined). I do think it’s possible to mitigate the effects of gentrification, to a limited degree. (But please read what I said in comment #32 of this thread).
Take rent control, for example. No one nowadays — or at least, no one really familiar with the issue — proposes a total freeze on rents, or on sales. What a modern rent control policy is likely to consist of a combination of policies such as:
1) Rules limiting how much rent can be raised, calculated to allow landlords to receive a return similar to that which would be expected on similar-risk investments, after paying for maintaining of the property.
2) A mechanism for tenants to complain about landlords who refuse to maintain their properties to a reasonable living standard.
3) Laws limiting evictions without good cause.
4) Limits on sales to convert existing rental properties into either commercial properties or into condos.
5) Exemptions to the rent control rules for housing built on lots that were previously non-residential or vacant properties.
That’s obviously oversimplified, but my point is that to describe rent control as rules saying “no one can raise rent, no one can sell” is unrealistic.
There are also other policies which can be used. For instance, local governments can subsidize or guarantee low-interest loans to allow long-time neighborhood renters to buy homes in the same area.
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March 13th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Thank you, Decnavda!
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Okay, got it. I wasn’t criticizing you for writing it. (at least that wasn’t my intent) I just think that the comparison is flawed due to the different levels of violence.
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March 14th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Decnavad writes:
I suspect those studies did something that a lot of such studies do — it focused on people it wanted to “Help” and ignored anyone who might find an interesting use for such a program.
The short answer to your question is that, with the exception of week long or so vacations, I’ve worked every work day of my life for 33 years running, from the time I was 12. I’m tired and I’d like a break without knowing that doing so would mean I have to dip too far into the money that’s supposed to last into my old age.
Some companies in high tech used to offer sabbaticals of various sorts, with some allowing senior level researchers a chance to teach for one or two years, others (I believe Tandem Computers was one, but they were bought by Compaq who was then bought by H-P, so I don’t know any Tandem workers I could ask) provided a sabbatical with pay, and others (such as mine) allow unpaid leaves of absence. For two wage earner families, leaves of absence are slightly popular, but I don’t know anyone who’s a single wage earner, like myself, who take advantage of that program.
Were I to hazard a guess, my guess is that there are people who would like to change jobs, or change careers, who’d exploit a program like that so that they could use it as a safety net while looking at their options. Others, such as those in my financial situation, might use it as a government-funded sabbatical program when considering unpaid leaves of absence. “Work” really does get old after a while.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2007 at 9:10 am
That’s what’s happening where i live. Housing is so expensive that children have to move away.
the interesting part is that the folks who “can’t afford” housing CAN afford it… just not here. Still, there’s a large tax (often $10,000 or so) on home sales, and the towns use a lot of their tax money, to pay for “affordable” housing.
And why? Land here was cheap 20 years ago. So were rentals. Wages were high.
At that time, there were two classes of people. One class saved their money and bought land. They’re now rich as hell. the other class rented, spent their money on vacations, used their high wages for something else, never wanted to take the risk of home ownership… and now they’re fucked.
this is an example of socialism gone haywire. It’s one thing to help people who are actually poor. But my community helps people who are 1) rich by national standards; and usually 2) HAD the opportunity to avoid being in this situation, and didn’t.
they took the risk.
taxpayers bail them out.
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March 14th, 2007 at 11:36 am
“
They’reTheir results disagree with my position, therefore they must have been unethical in how they ran the experiment.”So are you saying that if you could, you’d stop working altogether, forever, choosing instead to live on a poverty-level income; or are you saying that you’d take a vacation if you could after which you’d return to some sort of waged work?
If you’re saying the former, then yes, your case is unlike the cases discussed in Decnavda’s link. If you’re saying the latter, however, then you’re just like the people in Decnavda’s link; you’d reduce the number of hours you work (by taking a vacation from work, then returning), but you wouldn’t quit working altogether.
Yes, people did use it like that, according to Decnavda’s link. But that’s an entirely positive effect; if people are able to more effectively choose their own jobs, they’re more likely to wind up in a “best fit” job in which they’re more productive.
Again, as long as there aren’t significant numbers of (able to work, pre-retirement-age) people leaving paid work forever, I don’t see why this is a problem.
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March 14th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
>Were I to hazard a guess, my guess is that there are people who would like to change jobs, or change careers, who’d exploit a program like that so that they could use it as a safety net while looking at their options.
Many retirement-age folks do exactly the same thing. Some take advantage of their safety net to pursue new careers that don’t offer medical coverage, some work fewer hours or more casually or seasonally, and many seize the opportunity to pursue rigorous schedules of unpaid community work. Oddly, I’ve never heard any consider Social Security a bad idea because those old folks “exploit” it that way.
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March 15th, 2007 at 6:24 am
Kaethe,
Social Security is different from what Ampersand mentioned — there’s an age limit. Those pesky old people have to be at least age 62 before they “exploit” it.
Oh, and it’s currently running out of money because prior generations set the tax rate too low, the benefits too hight, and the age of eligibility didn’t keep pace with life expectancy. This “swipe card” idea doesn’t have an age limit, and I’d hazard a guess that the benefits would be significantly higher than what a wage earner who’s worked the minimum 40 quarters at minimum wage would receive. If 70 years of Social Security benefits have produced the current mess that is Social Security, I don’t see Swipe Cards for the Masses producing anything less financially insolvent.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 8:29 am
I was in a seminar a few years ago with a woman who had immigrated to this country from Scotland. When she left Scotland (this isn’t the case any more, by the way) that country was almost fully socialist.
She said, without turning a hair, that where she came from, “there’s no shame in not working, it’s OK, you can just get the dole and live on that if you want to.”
Now as I say, this isn’t true in Scotland any more, and the cold-bloodedness of this woman’s statement is one reason why not. She seemed to think that the money to fund the “dole” fell out of the sky, whereas what was really happening was that the people who were going to work every day were supporting a lot of people who for no good reason just didn’t feel like doing that, who felt like their days would be more enjoyably spent at the pub or at the beach.
As a working person myself, I couldn’t agree more.
Disability, of course, is a very different question. We owe it to ourselves as a society to support the disabled at a decent standard of living. (We aren’t quite doing this currently, by the way.)
But people who’d just rather not work? I think not. Not if I have anything to say about it.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Furrycatherder, Social Security isn’t broke. The claims you’re making are myths; nothing more than some very minor adjustments are required to keep Social Security solvent for the foreseeable future. Since absolutely no government program can be expected to run forever without any adjustments, it makes no more sense to declare SS a broke failure than it does to declare the military or the schools or the national guard broke failures.
Also, let me ask you: Why do you think it’s a bad thing if people who would otherwise be stuck in jobs, are able to afford switching careers? I would think that would be one of the positive features of a negative income tax or a basic income grant program, not a flaw.
Susan, the (discussion of a) study that’s been linked to here seems to show that when given the chance, a poverty-level basic income does not convince people to stop working altogether. Besides, the bugaboo of the person who takes the government check and spends all day at the pub will always be with us; far from being unique to socialist states, it’s a common complaint any time there’s any sort of welfare state (think of Reagan’s Calladac-driving welfare queen). So it’s not true that you can avoid such concerns by avoiding being a socialist state.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 10:05 am
One class saved their money and bought land. They’re now rich as hell. the other class rented, spent their money on vacations, used their high wages for something else, never wanted to take the risk of home ownership… and now they’re fucked.
That’s right. The stupid class spent their money on vacations, etc., etc. I’m sure that medical care and other things like that didn’t enter into it at all. Or, perhaps, they analyzed the situation and found a strategy that they thought would work better in the long run than owning property (the current, about to collapse, housing market is an anomaly that falls far outside anything we have ever seen in this country. in 20 years you may call those whose strategy is to invest in real estate stupidly blind. we don’t know for sure where the real estate market will be in 20 or 30 years), and they were wrong. Stupid fuckers. After all, the poor have nobody to blame but themselves.
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March 15th, 2007 at 10:09 am
True enough, Amp, that such abuses take place in non-totally-socialist economies.
The reform of the welfare system some few years ago now convinces me at least (and a lot of other people) that there were a lot of people on welfare who could very well have supported themselves, and who are now doing so. “Poverty level” income without work seems to have convinced them to stop working - or, stop working on the books - and cutting off those funds has convinced them to start working. I believe that this is good for all concerned.
Those who can work should work. (Or, at least find a way to live without me supporting them.) Those who cannot work should be supported at a higher level than is currently the case. This latter group is a far better target for that money, in my opinion.
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March 15th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Susan -
The “dole” is different from an NIT or BIG precisely because you have to leave work to go on it. I noted above that the studies showed that work disincentives rose and fell with the take back rate. Welfare-state means tested programs have, in effect, a 100% take back rate or income tax. That is what causes the problems you saw from your Scottish acquaintance. As an attorney who represents welfare claimants, one of my tasks is to advise my clients how to spend down any windfalls they recieve so that they can stay on benefits. In other words, as an advocate for the poor, I have to advise the poor how to stay poor. That is INSANE. An NIT or BIG is completely different.
The current flaw in my basic income advocacy is that I need to find similar studies quantifying the work disincentive effects of various types of welfare programs.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Decnavda,
Certainly a 100% effective tax is a disincentive to work!! You’d have to be a moron to work under those circumstances.
Another disincentive you don’t mention is that if you make too much money in the US you will loose free medical coverage for your children, without, however, making enough money to replace it with private insurance, which is all but unobtainable anyhow.
This comment however gets us into the American health care “system”, a discussion which is perhaps pretty far afield from the original topic of this thread. It’s too early in the day for me to start ranting and raving anyhow.
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March 15th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Amp writes:
I didn’t claim Social Security is “broke”. It has made promises it cannot keep, that’s an entirely different problem than “broke”. “Broke” is “has no money”. What Social Security has is an income stream that in my lifetime will only be able to deliver 70 percent or so of the promised benefits.
Can if be fixed? Sure. Everything can be “fixed”, if “fixed” is unconstrained, but Social Security cannot be “fixed” within the constraints of what is politically viable. So long as life expectancies continue to rise and birthrates fall, Social Security will be in a death spiral. The raised the elligibility age to 67, but adjusting for the increase in life expectancy, the eligibility age has declined, not gone up, and the number of workers supporting Social Security recipients has plummeted. It’s just facts, Amp — don’t take them personally.
The problem with Social Security is what Susan described — people don’t understand that programs such as Social Security get their money from somewhere other than the giant money tree.
It’s not an accident that those pesky Conservatives are the ones who want to bail out of Social Security. So far as I know, my projected benefit (ha!) is the maximum benefit Social Security will pay — I’ve been at the limit for the past 40 quarters, and as I understand such things, that means I get the maximum. If I could opt completely out of Social Security, even if my employer had to keep putting their 6.2% in, I’d do so in a heartbeat. With 22 more years to go until “retirement” (ha!), I’d probably still be able to get more from what I could save in the meantime than what Social Security will pay me when my time (may or may not …) comes.
I think that people who want to take time off from work should save for it, and not expect someone else to pay for it.
Personally, I’d love to take a few years off. But I don’t think it’s your responsibility for my decision to take some time off. I think it’s my responsibility.
Now, if you can’t work because you’re disabled through no fault of your own, I have no problem supporting you in a dignified manner.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I’m not sure people are seeing the costs and the benefits.
[W]hen given the chance, a poverty-level basic income does not convince people to stop working altogether.
To be clear: Do people work less if they receive some level of income independent of their work? YES (on average). Every one of the studies demonstrated this dynamic, just as every one of the scientists expected that it would. Studies were designed to measure the size of this dynamic (a 13% reduction on average), but no one doubted that some reduction would result. Like it or lump it, we need to reconcile ourselves to this basic fact.
Now, what do people do with their hours if they’re not working all the time? Dunno. But apparently they found ways to be productive without receiving a salary:
I think that people who want to take time off from work should save for it, and not expect someone else to pay for it.
Personally, I’d love to take a few years off. But I don’t think it’s your responsibility for my decision to take some time off. I think it’s my responsibility.
And that’s a fine statement of philosophy. But if kids are born with low birthweights, have crappy nutrition, poor parental supervision, don’t get educated, and grow up with domestic violence and eventually divorce, do you really think you will be insulated from the consequences? Do you really think you derive more benefit if a parent spends an extra hour at a minimum-wage job then if that parent spent an extra hour nurturing the next generation? If a parent prefers to accept a taxpayer-provided subsidy to stay home with the kids, it is not at all clear to me that taxpayers are made worse off; I rather expect the contrary.
If you are concerned about keeping Social Security solvent, make sure the next generation is healthy and educated. We may or may not be “responsible” for the next generation, but we sure are held hostage by them.
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March 15th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Indeed. Social Security, despite this fiction about “accounts,” is actually a giant Ponzi scheme whereby current workers support current retirees. You haven’t “saved up” for your retirement via Social Security. You supported the old people who were retired while you worked, on the expectation that young workers would support you in turn.
Now, there’s nothing at all wrong with this in theory. The problem is, the math doesn’t work out, for a couple of reasons. First, the federal government has “borrowed” nearly all of what Social Security had set aside, so the day of reckoning is coming much faster than you think. Second, as Furry points out, life expectancies have risen while birth rates have fallen, catching this whole idea in a crunch from both sides. There’s trouble coming for my generation, and even more for yours. Ampersand, if you really do have the answer for all this, there’s a very well-paid job and a lot of glory waiting for you in DC.
Of course, as you recognize Furry, we can’t let you do that, because we need that money to support people who are currently retired or who will soon retire.
As for the other topic, it’s not a bad thing to take time off before retirement, it’s a good thing. I’d like to do it myself. But if you want to take time off, please to pay for it yourself, because I don’t want to.
Disability is different, as everyone acknowledges.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
nobody.really writes:
I’d like to incent them to not have children. That would be my preference.
In particular, I’d like to offer parents on welfare of any sort (my older brother, who has been on some form of “public assistance” most of his adult life doesn’t like it when I call it “welfare” either) the opportunity to be sterilized and receive a larger welfare handout, or not be sterilized and receive less for each additional child.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
On Social Security finance:
If I could opt completely out of Social Security, even if my employer had to keep putting their 6.2% in, I’d do so in a heartbeat.
With 22 more years to go until “retirement” (ha!), I’d probably still be able to get more from what I could save in the meantime than what Social Security will pay me when my time (may or may not …) comes.
The libertarian fantasy: to avoid paying taxes yet continue to receive the benefit of law, order and government services. Yes, FICA taxes are nominally dedicated to paying for Social Security benefits. But, as noted above, they really pay for government services generally. In this sense, FICA is no different than the federal income tax – except that it’s more regressive.
Now, if you can’t work because you’re disabled through no fault of your own, I have no problem supporting you in a dignified manner.
Great. FICA taxes support Social Security disability insurance - the primary program designed to subsidized the disabled.
[L]ife expectancies have risen while birth rates have fallen, catching [Social Security funding] in a crunch from both sides.
The Social Security fund depends upon the number of workers and the salary of those workers, but not the birth rate. Of course, if the US doesn’t breed enough workers, we’ll have to import them. As with so many aspects of the US economy, outsourcing may be the most efficient way to get what we want, whether it be clothes or people.
Right now the fund benefits from the large number of undocumented workers, and their employers, who are paying FICA taxes even though the employee will never be eligible to receive Social Security benefits.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Another part of my job is representing disability claimants. Now, you probably know people who have back pain or depression but are still functional, and can hold a job. You might also know people with back pain or depression who can not get out of bed: these people are more disabled the average person who is blind or in a wheelchair. Okay, so a person with moderate to severe back pain and moderate to severer depression applies for disability. What should we do? Congradulations - you just created work for me. Do *YOU* know how much pain they are in? Do *YOU* know how much effort it takes them to work? How do we even decide who is disabled? The deaf are automatically considered disabled, but really, can’t most deaf people hold down jobs? And actually, can’t MOST disabled people hold down SOME job, as long as they try REALLY hard? And if a person can not hold a job because he keeps getting fired because he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, is he really disabled, or would giving him benefits just be rewarding him for being a jerk?
You want there to be can’t work / won’t work distinction, but there isn’t. The grey area here is at least as big as the category of disability itself. And the distinction creates perverse incentives - again, effort is punished because if it is sucessful it proves the impaired person is not disabled. So society pays disabled people to prove to us that they are helpless.
Compassion? I’m not convinced.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
nobody.really writes:
Social Security is the most progressive tax going.
If you look at dollars of benefits versus dollars of cost, the less one makes, the more (as a ration) one receives. It looks regressive because you’re looking at it as if it were a tax and not an entitlement program.
As for paying for government services, no, FICA doesn’t. Sorry — the money that goes in is then borrowed, which reduces the cost of borrowing, but doesn’t pay for anything. The borrowed money earns interest, the same as every other government obligation. This reduces both the cost of running the government and the cost of running Social Security, as compared to the money just sitting under someones mattress.
That’s a nice fantasy, but federal income tax and FICA records are matched against tax returns and the Social Security rolls. In order for an employer to pay taxes on an undocumented worker and get away with it, they’d have to have the correct name, age and gender, the person would have to be alive, and the person who is alive would have to then file a federal tax return recognizing the income. All W-2’s, 1099’s and 1040’s are cross-referenced. If they don’t match up, the IRS sends out a nice letter (I have at least one — I speak from experience!) telling you that your return is wrong, please kindly refile and/or pay up. Additionally, the SSA cross-references FICA payments against it’s records by name, age, sex and being alive.
If you’ve got some way for what you describe to be true I’d love to hear it. I’m sure the Feds would as well.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
When I worked at the IRS (about 15 years ago), we gave out personal taxpayer identification numbers that could be used by people who did not have a SSN. No information collected was shared with the (then) INS. The IRS is run by accountants who do what they can to get as much money as they can. I don’t know if more recent legislation more focused on hating immigrants than collecting revenue has changed that.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
I’ve yet to read a libertarian complain that taxes go to things that clearly support law and order. The first seems to be about government services.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Happy to oblige, although I suspect the Feds have some acquaintance with the issue, given that Social Security’s chief actuary has been discussing the issue for years.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
But that’s precisely the point: Once you acknowledge that borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund “reduces … the cost of running the government,” you acknowledge that the fund is providing an additional benefit above and beyond your retirement benefit. So you can’t make the argument that the returns on your FICA taxes are less than you’d get from other investments until you account for the other benefits that Social Security provides and other investments don’t.
To truly compare the “returns” on your FICA investment, you’d have to compare –
1) the cost of obtaining the retirement benefits, disability benefits, survivor benefits, etc., comparable to Social Security’s, backed by the full faith and credit of the US, plus
2) the cost of the additional tax revenues government would need to collect to defray government’s added borrowing costs, now that government no longer has the opportunity to borrow (cheaply) from the Social Security Trust Fund, plus
3) the cost of living in a society without a social safety net.
Is Social Security worth the cost of FICA taxes? Dunno, but it’s by no means a simple analysis.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
nobody.really writes:
(First, thanks for the article. It leaves me with more questions than answers …)
Yes, I know what has to be calculated, and the costs are still less to do it privately.
Social Security is a wealth transfer program. It makes great sense for the lower income brackets and no sense at all for the upper ones.
Part of what makes it a bad deal for just about anyone over middle class is that what it provides isn’t realistically even poverty level, and if the person is above middle class, the amount of replacement income required so greatly exceeds Social Security that they’d have to privately provide for their own disability coverage anyway. The current $2,116 (I think I copied that right) maximum benefit is 26% of the maximum taxable amount ($97,500), whereas the minimum, which is about $800, is 90% of minimum wage. In short, on top of what the middle class pays in taxes, it has to save still more just to cover what Social Security is supposedly covering.
The other part that makes it such a horrible deal is that the amount of taxes paid — including the match — saved and compounded over time, even with a sizable fraction taken out for life and disability insurance — is just this huge amount of money. It’s into the millions of dollars, and that’s with modest salaries in the early years. Investment income alone on a $1M pot of money, at 8% ROI is $80k. How is a $48K annual benefit supposed to be worth all the money and the foregone investment returns on it?
It’s a retirement program for the poor — for everyone else it’s just an annoying tax.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
nobody.really Writes:
March 15th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I think that people who want to take time off from work should save for it, and not expect someone else to pay for it.
Personally, I’d love to take a few years off. But I don’t think it’s your responsibility for my decision to take some time off. I think it’s my responsibility.
And that’s a fine statement of philosophy. But if kids are born with low birthweights, have crappy nutrition, poor parental supervision, don’t get educated, and grow up with domestic violence and eventually divorce, do you really think you will be insulated from the consequences? Do you really think you derive more benefit if a parent spends an extra hour at a minimum-wage job then if that parent spent an extra hour nurturing the next generation? If a parent prefers to accept a taxpayer-provided subsidy to stay home with the kids, it is not at all clear to me that taxpayers are made worse off; I rather expect the contrary.
This is a bizarre collection of thoughts. Are you suggesting that bad parenting is going to be solved by having poor parents work less and stay home more? I think it would be just the opposite. The best lesson a parent can give a child is the value of work. I don’t think that parents who are predisposed to poorly treat their children will have a better effect on their kids by being around them more.
I always wonder how people can have such differing perspectives regarding social welfare. Admittedly I have lived an unusual life. But I can’t believe people can be so nieve when it comes to human behavior.
When I was in my teenage years I left home. After working some menial jobs I managed to start a small furniture business which grew into a string of stores. Being a kid and having little money I had to start out in the poorest most crime ridden sections of Boston. I was not unfamiliar as I I lived in these same neighborhoods as a small child.
I had to become very familiar with my customer base in relation to their wants and needs. Eventually I employed several of these people in various capacities. But there was a very large percentage of folks who had no interest at all in working. These were the welfare queens and princesses which I constantly hear people claiming are a myth.
One of the most common situations would involve a young girl coming in with her mother to purchase furniture for a new apartment. At first I was a bit miffed at the regularity of the pregnant teens kids would walk through my doors. But eventually that shock began to wear off as I learned how many of these people saw welfare as a way of life. Despite the fact that these stores were very profitable I knew I could not do this for much longer. It hit an all time low when a couple of women came in with their very young daughters to do some shopping. The kids were no more than 13 or 14 and rail thin. It wasn’t unusual to hear a mother explain that her child would be moving out when her child was born. but this case was different. The kids were not even pregnant yet!
But this kind of abuse is not restricted to the poor. When my parents moved us out of the city and into a wealthy suburb I was exposed to many wealthy families. One of my friends had a mild case of asthma. Because of this his parents would let him out of doing any kind of chores. They would pay me to mow their lawn. Eventually the kid quit school and hung around the house until the parents told him he had to get a job. He worked all of 2 days. I kid you not. His uncle got him a job laying down terrazzo floors. This is very demanding work and he hated it. That was the last time he has ever worked.
This kid was very intelligent and knew how to manipulate people. He told me he would rather live a minimal lifestyle and not work. He enjoyed playing records, smoking pot, and fishing. So he set out to find a way to achieve his goal of not having to work. After studying the issue he came to me all excited about his plan. He would go to a psychologist and convince him that he had a phobia which prevented him from working. He had found it in a book and studied up on all the symptoms. He was 19 then and has never worked another day in his life. He is 47 years old now. Imagine that!
But he is not the only case. There are many more people than some are willing to admit. There are also the enablers to go along with them. One such person is a fellow who has not worked in over 20 years. He lives with his elderly father and spends most of his day watching television and eating. He finds this completely satisfactory and has no plan on changing until his father passes away. The one conundrum he had was the lack of health insurance. Heading toward fifty and being quite unhealthy he worried that his lifestyle might be interrupted as his brother and sister wanted to make sure he didn’t squander his fathers money in such a way that they would have less money when the man died. Just in time Massachusetts unveiled its health care pan which would require that every resident be insured. Of course he qualified for a complete subsidy which gives him full care with no deductible. He even gets free dental. In the past week he has taken full advantage with a long list of medical procedures and with more to come. He is even trying to con his way to an expensive new procedure witch would improve his vision without having to wear glasses.
I can’t be the only one exposed to such egregious examples of abuse. Are people so nieve to these things? Don’t think Welfare reform has ended these abuses either. Recently one woman was arrested for skimming the welfare system for over 100 grand by claiming to be several different people. Her penalty? She remains on welfare and is required to pay back 100 dollars per month. It is impossible for her to ever pay back the debt in that manner. But she was aided by a system which has no real desire to curtail such abuse.
http://www.cnhins.com/talkers/cnhinstalkers_story_060045639.html
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 12:01 am
I always love reading stories about professional welfare recipients.
I have friends all up and down the financial spectrum, from the extremely poor to the snotty rich.
What welfare has done is create a class of people, and their supporters, who are out of touch with reality. One woman I know, who raised most of her children on welfare, and several of whom’s children are now raising theirs on welfare, doesn’t understand why I don’t get food stamps. She knows approximately how much I make, she just thinks that everyone gets welfare. There’s nothing wrong with welfare, in her mind, and she has no incentive to get off welfare, because why bother? It’s money she gets, just like a salary. She could make about twice what she makes, and I’ve told her of places that are hiring that would pay her that much, but she’d rather work someplace close to home that’s “fun” to work at. So, she has “fun” and I pay taxes.
Over the years I’ve learned a lot about the welfare economy. I’ve watched people buy and sell food stamps, and now the food stamp debit cards we have here, because they want a few extra dollars to play the lottery or buy beer or buy some clothes or whatever. I’ve watched people buy and sell stolen food of all sorts so they can buy a food stamp card (this makes no sense — my guess it’s all about what can be stolen and how much it’s worth) when they’ve run out of food stamps. I know people who think nothing of not paying their electric bill or rent or any other bill and then wait to be evicted, then find another place and start all over again. I know women who’ve run out of money after buying all manner of things, or losing it gambling, and then turned a few tricks to make up for what they didn’t have. I have friends who pawn and unpawn (don’t know the word for “unpawning”) the same piece of jewelry every couple of months when they need money to pay the cable TV or cell phone bill.
Outside of the world of welfare, I don’t see these things happening. I know that correlation isn’t causation, but I see so much entitlement mentality that I have to believe they feel entitled to break whatever social rules they feel like breaking primarily because they aren’t working 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week for all the stuff that’s moving through their life. If they are working they are intentionally under employed.
If you ask most lefties what the “rich” pay in taxes, the answer is probably “too little”. Last year I paid about 40% of my gross pay in taxes. I pay less than many because I’m incredibly cheap — my house is small for my income level, so my property taxes are low, and I save huge amounts, so I’m not paying sales tax on that money. Years ago when I was less tight with a dollar I paid about 55%. That’s what the “rich” pay in taxes.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 12:06 am
FCH and Michael, do either of you understand the concept of “sample size” and legitimate data-gathering versus anecdotes?
Yes, some people cheat the system. Any system.
No, what you’re describing does not appear to be the norm. If I’m mistaken about that, then help me out by linking to data from a legitimate source showing that the sort of cases you’re discussing here are the norm.
And no number of mostly entirely undocumented, and entirely biased, anecdotes is going to substitute for the total lack of evidence in your arguments.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Nobody.Really wrote:
FCH responded:
Nobody.Really responded with a link to a New York Times article about the billions of dollars illegal immigrants in effect donate to the Fed each year.
FCH responded:
Actually, it answered the primary question in the disagreement between N.R. and yourself, FCH; NR was completely correct, and you were completely wrong. There is no legitimate doubt left regarding this question. I think you could have done more to acknowlege that. I’m not asking for a mea culpa, but a “point well taken, I was mistaken about that claim” would have been nice.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Furrycatherder, there’s no either/or choice between “people save up for enough money to switch careers without assistance” and “people don’t save at all and just rely on the dole.” If assistance is available in small quantities, plenty of career-switchers will use a combination, not one or the other.
But in the real world — as opposed to libertarian fantasy land — there will be more people who are able to switch careers, if career-switching is in effect subsidized, then there will be if no subsidization at all exists.
And it seems self-evident that more people being able to switch careers is good. First of all, many people will opt to switch into careers in which they will be more productive in some way — which will be good for the economy as a whole. Second of all, people will be happier, which is an intrinsic good. Third, employers will have increased motivation to make sure that their working conditions aren’t making employees needlessly miserable.
Why — other than your personal preference that none of our mutual tax dollars be used to subsidize any non-disabled person’s life — is this a bad thing?
[Edited to clarify my language.]
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 12:35 am
You don’t know anyone not on welfare who sometimes runs up a credit card balance? Really?
You do understand that the equivalent of pawning and redeeming (that’s the term you’re looking for) for people with credit is simply to run up a credit balance temporarily, right? People without good credit have to put up a surety when they borrow money, people with good credit can just put it on their card.
But dealing with pawn shops is something the underclass does, so it must be a sign of their wrongness…
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Ampersand writes:
Who is going to pay for this?
I’m saving for my retirement, various and sundry rainy days, and a child to go to college. There’s no more money, go bother someone else.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Ampersand writes:
In terms of the SSA just keeping the money, yes, nobody.really was correct. Why the federal government isn’t doing more to the businesses which collect these taxes from non-citizens is a mystery. Why the federal government doesn’t provide an instant SS ID verification program is another one.
The rest of my comments were correct and borne out by the article — the Federal government does match the information and does send out “no match” letters. I’d hardly call my post “completely incorrect”.
I’m about 245 miles from the border. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings in the least if the border were sealed shut. It would improve jobs, wages, standard of living, and reduce crime and overcrowding.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Well … yeah. More to the point, that’s what the lengthy quote at Post 169 suggests, quoting the years of research on this very question. To summarize, give households some minimum level of income and they reduce the number of hours they work by 13%, on average, but they also –
- increase school attendance, grades, and standardized test scores for their kids, and reduced the drop-out rate,
- increased the number of adults getting education,
- reduced the incidence of low-birthweight babies and malnutrition,
- bought and retained more homes,
- experienced less domestic violence and fewer divorces (although one study in British Columbia revealed an increase in divorce - go figure).
I don’t doubt people’s sincerity in reporting their experience with people on welfare behaving inappropriately. Similarly, I don’t doubt a police officer’s sincerity in arguing that Hmongs are prone to crime; if the only time you ever meet a Hmong person is at work, and your job is apprehending criminals, of COURSE you will generalize from your experiences. That’s only natural. It’s called “selection bias.”
But what are the odds that your life exposes you to a representative sample of people?
So, Michael thinks that young people on welfare should not be forming couples, having babies, and setting up households. Perhaps he’s right. But what portion of young people on welfare who invest their money prudently and refrain from getting pregnant will come into a new furniture store? If you start from the perspective that people on welfare shouldn’t be wasting their limited resources on new furniture, then OF COURSE the only welfare people Michael sees will be people who are behaving badly. This is classic selection bias.
In contrast, if people on welfare caused their kids to do better in school, how would Michael observe that fact? If they got more continuing education, how would Michael observe that fact? If they had fewer low-birthweight kids, how would Michael observe that fact? Etc. Is Michael really in a position of evaluate all the costs and benefits of a social welfare program?
I don’t mean to pick on Michael. The ideas he’s expressing pose a real problem for any social program in a democracy: People who behave “appropriately” tend to be inconspicuous. People who behave “inappropriately” tend to be conspicuous by virtue of their inappropriate behavior. Some people imagine that all homosexuals wear leather thongs and feathers and march in parades, because those are the only people they notice who identify as gay. The gay accountant, secretary, student and appliance salesman sitting next to them on the bus don’t attract much attention, even if they are much more representative.
People who understand selection bias can manipulate the public’s distorted perception for political gain. The authors of the studies on providing basic incomes acknoweldge this problem, but offer no solutions. It seems intractable.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 7:49 am
What Furry said. Me too.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 8:13 am
As a CLASS? I doubt it. Are you implying that the selectino of things was done purely on the basis of medical care? Or are you changing the subject?
more accurately: “prioritize short term gains at the cost of long term security.”
Of course, their strategy sucked.
Yup, we may. I’m OK with that. What, you think I want you to bail me out if my home depreciates?
The “poor” thing would apply in some cases. But in my area, a lot of the millionares were carpenters, landscapers, etc. It really was possible to do.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 8:13 am
N.R,
The problem is that a statistic like a 13% reduction in hours worked isn’t one that many of us, especially those of us who’ve worked what amounts to our entire lives (okay, I could have started working at age 11. Oh, wait — I was raking leaves and mowing lawns at age 11 …), are going to like.
Nor are any of the other “improvements” something I consider to require a welfare program. People need to learn to live within that means, and that includes learning that having children is an expensive proposition. It goes without saying that preventing a child from being born into a welfare situation is cheaper than raising that child within the welfare system. And yet creating realistic incentives to not have children, and the means to accomplish that, is completely off the table. The net result is what has been observed on a global scale — the highest rates of reproduction are in the lowest socio-economic classes. The people paying for that are the ones who pay taxes, and while the upper quartile starts at $60K, I’d hardly think of $60K as “rich” –
(source)
As I wrote above, I already pay more than enough, please go bother someone else.
The 1996 changes in welfare laws settled for once and for all the greatest debate between “welfare liberals” and “welfare conservatives” — do liberalized welfare programs foster welfare dependence and create a disincentive to work? The answer, from study after study, is “Yes, liberalized welfare programs create disincentives to work”, and the studies you and others referenced further bear that out.
Entitlement programs are a form of double taxation — first, we pay the taxes so that other people get the benefits, then we have to save so that we can pay for ourselves to get the benefits. Programs like NIT and BIG would leave me in poverty were I to take advantage of something like them. Sure, it would be nice to have a few hundred extra dollars, but I’d still be dipping into personal savings to pay basic living expenses — housing, utilities, food, clothing, transportation.
There reaches a point where taxation becomes absurd on its face, and for me it was when the total taxes I pay exceeded the median income. Yes, I’m happy to be well-paid, and I’m even happy to contribute to the government. But in 1994 or 1995 (forget the exact year — it was one of those two) when I paid $0.55 of every dollar I earned in “tax”, it was just dumb.
If you look at the link I provided above, you’ll see who’s paying the bill for these programs, and it isn’t the poor middle class the way lefties like to mewl about. The bottom 3 quartiles pay 15% of the total (total!) federal tax burden.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 8:15 am
A perfectly fair question. Indeed, a crucial question. And to answer it, we need to ask the implied corollary question:
Who is going to pay for this if we don’t?
If we don’t provide a basic income to people, and they have poor nutrition and low birthweight kids that require a fortune in perinatal care, who is going to pay for that?
If we don’t provide a basic income to people, and their kids don’t get an education and instead grow up with violence, abuse and divorce, who is going to pay for that?
If we don’t provide a basic education, so adults pursue less continuing education and find themselves less able to switch to more productive jobs, who is going to pay for that?
We all do - in health care costs; in crime, crime prevention and prisons; in foregone tax collections; in lost productivity; in social misery.
Does this offend me, my sense of autonomy and property rights? Of course. Does it bother me that my taxes are higher to pay for people’s stupid decisions? Hell yes. And even if I’m gonna pay the taxes, does it bother me that government has fewer resources to provide relief to truly innocent victims, because we’re spending money on people who are simply stupid or lazy? You’re goddam right it does.
And then I take a deep breath. No, it’s not the ideal system. But we never get to choose between all good and all bad; we choose between better and worse. If we forbid emergency rooms from turning indigent people away, it is entirely foreseeable that some indigent people will use emergency rooms inappropriately. That’s simply an unavoidably cost of the mandate. Having reconciled myself to that cost, I am freed up to acknowledge that subsidizing regular health care for indigent people might be a cheaper way to go.
Who is going to pay for that? We all will. But we’re going to pay for it anyway, one way or another. Let’s just pay for it rationally.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 8:43 am
I have undergraduate degrees in Political Science and History as well as an MBA . I fully understand and appreciate the difference between anecdotal evidence and actual scientific analysis. But I also understand the difference between the real world and what passes for data sampling among the social sciences. I also think there is a unique value in understanding a culture by observing how it operates n practice rather than theory. The stores I owned when I was younger were in the poorest sections of Boston and Cambrige.The sample size was more than adequate to form an understanding of the particular subculture I described.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 8:43 am
FurryCatHerder was spot on. I witnessed the underground market involving food stamps first hand. On many occasions women would gather at my store to exchange coupons for cash in order to buy my furniture.
I employed an older woman who knew how these things worked first hand. She was a master when it came to putting people together to exchange cash for coupons. What you need to understand is that it was a way of life. These folks learned exactly how to work the system.
Ampersand also said:
No, what you’re describing does not appear to be the norm. If I’m mistaken about that, then help me out by linking to data from a legitimate source showing that the sort of cases you’re discussing here are the norm.
I never claimed it was the norm. But I will claim that it is a sizable percentage in certain areas. Many of these cases defy conventional methods of data sampling. The person who is able to work and claims a back, neck, or emotional injury to cheat the system simply shows up as disabled. As a previous commenter stated there is no way to assess the validity of certain claims. Objecting to anecdotal evidence is fine. But at some point that kind of observation becomes quite valid. When anthropologists do this it is called participant observation and suddenly it rises to the level of actual science.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Daylight Savings Time: Time to Spring Forward Parenting Posts from Elsewhere: » The dark side of our Norwegian Star cruise: embarkation and … » Quality Time with Children » Birthdays Birthdays and More Birthdays » Comment on Empty Spaces Waiting For Whites To Move In by Michael » Blogging Baby Sleepover for Thursday, March 15 » Learning to Let Go » Media and Self Esteem » Warning: Very dull entry! » “no one cares what you had for lunch” blog post #21 » Frustrated
This comment was written by raising4boys.com » parenting tips, tricks and commentary.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
N.R,
You keep looking at this as though the only solution is to throw money at the problem. Throwing money has not, does not, and will not work. It’s a failure. Try something else.
You keeping engaging in “What about the children?” Start by offering free tubal ligations and vasectomies, or making them a condition of eligibility. If there’s not enough money to go around within the programs, place limits on what the money can be spent for. Food stamps, by law, can be used to buy just about any food going, regardless of value or nutritional content. Limit food choices so that convenience foods aren’t part of the program.
It’s practically an axiom of social policy that whatever the government subsidizes increases and whatever it taxes decreases. Programs need to be designed with this in mind, but they aren’t. Programs are designed so that welfare recipients “feel good” about themselves and have no obligation back to the State. There’s no reason that welfare recipients of all sorts can’t be obligated to perform work for the State as a condition of receiving benefits, except for our will to make that part of the law.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Michael writes:
Another issue is that what is selected as the metrics are frequently selected to prove a specific agenda.
For example, our comptroller stunned the country by publishing a report that “proved” illegal immigrants are net-contributors. What she looked at was sales tax paid and basic services received. What she didn’t look at were such things as health care and education. Once that was taken into consideration the $4.7B impact caused by illegal immigrants became more clear.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 10:01 am
nobody.really Writes:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:41 am
So, Michael thinks that young people on welfare should not be forming couples, having babies, and setting up households. Perhaps he’s right. But what portion of young people on welfare who invest their money prudently and refrain from getting pregnant will come into a new furniture store? If you start from the perspective that people on welfare shouldn’t be wasting their limited resources on new furniture, then OF COURSE the only welfare people Michael sees will be people who are behaving badly. This is classic selection bias.
You are reading things into what I said which are not there . Most of the examples I observed did not involve young couples . Also , these were not simply young people but many were MINORS ! You also assumed that my store sold only new furniture . In fact , it sold both new and used . used furniture was actually had the highest profit margin .
Studies prove my observations regarding the children of welfare recipients to be correct.
I never said the only welfare people I observed were behaving badly. One of my best employees was a woman who raised her two daughters very well. One went to Harvard and the other to another top school. I saw a wide range of people in the 5 stores I owned prior to going to college and changing careers. I also had many fine young folks who worked very hard for the money I paid them.
nobody.really also wrote :
But what are the odds that your life exposes you to a representative sample of people?
The odds would be quite high since I lived and worked in the very
neighborhoods I describe. But my situation is even more unique. I was actually born in the poorest section of Boston. I lived there as a small child until we moved to the suburbs. My family went from being very poor to middle-class. I came to know many very wealthy families in those towns. My family eventually became wealthy. But that was many years after I had left home
Prior to opening my first retail store I worked nights pumping gas and sleeping on the floor of that grimy gas station. Eventually I convinced the owner of a business across the street to allow me to sublet a section of his retail establishment. I worked the store during the day and pumped gas at nights until I was making enough money to drop that night job.
I knew everyone from store owners and landlords to pimps and prostitutes. In other words, the real world.
nobody.really also wrote :
So, Michael thinks that young people on welfare should not be forming couples, having babies, and setting up households. Perhaps he’s right .
Yes, You nailed that one. I don’t think people should have children until they can afford the costs associated with raising them. Having them with the express intent on having others pay for them is reprehensible for a number of reasons. I wanted to give my children the very best of everything. Prior to having kids, I made sure I had the money to fund the very best education possible. I purchased a home and a vacation property well in advance of having my first child. But I don’t expect people to be as disciplined as me. However I do expect that people should be able to afford the basic necessities before bringing a child into this world .
This comment was written by Michael.Why is that so much to expect?
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March 16th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
A minor quibble. Convenience foods are cheaper and have larger portions, and it’s easier to stretch a food budget to feed the kids. Four 89cent boxes of mac and cheese can be stretched farther than spending money for the ingredients to make a pan of home made mac and cheese, which would undoubtably be much healthier cuz of all the dairy. Fresh vegetables have the same problem, and lets not even get into the price of a piece of meat that’s more fat than not.
Lets see, a block of cheese here is (last I checked) $3.89. Milk is $3.01, or maybe it was $3.10. A large box ‘o cheap pasta is $2.99, unless you want to buy the really cheap kind for $1.99, which has the habit of being so old it’s stale and won’t boil. A pack of four sticks of butter is $4.00, give or take a few cents in either direction. A bag of flour is a $1.89…do you see where I’m going with this? I haven’t even listed all the ingredients for mac and cheese, and I’m pretty sure two blocks of cheese is skimpy to make a family-sized pan of it.
I make box mac and cheese with the contents of the box, plus either milk or butter, if it’s available to feed the kids, and/or myself, depending on how many kids I’m cooking for, to make the healthy ingredients last longer. Sometimes ya gotta make it with just a bit of hot water instead of milk or butter. But hey, who’s complaining. It doesn’t taste as good, but it’s still food. What you’re suggesting is using an amount of money that, while it can still sometimes be stretched to last the month feeding kids less than healthy food, to it being used to make healthy meals available every once in awhile.
There’s no ‘if’ about the money being enough. It just isn’t. So how are kids going to eat three meals a day if their parents are only buying healthy food on that meager stipend? Let alone eat all month? And it is meager, no doubt about that.
-I’m not saying raising the amount on the foodstamp card is enough. I’d rather the system get overhauled, not more restrictions placed.
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
On cost and benefit:
The people paying for that [social programs] are the ones who pay taxes….
That is unclear to me. Yes, poor people don’t pay federal income taxes. But it is unclear how to measure who is paying for government, given that much of government is simply not being paid for at all. The bill will be paid by our kids. If I cared about what portion of the bill would be borne by my own kids, I might want to pursue policies to ensure that everybody’s kids are going to be as productive as possible.
Wealthy people pay the majority of federal income taxes in the US. Indeed, they pay a growing share, even as federal income tax rates are cut. How is that possible?
It’s possible because the wealth have become VASTLY MORE WEALTHY than ever before. The same cannot be said of the poor. Consequently, I find little empirical support for the idea that public policy is excessively generous to poor people generally.
While the wealthy pay a larger share of taxes, do they bear a disproportionate burden for our public policies? That depends on what your include in your proportions. Some US citizens pay for our policies with their lives and bodies. The upper 1% of taxpayers overwhelmingly supported the election of Pres. Bush, and presumably support his policies. Yet few than 1% of the upper 1% serve in our nation’s armed forces. If the children of the upper 1% were coming home to Walter Reed Medical Center, do you really think we’d have the same conditions we have today? People pay for US policies in many ways. I am not at all convinced that the upper 1% is paying too much.
Similarly, who pays for the environmental degradation? Who pays for the decline in workplace safety in mines? Who pays for the decimation of the civil rights division or the National Labor Relations Board?
And who benefits?
Consider the simple example of the child tax credit. Raising kids takes money, that’s true. So the Bush Administration proposed a tax credit to subsidize people with kids. But the law said that if you don’t pay taxes, you don’t get any benefit. In other words, the law provided for subsidizing the children of the rich, but not the poor. So every time I see a photo of Syndy smiling out from Amp’s website, I wonder whether my taxes are subsidizing her; I guess I don’t need to guess about FurryCatHerder’s kids.
Consider Pat Tillman. As a professional football player, he benefitted handsomely from the Bush tax cuts, including the child tax credit. At least, until he quit his job. After 9/11, he left the NFL to join the US Army. Suddenly he no longer qualified for all those tax breaks – not even the child tax credit. Had the burdens he bore for governmental policies suddenly lessened? Had his kids suddenly become less expensive to raise? Or is there some other explanation for the design of public policy?
There are many costs and many benefits to government programs. I encourage everyone to scrutinize the financial data. But if financial data is all people give you to look at, you’re being manipulated.
Yes, I’m happy to be well-paid, and I’m even happy to contribute to the government. But in 1994 or 1995 (forget the exact year — it was one of those two) when I paid $0.55 of every dollar I earned in “tax”, it was just dumb….
If you look at the link I provided above, you’ll see who’s paying the bill for these programs, and it isn’t the poor middle class the way lefties like to mewl about. The bottom 3 quartiles pay 15% of the total (total!) federal tax burden.
Are you saying that the bottom 3 quartiles are paying less than they used to in absolute terms? Or are you saying that the top quartile is paying VASTLY MORE because it has become VASTLY RICHER than ever before? And if so, what exactly is wrong with people who are VASTLY RICHER paying more taxes?
In 2002 the Wall Street Journal editors argued that we should envy those lucky duckies who are too poor to pay income tax. The editorials were widely refuted for both factual and policy content.
That said, I also don’t like the fact that the top quartile of earners pay such a high share of federal taxes. This is why I favor policies designed to make the bottom 75% more productive and richer, and therefore able to pay a larger share of the tax burden. I hope we can all join in these efforts.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
A.W,
“Mac and Cheese” isn’t made from cheese. Maybe if it were you’d have a point.
As for raising the amount of food stamp cards, we’d have to get to a point where recipients valued what they get at something nearer to face value before there’d be any point in raising payments. As it is, food stamps are valued well below face value, which is why there is an underground market in them. You can find support for this by looking at how “cash out” programs have worked and how changing from a coupon or swipe-card based program to a cash program affects decisions about food purchases.
I can buy, any day of the week, a $100 EBT card (”Lone Star Card”) for $50. If that’s all it’s worth to its holder, I say we cut benefits until the cards are worth face value. A fifty percent reduction across the board in benefits tomorrow would be a good start, in my mind.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Policy critique:
The problem is that a statistic like a 13% reduction in hours worked isn’t one that many of us, especially those of us who’ve worked what amounts to our entire lives … are going to like.
Thanks for sharing your reaction to the studies. Indeed, the study authors discussed this popular reaction explicitly.
Some people hate the idea that someone would refrain from working. Oddly, even people who were raised by stay-at-home moms hate it. The studies show that the greatest effect of the income programs was to have moms tend to stay at home for longer periods after leaving the workforce (e.g., following childbirth). Apparently people are willing to impute bad motives to others for engaging in the same conduct their own mothers engaged in. This poses a definite political hurdle to the adoptions of such programs.
Entitlement programs are a form of double taxation — first, we pay the taxes so that other people get the benefits, then we have to save so that we can pay for ourselves to get the benefits. Programs like NIT and BIG would leave me in poverty were I to take advantage of something like them. Sure, it would be nice to have a few hundred extra dollars, but I’d still be dipping into personal savings to pay basic living expenses — housing, utilities, food, clothing, transportation.
To be clear, this was precisely the point of the studies – How much paid labor will people forego if given the option to receive NIT or BIG benefits? The answer was roughly 13%, for precisely the issues raised above. This dynamic is not considered a problem with the programs; it’s a feature designed to keep the cost of the programs low.
The 1996 changes in welfare laws settled for once and for all the greatest debate between “welfare liberals” and “welfare conservatives” — do liberalized welfare programs foster welfare dependence and create a disincentive to work? The answer, from study after study, is “Yes, liberalized welfare programs create disincentives to work”, and the studies you and others referenced further bear that out.
Anyone who has read the studies knows that this “greatest debate” was resolved long before 1996; indeed, I think this issue was resolved in 1776, with the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. It’s basic economics that as people get richer they consume more, including consuming more leisure. The only surprising aspect to this discussion is the fact the people find it surprising.
“Leisure,” however, is something of a misnomer. Recall that the studies reveal that as people work less, they produce a variety of social benefits, especially regarding their kids. I read this to say that people are trading paid, productive labor for unpaid, productive labor. I don’t understand why people find this so problematic.
You keep looking at this as though the only solution is to throw money at the problem. Throwing money has not, does not, and will not work. It’s a failure.
Respectfully, the studies showed a number of results from the income programs. I understand that some people are philosophically opposed to the programs, but I don’t regard that as a reason to ignore the data.
It’s practically an axiom of social policy that whatever the government subsidizes increases and whatever it taxes decreases.
I think it’s an axiom of economics.
Programs need to be designed with this in mind, but they aren’t.
Respectfully, the income experiments were designed precisely to explore the program’s subsidy effects. Indeed, the authors remarked that their programs basically launched the field of rigorous policy study.
That said, I agree with the larger point that we should consider the effects of subsidies and taxes in designing policy. If only we had considered the effects of subsidies and taxes before we invaded Iraq….
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Frustrations:
Various people said something akin to I don’t think people should have children until they can afford the costs associated with raising them.
Me too. For what it’s worth, I feel the same way. It’s crazy that we bar people from driving without getting a licence, but we permit any fool to procreate.
And yet, people procreate with our without our approval. So, putting aside for a moment our disapproval, disappointment and frustration, what are we going to do about it?
I’m not trying to appeal to people’s compassion; I’m trying to appeal to people’s self-interest.
Consider two alternatives. In Central and South America, there is very little middle class, and the rich have largely abandoned the idea of maintaining the poor. The rich tend to live in walled-off communities with guards, while the rest of their societies live in squalor.
In contrast, since WWII the US has had a relatively large middle class, and has taken measures to maintain some minimum standard of living.
Neither system is costless. Public welfare is not costless. On the other hand, guards, and walls, and the constant threat that a populist demagogue will take everything you’ve got - these are not imaginary costs either. We need to determine what kind of policies to adopt. But that discussion will be helped by the realization that there are no costless alternatives.
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March 16th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
There’s no reason that welfare recipients of all sorts can’t be obligated to perform work for the State as a condition of receiving benefits, except for our will to make that part of the law.
True. But what problem does that solve, exactly? As the studies show, the major reduction in work hours occurred in the secondary wage earner - typically, the wife. Let me quote the language again:
To the extent that spouses pool their resources, I don’t know how to keep one spouse from taking more time off when the other spouse starts to earn more. Moreover, I don’t know why we’d want to.
“What about the children?” Start by offering free tubal ligations and vasectomies, or making them a condition of eligibility.
Now we’re talkin’! Whatever the merits of this specific proposal, I find merit in the acknowledgment that government might sometimes want to incur a short-term social cost for the purpose of avoiding larger, long-term costs. This is precisely what I’ve been talking about.
If there’s not enough money to go around within the programs, place limits on what the money can be spent for. Food stamps, by law, can be used to buy just about any food going, regardless of value or nutritional content. Limit food choices so that convenience foods aren’t part of the program.
More creative ideas. Perhaps they can be developed further. However, as with the income programs, it’s entirely predictable that some people will cheat. Much as we might try to keep people from making exchanges we disapprove of, market forces will find a way. As discussed above, there is a black market in food stamps already.
That doesn’t mean the programs can’t work. It merely means, as with any set of rules, we must acknowledge and accept that some level of cheating will occur, and consider this dynamic before we adopt our policies.
Thanks for all the suggestions. Keep ‘em comin’.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
N.R writes:
And I want the underclass working and earning money as well. I simply happen to believe that welfare creates a disincentive, as the studies of “NIT” and “BIG” have shown, against work. I also base my belief on the observation that employment amongst chronic welfare recipients improved as a result of the 1996 welfare changes.
There are charitable programs I’m involved with that require recipients to work in order to receive benefits. One of the programs is, so far as I can tell, wildly successful, with long waiting lines, and near universal support. Keep in mind — in order to benefit you must WORK. You must also take classes in financial responsibility.
When the 1996 welfare law changes were being proposed there was strong opposition to them because … welfare recipients shouldn’t have to work, the poor dears. Some states, Iowa as I recall, had already instituted welfare-to-work programs and they’d proven that the concept is sound. Nine years on we’ve learned that sure enough, it does work — focusing more on “work” and less on “free money” produces the predictable result. People work.
Studies in such places as New Jersey where food stamps were replaced with cash showed that when people have “cash” in their hands they make better decisions. We’re having problems where I live because of Katrina — people who’ve been given housing vouchers don’t care for their homes because … they aren’t paying the bill. Who’s paying for the poor care of those apartments and houses? We are through increased taxes.
Don’t ask me why people behave differently when they are made more responsible for their lives because I don’t much understand it. You asked about my kid. First, I get no tax benefit because I don’t get the deduction, thanks to a legal fiction which says that the non-custodial parent always pays less to care for a child than the custodial one, and thanks to the reduction in tax deductions that happens up where my income is, I get slapped by another legal fiction — the parent who benefits the most should get the deduction.
But back to the kid — when tiny munchkin was about 4 I decided he needed to learn “responsibility”. Every month he gets a fixed amount of … cash. What he does with it is his decision — he can buy junk food, trading cards, computer games, or whatever, and he saves the rest. But if he says “Mom, I want to go to a movie!” my response is “You have money, figure out when you want to go and I’ll take you”. The result is that I pay LESS for his “discretionary expenses” (and clothes — when he started wasting my money on fads he was given a clothing budget and that was tacked on to the giant pile of money) than any other parent of a teen that I know. The only exception is parents I know who are on welfare (no, really — it’s wild). It’s get better — since this form of torture was inflicted on him, he’s managed to save enough for a nice used car downpayment. Mind you — all his junk food, computer games, toys, movies, non-educational books, clothes, etc. for well below what every parent I know spends on their teenager each month, and he has a car downpayment saved. Oh — and he has to do community service for holiday and birthday gifts. He performed 30 hours of community service last year and I’m currently working on getting him one of those “Points of Light Foundation” awards as part of a family.
Work and financial responsibility works every time its tried. Welfare don’t. It’s not a “libertarian fantasy”, it’s just this observation I’ve made over the course of my life.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
You just proved my point, Furry. Box mac and cheese isn’t made from cheese. But the kind you put in a pan and bake is. The difference is how often kid’s will get to eat.
But both are considered food by the store, only with box, you can ‘feed’ your kid most or all of the month. With ‘healthy’, you can’t.
Yea, and I’ve no idea of the policy and credit checks needed to get one of those lone star cards. I know that I have an ebt card with a visa logo on it, but it isn’t worth a hundred dollars, and I can’t buy it for fifty bucks. It just takes money out of my checking with an added two dollar surcharge if I use it. I know my mother didn’t ‘qualify’ for the ebt card I managed to get, and it’s because her credit is shot. So how are poorer people supposed to afford those cards, and why does it only cost fifty dollars for the use of a hundred? Is there perhaps a monthly payment or something, like a credit card? Interest rates? And what do those cards have to do with good food?
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
A.W.,
“EBT” is the electronics benefits program here and around much of the country. It actually stands for “Electronics Benefit Transfer” and is part of the reforms to destigmatize welfare — give someone something that looks like a VISA card and they will “feel better”. Other names include “Eat Better Tonight” and (pejoratively, and captured in various songs) “African Express”.
You don’t “buy” them — the government hands them out and refills them each month. The underground market here consists of paying someone a dollar amount, typically $0.50 on the dollar, and they hand you their card and PIN. You then go to the grocery, buy the dollar amount you “paid” the welfare recipient for, and give them the receipt showing the balance. If you under spend, you get a “refund”. If you overspend, you get yelled at.
It’s a food stamps card, not some kind of credit card you “qualify” for with credit checks, interest rates, monthly payments and whatnot.
Like I said — I spend a lot of time (apparently more than you …) around some incredibly poor people.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I find the Tax Foundation’s statistics to be suspect. Especially since my research into state income taxes in Oregon ( http://jakesquid.livejournal.com/2836.html ) found exactly the opposite to be true. Not to say that my suspicions will be borne out. Statistically, the wealthy pay much, much less in taxes as a percentage of income than do the middle class. If you’re interested, I’ll try to find the name of the book that details all of this.
Even if the Tax Foundation’s numbers are correct, the wealthy are, IMHO, obligated to pay more. Never mind the fact that they benefit more from the current set up, if you are part of a society there are societal obligations. Helping the poor is one of them. After all, Jesus wasn’t known for saying, “I’m working hard here. Let the poor find their own way.”
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
nobody.really Writes:
March 16th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Consider the simple example of the child tax credit. Raising kids takes money, that’s true. So the Bush Administration proposed a tax credit to subsidize people with kids. But the law said that if you don’t pay taxes, you don’t get any benefit. In other words, the law provided for subsidizing the children of the rich, but not the poor. So every time I see a photo of Syndy smiling out from Amp’s website, I wonder whether my taxes are subsidizing her; I guess I don’t need to guess about FurryCatHerder’s kids.
That is simply untrue. Many people who don’t pay taxes get an even larger subsidy by the EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT. This subsidy for the poor has been going on for several decades. The working poor get it regardless if they have children or not. However, the credit increases with more children. So the point still stands. The poor use far more in services than they contribute in the form of taxes, nor do they subsidize other peoples children.
The tax credit I receive is meager compared to what I pay in total taxes . . Compare and contrast that with that of a welfare recipient and an example of the working poor. The idea that either is subsidizing me is ridiculous.
My wife and I recently completed our second adoption bring our total number of children to 3 . As I mentioned, none of my children will ever go to public schools yet I will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes. Now compare that with a welfare recipient with the same number of children. In Boston the total cost for education would be over 30 k. Keep that in perspective the next time you want to claim that poor people contribute in the form of sales taxes. The numbers for a family of the working poor are not that much better. Consider too that none of this takes into account health care services, police, fire,ect. No welfare recipient or the working poor even pay for the education of their children. Run the numbers. Welfare recipients don’t pay taxes. The working poor pay a paltry amount.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
As a CLASS? I doubt it. Are you implying that the selectino of things was done purely on the basis of medical care?
Purely on the basis of medical care? Clearly not, as is reflected in the sentence you quoted from me.
Of course, their strategy sucked.
So, because they didn’t jump on the anomalous real estate boom at the right time, fuck ‘em. Great. If you, personally, don’t want to be “bailed out”, you can opt out. But that doesn’t lessen your societal and moral obligation to help others in your society.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
As I mentioned, none of my children will ever go to public schools yet I will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes. Now compare that with a welfare recipient with the same number of children.
I got mine. Fuck the poor. Sink or swim, buddy, sink or swim.
nobody.really has it right. If you want to see what results from your anti-tax ideology go to Central or South America. Of course, you and FCH know that you would be among the super-rich in those societies, so it probably won’t sway you guys a bit.
Big thanks to nobody.really for taking the time to refute the fantasies and fictions being thrown out there. And for doing it much more politely than I am capable of at this point.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Jake,
Those figures are from the IRS. You could get them from the IRS and examine them yourself.
I, personally, don’t find anything wrong with them. If anything they understate the amount of tax paid because a lot of deductions are phased out starting around $90K for single filers. So, while a middle income family earning $50K might get X benefit from some program or deduction, a $100K family will get less, and a $200K family will likely get … NOTHING!
The result is that the tax structure is doubly progressive. First, it’s progressive because the marginal rate increases with income. Then it’s progressive again because Adjusted Gross Income increases as a percentage of Gross Income as Gross Income increases.
The myth of the tax avoiding rich dude hasn’t been true since 1970 when the Alternative Minimum Tax took hold.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Jake Squid Writes:
March 16th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Statistically, the wealthy pay much, much less in taxes as a percentage of income than do the middle class. If you’re interested, I’ll try to find the name of the book that details all of this.
You can play with the figures in a number of different ways. But regardless of how you use them one thing will not be in dispute. The wealthy pay the lions share of total taxes. Also, the taxes they pay far exceed what they use in the form of government services. See my example of property taxes and education above. The best citizen to attract to your community is one who is well employed and uses less services. They constitute a plus while poor people with a lot of kids constitute a net drain. That is the harsh reality.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
My mistake, mine’s a check card, not an ebt card. I know how food stamp cards work, thank you, as I’ve had to use them myself. There’s no fancy names here, even the welfare office call’s em food stamps. What they’re called in the office between themselves, I don’t know. There’s really jingles on television with advertisement for them?
But you said you could buy a lone star card for fifty bucks. That doesn’t sound like welfare to me. I wasn’t aware you could ‘buy’ welfare benefits. Then again, they might not have those particular programs here.
I do have a question, though. Would you still advocate for the cards being used only for healthy food with the amount people are alloted right now?
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Jake Squid Writes:
March 16th, 2007 at 2:35 pm As I mentioned, none of my children will ever go to public schools yet I will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes. Now compare that with a welfare recipient with the same number of children.
I got mine. Fuck the poor. Sink or swim, buddy, sink or swim.
You mischaracterize my position. I have been poor, middle-class and wealthy. I am not fucking the poor. Rather I am allowing them to seek their fortune. I consider disincentives to be the worst thing possible for poor people. It traps them into poverty and takes money away from me that I would prefer to spend how I see fit. By the way, I contribute to two charities of my own which exceed my obligation to society. If I were taxed less I would contribute a large portion of that to charities which are better able to help the needy.
So it is not “fuck the poor ” as you say. It is “get out of my way and let me actually effect some positive change. I can do it better than can you.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Jake mewls:
I’m not opposed to charity or paying taxes. I’m opposed to programs that don’t work, and quoting Jebus back at me isn’t going to do much of anything. He’s dead, get over it.
Welfare doesn’t work. That’s what the 1996 reforms proved — provide people with an incentive to get off welfare and onto the employment rolls, and penalties if they don’t (carrot and stick), and those people’s lives improve.
What welfare has done is destroy the incentive to work, decouple actions and consequences and create an attitude of entitlement. The “tax the rich even more!” approach doesn’t work either — the “rich” are already taxed enough (85% of federal taxes paid by the upper quartile …) The “rich” have options that the “poor” don’t have and always will. The people who get hurt by “tax the rich even more!” are the middle class — the middle class doesn’t receive the handouts and lacks the additional income to save.
Many middle class people — and I’m middle class, not “rich” — make poor decisions based on mistaken beliefs about “government safety nets” or distortions because of the tax code.
For example, the current sub-prime mortgage mess is very likely due, in large part, to the special treatment of mortgage interest on tax returns which encourages people to keep their house at or near fully mortgaged. Unless people do as I do, which is live well below my means, there’s a risk they will slide into poverty at old age. And if you look at savings rates and retirement savings, that’s very much what’s in store for the middle class. Social Security is going broke, despite Amp’s repeated assertions it isn’t (if I could only pay 70% of my bills I’d be forced to file bankrupcy — so let’s quit pretending that Social Security won’t be bankrupt in another 30 years).
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Jake squid said :
If you want to see what results from your anti-tax ideology go to Central or South America. Of course, you and FCH know that you would be among the super-rich in those societies, so it probably won’t sway you guys a bit.
Bad comparison Jake. I actually give people a lot more credit than do you. If I can make it anyone can. Many of my friends came from poor families and are now incredibly wealthy. One of my closest is from Cuba. He owns a cutting edge dental practice which is the envy of many in his profession. Another friend came here as a small boy from Jamaica. His mother was so poor he didn’t have shoes. He is now a millionaire many times over. In fact, I bet you have seen him on many an occasion.
We have different views of the world. I see opportunity where you see none. Your vision results in the entitlement of poverty. That is my opinion as well as my life experience.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
A.W writes:
I didn’t say it was legal. I just said I could do it.
And while you say you’ve been on welfare, sorry, but I’m not convinced you’ve BEEN on welfare. One of the first things I learned when I was desparately poor (something I share with Michael …) was learning how to scam to survive. Like, stealing catsup from MacDonald’s, learning that it’s possible to live on Ramen Noodles, knowing what the bus schedules are, and being able to choose between getting home safely and hitchhiking.
And like Michael, I give to charities. About 10% of my income goes to charity, and about 10% of my “time” goes as well. I just happen to limit where my money goes based on how effective the charity is. No results, no money. Too bad, so sad.
This discussion is not, as you and Jake keep trying to frame it, about whether or not we eat the poor. It’s about how badly people with your mentality have harmed the poor and trapped them in a really miserable existence with your do-gooder mentalities.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Wait a moment. You said *You* could buy it. I thought you were at least middle class, how can you qualify for those welfare programs?
And I’m curious as to when the welfare system changed so those programs could be bought instead of qualified for.
And since your knowledge of government funding seems to be larger than mine, could you point me to any webpages that have the history of the changes needed to make those cards, and how they were brought about?
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
It’s always nice to get called a liar in the evening. I could tell you I’ve slept behind dumpsters, and that when I was younger, social services came to check up on my home (one of many) and that the neighbors in my trailer park donated food so it ‘looked good’ and we wouldn’t be yanked away. I didn’t have to ‘learn’ it was possible to live of ramen, that particular bit of knowledge I grew up with.
I can go on in this vein for the next twenty three years, Furry.
But that’s not the point. The point is, that’s the second time you’ve posted raising questions regarding my experience, when most people online know that it’s pretty much impossible to validate experiences online.
My question, and I do have one, is this.
Why aren’t you replying to my argument about the unhealthy vs healthy purchases of the food stamp card, instead of casting your doubt about my experiences as a rejoinder?
But you never answered me. Do you still advocate for only healthy food being bought with the cards, when that route, to my mind, brings less food to the table?
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
A.W writes:
I DID NOT SAY I COULD LEGALLY BUY. How could I possibly qualify for something illegal? Buying EBT cards is ILLEGAL, yet there is a liquid underground market in the stupid things. That’s a pretty good clue that the program is broken, just as the “coupon” program that EBT cards replaced was broken. When I was in my late teens, early 20’s I could have bought food stamps as well. Not like it’s some kind of massive secret.
I’ve written repeatedly about underground economies and undervaluation of benefits by benefit recipients as examples of why these program do not work. I’m also able to buy crack cocaine, heroin, unlicensed guns, stolen cars and a lot of other things. Would you like some crack? I used to know a crack dealer before he was arrested for robbing a pawn shop.
As I said very early on — my real world experience spans the entire range from profoundly poor to snotty rich. One of the ways people like me can tell when we’re talking to people who’ve either never been poor, or never really be in the poor universe is how well you understand things like “underground economy”.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
A.W writes:
Because arguing about “healthy” versus “unhealthy” is like arguing about which hand to use to wipe your butt when you’re out of toilet paper.
The program is broken. Healthy food or unhealthy food won’t change that. Changing from “unhealthy” and less costly to “more healthy” and more costly is like pushing rocks around. The rocks get moved, but you still have a bunch of rocks at the end of the day.
What I advocate is getting people off the programs. Making it less than pleasant to be on welfare, while at the same time giving people the tools to survive. A carrot and a stick. If you can’t find a job, you now work for the State. If the state is going to pay you, you might as well earn your keep, even if it’s just sitting on kids while their parents work, or take classes, or pick up trash by the side of the road.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
No need to shout. I typed that post as you were typing yours, Furry.
And I said we don’t have that type of program here. Since we don’t have the program, why would i know how to scam it? You can check for yourself. I live in the endless mountains, on the ny/pa border. And if you’re basing one program that I don’t know how to scam that isn’t even in my area on my ‘poor acceptability’ rating, that’s…well, pretty damn stupid.
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
In that case, you’re opinion that ‘convenient’ food be taken off food stamps and healthy food should be placed in doesn’t make any difference, so why suggest it?
Never mind that the unhealthy set feeds more people for a longer period of time than the healthy ones do, with your reasoning, it’s all the same.
I should probably make the benefits in my area clearer. There’s only one type of card here, and both the money and the foodstamp benefits are on it. There isn’t a way to buy or sell a card here.
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Welfare recipients don’t pay sales taxes? FICA taxes? If they sold a capital asset, they’d be exempt from capital gains taxes? That’s news to me, and I used to work in the IRS’s General Counsel’s Office.
Yes, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) pays money to working poor people as a function of their earnings; that was it’s design. (Ironically, poor people now cheat on their taxes by exaggerating their earnings in order to increase the amount of the EITC they receive. I’ve heard that roughly half of all IRS audits are of people who earn less than $25k/yr; they’re looking for this kind of cheating.)
While the EITC began in 1975, Reagan greatly expanded it as part of the Tax Reform Act of ‘86. So if you think it’s too generous, blame Reagan.
In contrast, the original Bush Administration child tax credit did NOT provide for a refund in the event the taxpayer lacked sufficient tax liabilities to use the entire credit. By design, it subsidized the kids of the middle class and excluded the kids of the poor. (To be fair, the Republican Congress was eventually shamed into changing this provision. See IRS Form 8812.)
I believe this to be accurate, although I don’t know about “much, much less.” But it’s worth noting that most people in the lowest 75% of income earn their income through wages. Because of federal reporting and withholding, there’s a very low incidence of underreporting of wage income. In contrast, most people in the upper 25% earn the bulk of their income through means other than wages. The great bulk of tax cheating is done by this class. So when you compare nominal rates of taxation, remember that an estimated 30% of the wealthy’s income is never taxed because it’s never reported.
I believe this also to be accurate. I see no conflict between this statement and the prior statement.
Hard to know how to measure it. See my example about the percentage of Americans in the top 1% who join the US military.
Is America so rich because we’re smarter and stronger and more talented than everyone else, or because we’ve created a system where people can make the most of whatever brains and strengths and talents they have? Lots of people benefit from the American system, but the richest people benefit the most. Is it so bad that they contribute the most to maintain it?
I believe in the laws of revealed preference. As you note, the richest Americans have lots of options, including the option of moving elsewhere if they wanted to. The ones that remain may whine about being over-taxed, but the fact that they haven’t left tells me otherwise.
To be sure, America benefits handsomely by attracting the best and brightest people to our shores. Each time we recruit another Indian engineering student to an American grad school, we get the benefits of her brains while leaving the cost of her upbringing to be borne by poor ol’ India. It’s quite a reverse-Robin Hood scenario, stealing from the poor to give to the rich!
But what about the poor family with lots of kids? To be sure, society spends a lot on them. But is it fair to attribute the cost of child rearing to parents, rather than to society? If we attribute the cost of child rearing to a parent, we arguably should attribute the child’s productivity to that parent also. And because Americans are the most productive people in the world, child production is one of the most productive pursuits any American can undertake.
In sum: On average, more Americans = more productivity. Yes, in the short term, kids require a financial outlay, but so does every investment. In the long run, they pay big dividends on average. So don’t be too quick to condemn that poor family with lots of kids - provided they can do a good job with those kids.
I’m enjoying this discussion, and I appreciate everyone’s throughtful remarks. I can be pretty detached about it all, but I understand it cuts closer to some people’s bones than it does mine. I don’t know any of you personally, and I don’t mean anything personally. I hope everyone can keep the discussion at that level. :-)
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
A.W.,
Food stamp coupons had the same problem. That’s why I have issues.
Understanding the problems with welfare programs is a big part of what it takes to understand how the programs are broken.
What would I do instead of food stamps? Food. Don’t like rice and beans? Oh well. It’s what I wrote up thread — being entitled to food doesn’t mean you’re entitled to food you want.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
A.W –
That’s what we’ve got, too. The card shows a balance of both money and food stamps. When you get run up the amount off food is taken out as food, and the non-food comes out of the money. If you need money, you use it like an ATM card and it comes out of the money.
Would you like me to buy you one? The going rate is $0.50 to the $1.00. If you wait until after the first of the month I can probably get you several.
I’m not sure if the “twenty three years” comment above is your age. If so, you’re still very young, naive, and less than completely jaded. If not, you’re just naive and idealistic.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
n.r writes:
Whether or not “more kids” benefits parents, families and the country in general depends in large part on the strategy the family uses with the children. If the kids are just baby sitters or a way to get more benefits, the odds that the family as a unit is going to advance economically is nil.
As with any investment, there’s a point of diminishing returns. I have fruit trees in my yard. Not so many that I can’t pick all the fruit without hiring illegals :), and not so few that I get nothing of substance for my efforts. Kids are the same way — too many and they all suffer, too few and the family unit suffers. The trick is finding the balance.
The biggest problem facing this country, in my opinion, is a lack of understanding about how “economics” works. I was approached by a co-worker who knew I was saving for tiny munchkin to go to college. She had a daughter and asked me how much she should be saving. I asked her daughter’s age — 16 — and responded that it was too late. Tiny munchkin has been the target of college saving for all but about 2 years of his life, and it may have been those two years as well, I just don’t remember that far back reliably enough to say so. The kid is, to say the least, quite well off — based on current projected college costs he’ll go to college and leave without any student loans. If he manages his money halfway reasonably (and he manages money pretty well, considering he’s done it his entire life just about) he may have enough leftover to put down on a house.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
The problem with the old foodstamps was people got money back as change and some wasted it, which made problems worse. And that the amount wasn’t enough to pay for healthy food. Yeah, some people are asses and use the system. I don’t believe it’s by any means the majority of the people that need the cards.
The food people should have is healthy. Fresh food, the kind people can’t afford to live on with foodstamps. Tell ‘rice and beans’ to a four year old who isn’t getting adequate nutrition. Rice and beans can be a wonderful staple, but it doesn’t even shake a stick at fresh fruit and green vegetables. It isn’t so much ‘food you want’ as ‘food you need to be nutritionally healthy.’
Less problems with health if people eat right when they’re young, anyway.
I’d rather a type of national system where everyone gets a card with an alloted amount, and extra food benefits are put on the card because of extra work someone chooses to do for communal benefit, that way everyone can participate if they want. There’s a wide area of work that needs to be done, and it seems like there’s more than enough.
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Then I don’t understand how so many people are selling the cards. There’s not a person to be found selling a card here. The welfare office get’s suspicious of people who lose their card and it costs five bucks to replace it. It sounds like people who don’t need the cards are selling them. Your welfare office is extremely shoddy if it can’t even figure out that someone who requests a new card every month is screwing them over. There’s another difference, I can’t think of anyone who has a card that doesn’t need it, although I can think of several people who’ve receive ssdi benefits that didn’t.
And I’ll take you up on the offer of cards, thank you. Very generous. My email is pheonixborn at hotmail dot com if you’re serious. If you’re not as serious as I suspect, (must be my naivete showing) I’ll gladly decry the false generosity to all and sundry. Which is basically complaining at my blog. =/
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
FCH,
Because people can’t sell food?
Also, that there is a market in illegal food stamps or food stamp cards doesn’t mean the system is broken. The measure of whether the system is broken has to be based on whether it effectively provides the intended service (food for poor people) at a reasonably efficient cost. Some loss due to theft is not proof that the system is broken. I’m sure you can find someone who can sell you a TV that “fell of the truck,” that isn’t proof that the private, for profit, television distribution system is broken, is it?
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
A.W,
I’m not going to send you a card I buy illegally. I was born at night, but not last night.
If you’d like to learn more about food stamp fraud, Google for it. Google is your friend :)
How does it work? Well, as I have explained at least twice now, I come to you and offer to sell you some amount of “food money” on my card. You agree (or not). I hand you my card, you hand me your money. You go to the grocery, spend the money and hand me back a receipt showing the balance. There is no “lost” card. No going to the food stamp office. No paying $5.00. Which is the other reason I can’t send you one — “buying” the “food money” doesn’t mean you get to keep the card.
And you might want to tell people who quite fine on “rice and beans” that they can’t. “Meat” is a status food, not a necessity — those super-smart Indians eat 5 lbs per capita, which is less than people starving in Sub-Saharan Africa eat (13 lbs) and “Low Income Countries (8 lbs). (source) If it’s good enough for brainy Indians, I think it’s good enough for soon-to-be-brainy Americans. I like my dead animal flesh (yum!), but I’m paying for mine. You want meat? Get a job.
The problem with the old “coupon” program is the same as with the new one and the same as with the next one — people will figure out a way around it, even if it hurts them. Back in the 70’s when I clerked in stores that took stamps, we had to give dollar stamps plus pocket change. The scammers would figure out how to buy whatever so that they could get back the maximum amount of pocket change, even if they bought one or two items at a time. $1.09 pack of noodles? Great — with tax that’s $1.14, and $0.86 change. Cigs were $0.57, plus tax, or about $0.62 (8% non-food, 5% food, as I recall). And so that was the game that got played.
It’s for that reason that I really do believe benefits should be cut in half. When recipients learn to stop playing games, raise the benefits back to where they should be. Actions have consequences and going hungry is something I’ve done more than once in my life. Didn’t kill me, it just made me resolve to never be that poor ever again.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
You said sell the card. Not sell the money on the card. Big difference. And offering something you weren’t planning on doing in the first place, while not a suprise because I didn’t consider it possible, still isn’t quite …oh, there’s words for it.
Did you miss the part where I typed that rice and beans are not the same as fresh fruit and vegetables, which was what I was comparing it to in that post, not meat? I did not type meat, I typed fruit and vegetables. Those are neccessities which you can’t afford on foodstamps. Big difference there. I said the price of meat is ridiculous, and the meat priced lower is more often fat than not.
How you explained how people sold cards earlier is not what people, according to you now, actually do. You said you could buy a card. Not buy the money on the card. Big difference, again. I’m beginning to wonder wether they sell the money on the cards where you are, or if you’re daydreaming large amounts of thievery when there’s few examples in reality.
This comment was written by ArrogantWorm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 16th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Actually, FCH never claimed that there was large amounts of fraud relative to the amount of money distributed as food stamps, just that there was some fraud, and that in some arbitrary sense it was enough fraud to make food stamps be broken in her opinion, she just implied by using the word broken that the amount of fraud was large relative to the amount of money distributed as food stamps.
Of course, “here, give me some money, take my card, go buy some food worth more than that amount of money, then bring me back the card” is:
1) not a transaction that happens on the mass scale of most significant welfare fraud (like performing millions of dollars of imaginary dental care on people on medicaid, which only requires a single crooked doctor)
2) not a transaction that costs the government (or FCH via taxes) anything (we agree that Joe should get $50 worth of beans and rice and collards to get through the month, so Joe gets a card with $50 cash on it, but he decides he’d rather buy $20 worth of jazz albums this month than eat, so lets Martha borrow his card and buy $50 worth of food for herself if she’ll give him $20 cash so he can buy that album - Joe is short on food and has the album, but we as government/tax payers are only out the $50 we decided we should be out)
3) would not even be an illegal transaction if we gave Joe a basic guaranteed income and left it up to him how much of it to spend on food.
4) a transaction that still involves someone buying $50 of groceries
However, “Google food stamp fraud” is really a completely inadequate answer to the question of “how large and meaningful of a problem is this?”
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Charles, it also indicates that - although we were willing to shell out the $50 - we didn’t actually need to. The idea that we must, as a matter of humanitarianism, ensure that people can eat is compelling. The idea that someone who must be compelled to eat in order for him to actually eat is also our responsibility, is somewhat less compelling.
That’s a lot of compels but the gist is clear, I hope. If people would rather have jazz albums (or, more realistically, drugs) than food, that is certainly their business, but - other than in a how-do-I-defend-my-family-from-him way - not mine. So screw Mr. Jazz Fan.
The difficulty, of course, is that it’s very hard to know which food stamp recipient is going to sell their card for $20 to get smack, and which one is going to buy healthy vegetables for the family. That’s one arena in which private charity is somewhat superior. Not that private charities have magical powers of discernment (though they do have an advantage in being able to turn away clearly fraudulent clients that the government can’t really replicate), but that they are much better positioned to provide aid in kind. It’s pretty hard to rip off a soup kitchen. (”Ha! I’m going to regurgitate that meal and sell it for crack.”)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 1:34 am
The advantage “charity” has over “entitlement” is that charities can come with strings attached and people can, and do, make decisions about charities based on how well they are doing their job. Some charities enjoy very good support, others are criticized and respond or lose funding. The American Red Cross is one charity that has faced declines in contributions because of mismanagement, then had to adjust their policies.
Robert really hit the proverbial nail on the head — in-kind contributions have a significant advantage over money contributions. I remember back in the day when the USDA handed out surplus cheese. I knew of people who gave away their free cheese, and people who received others’ free cheese, but unlike food stamps, I don’t remember anyone selling it for drugs or booze.
There are studies that do show how all this benefit card selling and buying works — here is one I was going to post earlier. It found that food stamp benefits were being sold for about $0.61 on the $1.00. It also shows where the money is being spent. Perhaps A.W will now see that trade in food stamps isn’t some fantasy I’ve got dreamt up, especially if he reads page 49.
Another advantage of in-kind contributions is the people controlling which foods are distributed can make sure that the food is better balanced. Rice, beans and collard greens (that’s some pretty racist sh*t you posted, Charles) aren’t a poorly balanced meal — starch, protein, leafy green veggies. WIC does this to some extent, I’d like to see the WIC approach applied to food stamp programs. There’s no reason for soda or flavored water to be on the food stamp program.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 2:42 am
the internet sucks these past few days. I’m gonna skip my monetary problems (’Cuz frankly, they don’t change, and I imagine it gets boring reading it over and over.) and instead, point you, dear pretend readers, to Alas, A Blog. Link Empty Spaces
This comment was written by Opopanox.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 2:57 am
Well, personally, I’d like the entire food stamp program and the entire welfare program to be replaced with a BIG or a NIT. That way, people could decide for themselves how money is best spent, rather than having the nanny state all you conservatives favor decide for them. :-P
But what really made me post is this:
I’ve been letting you get away with a condescending tone and disrespectful comments to the other posters here for a while. But enough is enough.
1) Collards are food that everyone in the South, regardless of race, eats if they’re looking for cheap greens to go with their rice and beans. If you have some racist stereotype that only blacks eat collards, that’s your racism problem, not Charles’.
2) You’re acting like a jerk. Stop it.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 3:07 am
Blink.
Oh right, jazz is the culturally marked as the music of black people, and not the music of trendoid white thirty somethings (I know more white jazz fans who might sell their food for jazz albums than black jazz fans who’d do so, so the image in my mind for jazz fan was white), and collards are simply southern food, but are culturally marked as black food outside of the south, and not simply the hardiest of leafy green vegetables that go with beans and rice (I almost used chard as my leafy green, but I figured chard would not be a FCH approved leafy green for poor people because it goes bad too quickly, and while I’m sure there must be cabbage, rice and bean dishes that are good, there aren’t in the cuisines I mostly think in terms of, and the idea of combining cabbage with rice and beans (as I was imagining rice and beans) struck me as gross.
Oh, and while Martha is one of the least stereotypically black names I can think of, the new companion to the tenth doctor in the new Doctor Who series is both black and named Martha.
I can see how the least generous reading of that example imaginable could be that it was a racist example, but I think you have to try pretty hard to get there.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 3:30 am
If you are more concerned with ensuring that no one cheats you and uses the money you gave them for food for anything else than you are with not wasting money or inflicting unnecessary misery, then direct hand outs of food are preferable. But direct handout of food, particularly hot food, are very inefficient in time and money and effectiveness, both for the program handing out food, and for the people accessing it. Like any restaurant, food programs have substantial wastage problems, and providing food in a single location means that people have to travel to the site and wait in line for food for each meal, which is extremely disruptive to normal working life. Likewise, generic meat soup is unsuitable food for plenty of people, both for cultural and dietary reasons. If you are handing out food, you are much less able to tailor the food to people’s needs and preferences than if you are handing out money with which they can buy whichever food stuffs they prefer.
Such programs could just as easily be government run as privately run, and have been, as with the example of government cheese. Focusing on having the food programs run on a charitable basis adds in the additional trade off of not having anyone forced to pay for it with the down side of not providing adequately for everyone who needs it. Running the social safety net on a purely voluntary basis has been tried, and there are reasons we don’t do it anymore. Charity is an extremely unreliable and irrational mechanism for funding necessary social services. If you disagree, why is it that you don’t favor switching the services you rely on (like police or roads or the military) to a purely voluntary basis (God knows, maybe you do, but thankfully that is a beyond fringe libertarian position, and I don’t even have to fear that you and your allies will ever succeed in imposing it on me and mine)?
If you are afraid that anyone will ever cheat you and manage to get something they aren’t allowed or don’t deserve, and you are willing to see innocent people suffer to protect you from that happening, then charitable distribution of food items instead of government run distribution of food money is a great way to go. Personally, I’m not terribly afraid that some small portion of my taxes will go to cheaters, nor that someone will manage to finagle a way to do stupid and self destructive things with my tax money, so I’d rather see more people actual able to eat well without having to run through ridiculous hoops and accept some cheating and self destruction.
I also prefer a BIG to food specific aid, but I can certainly see a benefit to food specific aid, as it ensures that there is more of a minimum of support beyond which you can only by intentionally fucking up.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 5:36 am
I could get behind a BIG or negative income tax. We’d be able to save a lot of money by cutting back on bureaucracy. Especially if we included money for health care. Instead of Medicare just combine an appropriately sized deduction (for the cost of insurance) with a negative income tax.
(what was the original topic again/ is there an prize for thread drift. )
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Hi Joe, sorry I made your name my example food stamp seller!
I think universal health insurance (single payer) is preferable to providing cash for insurance, mostly because individual health insurance is hugely variable in price by individual health history and not even available to some people (I know, I know, they should have just planned ahead better and not gotten cancer! Silly sick people…).
Also, the private health insurance industry is fantastically inefficient, and makes the whole health industry inefficient and unnecessarily expensive, so there are huge gains in decreased bureaucracy and health care cost from killing off the private insurance industry.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Charles,
What is this thing you’ve got with calling me a libertarian? I have issues with welfare programs because they don’t work. I also have issues with perpetual motion machines. Is there a political affiliation of people opposed to such things?
According to you the grocery store cannot exist? Is that what I get? The centralized location where people have to travel to get all their meals?
Program costs include not just the dollars given for food, but also the administrative overhead and enforcement, fraud, and the cost of poor choices — sodas, flavored sugar water, junk food, etc.
Since we’ve now apparently shifted to public health insurance, I’ll repeat what I said upthread — what the government funds tends to increase. In the case of public health care, this is not a bad thing. The current health care “system” is based on crisis management — sick children without health care are taken to emergency rooms for what could have been managed outside the emergency care system. The elderly fail to get routine exams when conditions such as cancer can be detected before requiring drastic life-saving measures. Not exactly efficient. Since the government is already paying for emergency care, the government could save significant sums of money by providing routine medical care at the general practitioner level. That’s right — Julie the Evil Libertarian is suggesting that it would save the government money to make routine physical exams a part of public health care. How evil can I possibly be — forcing people to get routine medical exams so that crisis medicine is avoided and government expenses are reduced?
Anti-poverty programs simply do not work — the programs are too interested in their own perpetuation to effectively reduce what the are established to treat. What changed in 1996 — and I don’t think Bill Clinton was any kind of Libertarian — was the emphasis was changed from welfare as a way of life (and any program with a 45% recidivism rate can hardly be called anything but a “way of life”, even though lefties love to say welfare isn’t a “way of life”) to a transition to self-sufficiency.
What’s always fun about welfare debates is how hard people try to claim that welfare pre-1996 wasn’t a way of life. Here’s a quote from an APA article which tries to debunk the “myth” that welfare was a way of life –
Oops.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Amp writes:
Yeah, but southern whites who eat rice, beans and greens don’t listen to Jazz. Charles couldn’t have nailed racist stereotypes better if he’d used a sledge hammer.
I hardly think the constant “libertarian fantasy” insults you and others keep slinging my way count for civil discourse. Several of us that you keep trying to insult with either “libertarian” or “conservative” labels have repeatedly said we’re all for programs to make sure that people who don’t have money for food can get food. We’re simply opposed to wasteful programs, rife with fraud. Nor do I think big-L Libertarians think the 1996 welfare reforms were a “good idea”. If I have the right sense of Libertarians, my guess would be that they’d like to completely abolish the programs rather than find ways to make them cost less and work better.
Personally, I think the 1996 reforms were a nice start. Considering how effective they were (here and here), I think more changes in line with those reforms — expecting recipients to work, providing for education, job opportunities, health insurance for children, daycare support, etc. — proved that the leftist nanny state that handed out money, no strings or expectations attached, was a dismal failure. I’d be hard pressed to find either Libertarians or right wingers who advocate turning welfare into a public works and adult education system.
So, if you want a respectful tone, try being less of a jerk yourselves.
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March 17th, 2007 at 10:45 am
My post at 241 was supposed to include emphasis on this sentence –
Sorry for any confusion.
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March 17th, 2007 at 10:52 am
So let me get this straight. You think I and others have acted like jerks, but you don’t accept that you’ve in any way acted like a jerk yourself. You think that I owe you an apology for my “libertarian fantasyland” comment, but you don’t think you owe anyone here an apology for your own behavior.
Is that correct?
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March 17th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Curious how various themes in this discussion combine.
The authors noted that the BIG and NIT programs lacked a powerful political constituency but were supported by, among others, free market conservatives who favored these programs to the more prescriptive social welfare programs that garner more support. Since then, the author who initially proposed the ‘96 welfare reform (can’t find his name) has a new book proposing that we collapse basically all welfare programs into a single monthly check paid to every citizen.
I remain concerned about the public’s basic lack of economic literacy. Again, it should come as no surprise to anyone that a social welfare program would reduce people’s participation in paid labor to some extent, or that people will seek to exchange food stamps for cash to some extent. And the suggestion that government could “discipline” the class of welfare recipients by reducing the amount of foodstamp subsidies by 50% (or whatever) to discourage financial transactions seems pretty unlikely to work. It’s akin to saying that government will double the tax rate until people stop cheating on their taxes.
As Robert notes, there’s a simple way to keep people from playing games with food stamps: give them cash, and let them make their own decisions about what to do with it. This has its own problems, of course. First, there’s the “pimp” problem: The program would create an incentive for one person to control another in order to control their revenue streams. Second, to the extent that I care about subsidizing some behaviors but not others (e.g., drug use), I may prefer trying to discourage using the subsidy for other purposes. Let me elaborate on this point further.
Now, I might prefer a more free market program. But without a powerful political constituency supporting such a solution, it would simply be a lamb awaiting slaughter. So we end up with a second-best solution … and if you’re shocked that food stamp recipients would exploit government largesse, hang onto your hats. The amount of money skimmed from this program by poor people is peanuts.
What percentage of the Health and Human Services budget is lost in foodstamp fraud? Zero. Foodstamps is not a HHS program. It’s a program of the Department of Agriculture. That right; foodstamps is a farm subsidy program dressed up as a social welfare program. And that’s the real reason why we can’t convert food stamps into a free market grant. But it’s also the reason that foodstamps endures whereas the NIT and BIG do not: it has a powerful constituency defending it against cuts. Basically, people who care about subsidizing the poor have to pay protection money to Big Agriculture in order to let a little of the funds trickle down to the people we want to help.
Like I say, we never get to choose between all good and all bad; we merely get to choose between better and worse. That’s the way it works.
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March 17th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Amp writes:
No, I don’t think that’s correct. But if you’re going to sling around “libertarian fantasyland” insults, you can expect to be treated less than respectfully.
You didn’t see fit to admonish nobody.really after 172’s strawman and gratuitous insult, whatcha expect?
I know that I’m really easy to confuse with Libertarians — being all supportive of making welfare programs actually work, as opposed to just shutting them down completely. I suppose it was a pretty easy mistake for you to make …
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March 17th, 2007 at 11:44 am
nobody.really writes:
And if you really want to be offended, look at what’s going on with subsidies and ethanol, and with how corn subsidies and the greening of ethanol have done to food prices. Bush, Jr. is concerned what Kyoto would do to the economy, but he’s apparently paid no attention to what ethanol is doing to the economy and environment.
Here’s one good article that covers the basic mathematics of ethanol and exposes how lousy it is.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.There’s this as well, but it’s less fact-filled and more political (though if you follow the links in the article you can get some facts with your political commentary …)
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March 17th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Ok, the “libertarian fantasy” remark was mine, back in post 172. Credit where credit is due!
I made that remark specifically in response to FurryCatHerder’s suggestion that someone would expect to stop contributing to Social Security, yet continue to receive the government services other than Social Security retirement benefits. I called this a fantasy because it assumed that the only benefits we get for our FICA taxes is retirement benefits. I understood FurryCatHerder at post 179 to concede the point that FICA taxes support things other than retirement benefits, although he maintains his argument that the retirement benefits program costs too much.
All of this discussion occurred outside of the discussion of income supports, food stamps, or other social programs.
Anyway, I think my “libertarian fantasy” remark was appropriate - if not always helpful - to the discussion at the time. I intended the remark to illuminate the weakness with the argument, and not a commentary on FurryCatHerder personally. I apologize for any offense I caused FurryCatHerder, as well as to Amp for having needlessly sidetracked an otherwise engaging (and usefully sidetracked) discussion.
As for ethanol, well, yeah. Allegedly cellulosic ethanol is the real deal but, of course, because Big Agri doesn’t grow switchgrass, it isn’t getting the subsidies that corn ethanol is.
Hey, I sense there’s a lot of agreement here about the role of government to implement cost-effective programs to make the world better. And that’s as much as I expect these discussions to achive.
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March 17th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
N.R,
Thanks. I don’t expect blog owners to understand the subtleties of blog insult politics :)
I still don’t think, despite your best efforts, that FICA is a cost-effective program, no matter how much secondary benefit the feds get from borrowing a few trillion dollars at nice interest rates.
And I’ve not seen a response, because we ran down the rats nest that is welfare, to my comments that FICA is a form of double taxation for the middle class — the first instance being the 12.4% tax itself, and the second being the need for the middle class to save for itself. If there’s a weakness in there I’d love to see it discussed.
And finally, for future reference, I’m of the ’she’ variety. I know that people get confused over whether “Furry” modifies “Cat” or “Herder”, but I swear — it’s the cats I herd that are furry, not me.
– Julie.
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March 17th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I have a libertarian fantasy. It involves a consenting adult, and a lot of olive oil.
Did I say that aloud?
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March 17th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Book Review: The Woman Who Ate Python and Other Short Stories - 17-Mar-2007 On Taming Dinosaurs - 17-Mar-2007 Comment on Empty Spaces Waiting For Whites To Move In by nobody.really - 17-Mar-2007 FT: How a fiasco of easy home loans has tripped up America - 16-Mar-2007 10 Internet Businesses You Can Start with as Little as $100 - 17-Mar-2007
This comment was written by Work on net News letter.Report this comment to the moderators
March 17th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
FCH,
What’s fun is watching you brilliantly rebut ghosts. Who in this discussion has argued that “welfare pre-1996 wasn’t a way of life.” Many people who are extremely poor stay extremely poor for a very long time, so any effective welfare system is going to provide support to those people for a very long time. Do you really believe that before the 60’s-90’s welfare system, there were no families that remained impoverished for generations?
Certainly, welfare systems that have hard cutoffs (got a job? off you go. went to school? off you go. Or even just, made $9000 last year? off you go.) create extremely perverse incentives where people become stuck (although off again on again welfare participation (recidivism you call it, as though being on welfare was a crime) is not a demonstration of that sort of perverse incentive, and time limits are not a cure for those perverse incentives). I don’t think anyone has argued against that. But before we wandered into food stamps, we were talking about FICA and BIG, two programs with no perverse incentives.
FICA works the way it does because it was and is designed to meet the real immediate need to provide income support to poor and middle class old people NOW, not years from now. Social security does an very good job of ensuring that almost no one is in poverty when they are old. The program works. If we switched to a system of invested retirement accounts, we would need additional taxes to pay for providing income support to poor and middle class old people. I suppose we could switch to a system where the Social security surplus is invested in something with a higher rate of return than Federal bonds, I wouldn’t have a problem with that (although a lot of conservatives go into a tizy at the idea that the Federal government would end up owning a huge portion of private industry).
BIG would provide a base line income to everyone, freeing people poor enough to be on wellfare from the perverse incentives of needing to protect their income source by staying poor, would make it easier for people to go to school when it would help them, would make it easier for you and Michael to take unpaid sabbaticals, etc.
The universality of both these programs is intended to avoid creating perverse incentives. It is true for both programs that at some income level the programs cross over from being a benefit to being a tax that provides others benefits, but that is simply inherent in the fact that someone has to pay for them.
One of your cites on how well post 1996 welfare has worked was from the Heritage Foundation, the other one points out that the new welfare system has shown no improvement for those leaving welfare and has worsened conditions for those who are denied access to welfare in the first place, and counts being forced to work sub-minimum wage make work as an improvement in the lives of those on welfare. The increased EITC is about the only portion of the changes to the welfare system that I entirely support. I also support the states (a minority) in which pursuing education counts for the work requirement. I also support the improved access to food stamps (something you appear to oppose).
We know that the 1996 welfare reform was not a horrible disaster for most extremely poor people (we know it was a horrible disaster for some extremely poor people). We also know it wasn’t much of an improvement. This country has too many people who hate the idea of someone else getting something the don’t deserve to much for us to have much hope of having a welfare system that is actually effective in combating poverty (European countries with rates of pre-benefit poverty comparable to the US are able to reduce post-benefit poverty to much lower levels than the US does. To me, that is the goal).
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March 17th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Charles opines:
FICA works like it does because when it was invented, enough people covered the ones receiving it that it was going to work. Unfortunately, people stopped doing the government the favor of dying so young and actually started collecting benefits.
Once that happened the system was doomed to become the failure it is, and the elderly lobby gained enough power that it was never going to be made solvent, ever again.
The easiest, and most realistic fix, is to “inflate” the retirement age to take into account life expectancies, but y’all would never go for that because then those poor old people, who are only “poor” because they have no earned income, wouldn’t be taken care of. And the poor dears might actually have to work at age 70 or 75.
The goal of old age isn’t supposed to be dying rich, and yet those poor old people, if you look at the grow in estate size, keep doing precisely that.
Social Security is yet another wealth transfer program, except that instead of transferring it from the rich to the poor, it transfers it from the poor (the working middle class who’ve not paid off their houses yet) to the rich elderly class (the ones who persist in dying old and well-off — again, look at the growth i the average estate size).
You want to defend Social Security? Fine — I’ll just keep pointing out that it’s a Ponzi scheme. When it started it took 33 workers to support one retiree. Now we’re down to about 3. The only way to get that ratio back to something more sustainable is cut the outlays, because the baby boom isn’t going to stop getting older just because Social Security is running broke.
And you complain that the proposed solutions would require that taxes be raised — well guess what, come 2018 the Feds are going to have to raise taxes anyway. Should we put those new taxes into a system that doesn’t work, or should we put those new taxes into something where each individual funds their own benefits?
And this “BIG” thing — great idea. Except who is going to pay for it? Tax revenue doesn’t grow on trees, and while it might be a nice idea for people to get to take some time off, who the hell is going to pay for this? And every other “nice” idea you come up with? The rich? Taxing the rich into oblivion doesn’t work because the rich will always have choices, including not working and thus not paying taxes, that the poor and middle class don’t have.
You might hate the idea of people doing “make work”, but there is no such thing as “make work”. Make work is practice for … work … and if the idea is to get people off welfare and into the work force, I’m all for work, practice or real.
Do I oppose an increase in access to food stamps? Sure. Show me the evidence that people are going hungry and show me the proof that increasing access to food stamps is going to reduce this non-existent hungry. Where are all these starving people that once again I should be sacrificing my ability to retire or pay for my child’s education? I have my own obligations and part of what really sucks about being middle class is we’re the ones who are expected to pay for other peoples obligations.
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March 17th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Hunger and food insecurity rates in Oregon improve when Oregon raised the income cut off for foods stamps, and relaxed the asset restrictions and began major outreach.
I’m sure you will “find it interesting, but that it will raise more questions than it answers.”
I’m fine with raising taxes to still ensure that poor old people (you do recognize that there are poor old people, and that they would be much poorer if they did not have social security income, right?) still have benefits, and using the additional tax revenue to create larger guaranteed social security benefits for later generations (me). You are the one complaining about taxes.
Our tax rates are not very high, and could certainly be higher without causing the rich to decide to become poor instead. Our country is facing a growing income inequality between rich and middle class, which both means that the growing wealth of the nation is getting to only a few, and also that there is plenty of room to redistribute some of that wealth without even decreasing the incomes of the rich (just decreasing the rate of growth of their incomes).
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March 17th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Two things about this debate that apall me:
1. The willingness to disregard scientific evidence in favor of ancdotal evidence that supports people’s opinion. My link was to an accademic summary of at six different studies conducted by two different governments that are well regarded for their methodology, and none of the dismissals have made or cited any actual criticisms of the specific studies.
2. All of the discussion of ancedotes about welfare recipients. The behavior of welfare recipients is IRRELEVANT to a discussion of basic income. A BIG or NIT is completely different, and is an abolishion of poverty. If you want to cite bad ancedotal evidence against a BIG or NIT, then talk about trust fund babies. I’m sure there are plenty of bad ancedotes there, and the comparison would at least be relevant
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March 17th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Charles,
Could you provide me information on the numbers of people in Oregon who died from starvation or malnutrition? I could improve my “hunger” if I got the car and got some ice cream for desert. Doesn’t mean I need that ice cream, just means that if I eat more, I’ve got a bit less hunger.
Point being, one of the articles I posted upthread showed that current food stamps provide more than USDA for calories and nutrients.
Secondly, I’m all for wealth redistribution. Never said I wasn’t — what I object to is that Social Security is a form of wealth redistribution from the poor to the wealthy. If you drag out the Census data on family wealth what you’ll see is that net worth increases up until just about death. The computer that had the article open on it has crashed (I broke the monitor on my laptop today — such is life) , so I’m having to go from memory, but the median net worth for “those poor old people” is somewheres around $110K. For “us rich young people” it’s about half that. To date I’ve paid about $57K in FICA (I could get you the exact amount — I keep track of such things …), which tells me that people like me are handing our money over to the elderly who’ve already got plenty — networth for age 65 is less than the whole population group aged 65 and above.
If you’re looking to redistribute wealth the single best way to accomplish it is to abolish Social Security. Personally, I’m opposed to that because I do believe in social welfare programs for those who actually need them. But with so few of those aged 65 and above having a net worth that puts them at risk of poverty, Social Security as a program for those “poor old people” is just bad fiscal policy.
We’ve never gotten into what I’d personally like to see, but I’ll put it out right now — means testing. Let’s define an amount of wealth that is sufficient for the elderly and adjust Social Security accordingly. For those “poor old people” with net worths above $250K, which is the median for the 3rd quintile, they’d get nothing. They have plenty, they don’t need anything more. For those “poor people” at the bottom of the fifth quintile, let’s raise Social Security so that they have a more comfortable lifestyle. In between the payout is gradually decreased as it approaches the median for the third quintile. The net result of this strategy is that it would dramatically reduce payouts, wouldn’t be a wealth transfer from the poor working ranks to the rich retired ranks, and would very likely end all that “elderly poverty” that bothers you and I. This will never happen because the “elderly wealthy” are a very powerful lobby.
As for Decnavda’s remarks, it suffers from the same basic flaws as what Charles wants — who the hell is going to pay for this? Whether or not “basic income” is a good idea, someone has to pay for it. What’s needed isn’t yet another entitlement program, what’s needed are ways to reduce expenses. No government has ever taxed its way to prosperity, and while spending a nation’s way to prosperity works in the short term, sooner or later the bills come due and the house of cards collapses.
I’m also unclear how this “BIG” or “NIT” thing even differs from pre-1996 welfare. Call it whatever you want, it’s a pile of money given to people, except that in this instance there’s an even larger pool of people who are eligible. If subjected to the same restrictions as the post-1996 welfare reform, and means tested for wealth, I’d be all for it. But then, I’m all for the post-1996 welfare changes that require work, and I’m all for means-testing Social Security.
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March 18th, 2007 at 12:45 am
As for Decnavda’s remarks, it suffers from the same basic flaws as what Charles wants — who the hell is going to pay for this?
We are all going to pay for it. Same as happens with Defense spending, for example.
… what I object to is that Social Security is a form of wealth redistribution from the poor to the wealthy.
You haven’t supported this contention, nor have you supported your contention (in the face of documentation to the contrary) that Social Security is doomed.
Of course the net worth of the retired is greater than that of those who have not yet retired. Those 65 and over have had 45 years or more to accumulate their assets. Those under 65 include significant numbers of folks who have had a decade or less to build their net worth. The question is, do we want to force the retired to sell off all of their assets and fall below the poverty line before we subsidize them? The answer was, and still is, “No!” We want people to be able to live out their lives without worrying about losing their home. We want people to live out their lives with the knowledge that they can pass a fair amount of their belongings onto their survivors.
Could you provide me information on the numbers of people in Oregon who died from starvation or malnutrition?
You might find http://www.oregonfoodbank.org/research_and_action/Dr.LarryBrown.html to be educational.
From that link:
While there was no single universal definition of hunger, our Harvard-based group defined hunger as “chronically inadequate nutritional intake due to low income status.” Whether chronic or episodic in nature, hunger was the lack of sufficient calories and nutrients for physical growth or the maintenance of good health. Frequently extending over longer period of time, it could lead to serious chronic health conditions both in children and adults.
So, “hunger” does not simply mean “leads to death by starvation.”
I find your comment:
I could improve my “hunger” if I got the car and got some ice cream for desert. Doesn’t mean I need that ice cream, just means that if I eat more, I’ve got a bit less hunger.
to be appalling. Either appallingly callous or appallingly ignorant.
You may also find this link to be of interest:
This comment was written by Jake Squid.http://www.oregonfoodbank.org/research_and_action/who_is_hungry/documents/HFA2006Final.pdf
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March 18th, 2007 at 3:33 am
I started writing a longer response, but I really can’t past your mockery of hunger.
I’m done.
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March 18th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Jake writes:
That’s the only meaningful definition. Even when asked “Did you actually go hungry for an entire day” the answer is “No”. How can you claim there is all this “hunger” if people aren’t … going hungry?
The current definition of “hunger” includes “Have plenty of food, but not what I want”. When the War Against Foods I Hate was started, they were going to use malnutrition (see, I really do read this stuff) and identified, back in the 1960’s, over 200 counties where “malnutrition” existed.
Instead of sticking with “malnutrition”, which is an objective measure and can be worked towards ending, a four part scale was invented to measure “hunger”. The scale is unrelated to malnutrition, which is why you can’t provide numbers for “died of starvation”. The measure for “hunger” is now “poverty”, which is itself a proxy for “earned income” (see here for a discussion of how “poverty” is calculated and notice that “wealth” isn’t a factor in the “poverty” calculation). And yet, even people with $0.00 of earned income, have monthly cash flow both in terms of … cash … return on investments, imputed rents, and in-kind support. This is why the elderly, who have on average a net worth of over $100K are “poor” — they have no earned income. While the middle class, which has a significantly larger income, but a much smaller net worth, is “rich”.
If you look at this you see that far from being at risk for losing their home, the group I identified at where I think Social Security should be means tested (the third quintile), has a median networth, excluding home equity, of $100,900 at age 75 — seventy-five, not a typo — and above. Because the first, second and third quintiles are also likely the highest wage earners, they are also the largest recipients of Social Security benefits, while the fourth and fifth quintiles, which have the smallest net worth excluding home equity ($3,500 for the whole population groups aged 65 and above) are the smallest recipients. Opposing means testing of Social Security means that the rich get, and stay, richer, while the poor are stuck. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand this, you just have to read page 11 of this Census report.
Furthermore, if you look at the accumulation of wealth within the over-65 age group, the elderly continue to accumulate wealth after reaching Social Security age, which tells me that they aren’t being paid too little, nor are they at risk of losing their homes.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Meanwhile, the middle class is screwed — forced to pay FICA to rich people, and forced to save for our own futures as well. How is that fair?
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March 18th, 2007 at 5:32 am
FICA is a form of