Government Dependence

[ethrtyiS]

i know plenty. they really know how to cheat the system well too.

take a look at england for example. they were once a very strong country with a very strong and striving economy.

my mother, who was born in england shared something with me a while back that her father told her. he told her, "the english are the laziest workers (or people, i can't remember) in the world." she asked him why is that and he replied with, "because they rely to heavily on the government for assistance; so many of them stopped striving to become something great of themselves and stopped achieving greatness. they get simple, easy jobs to pay for extra expenses and then rely on the government checks, healthcare, etc."

many, not all, but many of my relatives and family who still live there are exactly this. they work simple easy jobs, have children, and collect government checks and other assistance. this is why europe has nearly gone bankrupt. there just isn't enough money to go around.

everyone who thinks they are entitled to free things such as government checks, welfare, obamaphones, obamacare, food stamps, etc. have no clue and/or refuse to look at the big picture. none of that is free. i have to pay for things like that. and i'm sure many of you who work and pay taxes have to as well. nothing is free in life, plain and simple.

many may argue and be in denial, but the sad truth is, it's only going to get worse. it may be a "few" now, but it will only progressively get worse. especially since the democrat party like to preach and brainwash about how terrible capitalism is. imagine this country without capitalism...ha.

[Cephas]

Its how they get into power by promising free shit from the govt, at the expense of everyone else.

Exactly. A government that the majority of people are dependent upon is one that they will always vote to keep in power.

I wonder what would happen if a law was passed that anyone who is taking government assistance is not allowed to vote while they are doing so. That would lead to some very different mantras being tossed around.

People would want to better their lives and more importantly, so would their government!

[rwh11385]

Why do they all over spend? What financial experts would ever tell you to spend more then what you earn. ...I don't live in the US

Yeah... the US is weird and people on the whole were spending more than they took home. Living on credit with a safety pin. Fortunately, people are more reasonable now - although that decreases growth rate it is more sustainable. We saw what happened to the world's economy when the house of [credit] cards and subprime mortgages came tumbling down.

http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articl...ate-51005.aspx [January 29, 2007]

For the past two years, and for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans are spending more than they earn. In 2006, Americans saved at a rate of negative 1 percent, according to statistics released February 1 by the Commerce Department, meaning they not only spent all of their after-tax income, they also dipped into their savings or increased the amount they borrowed. The savings rate in 2005 was negative 0.4 percent.

Many families in America are living above their means. As the gap between the rich and the poor grows, many people spend more money than they have in an effort to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. A lot of people assume that they have all the money they need in the equity in their house; people are using home equity for everything from new cars to vacations.

Many Americans likely believe that, because their investments are accruing good returns, they are financially secure and don’t need to save any money on top of their investments. Some assume they don’t have to save any additional income, because they contribute to a 401(k) or IRA. While investments are of course a means of saving, the negative personal savings rate means that many Americans might be without the commonly recommended savings cushion intended to last three to six months.

Real moronic shit. Epic stupidity. And it translated up to government who spent to try to fix things the Keynesian way instead of the right way. The country always assumed that they could have a high enough GDP growth rate to make their spending growth rate alright... but it have not worked out so well. Just like Americans learned to not take on as much debt, the government does need to learn how to control its budget... but previously the population was horribly dumb itself. Perhaps still spoiled from the Clinton years and hoped that the dot-com bubble burst and effects of 9/11 were temporary and if they kept spending it would go back to before.


Here's a chart that shows how people's rate of technology adoption has changed to keep up with the Joneses:

[mrsleeve]

I do not understand why this is not something all governments stride to do. Why do they all over spend? What financial experts would ever tell you to spend more then what you earn.

Its how they get into power by promising free shit from the govt, at the expense of everyone else. See my Sig quotes for a historic perspective on this topic.

I don't know how you make people want to succeed but I am sure there is a way.



EDIT: I also wanted to say I think wellfare people should be made to work for there money doing shitty jobs like cleaning public toilets, cleaning grafity ect ect.

I think you kinda answered your own question there............

I know this is an American icon but I am sure even you guys in upside down land have heard of him.

I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer

This was in the 1780's (IIRC when he wrote that), and your listed example up there about your guys public assistance is very good modern real world example of what Mr Franklin is trying to say.....

[Massimo]

Just like we may follow budgets, spending less or near the amount we bring in so, too, should government. We should look at our budgets and when times are tough we make those decisions to knock out things.. dropping services, cut our own hair, change our own oil, mow our own lawn, downgrade cable/TV/internet/cell, etc.

I do not understand why this is not something all governments stride to do. Why do they all over spend? What financial experts would ever tell you to spend more then what you earn.

i know a lot of people especially around the d.c. area for some reason that dont have dreams, they are just not motivated quiet sad.... while I am busting my ass because I care about the company ect.... w/e kinda sucks when people don't care, kills the vibe sometimes.

I don't live in the US but this is very true over here. You can give people all the education they could ever need for free. But they would rather just sit around and do fuck all because they have no dreams or motivation. I don't think it is such a case of weather the facilities are avalible. It is more the fact they just don't care.

I don't know how you make people want to succeed but I am sure there is a way.

Just wanted to give you guys an Idea what a single mum here will make on wellfare with one kid. $800pw plus retal assistance plus electricity and water bills paid for, plus other minor benifits like health care ect. In comparison I make $850pw and I have been in my field for 5 years and have a diploma to back me up.

EDIT: I also wanted to say I think wellfare people should be made to work for there money doing shitty jobs like cleaning public toilets, cleaning grafity ect ect.

[Cephas]

For everyone who has a job and likes to bitch and moan that the "freeloaders" are out there sitting on their asses, collecting checks and food stamps and free cell phones, I pose to you a challenge:

Quit your job. Give away all your savings and assets. Sell your house and move in to a small, spartan apartment in a bad neighborhood. Then try living on welfare and food stamps for 2 years.

Report back to us in Nov 2014 and let us know how "easy" it was.

Do you honestly not recognize the fallacy inherent in this idea? The reason anyone with a good job wouldn't do this is because they probably worked hard in some way, shape or form to get that job. What did someone on welfare do to get the check, the apartment and the food? Nothing. And so there's no pride, no self worth and no feeling of responsibility. That's why the neighborhood blows...

I wouldn't sell my stuff and give it away because I worked damn hard to get where I am, and there are millions across this nation who manned/womaned up and did the same thing.

Here's a novel idea: how about our government stops getting involved in everything and let's the market dictate what's needed; ya know, that ancient idea of free market capitalism... let the market force companies that do bad things or aren't needed to fail. Dont bail them out. Let the higher education services of the nation be good, or fail. Dont subsidize loans so kids can go in debt for an education they wont be able to use. Dont force every kid to magically graduate, let them fail. And so on and so on.

[rwh11385]

Hey I am all for nasa and am of the mind set the heavy lift/maned program should neever have been phased out, or additional resources should have been commisioned when a replacment for the shuttle program was not going to be ready in time.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-01/tech/nasa.budget.moon_1_space-exploration-nasa-administrator-charlie-bolden-nasa-programs?_s=PM:TECH

On its Web site, the White House Budget Office says the program to send astronauts to the moon is behind schedule, over budget and overall less important than other space investments.

"Using a broad range of criteria, an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA's program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives," the site says.

"Furthermore, NASA's attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations."

They cut Constellation but kept on other space exploration research and development. The attack that it was the elimination of manned space flight research for climate change is pretty inaccurate. The primary change in strategy was to get businesses to invest in spaceflight to replace the shuttle and have been quite successful. A lot of tech tycoons are chasing their CCdev money.




http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/par..._partners.html

[evandael]

christ can't you people give it a rest?

[mrsleeve]

Hey I am all for nasa and am of the mind set the heavy lift/maned program should neever have been phased out, or additional resources should have been commisioned when a replacment for the shuttle program was not going to be ready in time.

[smooth]

your thinking of Unemployment, which right now is kinda a hybrid. Your initial 26 weeks (the standard UE claim) is paid out by you and your employer while your working. The 4 or 5 levels of extensions that are out there that take you up to 99 weeks well yeah thats not and there for paid for more so by the tax payer

We are not talking about U/E we are talking about straight up welfare, Food and cash on your EBT, Section 8 subsidized housing, govt provided land line (good) / Obama Phone(bad) ect.....

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging employment among the poor. The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract with America and was introduced by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-FL-22) who believed welfare was partly responsible for bringing immigrants to the United States.[1] Bill Clinton signed PRWORA into law on August 22, 1996, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise to "end welfare as we have come to know it."[2]
PRWORA instituted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which became effective July 1, 1997. TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which had been in effect since 1935 and supplanted the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program (JOBS) of 1988. The law was heralded as a "reassertion of America's work ethic" by the US Chamber of Commerce, largely in response to the bill's workfare component. TANF was reauthorized in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

PRWORA proposed TANF as AFDC’s replacement. The Congressional findings in PRWORA highlighted dependency, out-of-wedlock birth, and intergenerational poverty as the main contributors to a faulty system.[24] In instituting a block grant program, PRWORA granted states the ability to design their own systems, as long as states met a set of basic federal requirements. The bill's primary requirements and effects included the following:

Ending welfare as an entitlement program;
Requiring recipients to begin working after two years of receiving benefits;
Placing a lifetime limit of five years on benefits paid by federal funds;
Aiming to encourage two-parent families and discouraging out-of-wedlock births.
Enhancing enforcement of child support.

In granting states wider latitude for designing their own programs, some states have decided to place additional requirements on recipients. Although the law placed a time limit for benefits supported by federal funds of no more than two consecutive years and no more than a collective total of five years over a lifetime, some states have enacted briefer limits. All states, however, allowed exceptions to avoid punishing children because their parents have gone over their respective time limits[citation needed]. Federal requirements have ensured some measure of uniformity across states, but the block grant approach has led individual states to distribute federal money in different ways. Certain states more actively encourage education; others use the money to help fund private enterprises helping job seekers.

The legislation also greatly limited funds available for unmarried parents under 18 and restricted any funding to immigrants (legal or illegal).[4] Some state programs emphasized a shift towards work with names such as "Wisconsin Works" and "WorkFirst." Between 1997 and 2000, enormous numbers of the poor have left or been terminated from the program, with a national drop of 53% in total recipients.[25]

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act

[rwh11385]

Heeter, My initial comment down this tangent was mostly tongue in cheek, I kinda figured you would have gathered the sarcasm, but now I am committed lol

^

See my last post before this one

So you are committed still? Or was enough to back it up with sources? Oh well - as much as people attacking climate research funding, it has not changed the majority of focus for NASA.

Just posted today: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/syst...indtunnel.html

At NASA facilities around the country, engineers are developing America's first exploration-class rocket since the Saturn V launched astronauts to the moon. The Space Launch System (SLS) will provide an entirely new capability for science and human exploration beyond Earth's orbit to destinations such as an asteroid and eventually Mars. To enable some of these new capabilities, members of the Aeroelasticity Branch of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. tested a ten-foot-long buffet model of the Space Launch System in Langley's Transonic Dynamics Tunnel (TDT).

"This is a critical milestone for the design of the vehicle," said Langley research engineer, Dave Piatak.

Data retrieved will help prepare SLS for its first mission in 2017, Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), which will deliver an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit to check out the vehicle's systems.

But before SLS's first flight, the safety vehicle must be demonstrated through analysis and testing. An important step in ensuring a safe flight to orbit is buffet wind-tunnel testing to help determine launch vehicle structural margins.

To do this, a wind-tunnel model is put through its paces at transonic and low supersonic speeds reaching up to Mach 1.2. Testing aerodynamics at these speeds is essential to understanding the structural interaction to the flow field around the vehicle and determining loads on the flight vehicle.

After completing EM-1, SLS will perform its second mission in 2021, Exploration Mission-2, launching Orion with its first crew of astronauts to demonstrate orbit around the moon.

[mrsleeve]

^

See my last post before this one

[rwh11385]

No really sure, I assume it could be to get money from them............................

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...conservatives/

Wow. Typical commentary from Fox News attacking the concept of not hating Muslims, but NASA/Obama they are right that we need to inspire future scientists globally if we are to combine efforts instead of financing it solely by us.

Bolden said his mission to the Muslim world is a “matter of trying to reach out and try to get the best of all worlds.” No nation will make it to Mars on its own, he said.

I think it was more of a motion to get more international involvement. I've seen no mention of budget for anything - just diplomacy. But the media typically blows things out of proportion?? (As do those who watch or read it)

Earlier in 2010 NASA gets an additional 2.4 billion in NEW budget resources for Climate Change.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125507009

Priorities can and have changed. It seems I consed that, the point was that the O mans mission for NASA changes every 6-18 months. So while right now for his 2012 Campaign it seems a Kennedy like, What can you do, space program was needed to help win over those of us that think NASA is important.

Whats is NASA's mission going to change to by this time next year and do with all the new funding, I got it Obama Garmin's for everyone.

Thanks for finally posting sources, but have you actually cared to ever look at the NASA budget? I know it is challenging, but perhaps consider putting things into context.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/420990main_F...1_Feb_2010.pdf
I'm not sure since when priority has been determined by something that is a ~2.5% increase of the overall budget. ($2.4B increase over 5 years, annual budget of ~$20B) They mislead you to think that 60% is a large number, but it's not compared to the overall budget.

Even at $2.3B for all of Earth Science in FY2015, that is only 10.9% of NASA's total budget.

Exploration at ~25%
Space operations at ~20%
Planetary science/Astrophysics/Heliophysics at a combined 17%

So by your logic, 11% is a higher priority than 45%? (And that would assume that all of Earth Science is climate-related)

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/nasa-budget/ - when cuts were made

“We were not on a sustainable path back to the moon’s surface,” Bolden said.

And the new plans are to go past the moon - not on it.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/...ace/index.html

Armstrong's crewmate, Buzz Aldrin, supported Obama, saying NASA needs to explore new frontiers, not retrace 40-year-old footsteps.

But unlike what a lot of Republicans said, it wasn't the end to manned spaceflight but rather a focus on growing commercial abilities. Shouldn't competition and private industry be seen fondly??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/31/AR2010013101058.html

Obama's budget, according to a background briefing by an administration official on Sunday, will call for spending $6 billion over five years to develop a commercial spacecraft that could taxi astronauts into low Earth orbit. Going commercial with a human crew would represent a dramatic change in the way NASA does business. Instead of NASA owning the spacecraft and overseeing every nut and bolt of its design and construction, a private company would design and build the spacecraft with NASA looking over its shoulder.


John Gedmark, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said the critics underestimate the maturity of the commercial sector.

"The Defense Department began using commercial rockets a long time ago to launch priceless national security satellites, that our troops' lives depend on. If the Pentagon can trust private industry with this responsibility, we think NASA can, too," Gedmark said.

You could be like Rick Perry and complain about NASA's downfall of having astronauts hitch rides to the ISS... or could see that SpaceX has a commercial contract for transportation of goods already and looking beyond that to colonizing Mars.

Encouraging private industry to innovate instead of having the government monopolize it worked. Who would have guessed that Republicans would still be attacking that??

[mrsleeve]

Heeter, My initial comment down this tangent was mostly tongue in cheek, I kinda figured you would have gathered the sarcasm, but now I am committed lol

[BraveUlysses]