Scott, I get where you're coming from.

You have to see it to "get it" I guess. The old "oh my God a plasma TV" may be a case of bad planning with a check up front. It might be bad planning on a payment scheme that never lets you even really own your TV, but lets you pay on it for 10 years. It may be that family, church, etc., got together and DID give you some things after the hurricane. We don't know, and yet the juxtaposition of the TV (yes, shot in the foreground, magnifying its size vis a vis the apartment) and the fact of this woman's claim of poverty, just stand in for a whole syndrome the right-wingers tend to see everywhere, this "dependency problem" which they inflate as surely as if they were to shoot it with a fish-eye lens.

I don't think the problem does not exist.

I think people who work are galled by it, because one set of rules applies to the worker, and another applies to the non-worker.

I will say that the dignity, better conditions, respect, and mobility afforded by work far outweighs any little short-term gains you can make vis a vis "the system" through working the system. I would much rather be ME, working 40 hours a week and getting the rewards of doing so, than any of these guys we complain about getting a "free ride." But it IS galling that some people delight in doing so.

But this general random hatred of the poor is just as galling. Look at the outside of those places. Do you want to live there? Neither do they. Take what the woman actually said... "I may be poor but I don't like to live poor." What the hell is really shocking about that? Do you want to live poor? Of course the great 3-page-thread poster child statement comes next: "It's a pity what some people will give you." Well, there ya go, a sense of entitlement. Uh, but we don't know where she lived before. We just know where she ended up.

I get where you other guys are coming from too... I don't have a big screen TV. My biggest TV is in the 30s of inches (total of 2). I am just not a big TV watcher, and the money's better spent elsewhere. As you say, then, I have made my choices, and I accept my consequences, yadda yadda yadda, unlike, we imagine, what the subject of this story has done.

But then again, I spend when I want as well, for example, buying a place finally (albeit when the market was at the top,) and forgoing these idiotic ARM mortgages.

Well, now the Feds are forcing an ARM bailout. I accepted a higher rate because I wanted a fixed rate mortgage. If I wanted to I could raise unholy hell about how I chose a fixed 30 year mortgage, and these other guys should just have to go back to renting.

And I look back over my life and I think, were there times "the system," "the society," or just the largesse of good people got me where I am in the first place? If I sweep out the attribution error native to all people who like to call themselves "self-made men", I admit that my wellbeing has in one way or another depended on others' contributions.

And what happens if these ARM loans are not bailed out? Foreclosures right and left, in addition to the ones we are seeing. What happens to my property value, as supply increases, with demand already at a low ebb? It plummets.

There's a problem with wanting things to be "fair," especially, as you say, people who disregard the aid they themselves have enjoyed in life. The problem is that none of us are islands, that we don't all get the same breaks and the same luck, and that in real life, "Fair" is something that comes to your town once a year in the summer time, and involves hog-judging and the like.

Do I want to inflict unfairness on anybody? No... but we need to temper our knee-jerk reactions with realistic assessments. And to do that we need facts, not snapshots or anecdotes about "every time I kicked down a door..."

News flash: Electronics are cheap. They are always cheaper than they use to be. Electronics someone opened, used, and returned are even cheaper. And that purty sofa could have a dent or a ding in its back. This could be a champion bargain shopper. This could be a rental furniture setup, even more likely. That's popular among the poor, as I understand it. You don't see the affluent shopping at furniture rent-to-own stores.

Not good choices, and those choices are gussied up to look like downright great deals by those who offer them. But that's just the result of freedom on the part of the recipient (we think) of public aid.

She complains she did not get much. Maybe she lost a house and all her possessions. Maybe she is newly poor. Maybe despite the galled and holier-than-thou stories middle-class America trades around among themselves, it really is harder to be poor than middle-class.

I guess I'm just trying to weigh in on the tone of all this... the whole thing about "what's our best public policy option" really isn't even addressed in this thread. It's more like "Hey, look at this lady! I bet it's safe to hate her!" Rubs me the wrong way too, Scott.

PFnV

The problem with this country is that no one cares, and politicians pass policy that makes them look good, as opposed to policies that make sense and help the average citizen. I'm about as fed up with the system as can be, and sadly, it's going to get worse before it gets better. I have a friend who 5 years ago used to say that the country needed to go bankrupt before things changed, and I've hitched my wagon to his horse. That might be the only thing that flips the track into the taxpayers direction.

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"

Another appologist. See, it might be this, maybe it's that... What appologists don't understand, or maybe they do and simply won't admit it, is that the issue isn't about that specific woman, or that specific TV, and how she got it. The TV, woman, and story, are merely a symbol of what nonappologists are pointing to. I work directly with Mass Housing & HUD. Part of my job is managing twenty-three Section 8 units. I can tell you first hand that far more than half the people getting a subsidy don't deserve it. I've got a tenants who vacation in the caribean for 5-6 months a year. I've got others who go to Puerto Rico 4-5 times a year, spend time at Foxwoods, sublet rooms, work under the table, go to Vegas, and even had one that drove a Mercedes. The vast majority of these people abuse the system, and use the assitance because it means they don't have to work as hard, or as much, as they would if it wasn't there. It's the redistribution of wealth. They work 15 hours a week, cuz it makes more sense than working 40. The shame in all this, is that it takes away from the people who truly do need assitance. I have elderly tenants who have nobody, and who've been let down by SS. I have a tenant who has Parkinson's Disease, who clearly needs the help he gets. The problem is the other 80% who simply have it to make their life easier. Mom's with 25 year old sons still on welfare, paying $28 rent. Why? Why should everyone else's hard earned cash go to these people? What's worse, is that their are those who then try to tell everyone we're not paying enough, and need to pay more. The system is a joke.

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"

I think one of our biggest problems is we have an entire class of people who have discovered they can just vote themselves more money. Nope..!! Nothing wrong with or backwards about a system that allows that..!!

Show me a poor person in America and it's a good bet in at least 8/10 instances that the person is poor due to the choices they made.

While life is most definitely easier in America for those born into the upper/middle classes it is NOT difficult not to remain poor in America if you're born into poverty.

No one seems to want to look at poor people and say - take responsibility for your own freaking actions. You don't want to "live poor", then take advantage of the free education you get for 18 years. You don't want to "live poor", then attain skills to make yourself marketable so you can earn the wage to live your desired lifestyle. You don't want to "live poor", then don't have 5 kids before your 25th birthday. These are not difficult things to do and I have no sympathy for those who decide to do differently.

Another example that you won't ever disagree with everyone.

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"

I see. So it is not really necessary to discuss the reality of cases, only what they symbolize. So this individual woman, on whom we started a thread, is admittedly -- possibly -- something other than what she seems. So the thread is possibly a hatchet job, for the sake of the symbolism. That sounds fair.

"vacation in" or "return to"? A tenant, or tenants plural? Do you know where they go in the caribbean? Do you know how they live when they go? Do you know for a fact that they are not working for those 5 or 6 months? Do you know if they stay with family, friends, some combo -- or do you know for a fact, that they engage in what I think of when you say "vacation in the caribbean" -- banana daquiris on the beach, with no work?

I ask only because we know:

- some abuse the system
- others may look like they are abusing the system

I am asking, not stating, not apologizing for anybody. I am saying, look, we know that we tend to spread the unfavorable impression, and we tend to do it more the less we know about a situation.

So -- do you have scads and scads of blatant, galling welfare cheats? Or do you have a few scammers, and a lot of people just trying to get by? And is it possible that this snap judgment assignment is off sometimes? That's all.

The argument is never, do some people cheat the system? Because the answer to that question is always "yes." It's more like, does a system of social services do more harm or more good? Do we want one?

Use to be the usual suspect was a Caddy. But here, I get what your're saying. Agreed.

You say the vast majority of these people abuse the system.

Do you mean:
1) The vast majority of the people I tell these stories about, or
2) The vast majority of users of the system?

Your follow-up sentence about the shame in all this, makes me think the answer is (1).

By the way, you're getting at what DOES need to be fixed, the counter-incentive band in which it makes more sense not to work, than to work. It may be more expensive to fix than to leave be, by the way, but I think it bears all our scrutiny to learn to fix the counterincentives, while providing a "floor" of poverty below which we don't let Americans sink.

The scammers are galling. I totally agree - how do we get those who really need help the help they need... and are they more or less prevalent than the scammers?

... and in my workplace I've dealt with a couple of people who are on a "welfare to work" program, who have told me that at first, they got more by being on welfare, but as the hours they got ramped up they realized that they could make it through that patch and (here's the kicker)... that nobody wants to be on welfare once they have worked.

So who's the 80%? You say it's the scammers. Yet in the federal budget, more money goes to health care for the elderly (medicare) than any other single social service program.

I don't know MA's welfare program, though I imagine it's more robust than many other states' programs (which provides both more relief for those who need it, and more opportunity for those who scam.)

I do know I would like very much to get rid of the galling scams, and simultaneously provide that floor for the needy, which is the holy grail of all discussion of welfare reform. Do you want to dictate for those recipients of aid, how they can use it? It seems like that's against all the "freedom" rhetoric I usually hear from the right. In addition, it would just mean they'd find some way to obtain the "wanna-haves" in addition to the "gotta-haves." Where should they get their furniture and electronics? Should they not be able to have consumer electronics, since they are luxuries?

In other words, how do you get at the scammers without destroying what safety net we do have in this country?

Soup kitchens can't keep up with demand. I have no idea what the "street value" of a bowl of soup is, but I don't think this is a scammable program. We do have a problem with real, hard-core poverty.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...es_cant_k.html

We do, as your anecdotal evidence suggest, have a problem with scammers as well. How much of these programs is the "fat" for the scammers, and how much is the "meat" of the program, for the needy? How do we quantify that? CAN you get at the "fat" without eliminating the "meat"?

Certainly we don't arrive at a just solution by declaring the particulars of cases unimportant, and governing "symbols" and impressions instead.

PFnV

One hell of a smart man Nothing left to say............

Alright now, lets not let 99% of the poor folk ruin it for the rest of them.

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But the man worthwhile, is the man who can smile, when his shorts are too tight in the seat.

It's scammers, and a lifetime entitlement that are the problem. Permanant subsidies do not work. they encourage a lifetime of dependenancy, and thus laziness. If I tell you that I'll subsidize your life according to what you earn, what incentive is there for you to work more? Unless you are disabled in some way, and are an able bodied individual, assistance should be temporary, and not permanant. Were I in charge, and subsidy system as such would be directly connected to job training. If you want the subsidy, you have X amount of time use it, and I'd offer job training to people who needed it. I'd never permit generational welfare like we have today.

Thomas Jefferson put better than I ever could.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

- Thomas Jefferson -

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"