<p>Musings…</p>
<p>The New Yorker has an article about the reason for the high unemployment in Europe is that they have a lot of vacation time. While we all know that hiring workers is expensive over there, there’s another issue going on: if people do a lot of things for themselves, then they reduce the demand for service jobs (typically filled by women and low-education workers). If I don’t go out to eat because I decide to make all my meals for myself, and I encourage my fellow students to do the same, the restaurants in town would go out of business. Simple fact (in my area, the restaurants are supported almost entirely by student and professor spending). Last time I checked, former small business owners who are unemployed, whose businesses are standing empty, is the key to blight and economic ruin. Not trying to justify anything, just pointing out that every time you eat a meal out, you’re helping to keep someone employed. </p>
<p>I think that there is a massive, massive difference between young people in low-wage jobs and old people in low-wage jobs. Quite simply, if someone my age is making about $20,000/year in an entry-level job (in a low or medium cost-of-living area), their lives aren’t that bad - they can make rent, pay their bills, and keep gas in the car. Eventually, they will move up the ladder and make more money. That’s fine. That’s also a helluva lot different from someone with teenage kids making that salary. IMO, the ideal situation (since low-wage jobs will always be around - whether they be in service jobs, such as cleaning services, waitering, or some entry level jobs) is that low-wage jobs largely have the potential for advancement and therefore be the province of the young, those who don’t want to work full-time (ex. mom of kids in elementary school), and those who are incapable of doing more (I’m talking about the truly disabled who cannot handle more). THAT, more than anything else, would alleviate the poverty issue - allowing people to move up through the ranks.</p>
<p>I hate shopping at Wal-Mart. OTOH, I love Costco - they are great to their employees. There is always a demand for Wal-mart cashiers because people shop there. </p>
<p>Agree with Berurah: Mini is one of the few liberals I “know” who really works to ameliorate the ills which he decries. A lot of liberals complain and then say, “Tax the rich,” which essentially means, “I don’t like this, so I’ll make someone else fix that.” It’s not compassionate if it’s someone else’s resources. </p>
<p>Welfare… a Cato researcher discovered that a large part of the problem with welfare is that it is more economical for many people to resist advancement, because their benefits are cut off at a certain point. Many people actually do ask their employers to not promote them or to not up their wages, because, in the short term, they would lose money… and obviously, they lack the resources to take the short-term hit for long-term gain. For example: a person earns $15k/year and receives $5k in benefits, for a total of $20,000 annually in salary and benefits. If $16,500 is the cut-off for benefits, that person will not want to take a position that pays $17,000 - because he would have $3,000 less as a result of not being on welfare. Even if that position eventually paid more money, it’s not affordable in the short-term. This would be a different story if there were sliding-scale benefits.</p>
<p>Mental illness, IMO, is a huge factor in the poverty of otherwise capable people. As a society, we are horrible at treating mental illness and pain - and I don’t mean this in a “we need universal health care” way. I mean it in the “mental illness doesn’t get the same kind of medical care that an inflammed appendix gets” way. 1/3 of homeless people have severe mental illnesses. </p>
<p>While it is true that many poor people have no emergency funds, a lot of the problem is credit cards. (Just waiting for the wailing to go down.) It used to be that a huge hospital bill would not be paid immediately: the hospital would break it up into smaller bills and not charge interest. Now, the hospitals say to charge it - which comes with exhorbitant interest rates. Also, uninsured people are charged more than insured people for the same procedures. Hum…</p>
<p>We also have the problem of liberals messing with insurance. The Boston Globe recently printed a slew of letters about the proposal in Massachusetts to require that all companies with a certain number of employees provide health insurance, but would allow them to provide scaled-down plans - for example, ones that don’t cover more “elective” medical procedures like IVF. Some woman basically said that ALL insurance policies should be reqiured to cover, inter alia, IVF. That makes no sense. It would drive up the cost of the premiums. Most of the people in need of a scaled-down health policy have no need for IVF. They are the people my age - 30% of whom are uninsured. We don’t have fertility problems - we just need insurance that costs less than $3,000 per person to cover things like a sprained ankle or broken arm. But no, apparently, the liberals think that not providing access to IVF is more important than making sure that there is access to basic health coverage. Grrrr. Maybe that makes me uncompassionate… but we’re never going to get anywhere if people equate chemo coverage with elective reproduction.</p>
And liberals push for it! Again, while high on the warm fuzzy scale, it’ll screw the middle class. Why?</p>