When I see the faux journalism like the story below in a liberal rag like Slate, I realize that facts, truth, perspective, and honesty mean nothing to people with an agenda and a story-line to sell. Slate and the pitiful excuse for a journalist decided they were going to write a story detailing the horror of food stamp “cuts” and they sought out a person who fit their sob story. The theme of the story was going to be starving poor people, drastic cuts, and blaming those dreaded Teabaggers for this tragedy. And anyone who wants to believe the drivel in this article will be highly satisfied. It doesn’t matter that the facts do not support the thesis and selecting one person to represent the plight of all 47 million food stamp recipients is the classic methodology of liberals. We should always create a national program or policy based on the circumstances of one person. The multitude of stories about SNAP fraud, the abandoned carts in Wal-Mart when the FSA were going to get caught cheating, and ongoing campaign to sign people up for SNAP when they didn’t have any intention of seeking this assistance aren’t even mentioned. The personal observations by thousands of people about the kinds of food purchased with EBT cards are nothing but racist rants by Tea Partiers according to the liberal MSM.
Whenever the food stamp issue arises emotions and vitriol rule the day. The liberals declare that anyone who wants to control the costs or reduce the number of people on SNAP is an evil person who favors starving old people. The far right wingers think all food stamp recipients are nothing but moochers and too lazy to get a job. I happen to believe the food stamp program is a necessary safety net program and I’m OK with my tax dollars going to fund it. But, here is where I depart from the liberals and their extreme ideology. Food stamps are supposed to provide a bridge for people temporarily down on their luck. During recessions people lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Unemployment compensation and food stamps are supposed to fill the gap until they can get a new job. You just need to review the historical data to see that the number of people on food stamps always rose during recessions and then fell after the recession was over. It happened in the early 1980s recession. It happened in the early 1990s recession. But something has gone awry in the last decade and specifically in the last five years.
www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htm
There has been a major entitlement mindset change. Food stamps should not be a lifetime underachievement award. You should not be entitled to food-stamps because you decided to drop-out of high school and you choose not to work or are unemployable based upon your ignorance or appearance. You should not be entitled to food-stamps because you chose to get pregnant for the 4th time by four different baby daddies. Food stamps is a program to help people TEMPORARILY down on their luck through no fault of their own.
In 2007 there were 26 million people on food-stamps, which was lower than the level of 1994. It had been on a steady but slow uptrend since 2000 and had settled around the 26 million level. The annual cost was not an insubstantial $33 billion per year. We then had a massive financial crisis and ensuing recession. The bottom of the crisis/recession occurred in 2009. As one would expect the number of food stamp recipients surged by 7 million to 33 million in 2009 and the expense increased to $54 billion. I had no problem with this expenditure. Then Obama and his Keynesian brethren passed their $800 billion “temporary” stimulus plan. They included $45 billion extra for food-stamps. The economy has been in recovery since 2010 I’m told by Obama and his liberal supporters in the MSM. Food-stamp recipients should have leveled off and begun to fall, since the economy has been recovering.
But a funny (not ha ha) thing happened on the road to recovery. Obama and his minions used the SNAP stimulus funds to advertise and encourage millions to sign up for food-stamps. His plan was hugely successful. He was able to increase the number of people on food-stamps by 14 million since the recession ended. The cost was driven up to $76 billion. Only a highly skeptical person would suggest that this was done to solidify the Democratic voting base. And this brings us to the TRAGIC cuts that will starve millions according to Slate and the rest of the liberal media. The fact that the $5 billion reduction is just the expiration of Obama’s temporary stimulus plan is ignored by the liberal media. It is surely the work of those evil Republicans.
The interview below is quite revealing and tells me everything I need to know about the rag publishing this crap. They lead the story with declaring this as the largest cut in history for SNAP. Sounds horrifying. They wouldn’t want to clarify with some perspective. The reduction will put funding at the level of 2011, which was $42 billion higher than 2007. It is clear in the first answer from Debra, the SNAP recipient has no clue how much she gets per month and how much her cut was. She made it sound like she got a $70 cut, or 30%. If Slate had an ounce of journalistic integrity they would add this chart.
Debra is in a household of two. Her benefit got reduced by $20, not $70. So she has to cut out meat from her diet because her subsidy went down by 67 cents per day? Really? Reading the interview generates a multitude of questions in my mind and clarifies the entitlement mindset for me. Here are a few questions and observations:
- We hear about how little food she is able to buy for herself and her unemployed 21 year old daughter. I’d love to see a picture of these two ladies. I’m going out on a limb here and guessing these two hungry gals are both over 200 pounds.
- Why is Debra a single mom? Where’s the Daddy? Isn’t he responsible for his child?
- The story attempts to convince you they need the food-stamps to survive. Then you find out she is getting a disability check from the VA, getting an SSDI check, getting low income housing assistance, gets Meals on wheels food from her neighbor, and gets food from a food bank. Somehow she gets by on two meals per day. Me too.
- What exactly is her disability? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess “Depression”, or some other non-verifiable illness.
- We eventually get to the money quotes when the interviewer asks about her and her daughter getting jobs.
” Yes, I’ve thought about it, and my daughter is also considering it. But my food stamps, rent, VA compensation, and social security would be affected. I’d have to make a lot of money to overcome all the reductions, something like $15 to $20 an hour.”
“She wants to help and get a job, but it’s a catch-22. I’m on rent assistance, and if she gets a job, my rent goes up and my food stamp money goes down. But she’s got an interview at Target coming up and if it works out that will be an interesting challenge.”
And there you have the entitlement mindset. Debra has no plans to leave SNAP. The entitlement checks give her no incentive to work. Both SNAP and SSDI are supposed to be temporary assistance until the recipient can go back to work. People like Debra and her daughter have been enabled by the government to not work, look for work, or ever lift themselves up out of squalor. They are being paid to become permanent parasites on society. The excuse about jobs not paying enough is bullshit. In the real world, you start at a low level job, you work hard, get raises, move up the ladder, and eventually make enough money to support yourself and pay taxes.
My son is 16 years old. He will have his driver’s license in another month. He wanted a job. He applied at Dunkin Donuts two Sundays ago. They called him in for an interview at 2:45 on the following Wednesday. They saw he was a clean cut kid, didn’t weigh 300 pounds, didn’t have face tattoos or piercings, and hired him on the spot. They gave him his first shift 1 hour later. He worked 25 hours in the next five days, while having full days of school. They only pay $7.25 per hour, plus tips. He made almost $200 in his first week of work. He will make $700 to $800 per month and he has no skills or work experience. His three best friends all have part-time jobs working 20 hours per week. Debra and her daughter somehow think this type of job is beneath them. The thought of starting out as a clerk at Dunkin Donuts, working extra hours by taking other people’s shifts, proving to your manager you deserve a raise or promotion to assistant manager, and eventually managing your own Dunkin Donuts store is inconceivable to people like Debra, with their entitlement mindset. My son is able to get a job earning $700 to $800 per month while getting straight A’s in high school and this liberal rag – Slate – does a story about the horrific impact of a $20 reduction in food-stamps on two Free Shit Army troopers. What a joke the liberal MSM has become.
Never let the facts, truth and reality get in the way of a good liberal media sob story.
Meat Is the First Thing to Go
What it’s like to have your food stamps cut.
By Katy Waldman
@Llpoh “Wage Slave – you worked for 42 years in tech during a tech boom of monumental proportions yet you are not well – off enough to retire. Seriously?
Umm, you fucked up somewhere big-time. No one but you to blame.”
You appear to be an asshole, mostly like the rest of the US population that has turned against their fellow citizens. What you know about the comp sci business would probably fit through the head of a needle.
My children’s college educations are all paid for, my late model cars are paid for, my stone home on a lake is mostly paid for, and for years I paid for family health insurance – over $1,500 a month, and all sorts of related expenses. It costs a lot of money to be in business, you have a lot out there. When you get ‘get your legs cut off from under you’ – you bleed. That has happened / is happening to a lot of +50 year old STEM people – who were depending upon another 10-15 years of good employment / income.
I was unemployed for over 3 years. In that time I used 401k / investments to pay the mortgage, living expenses, health insurance, etc. Could you go without income for over 3 years? To add insult to injury, I had to pay income tax on the 401k disbursements.
@IndenturedServant: “I hate to admit that but in these giant corporations you are essentially nameless and faceless.”
I’m trying raise awareness that human capital (employees) has been reduced to the lowest terms by the corporate culture. They’ve worked at it. My prediction: With a little more educated workforce in China / India, and reliable software systems in the ‘cloud’ – corps will outsource the cube farm people (office workers) to foreign lands. All that will be left in the US are the execs, some sales people, and a distribution chain.
Another perverse thing has happened: The wage slaves are really against each other. I think it may be something like the Stockholm syndrome where the kidnapped person identifies with the kidnapper – like Patty Hearst.
@Llpoh: Also, the crap about Walmart and such not promoting is crap. A friend of my son is finishing school part time because his Walmart type job lead him to store manager by the time he was 21.
Being a manager at Walmart. Isn’t that sorta like being promoted to Guard at Auschwitz? Really, the Walton family is worth billions while they can’t pay their employees a living wage? Pollute our country with worthless Chinese shit. Then we have to pick up the tab for their employees Medicaid and other sundry expenses.
These corps are real happy to see these young people: They can work them to death, and then dispose of them.
Sorry – the above post is mine!
Admin, your Gen X nihilism is showing…
Have to agree with you & Boston Bob. This program was intended to help people out of a rough patch, not feed them and encourage them not to work. I hear it from SNAP participants all the time… they can’t work more hours because they’ll lose benefits. And you help them out with canned goods, even a casserole here and there and they eat the whole damn lot in a day, then cry about how hungry they are the next.
That said, I’ve spent a lot of time recently studying the SNAP program for a client. The fraud and abuse is only about 15% of all recipients; it just makes the news more. Still, it’s more than it should be, and it takes away from the truly needy — the working families who have lost their homes to the banking criminals, the people working 2-3 part-time jobs because Obamacare has forced employers to reduce hours, the people who have real disabilities and have trouble finding good-paying jobs because they’ve all been outsourced to cheap labor countries.
The U.S. is a fucking mess. We’re transitioning to the European model that the fucking liberals think is a “kinder, gentler” society when in fact it represents a loss of our Middle Class and a return to a system where you have only the very rich and the poor. It’s going to take a vicious bloodbath to return the U.S. to a political system and society where hard work and responsibility are valued and pay off for people who embrace that lifestyle.
Thinker
I’m not sure what nihilism really means. I try to deal with the reality of the situation. The Crisis will get far worse. The millenials are tasked with doing the heavy lifting. If they are not up to the challenge, the country is finished. Giving up before it really starts is a pussy way out. Whining about having to do the heavy lifting before they lift a thing irritates the shit out of me. They should be rallying around the example of Snowden, but I hear the sound of crickets. Or is that the tap tap on their iGadgets?
My post was not about SNAP fraud, even though 15% fraud equals $11 billion. When did it become OK to not worry about $11 billion of fraud?
The interview is representative of at least 50% of those on SNAP and the other government entitlement programs. The liberals have created an underclass of people who have no incentive to even try and get a job or improve their lot in life. And they have done it on the backs of the working class.
I don’t understand the ideologues who can’t see both sides of the problem. They focus on the Wall Street scum or the Federal Reserve and give a pass to the fraud and sloth of the ignorant entitlement class. Open a fucking book. Learn something. Get a fucking job at Dunkin Donuts. I’m tired of all the excuses and whining.
Life is hard and then you die. Tough shit. Do something about your lot in life.
biggyTmofo says:
“It’s a Goddamn genetic mutation that turns folk in lazy useless fucks who have to depend on the Man for their bread…”
los vivos viven de los mensos (the shrewd live off the simple) dept:
my granny said, no hay quien compre mientras hay quien preste (no one is willing to buy as long as there’s someone willing to lend).
when my mom said my dad stated, “only fools save money”, my granny shot back, that’s because as soon as you have a bit of money saved, someone come along and borrows it.
Wage Slave if after 42 years of the biggest boom industry in history, I would slit my fucking wrists if I did not have enough to retire. Boohoo for your failure to plan and save. You were likely a marginal techie. Cry me a fucking river.
I may be an asshole. But I am fucking right. Do not like the truth? Too fucking bad. Btw – after 42 years of work, everyone should have accumulated enough to retire. Perhaps not going forward – the world is different. But someone starting work in 1970 has no excuse. None whatsoever. Gimme gimme gimme, and fuck tomorrow – well tomorrow is here. Bad planning your part does not mean a crisis on mine.
Just one more poor crybaby unwilling to acknowledge they crapped in their nest. Always someone else’s fault.
Btw, too, running a Walmart is not the worst job. The store manager does ok, esp. For 21 years old.
AWD sez: “HZK and Llpoh are going Galt. I’m in line, as soon as I’m financially able.”
Count me on that list as well. I have zero income and have had zero income since last April. I do NOT participate in SNAP or unemployment or SSDI or anything. Nobody sends me checks of other people’s money. I am in college full time without a cent of student loans – in fact I paid off my student loans from my first college attempt of the late 90’s before starting this time. I am using the Pell Grant money since I’ve paid plenty ‘o taxes in the past (that I’d really rather have back, given what all manners of bullshit it was spent on) and will never see any SS money that has been taken from me either. Due to it being a small community college, tuition and books are relatively reasonable. I will graduate with no debts.
The campus has a single orange tree growing on it and I snagged one off the branch this morning. Not quite ripe yet but still tasty and verified non-GMO/non-corporate food. From this one orange I harvested around 30 seeds, which are right now being germinated and will be planted as soon as they’re ready. It’ll be 6-10 years before I see a single fruit, but that’s the nature of a savings account. My yard will only hold maybe four trees, so if I have more sprouts than that, I’m going to take a few ‘nature hikes’ out to the bushes around here and plant them in random locations that I can go back to later if needed. Also, a savings account. And not one single fucking penny of taxes paid on any of it. Barter, grey market, free contracts between individuals – fuck the system. I like this life much better.
Ahh yes… Llpoh wisdom being cast down from the Mountain so that we poor, lowly, feebleminded peasants may receive it with breathess gratitude… as usual. (/sarc, llpoh. Don’t have a stroke.)
Interesting little discourse here on this thread. We have the contingent of old fucks on both sides of the issue, a few disgruntled Mil’s, and a handful of ambivalent X’ers caught in the middle, age-wise. And the Alleged 1st Year X’er/Boomer-in-Denial, Admin.
Seems to me the problem with SNAP is primarily that the recipients can buy just about anything with it, just about anywhere. The issue of fraud wouldn’t be nearly as pronounced if, as a previous poster wrote, the food one gets with food stamps is the basic staples to prevent starvation and malnutrition. Cheez Doodles and FuckyFuck Bars are not staples. Steak is not a staple. Anything sold or distributed by CocaCola or Pepsi is not a staple. I would offer the theory that craigslist sales of SNAP cards would plummet if all you could get was a bag of dried beans or rice, box of powdered milk and generic cereals like plain ol’ fucking Cheerios, some plain canned veggies, and a couple pounds of ground beef. And in order to collect this magnificent feast on the taxpayer’s dime, you get to show photo ID that matches the cardholder. How heartless of me to think such evil conservative thoughts, I know.
Now I’ll prepare for llpoh’s nuclear response. I just need to go make up a new tinfoil hat real quick. Onward to glory!
E – I am not here to coddle folks. I say generally what Admin and others are saying, perhaps with a smidgen less tact. I do not sugar coat reality.
Professional folks who work decades and end up without enough to retire do not get my respect.
Wage Slave pulls out the same tired old argument I made a small fortune out of refuting: “But you do not understand computer science, white goods manufacturing, etc etc etc fill in the blank”. I have heard it a 1000 times, and in the end, each and every time it was me who did in fact understand, and the other guy that did not. The argument that somehow theirjob is special, more difficult, etc. was proven false. They use those thoughts as crutches and excuses for their own failings.
Computer science is like any other endeavor – to succeed you need to expertly apply resources and manpower. The idea that someone does not succeed because their field is too hard or is special somehow is laughable.
“I do not have the money to retire after 42 years because my job is so hard and impossible to do and I had to pay health insurance and raise a family”.
What a fucking joke.
I’m just trying to fulfill my appointed role as that asshole that pokes you with a stick whenever this debate comes up. I may have been somewhat remiss in this austere duty since Calamity and Wage Slave were doing such a fine job of raising your blood pressure from thousands of miles away.
On a more cordial note, please look up the Mossberg MVP Varmint rifle. I think you’ll be interested to see what it can do. I picked one up a couple months ago and have been very happy with it.
Administrator says:
MethodMan
Your grasp of history is breathtaking to behold.
****
Why thank you!
My point is that average standard of living for those in the US after WW2 has generally increased. Want to argue this point across just about any reasonable metric? How about the most important one, how long you get live:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html
Not arguing millions died around the world and lots of Americans too. Something tells me most Americans are “over” the tragedy of WW2 and don’t break down and cry when they pay $3 gas and eat a $3 burger. Bought and paid for, as they say.
Now we are going to see, for the first time since perhaps the Civil War, a reversal of our standard of living on all fronts. Who gets the brunt of that, yes, the younger generation. And if revolution and bloodshed are ahead, which you seem to imply, then it’s even worse for them.
So, do not tell me the Millennials and below just have the run of the mill everyday sort generational problems. They don’t.
It is undeniable with globalism and competition for resources, that jobs will be harder to find and pay less. The “average Joes” of 1945 through 2005 had it generally better and better, because of the expansion of the petrodollar empire.
Now the trend is undeniably reversing. You can say “just work harder I walked through a mile a snow…” and point out the selective bias of anecdotal evidence of how hard work pays off– but this is now more a thermodynamics problem than a morality play.
There will be less and less per capita energy available to do things. For instance, in 10 years a cross country flight will be an average months’ salary, then two, then a year, then only for the rich. But that loss of available energy ripples through everything: food, medicine, quality of life, etc. This is a best case; if the US loses it reserve currency status along the way, energy become even more expensive. Are we to then say to them then, well, you guys just didn’t work hard enough like we did?
No, there physical forces also at work beyond their control. There are also structural ones as well working against them, including the fact that we are burning and printing desperately to prop up our standard of living at their eventual expense, and outsourced most industries to benefit the rich for a short-term gain of consumerism.
It is a bit more now than “just better yourself, I did!”
It is going to be brutal for most of the young today.
E – I took no offence whatsoever! You are a man I respect, despite our little escapades of the past. I need the occasional reminder that I am less than perfect. I tend to forget that at times. Not that any folk hereabouts would notice, of course.
Methodman
The millenials do not get to complain about what might happen to them before it happens. We’re in the Fourth Turning. They have to step up and lead the country through the Crisis.
Do you think Debra, her daughter, and millions of other entitled masses are about to step up?
If they don’t step up, the country is finished.
So enough of the whining and start acting like Snowden and Manning.
Capital – with encouragement and support from government and corrupt unions – threw Labor under a bus.
That is one way to deal with the age old conflict.
We, as a Nation, are NOT allowed peace and prosperity.
Fifty years ago the Military Industrial Complex made that decision for us and since then we have not had a politician, much less a President, that had any real power to lead this country towards peace.
Argue all you want about some damn fool on food stamps but please realize that the amount of money devoted to the FSA pales in comparison to the wealth that has been harvested from this Nation to enrich the MIC.
War is all we are allowed to know – Peace doesn’t generate enough profit.
O/T but another sob so solly story…Why can’t these”they” just let these two lovebirds live free?
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/is-charles-manson-getting-married-20131120
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LOL… Bring the Republic back…Rock that popular vote!
again…[img
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The US military is the biggest FSA on the planet and the administration of said army is by far the most corrupt in the history of all war machines.I no longer giver EBT a second thought. The jobs were sent away and people still have to eat, but no one is forced to kill on command for their bread and butter.
$8.5 TRILLION In Taxpayer Money Doled Out By Congress To The Pentagon Since 1996 … Has NEVER Been Accounted For”
Posted on November 18, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
Military Waste and Fraud Are the Main Cause of Our Problems
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/11/8-5-trillion-taxpayer-money-doled-congress-pentagon-since-1996-never-accounted.html
During a discussion with a young white male last week on welfare, he disclosed that his unwed mother still had three kids at home that she couldn’t possibly feed without EBTand if cuts she and her kids would most likely starve on the street….a sad situation indeed.
What is the solution to the delimma of unwed mothers spitting out babies with reckless abandon?
I’ll admit I haven’t a clue.
“Giving up before it really starts is a pussy way out. Whining about having to do the heavy lifting before they lift a thing irritates the shit out of me. They should be rallying around the example of Snowden, but I hear the sound of crickets.”
Careful what you wish for Admin. There seems to be a romanticism around the Hero generation. That is based off of past examples of Heroes like the G.I. Generation. The Millennials are not going to live up to that romanticism at all. There is a seething anger within my generation. You can take it as whining as “life is not fair” but ignoring the actual anger behind the folly could prove to be a mistake.
I don’t see Millennials living up to the G.I Generation of building infrastructure and fighting a foreign war. I wrote “The Bitch of Belsen” for a reason. I see Millennials going the extreme route that young people went in Nazi Germany. It is aligning perfectly as we speak. From the Nazi Era we have all of these accounts from those in government. However the less told story is of their Hero Generation doing the heavy lifting. Most of the guards in the concentration camps were really young. The youth of that country had no problem doing the heavy lifting of destroying Europe.
People are complaining left and right about having their rights violated. It has been happening to my age group a lot, lot longer. I remember having my online activities spied on at my school and later college. I remember metal detectors being installed in high schools and middle schools in the late 90s. I remember people going to jail for downloading music off of Kazaa and Napster. I remember locker and persons searches in high school for pot. I remember cars being searched in the parking lot of schools for pot. Parents never got into an uproar over illegal searches of their kids. In the late 90’s early 2000s there was a huge surge of don’t trust your teenagers going around.
Post 9/11 I saw too many of my age group go to war. Most of them hated Bush and Cheney for keeping us in a lose/lose situation. Yet Boomers and Seniors in huge numbers reelected Bush in 2004 (To be fair, Kerry would have been a shit choice as well). Hell, 12 years after 9/11 we are still over there. A new surge of violence in Iraq has been going on for the past year. Afghanistan now has a larger Opium trade than ever. Nothing good came of invading. Now Saddam and Bin Laden are dead, but nothing has changed.
When it comes to my comparison of Nazi Germany, we are closer to home than you may be considering. During that same Era WW1 vets were constantly shit upon. They got brought into a war that had nothing to do with them because of their elders. Once they got back they experienced first Hyperinflation in 1922-1923 followed by a great depression in 1931 which lead to the rise of Hitler. During the same time there was plenty of blame to go around for their defeats and economic woes. When the night of broken glass happened nobody batted an eye. When the Enabling Act happened there was no fury. When Jew were “relocated” nobody felt pity. There were so many conspiracy theories about who to blame, that by the time Hitler took power many had the mindset of “Not my problem, better them than me”
Now we have the 9/11 vets that went to an war that they didn’t need to fight. Economic woes are being placed on use because of Too Big To Fail backs. We are locked into 1 Trillion dollars worth of student loan debt that would have gone down with the banks that over leveraged themselves. Ar tax dollars bought GM, propped it up to where we couldn’t even buy any of those cars, the government is selling the shares at a 10 Billion dollar loss. The Democrats (off all ages, can’t only blame Obama) passed and shoved Obamacare down our throats to bailout insurance companies, seniors, and disabled people. In the process taking away from Millennials any hope of ever having any purchasing power. It is really hard to make a living and turn your situation around with only 29 hours a week.
At this point any radical could waltz into lead the Millennial Generation and they will take it if the offer is good enough. Young people during the Nazi Era made off like bandits. I saw a documentary about some of the guards at Auschwitz (Age range 20s) talking about all the benefits they got being guards and all the money they made. If that doesn’t scare the shit out of you, I don’t know what would. I could easily see Millennials blowing up the country to benefit themselves. You have way too many young people with nothing but time on their hands, zero in their bank accounts, and a lot of blame. Add into the mix 10 years worth of veterans pumped up on testosterone and adrenaline with nothing to do, no money, and guerilla warfare training tactics. Sounds like a molotov cocktail of “Fuck you” waiting to be hurled.
Calamity
There are many more millenials tweeting and twerking than are focused like you. They are more likely to follow Justin Beeber or Kim Kardashian than a radical. Only a small minority understand the message of Ron Paul and realize who the enemy is. Can the minority succeed?
Admin,
I used nihilism in the way that it means, “the belief that a society’s political and social institutions are so bad that they should be destroyed“. Nomad generations throughout history have the attitude, “Life is hard and then you die. Tough shit.” because we have grown up with systems (political and social) that have never worked for us. And that’s not going to change.
We agree that the SNAP program is a mess and needs to be reformed. I see it as a move by the government and major food companies to enslave the population, to make them dependent on the State. You’re right, though, that it takes willing subjects to be enslaved.
Thinker
Count me in as a full fledged Nihilist. I wish the fucking regeneracy would get going so we can burn this fucker down. I’m growing impatient and irritable in my old age.
AWD,
you are right that people are being coddled, overprotected etc but just like debt, the natural order of things will return. it is like debt, you buck the system and live large until the balance is due TSHTF. They will be the first to fall because they were so ill-prepared, and i say good-riddance.
regardless,
i stand by that quote, things are going to get worse, govt is going to run out of other peoples money and people will have to focus on helping themselves and immeditae family and won’t have the resources to be as charitable as the once were.
when things actually start to get bad, the people who haven’t prepared their minds, bodies, families, friends and communites are going to in trouble.
those who aren’t strong enough to live, won’t.
“Only a small minority understand the message of Ron Paul and realize who the enemy is. Can the minority succeed?”
No, it already failed. It failed in 2008 and 2012 when the GOP shamed, mocked, and excommunicated Ron Paul from the republican party. I love Ron Paul. But the only thing Millennials saw from those elections was that the establishment would not play fair. I was pissed anytime I heard old timers talk about how fucking great Mitt Romney was and how Ron Paul was a racist.
When the GOP shut out Ron Paul supporters in the primaries. Then shut out his delegates and changed rules for the Tampa Convention I knew that was the last straw of Millennials engaging in actual politics. That is largely why so fewer turned out to vote for Obama on election day.
Many are focusing on the twerking, texting, tweeting, knockout game, and all the other bullshit. I think the tipping point has already been reached with young people. The legislation of 29 hours a week is setting things in motion. Hard to pull yourself up by your boot straps when your boot straps are only and inch in length. That sealed that deal completely. There is not moving up, paying off debts, buying a house, buying a car on 29 hours a week (AT MAX). It is impossible to do so. I make at least 10 an hour, but I only work 20 hours a week. Young people on part time jobs are not going to support anything let alone themselves.
I have always loved the line in XXX “Next time you send someone to save the world, make sure they like it the way it is.” That is what I am seeing with Millennials doing the heavy lifting. We are not attached to the current state of affairs. The current state is a future of debt and despair.
calamity,
that was a very well thought out comment with a lot of great insight. no one will know what the millenials will be under pressure until that pressure arrives and right now is still only building.
i agree that there are a great deal of them who don’t care but when the stupid shit they do care about is gone, they very well could turn “radical” in a split second if a charismatic leader proclaims he will make things like they once were.
the whole issue with SNAP, EBT etc will be a lightning rod I think, people see this as a “good” thing govt does but what they do to achieve this “good” is immoral. the use of coercion and violence govt proclaims it has a monopoly on will not last in its current state, ObongoCare is speeding up the collapse, battle lines are being drawn.
Jim,
Capitalism is failing. It happened in the Thirties and it’s happening again. There is a tipping point going from democratic capitalism (which requires a more equitable distribution of income and wealth than we have) to neo-feudalism, in which there is little or no social mobility. You sit in a temple of capitalism and continue to spew reactionary “libertarian” bullshit without seeing that you are on the wrong side of history. Will you come out in favor of “free markets” and privatization of our national parks next?
Cheers.
Obi Wan
Fuck you. Capitalism isn’t failing because we haven’t had capitalism. We have a welfare/warfare state created by liberals and neo-cons cooperating.
As soon as I hear an asshole like you spewing equitable distribution bullshit, I know I’ve stepped in a load of shit dropped by a liberal socialist douchebag.
I love when assholes blame libertarianism when there has never been a libertarian in control of the White House and only one served in Congress in the last 30 years.
You idiots make me laugh.
I see the future looking more and more like this when it comes to young people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yVkPBlN5xg
“Can the minority succeed?”
They did in 1776.
I haven’t read all the comments, so I’m sure I’m just rehashing something that has already been said. Oh well.
My 2 cents….
“They saw he was a clean cut kid, didn’t weigh 300 pounds, didn’t have face tattoos or piercings, and hired him on the spot.”
This plus punctuality are generally enough to get hired on the spots these days. People will bitch that they can’t sit in the same job location and eventually work their way up the ladder. A person working a minimum wage job makes something like $13,000 a year take home.
Thats 40 hours a week. If they have an interest in climbing ladders, either monetarily or managerially, then put in some effort and actually step up the rungs yourself. All I ever hear about is people who performed adequately bitching about never getting a raise. Well no shit you aren’t getting one, you’ve given your employer precisely zero reason to think you deserve one.
Of course some companies treat their employees like shit, and are genuinely not worth hanging around. Well, then focus on resume building, get a cheap suit and start pounding pavement.
@Obi-wan – This country has been built on the back of crony capitalism for a long time. The US military has a long history of propping up mega companies. This is not capitalism, its closer to fascism than anything. They let the small fry flit around to give the illusion of capitalism, but make no mistake: there is a distinct difference between state mandated corporations and those who actually work for a living.
@Calamity – Unfortunately, I think you are correct, though I think it will be less Nazi party and more revolution than anything else.
I hate to admit that of course, I keep hoping (my god, am I an optimist?) that something will give me a reason to believe otherwise.
I have to agree with Admin. I grew up in a dirt poor family. Most of my family still lives like that. But, I took my first job at 11 for $1 / per hour – mucking stalls. I continued to work hard and always continued my education – self education and formal. I worked and paid my own way through college. After, college I had to start at the bottom again – “we don’t hire people without experience.” But, I just keep walking and improving and moving my income level up – isn’t easy. But, I figure it’s easier than living in poverty my entire life.
@Calamity – Unfortunately, I think you are correct, though I think it will be less Nazi party and more revolution than anything else.
I think it very well will be a revolution, but I don’t think it will be similar to our First American Revolution. There is still a stark contrast between 1920-1930s Germany and America now. That being the Wiemar Republic was too young. Wilhem II had only been exiled for a decade or two before the third Reich came into power. Our culture is much more steeped into a tradition of the Constitution and what the founding fathers stood for. I make the comparison of Nazi youth more akin to the young will save their own first. If death and calamity strike I doubt Millennials will focus their attention outward on a national platform. It will be internal within their own community. More of propping up themselves, their families, and anyone on the same thought process as themselves.
There is no fix people. The system will collapse and survival of the fittest will rule the day, the weak will die, the strong will survive, the law of nature as it always has been. That day cannot come fast enough for me. A world with fewer parasites has to be a good thing, agree.
Rich, same here, but hate to break it to ya’ , that was then , this is now. Try budgeting education, clothing , food, healthcare, housing, car/insurance, education and entertainment on min. wage now and see how you do?
Really, I don’t know how most kids living outside their parents homes,make ends meet.
@Administrator: “Fuck you. Capitalism isn’t failing because we haven’t had capitalism. We have a welfare/warfare state created by liberals and neo-cons cooperating.”
When I read something like this that starts with ‘Fuck you” my first thought is: “My what an intellect! I need to read on to get some pearls of wisdom.”
The real Admin of this forum should lay down some ground rules, otherwise this forum will spiral down into a cesspool of 4 letter words, and ad hominem attacks. When some people are faceless, it’s easy for them to be brave, rude, in your face. I attribute this type of behavior to people who feel they are powerless and threatened by a difference of opinion.
If you read Obi Wan’s quote: “There is a tipping point going from democratic capitalism (which requires a more equitable distribution of income and wealth than we have) to neo-feudalism, in which there is little or no social mobility.”
That’s pretty much where it’s gone. Something like 25% of the population earning less than $10 hour, less than 50% working a full 40 hours, many with two jobs. Look at the CEO’s who earn 100, 200, 300 times the average worker. Yes, yes, I know it’s a free country, and a corp can do what it damn well pleases – but it smacks of fudalism: you are but a peasant, I am a lord.
flash is right, however our society encourages a staggering amount of stupidity that makes life so much harder for millenials.
Stupidity on the part of parents, who neglected to save to help set their children up in a trade to get a start on life. Stupidity on the part of the parents, who didn’t bother to check and see if college was still worth it.
Stupidity on the part of the kids, who think that life will always be as easy as high school. Stupidity on the part of the kids, who think that the world owes them something.
The list goes on. Life is rougher now than it has been since the end of WW2, however its still miles better than pretty much any time point before that 4th turning.
Getting old ,impatient and irritable.So it is …Man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward.Job..5:7
Sorry Admin,
I must be off my meds.
Bob.
@Bostonbob: I think Jim Quinn is making a big mistake allowing you and your like to set the tone for his forum. I hope he understands he’s not in control of his own product.
I bet you were the tough guy in 8th grade. However it was pretty easy since you were 23 yrs old at the time.
TPC,
What you do not account for is human nature. Even in the poorest of counties in Africa, the
Middle East and parts of Asia, the human condition allows them to vastly over populate their countries, greatly beyond available resources. Even as their progeny starve to death they have more. Human nature is a funny thing, while controllable along certain lines, it will always do something to fuck itself up. That is not to say all humans, but there are many that cannot comprehend what it takes to make decisions that are best for their long term future. Not just the FSA here in America, but around the world in some of the most god forsaken hellholes that man has created.
Bob.
Millenials and Boomers are angry and cynical and apparently hopeless.
We sit at our computer keyboards, typing furiously and spewing forth our frustration and wrath.
Once upon a time the Boomers were in the streets creating mayhem in order to get some changes made. Now we and the Mils can’t find the energy to do anything to disrupt the status quo. If one does take action, it’s more likely to be to find a way to remove oneself from the whole stinking mess rather than make a fuss. I count myself, unfortunately, in this camp.
As long as we are not willing to put ourselves on the line in any way, why do we sit around and mope and moan? I’m about ready to go stand on a street corner with an Impeach Obama sign. At least I’d be one small voice doing SOMETHING.
There should be a Tahrir Square in every community by now.
God Bess Edward Snowden.
Actually God needs to Bless not Bess.
wage slave,
4 letter words is how we roll
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you haven’t been on this site for long so let me provide you a formal welcome
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@Bostonbob – I don’t underestimate it, the population density of India alone is reason enough for me to lose all faith in humanity, let alone all the other stupid shit that goes on mostly unnoticed.
As Calamity pointed out, I will be looking out for me and mine, if any free shitters show up to take from me I’ll have their head on a stick by the roadside.
Roughly, statistically speaking, the die is cast with people clear back to when they enter high school. Thirty-three percent,33%, of kids entering their freshman year of high school will go on to graduate, advance to a 4 year university and graduate and move on with some form of career that will land them in the upper middle class and a few will be 1%’ers. Taxpayers. The middle 33% will graduate from high school, dick around with community college maybe bail out of a four year school 2 or three years into it, get some vocational training and ultimately half of this 33% will become the middle class to lower middle class or worse. The other half will flounder around trying to make a go of it, moving back and forth between couch surfing with friend and their parents basements, until they finally give up and join the FSA. The remaining 33% will fall off the tracks along the way for a million different reasons, a good percentage will not graduate from high school, dropouts, that will at some point become wards of the state and card carrying members of the FSA, others will graduate from high school but decide college is not for them and join the work force as skilled labor in construction and other such occupations, some will work hard a do well others will just get by.
Ultimately it is just math and probability, a little more than 50% of the people entering high school can hope to be productive self sufficient people in society through a combination of hard work, intellect and desire. A little less than 50% will struggle, have to work two jobs to get by or just give up and allow the state to take care of them. They are the current 43-47% getting free shit. It wasn’t always this way but it is now and there is nothing in the future to suggest that it will get any better any time soon. In fact the statistics will continue to trend to the worse.
What are the solutions? How does society resolve the issues and circumstances that will change the statistics and provide more chance and opportunity for our youth to succeed? There is no one answer, it is a very complex problem with lots of outside forces pulling in many directions that some how need to be focused on reversing the ongoing trend. Until something is done SNAP sob stories will abound and continue to be common place.
Boston Bob, nice work against Wage Slave.
Wage Slave says:
The real Admin of this forum should lay down some ground rules, otherwise this forum will spiral down into a cesspool
Wage S- We like the cesspool just they way it is.
Mr. or Mrs. Wage Slave – You’re apparently somewhat new here and on normal boards, maybe new people get a pass. However, this is TBP and new people get exactly nothing more gentle than a swift and possibly drunken assreaming from the Big Dogs (or Old Yellers, in some cases). There are no rules here and haven’t been since TBP 1.0 all those years ago. Ad Hominem attacks and four letter words are our currency ’round these parts since dollars ain’t worth shit. Neither Admin or anyone else is all that worried about any “product”. State your case and present a cogent argument that is defensible and you may survive. Trot out any amalgam of corporate bullshit and you will probably not survive. It isn’t a rule or policy, it’s just reality here. The wild west isn’t for everybody. Have a nice day.
Wage Slave: Freedom’s a bitch. Go to some lib site & enjoy the censorship. Oops, forgot….ASSHOLE!
Correction: There is one rule. No exposed non-anime nipple pictures. That is all. Carry on.
Ecliptix543,
That was what I was trying to say. I hope we didn’t scare off another newby.
Bob.
Sensetti,
This is a cesspool? Damn I’ve got to stop gulping in the water.
Bob.
Wage Slave
I have one rule for TBP. There are no rules. I do not censor or tell people how to act. It’s called a free forum.
It isn’t a fucking product. It’s a fucking blog. No more. No less.
Don’t tell me how to run it. You can post anything you wish and I can respond any way I wish. People are then free to make up their minds.
If you have a solution to present, then present it.
I’ll then go for your jugular and reveal the weakness of your argument. If you don’t have thick skin, you’ll be scampering off this blog shortly.