Not surprised, can't make the lazy work when the Gov. allows them to suckle the taxpayers tit.

@KCG

From your comment I infer several things:

1) Black people are lazy and the younger they are the lazier.

2) Black people prefer welfare to work.

3) When unemployment doubles for young black people suddenly twice as many young black people become lazy and prefer welfare.

4) Welfare causes unemployment.

Are you kidding? The argument is circular and backwards. If a higher percentage of black people are on welfare, it is easily explained by the fact that a higher percentage of them are out of work. All I think that indicates is that we in the USA still have a problem with racism. If you look at international statistics you will see that those countries with low unemployment (by a long shot) are countries with significant social programs - where almost everybody "suckles the taxpayers tit" to some extent. That would imply that welfare reduces unemployment in the long run.

Clearly you are entitled to your opinion. I find it hard to stomach such an abuse of statistics, however. Like the old saying goes - if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Chris

But that's the logical consequence of the comment - irrespective of the intent.

I liked your comment much better - the one about scapegoating. Blame young black people for being unable to get a job instead of those who won't hire them (sometimes for very bad reasons). Welfare is not the problem.

And there is no way I'd rather have a handout than work.

Chris

@KCG

Point taken. I wasn't trying to imply that you are racist. I was just pointing out that the logical consequence of blaming the victims of this recession is that those most in need get most of the blame - and that does feed racist inclinations with these statistics.

Thinking about history many parallels between today and 1934-1936 can be drawn. Starting in about 1934 there was a "new conservative" movement that was in reaction to the government's recovery efforts (which, by then were working quite well). It's astonishing how similar their rhetoric was to what I hear today: "Welfare is bad", "the government needs to stop spending", "social assistance programs motivate people to not work", etc..., etc....

What happened was that these "new conservatives" gained considerable power in 1936 and the recovery stopped immediately and we slipped right back into depression - it was called the "recession within the depression". Within two years the "new conservatives" had totally discredited themselves, government programs went back into effect, and recovery started once again never looking back.

I don't like the idea of blaming those in need - I prefer the idea of helping them, even if it does raise taxes. I think history teaches that.

I apologize for any unfortunate implications I made - they were not directed at you personally, they were directed at what I perceived as an extremely unfortunate misdirection of blame.

Chris

OK, but if you also won't let the government be responsible for recovery programs then who is left to try to make things better? I was responding precisely to the blame issue. As you so aptly put - scapegoating. Even if we could apply blame appropriately (i.e. not the victims), that still won't have fixed anything.

Chris

@bwhitz

Are you implying with the IQ issue that welfare should go to intelligent people, or stupid people?

Chris

"Are you implying with the IQ issue that welfare should go to intelligent people, or stupid people?"

Well, obviously intelligent people... that's pretty easy. There are allot of poor smart people, regardless of race, gender, ect.. Don't you think they deserve more of a chance than a dumb person that won't even be capable of helping other people in the future?

It's in everyone's best interest to reward intelligence... smart people are going to be the ones to take us from a type-0 civilization, to a type-1. And then we won't have to worry about energy and resources any more... at least in theory. This transition is also the most dangerous ones a planetary-wide species can make... we need to make decisions very carefully.

This is a good watch...

I'm sorry but if you (this means anyone) don't think racism has anything to do with the numbers then that's your ignorance. CBRandin's initial post was spot on. Things have not changed. We still have more black men incarcerated at a rate six and a half times higher than white men in the good old USA. For a people who make up only 12.3% of the country's total population (down from 14.8 % in 2000) your telling me statistics still show young black unemployment at 46 percent? Out of those numbers people (like one of our posters here) can determine that represents "lazy" people "suckling taxpayer's tits?" What a "lazy" remark. That's the problem with this country. People see what they want to see and turn a blind eye to truth. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Let's look at some OTHER stats (from 2008):

GENDER

We are more women than men. (What the heck happened to all of the black men?)


MONEY

The annual median income of black households in 2008 is $34,218, a decline of 2.8 percent (in 2008 constant dollars) from 2007. It’s the lowest in the United States.


Black median family income was just over $41,000 in 2008, the lowest in the United States of any racial group. That's a dam shame. A single black woman with children earned a median annual income of $25,958. How, in an economy like we have today, can they expect people to pull through with numbers like this.

No surprise then that one out of five black families lives in poverty. More than 40 percent of black families headed by a single mom are poor.

IMMIGRANTS

Only 3 million African Americans are immigrants. Of that number, nearly two-thirds were born in Latin America, the other one-third of the immigrants were born in Africa. My family emigrated here when I was young. My parents busted their &$$ just to make ends meet.

Only 7 percent of us speak a language other than English.

MILITARY

Number of black military veterans in the United States in 2008: 2.3 million. More military veterans are black than any other minority group. And yes...I'm also a vet.

What's wrong with this picture? Some of the greatest minds in our history and in our present are/were black folks. Yet the country can't even embrace the black president they put in office. All respect went out the door once he was placed in office. I've spent a few years out in Europe some years back and couldn't believe how they thought about black people (in this country mind you) as being the same "lazy" (fill in the blank:______________) shiftless people that some here thinks. And guess what...they (Europeans) admitted that they got this impression off of....you guessed it...the media.

I'll ask again...what the hell is wrong with this picture?

US racism/slavery is alive and kicking in the 21st century. If you didn't know....you better ask somebody.

"All I can say is "Ugggh". Too Ayn Rand-ish for me. I guess compassion (which is supposed to be unconditional) has become a vice. guess if you develop Alzheimers some day we'll dump you in a wood chipper because you have nothing left to contribute."

I didn't realize we were talking about what is "nice" for everyone. I though we were having a logical, scientific, and objective discussion on what the problems of our world are, and what will be the best course of action to solve them. I haven't though once about what would happen to me if I got Alzheimer's, or what I would expect people to to for me... that would be extremely self-centered of me when we're talking about "society of a whole".

Everyone is equal. The government should give us $20 million dollars a year. Doctor's should cure every disease. ... see those SOUND good and WOULD be good. But they are not solutions, or even plausible on any level right now. We've got to look at objective facts. We need solutions that work for people regardless of their personal emotions and experiences... that is the only way we'll get to solutions that will benefit humanity as a whole in the end.

Reagan-Bush era information.

Basically, welfare (AFDC) and food-stamps at $25 billion apiece added up to $50 billion dollars out of $2.5 trillion dollars in federal and state budgets, or 2%.

Out of a ten trillion dollar economy that's roughly 1/2 of 1% of America's GDP for welfare and food-stamps.

With Clinton era economic expansion, Clinton-Gingrich welfare cuts, and now Bush Jr. of course, it is no doubt even smaller as a percentage.

@Ian_T "People see what they want to see and turn a blind eye to truth. Nothing can be further from the truth. "

Ah ha! See, even you! KCG said "lazy people". You connected your own dots and assumed he meant "lazy black people". Race has nothing to do with this!

"Things have not changed. We still have more black men incarcerated at a rate six and a half times higher than white men in the good old USA."

Again, race doesn't have anything to do with this. Any race could have been committing more crimes than another at the time these statistics were taken. At the rate things are going it'll probably be white people committing more crimes in the future, as black people seem to be more entrepreneurial, especially with entertainment industries. In 100 years, it could be all black CEO's running companies and white people being discriminated against. Or we'll all be one mixed race or something... who knows.

This is an interesting debate. I have to go out for a while now. I just mention this so that nobody will conclude anything from my absence for a few hours. I like debating.