In "the other thread", I set forth my proposals for reforming and improving the existing system, which we both agree is not working as well as it should, and which we both agree fosters intergenerational poverty in some cases. I invited you to respond to my proposals with proposals of your own. I have reposted my proposals above. You never responded in "the other thread". The post above merely reiterates your position that the current system is not working. Thank you, we get it. How do you propose to fix it, exactly? Do you agree or disagree with any of my proposals?
And I really do want to know the answer to this question: how do you reconcile in your mind the disconnect between (a) a real unemployment rate (when counting those who have given up looking) of at least 15% and the reality that there are 3 people looking for every 1 available job and (b) your faith-based belief that anyone who really wants a job can have one?
Against a headwind of poorly-thought out policies (ACA chief among them), the economy has continued to grow in the last several years. Our old friend math tells us that there are 15.0 million more consumers in the U.S. market then when this President took office. That's 15.0 million more people who will eat, drink, sleep, get sick, need their clothes washed, need to be entertained, etc. Simple growth at the macro level has always, always provided opportunity. We know that we have a surplus of demand in this country, b/c immigration continues to attract willing workers. I am optimistic b/c the trend lines are always headed up, if you step back far enough to see the big picture. So, yes, I'm as confident in an opportunities and incentives based system as ever. Add in the fact that technology has dropped the barriers to entry for a truly limitless number of consumers worldwide, and you have things like the 25 year old American self-made billionaire. Not everyone is going to make a billion dollars, but it's still a great time to believe alive. To a further extent, it's an even worse time to cast all hope aside and despair forlornly as though all hope is lost, and our only choice is to give up on people and write them off with a no expectations subsistence check.
The accurate way to characterize my belief (cf. the insincere attempt represented by "b)", above) is that IF you want to move up in life, you only have one reliable choice. Is it guaranteed? No, few good things in life are certain. However, if you don't even try to work, you have no one to blame but yourself, and if I were a betting man I like my chances to forecast your destination if you do. To answer your specific question, will the demand for jobs magically grow to match the level of job seekers in lock step? No, it won't. But it will continue to grow, as is evident by the fact that our population continues to swell. We basically grew the country by the size of L.A. in the last 53 months. All of them will eat, get sick, drive/ride, go to school, live in buildings (and yes, all of those buildings will need painting. And tile. And yard service. And plumbing. And siding. And electricity. And roofs. And drywall. And paved parking surfaces. Etc.) The people that choose to do that painting stand an infinitely better chance of long term success than those who looked at the short-term rewards for doing the painting, and opt out in favor of a nominally competitive decision to remain unemployed. There is no upward mobility in remaining unemployed.
How do we get people who are currently out of the loop into the production chain? Answer: The way we always have, which is by rewarding good choices and while not actively punishing bad choices, at least ceasing incentivizing them. Our system fails its victims b/c it offers them a viable choice on the sidelines. The raw volume of dependent people show that is the case, and if our system offers people an apparently semi-viable choice of opting out of the job market, some of them will take it.
Those people will never succeed, unless and until we retract that false option. We are not helping the people that take that sucker's bet.
One thing that is worth noting about your previous post, you said that you are comfortable with a certain amount of abuse of the system. I don't see the people as abusing the system, I see the system abusing the people. I hear a lot of talk about the role of job training in upward mobility within our existing system. Why aren't any of the "entitlements" tethered to this highly-thought of job training? They aren't, of course. If you do things like get a job, we cut off aid. If you make bad choices like add to the number of dependents in your household, we reward it with even more benefits. Is this the point where we wonder why these people stay poor? The system is abusing them, not the other way around. I'm not comfortable with that.
