On 17 August 2012 19:52, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
That seems a good summary, welfare helps the economy and has been proven to do so for 170 years. The libertarian thing is like a cult, it's clearly not working well for the US, apart from the 1%.
The cost of adfministering welfare, as well as the inevitable mistakes made by a centrally planned system, require that the welfare state takes more wealth than it gives. I don't know why you bring up Germany. They seem to have had a few troubles over the past 170 years. You could instead look at Sweden and how detrimental it has been for them to move to a welfare state http://mises.org/daily/2259 .
In a welfare state, wealth is redistributed. This is only possible if more money is put in than is taken out. More must be put in than is taken out, rather than an equivalent amount, because the welfare state is intrinsically inefficient; so it must take from us more than it gives to us. In order to survive, the welfare state must ensure that it can continue to operate in this way.
Actually it's efficient to provide some security for the citizens. That encourages people to take financial risks instead of focussing on health care as they do in the US.
But in the USA there is generally a greater degree of entrepreneurship and financial risk taking than in Australia. That is despite the USA's inefficient socialist health system.
Individual refugees aren't necessarily going to be net takers from the welfare state, but, in general, any population increase is going to increase the burden on the welfare state.
Actually you want the population to remain about the same so that there are young people to take care of you when you are old. The Chinese one child policy is putting the future of old people at risk, as would the Australian birth rate if we didn't have immigration. I've already provided this data, you really should read previous messages before replying.
Why should any particular degree of population growth be wanted? Allow the population to grow as it will and allow the population to take care of itself as it will.
The more people taking from the welfare state, the more the welfare state must take from everyone else. And if it isn't overtly taking money in greater taxes it must exert greater control over people's activities to ensure that what is extracted from the welfare state is less than what is contributed to it .
You might want to compare "corporate welfare" with welfare paid to people.
Corporate welfare is obviously just as bad as any other form of welfare.
So if we want to address the root cause of immigration control,let's advocate that the welfare state be wound back.
You clearly don't understand the issues. If someone is at risk of being killed in their home country then the amount of welfare paid somewhere else isn't going to stop them from leaving.
Eliminating the welfare state isn't a means of deterring immigration, its actually a means of allowing for an increased capacity to absorb immigration.
Rejecting evidence isn't really surprising given their connection with the nutty libertarians.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.