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| Thread: No Welfare for Drug Users |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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mvassilev
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posted June 03, 2011 05:54 PM |
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Then it's no welfare anymore, but a salary. And for employees are the same rules in effect: workers have certain rights as well.
It's not a salary because they're not doing any work. And it's too bad that these days "workers' rights" means "not having freedom of contract".
As for your taxes point, those who pay taxes and those who collect welfare are different groups.
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Zenofex
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posted June 03, 2011 06:47 PM |
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Just because people pay taxes does not mean they have a right to state assistance.
Why are they paying taxes then? Certainly not all goes for police, traffic lights, bureaucracy and such. Following this logic, if the poor do not benefit from the system, they shouldn't pay taxes at all.
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. And it's too bad that these days "workers' rights" means "not having freedom of contract".
No, it's great that it's this way. Your "freedom of contract" allows employers to make hundreds of percents of profit while paying the workers the minimum necessary to sustain themselves, no matter what is the actual worth of the labour. That's what happens in my part of Europe now, that's what happened everywhere some 60-70 years back and that's what will happen again if allowed. Seriously, this libertarian nonsense belongs to XIX century. The only argument in favour of it is that it's better to work for a pathetic salary than not to work at all but sadly it has nothing to do with the real life.
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mvassilev
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posted June 03, 2011 07:13 PM |
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actual worth of the labour
How would you determine that?
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JollyJoker
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posted June 03, 2011 07:41 PM |
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If you have to do something for money you get it's called SALARY.
And, no, it's not different people who pay, it's only the time that it's different when they pay and when they recieve.
So, what's so special about drugs and welfare? If the government has the right to make drug tests on recipients of welfare, then private companies should have the same right, shouldn't they? Test their employees - after all they pay them.
But then, why stop at drugs? Shouldn't have the government the right to search the homes of people to look whether they have illegally obtained digital media?
Adn shouldn't have private companies have the same right then, especially the case-sensitive ones? Microsoft? 2oth century fox? Warner Home movies? Sony?
Nope.
Oh, and yes, they have a right to get welfare as long as there are laws that say so.
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mvassilev
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posted June 03, 2011 07:47 PM |
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If you have to do something for money you get it's called SALARY.
It's not "do something". It has to be work, because salary is payment for work. Otherwise, lottery money is also a salary, because you have to do something to get it.
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If the government has the right to make drug tests on recipients of welfare, then private companies should have the same right, shouldn't they? Test their employees - after all they pay them.
Right - if the employees agreed to it when they signed up.
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OmegaDestroyer
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posted June 03, 2011 07:51 PM |
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Again, there is no right to state assistance. You can apply for it and be granted to it, but you don't have an automatic right. Perhaps a better statement is that you may have the right to apply for benefits.
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Why are they paying taxes then? Certainly not all goes for police, traffic lights, bureaucracy and such. Following this logic, if the poor do not benefit from the system, they shouldn't pay taxes at all.
A lot of the poor do not pay any taxes. Hell, the only reason I see many of them do is to claim child exemptions. Following your logic, if they don't pay any taxes, maybe they shouldn't be entitled to any benefits?
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Zenofex
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posted June 03, 2011 08:14 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 20:18, 03 Jun 2011.
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How would you determine that?
There is no real measurement of the actual worth of the labour but it's not rocket science either. If the value of an end product consists of 50% labour done directly by the workers to whom you are paying and you are giving them only 10%, then something's not right. You can check the market price (not that it will provide an accurate estimation, but it's some base) and compare it to the total cost of production - the latter entirely consists of materialized labour and as I said part of it has been done directly by your workers. If in the end you are getting 5-10 times more than what you have paid to make the product, then someone - usually the state - clearly has to teach you some discipline and why milking the workers is not a good thing. And I'm not talking about innovations that blow the market but about everyday production.
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A lot of the poor do not pay any taxes. Hell, the only reason I see many of them do is to claim child exemptions. Following your logic, if they don't pay any taxes, maybe they shouldn't be entitled to any benefits?
Only the poorest people don't pay taxes and that's because they can't. The taxable minimum is usually set just a little above the existence minimum, except maybe if you are not French. The idea of the social benefits is to get these people up so they can start paying taxes. The execution is a completely different matter.
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Vlaad
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posted June 03, 2011 08:15 PM |
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A lot of the poor do not pay any taxes.
How many is "a lot" exactly?
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Elodin
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posted June 03, 2011 08:25 PM |
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If you have to do something for money you get it's called SALARY.
Standing in line to get "free money" is not work. Getting drug tested to see if you are eligible for "free money" is not work. Welfare is not a salary.
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So, what's so special about drugs and welfare? If the government has the right to make drug tests on recipients of welfare, then private companies should have the same right, shouldn't they? Test their employees - after all they pay them.
Many private companies DO drug test their employees. Want to work in any refinery or work for any contractor that works in a refinery? You have to be drug tested.
In fact before your application is even considered by many companies you have to pass a drug test.
Clicky
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On the other hand, most private employers have the right to test for a wide variety of substances. It is very important that before designing a drug-testing program you familiarize yourself with the various state and Federal regulations that may apply to your organization.
Federal agencies conducting drug testing must follow standardized procedures established by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing include having a Medical Review Officer (MRO) evaluate tests. They also identify the five substances (amphetamines, cannabinoids, cocaine, opiates and phencyclidine) tested for in Federal drug-testing programs and require the use of drug labs certified by SAMHSA.
While private employers are not required to follow SAMHSA's guidelines, doing so will help them stay on safe legal ground. Court decisions have supported following the guidelines and testing for only those drugs identified in them and for which laboratories are certified. As a result, many employers choose to follow them.
The current law in the private sector generally permits non-union companies to require applicants and/or employees to take drug tests. All employers should consult with legal advisors to ensure that they comply with any applicable state or local laws and design their testing programs to withstand legal challenges. In unionized workforces, the implementation of testing programs must be negotiated. Even when testing is required by Federal regulations, certain aspects of how the policy is implemented must be agreed upon through collective bargaining.
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Oh, and yes, they have a right to get welfare as long as there are laws that say so.
There is no right to mooch off the taxpayers. Actually welfare is unconstitutional. But until it is done away with the moocher should be drug tested.
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mvassilev
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posted June 03, 2011 08:28 PM |
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Zenofex:
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If the value of an end product consists of 50% labour done directly by the workers to whom you are paying and you are giving them only 10%, then something's not right.
What does this statement mean? How can the value of an end product consist of 50% labor if you're only "giving" them 10%? Clearly, they consider their labor to be worth however much they're getting paid, and the employer considers their labor to be worth however much they're getting paid. Economic value is entirely subjective. There is no objective measure of value. When we talk about value, we should be asking, value to whom? If they're willing to work for $10 an hour, but not any lower, and you're willing to pay them $10 an hour, isn't their labor worth $10? It's not related to the cost of the end product in any way.
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Elodin
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posted June 03, 2011 08:30 PM |
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A lot of the poor do not pay any taxes.
How many is "a lot" exactly?
Half of all US households pay NO federal income tax and many of those get money they did not pay in back.
Clicky
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The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.
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Shyranis
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posted June 03, 2011 09:05 PM |
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Half of all US households pay NO federal income tax and many of those get money they did not pay in back.
So tell me why again Obama/Bush passed all of those tax cuts?
Oh right, easy votes.
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Vlaad
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posted June 03, 2011 09:17 PM |
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Edited by Vlaad at 21:19, 03 Jun 2011.
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Half of all US households pay NO federal income tax and many of those get money they did not pay in back.
So OD was talking about federal income tax only? Because when he wrote "any taxes", I thought no taxes at all. The poor do pay other taxes, right?
In addition, I understand those 47% technically do pay federal income tax, but their tax credit wipes it out?
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Zenofex
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posted June 03, 2011 10:10 PM |
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What does this statement mean? How can the value of an end product consist of 50% labor if you're only "giving" them 10%? Clearly, they consider their labor to be worth however much they're getting paid, and the employer considers their labor to be worth however much they're getting paid. Economic value is entirely subjective. There is no objective measure of value. When we talk about value, we should be asking, value to whom? If they're willing to work for $10 an hour, but not any lower, and you're willing to pay them $10 an hour, isn't their labor worth $10? It's not related to the cost of the end product in any way.
Subjective?  No, it's entirely objective but there is no existing quantitative measure to express it properly - yet there are other more or less adequate means like the prime cost of the production. There is no "value to whom" when you have the price of the end products as a base which defines your standard of living. The rich and the poor both buy the same consumer goods and spend the same amount of money on equal quantities of them with the only "minor" difference being that the moment when the poor can't afford to buy any more comes much sooner than the moment when the rich is forced to stop. So if an employer is profiting excessively from an end product the prime cost of which is much lower than the the price on which he's selling it, then he's not paying his workers enough - and these workers spend their small income to buy the same product much more expensively than it actually costs, closing the circle in favour of the employer. Simple as that. Here someone has to intervene.
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mvassilev
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posted June 03, 2011 10:28 PM |
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How can it be objective? Sure, you can say that some workers are getting paid less than 50% of what the cost of the final product is, but why does that mean that the workers aren't being paid the value of their labor? "Value to whom" is the critical question, because value is not an intrinsic property, but depends entirely on subjective preferences. If an employer thinks, "I'm willing to pay these workers $10", and the employee thinks, "I'm willing to work for $10", that means that both value the labor at $10. The cost of the final product doesn't come into it anywhere.
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HodgePodge
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posted June 03, 2011 10:38 PM |
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Wow, Jolly … I actually agree with you on this issue. The US Constitution guarantees that we are NOT to be subjected to unwarranted searches & seizures. Mandatory drug testing just because a person is poor is an unwarranted search and therefore unconstitutional.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 03, 2011 11:34 PM |
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Hey, HP. Still harbouring a grudge, I see. 
Anyway, I think this is fairly obvious, and it's amazing how easily people fall for this kind of fascist populism. Them drug-loving welfare recipients. High on drugs abusing our hardly earned tax money. Tststs.
People can be so silly.
I wonder how all those druggies are supposed to finance their habit - of all things - with welfare? I mean, if they can do that - why is there so much drug-related crime?
And it's telling that no one answers to the rest: if drug tests are ok, then why isn't a house search for illegally copied digital media?
No answer is an answer as well.
Oh and Mvass, if you have to sign to get slapped when you want welfare, it's salary, not welfare, no matter what you and others here dream about or claim, because you DO work for it.
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mvassilev
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posted June 03, 2011 11:46 PM |
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I mean, if they can do that - why is there so much drug-related crime?
Because there's more to drugs than going to your local dealer and buying what you want. There's a whole industry/culture of crime around it. Not to mention various government efforts to punish drug users and dealers. Anyway, most drug-related crime is related to production or distribution, and is committed by people "on the inside", not the final customer. (Though of course desperate customers may turn to theft, it wouldn't explain any of the murders.)
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if drug tests are ok, then why isn't a house search for illegally copied digital media?
If you agree to it, it's okay.
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if you have to sign to get slapped when you want welfare, it's salary, not welfare, no matter what you and others here dream about or claim, because you DO work for it.
Depends on how you define "work". You can get paid for being a research subject for some study, but I wouldn't consider that work. A transfer of money being conditional does not make it salary.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 04, 2011 12:00 AM |
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I mean, if they can do that - why is there so much drug-related crime?
Because there's more to drugs than going to your local dealer and buying what you want. There's a whole industry/culture of crime around it. Not to mention various government efforts to punish drug users and dealers. Anyway, most drug-related crime is related to production or distribution, and is committed by people "on the inside", not the final customer. (Though of course desperate customers may turn to theft, it wouldn't explain any of the murders.)
Umm, no. Drug related crime is prostitution, theft robbery and so on with the aim to make money for drugs.
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f drug tests are ok, then why isn't a house search for illegally copied digital media?
If you agree to it, it's okay.
But no one agrees to anything.
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if you have to sign to get slapped when you want welfare, it's salary, not welfare, no matter what you and others here dream about or claim, because you DO work for it.
Depends on how you define "work". You can get paid for being a research subject for some study, but I wouldn't consider that work. A transfer of money being conditional does not make it salary.
Sure. Salary. Fee. Remuneration. Whatever. No welfare.
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mvassilev
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posted June 04, 2011 12:15 AM |
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But no one agrees to anything.
If you don't agree to it, it's not okay. But the welfare users must accept (agree to) the terms under which they are receiving welfare, so it's not analogous.
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