I know a welfare mom who bought a Cadillac with her food stamps.

Actually, I don’t know anybody like that. But we can all tell anecdotes about various less than ideal people with any degree of wealth. And these anecdotes add up to what, precisely?

“They need to be brought back into a relationship of reciprocity with society: in exchange for what they are given, they need to be expected to repay their debts with honest work, or some other fair trade”

Precisely – when are the bankers going to do the honest work needed to get the people back their 900 billion pounds? No, we’re not taking as a fair trade used pairs of Ferragamos, or slightly dented late model BMWs.

The UK’s two bailout packages cost 900 billion pounds. And that was merely the explicit package (there were also implicit guarantees given). The entire education budget for the UK runs under 70 billion a year. That’s everything from pre-school to the universities.

So, the bailout was the equivalent of 13 years of all – every single bit – of the public education spending in the UK.

So, yes, the City got more welfare money in one year than it takes to educate the entire UK for over a decade. It really doesn’t matter how corrupt the schools are – they’re irrelevant tiny budget items compared to the bailouts.

If you were really concerned with wastes of money, welfare given to the poor is minor. The amount of welfare given to the wealthy is magnitudes higher. And there is considerable evidence that the welfare given to the wealthy harms them morally. So, if you were really concerned with large amounts of money going to immoral people, you should primarily be interested in welfare for the wealthy (very large amounts going to very few people).

The question is whether the UK has more powerful and less powerful people. You made the assertion that noting the UK has an inequality of power is some sort of anachronism.

Since, clearly, you’ve admitted that the UK does have inequality of power, the question is how that power is organized. Is there a ruling class in the UK? It doesn’t seem to me to be an illegitimate question, and not one that can be swept aside.

The United States has been a member of the OECD since 12 April 1961..

Poor people actually suffer real and serious privation, both in the United States and the UK. We don’t need deaths from starvation to prove that.

Now that the safety net has guaranteed that nobody starves to death in the United States, what more do we owe the poor, specifically?

I know too many people who aren’t working but could be – and would be, except that it really does make more sense for them to live off freebies and handouts.

Someone I know just recently got a social program to furnish his child with an expensive computer, which he returned to the store for a cash refund (he did however buy the child the cheapest computer in the store with part of the money)

I do care about the poor and I’d like to see them better off. What they need is not more justifications and fewer expectations, but fewer justifications and more expectations. They need to be brought back into a relationship of reciprocity with society: in exchange for what they are given, they need to be expected to repay their debts with honest work, or some other fair trade, instead of being expected to repay their debt to society through votes (and, in reality, through the sacrifice of their human dignity – which their “helpers” feed on to retain their own inflated sense of self esteem)

“You are defending a completely irresponsible waste of money, with all the corruption that goes along with it, and the respective destructive behaviors, with total impunity”

I’m sorry, you think I’m the one defending defending the masters of the universe? Oh, you mean welfare spending on the poor, numbers which are trivial compared to the amounts we have to spend roughly every 10 years to prop up the capital markets as they crash on a regular basis.
==========
As I said before, you are describing society in a way that is unrealistically simplistic. Society cannot be defined as two mere reductionist, binary groups, the “masters of the universe” and the “oppressed of the masters of the universe.” Society is enormously more complex, with all kinds of groups and individuals interacting in power relations.

And I am curious as to what kind of numbers you have in mind when you make your claim above?

Exactly how much has the UK spent in ten years on wasteful, corrupt welfare and horrible-quality education (you think the teachers in poor areas are right-wingers or left-wingers)?

How much money has the UK spent on propping up its capital markets in the last ten years? What should be done about capital markets?

Are you arguing that you have a right to be corrupt because money is spent on propping capital markets? Do you have a right to rape and murder too because of the way money is being spent on capital markets?

When do you believe a person is required to have moral values in life if there will always be someone who out there who is corrupt? Never? Is your aim in life to be the same as the people you criticize? As long as you pocket corrupt money it is OK, but if the rich pocket it, it is not?
Would you encourage everyone to be corrupt in society, except for the rich?

What is your solution to the little horde that smashed that Asian boy’s jaw and stole his stuff?

[Footage taken of a bleeding Ashraf (foreign student) being helped up during unrest in Barking, east London, by a group of men who proceeded to empty his rucksack has become one of the most shocking images of the unrest....
He was on his way to meet a friend for a meal to break the Ramadan fast when he was attacked by a gang of young men in Barking, East London.

With blood pouring from his mouth and holding his broken teeth in his hands, a dazed Ashraf was helped to his feet by his attackers who then open his backpack and took off with his phone and wallet.]

The men who smashed Ashraf’s face and took his phone are still poor. Their “poverty” problem has not been solved. Would you give them more welfare money now?

Would you clap if they smashed your face and took your phone to solve their “poverty” problem? Or do you only clap if it’s another boy’s face that gets smashed?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/injured-student-robbed-by-looters-pretending-to-help-awaiting-surgery-on-broken-jaw/story-e6frf7lf-1226113375010

I don’t know much about the profile of the “poor” London rioters (and as you know, several rioters that have been identified are not even “poor”). But I wonder about the claim that “there are NO jobs, that’s why they rioted.”

I think the picture is lot more complicated and complex, and not so cute.

I’m happy
I’m feeling glad
I’ve got sunshine
In a bag
I’m useless
but not for long
the future is coming on
is coming on…

“Total equality” — just what is that? Your right to sit at 10 Downing Street or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? “Total equality” only exists at the point of a gun; if human talents are allowed to flourish then there will be discrepancies in any society. You can sit in the kitchen at 10 Downing Street if your party wins a parliamentary election in Great Britain. Short of that you can ask for an invitation from David Cameron; if not you can eat in your own house or at your local Mickey D’s. But it is truly bizarre to assume that you, or me, should be able to sit in anyone’s kitchen without either earning that right or being invited. BTW, I’m hungry right now, go get me a burrito.

Are you seriously arguing that the UK has total equality between all it’s residents? Maybe you should tell that to David Cameron, because I need to use the kitchen table at 10 Downing for a few hours this afternoon. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?