Welfare

Democrats Maintain Prison of Poverty in U.S. Cities

Tickler Leave a comment

Looking for still more proof that Democrat social and fiscal strategies (hehehe) fail? Please take a few minutes to read Glenn Beck’s excellent article on the poorest U.S. cities and their governments. Yep, you guessed it…

Five of the 10 cities with the highest poverty rates (Detroit, Buffalo, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Newark) have had a Democratic stranglehold since at least 1961: more than 45 years. Two of the cities (Milwaukee and Newark) have been electing Democrats since the first Model T rolled off the assembly line in 1908.

Two cities, 100 years, all Democrats.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, the asylums in those cities must be as full as the soup kitchens.

READ MORE

It would be nice to have a research staff to collect all of this kind of info for my humble publication, but I’m a staff of 0.05. I guess I’m just glad someone’s got the resources and time to call out the island of misfit toys we know as liberals.

Who Really Cares, Right vs. Left in Charity & Service…

Tickler Leave a comment

In “Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide – Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters”, Arthur C. Brooks uses hard data to prove that, when it comes to charitable giving, conservatives – especially religious conservatives – are far more generous than liberals, who seem to believe that “compassion” begins and ends with voting for government handouts.

  • Conservative households in America donate 30% more money to charity each year than liberal households, even in spite of lower average incomes
  • Conservatives are also more generous in other ways, such as blood donations, and volunteer work. In fact, if liberals gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would jump by about 45%
  • People who mistrust big government give more than those who rely on the government to take care of the poor. This includes giving and volunteering even to traditionally “progressive causes” such as the arts and the environment
  • Conservative “red” states give away far more of their incomes than liberal “blue” states do
  • Religious people give away four times more money each year than secularists. This is not just because of giving to churches – religious people are 10 percent more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities
  • Religious people are far more generous than secularists with their time. For instance, a religious person is 57% more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person
  • Religious people are also more generous in informal ways, such as giving money to family members, and behaving honestly
  • A working poor family without welfare support gives, on average, more than three times as much money to charity each year as a family with the same total income that receives welfare support. In other words, poverty does not discourage charity in America — but welfare does
  • People raised in intact and religious families are more charitable than those who are not. For instance, married parents are 9 percentage points more likely to give money than divorced parents, and 29 points more likely than never-married parents
  • Charitable giving spurs the economy: at the national level, a $1 increase in giving per person stimulates a $19 increase in GDP per capita
  • Americans give far more money and are far more likely to volunteer their time than citizens of any European country. For example, the average American family gives three and a half times as much as a French family, seven times as much as a German family, and 14 times as much as an Italian family
  • Charitable giving and volunteering improve physical health and happiness, and lead to better citizenship — whereheas many government policies that discourage private charitable behavior have negative effects

While Politicklish.com takes no money from sales or interest in this book, and is certainly not trying to sling the book for the author (who we don’t know from anyone), we’re always in favor of exposing data to the public, and this book’s full of data. Read for yourself if you like.

Andrew Carnegie on Poverty

Tickler Leave a comment

I recently read “The Gospel of Wealth”, and essay by Andrew Carnegie, and many quotes from it continue to resonate in my mind, to the point where I feel compelled to post some here.

In just the introduction there are so many gems of wisdom that if a person just read that, it would necessarily change forever the way they see their lot in life. Each time I begin to complain about my situation think of this quote from the essay…

But I never told them at home that I was having a hard tussle. No, no! everything must be bright to them. This was a point of honor, for every member of the family was working hard …and we were telling each other only all the bright things. Besides this, no man would whine and give up — he would die first.

And each time I hear about yet another social program designed to take self-sufficiency away from society, I think of this next quote about poverty itself and the blessing it can be in crafting a grateful heart and determined and self-sufficient disposition…

You know how people moan about poverty as being a great evil, and it seems to be accepted that if people had only plenty of money and were rich, they would be happy and more useful, and get more out of life.

As a rule, there is more genuine satisfaction, a truer life, and more obtained from life in the humble cottages of the poor than in the palaces of the rich! I always pity the sons and daughters of rich men, who are attended by servants, and have governesses at a later age, but am glad to remember that they do not know what they have missed.

They have kind fathers and mothers, too, and think that they enjoy the sweetness of these blessings to the fullest: but this they cannot do ; for the poor boy who has in his father his constant companion, tutor, and model, and in his mother— holy name!— his nurse, teacher, guardian angel, saint, all in one, has a richer, more precious fortune in life than any rich man’s son who is not so favored can possibly know, and compared with which all other fortunes count for little.

It is because I know how sweet and happy and pure the home of honest poverty is, how free from perplexing care, from social envies and emulations, how loving and how united its members may be in the common interest of supporting the family, that I sympathize with the rich man’s boy and congratulate the poor man’s boy; and it is for these reasons that from the ranks of the poor so many strong, eminent, self-reliant men have always sprang and always must spring.

If you will read the list of the immortals who “were not born to die,” you will find that most of them have been born to the precious heritage of poverty.

It seems, nowadays, a matter of universal desire that poverty should be abolished. We should be quite willing to abolish luxury, but to abolish honest, industrious, self-denying poverty would be to destroy the soil upon which mankind produces the virtues which enable our race to reach a still higher civilization than it now possesses.

I have been to the squalor of the cottage of his birthplace (in Dunfermline, Scotland) and to his beautiful grave in Sleepy Hollow, NY, millions of dollars and many years later, and can tell you this man’s accomplishments and wisdom are to be listened to and considered. If only all people were as honest with themselves as this man was, self-sufficiency and accountability would be the norm and society would be much farther along.

Katrina vs Iowa: Strong Contrast

Tickler 1 Comment

There’s an interesting email going around lately. I don’t know the origin, but the message is spot on and should be considered by all.

  • As you watch the coverage of the flooding in the Midwest, take notice of the following…
  • There are no farmers running around with stolen high-end tennis shoes and big screen plasma TVs or wading through water holding stolen liquor over their heads. Have there been reports of looting at all?
  • They’re not yelling “Where’s Bush?”, “Where’s FEMA?,  Where’s my check?”, or  “Why isn’t the government out here saving me and my farm?”
  • Likewise, I’ve also noticed there are no reports of any other country coming to help or sending aid.
  • Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods?
  • Where is all the media asking the “tough questions” about why the federal government hasn’t solved the problem, and asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are?
  • Why isn’t the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago?
  • When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines?
  • Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?
  • When will we hear Iowa Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a “vanilla” Iowa, because that’s the way God wants it?
  • Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of cannibalism?
  • Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural people?
  • How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again?

It’s hard to look the facts in the face for some, but the facts are the facts and nothing changes until people face them. And it goes to show how helpless people get when they aren’t expected to be self-sufficient.

Keeping The Down Down: “Charities” Try To Corner The Market on The Meek

Tickler Leave a comment

There’s an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (online.wsj.com) on the recent development of microloans and other economic stimulus to poor countries, in this case Mexico, which has caused some outcry among non-profits and so called “social innovators”. The apparently self-interested non-profits are claiming that these microlenders are earning too much profit providing loans to micro-entrepeneurs.

In his “reflections” on “microfinance interest rates and profits,” Mr. Rosenberg writes that “overcharg[ing]” clients under a nonprofit model is OK because it is done for the sake of future borrowers. But when profits go to providers of capital through dividends, then there is a “conflict between the welfare of clients and the welfare of investors.” It’s not the commercialization of the lending, we’re told, but the “size” of the profits that must be scrutinized.

What seems to elude Mr. Rosenberg is the fact that there is no way for him to know whether there is “overcharg[ing]” or by how much. That information can be delivered only by the market, when innovative new entrants see they can provide services at a better price. This has been happening since for-profit microfinance began to emerge, and the result has been greater competition. Rates have been coming down even as the demand for and availability of services have gone up.

Now, no one wants lenders to take advantage, and I don’t believe they are, but from where I sit a little capitalism is just what is needed in these areas and as more lending takes place, and more businesses rise, the miracle of the free market will level and lower any issues there might be, while the tide lifts all dinghies in this case. In the mean time, money is being pumped into places that desperately need it and into pockets that never would have access otherwise. Read the article and decide for yourself. Being a microlender myself, I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen.