re: Welfare was not meant to be a career - true story

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When a company openly tells their employees to seek government aid because they aren't going to take care of then, it's a problem.

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No, the problem is the government aid being there in the first place.

Government is totally at fault here. Social reform will never happen until these large corporations like walmart stop putting money in the pockets of the people that make our laws. People take advantage of what is available too them you don't blame the people you blame the government.

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And yet they employed more people, paid more taxes, and gave more to charity than you ever will.

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Not sure what that has to do with anything, nor do I think it absolves them of any of the bad actions they're guilty of.

Bottom line for me is Walmart, and many other large corporations, are just as guilty, if not more so, of exploiting the welfare system as welfare recipients are.

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He owes me money for my services and I work at his pleasure. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Correct.

The entirety of collectivism is victim-oppressor. That's the only way they can view the world. They simply do not understand what you posted.

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Do you think voluntary transactions are supposed to be "for the good of society?"

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he does.

and don't get me wrong, as a believer, I want all people to be charitable, great employers.

I want good things for people of all races, genders, sexualities, etc. and don't wish ill on anybody.

As much as I want that, I'm not going to get that on this side and recognize it.

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What "bad things" do they do?

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I don't want to speak for Spleen, as he's perfectly capable of explaining his position and I don't believe he's a progressive, but I did have a very candid friendly conversation with a full blown socialist progressive recently and it opened my eyes.

He had called for free healthcare, free college and maximum taxes on the wealthy... your typical fare. I asked why he said he felt he had the right to take money from others that had achieved and give it to those that haven't. In his mind it's all about equal outcomes. We as a country can do better to create equal outcomes in healthcare, wealth, education, etc. because we as a country should want to do better. And i'm not begrudging that idea. We can do better and I want better.

It's just that being better takes from somebody blindly. We don't all have equal beginnings, but Barrack Obama, Lebron James, Ben Carson, Li'l Wayne all had worse upbringings than myself and managed to do better and accomplish more than I ever will. Do those guys deserve to be demonized and have more of their money taken than me just because they made better of their opportunities?

Amazon and Wal Mart have found a way to be insanely profitable in this world and people keep working for them in less than desirable conditions. If the market really dictated that it wasn't acceptable, then they'd lose their workforce, plain and simple.

I completely get the progressive mindset and its desired outcome. I really do, but at the end of the day, it's demanding fairness and equality in a world that isn't fair or equal and never will be. I just can't advocate voting to make people pay more taxes for a system that will never ever meet it's desired outcome.

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Do you think voluntary transactions are supposed to be "for the good of society?"

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Well I think when that voluntary transaction is between an employee and an employer, if the the employer doesn't at least consider bettering society there is a problem. Do I think that should be mandated by government? In most cases, no. But I do think a lot of the progressive changes to employment law over the years have been done with the betterment of society in mind. Child labor laws, mandated breaks, employee safety, overtime pay, etc. And certainly some of these laws can become onerous and overbearing.

But that's all getting way off topic. In the discussion of welfare and the exploitation of it, I think it's completely unfair to only focus the discussion on the end users of the welfare system. I think there are a lot of players in the exploitation of the welfare system, many large employers included.

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Do you pay your yard guy a livable wage?

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I do my own yard.

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I think whatever someone's opinion on Walmart may be, they've helped far more poor people than hurt.

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Perhaps they have, but if we're going to be content with how they operate we have to accept that there is always going to be a segment of our society in need of public assistance. And we're going to have to accept that there are always going to be people and corporations that exploit the public assistance system for their own benefit.

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We had a Walmart locally until about 4 years ago when it shut down.

Most employees were Filipinos, who didn't take public assistance. They worked multiple jobs, lived communally in a house and made it work.

They did things poor Americans used to be able to do until the war on poverty created entitlement. They would often use that job experience to get work on the ferry system where they made good money and a retirement.

The issue is systematic, but it's simply how we've created a poor population that takes no responsibility for their own future.

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Your atypical experience really doesn't mean shite for American society.

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They did things poor Americans used to be able to do until the war on poverty created entitlement.

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LBJ's goal was to make a permanent underclass that would solidly vote democrat and would be completely dependent on the government for generations to come.

He was wildly successful.

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The guy who whines about not being able to afford a home trying to give advice on financial matters

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I don't whine about it, I can afford it. That has no bearing on whether theyre more or less expensive than they used to be.

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If you weren't fresh out of school you would have enough experience to understand the world wasn't always entitled.

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I'm around the same age as a lot of posters here.

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Now, immigrants are becoming more successful than our own poor.

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Because many are educated, what are you trying to argue here? The uneducated definitely are not.