Owsley County, Kentucky - Poorest county in the US

Yes, Fluffy. I did teach university level economics. Read the thread that Cap'n NotBright keeps linking to. I'm not sure you will be able to notice how imbecilic his arguments were, and are, but read it anyway and decide for yourself. But I did, in fact, teach university level economics. Cap'n NotBright likes to think that since I did not address his ridiculous "marginal propensity to consume" argument, that I did not know what it was. However, at that point in the "discussion" he was ranting like a lunatic, and I was trying to engage him on a higher level. I did not know at the time that he had no higher level to which to go.

But I did teach university level economics. And I be pleased to have an intelligent conversation about the FairTax. Unfortunately, that leaves out Cap'n NotBright and quite a few others here.

Still, his idea earlier is a good one.

To think or to even believe that government and social engineering can fix a problem like what is depicted is insanity revealed. Originally Posted by The2Dogs

Ma nature usually has the best answers, kick ass storms or a good plague, but its still worth trying, no?

Interesting...'to think or even believe'..doesn't work. I'm not a dipshit pick on anyone over grammar, I know what you meant, but I had to pause a moment there.

Ma nature usually has the best answers, kick ass storms or a good plague, but its still worth trying, no?

Interesting...'to think or even believe'..doesn't work. I'm not a dipshit pick on anyone over grammar, I know what you meant, but I had to pause a moment there. Originally Posted by JohnnyCap

Did you get collected in your "moment"?

Yes, Fluffy. I did teach university level economics. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Number one: Graduate assistants at Fuck U don't count
Number two: BULLSHIT
Number three: LIAR. maybe that's why you're unemployed now, glory holist,

Excuse me, but aren't you the pathetic little fraud who got caught lying about having taught university-level economics?
Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

But I did teach university level economics. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Hanoi COG, you might as well be making a claim that you "taught university-level" Nuclear Physics. By bragging that you were a university professor, you were the one who started this debate!

Without providing actual proof, your above quote is nothing but words. No one really cares if you taught "university-level economics." In your 20,000 Eccie posts the only thing you have proven thus far is how to start a Dipshit Poll and almost have it backfire on you!

To settle the dispute all you have to do is provide the actual proof that you were a "university-level economics" Professor. In simpler terms, prove the Captain wrong, or STFU!

Like the addict you can try all you want but until the addict decides they want to change, all the money in the world will not stop them from using. As the OP stated, as soon as they can they get themselves out of there. The desire to change your life is what pulls people out of poverty and not government throwing borrowed dollars at it. Economic opportunity and the desire to achieve will help those that want the help.

A devastating article about welfare dependency and the limits of government.

And, the fact that Owsley is 98.5% white should prevent BJerk and other knee-jerk progressives from hurling accusation of racism.

Key quotes:
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"Like its black urban counterparts, the Big White Ghetto suffers from a whole trainload of social problems, but the most significant among them may be adverse selection: Those who have the required work skills, the academic ability, or the simple desperate native enterprising grit to do so get the hell out as fast as they can, and they have been doing that for decades. As they go, businesses disappear, institutions fall into decline, social networks erode, and there is little or nothing left over for those who remain. It’s a classic economic death spiral: The quality of the available jobs is not enough to keep good workers, and the quality of the available workers is not enough to attract good jobs. These little towns located at remote wide spots in helical mountain roads are hard enough to get to if you have a good reason to be here. If you don’t have a good reason, you aren’t going to think of one.".
. ..
"Well, you try paying that much for a case of pop,” says the irritated proprietor of a nearby café, who is curt with whoever is on the other end of the telephone but greets customers with the perfect manners that small-town restaurateurs reliably develop. I don’t think much of that overheard remark at the time, but it turns out that the local economy runs on black-market soda the way Baghdad ran on contraband crude during the days of sanctions.
It works like this: Once a month, the debit-card accounts of those receiving what we still call food stamps are credited with a few hundred dollars — about $500 for a family of four, on average — which are immediately converted into a unit of exchange, in this case cases of soda. On the day when accounts are credited, local establishments accepting EBT cards — and all across the Big White Ghetto, “We Accept Food Stamps” is the new E pluribus unum – are swamped with locals using their public benefits to buy cases and cases — reports put the number at 30 to 40 cases for some buyers — of soda. Those cases of soda then either go on to another retailer, who buys them at 50 cents on the dollar, in effect laundering those $500 in monthly benefits into $250 in cash — a considerably worse rate than your typical organized-crime money launderer offers — or else they go into the local black-market economy, where they can be used as currency in such ventures as the dealing of unauthorized prescription painkillers — by “pillbillies,” as they are known at the sympathetic establishments in Florida that do so much business with Kentucky and West Virginia that the relevant interstate bus service is nicknamed the “OxyContin Express.” A woman who is intimately familiar with the local drug economy suggests that the exchange rate between sexual favors and cases of pop — some dealers will accept either — is about 1:1, meaning that the value of a woman in the local prescription-drug economy is about $12.99 at Walmart prices.

. . .

“The draw,” the monthly welfare checks that supplement dependents’ earnings in the black-market Pepsi economy, is poison. It’s a potent enough poison to catch the attention even of such people as those who write for the New York Times. Nicholas Kristof, visiting nearby Jackson, Ky., last year, was shocked by parents who were taking their children out of literacy classes because the possibility of improved academic performance would threaten $700-a-month Social Security disability benefits, which increasingly are paid out for nebulous afflictions such as loosely defined learning disorders. “This is painful for a liberal to admit,” Kristof wrote, “but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency.”
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This has got to be one of the saddest reads ever. The part about parents pulling their kids out of literacy classes to maintain welfare payments is too depressing for words. Originally Posted by ExNYer

White people getting high on Oxy, like good ole Rush, doesn't surprise me. However, we need to impoverish an entire city of 100's of thousands, if not millions of white folks for several generations, actively discriminate against them, experiment with syphilis, lynch some of them, and expect humiliating and obsequious behavior, then I might not hurl accusations of racism.

12.99 for a hooker? - I'll bet she ain't very pretty!

Nope. Not a graduate assistant. And I don't need to prove anything about my personal life here. And I am quite well employed. Sorry to disappoint you haters, but I have a full, prosperous happy life.

However, we need to impoverish an entire city of 100's of thousands, if not millions of white folks for several generations, actively discriminate against them, experiment with syphilis, lynch some of them, and expect humiliating and obsequious behavior, then I might not hurl accusations of racism. Originally Posted by BJerk

That would be a fantasy fulfilled for you, wouldn't it, BJerk?

While we're at it, why don't we just get Treasury (abetted by the Fed, as usual) to print up a few trillion more dollars and send shitloads of cash to every black household in the U.S.?

I mean, paying reparations to anyone who even might be a descendent of slaves would be the right thing to do.

Right?

Yes, Fluffy. I did teach university level economics. Read the thread that Cap'n NotBright keeps linking to. I'm not sure you will be able to notice how imbecilic his arguments were, and are, but read it anyway and decide for yourself. But I did, in fact, teach university level economics. Cap'n NotBright likes to think that since I did not address his ridiculous "marginal propensity to consume" argument, that I did not know what it was. However, at that point in the "discussion" he was ranting like a lunatic, and I was trying to engage him on a higher level. I did not know at the time that he had no higher level to which to go. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Oh, really?

Then why did you repeatedly claim that the "FairTax" is progressive? That statement alone demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have absolutely no understanding of MPC, a concept taught to every first-year econ student. (The FairTax is obviously a very regressive tax, and the level of regressivity increases rapidly as household income approaches the right tail of the distribution. Got it now, "ex-professor?") You were also completely unfamiliar with the term "tax incidence," which you demonstrated amply when you mockingly and sarcastically suggested that I had meant to type tax "incidents." (Even though that wouldn't have made any sense within the context of the dialogue.) And by the way, you were the one who was busily "ranting." Who started all the insults and name-calling? Have you already forgotten?

And I be pleased [huh?] to have an intelligent conversation about the FairTax. Unfortunately, that leaves out Cap'n NotBright and quite a few others here. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

You sought an intelligent discussion of the FairTax?

Oh, sure! You had an opportunity to do that in the long FairTax thread, but simply whiffed and chose to hurl insults instead. You didn't demonstrate that you had ever made even the most rudimentary effort to learn anything at all about taxation.

If you've ever even so much as set foot in a university economics classroom, you slept through the lectures without learning much of anything.

Bottom line: You're a liar and a fraud. There's absolutely no way in hell that you ever taught university-level economics, and everyone who read that thread knows it.

But I'll give you one thing: You're quite a "dipshit poll artist!"

You even managed to get that idiocy "stickied."

(Everyone's good at something, I suppose!)

I think the theory behind Cap'tM's idea is good but in reality won't help. Nuclear power away from major cities, fine, though I'd argue pound for pound the folks on Wall St and Madison Ave deserve to be melted more than any others nationwide. Nevertheless the new industry would bring in folks to work more than hire the folks there, who even if they did get jobs would probably push brooms and not last long at it. I'm not thinking the area is not set up to handle the extra folks, which would bring jobs too, but there must be more deserving areas. Originally Posted by JohnnyCap

If you're viewing this strictly through the lens of evaluating its potential efficacy as a "jobs program," then I'm largely in agreement with you.

But I see this as something that would be an unambiguously good thing, irrespective of whether it offers substantial benefits to the population of the subject area. I view that as merely a bonus. And perhaps it should additionally be noted that property tax revenue would be like a "gift that keeps on giving" to that impoverished area. Consider the case of Somervell County, Texas, where the Comanche Peak plant was built 20-25 years ago. Prior to that, Somervell was one of the poorer counties in Texas. But as greatly increased tax revenue flowed to the county, very poor quality county roads quickly became much better, and local residents claimed that the school system quickly improved.

It seems to me that it makes sense to locate nuclear power plants as far from densely populated areas as possible. Eastern Kentucky is about 300 miles from Washington, D.C., and about 500-600 miles from the population centers of New York City and Philadelphia. Although that sounds like a long distance over which to transmit power, it's not all that much further than the distances between the wind farms of West Texas and the state's biggest load centers. An electrical engineer friend tells me this would be easily doable with ultra-high voltage DC transmission lines.

The only nuclear power plant in California, as far as I know, is in the coastal region just north of Santa Barbara, and it's an early-generation plant. Why was such a plant built in a high-risk earthquake zone, and not that far from major population centers? Wouldn't it make far better sense to place safer, new generation plants in the lightly populated desert areas of Arizona and Nevada, or even eastern California? So much of what we've done over the past four decades was very poorly thought out.

Although this discussion is getting a little far afield from the subject of this thread, it's simply my belief that we need to start getting serious about multi-faceted, long-term solutions to energy security -- not just oil & gas, but electrical as well. And if it otherwise makes sense for some of the resultant economic activity to take place in areas that have been plagued by dwindling employment opportunities, I see that as a nice bonus.

White people getting high on Oxy, like good ole Rush, doesn't surprise me. However, we need to impoverish an entire city of 100's of thousands, if not millions of white folks for several generations, actively discriminate against them, experiment with syphilis, lynch some of them, and expect humiliating and obsequious behavior, then I might not hurl accusations of racism. Originally Posted by BJerk

Once again, you miss the point ENTIRELY.

My purpose was to point out the limits to welfare and government action. At some point, you simply create dependence in people who could otherwise work, even if it is for low wages.

Typically, that type of argument is met with accusations of racism by progressives. They typically assert that arguments about the futility of many welfare programs as being "code words" that cover for racist intent.

Which is why I chose this article about Owsley County, which is over 98% white.

But, apparently, that wasn't enough to dissuade you from bring up the same old tired arguments.

Yes, Fluffy. I did teach university level economics. Read the thread that Cap'n NotBright keeps linking to. I'm not sure you will be able to notice how imbecilic his arguments were, and are, but read it anyway and decide for yourself. But I did, in fact, teach university level economics. Cap'n NotBright likes to think that since I did not address his ridiculous "marginal propensity to consume" argument, that I did not know what it was. However, at that point in the "discussion" he was ranting like a lunatic, and I was trying to engage him on a higher level. I did not know at the time that he had no higher level to which to go.

But I did teach university level economics. And I be pleased to have an intelligent conversation about the FairTax. Unfortunately, that leaves out Cap'n NotBright and quite a few others here.

Still, his idea earlier is a good one. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

I believe you!

I believe you! Originally Posted by Jewish Lawyer

Good Lord. Please tell us you're kidding. You can't seriously believe that this boorish buffoon ever even took a university-level economics class, let alone taught one!

Once again, you miss the point ENTIRELY.

My purpose was to point out the limits to welfare and government action. At some point, you simply create dependence in people who could otherwise work, even if it is for low wages.

Typically, that type of argument is met with accusations of racism by progressives. They typically assert that arguments about the futility of many welfare programs as being "code words" that cover for racist intent.

Which is why I chose this article about Owsley County, which is over 98% white.

But, apparently, that wasn't enough to dissuade you from bring up the same old tired arguments. Originally Posted by ExNYer

Most of us fantasize about hot women.

BJerk fantasizes about white people dying off en masse -- or at the very least being harshly oppressed.