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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (52216)	8/19/1999 8:58:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

The story of the ant and the grasshopper comes to mind. I'm sure you are familiar with it. Only the latter half of the 20th Century the federal government (through empty promises and bald-faced lies) has instituted a so-called safety net that allows the grasshopper to play all summer while the ant industriously toils, and then when winter comes, unlike the fable, the government steps in, robs the ant of some of his labor and rewards the grasshopper with it. Ants throughout the ages have found that it's cheaper to fling the occasional crumb to the grasshoppers than to suppress them when the get hungry and make a ruckus. Not to mention that they derive substantial benefit from having the grasshoppers there at the cheap end of the labor pool. I would agree with you that it has gotten out of hand, but the basic principle of safety nets remains valid. It's nothing new either: remember "bread and circuses"? Cheaper to feed them than to fight them, then and now.

To: Father Terrence who wrote (52216)	8/19/1999 10:58:00 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Oh you poor poor productive creature. And you produce such wonderful stuff here. I sure wish you were around here so I could shovel some of your produce on my garden. Amazingly enough, before safety nets, children did starve, and go barefoot, and people were in terrible poverty. I really think you have no idea. You did not answer me about your "relatives" socioeconomic status. Do you know any poor people? Any people who have been REALLY REALLLY poor? Because I do. And they are not all grasshoppers. My mother grew up in a slum in Chicago. Her father was a drunk. He abandoned the family. When my mother was 7 her little brother died of scarlet fever- they had no money to get a doctor, and no heat. My grandmother took dangerous factory jobs for extremely low wages. She was in the first sit down strike in Chicago for better pay or working conditions- maybe both. She lost her little finger in a machine at that time- but continued working anyway. My mother stayed by herself- doing housework and cooking meals after school. My grandmother was too proud to beg when she was in between jobs so they went hungry instead of relying on charity. I don't think it did anyone any good that my mother was poorly nourished and sick her whole childhood- when with proper food and clothes she could have been healthy. I don't spite any poor person food even if they are a grasshopper. I think maybe there should be some limitations on grasshoppers reproducing if they want subsidies- but I do not think the sins of the father (or mother) should be visited on the child. My paternal grandparents were quite wealthy during the depression. They did not suffer at all. But they were not immigrants, like my German grandmother. They probably felt the same way you do about grasshoppers and ants. Ants can be very smug about grasshoppers - and it is especially easy to be smug when one doesn't even know any grasshoppers, or even any poor ants.

To: Father Terrence who wrote (52216)	8/20/1999 4:59:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

Terrence, I was there before Social Security. My father, an assistant professor at Ga Tech was paid no salary for months because the state was broke. He lost his savings in a failed bank. His department head, a bachelor with some savings that had not been lost in broken banks, provided food. I remember little kids running in our house and stealing food. I remember his former students begging food. My aunt and her unemployed engineering graduate husband had to give up her child for adoption. Our janitor gave Minnie Jackson, a 14 year old girl to my parents so she could have a place to sleep and promised she wouldn't eat anything but leftovers (there was not free food in those days). She lived with us and worked for keep for several years. Old people who lost their homes moved in with their children. The multigeneration family was unpleasant for many of them. My WWI disabled great uncle lived in our basement -- he was lucky -- he had a small pension. People worked until they were fired. Very few companies had a private pension plan. There were no public pensions. A few states had old-age relief but most of these were cut or dropped in the 1930's. At the peak of the depression 80 per cent of mortgaged houses were in default. 33 per cent of the labor force was unemployed. Wages were cut sharply for almost everyone. What is most interesting to me about Social Security is that its growth was accompanied by the growth of life insurance and private (especially collectively bargained pensions and group insurance. In short provision of basic of right retirement system appears to have stimulated supplemental private and collective provision.