I read last week that the taxpayers transfer ~$60,000 per year per person in services and direct payments to the "47%".  The recipient class has enough sympathizers in the productive class to carry any future election.  The tipping point has been passed.  Doubt we'll ever reverse it, in my lifetime anyway.  The irony is that it's the producers who the sycophants call 'greedy'.

We are now officially on the path to becoming Mexico, if not Greece.  At least I lived to see the USA's greatest years and, if I'm lucky, won't have to witness the impact of our inevitable decline on my grand children's generation.  I expect I'll be 'placed on the pathway' before that, should I survive too long.

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BINGO on the Santa Claus politics. 

Not surprising. 

Many retire on investments and because of Obama's Santa Claus policies, the market is unstable, his FED printing and devaluing dollars, their living expenses go up, all the while their investments are going down. 

Exit polling data suggests break down of the family favor rise of Liberal (Santa Claus) politics....

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/exit-polling-data-suggests-breakdown-of-the-family-favors-the-rise-of-liber?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2527a7ba25-Life

The fix is building good, solid, strong, united families. 

Yep, democrats have locked in the 13% of welfare recipients by trapping them there, and mouthing off to them about being poor and requiring "presents" to simply survive is, comically, what ensures Republicans will always lose.

What is funny is that it would be quite easy to convert this segment sensibly.

Problem
Recipients are trapped there because there is no incentive to work. Get a full time joe job and live the same lifestyle? You are on crack if you think that will ever happen. (this is by policy design to lock that vote down)

The solution is actually quite easy, but it offends Republican sensibilities which is why they don't do it.

1) Talk to someone on welfare: Welfare recipients "hate" the administration that gives them their "presents".

Send a message to recipients that the administration of welfare (which actually has a high cost) will be curtailed, and recipients won't be hassled anymore. Win votes. Less government!

2) Pro-rate income vs benefits instead of hard capping it, so there is some balance between work and "present" distribution that puts a recipient ahead working, instead of not being productive.

For all the talk and policy of Laffer curve theory, it's comical that Republicans can't apply this to the poor. A person working part-time on partial welfare produces more. At worst, simply keeping the same cost of program administration intact while incentivizing a portion of recipients to work part-time to increase their lifestyle IS infinitely better for everyone. But this is blasphemous to Republican sensibilities, who instead create policies to "force" people, who have legitimate claims, off of welfare to control costs. Is it any wonder why this segment will NEVER vote Republican? Being trapped by the system and being non-productive will always trump the alternative Republican "get a crap job and live in poverty anyways, chump" outlook when you consider why these people are in that situation in the 1st place.

 

Two years ago I flew out to Idaho to rescue my Daughter and her two children from the benign governmental lockdown on her life. She had been a drug addict, went to prison, served her time and completed her probation … then the trouble really started. She was on complete governmental support including her medical care. The state put her on drugs that did little more than keep her dysfunctional enough not to be able to hold a job even at Subway just making sandwiches. Part of the release deal was that she had to participate in ‘religious’ counseling (I think because she picked up ‘religion’ in jail?). Well she lived quite well indeed if not always aware of it. And the church gave her more Christmas (etc.) gifts than I ever gave my own children. The life of Riley free and clear.

She has been here in Florida with me and she is doing quite well now. We got her off the ‘legal’ drugs and well this is the point I guess. In a year and a half she is almost off of ‘State presents’. She called me this morning and told me that she had just been given a store to manage … a Subway Store. Even as a manager, she just makes enough to cancel most of her governmental support and that road was not fun. She always lost more support than increases from her salary so she had to regress through the whole process and I am proud of her. She no longer belongs to a church either so we make up for that as necessary. It is easy to get and very difficult to get rid of because there is nothing but negative incentives offered.

PS - I agree with you

While our system should find ways to avoid incentivizing people to favor welfare over work, it shouldn't penalize those on welfare who make the effort to work and contribute to society.  That kind of reform has to be encouraged.  I'd even be willing for welfare support to increase a bit when someone gets a job, up to the point that employment suffices, because society easily gets the difference back, directly or indirectly.  Lots of room to argue about what 'suffices' means, but conceptually it makes more sense than requiring people to take 2 steps back to make 1 step forward,

Interesting, there are also statistics that show people with the highest IQ's are or have been universally more socialist than others. Ironically, they are also virtually always vegetarians as well. So what does all of that mean? Seniors are usually senile racists that have too much money and too little common sense.

This country has been a cesspool since it's inception, a bastion of racism, sexism, and homophobia that is absolutely shameful. Just a couple decades ago you had to use a different bathroom if you were black - let's not forget that. Our shameful history starts with the virtual genocide of the entire native population for manifest destiny. There is no shortage of anything, the real problem is that a very very tiny minority of the population hordes vast amounts of resources in this country and frankly - its disgusting. I can tell you with some assurance that it is coming to an end, this will not go on much longer.

Look at a country like Brunei, a virtual paradise compared to the USA. One of the lowest crime rates in the world. Lower infant mortality, equal lifespans, and darn near higher literacy rate. Guess what? They have free education, free health care, free housing, and food supplements for - the entire population. Yes even the 'wealthy' there get subsidized. As a result everyone feels 'equal' in treatment, which that in itself is amazing for making people feel useful in society. The way this is accomplished is there is a system of national wealth and resource sharing. Oil revenues are given to the populace, which stimulates the economy to levels we don't even understand in this country. A sole person having 100 lifetimes of wealth is absolutely shameful when they are surrounded by peasants that can't even afford a Big Mac.. Guess what? The peasants are grabbing their pitchforks, and it's time to wise up.

Our system is changing here, and it's the populace enforcing this change. Haven't you noticed? Even notice it in the gaming aside from every other change?  Free2Play is the accepted model for all games these days, and just a few years ago this was something big game companies scoffed at as 'nonsensical', yet welfare gaming has arrived and is in full force.. Even EA is forced to do it.  What mandated this change? The people refused to keep tossing cash at these games every month, gamers were feeling abused. This is a fundamental change taking place across this country in every area.. How many people do you know that have a free home phone now? VOIP is generally either free or very nearly free.  Just 10 years ago the average phone bill was $150-$200+ a month. There are 65,000 free books on Kindle, and many others I can check out free at the library kiosk when I plug the kindle in. I couldn't even imagine paying for a book anymore. Ouya gaming system launches in a few months.. 1-time free of $99 and you get thousands of games for free.. After that launches, who would ever spend $60 on another Wii game again? Indy games with $10,000 budgets are selling for $3-$10 these days and offer more than more expensive big budget games. Who in their right mind would plunk down $60 for a game anymore? The fact that these $60 games can be found for 50% off a few weeks after release tells me a lot of people aren't buying them. Gabe Newell wants to dump Windows, and has devoted a significant portion of his team to porting all 24 Valve titles over the Linux-Distros. (which all run better on Linux, 30-70 net FPS improvement) When that happens, say goodbye to Windows as everyone will follow Steam/Valve/Gabe, and we can be done with an overpriced bloated mess of an OS once and for all. When that happens, expect a wholesale embracing of the opensource/free model. Stardock can't make fences, Start8 or much of anything else for Linux, what's the point? Symantec can't sell 55 million useless antivirus packages. Microsoft can't scam people with overpriced enterprise solutions and applications. The dynamics will change so drastically, many of these greedy corporations will simply cease to exist. I actually won't miss any of them to be honest.

Fallen Enchantress is a great game, but I do not believe it is much better than many of the indie games I currently play. $39 is decent price for me, but in a couple years I wouldn't even consider spending over $10 on a game, and I would bet money others will be the same.. In the age of Kickstarter, any dude in the basement with a good idea can make a great game. Just like the old days, great games, usually a couple of devoted programmers, remember those days Brad? I long for those days, and most gamers I know are rejoicing at the massive influx of amazing (and very low price) indy games. Don't Stave is $11 for 2 copies, and provides potentially 200-300 hours of gameplay, who in their right mind would spend $60 on XCom which MAY offer 30 hours of gameplay maximum? Times are changing. Information is crucial to all of this.. The internet was started as a military operation, and largely a spy-net op. But it's all backfiring, as the information out there is actually deconstructing a very corrupt system, and knocking the overlords off their steeds. Just 20 years ago if you had a health issue you went to the doctor. It's laughable to think anyone would do that today, you google your health issue, find reasons for it, then google natural cures. You effectively remove hundreds, if not thousands of dollars out of the pockets of the greedmongers everytime you do this. Isn't that refreshing? I had a cough that wouldn't go away, for weeks.. 20 years ago I would run to the doctor, get Xrays, CT-Scans, then be put on prescriptions.. Today I google it, cross reference that search with my diet, and find a substance that causes cough in many people. I eliminate that substance, the cough goes away.. Thousands of dollars pulled out from the hands of the greedmongers yet again. My window wouldn't power up or down on my car. I took it in to the shop and they wanted $500 to fix it. I drove home, googled it, and found it was a regulator in it.. $30 for the part on Ebay, and I fixed it in 45 minutes of my time.  Effectively removing $500 from the hands of the greedmongers.

Imagine what we would still be paying for games if idiot companies like Gamestop controlled the shelves in their stores? Imagine what GOOD games we'd be missing if the only place to buy them were these stores?  Imagine how Ouya will DESTROY Gamestop, and the evil empire will fall.  Sorry for the folks that work there, but they too will have to adapt, right? That's life.

This is empowering stuff bro.. People will adapt or fail.  No longer are people falling for the scams, no longer are people willing to buy expensive garbage that will be useless in months. People are demanding respect, demanding equality, and demanding a share of the planet. The meek ARE inheriting the earth. I find it absolutely fantastic.