Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[redcap]

Same here. Most of our migrants are hard workers. They also shack up three or more families per house and save like mad then every one chips in to buy a house and they split up, bring in more working relatives etc. Then everyone saves and buys the next house and so within a few years they all have houses of their own, bring over the grandparents and prosper as the grandparents take care of the kids while the parents work two jobs each while we mumble about work-life balance and lifestyle and so on. Much like our parents and grandparents had it I guess.
Redcap

[whitewolf]

brother you hit it right on the head-i know a family with 2 brothers- they wanted to buy a mcdonalds franchise together-the wifes said no as they thought that it was a waste of time-flash forward to now where it probably costs 2-3 million dollars to get one. Back the it was around 10K only- no guts no glory..............ww

[Kentbob]

Redcap,

I would say that you are half correct.  The man you spoke of, with the several wives and five children, is doing nothing wrong from a legal standpoint.  From a simple moral standpoint, one which cares about every person and not just family or tribe, taking what one does not need is indeed wrong.  That said, you are also correct, where these people come from, taking full advantage of all services provided is the norm.  It's part of what has held social and economic development back in the middle east and similar parts of the world.  Not that their way of life is wrong, but it is very centered around being told what to do and taking what is given.  If I have more than you have, then I am obligated to share what I have with you.

Part of the problem in America is this notion of "democracy".  Our form of government is loosely based on the idea that one million men can make better decisions than one man, as Heinlein put it.  Is this the case?  Not really.  What we have seen in recent years are corporations and states take advantage of this democracy in order to further their own programs.  I see examples of this everyday in michigan, what my sociology instructor called "legimization".  For example, my parents and a large number of people in our rural area have natural gas deposits on our land.  Naturally, the gas companies want to get those deposits.  They can only get them if a group of us get together and sell the rights to the company in question.  Where property rights go out the window is this sticking point:  the state of Michigan can force us to join one of those groups, and give our mineral rights to whichever company is interested.  If we agree to let them on our land, they are required to compensate us a certain amount of money, and also repair any damage done to the land.  If we don't agree, they use the land anyway and we get bupkiss. 

In certain states, Virginia and Michigan come to mind, welfare is not as easy to take advantage of as it once was.  However, with rising unemployment, making welfare easier to access only takes a majority of people to clamor for it.  In essence, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we have simple mob rule, and the senate cares more about their jobs than about keeping the country on track.  In addition, especially in Michigan, the administrators seem to have lost track of simple economic principles and ideas, not to mention "common" sense.  If you're charging a business $10k a year in taxes, and provided no incentives whatsoever, not to mention all the restrictions and requirements that are placed on businesses, it makes it extremely difficult to get a business going.  In addition, if another state is provided tax-incentives to move a business there, or even to start one, it becomes easy to see why businesses are closing and leaving Michigan in droves.  If you have 1000 people who are out of work, and not drawing unemployment, you have 1000 people who are not paying taxes.  If someone starts a business that employs 1000 people, even if that business gets a $5k tax break, the government still gets money in its coffers, simply because there are now 1000 more people paying income tax than there were.  If the business becomes successful enough to expand into other cities, or simply to expand into a larger building and employ more people, the tax break that the business was given starts to pay dividends not only for the owner, but also for the state government.  Granted, this is an extremely simplified model, and not all my original thoughts, but the theory is sound.  In addition to paying taxes, those employees are now BUYING things, generating SALES TAX for the state, and paying the wages of other employees.

Sadly our state government seems to blinded by simple bottom-line numbers, and can't seem to think ahead enough to implement any sort of plan aimed at starting and keeping business in N. Michigan. 

Then, of course, you throw the unions into it, and everything goes FUBAR.


Kent

[redcap]

Some good points there, Kentbob. The unfairness of the resumption of land is a problem here, also. Same basic scenario only the oil people have a reputation for leaving the place worse than found for decades to come. So do you give in and get what you can, let the govt take it anyway or risk an expensive and costly legal battle? Common sense says take the money but damn does that smart! Thank you sir may I have another!

As for democracy-v-dictatorship or any other form of governance, I guess we forget there are people and societies that prefer a firm hand on the tiller and one hand at that. They view democracy as weak and us as weaklings. Thus we are not to be respected but used. More fool us of course. But then they have no answer when you point out that while we may be weak we have more than they do and they are coming to us, not the other way around.

I find the biggest upset for me is among those gutless do-gooders who feel they have to fawn over minorities at the expense of the majority out of some warped sense of shame or guilt for being who we are and achieving what we, as a society, have achieved. They are the ones that sell us out but usually they have nice, over-paid government jobs, live in safe, upscale suburbs where the only minority they see is the university professor or some diplomat and never have to deal with gangs of disgruntled ethnic youths.
Redcap

[Kentbob]

Some of them good points were not my own, some were things I'd talked over with our Sergeant Major.  Bottom line is, to paraphrase Alexis de Toqueville, once the people in a democracy realize they can vote themselves whatever they want, they will do so, and will vote themselves bread and circuses.  We're already seeing this, in limited numbers, and it will probably escalate rapidly if things don't turn around somehow.

Kent