🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3o8fen$9uh@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca>,
umcroall@cc.umanitoba.ca (Stuart Croall) writes:
 
|> Leaving the implications that social programs are a money sink?

Many of them certainly are.  Some of them may be desirable on grounds
of compassion, but they often make rotten financial investments, and
as such are the major cause of government deficits.

Why?  Because the poorer you are, the lower your tax rate.  Transfer
money to the poor, and very little of that finds its way back directly
to the public purse.  Poor people don't save much (savings -> lower
interest rates -> lower prices, more jobs, lower deficit) and don't
invest much (investment -> wealth creation).

This is not true of all social programs.  Education, for example, has
an immense long-term payback to society.  I'm also inclined to believe
that programs which provide opportunities (as opposed to income) to the disadvantaged are a net benefit, since these programs enable the
beneficiaries to participate in wealth creation; but I can't prove this
point.

In general, programs which are palliative (feed the hungry man) are, as
you put it, a "money sink".  They can be worse than no program at all,
since the hungry man now has no incentive to care for himself.  What
did pigeons do for a living before there were parks?  Tomorrow, the guy
is hungry again, needs another feed, and so on ...  You may support
such programs even so, as a matter of the rights of all members of a
civilized society, but the grounds would have to be compassion; you
can't kid yourself that they're anything but a money sink.

You, and we, have a debt problem because our governments, in their
zeal to redistribute wealth, have neglected wealth creation; so we
have less to redistribute.  Having eaten the seed corn, we wail and
gnash our teeth; but let's not pretend that this situation has come
about because of spending on investments for the future, such as the
space program. It's the neglect of such investments (and here I include
science R&D in general), and the lack of embedded structural solutions
in social programs, which has brought us to this unhappy pass in the
first place.

There's no way out, except to plant next year's crop.
  
|> 
|> Do we have enough wealth?  Why do you insist on rocketing our wealth to 
|> mars? 

Poppycock!  Hardware, and maybe wetware, to Mars; the money stays here.
It goes to the parts suppliers, the systems integrators, the 1001
companies who do business with the space program.  It means jobs to
the people who work in those companies.  It filters through to the
universities who work on the scientific instruments, and helps to
provide a better education for the students.  When you're old enough
to attend one, should you choose to, you might see some of this
activity if you're in the appropriate faculties.  In the meantime,
perhaps your school can put you onto a work experience program to
give you a taste of the fun and the satisfaction of working on a
project which is both personally stimulating and of real benefit to
society.  I'm sure there are professionals on the net who could
give your teacher/adviser some ideas if you want to pursue this. 

-- 
Philip R. Young        |             young@bunyip.ap.dg.com
                       |       Philip_Young@dgap.ceo.dg.com

 "It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the
  illuminating blaze of the infernal regions."

  - Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter"