Queens

http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/21/20052531-people-think-everyone-who-is-poor-gets-welfare-and-its-just-not-true-how-the-myth-of-the-welfare-queen-died

There have been a LOT of stories about this lately; the CATO report, the continuing high level of food stamp use, etc...  as someone who works with a lot of poor people, all I can say is...all of the above.  For one thing, yes, in a lot of cases, it is NOT economically feasible for people getting benefits to work.  Wages could be higher, but of course, we could also make the benefits less generous (which could lead to tax declines); a lot of the issue here is marginal wage benefits, such as child care and Medicaid.  Issue two, which a LOT of people seem to forget, is that in many cases...poverty is simply the result of poor choices, many of which are fairly irrevocable.  For instance, in the above article, she got a divorce and moved in with the wrong man.  Economically, divorce is bad...and then the wrong guy (something tells me the two were closely linked), and you're fucked.  I am not saying divorce shouldn't be an option....but at the end of the day, you have to look at the economics as well.  Or getting pregnant early, or the famed drug addiction, or spending your excess income on smokes and booze. 

Anyways, my point is, even if you gave the poor more money -- in the form of benefits or wages or dropping it from the sky -- most of the money would be wasted, simply because the people who made these crappy decisions in the first place will simply go out and make them again.  I don't like it, and you don't like it, and some of them may not like it, but that is the way it is.  How do you teach people not to be dumbfucks?  Most of the time, you can't.

I just finished Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.  It's a fiction work about the Vietnam War...it was ok.  Very modern in its approach, so while I liked what I read, I didn't exactly feel anything while reading it, which is prolly me, but...