blid, it's not my job to educate you. I brought up affirmative action as a side point so someone can go look for themselves, obviously you don't care to expand your knowledge on this topic.

Claiming natural unemployment=poverty is ridiculous. Even on its face it's ridiculous, but you could take a look at prosperity in other nations and compare it. What is the standard of living in Germany? I've been there and my sister has lived there, it's not near what we have in America. Compare it to any other European nation, compare it to Canada, compare it to whomever you like, standard of living is what capitalism is all about, not employing 100% of the population.

Your points were worthless, it isn't that I didn't read them, I just rolled my eyes at them. First off, without all these government programs people would actually plan ahead and families would stick together. Second, without the government stealing our money, we would have more to contribute to the charitable organizations of our choice. For an example of charity doing more than government take a look at the "Texas Seed Bill" under Grover Cleveland, back when the government didn't have their hands in everything.

Why would a charity try to run a universal healthcare program? Would not a majority of the population already pay for their own care in a capitalist society? A charity would at most need to handle their local area and only those who came to them for help. Why would you think all these charities would be on a national scale?

As to the great recession(I'm guessing you mean depression), I propose you check out the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, and the expansion of government in the role of creating a 12 year depression. I don't just blame FDR as Hoover was the one that started a bunch of government programs before him.

Haha this begs the question what on earth are you talking about when you talk about standard of living. Hooray we have more rich people and a higher GDP, we win capitalism? Because both those countries are pretty prosperous themselves and take better care of their people, so when you start comparing them unfavorably it's clear your priorities are off in la la land, more about dogmatic purity than actual standard of living.

This is a good one. If we stop helping people, institutional poverty will just disappear. Suddenly families are planning ahead and sticking together in places where the cycle of poverty has been in action for decades, all because we've left them to twist in the wind. Again, this is an unrealistic utopia that evidences of your dogmatic fantasies.

People try to pay, but oftentimes, they can't!

Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies
http://articles.cnn.com/...th-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH
If you don't mind people going bankrupt
One part to highlight for you: "Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say."

So, you know, maybe that's why? Why is this happening, where are the charities? Poor Germany and Canada, I wonder how they're dealing with this problem.

I asked if poverty existed before those government programs were created. Isn't that what you want to go back to? During the Depression and even before it... was there poverty? A damn lot of it? Even the Irish Potato Famine and all the deaths there - that was capitalism in action. Where's the charity? And then you say "check out the expansion of government in the role of creating a 12-year depression." Yeah, I'll check that out. Wait, what? That's a highly controversial opinion you have based on faith, it's not some fact I can look up.

When you want the poor to be better the solution isn't so much to just give them some money but to give them a more equal opportunity to improve their condition.
Like good public schools, affordable higher education, accessible healthcare.
Things other countries do have and their poor do a lot better.
As a middle class German you may live in a somewhat smaller house, but you'll also have more affordable healthcare, better benefits as an employee. Oh well, there are many difference but the overall standard of living is very similar.
If you're super rich you might have a few billion less though, the horror.

The program already exists as such you need to prove it isn't effective. However, regardless of whether someone wants to prove a program isn't working vs proving it is working the process is the same: present the conter-factual.

As I said, I'm still waiting (since I'm not the one arguing a change in the program is required, I'm not the one that needs to present such evidence).

blid, standard of living as in the number of TV's a family can afford, the number of cars a family can afford, the number of household appliance items a family can afford, salary vs cost of products, services, etc...yes standard of living is higher in America than any European country.

Suddenly? People have been conditioned for dependency now, you can't just create a vacuum. It's called sun-setting, slowly get rid of the program and people will start planning for it.

As in the other thread, why have healthcare costs risen? Could it be government intervention around the world? I posted in another thread about that one, but costs around the world are rising as government takes more and more of the market. The only way to curb costs that way is removing care, reducing quality. The thing about your entire point about bankruptcies is you are comparing a government controlled market to a government monopoly market. I'm arguing for none of the above and you fault me for the government increasing healthcare costs and that in turn sending people through bankruptcy?

Doing some research on your potato famine, not everybody could even own land and you call it capitalism? Catholics couldn't do anything up until just prior to this point in time. As a result of non-capitalist policies 80% of catholics lived in poverty, thus creating the exact result you are talking about. So in summary, you blame capitalism for government creating laws that brought about the situation. Good job blid.

I'm still not sure why you ask if there was any poverty. Here lets do a little research...

"In the late 1950s, the poverty rate for all Americans was 22.4 percent, or 39.5 million individuals. These numbers declined steadily throughout the 1960s, reaching a low of 11.1 percent, or 22.9 million individuals, in 1973. Over the next decade, the poverty rate fluctuated between 11.1 and 12.6 percent, but it began to rise steadily again in 1980. By 1983, the number of poor individuals had risen to 35.3 million individuals, or 15.2 percent.

For the next ten years, the poverty rate remained above 12.8 percent, increasing to 15.1 percent, or 39.3 million individuals, by 1993. The rate declined for the remainder of the decade, to 11.3 percent by 2000. From 2000 to 2004 it rose each year to 12.7 in 2004."
http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/#3

So, by the time the war on poverty was in full swing, poverty had already reached the minimum it would be for the next 50 years. It then bottoms as the war on poverty is fully implemented and because it didn't skyrocket again the program was a success? No, if we were getting along not spending 16 trillion dollars and ended with a poverty rate approaching 11.1 and then decided to spend all that money and ended with poverty in the 12's, how could it possibly be viewed as anything other than a failure. Spending 16 trillion to maintain status quo is called unsustainable.

well, if the war on poverty was actually working, wouldn't there be an increase in the number of tax payers? since there is no increase, then all we are doing is stealing money from people who earned it and throwing it at the poor people. probably just so they can throw it back at the rich people.