A local Richmond newspaper decided to give front-page coverage to the City of Richmond’s “Anti-Poverty Commission.” I just wanted to take the time to point out a few important facts:
The definition of “Poverty” used by the U.S. Census includes this gem: “The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps [or free phones…]).” So when you read this statement: “While 25 percent of the city’s population meets the federal definition of poverty – an income of $23,000 a year or less for a family of four, according to the U.S. Census Bureau…”, it is important to recall the chart we showed previously in our post “Why Are You Working?“. That chart revealed that for a single mom, a “welfare cliff” exists over which she will fall is she dares to earn more than…wait for it…$29,000 per year. In Pennsylvania, at least, doing so would mean she would lose her free public housing and most food grants.
So if Richmond would like to “end poverty,” perhaps what we need to do is to stop subsidizing it with a perverted backwards incentive program.
Such an effort would be difficult and painful, we admit, in the current economic climate. This climate is characterized by its own host of massive perverse incentive programs, programs that seem designed to thwart actual market activity while enriching the politically connected [Zero Hedge]. Markets work on price signals, using prices to allocate resources to meet demand for consumer and productive goods and services. Instead, endless money-printing distorts prices and floods the markets with false signals of strength and weakness. The looming threat of higher taxes on those who dare to produce induces them to not produce. No employees needed.
While it might be asking a bit much to expect the Richmond City Council to take on the Fed, let no one mistakenly believe that printing money and giving it to people is going to solve anything, nor will it cause “economic growth,” a fact Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker seemingly begins to grasp [Reuter’s] (or is he just blowing sunshine up our butts in central planning’s version of a good cop – bad cop routine?). Money-printing is the final act of theft from the producers, it is nothing more than that. Money-printing destroys price signals, and that destroys markets. Is it any wonder that destroyed markets do not offer jobs?
I refuse to believe the class-warfare meme, pushed by the MSM, that most of humanity is willing to use force (voting) to live at the expense of others. I believe that most people want to be self-sufficient and are willing to work to achieve it. Achieving that brings dignity and meaning to life; a government that goes out of its way to thwart that is evil.
