Wow American poor still very picky.

The prisoners might prefer carp over the food they presently have to eat, like cold bologna sandwiches.

We might give them carp, but we should not expect tasty vegetables in return.

According to the "let them eat cake" principle of moral gustation, poor people should eat poorly. After all, it is their lot in life and beggars can't be choosers.

AW, because poor Americans don't eat a type of fish you then make the assertion that unemployed individuals with their "fancy college degrees" won't take particular jobs because said unemployed are "lazy and choosey." This is RIDICULOUS.

Where do you get off making these absurd points? They won't eat the fish because its "below" them? Maybe we don't eat too much fish, or fish that is unfamiliar to us? Do you really think poor families go food shopping and see this cheap unfamiliar fish and think, "Gee, I don't know what that is but I'm going to buy it because I'm poor"? What about McDonalds who services poor families everyday? Obviously these people are not so proud and choosey that they don't eat some of the worst garbage food our country can provide.

You're trying to say something negative about the American poor, I see that, but your main point is based on choice of fish?

This is what bothers me about your posts. You say something ridiculous and then when people call you out, you say, no wait, I wasn't saying that, I was trying to make a another point. And when you're finally out of ideas, you just mock whichever poster is calling you out acting all "Whoa, calm down, don't be so serious."

We could just eat the poor, as Jonathan Swift suggests:

That the remaining hundred thousand

may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and

fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them

suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat

for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for

friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will

make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will

be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

As the number of people receiving SNAP grows, I fully expect additional local and federal restrictions on how the benefits can be used.

There is less resistance to such restrictions than there are outright cuts to the program.

AW-

If it is any consolation, I fully expect that poor Americans will become less picky as the number of items they can afford to purchase falls.

Slowly but surely, government subsidies to farmers for products like corn will be reduced, which -in turn- will increase the cost of all goods ...especially items that use corn syrup or items such as meat (animal feed is largely made from the cheap corn).

Combined with restrictions on how food stamps/SNAP can be used and a lowering of the (already pretty low) dollar amount for SNAP, you may get to see your dream of poor Americans eating carp.

...but hopefully I won't be among the people that has to eat carp, and hopefully very few people in America will end up in such dire straights during our shared lifetimes.

"Lazy" is certainly a loaded term. I prefer to think of the able bodied poor as deciding whether to work or not based on what is in their best interest. Everyone decides to whether to work on this basis: Not merely the poor. Not merely the lazy.

AW is right in stating that far more Americans will forgo a job than immigrants. Part of the explanation for this is the availability of public assistance and minimum wage rules.

Should benefits be lowered to move citizens to work from public assistance? I have no idea, but doing so would likely have that effect.

Should minimum wage be lowered to make more minimum wage jobs available? I have no idea, but doing so would have likely that effect.

Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants have no ability to get most forms of public assistance and are (as a result of being paid off the books) usually paid below minimum wage. Frankly, they have to take the jobs that are worse than those available to citizens, or else they end up literally destitute.

I would prefer that America figure out a way to create and retain high paying, high skill jobs, but am confident that without some real progress such "races to the bottom" may become far more common. In Texas, many people have renamed the "Race to the Bottom" as the "Texas Miracle".

I wonder if sales of carp has gone up in Texas as a result of Rick Perry's "Texas Miracle". I imagine the sale of low cost food like ramen, rice, beans, and Kraft Mac and Cheese have increased.

While I do not know how many people should be unemployed, I know that only fools advocate for 100% employment.

I also know that financial and political support for our present minimum wage laws and public benefit systems will collapse if we let unemployment rise to something like 20% of the legal workforce.

BG-

I'm not sure whether you are talking to me or AW, but I can assure you that I would love to provide these things, and do not refer to such people as lazy.

As I stated above,

"Lazy" is certainly a loaded term. I prefer to think of the able bodied poor as deciding whether to work or not based on what is in their best interest. Everyone decides to whether to work on this basis: Not merely the poor. Not merely the lazy.

If you provided me with enough government benefits, I can assure you I would not work, and while some would call me "lazy", others would call me "smart" and follow my lead.

While avoiding such terms as "lazy" and "smart", let's have a conversation over how many people we wish to have employed, and at what rate of pay.

If we reach agreement, we can then adjust the minimum wage and public benefits as aids in helping us reach our goal. Of course, there will be factors that are beyond our control, and some unemployment will always be present.

I appreciate your experience.

I do not think that gives you authority to call poor people lazy.

Can laziness be empirically measured in a world where we are all maximizing our utility, and some of us get far more utility from doing things like watching television than others?

Trial and error is part of the scientific method, not the personal experience of the experimenter.

No, I'm making an argument. Moreover, the meaning of words matters as long as we are not postmodernists.

Again, one's personal experience has no empirical value when generalized to other people. This is not mere semantics.