Lung Cancer: A Keynesian View

[joepistole]

In 2008 the cost of the food stamp program (which is not the entire welfare program) went from $37.64 BILLION to 75,67 BILLION dollars – I.e. is doubling in three years – you can hardly call that a decrease in welfare cost! (what your average benefit plots is only one factor, not the bottom line.)

I was talking about individual benefit levels over the course of the last 30+ years. You are talking about total benefit cost to the US government over the course of the last few years, after the largest economic depression since The Great Depression, two very different things. Further, it is not surprising to see total food stamp costs increase during periods of economic depression/recession. That is the whole reason for the social safety net. Had I said what you seem to think I said you would have a case.

[Billy T]

I was talking about individual benefit levels over the course of the last 30+ years. ...

not what you said in post 12. You said: "And welfare benefits in the US have been declining since 1980."

Not "individual benefits", nor "the average benefit" - just the false claim that welfare benefits had declined, when in fact they are now very rapidly growing, especially after 2008´s problem but in fact grew nearly every year since 1969! (There was a very slight decreases, less than 1%, in 1977 and again in 1984 but none since.)

BTW, that is more than a 40 year period I am speaking about.

True I did not used inflation corrected dollar, but strongly doubt that factor will raise the 1971 cost ($1,575.90 million) to the 40 year later 2011 cost of $75,668.61 million. I.e. even if adjusted for inflation, I think the cost of food stamps has risen dramatically and most of the other welfare programs (like under water mortgage help, job re-training, etc. did not even exist back then as government programs).

[joepistole]

not what you said in post 12. You said: "And welfare benefits in the US have been declining since 1980."

Not "individual benefits", nor "the average benefit" - just the false claim that welfare benefits had declined, when in fact they are now very rapidly growing, especially after 2008´s problem but in fact grew nearly every year since 1969! (There was a very slight decreases, less than 1%, in 1977 and again in 1984 but none since.)

BTW, that is more than a 40 year period I am speaking about.

Level of benefit is not the same as total cost to the govenment. Welfare benefits in the US have been declining, per perviously posted material.

[Billy T]

Level of benefit is not the same as total cost to the govenment. ...

Agreed, but your context was NOT about individuals but national. In post 12 immediately prior to the false claim you said:
"... Further it is not surprising that in times of economic prosperity poverty rates decline and in periods of recession poverty rates increase. ..."

"poverty rates" are not about individuals, but national."
"periods of recession" are not about individuals but national.
"times of economic prosperity" are not about individual, but about national periods.

I.e. both your unqualified words (no "individual" nor "average" adjectives appearing before your "benefits declined") AND the context going IMMEDIATELY before your statement that "benefits declined" clearly indicates your focus then was on national benefit levels, not individual benefits, as you are now trying to switch to.

Thus the ONLY way possible to understand your post 12 "benefits declined" is as a statement about national changes not about individual benefit levels changing.

The main point of your post 12 was clearly stated by you: "Here is a surprise Michael, your chart it wrong. "

Guess what, his chart is also ONLY about national changes. Your entire post 12 spoke to these national changes, not one word about individual changes in benefits or poverty levels, etc. - only a national POV.

[joepistole]

Agreed, but your context was NOT about individuals but national.

But it was, benefits did decline. The cost of those benefits went up for previously identified issues, inflation and population growth.

In post 12 immediately prior to the false claim you said:
"... Further it is not surprising that in times of economic prosperity poverty rates decline and in periods of recession poverty rates increase. ..."

"poverty rates" are not about individuals, but national."
"periods of recession" are not about individuals but national.
"times of economic prosperity" are not about individual, but about national periods.

So? Is there a point there somewhere? How does that relate to the fact that benefits have been declining, per the previously referenced material? The quote you have referenced was in response to your claims about recent increases in unemployment (over the course of the last three years - a separate discussion).

I.e. both your unqualified words (no "individual" nor "average" adjectives appearing before your "benefits declined") AND the context going IMMEDIATELY before your statement that "benefits declined" clearly indicates your focus then was on national benefit levels, not individual benefits, as you are now trying to switch to.

I did not and do not think qualifiers were necessary. What you seem to be missing Billy T. is that there is a difference between cost and the actual benefits/services rendered either individually or nationally. The benefits either nationally or individually declined. The cost of those benefits increased for reasons previously identified (inflation and population growth). And your number failed to account for both inflation and population growth. You cannot as you did make valid comparisons unless you adjust for those factors using constant dollars as was the case with the material I provided.

Thus the ONLY way possible to understand your post 12 "benefits declined" is as a statement about national changes not about individual benefit levels changing.

The main point of your post 12 was clearly stated by you: "Here is a surprise Michael, your chart it wrong. "

Guess what, his chart is also ONLY about national changes. Your entire post 12 spoke to these national changes, not one word about individual changes in benefits or poverty levels, etc. - only a national POV.

Benefits implies services rendered either individually or cummulatively. Benefits and cost are not synonyms. They are two different words representing different concepts. There is a difference Billy T. There is a difference between the word benefit and the word cost. Additionally, as previously pointed many times before you cannot make valid comparisons unless you adjust for inflation and population growth and your numbers adjust for neither of those factors.

I ran the inflation adjusted numbers on your supplmental food illustration. When you adjust for inflation the cost, per individual using your numbers, was less than the amount that would have been expected adjusting for inflation.

[Billy T]

... I did not and do not think qualifiers were necessary. What you seem to be missing Billy T. is that there is a difference between cost and the actual benefits/services rendered either individually or nationally. The benefits either nationally or individually declined. The cost of those benefits increased for reasons previously identified (inflation and population growth). And your number failed to account for both inflation and population growth. You cannot as you did make valid comparisons unless you adjust for those factors using constant dollars as was the case with the material I provided. ...

replying in reverse order:

{post 22 in part}...
True I did not used inflation corrected dollar, but strongly doubt that factor will raise the 1971 cost ($1,575.90 million) to the 40 year later 2011 cost of $75,668.61 million. I.e. even if adjusted for inflation, I think the cost of food stamps has risen dramatically and most of the other welfare programs (like under water mortgage help, job re-training, etc. did not even exist back then as government programs).

To prove that the benefits the govern gave out when up, I gave cost data show it doubled in last three years and in creased for more than 40 years.

My long table also, in second column, does show the individual food stamp benefits increased also. - Starting at $6.63 per person/per month in 1969 and steadily climbing to $133.87 per person/per month in 2011. And as already stated, that does no include any of the new welfare benefits added by GWB and Obama such as job retraining and mortgage assistance programs (and many others).

But again some qualifying preceding adjective is needed it show that despite everything else in both post 10 and your replied to it in post 12 NOT being about individual benefits but being 100% in a national context discussion, you should have said something like: "Although individual benefits have gone up during the last decade, in the two decades before they decreased, but even then because of the increasing population served the total of benefit (and their cost) went up (for 39 of 41 years, and the two exception years that did not go up dipped by less than 1%)"

SUMMARY: Both you & Michael were discussion the effects on the nation, with not one word about individual benefits, in post 10 & 12. You may have intended to comment on the individual benefits paid but did not state that in your post concerning the national effects of welfare benefits. To do that you needed to say "individual benefits" or the "average benefit paid", etc. not just the "benefits decreased" in a discussion ONLY concerning the national effects.

I have already admitted that there was a period of about 20 years when the individual benefits paid did decrease. You need to admit that the national spent more on benefits - paid more benefits for 40 years and certainly not only due to inflation, but I have not and will not make inflation corections for those fourty years. As stated in my post 22, certainly doubling in three years is not an inflation effect - it is the effect of people losing their jobs or taking much lower pay "Mac Jobs."- same reason why they are losing their homes, etc.

[joepistole]

replying in reverse order:To prove that the benefits the govern gave out when up, I gave cost data show it doubled in last three years and in creased for more than 40 years.

My long table also, in second column, does show the individual food stamp benefits increased also. - Starting at $6.63 per person/per month in 1969 and steadily climbing to $133.87 per person/per month in 2011. And as already stated, that does no include any of the new welfare benefits added by GWB and Obama such as job retraining and mortgage assistance programs (and many others).

Indeed, but it was for one program and the antiprovery program had many programs. You cannot logically infer that what happend in one program happened to all other programs. As I mentioned earlier, I ran the inflation numbers on that data from 1980 forward, and adjusted for inflation the amount spent decreased.

But again some qualifying preceding adjective is needed it show that despite everything else in both post 10 and your replied to it in post 12 NOT being about individual benefits but being 100% in a national context discussion, you should have said something like: "Although individual benefits have gone up during the last decade, in the two decades before they decreased, but even then because of the increasing population served the total of benefit (and their cost) went up (for 39 of 41 years, and the two exception years that did not go up dipped by less than 1%)"

There is a difference between nominal and real difference for reasons already mentioned. The chart I provided demonstrating the decrease in benefits clearly stated the data was "constant dollars" (i.e. inflation adjusted dollars). So why is there a need for repetition?

SUMMARY: Both you & Michael were discussion the effects on the nation, with not one word about individual benefits, in post 10 & 12. You may have intended to comment on the individual benefits paid but did not state that in your post concerning the national effects of welfare benefits. To do that you needed to say "individual benefits" or the "average benefit paid", etc. not just the "benefits decreased" in a discussion ONLY concerning the national effects.

I have already admitted that there was a period of about 20 years when the individual benefits paid did decrease. You need to admit that the national spent more on benefits - paid more benefits for 40 years and certainly not only due to inflation, but I have not and will not make inflation corections for those fourty years. As stated in my post 22, certainly doubling in three years is not an inflation effect - it is the effect of people losing their jobs or taking much lower pay "Mac Jobs."- same reason why they are losing their homes, etc.

There is no question that the aggregate amount spent by government increased over the period, but that was because of inflation and population increases. Additionally the aggregate nominal dollars are not useful when making comparisons.

The data does not support Michael's contention that the antipoverty programs failed. Only recently, with the onset of The Great Recession have we seen a real expansion in the usage of the antipoverty programs. And that is to be expected.

The better measure to determine the effectiveness of the antipoverty programs is to look at the poverty rate.

[Michael]

Joe, your last graph is my graph. As you can see, prior to LBJ's "Great Society" poverty rates were dropping at about 1% a year and on their way towards less than a percent. As soon as the government steps in, numbers living in poverty begin to increase.

Big shock there. 80% of Federal funds end up in the pockets of fat middle class white bureaucrats. They have NO incentive to reduce poverty. It's how they get paid.


Just like the "bailouts" you supported. Almost ALL of the gains went to the top 1% with a miniscule 0.2% going to the rest of us. You think government's there to help? Get a clue!

I agree with BillyT, this things going to explode. There's no more that can be squeezed from the middle class. We're broke. The so-called Public Servants have better healthcare, better job security, better pay, better benefits.... and if you dare to even suggest they can't also Unionize all hell breaks loose. Well, guess what, WI voters finally said F-U. It's called biting the hand that feeds you. Next stop: Wall Street

[Billy T]

the poverty rate shown in post 27 graph has been held approximately constant because the money distributed (the benefits) to the poor has been constantly increasing.

It is true that when Johnson first set up the "war on poverty" there were a lot of new benefits created and the cost increased, but soon many of them were dropped so the average benefit distributed did drop, but the total of benefits did not decrease. US has had a problem with adequate paying urban jobs for a long time, which became very serious under GWB. (out sourcing and transition from factory job´s high pay rates to "Mac Jobs.") The average salary did rise before that mainly because people were moving to the cities from farms where their salaries were very low, or non-existent.

[Syzygys]

All must die and generally speaking, the terminal years are large part of the total lifetime medical expenses. Thus, some causes of death are more desirable economically than others for society.

Lung cancer, I think, is one of the better* "natural" causes from economic POV - not much medical cost in early phases as little can be done, and later phases don´t drag out for years.

I just wanted to make the exact same point. In simple math:

If the cost of social security for the average retired (let's say 20 years in retirement) is more than a short term hospital cost of a dying smoker, then from the society's POV, smoking is an excellent investment.

Not to mention it creates jobs on both ends: making cigarettes, and curing/caring for the caused effects on the medical side. In the early history of the USA, tobacco was the most important cash crop...

In short: Smoking is good for society!!!

[Tero]

The last 2 months of healthcare amount to more than half of the entire lifetime $. We spend money "curing" people who can't be cured and can't often make decisions. We can treat pain, a good use, and relatively cheap.

US fee based system.

[joepistole]

Joe, your last graph is my graph. As you can see, prior to LBJ's "Great Society" poverty rates were dropping at about 1% a year and on their way towards less than a percent. As soon as the government steps in, numbers living in poverty begin to increase.

That is not what the chart says. Poverty rates before War on Poverty were higher than they are today. Additionally, with Welfare reform in the 90's the war on poverty was scaled back signficantly. The chart shows that during periods of recession the proverty rates rise and in periods of prosperity the poverty rate declines - exactly what you would expect. Had the War on Poverty programs not been in place you would expect to see more severe increases in poverty during periods of recession. The War on Poverty was never intended to prevent the business cycle. It was intended to mitigate downturns.

Poverty rates today even with The Great Recession are less than they were before the War on Poverty.

Big shock there. 80% of Federal funds end up in the pockets of fat middle class white bureaucrats. They have NO incentive to reduce poverty. It's how they get paid.

Well then you should be able to support that claim with some evidence.

Just like the "bailouts" you supported. Almost ALL of the gains went to the top 1% with a miniscule 0.2% going to the rest of us. You think government's there to help? Get a clue!

Then prove it.

I agree with BillyT, this things going to explode. There's no more that can be squeezed from the middle class. We're broke. The so-called Public Servants have better healthcare, better job security, better pay, better benefits.... and if you dare to even suggest they can't also Unionize all hell breaks loose. Well, guess what, WI voters finally said F-U. It's called biting the hand that feeds you. Next stop: Wall Street

Yes I know, you have Billy T have been preaching gloom and doom. The middle class has been squeezed because of The Great Recession of that there is no doubt. Some public servants do have a better pension arrangement than folks in the private sector. But does that mean the end is nigh? No it doesn't. We have had much worse and managed it.

We have had higher unemployment. We have had periods of severe deflation. And we have had periods with much higher debt. And we have managed to get through it. We have even been through a civil war. Our problems are manageable. But if we are going to solve our problems we need to focus our attention on the real problems, the real issues and not be constantly chasing our tail pursuing endless diversions.

[Billy T]

...
Yes I know, you have Billy T have been preaching gloom and doom. The middle class has been squeezed because of The Great Recession of that there is no doubt. ...

It is worse than "squeezed" and not just a fall out of the great recession - NO PROSPERITY ADVANCE IN TWO DECADES:

"... The recent financial crisis left the median American family in 2010 with no more wealth than they had in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve said Monday.

The median family, richer than half of the nation’s families and poorer than the other half, had a net worth of $77,300 in 2010, down from $126,400 in 2007, the Fed said. The crash of housing prices explained three-quarters of the loss.

This vast loss of wealth was compounded by a loss of income, as the earnings of the median family fell by 7.7 percent over the same period. ..."

From:http://finance.yahoo.com/news/family...185603451.html Or same info at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...me-values.html

Years ago Harry Truman was giving a speech to his supporter, one of whom yelled: "Give ´em hell, Harry." Truman replied: I just tell the truth, and they think it is hell."

I sort of feel that way too. There has been too much exploitation of the masses for the benefit of the few and too much TV propaganda telling the people they never had it so good, etc. After engineering the housing collapse with no money down mortgages, etc. and transferring their toxic trash they collected lots of commission and huge bonuses on to John Tax Payer (Fanny May and Freddy Mac etc. still needing government bailouts etc.) These immoral super rich are paying cash for foreclosed homes and renting them out at historically highest (compare to home prices) rents, shipping jobs over seas, closing US factories etc. etc. The people no longer control the government. US is government of the corporations, by their lobbyist, and for the super rich. It is all coming crashing down soon.

[quadraphonics]

I just wanted to make the exact same point. In simple math:

If the cost of social security for the average retired (let's say 20 years in retirement) is more than a short term hospital cost of a dying smoker, then from the society's POV, smoking is an excellent investment.

Lots of things look like "excellent social investments" if you account them purely in terms of cost outlays. For example, laws that require people to wear helmets while riding motorcycles drastically increase the medical costs associated with motorcycle accidents, for the reason that people wearing helmets end up requiring expensive medical care instead of dieing at the scene. Similarly, destroying public infrastructure can actually boost GDP, since people are then required to spend more money and effort to do everyday tasks like getting around, acquiring safe drinking water, etc.

The point of which being that accounting things in "simple math" terms that look only at cost outlays and ignores things like actual life and death gives you inane results that only a complete idiot would promote as a sound basis for public policy.

Not to mention it creates jobs on both ends: making cigarettes,

Not many jobs involved, there. Modern mass agriculture is heavily mechanized, the cigarettes are rolled and packaged by giant machines, etc.

and curing/caring for the caused effects on the medical side.

No, your entire premise was that more smoking avoids medical costs because people die sooner - that means less work in the healthcare sector. You'd have to be some kind of total ignoramus to suggest saving medical costs by shunting people out of the health care system in one sentence, and then claiming that such will result in more work in the health care system in the next.

[quadraphonics]

the poverty rate shown in post 27 graph has been held approximately constant because the money distributed (the benefits) to the poor has been constantly increasing.

You'll have to show that said increase has outpaced the increase in population, for that to count as a serious response to joe's statements. He explicitly cited population increase as a driver of total welfare outlays, so if you are going to ignore that you are arguing in bad faith.

Not that there's any doubt that you're arguing in bad faith, what with your hectoring joe about only looking at one indicator and not the "bottom line," even as you do exactly the same thing. But, still. At least try to make it look like you're actually serious.

[iceaura]

Tax breaks for the wealthy and bailouts of the very rich are not based on Keynesian theory, and are contrary to the recommendations of Keynesians such as Paul Krugman.

Joe, your last graph is my graph. As you can see, prior to LBJ's "Great Society" poverty rates were dropping at about 1% a year and on their way towards less than a percent. As soon as the government steps in, numbers living in poverty begin to increase.

The government stepped in in 1933.

Prior the LBJ's Great Society, the benefits of Roosevelt's New Deal and enormous Keynesian war spending had been kicking in for a generation - for example, formerly the poorest demographic class in the US had been old widows and spinsters. That class was raised from poverty by government programs, and no longer dominates the poverty stats.

In the early sixties, poverty began to be dominated by black and underclass white children - and the government programs aimed at alleviating it were nowhere near as generous as the ones benefiting white men and their wives. Compared with Roosevelt and WWII, LBJ and Vietnam was a piker in addressing his issues.

[Syzygys]

gives you inane results that only a complete idiot would promote as a sound basis for public policy.

I guess you never met the US presidents.... By the way any policy that helps the recently retired to die faster is a good one from the government's point of view. We are not debating the morality of it, just the economic side.

Not many jobs involved, there. Modern mass agriculture is heavily mechanized, the cigarettes are rolled and packaged by giant machines, etc.

There are still jobs as compared to no cigarettes, no jobs.

"The Tobacco Institute estimates that tobacco was grown on over 124,000 farms in 21 states and Puerto Rico in 1994, employing over 142,000 full-time equivalent employees. Since work on tobacco farms is often a part-time job, the total number of actual workers was estimated at over 361,000."

I think it only counted the farmers, so the distribution and selling also employ people...The sum is about 660K:

http://fujipub.com/fot/working.html

No, your entire premise was that more smoking avoids medical costs because people die sooner - that means less work in the healthcare sector.

Extra ill people creates extra health care jobs, simple as it is. Now you could argue that they would get sick anyway, well, we don't know what would happen if they weren't smoking...If they were all Mormons, I bet there would be less health care jobs for them, because Mormons tend to be healthier than the average. We just don't know...

[quadraphonics]

I guess you never met the US presidents....

If you can name one US President who suggests saving health care costs by promoting smoking, well, then I guess I'll have to rethink my designation of you as someone who posts nothing but asinine trollbait.

By the way any policy that helps the recently retired to die faster is a good one from the government's point of view. We are not debating the morality of it, just the economic side.

If you think the government's view of things is strictly limited to economics, and has no morality component, then you have no standing to pronounce what the government would prefer.

Any government that displayed anything other than overt reverence towards the health and well-being of retirees, to the point of an open willingness to break the nation's finances in pursuit of such, will be voted out of office in short order, by those same retirees. This is a basic fact of US politics, and anyone who fails to account for it in their pronouncements about such is, thereby, clearly disqualified from the ranks of informed, intelligent perspectives.

There are still jobs as compared to no cigarettes, no jobs.

I didn't say "no jobs." I said "not many."

Extra ill people creates extra health care jobs, simple as it is.

That's simply wrong, if the premise is that those people are ill to the point of significantly shortened lifespan. In that case, what you get is actually fewer ill people, and more dead people. That's how you get the savings in healthcare costs. Lower healthcare expenditures means less work being done in healthcare, necessarily. That is the simple fact of the matter.

Now you could argue that they would get sick anyway, well, we don't know what would happen if they weren't smoking...

Your entire starting premise is that the smokers will die, rather than spend years getting sick and requiring medical care. Apparently you can't even keep track of what you're talking about for more than a couple of consecutive posts.

If they were all Mormons, I bet there would be less health care jobs for them, because Mormons tend to be healthier than the average. We just don't know...

You seem to think that healtheir people result in reduced healthcare costs. The entire point of the smoker example is that it is the opposite: healthy people live a very long time, and it's the exotic medical treatments used by the very old that drive up the healthcare costs - they're very expensive.

If you want to increase healthcare work, than you want to increase healthcare expenditure (by definition). To do that, you want everyone to live as long as possible so that you maximize the number of years each person spends at a very old age, consuming expensive medical care.

If you want to decrease healthcare expenditures, then you are, by definition, looking to decrease healthcare jobs, and you want people to die young so that they won't live long enough to consume expensive cares used by the elderly.

There is no scenario in which you save healthcare expenditures by shortening lifespans, yet somehow end up with more healthcare jobs.

[Michael]

The point of which being that accounting things in "simple math" terms that look only at cost outlays and ignores things like actual life and death gives you inane results that only a complete idiot would promote as a sound basis for public policy.

You mean, like, a Nuclear Melt Down? Or a contrived Alien Attack?

Or a REAL war for that matter.

Prior the LBJ's Great Society, the benefits of Roosevelt's New Deal and enormous Keynesian war spending had been kicking in for a generation

War War War... Nuke em all! That'll get the economy going.

As I said before, once they run out of money, once they've milked you dry. That's when they'll send your kids for war. And Americans'll be cheering right as we march off a fiscal cliff.

Also, as I stated in an earlier thread, minimum wage was demagoguery to poor whites and the result was poor blacks lost their jobs as more and more white displaced them. Roosevelt and LBJ would shit themselves if they saw the multi-generation despair their "welfare"/"Great" Society led to. And I'm confident if they had the foreknowledge, they'd never of opened Pandora's box. Lastly, the War spending did not end the Depression. What ended it was cutting government programs and finally allowing people to organically go back to work. You'd know this if you looked at how most programs DID NOT role out in time as there were so many American's returning all at once. By the time these so-called programs were ready, the country was already back to work and on it's feet.

War spending creates inflation which robs prosperity. It certainly doesn't create prosperity. Productivity does.

There is no scenario in which you save healthcare expenditures by shortening lifespans, yet somehow end up with more healthcare jobs.

Hey, this debate is actually getting somewhere
Or it seems like it is? Is it? I mean, it seems Syzygys's is playing devil's advocate and we're starting to think through some of the financial implications and coming to the conclusion... at least it seems like it, that maybe Lung Cancer is NOT good for the economy.

And, maybe, just maybe, War isn't either..

Hmmmmm.....

[Michael]

Then prove it.

I linked the UC Berkeley study Joe. Did that bit of memory already get erased?


*God the Obama speeches really are bamboozling *