Hank wrote:Living in the U.S. mainly just sucks for minorities. We honkeys have a nice cushy setup.
Minorities get a raw deal, but many white folks do to.
Here it's much the same, except a lot of the time it's a matter of cultural dependancy, a lack of effort or a will to succeed. In Wales which has a much more dilute ethnic blend in it's society see's the valleys in particular being the most deprived areas, havingthe highest sickness and unemployment levels per head in the UK. People in these kinds of areas are often parts of extended families who have through time abandoned their ancestral hard working industrial past and become over reliant on the state benefit system using it as a crutch and often use the soft influx of migrant workers are an excuse. Merthyr is a great example (search "Merthyr sickness").
In America, I've often read that the fear of cultural dependence is one of the main reasons behind it's retarded welfare prigram, but there is evidence that these programs if full developed can in some instances lead to a culture of dependence as seen in council esatates (projects and ghettos) in the UK.
Many UK and American liberal academics argue that this is not the case. In Britain, where common philosophy is not too different and value systems are almost interchangeable with that of your American, I feel offers a very accurate model of what America could expect. However they could look to our very successful back to work policies, offering government assistance to those who accept the shitty end of the stick. The really low paid work, especially those who have children. This incentive in place of unemployment or sickness benefit has worked well in the UK, with only the current recession stunting it's growth.
I'm not too sure how unemployment and poverty issues are handled on the continent.
Sharppie is my best friend.