church assistance and ipad

[LA Ute]

I'm curious--why do you think that is?

I don't doubt that you're right. I didn't think for a moment that it might be unethical for me to accept WIC money, Medicaid for my wife's pregnancy, or subsidized student loans, whereas maybe my grandfather may have. I felt I was entitled to these because I was eligible, and really didn't give it a second thought. I'm pretty financially prudent, some might say cheap, so I certainly didn't augment any extravagant lifestyle because of it, but really, it never crossed my mind that I should not take it.

So I ask, mostly because I know you're a raging liberal, why the change? I'm going to submit that I didn't think twice because our culture has lost a bit of its value for independence, in no small part due to extensive government programs. I didn't consider NOT accepting the help because I'm a citizen of the country, I needed help, and a major part of the government's role is to help its citizens in need. That wasn't so much the case 50 years ago. I'm not sure this change is a bad thing, but you seem convinced that it is, which I find ironic, given your political leanings.

At the risk of altering the course of this thread (which I don't want to do) I'll observe that for at least a decade now the young lawyers coming into law firms have demonstrated very different "wants" from a job than my own generation (graduating in the late 70s and early 80s) did. Not all of the change is bad, but I think anyone at any good-sized law firm will tell you that the "Gen X" and "Gen Y" and "Millennials" are very interested in how much vacation they will have, how hard they will have to work, whether the firm supports pro bono efforts, and similar matters. This seems to be a universally-recognized phenomenon. Also, we've noticed that our younger male associates who are new parents take full advantage of family leave that is offered to both parents on the birth of a child, without even asking whether that will be a problem for anyone. (I think they get six weeks of paid leave, whether they are the mom or the dad.)

Now, I've just made a list of items, many of them controversial, the merits of which can be debated at length. I really am not making any judgments on any of these apparent trends, just noting that I think they are remarkable. When Levin refers to "a new age, a new generation, a new ethos," the above is what comes to mind for me. It really is new and different, regardless of how one feels about it.

[The_Tick]

FTR, I think you and your wife have a legitimate beef if they are buying new iPads and Benz' while on the church dime. I have one question though. How do you know they are being supported by fast offerings?

I spend enough time at Church to know who is killing the turnstile outside of the Bishop's office.

They are the same 3 families that have been burning it up for the past 2 years.

[wuapinmon]

Funny.

When I think of overwrought, I think of the guy assigned to the McDo sausage patty station.

You can do much better than this. I've been a fan of yours since my earliest days, so I know you can, and I want you to succeed.

[ERCougar]

At the risk of altering the course of this thread (which I don't want to do) I'll observe that for at least a decade now the young lawyers coming into law firms have demonstrated very different "wants" from a job than my own generation (graduating in the late 70s and early 80s) did. Not all of the change is bad, but I think anyone at any good-sized law firm will tell you that the "Gen X" and "Gen Y" and "Millennials" are very interested in how much vacation they will have, how hard they will have to work, whether the firm supports pro bono efforts, and similar matters. This seems to be a universally-recognized phenomenon. Also, we've noticed that our younger male associates who are new parents take full advantage of family leave that is offered to both parents on the birth of a child, without even asking whether that will be a problem for anyone. (I think they get six weeks of paid leave, whether they are the mom or the dad.)

Now, I've just made a list of items, many of them controversial, the merits of which can be debated at length. I really am not making any judgments on any of these apparent trends, just noting that I think they are remarkable. When Levin refers to "a new age, a new generation, a new ethos," the above is what comes to mind for me. It really is new and different, regardless of how one feels about it.

I hear the same thing from my older physician colleagues, and not just from the old grumpy ones, to the extent that I have to believe it. I do think there's a certain sense of entitlement with my generation and I really don't know where that comes from.

But I'm talking about a different sort of sense of entitlement--the kind that makes me not blink about accepting government assistance that I qualify for and need, despite the fact that my future income would be high. In times of old (when you were a law student), were people less willing to accept government aid? I'd guess that they were, and I'd also guess that a large reason for that was a diminished presence of government in their lives. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

[Chachi]

I agree with Faith. There was a time we were on WIC, food stamps and unemployment. We had about 6 weeks notice to move across the country to help take care of a sick family member. This was a 24/7 job for both of us. We couldn't work outside the home and were able to survive for 3-4 months on just our savings. The family member died 10 weeks after our arrival...

The economy wasn't good and jobs were sparse...esp in a college town. We started to apply for the assistance, to help us out until we found a job. We had a 6 month old and a 2 year old that we needed to diaper, feed and clothe.

Standing in line at the Dept of H & W is a very humbling experience. Was I dressed nicer than most people standing in line? Yes. But not because I was buying new clothes with our unemployment, but because I had them long before I even moved across the country.

We don't know all the details of everyone's situation, so don't be quick to judge the gal that's wearing her Citizen of Humanity jeans paying for her baby formula with a WIC check. Not sure how someone qualifies for this assistance and still qualifies to buy a Benz. Maybe the ipads were a gift? Who knows. My MIL hated to send us money during this rough time because she knew that we wouldn't spend it on anything frivolous, so instead, she would just send really nice Chaps outfits for both kids, for example.

I didn't take the ridiculous amount of food we got for granted either. I didn't buy any processed foods, candy, soda, juice, sugary cereal, nada. I've looked back on that time as being one of the best years of our marriage. It was trying, for sure. I've never felt guilty for it.

[CardiacCoug]

I hear the same thing from my older physician colleagues, and not just from the old grumpy ones, to the extent that I have to believe it. I do think there's a certain sense of entitlement with my generation and I really don't know where that comes from.

This is true. I was talking to an intern a few days ago. It was about 3 PM and she was looking very frazzled and said "I thought I would be able to leave an hour ago and I just can't get out of here." I said, "So you were on-call last night?" Her: "Well no, but I was here until 8 PM yesterday."

Yep, the times are a-changin'. Why the hell would a medical intern be expecting to leave at 2 PM on a normal work day? That struck me as bizarre.

[LA Ute]

But I'm talking about a different sort of sense of entitlement--the kind that makes me not blink about accepting government assistance that I qualify for and need, despite the fact that my future income would be high. In times of old (when you were a law student), were people less willing to accept government aid? I'd guess that they were, and I'd also guess that a large reason for that was a diminished presence of government in their lives. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Good question. I think there were grad students (including LDS ones) using food stamps back in my day, but it was kind of obscure to me. I just got by on loans and recall feeling penniless but not too hard-pressed.

It's also my understanding that today, the church does not discourage any members - students or not - from availing themselves of food stamps and government welfare programs. I have a dim recollection of some discouragement in my student days, but I think it was from individual GAs in talks. Maybe someone else has more specific recollections.

Generally, I think you are talking about government programs that people simple qualify for, much like Medicare and Social Security, which have been around for decades and are generally accepted. I don't think anyone should feel guilty about taking part in those. (I also don't think anyone should expect those programs to be around in their present form for much longer.)

[LA Ute]

This is true. I was talking to an intern a few days ago. It was about 3 PM and she was looking very frazzled and said "I thought I would be able to leave an hour ago and I just can't get out of here." I said, "So you were on-call last night?" Her: "Well no, but I was here until 8 PM yesterday."

Yep, the times are a-changin'. Why the hell would a medical intern be expecting to leave at 2 PM on a normal work day? That struck me as bizarre.

I've sat in many a medical staff general meeting and watched, fascinated, as the physicians who are over 45 or so tell the younger ones that taking ER call is just something they signed up for when they became doctors. The younger ones disagree, and want to be paid for taking call. No one's right or wrong, but medicine and how doctors get paid for practicing has, and so have the expectations of the younger folks. In California, Kaiser Permanente, which once was seen as kind of a second-class career path, is now annually inundated with applications from highly-qualified doctors coming out of the best residencies. Presumably they want regular hours, a salary, and lots of benefits. That's a lot different from the way the world looked 25 years ago when I started working with hospitals and medical staffs.

[cowboy]

Whether you like it or not, your affluence is at the expense of someone else. You can try and prove me wrong, but I can take you to half the countries in this hemisphere and show you how you're eating off the backs, blood, sweat, and tears of many a peasant. American prosperity is at the expense of others.

Since I can't think of one economist who agrees with this, I'd like to know why you think this way.

[Indy Coug]

Whether you like it or not, your affluence is at the expense of someone else. You can try and prove me wrong, but I can take you to half the countries in this hemisphere and show you how you're eating off the backs, blood, sweat, and tears of many a peasant. American prosperity is at the expense of others.

If it weren't for American prosperity, many of these 'peasants' wouldn't have any work and certainly wouldn't have work that is nearly as "lucrative".

It's a symbiotic relationship, not exploitative. The emergence of India, China and others as developing economic powers is the direct result of Western prosperity.

[DrumNFeather]

Which I do see as a huge problem.

As a member of the Church I would love to see a copy of the books.

My faith gets smaller and smaller every year.

I believe I have mentioned this before. But in my last ward, the bishop took a 5th Sunday lesson to open up the books to the ward members and let us know exactly where our tithing and fast offerings were going locally and on the stake level.

One summer, a good amount of our tithing was used to help a member build a temple (solomon's?) that was used for youth conference.

He also outlined what percentage of the ward members were drawing from the fast offerings that were being paid. It was pretty eye opening.

The following March when the economy was in the crapper, he asked members to give more because there were even more members that were requiring assistance. Some time later, he told us that we could go back to paying our regular fast offering because the response was overwhelming and the fast offering numbers trippled for like 3 months straight.

I think his honesty about the ward finances certainly played a role in some of the members willingness to pay more.

I do however, agree with the sentiment that it is sometimes easier to not know and just write the check. After being the finance clerk I was glad to go to a new ward and place my head firmly back in the sand.

[beefytee]

Funny story.

I saw my neighbors one time close to the bishops office and ask them how their Alaskan cruise went.

They gave me a quick answer that it was good and they proceeded to stumble over an explanation to the bishop (who had come over and heard my question) that it was a family trip and that one of their fathers had paid for it.

I felt bad because it wasn't my intention to get them in trouble.

[happyone]

I went to a management seminar a few, okay more than a few, years ago and one of the things they talked about that has stuck with me is the changing attitudes towards work by generation. The instructor said you could tell a persons age by how they view their job. He put up a chart with the years from 1900 and put the attitude against them.

Some of this things I remember, I might be wrong or just misremembering

The people who came of age during the depression valued stablity more than anything else - the job is going to be there tomarrow

The people who came of age in WWII or shortly there after most concerned about the paycheck

The people of the sixties were more concerned about beni's - vacation time etc

The genXers were just starting to enter the work force when I took this class and he said it looked like they were not going to be as stable as the previous job generations - lots of job hopping, but the data wasn't it yet.

[Moliere]

I think, wuap, that when it comes to fast offerings, the bishops are the ones who get to establish the baseline and they alone are accountable for how they make such decisions. (I also think you agree.) If someone sees an abuse I think there are discreet ways to get that information to the bishop, then leave the matter to him. Because I am (still) a first counselor to a great, kind and generous bishop, I co-sign fast offering checks every Sunday. Sometimes what I see seems a little surprising, but I am happy to forget about the whole thing once I sign the check. If I learned about something like the iPads Tick is talking about, I would share the information with the bishop and then forget about it. I think that's how the system is supposed to work.

I've been a stake auditor many times and will probably be many times over until I die (due to my choice in profession) and I will say that I've seen many interesting fast offering payments, none of which I'll even remotely give specifics about since I take that type of confidentiality very seriously. We are told as auditors to raise concerns if we see any potential abuse or misappropriation. In all cases of these interesting payments there was a valid reason and valid response to any questions asked. Sure some bishops are pushovers and a lot are not, but there are checks and balances in the system that make sure the pusher overs are not pushed over too far.

I will point out that in some cases I've seen the person receiving the fast offerings probably should have asked their family first. Fast offerings are a stopgap measure after all other resources are exhausted. If someone's family is paying for a vacation cruise to Alaska but that family is having their monthly mortgage payment paid for by the church then there are issues there and hopefully the bishop has the full story.

I still hold up the fast offering program as the best available method for helping the poor and needy.

[DU Ute]

My earlier post came across a little harsh. I don't have a problem with people using assistance (I'll even admit that we've received food stamps the last two months while I've looked for work, and while things would have been really tight we wouldn't have starved it would have been difficult to get by). I don't like to judge people that do based on my limited observations. I do have a problem with people who game the system and are proud of it. Outside of that I don't care what people do.