"Poverty in America"... mostly rhetoric

This site is inundated with anti-american gadflys who often point to America's poverty level as an indictment of our econmic system.

However, what most fail to consider is how we define "poverty", and what "povery" means in the USA.

While the UN and European Socialist Welfare-Staters may have an arbitrary idea of what poverty is, please review the below article to learn the truth about "America's Poor".

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/01/understanding-poverty-in-america

(Yes this article is from the Heritage foundation, but the data is straight from the US Census Bureau, which is completely bi-partisan.)

Here are some excerpts:

*Fortysix percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a threebedroom house with oneandahalf baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

*Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than twothirds have more than two rooms per person.

*The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Now of course, this does not account for every individual, but it illustrates the point that claims of America's poverty are grossly, grossly overstated.

I just wanted to shed a little light on the reality.

 

More living space. Hmm, that couldn't be because America is bigger, could it, and our cities grew over thousands of years, from before a time of anything bigger than a horse and cart?

So then which parts are not 'mostly rhetoric'?

 

No, it couldn't have anything to do with that. Cities can expand, and lack of land space is not the problem. The problem is that most European countries lack selfish men to bring the god's fire to them. When they give them fire, they send vultures. Therefore, they withdraw their fire. That's the problem.

And do other cities not grow over a long period of time? Is London newer than New York?

 

A proper analogy would be if a quarter of the US population lived in the New York City metropolitan area. The UK does not have nearly the land mass that the USA has and that is the point. I know how much land an American can own and it is not possible in the UK for simple geographic reasons.

 

The vast majority of American land is uninhabitable and worth almost nothing.

 

We also have plenty of uninhabitable land. The massive difference in the size of each country causes two different cultures regarding how we are able to live on our property.

 

No, because Canada and the USSR would be kicking our asses.

 

The Canadians also seem to own more land on average from what I have encountered while in Canada. The size of Canada and the USA also dictates transport options. Americans rely on their cars more than we do. It is just one of the differences between the two countries.

 

There is a simple way to test this: If the size of the house of Americans is due to relative wealth and not due to availability of land, then this relative wealth will also reflect itself in other areas as well, such as the proportion of income of the "poor" which goes on basic necessities, or the life expectancy of the "poor" in the different countries, etc.

 

Not really, only a small band of land near the American border is populated.

 

That border goes from Quebec to Vancouver. Quite a lot of land for a country of around 30 million people. The UK is twice the size of Canada in population, yet our land mass would fit into Canada more times than I care to calculate.

 

It took the UK 150 years to fall behind the US, long after the land advantage was realized.

 

The UK remained an economic power until the Great War, which ruined Europe. The difference in land mass speaks more to a difference in culture than it does economic production. The Swedish economy is doing quite well with limited land mass. Our economy is starting to improve from the catastrophe that was the year 2009. Austerity was needed and thankfully our usually incompetent government was able to figure that out.

 

The U.S. has had the world's largest economy since the late 19th century.

 

Huh???

Since about 1860 to 1899??

Doubt it..

 

What's the point? Being poor doesnt suck? Doesn't suck quite as much in America cause you have a TV, and maybe a back yard, and a mortgage?

Being poor causes stresses on the human organism (I was searching for the best word when I chose that one), stresses which CAN lead the many of the problems seen in poor communities.

 

1871-1879 GDP (Millions)

United Kingdom: 105,579 105,795 108,266 110,063 112,758 113,881 115,004 115,454 115,004
United States: 102,862 107,065 112,433 111,735 117,573 118,974 122,827 127,964 143,726

www.ggdc.net

 

Indeed, add on that that in cities houses used to be taxed on the basis of how wide they were. Also, interesting, is that Europeans tend to love their city centres -- it's were the rich live. In the USA, "inner cities" are for the poor ones.

Also, the OP is absolutely hilarious.

If Flanders were ought to be using the same criteria as the USA to determine who's poor, only about 0,04% would fall in that catergory.

 

Obviously Spoken by one who has yet to feel the Cold Bite of POVERTY


Your attempt to WhiteWash the Sepulcher of a fast growing problem in the USA
In that our Poverty Stricken Citizens have more room in which to enjoy their Poverty -
......................................................................... is Obscenely Reprehensible



& of coarse this coming from "The Heritage Foundation",
who's members policies create the Poverty they so calvalierly
....................................................................hope to disregard

----------------------​

Shocking Facts About Poverty In America

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-shocking-facts-about-poverty-in-america-2010-9


The "America" that so many of us have taken for granted for so many decades is literally disintegrating right in front of our eyes. Most Americans are still operating under the delusion that the United States will always be "the wealthiest nation" in the world and that our economy will always produce large numbers of high paying jobs and that the U.S. will always have a very large middle class.

But that is not what is happening. The very foundations of the U.S. economy have rotted away and we now find ourselves on the verge of an economic collapse. Already, millions upon millions of Americans are slipping out of the middle class and into the devastating grip of poverty. Statistic after statistic proves that the middle class in the United States is shrinking month after month after month.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are starting to wake up and are beginning to realize that we have very serious problems on our hands, but they have no idea what is causing our economic distress and they are unaware that most of our politicians have absolutely no idea how to fix the economic disaster that we have created.

On the mainstream news, the American people are treated to endless footage of leaders from both political parties proclaiming that the primary reason that we are in the midst of such an economic mess is because of what the other political party has done.

Republicans proclaim that we are experiencing all of this economic chaos because of the Democrats.

Democrats proclaim that we are experiencing all of this economic chaos because of the Republicans.

Even many readers of this column (who are generally more educated and more informed than most average Americans) leave comment after comment blaming either the Democrats of the Republicans for our current economic mess.

But do you really want to know who is to blame for our economic problems?

Both of them.
This economic nightmare has taken literally decades to develop, and both Democrats and Republicans have contributed greatly to this disaster.

Both parties have absolutely refused to stand up to the Federal Reserve and the horrific economic policies that they have been shoving down our throats for decades.

Both parties have stood idly by as the U.S. trade deficit has absolutely exploded in size and the United States has become significantly poorer month after month after month.

Both parties have refused to do anything as month after month after month large numbers of factories and good paying jobs leave the United States.

Both parties have shoved the spending accelerator to the floor when they have been in power and now we have the largest national debt in the history of the world.

Both parties have done essentially nothing as the health care industry, which was once the envy of the world, has degenerated into a cesspool of corruption and greed and now seems designed to do little more than to provide pharmaceutical companies and health insurance crooks with obscene profits.

If factories keep leaving the United States and jobs keep leaving the United States and the federal government keeps going into more debt and state governments keep going into more debt and local governments keep going into more debt, then things are going to keep getting worse.

It does not take a genius to figure that out.

The United States is continually getting poorer and is continually going into more debt.

Can anyone out there explain how that is a formula for economic prosperity?

Seriously.

Can anyone explain how that would work?

Please leave a comment and explain that to all of us if you can
.
The truth is that as wealth continues to leave the United States and as the U.S.
gets even deeper into debt, more Americans are going to become poor.

It really is that simple.

--------------------------------


http://www.businessinsider.com/15-s...on-americans-were-living-in-poverty-in-2009-1

Poverty in 21st Century America: Making Ends Meet

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5qO5AAO3yc&feature=related"]‪Poverty in 21st Century America: Making Ends Meet‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKh6S9pXWuk&feature=relmfu"]‪POVERTY IN 21st CENTURY AMERICA‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4jc2tTjFok&NR=1"]‪What it Means to Be Poor in America‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MviSS5aa08k&NR=1"]‪Poverty in 21st Century America: Children Living in Poverty‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U08d_tgSkog&feature=relmfu"]‪Poverty in 21st Century America: The Moral Argument‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]


Top Ten Videos on Poverty in the U.S.
http://news.change.org/stories/top-ten-videos-on-poverty-in-the-us


......... "I just wanted to shed a little light on the reality."

EVIL IS SIMPLY A LACK OF EMPATHY

​

 

"Amazing what you can get a statistic to say if you torture it long enough!"


More of the class warfare that neo-con artist/republicans claim to not participate in, turning the middle class against the least powerful lower class of the poor and poverty stricken.

WWJD?

 

Unfortunely this is done on purpose so the Big Government Person can rape the Amercian People and plonder our Treasury.

 

&
As if casting an indictment on the present
Parasitic Economic System is Anti American.

To Hell with such Myopic self serving Aspersions


.

.

 

In certain cities and in the past it was true. Today, city centers are almost always among the most exclusive and expensive housing in U.S. cities.

 

I dare anyone in America who thinks they are poor to go to a truly impoverished nation and tell them you live in poverty. See how they respond. Tell me if your perspective doesn't change a little bit. Do you have food everyday? Do you have running water? Do you have air conditioner? Do you have tv? Then guess what, you're not in poverty. Those last three are called luxuries. The fact that you have them and you still think you're in poverty shows how spoiled our culture is.

Our country is set up so that literally nobody has to live in poverty. What passes for poverty in the United States is royalty in some parts of the world. And yet all we do is complain about what we don't have because we want a cushy, pampered life. We're not grateful for anything.

The American "have nots" behave identically to the spoiled rich kids they so despise. And they don't even realize it.

 

Poverty means a lack of wealth or the inability to obtain wealth, not starving to death in a ditch somewhere. It covers a wide range of individuals across the bottom half of this country. Comparing the poverty level of Nigeria with the USA is intellectual dishonest to say the least.


Such hatred for the peasants when they have no controls/power over this society, it is the two party system that has taught them to be the way they are. Welfare was invented, designed, and legislated by the rich.