Poverty - the greatest evil?

To those amongst you who believe that the poor choose their state by means of laziness, and a desire to be supported by the rest of society - I recommend you read this article. The belief that anybody may become successful (particularly in the USA) is not supported by either logic or fact, and the reality is sobering. So try and remember all this when you are next motivated to support obscene disparity of wealth in your society.

http://www.rotary.org/en/mediaandnew...eenan1109.aspx

And the worst aspect of poverty is the fact that it is the most innocent - the children - who suffer in childhood, and go on to suffer in adulthood, inadvertently inflicting the same suffering upon their children - ad infinitum, ad aeternam.

 

It's sad ... but I'm sure you'll be thought of as being UN_American.

 

Yes. Given the general stupidity about this issue, the best sensible Americans can currently do is see to it that women are not forced to bring children into such hellishness.

 

But see … that’s the really sad part about Conservatives, they want to have it both ways.

They want the poor to have Children and complain about the poor having Children!

I mean … is that Stupid or what!

 

Considering Americas poor

Here are more surprising facts about Americans defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, all taken from various government reports and included in my new paper from The Heritage Foundation called “Understanding Poverty in the United States”:

● Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

● Fully 92 percent of poor households have a microwave; two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR.

● Nearly 75 percent have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.

● Four out of five poor adults assert they were never hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

● Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.

● Half have a personal computer; one in seven have two or more computers.

● More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation.

● Just under half — 43 percent — have Internet access.

● A third have a widescreen plasma or LCD TV.

● One in every four has a digital video recorder such as TiVo.

#
Strange Facts about America's 'Poor'

Sep 13, 2011 ... This morning, the Census Bureau announced that a record 46.2 million, or one in
seven Americans, lived in poverty last year. Although the ...
http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2011/09/strange-facts-about-americas-poor


Actually the poor are doing better than the middle class in many instances currently! Yes, who doesn't know that being poor is inconvenient!

 

Poverty is always a relative state, and I am not automatically discounting your source, but we need to bear in mind the fact that the Heritage Foundation is a right wing think tank which may have an agenda - other than the plight of the poor - to represent.

Also, it is so easy to be judgmental and condemnatory of people who live lives we have never experienced. I am no better than anyone else - I have grown up in a comfortably off middle class environment - I have never gone to bed hungry or cold - and I have never wanted for any reasonable thing.

In fact, it was not until I visited a friend in an industrial town up north, that I saw some semblance of poverty first hand. I stayed a weekend at his home, and was a bit taken aback by the fact that his mother took in washing and ironing (something the household staff does for us) to supplement the family income. His father worked at the local steel works and kept a really old bomb of a car to get to work. John and his mother walked or caught the bus, to save the car for its necessary use. Their house was owned by the local council, and they rented it. John had to leave school when he was 15, so that he could work at the same steel mill his father did (because his family needed the money to help with his special needs brother).

Now these are people who are partially dependent upon various social services, but their house is kept spotlessly clean, they eat simply but well, and they have some comforts such as a TV, microwave, 'fridge, heating, etc. And John and his dad occasionally have a jar with the lads at their local. They are also thoroughly decent and hospitable people, whom I do not begrudge one penny of governmental assistance.

Would anyone here have them go through a severe Yorkshire winter without heating, or without a TV for those long winter evenings, or unable to quickly heat a mug of cocoa in sub-zero temperatures?

Does anyone realise how psychologically important these small comforts are to people who live grey lives of comparative poverty, and worry over the size of their next power bill? Are the tax dollars or pounds that allow them some semblance of comfort (and dignity) really more important than their humanity? I don't think so.

 

That is an ignorant statement. Where did you compile your information, in a dream? "Thinking" people can see the issue and everyone has their own personal concept of the inception, but the fact is that some people don't do anything for themselves other than complain..."poor, pitiful me"...there are others who actively attempt to climb out of the hole their parents placed them in and do. Not all become millionaires (unless they go into sports which seems to be the passageway for many), but then neither do many middle class people. There has always been rich and always been poor, even back to erly caveman where one had a bigger club and took what he needed. People in general are willing to help other people, but not forever or at their own expense. I think you just have a hate-filled heart toward conservatives, who themselves are people.

 

I think intention is required in order for something to be classified as "evil". I've never met a single person in my entire life on this planet that intended for children, or anyone else, to be poor.

However, deliberately ignoring another's need may very well be selfish intention and could be thought of as evil. But in walking down a city street we probably pass dozens of needy folks. Was it evil of us to keep walking and not divide up what was in our wallets among them? For some, maybe - for most, probably not. Would it have been good for someone to rob us and give our money to all those we passed by? If someone opposes the government's haphazard methods of redistributing the wealth, are they evil? And what of those who see the government's redistributive methodology in the same light as the robber in that previous example? Suppose their underlying motives were out of a disgust for forcing people that have to hand over their private property to people that have less according to arbitrarily established rules and penalties? In addition to that, suppose they happen to have given their entire adult lives say 10% of their income before taxes to charitable organizations that feed the poor? Are they evil for opposing the government-robber?

There is always someone that has more or less than someone else. Why is it evil to be against the use of government coercion in the dubious attempt to always be pressing the top down in order to raise the bottom? Why do people believe that this is a desirable or even practical function of government - especially given the negative results of such functionality? Why is the war on poverty like the war on drugs like the war on....?

Dealing with poverty as an ethical matter is a tricky affair.

 

Indeed, and much depends upon what passes for our ethics. To a simple and unsophisticated soul, such as myself, needs supersede conceptual rights. If taxation is progressive, and in so being provides for the needs of the dispossessed, then I shed no tears for those at the top of the income tree who are obliged to contribute proportionately to the public welfare.

 

Helping out those who are truly in need should never be tricky …

America certainly has no problem sending these exact same people to fight Wars.

 

Who said Conservatives want you to have children? What we don't want you to do is to murder them via abortion. You blacks are constantly screaming out for civil rights by invoking the name of your icon MLK, but when it comes to the civil rights of the unborn--you libs and blacks alike missed the bus, but you actually drove the bus over those children. So who is having it both ways now, mr. cigabutt?

 

What a bunch of useless garbage in that list.
So they have a microwave, they're dirt cheap today and how do you know they weren't given as a gift.
20% don't have AC, What is the poverty level? Around 20%
DVD player, also dirt cheap, can be gotten as a gift also.
woo hoo, they have a 1993 chevy cavilier. They got it made. woo hoo,

Absolute garbage list. Pure RW BS.

 

From the article:

These are examples of the behaviors that lead people to poverty and keep them there. Those installment purchases of products for far more cost than they are worth is another great example.

People can leave poverty, but they have to change their behaviors and mindset.

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...o-cons-who-think-welfare-recipeints-lazy.html

 

Very very few do or can. Read the 'Economist' which from time to time admits that there has been little or no social mobility in the United States for thirty years. Do not attempt to read your insane system back into time: back then few people believed rubbish just because their masters told them to. You are just prating the tenets of an antique religion.

 

The classic double talk - "I am not automatically discounting your source", and then you automatically discount the source.

You ignore the data, which you could verify in 60 seconds on google but that would take some work and might damage your bias, and go straight to the much easier task of dismissing the entire arguement because of the messenger.

You are compassionate and feel compelled to speak out. Great.

But what do you do about it? Talk is cheap. Do you have spare money or spare time? Donate, help out, do something to help those people. Don't whine to me about how these people need the government handout. Don't feel bad, pass the buck to me via the govt, and think you have done your good deed for the day.

Get your ass out from in front of the computer goofing off on PF and vonteer. You have skills? Teach people, help them retrain, ease their burden.

The govt is not the solution. And I know, because I was poor, in 1994 I made about $6,000, with a family of 5 and a mortgage. We didn't run to the govt looking for the handout. It was family and church that got us through until we could get back on our feet. Thats the way it works, a hand up not a hand out. Now we are rich and we return the favor every day, and not by complaining on the internet.

You feel bad about poverty, go to the Salvation Army and volunteer. Go to the local hospital and volunteer. Go to a local doctors office and say you will pay for someones health care, I'll bet there are doctors in your community that treat the poor, go help them out. Or go to the best place for these things, a local church, and ask if someone needs help paying their rent or utility bill or needs food or help getting to school or a doctors apointment, or a shut-in that just wants someone to talk to to brighten up their day. Go cook a meal and bring to an shut-in and share it with them, that will do more for your soul than you can imagine.

You may be a fine person, but if all the people that complain about the lack of govt support for the poor would spend that time DOING instead of passing the buck, we wouldn't have these poverty problems. There is so much more going on all around us that has nothing to do with the govt, yet so many people can't think of anything but the govt. The govt isn't the only option.

 

The real evil is the penchant on the left to convince people they're poor and need help from the government when they're not poor and the government doesn't help.

 

The U.S. according to Cigar...

 

Quite right - nobody needs to eat or wear clothes or have houses. Think of all that American grass!

 

I read the Heritage Foundation article, and the agenda was crystal clear - there are virtually no people living in poverty in the USA. You expect me to take that position seriously?

I am 18 - I have just finished high school, and am starting uni this year. I have no money of my own - I live on a modest allowance from my mum. I am no great philantropist, but I do what I can. I help out twice a week at an old people's home, and I support a child in Africa through World Vision.

The reasons for poverty are many, but human greed is amongst the principal. Greedy employers who refuse to pay a living wage and oppose the setablishment of things like the minimum wage. Greedy mega-corporations who do the same thing, as well as moving their manufacturing off shore to exploit third world labour. Greedy insurance companies who price adequate medical insurance outside the scope of most people who do not enjoy employer funded cover. Greedy medical practitioners who want to be paid a King's ransom for the simplest treatments and procedures. The list goes on -aided and abetted by organisations such as the Heritage Foundation who sees nothing wrong with multi-billionaires living in the same society as 40 million people below the poverty line, and a similar number without health insurance. Not to mention an army of the homeless.

Religious and other charities are too unreliable, and their funding too capricious, to address the problems of the poor. Government systems funded by taxation are the only reliable method of alleviating suffering and providing some semblance of social justice - irrespective of how much the well-off may disapprove.

 

Actually it isn't relative. The amount of income required to get over the poverty line will vary based on the cost of living in a given area, but the definition of poverty remains the same:

The point at which a person can't afford the minimum necessities for survival.

If you can afford a cell phone or cable, you are not in poverty.

If, after buying only food you can't pay your rent, you are in poverty.

 

Anybody can work themselves out of poverty and its done all the time. The biggest reason why people can't is because of personal choices they make. Some people decide to have children when they can't afford them or decide to have unprotected sex just this once and end up getting pregnant.

They may run up their credit card bills or buy a house they can't afford and have to trash their credit. They may have a crappy job but decide they would rather buy a newer vehicle or that new Iphone or take their lady out to dinner when they should be putting that money in the bank.

When they lose their job they find themselves with nothing to fall back on. These situations are endless but it comes down to personal choices.

Except for people with medical issues most poor people are there because of their own fault and the government should not bail them out for their poor planning.

 

.......are you saying there is no choice involved?

The Poorest American Cities of 2008 (1-30)

1. Detroit, 33.3% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 52 years
2. Cleveland, 30.5% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 20 years
3. Buffalo, 30.3% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 43 years
4. Newark, 26.1% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 102 years
5. Miami, 25.6% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 52 years
6. Fresno, 25.5% in poverty--Republican Mayor for the last 13 years
7. Cincinnati, 25.1% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 29 years
8. Toledo, 24.7% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 20 years
9. El Paso, 24.3% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 120 years
10. Philadelphia, 24.1% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 57 years
11. Milwaukee, 23.4% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 49 years
12. Memphis, 23.1% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 133 years
13. St. Louis, 22.9% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 60 years
14. Dallas, 22.6% in poverty--Republican Mayor for the last 2 years
14 New Orleans,22.6% in poverty-Democrat Mayor for the last 141 years
16. Atlanta, 22.4% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 130 years
17. Stockton, Calif., 21.6% in poverty--No info available--probably Libs
18. Minneapolis, 21.3% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 35 years
19. Pittsburgh, 21.2% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 21 years
20. Tucson, 20.9% in poverty--No info available--probably Libs
21. Chicago, 20.6% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 78 years
22. Columbus,Ohio 20.1% in poverty-Democrat Mayor for the last 9 years
23. Long Beach, Calif., 19.8% in poverty--No info available--probably Libs
24. Houston, 19.5% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 88 years
25 Los Angeles,19.4% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for "the last 8 years"
26. Baltimore, 19.3% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 42 years
27 San Antonio,19.2% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 38 years
28. Phoenix, 18.9% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 5 years
29. Boston, 18.7% in poverty--Democrat Mayor for the last 79 years
30. Denver, 18.4% in poverty----Democrat Mayor for the last 46 years


If Poverty is the Greatest Evil.........perhaps we should stop electing Evil......
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Ouch...you've been served, hehe!

 

This is not a thread about US party politics, nor even is it confined to poverty in the US. If you have nothing constructive to add, go derail some other thread.