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    Let's Talk Poverty

    You'd like to think that poverty, such a serious issue, historically and currently, would be at the top of the list in this, hell, in every election, but well... it's not.

    In fact, only one of the two campaigns was willing to discuss the issue:

    #TalkPoverty: The Obama Campaign Responds

    Three months ago, anticipating that the media and presidential campaigns wouldn’t focus on the struggles of the poor and near poor in a substantive way, TheNation.com kicked off a new campaign: “#TalkPoverty: Questions for Obama and Romney.
    ------------------------------------------------
    A thriving #TalkPoverty community developed online, and the Half In Ten coalition—comprised of 200 national and local organizations across the country—ran an excellent spin-off campaign to pressure debate moderators to ask President Obama and Governor Romney about their plans to address child poverty. Despite this vibrant campaign—and the outsized focus of the debates on the domestic economy—the moderators never asked a single question about poverty.

    At the outset of the #TalkPoverty effort, I promised to hound both campaigns for answers. In the end, it didn’t really require hounding as far as the Obama campaign was concerned—they agreed to respond when I first contacted them. The Romney campaign, on the other hand, initially expressed openness before sending an e-mail last Thursday: “We will not be participating. Thanks for the offer.” It seems that the Romney campaign prefers to continue its strategy of speaking about “the poor” without saying anything of substance about antipoverty policies, or speaking in a manner completely untethered from reality, or outright lying.

    http://www.thenation.com/blog/170950...aign-responds#
    Poverty in this country in this magnitude is inexcusable and should be the single-most important concern in this country today. But it's not. Not if you take your cue from the campaigns, and the debate questions poised during the three presidential debates. At least the Obama campaign was willing to answer questions posed in the above article.

    Something needs to be done about the poor, the hungry and the shelterless. Not just in this country but worldwide. Don't ask me what the answer is. My answer would require a complete reconstruction of world economic priorities. Imagine anyone going for that.
    Please note: verbage enclosed by < > indicates sarcasm

    "There's class war alright. But it's my class that's making the war. And we're winning it." - Warren Buffet

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    The only way IMHO to break the poverty cycle is through education and opportunity - both of which we're failing miserably.

    Unless you're lucky enough to be born into wealth, then both are readily available to you in excess.
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    Since LBJ's war on poverty it's only increased. It should be obvious that government-designed programs don't work. And do so if for no other reason than they take profits to fund the programs. But without profits an economy cannot grow nor a nation prosper. Central planning throughout the history of various sorts of socialism--social democracy the worst--has been an utter failure. And, no, throwing smarter people and more money at it won't help.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Since LBJ's war on poverty it's only increased. It should be obvious that government-designed programs don't work. And do so if for no other reason than they take profits to fund the programs. But without profits an economy cannot grow nor a nation prosper. Central planning throughout the history of various sorts of socialism--social democracy the worst--has been an utter failure. And, no, throwing smarter people and more money at it won't help.
    I wouldn't say they don't work. When I talk about poverty in the U.S. I always mention whether I mean U.S. poverty or real poverty. Poor people in the U.S. are richer than many working people in other parts of the world.

    What isn't working is people such as Blad whining about poor people in the U.S. His comments are especially galling to people old enough to remember poverty. I remember working hard and having less than "poor" people have now. I can remember a congresswoman from California whining on NPR that some of her poor constituents were so poor they couldn't afford cable television. I'm sure we've solved that problem. When a liberal demanded to know if I had no sympathy for the millions of people staring to death in the U.S. the only response I could think of was, "Anorexia is a terrible disorder." What kind of alternate universe to these people live in?

    I grew up sharing a bed with two cousins. The two girls slept in what was originally intended to be a dining room. My aunt and uncle shared a small bedroom with the baby. When I got married we not only didn't have cable, we didn't have television. Another critical thing we didn't have was some high-paid government bureaucrat telling us we were poor and hopeless and demanding we take "assistance".

    Now I live in Mexico and sadly we have real poverty here but people do have hope. How strange.

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    Quote Originally Posted by patrickt View Post
    I wouldn't say they don't work. When I talk about poverty in the U.S. I always mention whether I mean U.S. poverty or real poverty. Poor people in the U.S. are richer than many working people in other parts of the world.

    What isn't working is people such as Blad whining about poor people in the U.S. His comments are especially galling to people old enough to remember poverty. I remember working hard and having less than "poor" people have now. I can remember a congresswoman from California whining on NPR that some of her poor constituents were so poor they couldn't afford cable television. I'm sure we've solved that problem. When a liberal demanded to know if I had no sympathy for the millions of people staring to death in the U.S. the only response I could think of was, "Anorexia is a terrible disorder." What kind of alternate universe to these people live in?

    I grew up sharing a bed with two cousins. The two girls slept in what was originally intended to be a dining room. My aunt and uncle shared a small bedroom with the baby. When I got married we not only didn't have cable, we didn't have television. Another critical thing we didn't have was some high-paid government bureaucrat telling us we were poor and hopeless and demanding we take "assistance".

    Now I live in Mexico and sadly we have real poverty here but people do have hope. How strange.
    You bring up two important points about poverty. One, that US poor are rich by world standards. Why, because the US under capitalism is rich. As Kennedy said, all boats rise on the tide. Second, as your personal story shows, poor and rich are categories and what we see is a lot of economic mobility within and between them. Sowell talks about this a lot, how liberals look only at the abstract categories and not the individuals rising and falling economically.

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    We should really use the term relative poverty....which is more succinct when discussing poverty in the USA, Canada, and other first world countries. When politicians and the news media discuss poverty in first world countries, they are really referring to relative poverty. Absolute poverty is generally the situation we refer to when discussing impoverished third world countries.


    Here are the difference between the definitions of poverty (according to Wikipedia):

    Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain relative amount of material possessions or money.


    Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the one who lacks basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter.


    Relative poverty refers to lacking a usual or socially acceptable level of resources or income as compared with others within a society or country.


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    Education is no excuse. The US spends more per pupil than anybody on education.

    You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Taxcutter View Post
    Education is no excuse. The US spends more per pupil than anybody on education.

    You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
    Which is why education needs to be coupled with opportunity.

    They are co-dependent.
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    Quote Originally Posted by patrickt View Post
    I wouldn't say they don't work. When I talk about poverty in the U.S. I always mention whether I mean U.S. poverty or real poverty. Poor people in the U.S. are richer than many working people in other parts of the world.

    What isn't working is people such as Blad whining about poor people in the U.S. His comments are especially galling to people old enough to remember poverty. I remember working hard and having less than "poor" people have now. I can remember a congresswoman from California whining on NPR that some of her poor constituents were so poor they couldn't afford cable television. I'm sure we've solved that problem. When a liberal demanded to know if I had no sympathy for the millions of people staring to death in the U.S. the only response I could think of was, "Anorexia is a terrible disorder." What kind of alternate universe to these people live in?

    I grew up sharing a bed with two cousins. The two girls slept in what was originally intended to be a dining room. My aunt and uncle shared a small bedroom with the baby. When I got married we not only didn't have cable, we didn't have television. Another critical thing we didn't have was some high-paid government bureaucrat telling us we were poor and hopeless and demanding we take "assistance".

    Now I live in Mexico and sadly we have real poverty here but people do have hope. How strange.
    <First, allow me to personally thank Coolwalker for his little english lesson concerning my use of the word "sheltered". It was so meaningful and relevant.>

    It's not unexpected that even though i brought world-wide poverty into the conversation in my OP, most want to ignore that and zero in on poverty in the US. Fair enough. But what is unexpected is for anyone to mock the poor in this country. You call my post "whining". I call your response anecdotal and childish. I don't know how old you are, but i was 12 years old when JFK was murdered. And i have my own stories; i can match you one for one. So what?

    Blowing off my point to talk, instead, about the "working poor" in this country and what they can do to "pull themselves up out of poverty" does not address the truly destitute in America. These are the people who their fellow countrymen believe should be expected to count on regular assistance from local and regional charities. Maybe these charities can help, maybe not. But as soon as they accept charity assistance, don't they then become dependent and expectant? What, then, is to drive them to work their way out of their desperate situation. Isn't that the argument?

    I get it. I really do. Some people, mostly conservatives, believe that they don't want their tax dollars to go to assisting those who they believe don't really need it or don't deserve it, because they think that, for some reason, most recipients are just lazy drug-addled bums sitting around playing video games. They sit and wait for their hand-out. That's called system abuse. Every system has it's abuse problems. They don't want their tax dollars going to help the destitute and the "working poor", but sending $.41 of each tax dollar to feed the MIC is perfectly ok. Why is that? Where is the logic there? Is this it?: "Well, we need a bloated military machine to make sure that we can fend off attacks and keep our nation and it's citizens, even it's hungry americans, safe." Safe, but hungry... somehow it just doesn't make sense.

    But let's talk about world-wide poverty.

    Global poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor.
    Today, the problem persists because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies – in other words, wealthy countries taking advantage of poor, developing countries....

    Consider that 20% of the planet’s population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate.

    At this rate, to maintain our lifestyle means more and more people will sink below the poverty line. Filmed in the slums of Africa and the barrios of Latin America, The End of Poverty features expert insights from: Nobel prize winners in Economics, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; acclaimed authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson; university professors William Easterly and Michael Watts; government ministers such as Bolivia’s Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the leaders of social movements in Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania.

    It is produced by Cinema Libre Studio in collaboration with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Can we really end poverty within our current economic system? Think again.
    http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/end-of-poverty/


    Take just a little time to watch. This is the point i'm making.
    Please note: verbage enclosed by < > indicates sarcasm

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    Quote Originally Posted by bladimz View Post

    Poverty in this country in this magnitude is inexcusable and should be the single-most important concern in this country today. But it's not. Not if you take your cue from the campaigns, and the debate questions poised during the three presidential debates. At least the Obama campaign was willing to answer questions posed in the above article.

    Something needs to be done about the poor, the hungry and the shelterless. Not just in this country but worldwide. Don't ask me what the answer is. My answer would require a complete reconstruction of world economic priorities. Imagine anyone going for that.
    To start there is no such word as shelterless. if there were it would mean they couldn't be sheltered. You mean those without shelter (for unsheltered also isn't a word).

    Anyway there are ways to pull out of poverty but it wouldn't be easy unless you knuckled-down. Socialists want to make everyone the same, one class, but it can't work because there will always be a ruling class who has more and who doles out the rewards (scraps). The Mexicans who come here in poverty join together, pool their money, put some away for savings and begin to pull themselves out of poverty. They are driven. We have people here who have been on the government dole for generations and don't care to do anything to improve their lot. They should take a hint from the Mexicans if nothing else.



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