Poverty

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We have the richest poor in the world. Having done a fair amount of social work (and being in many "poor people's" homes on cases). Many of our poor struggle over issues like whether they should drop their cable TV or go out a few times a week less. While much of the rest of the world's poor is struggling with buying shoes or getting up to 2 meals a day.

Poverty

Poor : 7 items


Income inequality, vanishing middle class, and other scams -
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There’s a bunch of meme’s and soundbites going around where politicians love to point out the disappearing middle class (income inequality), and how we need them to fix it. There’s only a few problems with that:
  1. It’s a lie that plays to people’s ignorance and greed
  2. History always looks better from a distance (and if you don’t look too closely)
  3. It’s prestidigitation to distract you while they pick your pockets

This article details why this is a fraud, and how they give ammo to the frauds and flimflam the gullible.


Poverty cause - There's of course no single contributor to what causes poverty, but there are a few really strong ones that cause most of it. Some are easily fixable. Including:
  • Single Parenthood - Single-parent families, especially in minorities.
  • Welfare - When you pay people to not work and have kids out of wedlock (single parent homes), more people will not work and have kids without fathers. This robs the child of more than half his attention, and more than than in earnings-based opportunities, you hurt kids and families.
  • The failure of schools. For example, communication skills. Speaking ghetto or never learning English might make you cool with your friends, but it's going to dampen your opportunities for life. Certainly some jobs can tolerate it, but many will never be able to -- so it's a limiting factor.
  • The failure of culture: there's a reason that black immigrants, black kids raised by whites, black rural kids and Asian immigrants that come here with less than our black urban poor, can all outperform American inner-city blacks -- and it isn't race. It's that the others have a culture that values hard work and education -- whereas ghetto culture teaches black kids that try to get an education that they're being "white" and selling out to the man... and with the help of liberal cities, in liberal states, and liberal teachers, that their lack of performance is all someone else's fault. That's a serious problem that has nothing to do with White Privilege, and has everything to do with the failure of inner city leftist culture.

There are no American Poor - When you compare the U.S.'s poor to the rest of the world, they're middle class or rich:
  • The global median per person income is $2,920 (or $9K/household). A full time minimum wage worker would be nearly 5 times that amount ($14,500) and less than 2% of American workers are full time minimum wage, assuming you only have one worker per family. Now throw in benefits and subsidies (≈$30K in benefits per family we spend on "the poor" that jumps to $44,500 or 15x what the global average is). 4/5ths of the world doesn't make $20K/year.
  • Our poor eat more meat (and calories), larger living spaces (sq ft per person), higher car and TV ownership, and so on.
  • Our poor don't look as rich, because we give them most of their "compensation" in non-cash, or cash equivalents (handouts that aren't cash). But when you adjust for cost of living, and purchasing power, they are better off than the middle class in most of the rest of the world. (Seriously).
  • Our poor and middle americans ARE the top 2%'ers, a fact that escapes most of them. Mostly because they're programmed with polarizing dogma so they can be used as pawns in political game. But imagine if they recognized how much opportunity they had, and how many more would climb harder?

UK is poorer than all the states - If the Britain were a State, it'd be poorer than any other state in the U.S. This is especially bad because Britain is the richest in the United Kingdom. This is based on US figures for GDP per state divided by population to come up with a GDP per capita figure -- then compare that to Britain (or the UK). Then add in the PPP (purchasing power parity) adjustments. Many people leave that last part out, but when you have a 20% VAT tax, it means that while your GDP might look fine, the actually purchasing power is far less. Do we really want to be more like them?

Welfare - Johnson's "War on Poverty" had welfare as the front line. Welfare paid people to not work, not get married, and have/keep kids out of wedlock -- and it punished people that tried to get off of it. Shocker of shockers, you get what you incentivize, and welfare got more people to not work, have kids out of wedlock, and it hurt the kids, families, and society at large. Once trapped in programs hard to get out of, the dependency class resented the masses for not giving more, and the masses resented them back for being irresponsible: it drove the wedge between the classes far deeper and divided us more than ever before. Poverty, single parenthood, gangs and crime went UP tearing the fabric of society, despite trillions of dollars poured into it. But the important part is the left won the votes of the gullible (like Chickens voting for Colonel Sanders).

Welfare destroyed the Black Family - Since Johnson's "war on poverty", black babies born to single mom's rose from 24% to 72% (it also tripled for whites from 3% to 10%). Single moms are 90% of TANF recipients, 81% of homeless families are single mom's, only 40% have full time jobs. Income for single mother families is only one third the median for married couple families. (20% receive welfare and 40% receive food at the federal level, more at the state and local). Paying Women to help raise their kids encouraged more women to have more kids without husbands and live as dependents on the state. And we got more poverty, crime, and morally rudderless humans as a result.

Welfare trap - One of the problems is that there's traps to hold folks down. For example, a single mom is better off with a $29K a year job than a $69K a year one, And they know it. The system as designed by the left rewards failure, and punishes trying to climb out. It makes dependents for life. Either that's gross incompetence, or it's intentional malice -- but there's a lesson there. When people learn it, they can't be a good liberal Democrat any more they must choose party (and towing the line) or ethics (helping the poor). Thus there are no informed liberal Democrats on this issue, only fools or liars.


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📚 References

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