Are most people poor because of poor choices they made in life?

How would they know without trying it?

Or ever seeing anyone in their family try it?

 

In areas where people rely on subsistence farming for example there are no choices. You either work the land or you starve. Crops fail you starve, the rains don't come, you starve. If by chance you have a good harvest, what you don't eat you may sell to buy neccessities like clothes and household goods. You may even barter. You could work the land from sunrise to sunset and still be p!ss poor. Around 50% of the world's population exists like this. 65% of the world's population lives below the poverty line.

You may save up the bus fare into town or walk and look for employment, so do several thousand other souls.

In these situations there are no choices or opportunities.

 

Or if you are not an Obama voter you move somewhere else where you can find a job.

This is America not Nigeria.

 

Maybe the OP should have been more specific.

 

Being anchored in one spot instead of going where the jobs are is a choice.

 

......and what do they do? They work the land vs. sitting on the sofa playing thier PS3 after walking to the mailbox and picking up thier welfare checks. This is what happens in the US and is why we have generations of poor.

 

True. When some point this out, they are put down for telling the truth. This is what many on the Left do. They don't want the short comings pointed out and be encouraged to do better.


WASHINGTON - In a vulgar tirade caught on tape by Fox News, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he wanted to "cut his [Barack Obama's] nuts out" and he accused the fellow Chicagoan of "talking down to black folks" by giving moral lectures to African-Americans, source said Jackson's shocking quotes were picked up by a hot mic before an interview on health care in Fox's Chicago studio last Sunday. This was because Obama was saying Black males need to be more responcible fathers.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/item_2IKMVtS3vzxRvoAAxZ0ZGL#ixzz1hkykmL5D




June 29, 2005 --





It came as a shock to many last year when Bill Cosby, one of America's top TV dads and comedians, strongly criticized low-income African-Americans, and then took that message on the road.

In a series of "Conversations with Cosby" held in cities with large urban and poor populations, Cosby has said African-Americans are not "holding up their end of the deal" and need to take more responsibility for their families and communities.

During these events, Cosby has been tight-lipped with the media, often talking only to columnists in order to promote his advocacy. But the entertainer invited "Nightline's" Michel Martin to sit down for an exclusive interview during his latest event in St. Louis. Martin shared a preview of the piece, which airs in its entirety tonight, with "Good Morning America."

Cosby calls his town meetings "call outs" and has traveled to 12 cities so far, spreading his message of personal responsibility.

He has lambasted "lower-economic people," parents who spend more on athletic shoes than education, and children who use poor English and curse constantly. He has said blacks need to stop blaming whites and take control of their children and their communities.

"Nine hundred kids enter many of these high schools, and 35 walk out with diplomas," Cosby told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "The rest are in prison, pregnant or wandering around doing nothing."




Critics have dubbed it the "Blame the Poor Tour," and blasted Cosby's remarks as hurtful and stereotypical.

Martin asked Cosby about those criticisms.

"I would say they are trying to move away from the problem," Cosby said. "They're trying to deal me some cards other than the hand that I'm talking about. I don't talk about the television set that works. I call the mechanic about that one that's broken."

However, his outspokenness has made him a target due to his own conduct, including current allegations of sexual misconduct. Prosecutors have declined to press charges, although a civil suit is pending. Cosby has publicly acknowledged that he had an inappropriate relationship outside of his marriage.

Martin asked Cosby if his own failures of judgment disqualify him from speaking about others.

"No," Cosby said flatly. "I couldn't care less what you think of me as long as you begin to execute that which will save your children."

He compared speaking out to warning others against mistakes he had made himself.

"You don't have to listen to me," he said. "But you're going to be very, very sorry."

Cosby grew up in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood, seeing little of his father who was a mess steward in the Navy. Cosby himself left high school in 10th grade to join the Navy, and later received his diploma from a correspondence course while still in the service. He attended Temple University on a football scholarship, and received a master's and doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts.

Cosby is the creator of Fat Albert and played Heathcliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show." He has won four Emmy Awards, eight Grammys, the NAACP Image Award, the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award and is a member of the Hall of Fame of the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences.

Cosby and his wife, Camille, had five children. In 1997, their son, Ennis, was killed by a single gunshot to the head while changing a tire on his car.

Cosby has already taken his "call outs" to Atlanta; Springfield, Mass.; Newark, N.J.; Baltimore; and Dallas, among other cities. He plans to continue his conversation in Cleveland, Kansas City and other urban areas.


http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=891845&page=1

 

If there are, then socialism failed miserably!

 

NOT in a purely socialistic society. Where there are cases, that is a sign of failure of socialism!

 

I do not beleive the same opportunities are available to everyone.

 

*shrug*

However you look at it, there are very rich people in socialistic societies...

 

I have to agree with this...

 

I would say a big YES especially in my line of work.

I can't tell you how many people that already don't have a pot to p!ss in or a dollar to their name have about 1-5 kids.

This has nothing to do with liberal or conservative either. It's just plain irresponsible breeding habits. Some people think it's their right to bring children into poverty.

 

Marine1:

I wish you hadn't said that because it lowers my opinion of you.

I will add the unspoken part you omitted: " - and therefore, because their misfortune is their own fault, I shouldn't be required to help them."

This is bad logic and bad economics.

Let's start with the logic - your statement only makes sense if the people concerned were making an informed choice. That implies that the person making the choice is fully informed of the facts pertaining to the choice they are about to make and have the eduction and analytical skills necessary to arrive at a decision about what is best for them at the time - including the likely future outcomes.

Does that situation apply to poor people? Mostly no from what I've seen, and the existence of TV shopping channels promising me Forty pounds of weight loss and a gorgeous six pack in Twenty days proves that there are whole industries that rely on people not making informed choices.

To put that another way; If you are a Ten year old Black Ghetto kid and the richest, nicest, most successful person you have ever seen is your local drug dealer, exactly who are you going to choose to emulate? Is that an informed choice? Nope.


To put that yet another way; Australia is in the process of running a series of advertisements showing exactly what cancer of the lung, esophagus and mouth looks like and what people dying of smoking induced cancer look like. They are extremely nasty advertisements. That is part of a concerted effort to provide young people with the necessary information to make an informed choice about whether they take up smoking or not - based on what the future holds for them if they do. Naturally, the tobacco industry doesn't like this - another industry that relies on people NOT making informed choices.

To reiterate, do you ever say to yourself "Boy! I wish I had known that back then because I would have done something different with my life!"

I say it constantly: I would never have persisted with my Engineering degree and instead by hook or by crook I would have apprenticed myself to a property developer - even working for free, because that is where the big money has been made in the country in the last Forty years. But how could I have known then what I know now?

So Marine1, I suggest a little experiment. Go find some poor people and ask them about how they made the life choices that got them where they are today. My guess is that there was not a single informed choice, if there was any choice at all, among the lot of them.

Now lets talk about economics. What is the single most valuable, priceless, scarce, prized commodity on this planet?

Gold?

Oil?

Uranium?

Nope, it's human capital, because that is the stuff, the ONLY stuff, that makes nations rich and prosperous. You can visit any number of craphole Third world countries that are swimming in natural resources like Nigeria, New Guinea and a host of other places where the people are miserable and poor because no one has invested in developing not the natural resources but the people resources. Look at Japan for example - no natural resources at all, but is it prosperous?

That should be enough to tell you that you should be investing in all your children, including and especially the Children of the poor, because like it or not they are your nations future, and any attempt to discriminate against the poor, as America so completely does, as your opening post implies, is simply destroying its own future.

To put that another way, neither you or anyone else can look at a young child and discern whether there is another Einstein or George Washington in there. There is no way to know. What is for sure though is that by treating the poor and especially their children, as second class citizens, you are denying yourself a rich and prosperous future.

..and you do it all the time, Merry Christmas:

http://www.care2.com/causes/homeless-mom-charged-stealing-school.html

 

That is true in any system.

 

Marine1:


Quote:
I think people are poor because of bad choices they made in life.

I never said I wouldn't help them. I have given plenty to charity and put out thousands to my kids, even though I consider myself middle class. Even a little lower middle class. Mostly because the choices two of our children have put us in because of their choices.

Sure if you grow up in poverty it's harder to get out, but you can do it. It's like saying I beat my wife because I saw my Dad do it. That's crazy. I don't care how old you are, you have to know right from wrong and you can't put all the blame on your parents or the environment you grew up in as the reason you didn't use good judgement. You have to know quitting school is going to hurt your chances of getting a good job. You have to know having a child out of wedlock will hurt you. You only have to look around you and see how others live by using bad judgement. If your father is a drunk and mistreats his family, are you going to do it too because he did? Or are you going to tell yourself I will never treat my family like he did. I know the hurt he caused and I will never put my family through that. Wouldn't you do the same with people you saw living in poverty and knowing what helped put them there?

 

False.

and YES!!!! The vast majority of those in poverty have made poor decisions.

There will always be someone who worked hard and through no fault of their own are living below the poverty line. There will always be some who have been dealt such lousy cards, who have inherited such a poor lot in life (into a poor, uneducated family, and into a destructive environment with a bad school).

But they are out-numbered 1,000 to 1 by those who are in poverty thanks to their poor decision making.

 

Could this be one of the reasons people make the choices they do? Where is the incentive to go out and do better?


http://arizonateaparty.ning.com/video/the-california-poster-girl

 

True, the white middle class gets screwed over. Not rich enough to pay for college outright and not poor enough or the right color to qualify for certain loans and scholarships. Are there white only scholarships? Not that I know of. I couldn't even begin to count the number of minority ONLY scholarships. Inner city kids actually have immense opportunities for those that apply themselves. Some need only be slightly above average and they'll have a free ride all through college. Its all right there right in front of them. They just have to grab it. Because so many choose not to, who's fault is it? Rich people? Its rich people who provide all these opportunities. I spent 10 years paying off my school loans, and I'm better off for it. I look at some of those who got a free ride through college and didn't care and theyre far worse off than me.

By the way, I love Bill Cosby. If more people listened to him, we'd all be in a better place, because he just lays out the basics everyone should follow. Its just so sad, those on the Left take great pains to paint what he has to say in a bad light. So who's fault is it again? How is being responsible, staying in school, respecting family and your community wrong? How the hell do you spin that into a negative?

 

You are very correct, Marine1.

If these people had stayed in school and finished their education, they would not be poor today.

 

This is true.

 

Yes, but I also believe that we are not all equal. Some people are exceptional and talented. Some people are, well, useless.

But the vast, vast majority of people can escape poverty in this country.

 

Rich is relative. Most of the people who protested at zuccotti park were in the global 1%.

If you define rich as how you compare to others, not everyone can have more than most, obviously. But that's a stupid definition of rich.

If you actually look at material wealth then absolutely everyone can be rich. The poor in our country are fat and have smart phones. They have cars and running water. They have a place to live and cable TV. They are already rich.

Few of us work in the fields or do any real manual labor. Most of us live lives of leisure. Many of us apparently need some perspective...

That's why income disparity is such a meaningless thing to focus on. If we were to compare ourselves to the monarchs of the 17th century we have access to things they couldn't even dream of. We live better than kings! The rich get richer and the poor get richer too. Instead of focusing on the difference between the classes, we should focus on how our quality of life is improving.

Income disparity is a natural product of human liberty. It will arise any time man is free to capitalize on his skills to better himself as we have radically differing natural abilities and drives. But allowing man to profit from his own labor is the engine that progresses civilization! To oppose income inequality and capitalism is to oppose a high standard of living. It's to subjugate the very people you set out to help to poverty.

 

Sooo.. our civic duty as a society is to cripple ourselves to protect the ugly and/or stupid?

Please.

Life sometimes sucks for people.. get over it and quit being such a bleeding heart for every stray.

Are you a cat collector?

 

Is there a system where that is not true?