Thread: America Has The Richest Poor In The World

America's "wealthy" poor:



Keeping dry.

I assume you are comparing yourselves with Sierra Leone.

If you go by the ammount of money, that is true, but at the same time, america also has one of the highest cost of living in the world......So having more money does not make someone less poor.

If you have food...

Originally Posted by clarkatticus

The difference between me and you is that I would start at the top since that is by far the largest contributer to the current issue. You would give the likes of BofA, the credit card companies and Countrywide a pass and not prosecute the individuals responsible. You think it is moral and ethical to knowingly loan other peoples money to irresponsible individuals for personal profit.

For one thing, you do not really know what I think or believe. If the individuals acted criminally, then they should be prosecuted.

As far as loaning money to irresponsible individuals, then you really are looking at the wrong place. Look at the politicians as the real cause of this problem.

Back in 1996, HUD instructed mortgage lenders that at least 42% of mortgages should be given to those who fall under the median income for that area, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac followed with this as their guide to financial institutions. So during the next decade, these banks and S&Ls were required to give almost half of the loans to people who could barely afford them.

And the Government thought this was such a good idea, they instructed banks that at least 50% of mortgages should be subprime by 2000, and 52% by 2005. See where this is going? The government ordered bankers to make more then half of it's mortgages (backed by government guarantees) to people they knew could barely afford to pay for them in the first place.

These are what is known as "Alt-A Mortgages". These are the mortgages that are guaranteed not by the bank or the individual, but by Fannie and Freddie, entities of the Government. And these types of mortgages grew by almost 300%.

Then the bubble burst, like it always does. Most of the subprime individuals have continued to make their monthly payments, and keep their houses. But enough of them failed (including people who had good credit scores, but bought houses more then they should have been able to qualify for otherwise).

And ya gotta love the government trying to cover it's own backdoor afterwards. In the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, they determined that the requirement placed on banks to make over half the loans to individuals who could not qualift as "a contributing factor", but still placed the blame onto the financial institutions.

Personally, I would love to see the individuals who made these decisions at HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loose their jobs and pensions for this horrible mess. They destroyed millions of lives simply to try and push a kind of agenda which should have been obvious was doomed to failure.

Originally Posted by Iriemon

You can for the folks who receive it.

You can have one super rich guy and 9 super poor guys.

You redristibute some of the wealth and you have one kind of rich guy and 9 kind of poor guys.

You've mulitplied the wealth by a factor of 9.

No, all you have done was made somebody poorer.

Here, let me give you an example. Take Anthony Maglica. Born in the US, his family moved to Europe during the depression, then returned to the US during WWII. Here was an American who could barely speak English, and he got a job as a metal worker. He bought some used metal working tools, and soon opened his own shop.

He then started playing with this really neat metal known as aircraft aluminum. His little machine shop, Mag Insturment Inc. (privately owned and operated) then started to make things out of it, but their huge hit was of course flashlights.

This made the owner wealthy, but this wealth also allowed the expansion of the company to meet demands. Take away that money, and then you have no Mag-Lite, you still have the cheap plastic flashlights we had used for decades prior to that.

Or take Michael Dell, college student who builds computers in his dorm room. As his business takes off, you take away a big chunk of his money and you have no Dell Computers, which employs thousands.

How about this instead. Instead of taxing the business owners so heavily, I propose taxing the entertainment and sports industry heavily. After all, what do they provide to the people of the country? Songs and movies? A guy who plays with a ball a few months a year gets millions? After all, these are among the richest people in the country, and they do not even provide jobs (other then their maids and gardners). Tax them, not the people who actually make jobs.

Originally Posted by Iriemon

You can legislate the poor out of the dregs of poverty by legislating the uber wealthy to just super wealthy.

We would still have the poor. I invite you to spend some time living with the poor, see what makes them tick. You will find for the majority of them it is drugs, alcohol or mental illness. Especially among the homeless.

Originally Posted by Iriemon

I disagree. When people cannot get work regardless of taking responsiblity of their lives, a handout to keep them off the streets till they get back on their feet is right.

Go to most low income areas, and look around. I bet you find a lot of places offering jobs. The problem is that if you ask somebody who is out of work if they want to take them, the response is generally "Hell no, I ain't flipping no burgers!"

This is a huge part of the problem. A lot of the poor would prefer to live off of government assistance rather then start at the bottom and work their way up like most of us have.

Originally Posted by DA60

You know what it was like for you and those you knew or those whose personal lives have been reported on...only.

But to state you know what millions of people feel whom you have never known?

The thing is, like ptif219, I have also been homeless. Off and on for several years I lived in homeless shelters, and got to know the average inhabitant fairly well. And it is mostly as he says.

In Long Beach, California there are several "Day Labor" companies. The shelters even tried to get people to go to them to look for work. And just about every day I would find myself there with 3 or 4 others from the shelter. This is out of a shelter that housed around 500 people.

Where were most of them? Hanging out in Linclon Park, begging for money along Long Beach Blvd, shoplifting in the stores. All they wanted was enough to get their next fix or bottle of booze before the bus came back to return them to the shelter at night.

There was even a special section at the shelter for those of us that had jobs. It was seperated by distance, we were not packed in like sardines, and had a guaranteed bed every night. We even had priorty for use of the shower. But of the 20 or so beds in this area, less then half were generally used.

Ironically, one of them was by a guy that had a job. Since this shelter was "seasonal" (October-April), he rented an apartment the rest of the year. But once the shelter opened up, he would put everything in storage and move into the shelter so he could save money. Strange cat, but he had done that for years.

Originally Posted by Awryly

America's "wealthy" poor:



Keeping dry.

I assume you are comparing yourselves with Sierra Leone.

Of course, Sierra Leone also has a mandatory drug law, which mandates a minimum of 5 years for any drug related offenses.

I bet if you had that in effect here in the US, a lot of our homeless would not be on the streets either, they would be in jail. But that is a totally different subject.

Originally Posted by Mushroom

The thing is, like ptif219, I have also been homeless. Off and on for several years I lived in homeless shelters, and got to know the average inhabitant fairly well. And it is mostly as he says.

In Long Beach, California there are several "Day Labor" companies. The shelters even tried to get people to go to them to look for work. And just about every day I would find myself there with 3 or 4 others from the shelter. This is out of a shelter that housed around 500 people.

Where were most of them? Hanging out in Linclon Park, begging for money along Long Beach Blvd, shoplifting in the stores. All they wanted was enough to get their next fix or bottle of booze before the bus came back to return them to the shelter at night.

There was even a special section at the shelter for those of us that had jobs. It was seperated by distance, we were not packed in like sardines, and had a guaranteed bed every night. We even had priorty for use of the shower. But of the 20 or so beds in this area, less then half were generally used.

Ironically, one of them was by a guy that had a job. Since this shelter was "seasonal" (October-April), he rented an apartment the rest of the year. But once the shelter opened up, he would put everything in storage and move into the shelter so he could save money. Strange cat, but he had done that for years.

They sound more like addicts then anything (something I used to be).

And the official poor of America are made of a LOT more then just the homeless crowd.


Interesting story though...thanks for sharing it.