Thread: US 100million in or close to poverty

Originally Posted by septimine

Umm, ok.



How many people would have had those kinds of things in 1990? How many people would have been rich enough to have cable or satilite TV in 1990? If we're calling an upper middle class lifestyle of 1990 poverty in 2012, then look at the upper-middle class of 2012, and realize that you and your kids will work long hours so that the impoverished will have 42in flatscreen TVs, the latest computers, DVRs, and HBO on their cable systems.

As I said, we aren't even dealing with a real deprivation. People are not going hungry, they aren't sleeping in boxes. The "poor" are sitting at home, watching satilite TV and talking on cell phones.

I appreciate your points and also note that we apparently are far from brilliant in Team GB with around a 25% level .
I guess the thing that sticks out for me is this incredible rounded figure of 100, 000, 000.
The mind just boggles when you relate it on one hand to poverty and homelessness etc and military expenditure on the other , for example .
How has public consciousness and perception run so low that we lose sight of these awful truths .
THE US has enough Bomb power to blow up the whole planet , probably more than once .
The country could run a zero Military budget for 5 years . say , and put everything into health care , education and reducing poverty and building growth .Defence need not be compromised with planning .
Paradise .
But as likely as the famous Pigs that cannot Fly , despite rumours to the contrary .
So when is some Human Pulsar going to stand up and argue for some intermediary position and refuse to ever change the plea until the battle is won ? Rhetorical

Originally Posted by raymondo

I appreciate your points and also note that we apparently are far from brilliant in Team GB with around a 25% level .
I guess the thing that sticks out for me is this incredible rounded figure of 100, 000, 000.
The mind just boggles when you relate it on one hand to poverty and homelessness etc and military expenditure on the other , for example .
How has public consciousness and perception run so low that we lose sight of these awful truths .
THE US has enough Bomb power to blow up the whole planet , probably more than once .
The country could run a zero Military budget for 5 years . say , and put everything into health care , education and reducing poverty and building growth .Defence need not be compromised with planning .
Paradise .
But as likely as the famous Pigs that cannot Fly , despite rumours to the contrary .
So when is some Human Pulsar going to stand up and argue for some intermediary position and refuse to ever change the plea until the battle is won ? Rhetorical

The world doesn't work that way. It's not a zero sum game. You could throw 2 trillion dollars into U.S. health care, education, and poverty reduction and it would only get marginally better. The U.S. already spends more than any other country in the world on education per student, yet it doesn't rank #1. There are other issues at play. Throwing money at stuff doesn't make problems go away. It's why I always laugh at Political adds that seem to attribute fiscal expenditures to "support." It comes down to efficiency, not raw numbers.

Originally Posted by raymondo

We just had a European extremist trying to convince the British on this Forum that one third of all UK children were living in poverty .
The supposed evidence was of course dishonest and he retired to try and wipe the egg off his face .
But just yesterday we read that your US Census Bureau has found that there are 100 million people either in poverty or just hovering above it -- an abridged summary is below .
If representative and true , this seems close to amazing .
Are any Americans interested in commenting and telling your supposed dying allies whether you believe the bald head line , and , if not , why not?
To someone living an ocean away , the report seems authentic . But may be you know differently ? Over here , we are used to seeing your phoney unemployment figures which understate the full and representative position by about 100%
But surely only a commercial body with a political agenda would fudge results on a survey of this type . Perhaps the U.S. Census Bureau is not quite what it's title suggests ?
Or perhaps , like the Financial Tsunami thundering your way ,many of you prefer to ignore such suggestions , believing that denial is the more comfortable policy .
And concentrate along the lines of who will win the elections and be in charge of melt down !!
Yours with bated breath ,Granville-Rodgers , in London



The U.S. Census Bureau find that it underestimated those teetering on the line of poverty, the new measure of poverty released this month found that one in three Americans are either in or close to poverty.
The new measure shows that 51 million Americans have an income of less than 50 percent above the poverty line, reports The New York Times. This new number is 76 percent higher than the previous official account released in September. In summary, 100 million people are either in poverty or are hovering just above it.
Per the request of The New York Times, the Census Bureau produced this analysis of the near poor two week ago, and the results even were surprising to them.
“These numbers are higher than we anticipated,” said Trudi J. Renwick, the bureau’s chief poverty statistician. “There are more people struggling than the official numbers show.”

I do not enjoy seeing people suffer, but a lot of young Americans have had their ass kissed for the first 25 years of their lives. They could use some suffering to get their heads on straight and realize the world does not revolve around their spoiled asses. It happened to me during the Carter-Reagan recession of the early 80's, and may have in retrospect been one of the best lessons I ever learned.

There is definitely truth in that, no doubt, but the way things are going, they're getting told that when they graduate now. Before long, there won't be anything special in life, not even childhood. It'll be time to grow up already.

Originally Posted by IgnoranceisBliss

The world doesn't work that way.

I appreciate that as much as you .
But in principle I cannot accept what is really a glib dismissal of not trying to do good because it is judged that attempting it won't work .
If the failure is that the released funds are not enough , then my vote goes for bringing it down to 50million , or whatever the actual figure that is produced .
If that money is spent inefficiently , that is no reason to withhold it from the needy .
The answer must then be to improve distribution or eliminate whatever the system failure points are.
I am no idealist or even so called Socialist .
I just argue for improvement of opportunities and a level start point for everybody .

Originally Posted by raymondo

I appreciate that as much as you .
But in principle I cannot accept what is really a glib dismissal of not trying to do good because it is judged that attempting it won't work .
If the failure is that the released funds are not enough , then my vote goes for bringing it down to 50million , or whatever the actual figure that is produced .
If that money is spent inefficiently , that is no reason to withhold it from the needy .
The answer must then be to improve distribution or eliminate whatever the system failure points are.
I am no idealist or even so called Socialist .
I just argue for improvement of opportunities and a level start point for everybody .

The reason to not use it on more poverty programs is to prevent it from making poverty so comfortable that people never want to leave. On welfare, a person can get a nice 2-bedroom apartment, free food, cell phones, cable, computers, internet. Basically a upper middle class existance in 1990. Why would you want to go out and get a job and provide that for yourself? especially since you couldn't really earn the money for all that stuff if you don't have a good college education and a job using that education. You aren't gong to get a 2-year vo-tech degree and live that well. Certainly not with a minimum wage job. So people do the normal thing -- they sit on their butts and watch cable and eat steak while people with their education and skills (and perhaps even slightly better skills) work their butts off to feed their kids and pay the taxes for that provide lavish lifestyles for the "poor".

The census bureau can come up with any figures they like. It is just a matter of defining poverty. They have a majority in poverty or nobody in poverty depending on how they difine it. That definition has certainly changed as administrations have changed. I don't know what the real percentage of poverty is (nobody does) but I have no reason to think it has changed significantly over my lifetime.