Posted on 03/18/2017 2:17:44 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Princeton economics professor emeritus and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton has been running around making an extraordinary claim: “Being really poor in America is in some ways worse than being really poor in India or Africa," he recently told the National Association for Business Economics. Asked about those comments in an interview with the Atlantic, Deaton doubled down: "If you had to choose between living in a poor village in India and living in the Mississippi Delta or in a suburb of Milwaukee in a trailer park, I'm not sure who would have the better life."
This claim was qualified—Deaton is referring to those who live in extreme poverty. But The Scrapbook did once spend two months following around economists from the U.S. Agency for International Development in the slums of Asia, and we can say with near-scientific certitude that Deaton's claim is so idiotic it could only have been uttered by a Nobel Prize winner.
When it's pointed out that America has a generous welfare state where Bangladesh does not, Deaton waves the point away, saying, "A lot of these programs have been turned into block grants," he said, making it "very hard for people to get them." This, though as of last year, 45 million people—one in seven Americans—were receiving food stamps.
But statistics aside, if Deaton is going to denounce as dismal the existence of rural Americans, one may ask what he actually knows about life on the Mississippi. To her credit, the Atlantic's Annie Lowrey asked him just that: "Have you spent a lot of time in Kentucky or West Virginia or rural Nebraska?" Deaton's reply is priceless: "No, but I spent five weeks every summer in Montana. And that's been an eye-opener." Yes, nothing introduces you to the desperate lives of impoverished Americans like high-season fly-fishing in Big Sky Country.
"You get these people who are really quite poor, in many cases, who are very right-wing," Deaton says of the unfortunates he has met in Montana. As an example of these impoverished, rural, anti-government types, he tells the Atlantic of the angry Montanan he knows who chafes at having to get permission from the feds to protect his livestock from predators: "That wolf is eating my cow and I need to get a bureaucrat on the line before I'm allowed to shoot it! And that's my year's income!" Deaton recalls the poor, hardscrabble fellow saying.
Interestingly, Deaton has told of this wolf-hating right-winger before. In a 2012 article for the Royal Economic Society newsletter, he recounted the same story but with a little more detail: The man with a cow in harm's way was his friend who "raises Black Angus cattle on a ranch in Montana." This is the guy Deaton now puts forward as an example of his contact with "people who are really quite poor," a rancher who raises luxury cattle in one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth. If you have any doubts about the general affluence of such ranchers, check out the Montana Angus Association website. Let's put it this way: The Joads they ain't.
And if you're still confused about how Donald Trump got elected, the patronizing ignorance of Ivy League professors about life between the coasts offers a clue.
Hmm...yeah, that would explain the guy in the Princeton sweatshirt wandering the streets of Billings looking for lepers to staple together for Mother Teresa.
Last line is a keeper
Clean water, air conditioning, ice, 711, ice cold beer, electricity, public education, drugstores and medical care, Internet .
Yeah, I’m gonna guess which is a superior quality of life.
And Princeton wasn't embarrassed over their top "Ethicist" Peter Singer.
At least Singer was intelligent enough to reason that very late term abortions were no different than infanticide, something other liberals are either too stupid or too evil to admit. But instead of using that equivalence to denounce late-term abortions, he used it to advocate for infanticide, arguing that a birthing mother be allowed 30 days after birth to decide if she wanted to declare this child a mulligan and terminate its life.
One (of many) difference between the poor in American and the poor in India, is that a poor American can rise above their station in life. With just a little luck, a lot of work, it is possible for a poor child in American to succeed beyond the wildest dreams of a poor child in India.
Our nation’s history is filled with stories of the “self made man”.
I read many years ago that while the number of “poor” in America remains about the same, the people that are poor does not remain the same. It seems that individuals drop into poverty as other rise out of poverty.
It is my opinion that is government (at all levels) that is the root cause of poverty in this nation.
There are many jobs that go undone that a poor person could do if it was not blocked by government rules and regulations.
Want to cut down on poverty - step one - get rid of minimum wage. Step two - make it easier for someone to go into business.
Pretty typical. A big city liberal assumes that if you’re in the “poverty” bracket then your life must suck. Many of these “right wingers” find many ways to make ends meet and wouldn’t describe their life as “in poverty”.
Clean water - check
Clothes on back - check
Roof over head - check
Food available - check
Considering historical standards of living, most of us live like kings. I won’t mention the smartphones, TV’s, refrigerators, microwaves, cars, etc. that almost everyone has available to them.
Is it all roses and skittles? No, but it never astonishes me that these idiots have no idea about those in fly-over country. Their insulting ignorance is so condescending, they really think all of “those people” really are that stupid and should just be ignored. We’re just like those in impoverished 3rd world hell holes, except worse!!! /S
I’m sure it pains him that his vote doesn’t count any more than ours.
Heck they have the Woodrow Wilson School for International Studies. Wilson desegregated the federal government then mostly DC. There were a significant number of black federal clerks etch working in FEDGOV.! He did the same to the US Navy. Around the time of the Spanish-American War to around WWI it was roughly 1/4 to 1/3 black in its enlisted strength. Wilson was an ardent segregationist, pro-Klan and viewed the Constitution as silly and outmoded.
Sorry I meant he re-segregated the FedGov!
>I think giving anyone freedom and endless cash is dangerous to them. Look how so many children of Hollywood and music celebrities turn out.
Worked out pretty well with Trump.
One of the more revealing events of my younger life was dating a girl from the welfare class for a few months. I spent a lot of time getting to know the people at her apartment complex. After a few months my illusions that all men are born equal where shattered. They’re simply not the same type of people as the middle class or the upper class. Their time preferences are small, they’re driven by short term pleasures with no future planning and live in abject misery from their bad choices. Such people need others giving them direction and focus as they can’t do it for themselves. They’re desperate for their betters to show them correct way to live.
Instead we give them freedom that makes them miserable, allow groups like payday loans and rent a centers to exploit them and then use them as a prop for endless excuses for tax payer spending.
+1
Point well taken. San Francisco is not part of the US.
I’d smack him upside the head with it.
Just another elite saying people who voted for Trump are stupid and inferior.
As long as we are in the Age of the Perpetually Offended, shouldn’t this be right up there with Racism and Sexism?
“URBANISM”
He is an urbanist!!
I’m very thankful for what I have. To me I am blessed.
I’ll 2nd that sentiment sir!
Of course, even if a liberal does condescend to drive through the middle of the Mississippi Delta one day, it doesn't mean they'll learn anything useful. Canadian rocker Neil Young's drive-by resulted in, "[I saw] tall white mansions and little shacks. ... I hear screamin' and bullwhips crackin'... Now your crosses are burnin' fast..." Note this was years after the 60's era civil rights battle was over.
We drove thru there one day almost 30 yrs ago from Memphis down Hwy 61 thru Greenville MS on the way to McGehee AR. Didn't see any tall white mansions, but saw signs to a number of antebellum mansion historical sites way out of our way on dead-end roads W of the highway towards the Big Muddy. We did see "little shacks," but the vast majority of even the tiniest residences sported satellite dishes, A/C, and large sedans parked out front (Buick, Olds, Cadillac, etc). My sister-in-law in McGehee sold Avon to women of all races & social strata. For her black clients, she learned to plan her schedule to visit every other Friday AS SOON AS the welfare checks arrived, because if she was too late, the male(s) in the household would blow it all on gambling.
So decades later when I see footage from Indian slums in "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Lion" and so on, I'm expected to immediately be reminded of The Delta? Hmm, that's strange. I'm not.
“Rural Montanans typically own a shovel...”
And a shotgun. As far as the wolf is concerned, the 3-S’s apply.
What’s true is that the poor in Asia have more self-pride than the entitled poor of the West, which is understandable: surviving in such abject poverty is quite an achievement.
But pride is nearly all they have. Pretending they are “better off” is unbelievably ignorant and stupid.
Good find...
It would be interesting to look at a more current chart—these numbers are over 10 years old. Wonder if it exists...
I suspect some of the numbers have changed since barry’s reign...
That's what gripes me about some of this. Somebody went to the trouble to build this graph 10 years ago - and nobody has followed up with current numnbers.
I suspect some of the numbers have changed since barry’s reign.
Same here, I'll bet at least the telephone count has gone up. :-)
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