HERE WE GO AGAIN WITH THIS "LIVING IN POVERTY" NONSENSE

Get out your hanky...it's time once again to feel sorry for all of the supposed Americans "living in poverty." The Census Bureau reported yesterday that the number of Americans living in poverty has risen. As a matter of fact, they are saying that 35.8 million people are now living below the poverty line. On top of that, they're now saying 12.9 million children are living in poverty. Quick...we must elect The Poodle! How can this be allowed to stand! Wait a minute! Forget The Poodle ... let's rush Hillary in there! She cares so much about the children! More money must be confiscated from those that earned it in order to "lift people out of poverty." Nonsense.

Actually, the truth is, there is no poverty in America. If you get beyond the biased media's hysterical headlines, let's apply a little common sense. First of all, according to the government, you could have a net worth of over ten million dollars, own two houses, have three cars and because you only earned a few thousand dollars in income last year, you would be living in poverty. Does Terreeeeza Heinz-Kerry draw a salary? Maybe she's living in poverty too.

It's a fact, folks. When the government measures poverty they're only concerned with paychecks, not with what you have already earned. The government doesn't look at your bank accounts, your balance sheets or that jewelry hanging around your neck. Only your paychecks.

Let's say you are a remarkably successful stock broker. You decide to take a year off and travel the country in your $800,000 Blue Bird Wanderlodge motor home. Guess what? For that year, our government says you're "living in poverty."

Why is it so? It started back during the LBJ "Great Society" years. Johnson wanted to create a method of measuring poverty that would provide a continued excuse for expanding the scope and nature of Johnson's war on poverty programs. That method of measuring poverty -- by only counting income -- is still alive today, and it is still being used by government hacks as a reason for ever more government and ever more government spending.

The average American defined as "poor" by the federal government enjoys a higher standard of living than the average European; not the average poor European ... the average European. It's a scam, folks. A scam to enable more government. If a person has a roof over their head, food in their cupboard, a television set, a washer and dryer, a microwave, air conditioning and a car. Sorry folks, but that ain't poverty. Just more leftist fantasies and imagined "emergencies" designed to create the need for more government. With very rare exception, there is not a single person living in so-called "poverty" in America whose own decisions have not led to their situation.

Poverty is a choice. It's a behavioral disorder. Poverty, my friends, is a mental disease.

There will always be poverty, for a couple of reasons. But they may not be the same static population. People are poor sometimes because of unfortunate and unpredictable circumstances, or poor choices, or lack of caring, or lack of willingness to do any better - there are many reasons. I was poor once - while in college, I decided to be (OK, stupidly) independent from my parents and went out on my own without sufficient preparation. It was a struggle trying to keep my nose above water. I am not rich now ... or yet. But I was able to get in the black before my divorce, and here we are again, not rolling in it, but generally making it. IT TAKES HARD WORK AND PERSEVERANCE. It also takes a rejection of self-destructiveness. Second point: As long as the government identifies a poverty line, there will always be people below it. Therefore, there will always be people in poverty. But their standard of living is far above the poor in less-developed countries, and I dare say is above the poor of the past even in our country. How many poor people in this country have a car, a TV, a DVD player, a PS-2 now? Are they overextended because they bought that stuff when they couldn't really afford it? Even if they could and still remain below the poverty line, their lives are better than the poor of the Depression.

I agree and disagree.

There IS poverty in this country, no doubt about it. The kinds of examples cited by this author, if true, account for what, maybe one third of the "poverty" cases? That still leaves a lot of people living in poverty.

We can't ignore the fact it exists.

One cause... dropping out of High School. A choice. So what do democrats want to do? Throw MORE money at public education. Not the right solution. In fact there may not BE a solution because this is a choice that people make.

But it isn't always about choice. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. So I can't completely agree with this statement of the author: "Poverty is a choice. It's a behavioral disorder. Poverty, my friends, is a mental disease."

I believe that remaining in poverty for years might be as the author describes; but the condition of being in poverty is not always caused by such dubious things.

In my situation, during the Clinton recession, our income fell from $100k per year down to under $20k, but still the lingering bills with the higher salary. In my line of work, there WAS no work. It was devestating to us. We felt sorry for ourselves for a little while, as we are not made of teflon. My wife and I and our two kids moved in with family - we were fortunate to have family around.

That was our condition, our poverty, brought on by circumstances beyond our control.

I will tell this story to completion because it talks about a poverty that wasn't brought on by causes conservatives typically blame, and because our story describes a solution that didn't require liberal government involvement.

We refused to succumb. It was absolutely demoralizing, and we were at times fatigued with fear/dispair; but we refused to give up.

We paused for a bit; got our bearings. We inventoried our surroundings; defined our skills and the marketplace around us. We realized we couldn't keep depending on the old skills to earn a living, so decided to try some new things.

We were able to do SOME of the old work - but only on the order of maybe 10 thousand dollars a year income. This was enough to keep my skills sharp and maintain tenure in that industry until the economy turned around, but hardly enough to live on. We knew there'd come a time when those skills could be used again.

My work prior to the recession hadn't involved labor; but there appeared to be a need for commercial cleaning services in our area. So we started a cleaning company. We didn't need much money to do this, almost no start up, it was all labor, and we workded HARD. We hated it at first but we kept going, after midnight sometimes. At the same time we cut back on expenses as well as we could. We went after any work we could.

It was really hard but we kept going. We were smart about our business: Get long term, medium sized commercial contracts; stay away from piecemiel cleaning projects. The business grew, without too much marketing in fact, because (not surprisingly) no one really wants to do this kind of hard work. In fact the business grew to the point where it was making us around $60k per year.

Then something interesting happened - though we had actually thought it might turn out this way. As the economy started to turn around, my skills were once again in demand. I have my old job back, PLUS we have the cleaning company. The cleaning company will to grow and we have other people doing the work now. Our income right now is mid-upper $100,000 and I see no real limit.

That's all I have to say about that (Think, Forrest Gump). I'll just say we didn't buy the conservative "poverty is always a choice/mental illness" etc. argument; and we didn't by the "government is the solution" argument. We went about it our own way. We couldn't understand sometimes why things were SO HARD for us, but we kept going; and now we are better off than we would have ever been if there had been no recession or if we had accepted the pundits' take on poverty.

The average "poor" person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
*** Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
*** Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
*** Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
*** The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
*** Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
*** Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
*** Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
*** Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

*** Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

"Now I try to clean but I just suck."

A lot of times it has to do with equipment. We sucked at first but when we put everything we could into good equipment. Vacuums, for example. If you can get a SuperCoach backpack vacuum (ebay about $300 or so) this will do a much better job than push vacuums on SHORT rugs or hard-surface floors, stairs, under tables, and hard floors that you'll mop, etc. It will cut time vacuuming time in half. Also, if you can get an Oreck commercial for deeper rugs that will cut time. You can also speed up bathrooms if you put everything on a cart and move from one to the next with all your supplies. And the windows, if you suck on those, just go back about 20 minutes after you've done them (dry time) and take a very lightly damp newspaper and rub over the smears and that'll get rid of them.

Good luck with it and email me privately if you want, we've learned other tips like that to help us save time and do better work.

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