Posted on 08/27/2004 9:27:18 AM PDT by NotchJohnson
Didn't say "no income". A couple spending a year living in a $200K motorhome at a campground near a beach in Florida doesn't need much income to be very comfortable (appeals to me). They use just enough interest from their investments to get by, plowing the rest back into their pre-tax investments.
Also didn't say there were a lot of them. Problem is, between them and others operating off capital (little/no income), under the table (little official income), criminals (really unofficial income), and those leeching off the system (playing games with what's income), plus those at the upper end of the "poverty" scale (way better off than half the world), it's kinda hard to see who really is hardcore genuine "poor".
Point is: if you want to help the poor (and yes, there are real genuine painfully tragic poor), simple income is a lousy measure thereof.
"You'd rather be expedient and placating than truthful."
I was speaking of politicians. What % of the time do you think politicians (as a species) are honest & above-board (truthful) with the eloctorate. Especially during campaign time - compared to placating and pandering? My guess is less than 50%.
Look, I buy Neal's other argument that what we consider "poor" in this country is hardly so.
But I still reject this notion that the stats are any more than negligibly skewed by people with a high net worth and no income. If there is not a lot of them, then the point fails. I mean, please, what could it possibly be, 1%? 2%? How does that alone invalidate the poverty statistics?
"Why would the most advanced country on earth allow in *endless* millions of uneducated, unskilled people.."
I was thinking about this today. I was at a business breakfast at A Holiday Inn on Long Island this morning and the guy who assisted the waitress was 60 something, knew barely any english and reeked of another culture. I wondered if he was legal or illegal. I suspected illegal, and, if so then his advanced age argues for a truly HUGE number of illegals. Usually it's the young who come over.
See post #52.
We didn't say downright rich people made up a large percentage of the "poor". Just pointing out yet another subset (of many) that should not be included in the stats, but are.
Something interesting I have noticed. Everytime my family has started to think we were middle class the government would move the poverty line up. I'm expecting at this rate it will soon be anyone who makes less than $100,000/yr. will fall under the poverty line according to the government.
I stopped right there. It's too stupid for words. Of course there is poverty in America. Poverty, can never, ever, be totally eradicated. The level of denial and apology in this thread is just ammo for the democrats.
Africa's poverty is mainly due to corrupt socialist regimes.
We live in a 1500 sf 3BD 1-1/2 ba home in OC.... nothing luxurious, but despite all the work we do and the income we try to earn we still struggle to pay the bills and most particularly THE TAXES! Putting our one kid through college by the 'skin of our teeth'. Hoping nothing goes wrong to disrupt the 'cash flow', hoping our health holds so we can continue to contribute and all in all THANKFULL TO GOD for EVERYTHING we are so BLESSED with!
BTTT
Signed up today, huh? Go away troll!
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