Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

HOW POOR ARE WE, REALLY?
boblonsberry.com ^ | 07/19/11 | Bob Lonsberry

Posted on 07/20/2011 6:32:21 AM PDT by shortstop

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-56 next last
And yet there is great discontent, as entitlement has replaced gratitude and extravagance has become a right. We see suffering where there truly is none and identify poverty where it doesn’t truly exist.

The question is: Why?

1 posted on 07/20/2011 6:32:24 AM PDT by shortstop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: shortstop

Because We have discovered that We can vote ourselves largesse from the public treasury.


2 posted on 07/20/2011 6:34:23 AM PDT by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

we kill babies by the million each year. we’re less than zero.


3 posted on 07/20/2011 6:34:57 AM PDT by the invisib1e hand ("America will cease to be great when America ceases to be good." -- Welcome to deToqueville.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

People in our country don’t know what poverty is. They should all spend some time in a third-world country watching people eat out of garbage dumps and sleeping in cardboard shanty towns.


4 posted on 07/20/2011 6:39:47 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

One would think the present state of affairs would inspire patriotism in the high minded. That the country that helped them out today will be the same country they aspire to be in a position to help out tomorrow. However, not too many can accept welfare with that kind of dignity and resolve, instead throwing themselves pity parties. Like the article says if you want to see POOR then go visit a place like Calcutta and its cardboard shacks.


5 posted on 07/20/2011 6:39:57 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (There's gonna be a Redneck Revolution!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop
I live in a low income rural county with on medium sized community of about 3,000 mostly senior and retired residents. I personally know several people who have been forced into bankruptcy. I know several people who have lost homes and can locate almost a dozen more that are abandoned.

A large portion of the county is very low income folks that have traditionally lived on government subsidy or retired union and education workers who are collecting pensions. None of them feel any pain as their lives have not changed other than the price of gas and commodities.

The main industries here are charitable non-profits, second hand stores, food banks and farmer's markets. The most populated district is in the only incorporated town that is home of the county seat. It is home to an aging population of hippies and people dependent completely on subsidies of some sort has 80 - 85% voter turn out and votes well over 70% democrat.

6 posted on 07/20/2011 6:46:33 AM PDT by Baynative (Are you a Free Republic monthly donor yet? If so, thanks. If not, why?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: coloradan

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.” Albert Camus


7 posted on 07/20/2011 6:48:06 AM PDT by SMARTY (A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

By historical and world standards, every person in this country is wealthy. Most of them fabulously wealthy.


8 posted on 07/20/2011 6:52:13 AM PDT by freespirited (Stupid people are ruining America. --Herman Cain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

A guy Mark Steyn was interviewing on Rush’s show yesterday claimed the Federal government spends 4X more on poverty programs than it would if they just wrote checks to bring everyone in the country below it up to the poverty line (which is pretty darn high actually). That doesn’t even count all the state and local programs.


9 posted on 07/20/2011 6:53:54 AM PDT by DManA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop
We see suffering where there truly is none and identify poverty where it doesn’t truly exist. The question is: Why?

Hundreds of thousands of people in the poverty industry would be out of work if our statistical people didn't proclaim a ridiculous percentage of the country to be poor.

10 posted on 07/20/2011 6:54:42 AM PDT by freespirited (Stupid people are ruining America. --Herman Cain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

Being broke is a temporary economic situatio. Being poor is much more permanent because it is a state of mind.


11 posted on 07/20/2011 6:55:22 AM PDT by CSM (Keeper of the "Dave Ramsey Fan" ping list. FReepmail me if you want your beeber stuned.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

The US poverty line is 20x the world median income.

If you’re making more - a lot more - than half the people on the planet, you’re not poor.


12 posted on 07/20/2011 6:57:50 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: freespirited

Our poor are fat and irrigate their lawns with drinking water.
How crazy wealthy is that?


13 posted on 07/20/2011 6:59:29 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Buckeye McFrog
People in our country don’t know what poverty is. They should all spend some time in a third-world country ...
Bingo - we have a winner.
I've been this saying for decades ... 13 months in VN sure opened my eyes.
14 posted on 07/20/2011 7:02:44 AM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Buckeye McFrog

Exactly, there are no poor in this country. Poor is an absolute, not relative, term.


15 posted on 07/20/2011 7:03:54 AM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

Comment #16 Removed by Moderator

To: ctdonath2

http://www.globalrichlist.com/index.php

“how rich are you?”


17 posted on 07/20/2011 7:09:50 AM PDT by griswold3 (Character is Destiny)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

In my circle of acquaintances, the loudest “tax the rich” mouths are a curious bunch. They come from upper middle class homes, live in upper middle class neighborhoods, privately educate their children and are well educated themselves.

One lives in a house that would go on the market for 500K, drives a Mercedes, has at best guess a $20K-25K private school tuition bill (the family lives within walking distance of one of the best public high schools in the state), and this is the first year the family has vacationed in the US in the past few years and that was due to a family reunion.

I NEVER see/hear about participation in fundraising/charities outside of school auctions.

I am wondering if class warfare is more for a certain group to “Keep up with the Jones’s” without the discipline and the work ethic of the Jones’s.


18 posted on 07/20/2011 7:10:43 AM PDT by PrincessB (Drill Baby Drill.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shortstop

We are not really poor we are criminally mismanaged.


19 posted on 07/20/2011 7:15:58 AM PDT by mountainlion (AMERICA LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: griswold3
http://www.globalrichlist.com/index.php “how rich are you?”

I plugged 23500, the poverty level for a family of four, and it shows that family in the top 3% of the richest people in the world. Then the site asks for money....

20 posted on 07/20/2011 7:24:25 AM PDT by aberaussie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-56 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson