The question is: Why?
Because We have discovered that We can vote ourselves largesse from the public treasury.
we kill babies by the million each year. we’re less than zero.
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.
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.
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.
By historical and world standards, every person in this country is wealthy. Most of them fabulously wealthy.
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.
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.
Being broke is a temporary economic situatio. Being poor is much more permanent because it is a state of mind.
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.
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.
We are not really poor we are criminally mismanaged.
While I agree that our “poor” is not as bad as say, Ethopia “poor”... I don’t quite buy the argument “Well, at least we aren’t third world! Yay! Be Thankful!”
A big part of this article is missing that opportunity is not quite what it was since the last century. Regulation stifles more entrepreneurship than anything and until that is under control, we will continue to decline.
If America is so poor why are the poor (and not so poor) fat? I mean really obese?
The answer, we have no idea what poor means in this country, at least 99.9% percent don’t anyway ...
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This is what poverty looked like in the Great Depression…
This is what poverty looks like today…
The Economics of Obesity: Why are Poor People Fat? By Jon Herring
The author of this piece makes a claim that reason the poor are fat and obese is because they can purchase more calories for less money by buying junk food.
I don't totally buy that.
It isn't a question of a lack of "nutrition education" either.
There is a far deeper, and larger question at play, one that very few people want to bridge.
It is this: does a lack of immorality contribute to poverty?
"As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed."
Proverbs 26:14
Sometime, people find themselves in dire economic circumstances that are no real fault of their own. However, in many cases, it is true that it is someones OWN BEHAVIOR and choices that gets them there.
The same is true for what, and how, you eat.
God is not mocked. You reap what you sow.
You look like your lifestyle sometimes. If you are an alcoholic, a drug addict, or addicted to junk food, your appearance will reflect that. Similarly, if you are lazy, ill mannered, or irresponsible, you are most likely to end up poor.
My grandmother used to say: "Poor people have poor ways."
Those type of phrases are not uttered anymore. The media and Democrats lie to us, and tell us that the "rich" are immoral, but all poor are these moral super humans who are really saints.
That isn't what God teaches. We are all sinners, and need His grace. But, what you do affects what you become.
"For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10
It just depends on where we are in the election/tax cycle when the Democrats are in control. The election is a ways off? Man, we’re broke and need more tax money. Close to elections? Happy days are here again! Look at all the wealth us democrats have given you!
It’s like school levy/board elections. Not close to school board elections? The kids are dumber than donuts so we really need that levy money. Close to regular elections? The kids are brilliant!
The truely poor in our country today by our standard:
1)The unemployed...the ones who refuse the govt candy.
2)The underemployed...the ones who refuse the govt candy.
3)The taxpayers who are those middle class non-union hardworking folks who are working the same jobs for less pay such as straight commission or furloughed positions. In the meantime, they have watched the price of everything go through the roof and their taxes increasing incrementally along with the inflation. Their savings is gone, their retirement is gone and their home values have decreased to less than the balance of their mortgages. They refuse the govt candy and are are truly becoming poorer by the day.
On the otherhand, poverty is a state of mind. With faith in God, prayer for His provision and gratefulness for His provision, the poor are not impoverished. As someone once told me, there is the world’s economny, and their is the Lord’s economy.
I keep this in mind as I plug along in category #3