Posted on 08/24/2009 10:25:00 AM PDT by freed0misntfree
That is because those who do not are soon no longer poor.
This is like saying those don't eat a sandwich at noon are disproportionately likely to be hungrier then those that do.
In the USA bad habits do not follow poverty, poverty follows bad habits.
“But that’s not the worst. Some government handouts are worse than others. The AFDC programs in the Great Society turned what was merely an underclass into a vast pool of sociopathy.”
The government programs with the worst results are those that are the best-intentioned.
Unfortunately, the State cannot conduct any program without it turning into a program to enhance State power against mere human flesh. The modern State is at war to the death against human society. Once that is understood, the world makes sense.
The State creates classes of people that depend upon it utterly for meaning and survival. They are now approaching a majority in America.
Whether anything can be done to halt this process short of the collapse of the State is a historical unknown, having no successful precedents.
I have read a few accounts of other projects running out of steam once turned over to the native people. I find that so puzzling - it must be a cultural thing, but you would think that over time the characteristics of hard work, etc would rub off on some people. Perhaps they do, but just not enough people..
haven't they had beautiful new apartments and houses built for them, only to have them torn apart and destroyed?.....beautiful city parks only to have them taken over by drug pushers?....don't poor children get not only free breakfast, but free lunch as well?....do they not have Medicaid at least for their children, where everything is virtually free?....free summer camps....free scholarships...free vaccines...free books...free transportation......
with my mom and dad, we lived in a smaller home, one bathroom, 2-3 kids per room plus a sick elderly grandma with a picnic table in the kitchen for meals...we ate from the garden, had meatloaf, and hamburger and spaghetti....we never had steak or shrimp.....
and yet we thrived.....everyone of us economically far better off than our folks.....although is really meaningless in the grand scale of things....
you want the poor to stop being poor?....TAKE STUFF AWAY FROM THEM!
infact, one of the reasons that battered women don't leave is because they have grown to mistake chaos and violence for "passion"....and when they don't have the chaos or violence, they feel like they are not loved...
“And why didn’t the “poor” idiot get that first dent fixed? The fact that he ended up with a car full of dents speaks volumes. Of COURSE he’s not going to get the sixth dent fixed. He never even bothered with the first five.”
Over the years, my lexus, paid for in cash, started collecting dents. It didnt look good. In fact it was looking like a beater after a few years.
Then a hailstorm came. It looked even worse. hail damage from all sides.
The hailstorm saved my car. I got the insurance money - a $7000 claim - and with that I shopped around, instead of paying full amount just to fix hail damage, bargained and worked out with different shops to get all the hail damage *and* the dents (including 2 bumpers fixed and about $2000 in new body parts) to be fixed, all for what I got just for hail damage.
I have an advanced degree, but I never learned this stuff in school, in fact I’d say school beats this stuff out of you. I intuited that it would be more cost effective to ‘save up’ those dent repairs . it worked.
Some people lack financial common sense. I cannot explain why, but some people are ‘wired’ or learned from experience to have econ 101 in their brains (like me) and others do not. Asking the question - why - seems a valid and possibly fruitful pursuit. I would wager a little bit of financial common sense education would go farther than that $5 trillion in War on Poverty spending did.
“It was amazing when I realized I was making more money from the money I’d saved than I was making when I worked.
A magic moment for me. “
But what did you decide to do then?
“If you want to be rich, do what rich people do.”
Alas, what people think ‘rich people do’ is buy luxury goods. emulating that is a way to the poor house...
rather, the ‘millionaire next door’ teaches about
Maybe this guy needs to write “The hobo on your street” or some such book. Tell us what the hobo *really* does with his money - hooch or Taco Bell?
I kept working of course.
Very true. These battered women will often meet a guy who treats them well but they are accustomed to loud and boorish behavior that they think men who are gentleman are weak. But then again, is it from experience or do the women who are battered (and many of these same women are batterers themselves) enjoy the fight? Probably both.
I agree.
What rich people do is:
Work hard.
Live within their means.
Take informed and calculated risks.
Educate themselves every day.
Learn from their mistakes.
Dedicate themselves to their families.
Do good works.
Based on these things, I am not George Soros rich but I have a very rich life.
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