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The sting of poverty [would like Freeper opinions about this]
Boston Globe ^ | 03/30/2008

Posted on 08/24/2009 10:25:00 AM PDT by freed0misntfree

IMAGINE GETTING A bee sting; then imagine getting six more. You are now in a position to think about what it means to be poor, according to Charles Karelis, a philosopher and former president of Colgate University.

In the community of people dedicated to analyzing poverty, one of the sharpest debates is over why some poor people act in ways that ensure their continued indigence. Compared with the middle class or the wealthy, the poor are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, to have children while in their teens, to abuse drugs, to commit crimes, to not save when extra money comes their way, to not work.

To an economist, this is irrational behavior. It might make sense for a wealthy person to quit his job, or to eschew education or develop a costly drug habit. But a poor person, having little money, would seem to have the strongest incentive to subscribe to the Puritan work ethic, since each dollar earned would be worth more to him than to someone higher on the income scale. Social conservatives have tended to argue that poor people lack the smarts or willpower to make the right choices. Social liberals have countered by blaming racial prejudice and the crippling conditions of the ghetto for denying the poor any choice in their fate. Neoconservatives have argued that antipoverty programs themselves are to blame for essentially bribing people to stay poor.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: economy; poverty
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To: Lucky Dog

If you have no motivation to change, then why change?


61 posted on 08/24/2009 11:36:20 AM PDT by GeronL (Toward the TOTUS State-Nightmare in Obamaland .. http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: NEMDF

hair extensions


62 posted on 08/24/2009 11:37:06 AM PDT by GeronL (Toward the TOTUS State-Nightmare in Obamaland .. http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: GeronL

Yes, and their kids get free breakfast and lunch at school, they get free health care at the county clinic and/or on Medicaid; when food is low, off to the food pantry. Then various charities make sure their kids have winter coats, backpacks, school supplies, you name it.


63 posted on 08/24/2009 11:37:45 AM PDT by NEMDF
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To: freed0misntfree

1. The US “poverty line” is 20 times the _median_ world income. If you’re doing better - a LOT better - than literally half the people on this planet, you’re not poor.

2. I once tried helping a poor family (who had a house, nice clothes, running water, TV, etc.) by, among other things, putting back together their falling-apart sofa. When I was almost done, one girl came down and asked if I had any large sheets of plastic. “Why?” I asked, baffled. “We just tore the screen in one window” she replied. Stunned, I finished the sofa and left, my interest in helping the “poor” deeply rattled.

Sometimes stuff happens to you outside your control, and you could use some help getting back on your feet.
Sometimes stuff happens to you because you caused it, and you need to live with the consequences to learn not to do that again.


64 posted on 08/24/2009 11:38:12 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (flag@whitehouse.gov may bounce messages but copies may be kept. Informants are still solicited.)
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To: freed0misntfree
This is, “it's a free country time”. No one ever had to spend a life in poverty. But it was a choice. You could get a job and work like hell to get a better job. Or you could set on your back end and put the blame on someone or something else. Thousands of Americans have made that choice, but a few think that the government owes them a living. I have no pity for those that live on blame and never try.
65 posted on 08/24/2009 11:41:00 AM PDT by ANGGAPO (Leyte Gulf Beach Club)
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To: GeronL
Do these impoverished have $100 shoes? color TV’s? cable? microwave ovens? What is their definition of “poverty”?

It always helps when you can "go down town to get paid".

66 posted on 08/24/2009 11:41:04 AM PDT by Stentor (.)
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To: NEMDF

Some lifestyle choice


67 posted on 08/24/2009 11:42:48 AM PDT by GeronL (Toward the TOTUS State-Nightmare in Obamaland .. http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: freed0misntfree
I have been poor, more than once I might add. It doesn't "sting", it sucks. It's SUPPOSED to suck. That's what motivates one to change. The problem with some anti-poverty programs is that they decrease (for some individuals) the sting of being poor to where it is barely tolerable, thereby removing the incentive to change.
68 posted on 08/24/2009 11:43:06 AM PDT by atomic_dog
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To: GeronL
Thats an idea. Take these inner-city punks and put them on a 4-week cattle drive on beans and saddle sores. Maybe they’ll have a better understanding of things when they reach the end.

You forget that they will be riding meat.

69 posted on 08/24/2009 11:45:20 AM PDT by Stentor (.)
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To: DM1

Don’t forget, some consider it heroic.


70 posted on 08/24/2009 11:45:53 AM PDT by CSM (Business is too big too fail... Government is too big to succeed... I am too small to matter...)
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To: freed0misntfree
A person can be born poor. In this country, if he's smart and energetic, he won't stay poor.

Those who stay poor don't have bad attitudes because they're poor -- they're poor because they have bad attitudes.

71 posted on 08/24/2009 11:49:06 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Public healthcare looks like it will work as well as public housing did.)
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To: freed0misntfree
His theory, (presented with no evidence or facts), is that since poor people have multiple problems, there is little to no incentive to fix one of the problems, since the rest will still be there.

This would only be true if there were multiple solutions to the multiple problems. As it is, there is one solution to poverty, that would 'fix' all the problems he described: GET A JOB.

This whole article was basically created to justify getting rid of welfare reform and continuing to provide benefits to poor people simply because they are poor, because if the government 'solves' most of their financial problems, then they have more incentive to solve the one or two remaining ones. Total BS, IMO.

72 posted on 08/24/2009 11:49:23 AM PDT by sportutegrl (If liberals could do math, they would be conservatives.)
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To: Red Badger
I was born in poverty. I was raised in poverty. I did not like poverty. So I left poverty.......................

Same here. I knew the way out was to study something that I could make money at, and I did.

73 posted on 08/24/2009 11:51:51 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Public healthcare looks like it will work as well as public housing did.)
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To: Walrus
No matter WHAT you do, someone MUST be on the bottom rung of the ladder ... and they will then be considered “poor”.

Leftists exploit issues such as the poor as cover for what they really want to do: take away more of your wealth and regulate your behavior in an attempt to placate their feelings of envy. No matter the issue, they have only one solution in mind: more government.

Those on the top rung of the economic ladder often become limousine liberals for the purpose of envy deflection. It's an effective strategy for protecting their wealth and enjoying it without being the target of resentment.

74 posted on 08/24/2009 11:52:46 AM PDT by Reeses (The fundamental obsession of leftists is size envy.)
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To: Balding_Eagle
My wife and I went to Ecuador some years ago to visit some missionaries we had supported for many years. The trip was an eye opener. To make a long story short, our financial support ended soon thereafter.

Can you please make that short story longer? Was it the missionaries or the people they were ministering to that caused you to end your support? I've cut several charities off my list myself.

75 posted on 08/24/2009 11:54:00 AM PDT by nina0113
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To: freed0misntfree
I came from a poor family and hated poverty. So, I worked like the devil and was able to leave it behind and retire at age 50.

Work hard and save.

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.

76 posted on 08/24/2009 11:55:12 AM PDT by blam
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To: GeronL
"While waiting for the food trucks they can’t raise a garden without eating the seed? They can’t raise a chicken without eating it before it lays an egg? They can’t wait for a tree to bear fruit before chopping it down?"

Why is it, when a big rain washes a wall of their mud hut away, they can't seen to gather up all that mud and straw around them, make new sun dried bricks and fix it?

Why is it when their grass roof is full of holes, they can't get some more grass and patch it? it's growing all around them.

Why is it that they can weave mats to sell at the market for a few handfuls of grain, they can't weave some grass to fix their weaved grass roof? Window coverings to keep the mosquitoes out at night? Floor coverings so they don't sleep on dirt? Why walk ten miles for water to haul back to a grass shack in the middle of nowhere? Why not build another grass shack near the water? Why not kill a wild animal for some food when they come for water at the old watering hole? Surely they can catch at least one of those ten thousand wildebeest...

77 posted on 08/24/2009 11:55:23 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: freed0misntfree

Hi, I’m the guy that wrote the book described in the Boston Globe article.I took some heat when it came out for daring to suggest that poverty has anything to do with the behavior of poor people themselves. But at the same time, I think that insight just pushes the question back: why do these poverty-creating behaviors occur? I have read most of the comments in this string, and to me most of them have a piece of the truth about poverty. What I tried to do in my book is to estimate how big a piece of the truth that is. But more important, I tried to show that each of the conventional wisdoms (blame restricted opportunity, blame the work ethic of the poor, blame government handouts, blame limited time horizons of the poor, etc.) draws a fair amount of its plausibility from a mistake in economic theory. In a nutshell, my view says, blame Econ 101. The book has just come out in paperback if anybody cares to pursue this. Charles Karelis


78 posted on 08/24/2009 11:55:46 AM PDT by ckarelis (From the author)
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To: freed0misntfree
I think this interview with an African economist may answer a lot of your questions:

For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!

79 posted on 08/24/2009 11:56:05 AM PDT by Pan_Yan (All grey areas are fabrications.)
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To: freed0misntfree

I think he’s wrong about the solutions (EITC for example) because compulsory redistribution is both wrong and ineffective; however, I think he’s essentially right about the problem. Most poor people do not see significant improvement as a realistic possibility, so why pursue it?

I am by no means poor, but I am perpetually broke, and I certainly see some of this tendency in myself. There’s little incentive to work extra hard to, say, pay off one or two medical bills or old debts when there are six more in waiting, and experience tells me that there will be new problems (more doctor bills, car repairs, etc.) to eat up any headway I make in the short term, so I expect to always be playing catch-up.


80 posted on 08/24/2009 11:57:57 AM PDT by Sloth (Irony: Freepers who call Ron Paul a "nut" but swallow all the birth certificate conspiracy crap.)
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