Understanding the wealth of the poor

[NYcarbineer]

Anyone else notice the idiocy of saying that government assistance to the poor is a bad thing, because it supposedly makes them lazy and dependent, blah blah blah,

and the same people turn around and advocate charity?

If I'm a poor person, and the government is feeding me, for example, or a charity is doing it,

what the fuck's the difference?

 

[NYcarbineer]

I remember being told by progressives that cable tv, cell phones and Internet access would never be considered entitlements.

What next progressives, free vacations?

i'm certain giving a poor child a new pair of shoes with gvt money was once frowned on by tax payers once upon a time, especially if they could not buy a new pair of shoes for their own child....

it's all relative.

also, the report does not say whether these people bought these things, it only says they have one or 2....tv's could be gifts from family, friends, or charities or purchased used from salvation army stores....

the article is meant to rile the ''crowds'' with no statistics that are relative to compare.

Remind me why the gov't needs to be using my taxpayer money to give people shoes.
Is there ANYTHING that gov't should not be doing for people who are not self-supporting?

Maybe because giving shoes got more votes than not giving shoes.

 

[auditor0007]

Link for Cut and Paste: How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America


Federal state and local spending on the poor totals $6 trillion a year, every year, year in and year out; apparently forever. This means that every year the government spends, on the poor, 6 times what the the top 400 Americans have been able to accumulate over many generations. Or, not to confuse liberals, this means the poor have, in effect, a net wealth of $100 trillion in order that the government can generate $6 trillion yearly from it in welfare payments of various sorts for the poor. $100 trillion is far more than $1.5 trillion( the net worth of the top 400 Americans).


And lets not forget that America's poor are rich in other ways beyond what liberal welfare provides:

The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from a variety of government reports:

46 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only six percent of poor households are overcrowded; two thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)


cut short per usmb copyright rules~Care

Please explain where this number comes from. $6 trillion per year on 37 million people equates to approximately $162,000 per poor person per year. It also totals 40% of our total GDP, on less than 15% of the population. So think about that very seriously, because no matter how you want to spin it, it's pure bullshit. Only an absolute moron would believe it. As to anyone who would try to get others to believe it, well I'll just leave it at that.

 

[auditor0007]

Do you have a source for any of this? The figure of $6 trillion seems ridiculously high compared to the size of US GDP, indeed higher than total public sector expenditures. I'm also curious as to how you arrive at the round figure of $100 trillion. And I can't find any of your facts on the census website (they may be there, but I can't find them).

Brutus thinks we're all very stupid.

 

[auditor0007]

Total state, local and federal spending on all programs was 6.2T in 2011. I have trouble believing the government only spent 200B on other items.

 

[Claudette]

Ok, so in your world, no children get healthcare if their parents are too poor to pay for it because there will be no more Medicaid.

How will that make America a better place?

There are such things as charities you know. They are alive and well here n America even though they are overshadowed by the Govt Social programs.

Yeah, and in places like Africa where the poorest people only get charity, if they're lucky,

they're much better off, correct? Charity solves the problem, right?

This isn't Africa Dude. Not even close.

Welfare and all these social programs are nothing but forced charity. We taxpayers are being forced to support those that can't or won't take care of themselves. We are being forced to give charity. And thats what it is Charity.

 

[asterism]

1. One minute the 'nuts are proclaiming that the poverty programs have been a complete failure, and,

2. the next minute they're complaining that our poor people are too well off.

jesus christ on a bicycle! lolol

Both are true. Poverty programs have not eliminated poverty, they have made it an acceptable lifestyle.

So the fact that a poor person in the US is not out gathering a bundle of sticks to take back to their shack to build a fire to cook a cup of rice for the family's daily meal is a bad thing.

Really?

No. It's a bad thing that able bodied people are raised on welfare and taught how to work the system, one that it so easily gamed.

 

[asterism]

Anyone else notice the idiocy of saying that government assistance to the poor is a bad thing, because it supposedly makes them lazy and dependent, blah blah blah,

and the same people turn around and advocate charity?

If I'm a poor person, and the government is feeding me, for example, or a charity is doing it,

what the fuck's the difference?

Go visit a Salvation Army, then visit a housing project. You'll notice a clear difference in the aid given.

 

[Lovebears65]

The more welfare you give the poor the more they expect and think they are entitled too. Why go out and work if you can get money for just sitting at home. I know there are exceptions to this and some really want to get out of poverty but when you have generation after generation on welfare its something with the family and the family doesnt want to improve themselves.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Life was much better for black people in the 50s than today.

^That right there is all we need to know. You should make that the Republican rallying cry to recruit blacks: Vote for us and we'll make it like 1950 all over again!

You are completely ignorant. Tipsy is right: the stats for family life for blacks in the 1950s was much better. They were also making greater economic gains than they have in the last 30 years.
But you are a leftist racist who wants to keep them ******* down in the ghetto voting D.

Hey.....when're they gonna start checkin' YOUR boy, for PIPES?? ​

"Debates are not my strong suit," Texas governor Rick Perry conceded, in a bit of an understatement, while talking to reporters after Tuesday night's GOP presidential debate at Dartmouth College. "But you know we get up and do 'em and we just try to let people see our passion."

Perry's debate performance was not disastrous like the September 22 showing in Florida that sent him spiraling downward in the polls. But it wasn't close to what he needed to bounce back. Mitt Romney and Herman Cain dominated the debate Tuesday evening, with Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann offering flashes of wit and intelligence. Perry just seemed sleepy and lackluster. He lacked command of the room and, at times, his words.

While Perry is certainly down, he's not out--at least not quite yet. After the debate ended, Perry showed off his skills as a retail politician at a small event with Dartmouth students. At the Beta fraternity house, Perry enthusiastically gave his stump speech. He warned about the debt hanging over their generation and perfectly recited his line about making D.C. as inconsequential to their lives as possible.

During a brief question-and-answer session, Perry asked students to raise their hands if they think Social Security will be around for them when they retire. Two or three hands popped up. "Those guys believe in the Tooth Fairy, as well," Perry cracked. The students laughed. "Just kidding, brother," he added with a smile.

Perry spent 10 minutes shaking hands after he spoke. He asked students questions about their lives, displaying a near-Clintonesque ability to make each student feel like he or she is the only one in the room. The dull Perry who showed up at Tuesday's debate was not the same upbeat and good humored Perry who showed up at the Beta house."

Put Down The Pipe; Step AWAY!​

So.......what IS it that get's Rick so UP??!!!!



Is it some o' that legendary Texas HOME-COOKED METH.....or, is he (just) smokin' a lil' "rock"??????

​

 

[Claudette]

Anyone else notice the idiocy of saying that government assistance to the poor is a bad thing, because it supposedly makes them lazy and dependent, blah blah blah,

and the same people turn around and advocate charity?

If I'm a poor person, and the government is feeding me, for example, or a charity is doing it,

what the fuck's the difference?

Big difference there dimwit.

A real charity is something you give to because YOU WANT to give to it and support it.

The charity the Govt gives out is fORCED.. We taxpayers have no say. We are forced to give charity to anyone who makes piss poor life choices or won't take care of themselves.
Otherwise know as an entitlement.

Big difference between wanting to give and being forced to give.

 

[Againsheila]

Link for Cut and Paste: How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America


Federal state and local spending on the poor totals $6 trillion a year, every year, year in and year out; apparently forever. This means that every year the government spends, on the poor, 6 times what the the top 400 Americans have been able to accumulate over many generations. Or, not to confuse liberals, this means the poor have, in effect, a net wealth of $100 trillion in order that the government can generate $6 trillion yearly from it in welfare payments of various sorts for the poor. $100 trillion is far more than $1.5 trillion( the net worth of the top 400 Americans).


And lets not forget that America's poor are rich in other ways beyond what liberal welfare provides:

The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from a variety of government reports:

46 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only six percent of poor households are overcrowded; two thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)


cut short per usmb copyright rules~Care

You're telling me that 46% of all poor households bought their homes while they were poor? No? They what? Oh, they bought it when times were better and they could actually make enough money at their job to afford a house.

Air conditioning? Again, don't know what the heck you are talking about but the poor around here that have air conditioning call it a fan and those aren't the ones that have no home at all....

BTW, America is BIGGER than London,, Vienna, Athens, etc. I think you'll find when you look at our big cities vs their big cities, you'll find the living space to be closer to the same, especially for the poor. Love all this "lying with statistics".

Computers? bought during better times or given them by people who bought better ones.

Game systems? Play stations? really? That's in your stats? I doubt that. The old ninetendo systems yeah...but play stations? Most middle class people I know don't even have those. More lying with statistics.

6% of houses are overcrowded? Define overcrowded? What is the percentage of those with NO homes? Do they count? Oh wait, no they don't. Didn't even include them on the last census. We have no less than 3 tent cities in our city, how did they count the homeless during the 2010 census? They counted the people on the buses at night.......yeah, that's gonna do it...NOT!!

You forgot that tvs cost more in the 70's. Oh wait, now they cost more again.....In fact, our government made tvs for the poor USELESS. How many of those that get cable only get BASIC cable, meaning just the stations they would have gotten without cable had the government not made their tvs worthless? Not in your statistics? Didn't think so.

Of course, they could go without tv altogether, and many of them do.

DVDs? VHSs again, GIVEN to them. I sold an entire box of VHS tapes this last summer for $10.00. Yeah, I bet you're all over those people for spending that money on tapes, how dare they? Heck, they could have gone to, no wait movies cost more than $10.00.

The Zoo cost more than $10.00 and it's $5.00 to get into point defiance park. You want to leave them with NO entertainment, no jobs, and of course they should all die from the heat....decrease the surplus population and all that.

Me thinks those 3 ghosts have a lot of work to do this year.

 

[Inthemiddle]

The central point, that poor people in the contemporary US do substantially better than poor people of earlier generations or poor people in most other countries, is unassailable.

I would disagree. If you read my prior post, I explained why the notion was not supportable. Though, since it was a long post, I'll summarize here:

Poverty is a culturally relative thing. Various material possessions are cannot be used as a measure of poverty without cultural specific reference, because possessions are not equally available through all cultures. For example, poor Japanese are likely to eat sushi quite often, while poor Americans won't. Also, different societies, operating in different ways, will have different needs. Different cultural values will also give rise to differences in laws and socially acceptable ways of living. The transportation needs of an average American are different than the transportation needs of an average European. These differences in needs, and availability of low priced goods creates differences in how the poor between various cultures may appear. But these differences are superficial. A true measure of poverty requires a more in depth analysis that takes into account the society in which the poverty is occurring, the needs of individuals within that social structure (needs being more than simple food and shelter), the accessibility of types of material possessions within the culture.

A few examples:

The chief of a tribe isolated from the rest of the world might be considered rich if he possesses 50 sheep.

A doctor in a European country might be considered rich, despite not having a car.

A teacher in a European country might be considered comfortable and middle class despite not being able to afford a car.

An Amish farmer might be considered wealthy because he has a certain amount of land but not being able to afford a car even if his religion allowed it, while a farmer in another part of the country might be considered poor while having twice as much land and a car.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Anyone else notice the idiocy of saying that government assistance to the poor is a bad thing, because it supposedly makes them lazy and dependent, blah blah blah,

and the same people turn around and advocate charity?

If I'm a poor person, and the government is feeding me, for example, or a charity is doing it,

what the fuck's the difference?

Big difference there dimwit.

A real charity is something you give to because YOU WANT to give to it and support it.

The charity the Govt gives out is fORCED.. We taxpayers have no say. We are forced to give charity to anyone who makes piss poor life choices or won't take care of themselves.
Otherwise know as an entitlement.

Big difference between wanting to give and being forced to give.

I was talking about the recipient, not the giver, you illiterate cow.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Anyone else notice the idiocy of saying that government assistance to the poor is a bad thing, because it supposedly makes them lazy and dependent, blah blah blah,

and the same people turn around and advocate charity?

If I'm a poor person, and the government is feeding me, for example, or a charity is doing it,

what the fuck's the difference?

Go visit a Salvation Army, then visit a housing project. You'll notice a clear difference in the aid given.

What the fuck are you people talking about? I'm talking about the claim that handouts make the poor lazy and make their condition 'acceptable', as someone said.

If you believe that, then you should be against charity, because charity IS ALSO A HANDOUT.

 

[NYcarbineer]

There are such things as charities you know. They are alive and well here n America even though they are overshadowed by the Govt Social programs.

Yeah, and in places like Africa where the poorest people only get charity, if they're lucky,

they're much better off, correct? Charity solves the problem, right?

This isn't Africa Dude. Not even close.

Welfare and all these social programs are nothing but forced charity. We taxpayers are being forced to support those that can't or won't take care of themselves. We are being forced to give charity. And thats what it is Charity.

No, it's not like Africa because the poor in Africa are generally treated the way American conservatives want the poor to be treated, BUT,

here, thank God, conservatives haven't gotten their way.

 

[Inthemiddle]

I remember being told by progressives that cable tv, cell phones and Internet access would never be considered entitlements.

What next progressives, free vacations?

And who is saying now that those things are entitlements? About the only thing you could suggest that about would be cell phones, since there is now the lifeline program. But that's because those "entitlements" are replacing long existing land line assistance programs. These new cell phone programs accomplish two things of public interest:

1) They save tax dollars, since cell phone service can now be obtained less expensively than land lines.

2) They fulfill changing societal needs. Society nowadays expects you to have a cell phone available. Nowadays you can get into a heap of trouble at work for not calling in when you're running late because of an unpredictable traffic delay. In the past, employers would not have had these expectations, but because of the wide adoption of cell phone use in society, not having a cell phone can create employment instabilities for the working poor. I know one person who was even fired for a no-call-no-show when she got into a car accident on the way to work, and was not able to call her job until the end of the day. The boss reasoned it was her fault she forgot her cell at home that morning.

 

[Inthemiddle]

Both are true. Poverty programs have not eliminated poverty, they have made it an acceptable lifestyle.

1) The vast majority of people who are on government assistance are embarrassed and ashamed of the fact, try to conceal the fact, and want to be able to sustain themselves without it. Meanwhile, ass hats like you constantly belittle and prejudge these people whom you don't even know. That's hardly what I would consider a socially acceptable lifestyle.

2) The continual push toward lassie faire capitalism, nor conservative ideology have done anything to eliminate or alleviate the plight of poverty. So I dare you to walk into the ghetto and tell the kettle how he deserves to be black. But I'd suggest making sure your health insurance is up to date before you do so.

 

[Inthemiddle]

Is there ANYTHING that gov't should not be doing for people who are not self-supporting?

Yes. Because you don't live in an isolated little box all to yourself, you live in a society of the people, by the people, and FOR THE PEOPLE. If you don't like that, go get rich enough to go by an island, then secede from the Union. You can be rich enough to afford it. You just have to want it, right?

 

[NYcarbineer]

If you're too poor to pay school taxes, then public school is a handout, right? So we should kick poor kids out of school until their parents, or someone, volunteers to pay their way.

That, people, is what a nation run by Conservatives would look like, if Conservatives actually acted on what they spout off about.