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Old 08-10-2011, 01:36 AM   #1
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How America turned poverty into a crime

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/w...rty/index.html

I was going to quote the article, but it is three times the size of the post limits so if anyone wants to read it ye can from the link.

It amazes me that this is happening and no one seems to care.
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Old 08-10-2011, 09:13 AM   #2
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Oh people care, its just that the people who care are poor people, and poor people have a hard time affording lobbyists...

I think Bad Religion nailed the attitude that brought us to this point, in this song.
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Old 08-10-2011, 09:45 AM   #3
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Oh people care, its just that the people who care are poor people, and poor people have a hard time affording lobbyists...
I think the majority of people do care about the poor and want to help them. Maybe I'm optimistic, but I believe most people do genuinely want to be decent human beings. The problem is, a lot of people have bought into the whole anti-poor propaganda of the modern age. The modern age, where any enterprising and intelligent person can be moderately successful, and if you're poor and starving then either you're just too lazy or too stupid and you deserve your fate, where anyone can get welfare money at any time and then use it to buy a car and a McMansion and heroin and a nice garnish to sprinkle over their children after they've cooked and eaten them. Where humanity hit their moral peak in the 50's and since that time have just gotten worse, to the point where now you need to be suspicious of everyone, because everyone is a mass murderer drug addict child molester who wants to eat your liver. So if you're nice to anyone, they'll probably kill and eat you then **** your babies.

I think people are kind and caring, it's just the environment they're raised in has made them jaded, suspicious, apathetic, and materialistic.
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Old 08-10-2011, 11:29 PM   #4
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There was a study at one point...I'd have to find it, but it showed that your average middle-class american tends to think the poor are fewer in number and better off than they statistically are. A lot of people live in the deulsion that we don't really have poor people or that there aren't many of them. Combine that with the idea that anyone who wants to can just go in and get a job...
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Old 08-10-2011, 11:31 PM   #5
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There was a study at one point...I'd have to find it, but it showed that your average middle-class american tends to think the poor are fewer in number and better off than they statistically are. A lot of people live in the deulsion that we don't really have poor people or that there aren't many of them. Combine that with the idea that anyone who wants to can just go in and get a job...
No shit, I remember a teacher telling me there is no such thing as homelessness in Newfoundland.

(Note: There definitely is such thing as homeless in Newfoundland.)
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Old 08-10-2011, 11:32 PM   #6
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My county's the fourth poorest county in the nation. No one considers themselves poor around here.
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Old 08-10-2011, 11:49 PM   #7
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The one issue I've had with many comparisons of poverty between nations is cost-of-living differences. The amount our poor make might easily pay the rent in some poorer countries, but it barely covers the cheapest apartments around here. Same with food - there's areas where the cheapest available groceries are fairly expensive.
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Old 08-11-2011, 12:01 AM   #8
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Even within a country! Minimum wage in Nunavut is 11 dollars, which is pretty good compared to other provinces, but when you pay 5 dollars for a bunch of bananas, five dollars for a bottle of soda, its pretty pathetic.
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Old 08-11-2011, 01:34 AM   #9
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Oh people care, its just that the people who care are poor people, and poor people have a hard time affording lobbyists.
Thats it sure. There is no profit in helping the underclass, so no one these days seems interested in doing it.
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Old 08-11-2011, 10:45 AM   #10
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Interestingly enough, Alan has a major major point that no one has seemed to actually acknowledge fully.

A LOT of poor people don't even know they're poor.
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Old 08-11-2011, 01:25 PM   #11
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Thats it sure. There is no profit in helping the underclass, so no one these days seems interested in doing it.
There's also a lot of people that are interested in helping but don't actually take the time and effort to figure out what will help. We have a construct of the deserving poor and the indigent that doesn't always hold up very well. E.g. the complaints about food stamp fraud, where stores accept food stamps for prohibited items like diapers and shoes.
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Old 08-11-2011, 01:35 PM   #12
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Interestingly enough, Alan has a major major point that no one has seemed to actually acknowledge fully.

A LOT of poor people don't even know they're poor.
That's probably because they haven't been trained to be a bunch of mindless consumers. If you're not constantly focusing on all of the luxuries you don't have, you're not constantly focusing on all of the money you need to buy those useless luxuries. I don't know if that's actually the case in Mexico, though. Maybe the real reason that they don't know they're poor is because their money stretches farther than it does for poor people in other countries? I doubt it, but I'd never heard of a $5 bunch of bananas till Saya posted it.

The reason that people who aren't poor don't think there are that many poor people(or think they're just lazy) is the 'just-world theory' which is just another huge definition for victim blaming used by fucktards to separate themselves and their pedestal from the rest of humanity.
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Old 08-11-2011, 02:15 PM   #13
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Jake and I both get paid crap but I really wouldn't consider us to be poor. We have enough to pay all of the bills without having to really sacrifice much of anything, we can go out and have fun without really having to worry about how much it costs and we live in a very nice place.

Sure we don't live the privileged life that I grew up with but we aren't hurting, and plenty of people I know make more but can't seem to make it work. I know it isn't true of all cases but a large part of why some people are so poor is due to an inability to manage money. I feel very strongly that people should be taught money management in schools, fortunately it seems to primarily be offered at schools in affluent areas, and even then it is an elective so pretty much the only people who take it are the ones who are already interested in it and if their school didn't offer a class they are more likely to seek out the information on their own. Just a few financial missteps can hurt you for quite some time and frequently financial problems snowball, making the escape from debt and poverty a nearly insurmountable task.
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Old 08-11-2011, 03:12 PM   #14
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I think a lot of it has to do with what we think of when we think poor. Homeless? Starving? There's worse people off. Its also shaming to be poor, I know I am but even when I was without work and had to ration food, I got myself more into debt, went to collections on bills and borrowed a lot of money from family rather than go on welfare even though I qualified, I thought welfare was shameful and an admittance to failure, and there are others who deserve it more. Honestly when I know what its like up north, even in Labrador, I feel bad sometimes about identifying as poor because there are people who are much worse off.

Its the same out home. I'm from a tiny fishing community, and most people there are poor, but don't think they are. If you're working and not on welfare, you're okay.
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Old 08-11-2011, 08:34 PM   #15
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Jake and I both get paid crap but I really wouldn't consider us to be poor. We have enough to pay all of the bills without having to really sacrifice much of anything, we can go out and have fun without really having to worry about how much it costs and we live in a very nice place.
You know, you bring up Jake and you all the time. Should we give a damn about you and Jake? Why should we care that you're actually middle class and secure? How is that relevant to this thread?

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Sure we don't live the privileged life that I grew up with but we aren't hurting, and plenty of people I know make more but can't seem to make it work. I know it isn't true of all cases but a large part of why some people are so poor is due to an inability to manage money.
You got rich people guilt, babe?

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I feel very strongly that people should be taught money management in schools, fortunately it seems to primarily be offered at schools in affluent areas, and even then it is an elective so pretty much the only people who take it are the ones who are already interested in it and if their school didn't offer a class they are more likely to seek out the information on their own. Just a few financial missteps can hurt you for quite some time and frequently financial problems snowball, making the escape from debt and poverty a nearly insurmountable task.
You know Solum, you sound like poverty is inherently the fault of the impoverished because of their own ignorant mistakes. I really think you're mostly trying to apologize for your social class.

Also, I don't think many of us give a damn about you and Jake.
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Old 08-11-2011, 08:35 PM   #16
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I think a lot of it has to do with what we think of when we think poor. Homeless? Starving? There's worse people off. Its also shaming to be poor, I know I am but even when I was without work and had to ration food, I got myself more into debt, went to collections on bills and borrowed a lot of money from family rather than go on welfare even though I qualified, I thought welfare was shameful and an admittance to failure, and there are others who deserve it more. Honestly when I know what its like up north, even in Labrador, I feel bad sometimes about identifying as poor because there are people who are much worse off.

Its the same out home. I'm from a tiny fishing community, and most people there are poor, but don't think they are. If you're working and not on welfare, you're okay.
Solumnia blames you, chick. It's actually YOUR fault for being poor. Shame on you for being financially ignorant.
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Old 08-12-2011, 01:41 AM   #17
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Interestingly enough, Alan has a major major point that no one has seemed to actually acknowledge fully.

A LOT of poor people don't even know they're poor.
Thats a very important point. It all comes down to the distribution of wealth in the society in which you live. Back in the 90's and earlier in Ireland it was like that. Ireland was nothing like it is today, we were a very poor country. Then the EU came in and pumped billions into projects and in a matter of years we went from having no highways to having every major city connected. We went from an old train system to a new top of the line system connecting everything and even small commuter services throughout Dublin and other major cities.

People never thought of themselves as poor because wealth distribution was so level, it never occurred to anyone.

These days Ireland has become like America in many ways. We now have all the major chains, brands, shops, etc. that we once only saw on telly in America. This has brought with it many problems. I remember when people were happy to get a shirt. Now if it is not a certain brand people are upset. It's sad actually.

My uncle tells me stories of when he was a child. You could tell the rich kids quite easily - they were the ones who could afford SHOES. Most of the kids in his school went barefoot.

Today they kill each other at Christmas time trying to buy the newest Timberlands.

Tis why I live away from Dublin in the country. That influence has affected us sure, but in many ways the town I live in is still the way it was in 1950.

I know people here who can't get a phone or electricity because they don't have lines that run to the area where their houses are, which are located down dirt roads in the middle of the county where no one would find them unless they really knew where to look.

Hell, many homes don't even have numbers, much less area codes. I have a friend, we will call him Steve. His address, and I am not making this up, is:

Stephen
Quilty

He is the only Stephen in that village so thats all you need to put on a letter for it to get to him.

But yeah, being impoverished is a standard which only becomes an issue when those directly around you have a disproportionate amount of wealth.

Thanks to the bankers who did the same here they did in America, in some aspects even worse, we now have a two class society much like the UK. The only reason no one is rioting here is we have many social protections which really help people. The day they cut those expect riots in the streets here.
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Old 08-12-2011, 04:17 AM   #18
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Cool story, bro.

In 2007 the world's average income - total world income divided by total number of people - was about $7,000 per year. Still, only about 19 percent of the world's population lives in countries with per capita income is at least this high.

Making less than $21,000 per year is considered below poverty level in the U.S., and while that is adjusted somewhat locally for cost of living, it is also inflated because we expect a higher standard of living here.
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Old 08-12-2011, 01:03 PM   #19
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I know it isn't true of all cases but a large part of why some people are so poor is due to an inability to manage money.
No, the reason that a lot of people are so poor is because they have jobs that only pay them shit wages that don't always give them enough to cover rent, utilities, gas and car insurance. Then, on the way to work some dickhead cop decides that they look like they could use another ticket(cuz they are obviously just lazy assholes who are refusing to get insurance out of laziness and they like getting tickets). It's not like their kid really needed diapers and formula, they should've just paid for insurance instead of being assholes and trying to take care of their children. Then you have the apartment people who get to tell you that you need to upgrade to a bigger apartment soon, whether or not you can actually affrord it, because their rules state that you can't have a boy and girl child sleep in the same room. Paying off all of the car insurance tickets puts you into the hole on rent so you not only have back rent to pay, but fines for each day/week you have been late on it for the past few months.

And even if you don't have kids a lot of places will decide whether you actually 'need' a certain amount of hours or a pay raise based on your age and lifestyle. I've seen managers screw people out of promotions and hours based on their perception of the person, even if that person actually needed the money. Kids that were desparately trying to be independant and trying to get out of their parents house and pay their own bills, but management looked at them and saw they were 'just kids' and therefore were less worthy of full time positions.

It's not a matter of people mismanaging money, for the most part. It has to do with being forced into impossible situations that you can't afford because of rules or the law. It has to do with asshole bosses that make up arbitrary excuses to keep their employees from advancing for their own selfish reasons. It has to do with ignorant people blaming hard working poor people, trying to get a leg up, for being poor. It has to do with not being able to find a better job. Money management doesn't take a genius to grasp. People know that you get money, you pay bills. Sometimes you have to decide which bills get paid and whether or not you can do without lights for a few days.
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Old 08-12-2011, 01:21 PM   #20
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Sometimes I don't like you, Graus. But that was a very well put post.

You can't blame Solumnia. She's probably NEVER been on the edge like that am I'm sure she'd just tell you to get a second job... or a third job... while she enjoys her marriage and seemingly decent paying 40 hour a week grind.

Poverty doesn't affect her. So she can't understand where you're coming from.
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Old 08-12-2011, 01:43 PM   #21
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Well, I still like you, Ashley, even if we disagree sometimes.

That post has been my(and now my family's) life for years. I grew up with only my mom and 3 siblings on welfare. Hearing and seeing people perpetuate the myths of the welfare moms/families wearing designer clothes and driving cadillacs and Bentleys and that poor people cause their own downfall just pisses me off. I lived it, still am, I know the truth. My husband and I are just now(after 10 years of fighting and struggling) getting to the point that we can actually pay rent, utilities, car insurance and gas from pay check to pay check. I'm going to school because I finally have the chance to do it. I sure as fuck didn't wait this long because I was being lazy and didn't want to do anything with my life.
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Old 08-12-2011, 01:51 PM   #22
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Solumnia would argue otherwise, Graus.

SURELY you could juggle TWO jobs AND go to school AND take care of a family. It's not hard. I mean, Solumnia never had to do that kind of thing before. But she would if she ever had to. AND she wouldn't be upset about it... like you are.
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Old 08-12-2011, 02:00 PM   #23
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Well, let's see anyone do that shit and think that the world's just a dandy place and 'just'.

I'm not mad at Solumina, but I really hate that the attitude of 'lazy poor people' is so prevelant in people that don't know the struggle. If you haven't been there then you can't offer real world experience or knowledge on the matter. And no, I'm pretty sure that no one would be able to raise kids, have 2 jobs and go to school. Maybe one person in the world somewhere has done it, but I've never heard of it happening. Why should poor people have to jump through hoops and perform impossible tasks to get by in life?
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Old 08-12-2011, 03:06 PM   #24
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I'm not mad at her either. But I WILL rail against upper class apologism and saddling the blame of poverty on the poor.

Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head and all that
The coward slave - we pass him by
We dare be poor for all that
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Old 08-12-2011, 03:08 PM   #25
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I'm not mad at her either. But I WILL rail against upper class apologism and saddling the blame of poverty on the poor.
You are a warrior.
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