BS: Poverty in the USA

Subject: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 12:22 PM

This thread is for people who wish to discuss, argue, reiterate, spew, state, declare, avow or otherwise attest that there is or isn't poverty in the USA. This thread is not about tits, Iran, nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein or Natalie from the Dixie Chicks. Poverty in the USA was caused by Canada. (I figured I'd get THAT on the table to begin with.) Hope y'all have a happy discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 12:27 PM

Thank you, PEace. I would like to begin the discussion by pointing out that there is, indeed and beyond doubt, poverty in the USA, and has been for a long time. There is also poverty in Canada and Latin America.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 12:27 PM

Nice one :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 12:34 PM

http://poverty2.forumone.com/webguide/region/9

Poverty in Canada? Damned right there is. I live in Canada's richest province and about 1 in 5 children live below the poverty line. However, the thread wasn't started to slag thge USA. It was in response to a few posters who are discussing it on other threads meant for other things. (I was one of 'em.)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 12:47 PM

One of the previous points of discussion was the percentage of people below the poverty line in the USA and in the UK. It was difficult to decide if the UK figures were actually western figures or not. We certainly have poverty in the UK and there is definitely poverty in the USA, I think it is the degree of poverty that was difficult to determine.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:04 PM

Poverty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Poverty is a condition in which a person or community is deprived of, or lacks the essentials for a minimum standard of well-being and life. Since poverty is understood in many senses, these essentials may be material resources such as food, safe drinking water, and shelter, or they may be social resources such as access to information, education, health care, social status, political power, or the opportunity to develop meaningful connections with other people in society.

Poverty may also be defined in relative terms. In this view income disparities or wealth disparities are seen as an indicator of poverty and the condition of poverty is linked to questions of scarcity and distribution of resources and power. Poverty may be defined by a government or organization for legal purposes, see Poverty threshold.

Poverty is also a type of religious vow, a state that may be taken on voluntarily in keeping with practices of piety.

There is a lot more and it gives ways for measuring poverty. It is interesting to look at the definition in relative terms.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:08 PM

I don't live in a heavily populated "inner city" area of the US so my observations may not hold true country-wide.

However, one thing that I *have* seen in the areas where I have lived, (Oregon, Virginia, Michigan and Alaska) is that no one- child, woman or man - should have to go hungry. We have soup kitchens and shelters that see to that. And another one pops up whenever one shelter is at capacity.

Going homeless in preference to sleeping or hanging out in a shelter is a more problematic question. I have known homeless men who say that they prefer to sleep under a bridge, for instance, to staying in a shelter. As one man told me, in the shelters there is always a boss, a bully, who is the one who decides what time the lights go out, if the windows are open or shut, if there is any talking.

My only 'expertise' in this area is that I have done volunteer work (tutoring, as well as helping serve dinner) in a shelter and I have often hired workmen from there as casual laborers. In the process I have talked with many.

One man, perhaps more motivated than most, agonized over it. As he said, How do I start over? A few days of painting or hauling or cleaning won't bring me enough money to get an apartment. If you don't have an address, you're not going to get a job...

In one way a woman with small children is in a better situation than a single man is. There don't appear to be as many options for men; fewer people care.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Partridge
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:16 PM

"Poverty in the USA was caused by Canada"

I don't understand this, how did Canada do this?

Pat x

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:18 PM

Canada is to blame for all the evils of the world, didn'tyaknow?

8-{E

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:37 PM

Canada not only caused the poverty in the US but they are also responsible for all those d*mnable cold fronts. I say we invade.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:47 PM

There was once a truely revealing and interesting thread that discussed poverty in our own lives, but the premise of this thread is sophmoric yet probably of valuable for a middle school curriculum.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:50 PM

I think it was started to get Dickey's poverty discussion off a couple of other threads but he hasn't shown up yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:54 PM

Poverty is caused by the few rich people who have all the money.

MSNBC had an extensive article about how many billionaires are now in London about 5 hours ago, showing that it's largely London's fault; but apparently someone paid them to take their name down so they hid the entire article. Maybe BBC has it up, but I'm too poor to pay the connect time to look.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:04 PM

The worst poverty I've seen yet was in Trinidad. Pretty awful. It is ameliorated to some extent by the fact that it doesn't get cold down there, so you can sleep outside or in some pathetic shack you built and not freeze to death.

One of the side effects of the Trinidad poverty is a tremendously high crime rate. You DON'T go out at night there if you are wise. Kidnappings, murders, break-ins, and robberies are very common. The police are little help, because they're corrupt. There are private detective agencies you can hire which are quite effective, but only people who are quite well off can afford their fees. Example: Someone stole your car. Don't bother calling the police, because it won't do you any good. Instead, hire a private detective agency. They will find the guy(s) who stole your car, shoot them dead, and return it...for a hefty fee! It's worth it if it's a valuable car.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:10 PM

The worst I have seen was driving into Acapolco back in the 70's. The mountainside AWAY from the ocean was covered with people living in less than boxes- two posts and a top cover were the better ones I saw.

Then we visited the 15th century Catholic Church in the nearby inland town, and saw the silver alter rails a foot in diameter, and the box the people were putting their centavos into...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scoville
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:13 PM

Men have fewer options than women with small children?? Are you kidding me? Because the last time I checked, there really is no reliable form of affordable childcare for people who cannot pay for it out of pocket, and current welfare laws are notorious for trapping people--if you work too much, you lose all your benefits (but still don't make enough to get by), so you have to stay on welfare, and pretty much anything you do to improve your economic lot on your own results in the government pulling another rug out from under you.

The U.S. isn't nearly as badly off as a lot of places, but a lot of people here are much worse off than they should be.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:19 PM

"The U.S. isn't nearly as badly off as a lot of places, but a lot of people here are much worse off than they should be."


This is a comment I can agree whole-heartedly with. The poverty that I saw in Mexico was painful to see, but the poverty I saw in Native American reservations was heart-rending, although not quite as bad. As an American, I felt , in some fashion, responsible for what the people living on the reservation had to deal with. That bothered me, that the US government had made treaties, then repeatedly broke them and driven those people to marginally livable areas.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:43 PM

I read somewhere, bb, that the ONLY treaty the Native Americans made with the newcomers that was not broken was the one they made with the Quakers. The government broke them whenever circumstances changed, such as wishing to open a new territory to settlers.

Scoville, I did mention "a single woman with small children"- local governments will go to work to settle them into an apartment, while they tend not to do anything of the kind for a single man.

As time passes and children grow older, I agree that the welfare system is morally bankrupt.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scoville
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:11 PM

They tend not to do much more, though, and I'm not sure that offsets the incredible additional burden of raising small children without a safety net, especially considering the terrible long-term effects of not having stable housing, good nutrition, or a safe neighborhood and home environment (since poor kids seem to be disproportionately at risk of abuse by stressed-out and underequipped mothers or stepfathers/boyfriends) when kids are young. A man without kids doesn't have those worries.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:17 PM

It's complex, but made worse by overpopulation in general, loss of traditional ways of earning a livelihood, women having children out of wedlock, and drug and alcohol use. Lack of mobility of populations because they are attached (and rightly so) to a particular place and occupation. Megafarms rather than smaller family farms and self sufficiency. There is a "psychogene", a word I just heard of..but expectations are passed down of poverty. I know that is true in my family. Education. Too many dropouts. Too much curriculum for the college bound and the rest be damned. A lot lot lot of poverty could be reduced and often eliminated by mother and father getting vocational training in high school, hopefully another level at a community college, being married, having a small number of children and avoiding drugs and alcohol. And diet Pepsi. So there are ways to break into the cycle. Birth control. Expectations that girls will not get pregnant before marriage (what a concept) and will complete an education. Same same boys. No tolerance of drugs or crime, which makes the experience of poverty so much worse if you are afraid for your life..and makes people who would step in to help or to house you afraid to do it...

Education of course, combined with social parameters that make it hard for people to drop out of school, get pregnant early and unmarried, use drugs etc. Government as a last resort for employment and for housing, and all housing on public dime drug-free or else in high lock-down places with high security where all adult drug users are assembled and children not exposed to them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:44 PM

Damn, Scoville. Read my sentence: In one way a woman with small children is in a better situation than a single man is.

You are jousting at a non-existent enemy.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:47 PM

BB - Yeah, I know what you mean about Mexico. I've seen that too. Pretty comparable to what I saw in Trinidad.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:58 PM

I've been taking a 33-week Catholic social justice class called JustFaith at my church, exploring social justice concerns and programs in my community, in the US, and in the world. We've done a huge amount of reading, including one of the several books Jonathan Kozol wrote about the South Bronx; and Cloud of Witnesses, a collection of short biographies of social justice activists that was published in Sojourners Magazine, edited by Jim Wallis; along with other books on compassion, racism, and Catholic Social Justice teaching. I got to hear Jim Wallis speak in Los Angeles last weekend on the theme of his recent book, God's Politics: God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.

I suppose the most disturbing book we read was Dispossessed, Mark Kramer's study of the urban slums of Nairobi, Manila, Mexico City, Bangkok, and Cairo. We don't have that kind of poverty in the United States.

The program also involves four "immersion experiences," face-to-face contact with the poor. We ate with the homeless and later cooked for them and provided them lodging in our church hall in a program called The Gathering Inn. We spent a day in Colusa in the Central Valley of California, touring substandard housing and talking with organizers and volunteers in a local community organizing project of the PICO network. We attended a Mexican-American fiesta and talked and feasted with Catholics from our area we'd never met before. And then this week, we spent two disturbing hours in the county jail (on a tour). I do volunteer work every week at a women's center in Sacramento, and I have contact with the poor there, too.

In Colusa, we found twenty housing units in the back yard of an old house. The apartments were little bigger than jail cells - about 10 feet wide by 15 feet deep, with a bathroom and shower facility in a separate building. Those twenty units were shut down by the city six months ago, but another apartment we visited smelled of gas and had obviously dangerous electrical and plumbing connections. The occupant was a farmworker, about fifty years old, who hasn't seen his family in Mexico for eleven years.

Yes, there's poverty in the United States. I suppose many of the poor here have television and aren't starving, but they don't have the security of stable housing and employment and health care and a home with two parents. They may have a car to drive, but can't afford to insure it. I suppose many of the poor are mentally ill or lacking in intelligence and skills, but certainly society has an obligation to help them deal with those shortcomings. I suppose that drugs also have a lot to do with the causes of poverty in the U.S. Recent immigrants also have a tough time during their early years here, especially if they came here illegally.

Every once in a while, I'll hear somebody blame the poor for their poverty, and that kind of thinking drives me crazy. I've met a lot of poor people, but not many of them seem to be poor because they're lazy. Usually, their poverty seems to be caused by the hopelessness of their situation, but their inability to find a way out of the deep hole of their poverty. If you grow up in an area plagued by violence and drugs, how likely would you be to have the strength to find a way out? Many of the American poor just don't have the intellectual ability and focus to be able to do a job – there are a number of people I've met that I can't imagine anybody wanting to hire.

So yes, there's lots of poverty in the United States. It's all around us, but often not easy to see. And there aren't any easy solutions to it. Before we pass judgment on the poor, we should make sure we've taken the time to mingle with them and to see things their way. Think about how we'd deal with such a hopeless situation. Certainly, there are heroes who have pulled themselves out of their poverty - but how many of us would have that sort of courage in a similar situation?

A decade or two ago, there was a short time when it was almost fashionable to have compassion with the homeless in the United States. I don't know what happened - I think people got bored with the issue of homelessness, and forgot about the poor. Maybe once again, it's Time to Remember the Poor.

-Joe-

---

Here are a couple of worthwhile Jim Wallis links:

• Mother Jones interview
• God's Politics Blog

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:26 PM

One of the worst obstacles to poverty is people shutting up other people who have possible suggestions. They just drift away out of the problem.

It has to be untangled.Providing safety for poor people has to be one of the most important things..where old women are afraid to leave their public housing units..or private...Where children are afraid to go to school or ride the school bus. Where there is safety, there are ways for the human spirit to find ways to move up and out of bad situations. A flower pot here and then a garden and then a fruit orchard in an abandoned lot. People cutting each other's hair and minding each other's kids while one works. Fixing each other's cars. The violence of various areas makes everything so much harder..where firefighters and taxis don't want to enter an area. We could go in with guns a blazing and clean some of those places up and put in semi-jails (with freedom to come and go but with restrictions) the thugs who make it so hard for their neighbors.

More later. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:31 PM

Is poverty relieved by charity, welfare, compassion, reform?

Or revolution?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Member
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:41 PM

Years ago when we were in a position to do so we gave regular contributions to an international aid organization and through that helped support a family in South America. One Christmas when we had more money that usual due to settlement of a contract, we were able to send some extra money. About three months later the case worker sent us some photographs. The family had bought some bags of cement, tin sheets and cinder blocks. The covered their roof because it had always been leaking in the rain; they put a cement floor in their kitchen area--it had been dirt floor until then, and the cinder blocks were used, I think, to make some raised sleeping platforms so they didn't have to be on the floor. The father worked--he is a carpenter, and he and his wife had three children. The son for whom we provided x dollars per month received his first pair of shoes because of the aid organization, his first trip to the dentist and his first school supplies. That put some stuff in perspective for me. I think back to those pictures and realize that just because I miss a meal doesn't mean I'm starving, and just because I need a patch on my jeans doesn't mean I am destitute. Sometimes we take the luxuries we have for granted. The folks in South America were in need of necessities. Big difference there. Now, if I have no milk or sugar for the tea I have it without. If there's no tea, water is fine. Sometimes we just don't know.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Member
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:43 PM

Good question, Richard.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mgarvey
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:50 PM

Extensive police work to prevent spread of violence and drugs

Proper nutritional use of food stamps with mostly true foods and a small percentage for treats

Medical clinics.

Workfare.

Emergency shelters.

WPA type programs.

Subsidized housing, range of houses depending on behavior and lifestyle of tenants.

Mandatory vocational training for every student in America, including those with Harvard buildings named after them.

Drug tests throughout school and in any state colleges.

Bully pulpits from the president on down (and I hope President Obama expands on what he is saying now) telling teens especially to quit bullying each other (hear me cute little cheerleaders), stay in school, get trained, don't vandalize property, don't join gangs (and a lot of people join for protection as a viscious circle)...

First and foremost, make it safe for people to come out of the bunkers. Make sure there is basic food and shelter (and for single folks that could be a cot in an old warehouse and leftover school lunches that are thrown away by schools). Have many many public bathrooms with showers and washing machines, staffed in part by the users themselves. Lots of stuff can be done. The City of Hope I think in LA..big huge complex..takes people off the streets, feeds them, and sends them back onto the streets cleaning up graffiti, picking up trash, and going from house to house in teams asking what do you need? Could be a new roof, or appliances moved or whatever. It is really interesting to see.

Also those microloan things are working well in other countries. We have so many regulations here, I don't know...

We have to get men back in the equation. Another vicious circle..they were essentially thrown out of their families and out of public housing and the nation has never recovered. Get them back with their families, encourage women to show respect to those who are not violent or abusive, even if they don't have great jobs...Give some parenting classes....women have learned how to raise children without fathers..not always with great results. If they truly don't want a father for their children, or can't arrange to get a good one before the biological alarm clock buzzes, they can be foster mothers or adopt. There is no excuse on the face of the earth except one that makes me think a single woman anywhere should deliberately bring a child into the world (the one exception is if husband is in combat).

Well, that is all for now. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:54 PM

"the one exception is if husband is in combat"

It would be nice to end that, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,MarkS
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:58 PM

A curious side question might be:

What causes prosperity?

Ignore for the moment those who have inherited, won, or married lots of money; they are really a small minority of the prosperous anyway.

Lets hear some prescriptions for prosperity!

Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:02 PM

Yes indeed, there is poverty in the United States.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:03 PM

"Is poverty relieved by charity, welfare, compassion, reform?
Or revolution? "

Perhaps the correct answer is - all of the above.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:19 PM

Many of the "charity" programs have moved away from long-term handouts, and have changed to a focus on providing seed money for community organizing so that people can pull themselves out of poverty.

The books I've been reading differentiate between charity and justice. Charity is giving people things to fill their temporary needs. Justice is giving people what they deserve - the right to be able to provide for their needs themselves.

Both are necessary, but justice is the long-term solution. I don't think that violent revolution will accomplish anything good - but there certainly is room for a strong but nonviolent revolution.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:20 PM

LIsten to Suse Orman..she was really getting into that with women last night on a PBS special. She brought up some interesting points..she had 8 points for prosperty. I missed most..but two were generosity and cleanliness. She said you can't be prosperous if you are dirty and/or cluttered. May or may not be true but it is osmething to think about and to get home ec back into the schools for. Rush Limbaugh said something similar..that where there is poverty there is chaos. Eliminate some of the chaos, which can be done in some places of US...and prospertity has a chance. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:25 PM

It used to be that business made something or served somebody for a profit for the owners and workers. Customers were served and workers were paid.
Now it seems that a business is to serve the stockholders with huge holdings who would neither use the product or service of a company.

Workers be damned. Customers be damned. Its the Board that matters.

The poverty tread mill begins with anyone but the super rich having to go into debt for a meaningful education.

Banks and credit institutions are now exploiting the poor as never before. Interest rates of 30% are not uncommon.
You might sign a crdit document that says your interest rate is 17% but the credit card company can raise it as much as they want whenever they want.

Credit companies now make sure that your "DUE DATE" is payable on a Sunday or the last day of a holiday so that they can induce fines if you even try to pay on the due date.

Your deposits take 3 seconds to enter the bank. But if you try to draw on it, the typical wait is 7 days. All the interest goes to the bank and you are fined if you try to cash a check for your money,

Charging people for what they already own also induces poverty.

In Bolivia Bechtel coporation has made it illegal for people to collect rainwater. They MUST use piped water which is a1/4 of the income of the poor - or risk jail and fines.

In the US we are charged and fined to use our own money.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:11 PM

"In Bolivia Bechtel coporation has made it illegal for people to collect rainwater. They MUST use piped water which is a1/4 of the income of the poor - or risk jail and fines."

Thats why water should be considered a basic human right. If we could start there, the world would be a better place.

Comparing the poverty in the Western world to poverty elsewhere is comparing apples and oranges. On a world scale, we should focus on clean water. If we could provide water purifiction units to developing countries, the labour of women and children would be greatly reduced. So much of a woman's time is spent trying to keep her family clean and healthy. I think its the least we should do.

Yes, we should re-define poverty. What is considered poverty in North America and Europe is different than poverty in S. America and Africa.

But lets talk about the Western World. Most of us do have access to clean water and food is available through welfare, food stamps, etc. - maybe not the best food but there is really no excuse for children starving.

What is needed is adequate housing and access to education. There is no excuse for any child to live in the U.S., Britain or Canada, surrounded by such abundance and be denied the basics. If we have the will, shelter could be made available to all. To stop the cycle of poverty, we must also insure that childcare is available and that minimum wage is increased. We can certainly do better. The only thing stopping us is greed.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:12 PM

I agree that credit card companies are ripping off the public.

It is probably the results of Lobbying that allow them do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bee
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:16 PM

Guest mg, some of your ideas are interesting, some I find frighteningly dehumanising and aggressive. There is also a faint hint of misogyny, as you sound out regarding out-of-wedlock pregnancy with apparently little regard for the fact that in or out of wedlock, children have fathers, and rather than being in combat, perhaps some of those out of work fathers should be encouraged to stay at home with their children while the perhaps more employable mothers work.

Workfare, where it has been tried, has been immensely expensive: mothers need costly childcare, upgraded education, often have no work appropriate clothing (office clothes can be expensive, if you have no basic wardrobe - I don't), cannot afford transportation to distant workplaces. Homeless men on welfare often have psychiatric issues and are simply unemployable. Workfare only sounds good to the righteously indignant about poor people getting some of 'their tax dollars'.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:21 PM

I am all for men staying home with their children and I said men should be back in the picture and respected, regardless of their employment status. I would work with the easiest people to place in jobs, which would be the younger ones in general, and those without psychiatric issues. There will always be a need for total care for some people and partial care and subsidizing for others. And tax dollars are paid with great injury to their own families by workers in minimum wage jobs, slaughtering chickens etc. We need to reduce the number of people needing help..it will never be zero..but it has been reduced and can be reduced further and their taxes will help support the seriously handicapped better than now, provide universal health care etc. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:27 PM

Hmmm. Well, here are some things which I think any decent modern society should provide for its public, free of charge.

All medical care.
Pure drinking water.
Education from primary school through college.
A modern transportation grid (highways, etc) that is kept in good shape (meaning snow removal and repair).
Police forces and a justice system and good legal aid for poor people.
Shelters for homeless people and job training for same and job offers if and when such training is completed successfully.

Most of our modern societies provide some of the above services for free, but not all of them.

It all costs money, obviously, and we all know that...but whether these things ARE provided or not is not a question of whether it costs money...it's a question of whether people accept that it is something that MUST be done to have a decent society...or not.

If they feel it MUST be done, they are always willing to pay the cost.

In addition to that, running such programs would provide good, paying work for a lot of people and would further generate good returns by reducing crime, improving living standards, and improving the capabilities of many formerly disadvantaged people to contribute usefully to society.

In short, it would pay for itself soon enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:32 PM

I agree with everything up to reservatons about total college costs. If it is something society needs, where there is a reasonable chance of employment, yes. Teachers, nurses, electricians, accountants, yes. Art history ?? Not sure. Maybe partial. Ways to work off college loans through working in community projects, teaching etc. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: number 6
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:35 PM

I invite anyone posting to this thread to come here to Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada) ... visit the North End ... hey ... while your out this way take a trip up to New Waterford, or Glace Bay Nova Scotia.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:43 PM

Well, mg, regarding college, I'd say that every type of knowledge is useful to some extent in building a healthy society....but most students have something on their mind when going to college. They are concerned as to whether their college education will prepare them for a job that is both well paying and personally satisfying. As such, they will tend to gravitate toward courses that seem to promise gainful employment. So I think that things would naturally tend to balance out in that sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST, Ebbie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:55 PM

I'm glad to see that it appears that rain water is no longer a luxury in Bolivia.

"Between December 3-5 (2005) , El Alto was also the site for the First National Congress in Defence of Water, Basic Services and Life, which FEJUVE and the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life from Cochabamba, headed by Oscar Olivera, were the main forces in organising. Just as the people of El Alto in January forced out the French multinational Suez, which had bought out the city's water supply following the privatisation of Bolivia's water in the late 1990s, the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life led the heroic struggle in 2000 that forced the government to break its contract with the US corporation Bechtel. Bechtel had bought out the water supply and begun charging the people of Cochabamba for rain water they collected.

More

Bechtel Corp., incidentally, has a long, somewhat unsavory history. Wikapedia:

"The Bechtel family has owned Bechtel since incorporating the company in 1925. Bechtel's size, its political clout, and its penchant for privacy have made it a perennial target for journalists and politicians since the 1930s. Bechtel has maintained strong relationships with officials in many United States administrations, including those of Nixon, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The company also has strong ties to other governments, particularly the Saudi Royal Family."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 07:19 PM

Read "Up from Slavery" by Booker T. Washington. It is a prescription for getting out of poverty and is the philosophy shared by any vocational educators I have known, who absolutely revere the writings of Booker T. Look at the rules that the reciipients of Gremen?? loans must agree to live by. One thing globally is not participating in dowry programs. Great idea. It is very important to teach almost everyone some basic life skills...some home repairs..very important. Teach in junior high or early high school. No reason to have rat holes etc. in houses. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 07:20 PM

Thanks, eanjay, for posting the various definitions of poverty from Wikipedia. Which definition is under discussion here? Or rather, which shading of poverty is under discussion? To fail to delineate that leads to interesting, and perhaps, entertaining discussion. But not to much else.

There are people in prosperous industrialized countries who do indeed live in the same abject poverty as do countless people in third world countries, but not nearly as many, and for those that do, the most immediate causes, and therefore the solutions are different than for in those countries and parts of the world where abject poverty is the rule rather than the exception.

I don't expect that poverty, in any of its forms or definitions can ever be irradicated--and as the world population grows, and the resources shrink, it approaches the point where it is not even possible in theory.

That said, in countries with the resources and the means, the only reason abject poverty exists is because the majority of the citizenry of that country allow it to exist. What Little Hawk said in his 6:27 post is a pretty succinct summation.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 07:57 PM

Very intersting observations by many folks here and which I can find little to disagree with...

I've had kinda two working lives in my life, each lasting about 20 years... My second career, if you can call it that, continues on and has little to do with the discussion... My first 20 years, however, had me teaching GED in the Richmond City jail, working at a half wat house with recovering drug addicts and rounded out as a social worker in "adult services" for the Richmond Welfare Department...

So, my observations are based on what I experienced during 20 years in the trenches...

First of all, there are one heck of a lot of poor people who most people never see... Poor people tend to not be visable... Oh sure, folks see homeless folks and, like in Washington, D.C., folks livin' in cardborad boxes on steam grates but what we see isn't even the tip of the iceburg...

For years,I have driven to a barber shop in N.E. Washington to play blues and have driven thru some areas that, unless one lives there, the average person will never see... Block after block of slum and poor people and this in the nation's capitol...

When I was a social worker, there were about 10 housing projects and the poor people were kept in those projects as if the were prisoners... Yeah, they were outta sight and outta mind for most people... We social workers knew different... These projects housed (ha) tens upon thousand of people who had one thing in common... They were poor...

When it comes to numbers, it isn't an exact science since many folks just fall thru the cracks... Throw in the high cost to live in many areas and the ***defined*** poverty thresholds can be thrown out the window...

Take for example Washington, D.C... Rents for a 2 bedroom apartment average $1300 a month... Sure, some might argue that this is an average but I'd point out middle wage earners don't have to rent... They own... So if one takes the rent and multiplies it by 12 and factors in the amount of gross income it takes to afford to live in the "average" 2 bedroom apartment, that amount in itself exceeds the federal povery income levels to be consider poor and all this money is doing is paying rent...

I'll kind leave this for now as I realize that long posts somethimes don't get read but over the coming days I would like to add to some of the things that mg has allreeady brought to the discussion, especially education...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:58 PM

One huge problem is people on the edge having to fill prescriptions, many of which could be avoided and some are crucial. Once the common knowledge in best-selling books dribbles up to the medical profession about diabetes cause and effect, and the nutritional considerations, lots of money can be saved in heart, diabetes and other medicines, offset by spending more money on proper food.

The lens I see things through is overpopulation. I tend not to see as much the stuff other people see. People can't exploit people who are not desparately poor...well, not as much. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 10:16 PM

When kids go hungry in a land of plenty
When parents have nowhere to turn
When people live in cardboard houses
It's then we'll see the cities burn

If folks think that we can continue to discriminate economically against the poor in society, and if folks think that the poor 'have brought it on themselves', then folks, IMO, are thinking wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 10:26 PM

I have been through the worst slums in DC, Savannah, Jacksonville etc. Places where you roll up your windows real tight, lock the doors and try to avoid eye contact.

And I have been to Jamaica and riding through the good part of town you see much worse. Seems like tha average inhabitant there has the long dreadlocks that look like they have been plasterd with mud, pushing a ramshackle cart on roller skates, something like those lowboy carts at Home Depot. Everything they own is aparently on the cart

I have been in Mexico near the border and You see what is apparently Indian mothers with their legs wrapped up in fake bandages with mercurochrome poured on them, holding a muchacho or two and begging. Mamacitas at the market trying to find the least rotten tomatos to buy.

I have been through El Paso and looked across the river at a city of little mud shacks with no glass in the windows. A chicken sitting in the window is an indication of being well being.

I have heard that in Cancun, when you get out of the city, a home consists of four sticks driven into the ground, wrapped with tar paper and a roof of scrap metal or old automobile hoods. Streets? Water? Electricity? Forget that.

With the exception of Canada, I kiss the ground when I get back home from a foreign country in the western hemisphere. I have never been to the eastern hemisphere. It is my belief that the poor in America are better off than the average person in most other countries.

There are always extreme cases but the extreme case of poverty in the US would not be considered extreme in other countries.

I will with hold my opinions on the eastern hemisphere because I have never been there.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 10:34 PM

Even when viewed through a macro lens, it is the choices that those of us who are not living in poverty in 1st world nations make that are ultimately the building blocks of many of contributing causes and many of the partial solutions to poverty, at home and in third world economies. Do you belong to a labor union? Have you urged your union leadership over the course of years to support fair labor practices in thrid world countries, or urged your leadership to lobby Congress to provide incentives for just labor practices in third world countries and disincentives for unfair practices? Or have you simply been content for your leaders to lobby for protectionism?

Do you habitually shop at Walmart, and buy 5 pairs of jeans for $15.00 each, made in a sweatshop in Bangladesh. That Levi plant in Burlington, NC would not have closed if you had realized you only needed two pairs of jeans, at 30 dollars each, made there by people who are, or could be your neighbors, and who were paid a living wage for their work, but are now out of work because the mill closed down? And do you understand that if you had bought those two pair of jeans from a local merchant, the $30 would have stayed in your community, paid a sales clerk in your community, kept a locally opened small merchant opened for business, paying taxes and employing people? And if the sweatshop workers in those third world countries were paid a living wage in their country and if they had decent working conditions, that would go a long way toward providing a sustainable economy in their own communities, such that the jeans they make would have a market in their local community?

And that your aunt, or your father, or your husband or you would not now be out of work because the business all went overseas?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: number 6
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 10:56 PM

I've seen the mentally ill, aids victims, homeless camped out in cardboard tents, under the Gardner freeway, and in the ravines of Toronto.

I've seen pensioners lose what little they have on life in a tenement fire here in Saint John. They couldn't even get contents insurance even if they could afford it since the building was so dilapitated and unsafe. Insurance companies wouldn't even think of insuring it. These pensioners worked all there lifes on minimum wage spending their remaining days on about $400 a month government pension. About $300 a month went to the slum lord. What they ate I couldn't imagine.

There are many apartment slums here in Saint John that don't have heat or water. Many children live in these abodes. Winter here can be very harsh.

Sure, the above isn't Jamaica, Cancun or any of these other exotic locations were the bourgeous of Canada go to vacation ... cheap vacations since the staff of the hotels, bars and restaraunts are staffed by people who are paid next to nothing ... but the above situations I mentioned are real in a country that has 'everything'.

Yeah, I'm grateful for what I have ... but I'm aware what is in my own backyard, I do what little I can by advocating in my community in regards to the lack of adequate housing ... but it's like banging your head against a very hard concrete wall. I'm also aware that myself, and pretty well everyone I know is a hairline away from being thrown into the depths of poverty by unknown, but real circumstances.

Solution ... I think dianavin mentioned greed above in her post. The human element of greed is the evil that permits human beings to live in such misery.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 11:19 PM

But now you are out of work, at least for a time. You probably don't fall into abject poverty, but times are hard and money is tight, and what do you do? You get scared. The 'what if's' sets in. Maybe you find another a job in a few months, or maybe in a couple years. In the meantime, you've lost ground financially. The job you found doesn't pay as well as the one at the mill, the retirement savings and the dream of the camper permanently parked in a campground/mobile home park in Florida where you could spend the winters when you retired is gone. You feel deprived-understandably in the context of the Great American Dream-which is not dead, by the way--only deeper into dreams. You used to consider yourself a generous person, but gee whiz, you still have two cars to keep going and the dirt bike, and now the dirty sumbitches in State government or the Feds. want to up and raise taxes when you are barely getting by, and even before the sh*t hit the fan, you couldn't a bought the dirt bike, or the faster computer, or the Martin guitar if your money was all going for taxes...and as you get worse off, and don't think you can afford more taxes, some one who was already way worse off than you now has to pay a $3.00 Medicaid co-pay for medicines. What's three dollars? When you're disabled or sick and on Welfare that pays $276 a month for you and your kids to pay rent, utilities, etc, and you have to take 4 different psychotropic drugs for your mental illness, one for your blood pressure and one for the osteoarthritis that is beginning to cripple your hands, that $25=4.00 in medicaid co-pays is almost 10% of your monthly income. Then the tags come due on the car you have to have becasue there is no mass transit to get you to the grocery store or the doctor' office and the car insurance get cancelled for non-payment, but the kids have to eat and you have to get to the doctor so you drive on expired tags with no insurance and get pulled by the state trooper and are now going to have to come up with $275 for the fine, plus still get the tags renewed and the insurance reinstated....

Folks--like Bobert, I'm a social worker--been at it almost 35 years now. This scenerio is pretty typical. And it has a cascade effect that is felt around the world in our now global economy.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Member
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 11:41 PM

Many people will not ever understand the effects of poverty until they see a single mom cry because she can't feed her kids. Or watch a single mom put off buying herself footwear because her kids need clothes, so she goes to her secretarial job wearing running shoes. She saves the bus fare and walks there despite it taking over an hour. She tells the kids that the burnt-edge part of the egg is bacon, so the kids think that's what bacon is for many years. And you see her at Christmas hoping for a miracle because she has nothing to put under the tree. It does bad things to the human spirit. It did to hers, and I often think she never forgave herself for it although I know for fact her kids didn't think there was anything needing forgiveness. I hope in death she's finally found the peacefulness she didn't have for much of her life.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:12 AM

OK. Let us come up with some plans to prevent such things from happening.

Girl gets a good home ec class in high school where she learns the difficulty of raising children as a single mother and hopefully decides not to go this route and has no accidents along these lines. She learns to sew. She is able to take gently-worn clothing and fix them up sufficiently to wear them to work or clothe her children quite inexpensively. She wears the running shoes to work and has a cheap pair of K-Mart type dress shoes that last forever at work.

She knows how to cook nutricious meals out of next to nothing..oats and beans and chicken thighs and carrots and sunflower seeds. She has the children planting seeds in flower pots. She is judicious in her choice of male companions and eventually finds a nice one to marry her, or else does not but takes community college classes when the children are a bit older, trading off child care with a neighbor in similar circumstances.

She gets her car fixed by bartering overnight child care with a neighbor who works the night shift. She becomes an LPN and has a slightly better pay and benefits. She splits an apartment with a fellow nurse and does a bit better. She watches the Suse Orman show and does some smart things with her tiny amount of money.

Not a great life but better. So much could be done with good high school classes.

I would like to hear plans from people.. Not laments...we all know how bad it is and not too many people are all that greedy. I don't think that is the cause. There are multiple interacting causes..now we add meth into the equation and creepy men abusing the woman's 10 year old daughter and eying the 7 year old...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:39 AM

I have a room for rent right now that I can't rent out. Even when I advertise I don't get callers. It is for $250 a month in a place with low incomes. I would even lower the price a bit for a clean, sober, hard-working single woman.

Landlords who are slumlords should be prosecuted. However, there are so many social ills that you have to put up with and so many laws that screw the landlord, and I was one for most of my adult life that modest income people are driven out because you will be ruined, as I was, by bad tenants. You will often get good ones in, and they have these dufus sons or brothers they will sneak in and the good tenants will leave. I could tell you many stories. I only have my house now and rent out two rooms in it and I am scared to death to advertise for fear of who I will get. So there need to be provisions for the mentally handicapped people, and there need to be high security situations for the violent people and also their victims. There also needs to be some straightening out of the sordid social mess that we have now. It can be done. That is the first step, believing it can be done. Part of the problem is women and the creepy men syndrome. Oh but he loves me when he isn't drinking and bashing my head in. Oh but he wouldn't do that when he is molesting my 12 year old daughter. Oh but I have to let my meth addicted son live with me and steal from my neighbors to support his habit....

There is way more to poverty than a lack of money...what causes what? It doesn't matter. It all causes more. There are places to break the cycle. One is the drug situation. One is the creepy men situation. One is the out of wedlock children situation.... straighten out one thing and lots more fall into place.

A shortage of clothing, bedding, furniture, cars....can be taken care of in America where we have surplus of all of that..not good ways of distributing used goods but we are getting there with freecycle etc. We are going down the wrong road in a lot of pathological ways though and will reap the whirlwind....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:51 AM

"I would like to hear plans from people.. Not laments"

Fucking pardon me.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 02:47 AM

What does not help the poor is idiotic simplistic moralising.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 05:06 AM

A little hope & education wouldn't hurt a soul
How bout a song on poverty


No Tomorrow For The Poor by Barry Finn

Tune: Virginia Lags, Traditional

Inside the ghettos dwells the greatest of crimes
Where kids with no hope are serving their time
Where they're shocked into feeling that life has no price
They live and they die no tomorrow

With no higher learning, no place they can turn
They see daily the wealth from crime they can earn
They're under the gun every time that they turn
And we ask why they have no values

Their language is foreign, their culture is strange
There's slight chance for survival outside of a gang
To get life from drugs beats the pain of no change
There's no light at the end of their tunnel

There's abuse of all kinds that runs rampage with rage
And the cycle runs deeper with each passing age
Until lock them away is all we can say
They've been locked away all of their young lives

We'll draw cheap labor from them that'll slave
And watch while we help the rest into the grave
Keep them from good health, good schools and good wage
And hope that there isn't a backlash

So now let us finish and shake hands with our fate
And don't be surprised when you're a victim of hate
What they've been robbed of, to you they'll relate

You'll be hunted as prey by your victim

Barry Finn 1997

After all these years I still haven't decided weither or not to drop the last line.
Poverty is real & it surrounds us everywhere.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 07:22 AM

I don't have much time this morning but would like to point out jsut a couple things for thought and Janie, having been in social work for 35 years (which I find incredulous since she doesn't look a day over 35 to me...) will remember...

One thing that came out of the Great Society and War on Poverty was federal funds for all kinds of little things... Theye were called Title XX (20) funds and they provided social workers with a menu of serices that could be purchased...

GUEST, member brought up the woman working as a secretary and had to make a choice between riding the bus or walking an hour to work and, yeah, these are the choices that we as social workers used to have resources to purchase... Under Title XX the Richmond Department of Welfare purchased bus tickets and social workers were able to furnish them to needy clients...

....some of which were very much like the WICS lady who was trying to do the right thing and hold a job but there were also physically and mentally disabled people who needed to get to appointments, treatment sessions and to rehablitation centers...

But then along came the Reagan administration and all Hell broke loose as Title XX was reeled in big time and social workers became scroungers, beggers and cab drivers... This opne change in our nation's resolve to fund programs to help the poor was the first shot fired accross the bow of folks who really had no idea how to lift themselves out of poverty...

The one Title XX program that was cut that I found most hurtfull was the "companion porvider" program where younger and more mobile clients (and non clients) were paid a few bucks to go into the homes of eledery poor and help with grocery shopping, cooking, housework, etc... This was wonderful program even though at the time the limit was 12 hours per week but those 12 hours were the difference between absolute misery and just plain misery for our elderly...

Yeah, there has been this right winged idea that money isn't the answer and I would agree that money, in itself, isn't the answer but it is part of the answer and if we are going to have a realistic discussion about poverty it is going to get around to money, folks...

More later...

Great thread...

Gotta go...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 07:46 AM

mg,

At a minimum you are being incredibly naive, and you have no basis whatsoever to make the assumptions you have about guest member's family or mother and the reasons they were so poor from the information provided in the post. There is nothing wrong with home ec and nutrition education, but that would have done nothing to have lifted this family out of their poverty.

You have absolutely no information about the history or the situation of the family-yet you assume it is intirely Mom's fault, i.e.If people are poor it is because they make bad choices--maybe out of ignorance-but bad choices must be the reason.

How do you know Mom 'got' herself in this situation. for all any of us know she was widowed at an early age, or beat by a drunk husband until she had to leave with the kids, or had to quit college or drop out of high school to help take care of a sick or dying parent, or to help support her own mothers family. You ignore the information that she works. And you must think she is absolutely bouncing with energy when she gets home to sew all those gently used clothes and she has scads of time to buy in bulk and prepare food from scratch, etc., etc. etc.

Guest,member, I have no idea whatsoever what your family circumstances were that you had to live in such soul numbing poverty-all of you, your Mom especially. But I hate that it was like that.

I, too, hope your mother is truly at peace now. Blessings on her and on you.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:37 AM

Bobert-I've got your back on this one for sure!

It was actually during the Nixon years that the American public began to lose the will to assure a minimal standard of living for all of our citizens. The federal government began chipping away at the funding for programs then and began to badly mess with the Food Stamp program. It was, however, during the Reagan era that the Title XX programs went completely the way of the dinosaurs. The big turning point was with the passage of the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981.

The Title IV and the Title XX programs, and the Food Stamp program as it was operated under the original requirements and regulations, did not eliminate poverty in the US. They did, however, go a very, very long way toward mitigating against the very worst effects of poverty-the lack of minimally adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Under the auspices of the original Food Stamp program, malnutrition had been virtually eliminated in the United States by the early 1970's. By the early 1980's, we again saw significant levels of malnutrition in this country.

These programs cost the tax payers money. And somewhere along the way, a majority of those of us who have more than we really need lost the will and the moral imperative to insure that nearly everyone had at least enough.

In the early '80s I was a Policy Specialist with the Division of Economic Services for the West Virginia Dept. of Human Services. I had the dubious honor of rewriting West Virginia's programs and policies for administration of title IV-A ( Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a.k.a. AFDC), the Food Stamp program, and some of the Medicaid eligibility rules that were required as the result of the 1981 legislation. It made me so sick of what was happening that I left that position and went back into the field to direct practice, where I could try to do something directly in the lives of people to try to help mitigate against the drastic changes in programs and public spending.

For a long time, I thought the tide would turn, that the public will to insure a minimum level of economic safety for all of our citizens would return. It is 26 years later, and it still hasn't happened.

And it is not to blamed on the government. It is not to be blamed on conservative Republicans. Bill Clinton's Work First program is much harsher and more restrictive than anything that came before.

What we have now (or don't have) in the way of a social safety net is an expression of the will of the voting public.

When I opened this thread, my first thought was to stay out of it. After 35 years I am tired of talk and little action.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: John Hardly
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:41 AM

Green Envy -- Pover T. & the M.Gs

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:44 AM

There is no dearth of ideas about causes and solutions to the worst effects of poverty, no matter where in the world it exists. (Need I say that the worst effects of poverty are people not being able to meet basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and health care?) Beyond ideas, there is a large body of solid research as to what kinds of conditions and programs work to minimize the effects of poverty, and to decrease the rate of poverty.

The bottom line is-guess what?-money. And most of that money has to come from tax dollars.   Who ultimately decides how much money will be collected in taxes? Those eligible to vote in resource rich democratic countries. Who ultimately decides how and where public dollars will be spent? Those eligible to vote.

What ultimately determines how local and global economies look and function? The consuming public.

Are some people lazy and/or ignorant and make bad choices that contribute to their own position of poverty? You betcha. But do each of us who do not live in poverty make choices about what we do, how we vote, what we spend, what we think we must have, and what we place the most priority on that results in other people being pushed into, or held into conditions of poverty? Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. And unless or until a majority of the individuals in society assume personal responsibility for the effects on others of the choices we make, a huge number of human beings around the globe are doomed to suffer needlessly.

Droughts on the scale now seen in Africa, for instance, that lead to environmental conditions in which subsistence is impossible are largely from the effects of global warming. How many cars do you have? What consumer choices do each of us make that make it so profitable for the rain forests of the Amazon to be destroyed?

How many of us choose to create a market for new homes in new subdivisions standing where second growth forest and good farmland once stood?

We are each and every one of us individually responsible.

Janie

Janie

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:46 AM

(I guess all three of me needed to sign that last post:^)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:17 PM

"...folks who really had no idea how to lift themselves out of poverty..."

I quite often wonder why some people seem to dwell in poverty while others are able to lift themselves out of misery. I think it may have something to do with the ability to network, socially, and the ability to access services and goods that are available.

I also know that to escape the cycle of poverty, you must be able to see that you have choices and are able to make decisions. You must have hope. When people feel that they are trapped, they become helpless. I also know that you must be very assertive about your right to access the programs that are out there.

When discussing poverty, I think that we must be aware that for many, it is only a temporary situation. I was there once as a single mom but I can guarantee that the only way I was able to succeed was because I had a strong social network of friends that were able to help with hand-me downs and childcare, etc.

If all of us were to extend the hand of friendship and help that neighbor (whether they are elderly or a single parent or...) Sometimes it just takes knowing that someone cares that helps you to regain your self worth.

Take a neighbor shopping.
Offer to help with childcare.
Help with the gardening.

There is alot we can do to ease the burden to insure that people are not feeling isolated and alone. Poverty is depressing and its hard to lift yourself up if you are feeling down in the dumps.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:43 PM

You have absolutely no information about the history or the situation of the family-yet you assume it is intirely Mom's fault, i.e.If people are poor it is because they make bad choices--maybe out of ignorance-but bad choices must be the reason.

THE HELL I DO. THERE IS NOTHING I THOUGHT OR SAID TO SUPPORT THIS.

How do you know Mom 'got' herself in this situation. for all any of us know she was widowed at an early age, or beat by a drunk husband until she had to leave with the kids, or had to quit college or drop out of high school to help take care of a sick or dying parent, or to help support her own mothers family. You ignore the information that she works.


I SHOULD NOT HAVE TAGGED IN TO THIS PARTICULAR POST. I WAS SPEAKING GENERICALLY AND SHOULD HAVE MADE THAT MORE CLEAR.

And you must think she is absolutely bouncing with energy when she gets home to sew all those gently used clothes and she has scads of time to buy in bulk and prepare food from scratch, etc., etc. etc.

THIS IS WHAT MOST PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS DONE. SHE (GENERIC)CAN HEM A SKIRT IN 20 MINUTES ONCE A MONTH OR SEW A FEW BUTTONS ON. IT WILL TAKE HER 10 MINUTES TO THROW SOME MEALS TOGETHER, NOT COUNTING COOKING TIME AND HER CHILDREN, IF THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH CAN HELP. IF SHE IS IN GOOD HEALTH, SHE GENERICALLY, THESE THINGS ARE NOT PROBLEMS. These are skills that everyone, every single person needs to have.


This is a very very serious problem..taking what people did not say or think and get into they are blaming the victim mentallity. It totally shuts down conversaton. No, they might be looking for solutions to very serious problems. I think it is not unreasonable to expect people in good health to cook food from scratch, a pot of soup on the weekend, a pot of oats in the morning. Fast and premanufactured food is a serious serious problem in this country and everyone who has children has to find healthy ways to feed them. That used to be expected that they would cook food. With a used George Foreman grill ($1 at a thrift shop) and a used slow cooker ($1 at a thrift shop, a person can put out some good and cheap and healthy dinners. And you do not need to cook. You can do a lot with reheating foods you ahve already cooked, and healthy salads and sandwiches etc.

That is what I am trying to say. We need to get young men and women in high school and make sure they know how to do these things. We shouldn't be graduating them if they can't cook a pot of beans or make an omellete.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 01:14 PM

I agree that being able to sew and to cook are skills most people need. They are also skills that most people have. And they are skills that most of the people that I work with who are extremely poor use. And I work with a lot of extremely poor people.

At least, most of the people with whom I work who are extremely poor cook when they have food to cook.

dianavan, thanks for sharing your experiences and observations. In many cases, the presence or lack of supportive or extended family or other significant informal social supports is a very significant factor. These social supports are resources. And what is poverty about? Lack of resources.

Education is a resource. Life skills are resources. A garden is a resource. Access to health care is a resource. Transportation is a resource. Money is a resource.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 02:39 PM

You're right, Janie.

I had life skills, a garden, health care and access to education. Although I did not have supportive family, I did have a network of supportive friends. I could cook and sew and I knew how to access services that were available to me. I am happy to say that my children who are now adults, did not know that we were poor.

btw - Self-esteem is very important. It helps you get past social workers (gate-keepers) who think it is their job to decide who is eligible for services. Many times they make this judgement based on their own value system. A social worker can open doors or make you feel unworthy. Sometimes I had to lie to get what we needed and I hated the system for making a liar out of me. You do what you have to do.

I once had a teacher who said that instead of preparing students to become human resources, we should be preparing students to become resourceful human beings.

Makes sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 07:00 PM

Makes sense to me, too, Dianavan.

Janie and Bobert, thanks for your postings.

For the past thirty years or more poor people have been the scapegoats in this country. It gets tiresome to hear them blamed for everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:15 PM

""The U.S. isn't nearly as badly off as a lot of places"

Presumably true - but those places are a lot poorer than the USA. That's no excuse for unfair distribution between the rich and the poor in such places, but even if things were fairly shared out there's less to go round.

The question is how a country that is quite incredibly rich by world standards can manage to have sections of society that are genuinely hard-up, including hard-working people.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:34 PM

"I quite often wonder why some people seem to dwell in poverty while others are able to lift themselves out of misery"


Dianavan: I agree 100%

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:38 PM

Well, I guess this next part needs to be said so I'm going to say it.... Janie allready knows it but maybe some others don't...

ADC (Aid ot Dependent Children) and AFDC (Aid to Families (ha) with Dependent Children, the two mainstays of public assitance for women and tbheir kids prior to the "Welfare Reform" (ha, part 2) under Clinton, was anti-family...

Huh???

Yeah it was a punitive system where case-workers were trained to look for evidence of men-in-the-home during home visits... See, havin' a man in the home (ha, part 3, slum housing project rat infested apartment...) meant a woman could loose "her check"... Which back when I was a social worker wasn't nearly enough to make it throught the month... $360 for a mother and three kids...

What a lot of folks don't know is that after 3 kids the check didn't change much even thought there were additional kids to be cared for???

Like what was the all about??? Run the dads out and then punish the moms???

So, yeah, when we talk about poverty, we're talkin' a lot about moms anf their kids...

Dads???

Well, sure, there was the Bureau of Support Enforvement??? What a joke... I knew folks in that department an' that was the cushiest job in the entire sysyem 'cause these folks sis nothin' 'cept push papers, talk about what they were going to have for lunch, etc... But I can't blame them 'cause the system was set up not to go after the dads...

I will talk more about this in another post 'cause it is an imporatnt part of the solution but this is post is about the mind-set of the folks who were making the rules during the Reagan years and it was anti-family...

Janie can add her own spin on it and she probably will but it was anti-family...

So here we are with a very distinct history of forcing poor people to make decisions that are/were very much not strong in the areas of "family values" and these values have been passed down from generation to generation???

So when mg asks what makes folks do what they do and why they don't make choices that she might make I'd suggest that a little knowledge of our history might throw some light into why folks do what they do... It's almost condition/response...

There is a certain ethno-centric thing that goes on when folks who have perhaps had some close calls with poverty and dodged the bullet where these folks, usually those with a differnet mind-set and set of skills, have come out from their "bad luck" and feel they now understand what it is like to having been raised in a poor family (less, of course, a man-in-the-house)...

Now before someone jumps all over me and says "Hey, Bobert, what about this person or that person who made it thru the projects and the system?"

Well, yeah, there are a few examples of kids who have "made it" but the odds aren't very good... No, not very good at all... About the same odds at some rich kid endin' up homeless livin' under a bridge...

But, just for the folks who are taking this thread seriously, my next post is going to be a "case study" about such a rich kid, who was one of my clients, who ended up homeless an' livin' under the bridge... I won't be usin' his real name because of privacy issues but it it might perhaps get some folks to think about "Well, that could never happen to me..."

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:41 PM

You really wonder, Dickey? That would imply you don't think you have the answer to start with. Most encouraging.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:03 PM

Well, McG.... Janie, I and others are just startin' to tell then real story... The one that folks outside don't know... Yeah, Dickey, is probably very muich in that category but, in his defense, he has been fairly well behaved so far and hasn't tired to highjack this thread, as he has done in others...

That is progress on his part... At the very least he is sittin' back an' takin' some of this stuff in... It's a long torturous story and one that some of use have first hand knowldge about so...

...as much as it pains me, I'd give Dickey passin' marks so far... At least he hasn't thrown a hand-grenade into the discusssion yet... That is progress...

Let's let the story unfold... I think between Janie, myself and maybe a couple others we will all come out with a better perspective on this very difficult, yet important, issue...

Best thread for a long time here on Mudcat!!! By far...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:12 PM

A litle aside here: There is a lot we don't know about the variables in people's psyches. For instance, one kid can grow up in a home where the parents are alcoholic - and that kid never touches a drop. Another kid, maybe in that same home, grows up in a home with alcoholic parents and is in and out of reform schools and rehabs for the next 40 years. Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:15 PM

On this thread there is some very ugly blaming of the poor for being poor, some very ugly middle class and in some respects right wing patronising moralising. It fills me with that petrol emotion.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:39 PM

"gasoline emotion"? I don't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:44 PM

Your observations about choice are right on the money, too, dianavan. Without the perception that one has viable choices, one has no hope. Some people do not know the choices that are available to them. And in some situations, there are no viable choices, or the choices you have to make conflict with your values and erode your sense of self worth--like having to lie just to get the basic needs of your family met.

Self worth is hard toget, and even harder to keep when one is poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:50 PM

Hang loose, Richard....

This story is just beginning to be told...

Those who have been brainwashed into singing the company fight song will hang as long as they can but as the entire story is told will end up, in the words of Bob Dylan, "peekin' thru a keyhole on their knees..."

I promise...

There are those of us who have been in the trenches an'' are willin' to share what we know and what we have seen...

so.... patience, my frined, patience...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:13 PM

I'd forgotten that bit about the Dads, Bobert. And I here I was, thinking fondly of the 'glory days' of being poor in the good ol' US of A!

Still, there were the Title XX programs, and the odd grant money here and there, and no co-pays for medical care or prescriptions with Medicaid. Somehow or other we grabbed a bit of yarn here, a nylon cord there, and maybe over here not much more than a thin bit of cotton thread. From those different little bits of string, we managed to tie enough knots to together to have a social safety net. I admit it was awful low to the ground, and there were definitely spots where a body might break on through, but it was there. It's gone now, or so full of holes as to be worthless, mere flotsam.

Now I wanna hear your case study.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:15 PM

So when mg asks what makes folks do what they do and why they don't make choices that she might make I'd suggest that a little knowledge of our history might throw some light into why folks do what they do... It's almost condition/response...

I will try again. I did not say that. Do not say I said what I did not say. I am for almost every social program there is. I want people to look for ways to get people out of poverty and to keep them out if they might slip toward it. The best way to get into it or stay in it is to have children before you are ready, use drugs or alcohol and not have vocational training and be in an unsafe environment. If you go after those 4 cornerstones, you can help all sorts of people. I have never ever blamed the victim here. But the victim is not only the visible poor person, but like I said, the marginally poor person who has to pay more taxes than she should whilst slaughtering chickens for a living, or the person who ahs to live next door to a crack house etc. etc. I get really really angry when people say I said stuff I did not say, have never said, have never thought. I will say and have always said that we have to untangle some of the social pathology that co-exists with poverty, without worrying about what causes what. It each causes each other..poverty leads to chaos, chaos leads to poverty. If you clean up the drugs and crime out of a neighborhood, resources, including jobs, will most likely flow in. Thrift shops and coffee shops and small groceries so life becomes easier. More bus routes. Better fire service. taxi drivers so you can get in and out. What is wrong with any of this? I am not interested in being abused over this but know that I will be. But abuse me for what I say, not what I do not say, or that you presume I am secretly thinking. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:31 PM

mg, If I jumped too hard on you, I apologize for that. I accept your position that you are a concerned, caring person, engaged in active inquiry and looking for viable solutions to problems that have plagued mankind since we first formed communities and societies.

I do not read Bobert's paraphrase of your statement as inaccurate, nor do I read it as any kind of attack or put down on you. He is simply restating the question you asked and which he intends to try to help answer.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bee
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:31 PM

I have been poor often in the past, and fortunately for only a brief period (six months) was too poor to buy adequate food. It was a very enlightening experience. It was before food banks in my area, and I was too proud/stupid to ask for welfare. Let me tell you that it takes very little time with less than needed B complex and other vitamins and protein for the body and brain to start acting out in a very predictable manner.

You become nervous, you tire quickly, you are easily confused, fearful, and sleep poorly. In this state, looking for work becomes an unbearably difficult task, and you don't present well to prospective employers, who may already be looking askance at you because of your less than businesslike clothing. You are always tired, yet because you must, you walk long distances to get to interviews or appointments, therefore often arriving dusty or sweaty.

You can't afford the simplest grooming aids: deodorant, hair products, skin lotions, etc. You likely have to pay to get clothes washed, and you wear them longer than you normally would. You look poor. The older you are, and especially if you are a woman, the more obvious this is.

When I did get work, and a small paycheck, I went straight to a co-op food store, and I remember my hands shaking as I picked out good food to buy, cheese and rice and vegetables and fruit. I had fussy tastes before that experience, wouldn't eat celery or tomatos or asparagus or parsnips and so on. My flavour prejudices just disappeared overnight. There are very few food items I won't eat now.

For many years after I worked with low income working mothers and their children. I know some of those mothers were often hungry. I know their occasional odd behaviours were as often due to food deprivation as anything else. My local charitable donations go mainly to food banks and the volunteer fire department.

I get angry when I hear people blaming the poor for their poverty, or raving against social assistance. It isn't a simple problem with a simple solution. 'The poor' aren't some kind of solid mass to be 'dealt with'; they are individual humans with individual needs, problems, talents, abilities, dreams, concerns, dammit.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:38 PM

Bee    Yes!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:47 PM

I will say, however, that there are some good reasons why big programs tend to be 'one size fits all", and that there are macro benefits to them being heavily regulated that probably balance out the equally significant costs of their inflexibility.

Accountablility, prevention of discrimination, protection from corruption, nepotism, cronyism and patronage are the biggies.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 11:08 PM

"The best way to get into it or stay in it is to have children before you are ready, use drugs or alcohol and not have vocational training and be in an unsafe environment."

Mary, I fit all of that criteria at one time and I can bet that lots of other women have too.

Is anyone ever 'ready' to have children? How many young people never go to bars? How many young women grow up believing that if you are pretty and sexy, you will get married and your husband will take care of you so you don't really need any skills except homemaking skills. How many women are abused by those husbands? How many women find themselves on the street with all of their dreams smashed to smithereens?

I know that this is changing but too often, I see women who have been abused and victimized. For some, it started in childhood.

How many women found themselves with no where to turn when their dreams were destroyed?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 11:38 PM

Up above, somebody questioned subsidizing an art history major, favoring more "practical" college majors. When I was hiring federal investigators, I often found that the Art History majors were far superior to the Criminal Justice majors - the Art History majors had learned how to "think outside the box." I think there's something wonderful about the idea of somebody climbing out of poverty to study Art History. Lord knows, if we're going to end poverty, we're going to have to think outside the box.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 03:24 AM

Thank, Joe. I was thinking the same thing.

These days there is no guarantee that a specific undergraduate degree is going to get you a job. Most employers just want to know that you have an undergraduate degree, period. What's important is personal growth so you might as well study what interests you. If you want to get specific, you'll have to do a Masters Degree, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 05:09 PM

I think America and England need to set their own houses in order before they start pontificating about other less fortunate countries.

There really is NO excuse for people to be in poverty in these countries. They are rich.

The entire problem stems from
1) the Dutch auction that occurs every election time, when the party that promises the lowest taxes wins.
2) the governments are simply so corrupt that they cannot be trusted to spend the tax dollar(pound) honestly - getting good value for the taxes raised and help to the people in need.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 06:29 PM

Okay, first let me clear up a little misconception/miscommunication here... I'm not trying to put word into anyone's mouths and not trying to twist anyones words to fit a desired outcome of ther discussion... It is a discusssion but is also a subject that I have had a lot of firts hand experience with and have given alot of thought to...

With that said, I'll continue with another *chapter* (for lack of a better term) in this discussion...

In the mid 70's there was a push for "deinstitutionalism"... Long word but short definition... What occured was a rethinking, some fueling by costs and others by compassion, of not keeping mentally ill people indefinately in state run mental hosiptals so...

... hundreds of thousands people who had been treated (ha) and housed for some period of time in these hospitals were released...

As I was a social worker in "adult services" these folks became my clients... My case load averaged 70 with at least 50 of these being folks who had been thru Eastern Sate Hposital in Petersburg, Va... Might of fact, about every 2 weeks I would drive the "welfare car" from Richmond to Petersburg and collect anywhere from 2 to 5 new clients, take them directly to the eigibilty department, get them signed up for General Relief ($56 a month at the time) an' use Title XX money to get them into flop houses where they would have a furnished (ha) room, get them Food Stamps even tho most of the places I could place them in had no cookin' facilities, get them set up with Mental Health folks, etc...

The problems with this was that for about 90% of these folks, we could get them somewhat stabilized and involved in some adult day care program (also Title XX) but for these 90% they would be back in Central State within 6 monhs... This was what Janie knews all to well as the "revolving door"... It was a vicious cycle... These folks didn't have enough resources to actaully have half a chance of breaking the cycle... And they had no support system other than the programs that we had then...

But as the Title XX funds were taken away under Reagan the minimal programs and reources that we had started to dry up yet we still had this revolving door cycle...

...Well, over the years the revolving door has become ever increasingly the prison door as we are now housing our mentally ill in prisons... Ask any prison guard anywhere in the United Sates and if this guard is honest he or she will confirm this... Oh sure, we still have state run mental hospiatsl and folks do land in them early in ther cycle but further down the road it's prison for them...

Now, there is something else I need to say here and Janie will abck me up on this... There isn't much upward mobility in our country... Kids who grow up in poverty tend to end up as adults living in poverty... I used to take case files home with me at night and I saw the same cycle over and over and over... Some of these case files would go back to when these folks were born, would talk about the no-father-figure, about abuse, about foster homes, about arrests, etc...

Yeah, some folks think that if poor folks would just do this or that then they could break the cycle... Problem is, and I mean no disrespect here, some of you have told how you went thru periods of times when thigs weren't working for you... Mighta been a health issue or and employment issue or a divorce or a death... But things weren't working for you and you might have found yourself having to scrape and scramble... The difference is that you knew how to scrape and scamble and you worked you way out of your unfortunate situation... Well, you ask, why can't other folks do this??? Well, these folks don't have the same upbringing that provides the life skills to scrape and scamble their way out... Most of them have never been "out" and "out" if foriegn to them...

Okay, this may be a genralization and folks in Mudville love to say "Hey, but what about ___________, Bobert??? You are generalizing..." Yes, it is a genralization but it is based on obseravtions I made of being a social worker for at least a couple thousand folks over about a 10 year period...

So if we are going to look for solutions one thing that won't work is trying to tell folks not to do drugs or have babies... That is not a realistic approach... What is a realistic approach is for us to accept the reality that folks are going to do drug, have babies, get drunk, get arrested for fightin' with their spouses, significant others, faily, friends, their socail workers, etc... This is reality and they only way out of this reality is to restore the funding that we once had and do all the things right while our clients do everything wrong and hope to get to some of their kids in the process...

Hungry kids don't do well in school and kids that don't do well in school don't stay in schools... Just restoration of the money we used to spend for school breakfast programs would help but it isn't just about breakfast programs but child care subsidies which have now been frozen for the last 6 years... And head satrt programs... And livable wages... And decnt health care... And, and...

Okay, I was going to provide a "case study" about ***downward mobilty*** where kids who have everything end up living under bridges and I promise that I will do that but I felt that before I could tell that story I needed to clear out a little more misconceptual deadwood...

Again, I mean no disrespect to anyone here... This just happens to be something that I *wish* sometimes I knew nuthing about...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 06:43 PM

(Sidebar: as I understand it, psychotropic drugs came on-stream in a big way in the 1970s, and this was the rationale for the large-scale deinstitutionalization that occurred in those years - in theory, many people did not need to be institutionalized if on a psychotropic drug regimen).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 07:02 PM

Thanks, bobert, for explaining that in easy language. I, too, know that story. Not only are many of the mentally ill unable to care for themselves, they are easy prey on the streets. Yes, there are many examples.

Two kids who were born to a mother with a mental age of 12 who had been raped. We had no proof, but by the time we were aware of the kids, it was certain that they, too, had been sexually abused. The youngest had normal intelligence but what chance does he have?

Then there was the brilliant physicist who was schizophrenic and violent. They kept putting him in prison for assault. He would return to the streets and assault again. One day he came at a police officer with a knife. He was shot and killed. His daughter was my best friend. He left behind a wife and three kids. The two sons have met untimely deaths.

We can go on and on and, yes, meself, it does coincide with new miracle drugs that were supposed to be cost effective. It didn't work out and this social experiment has gone on long enough. We have the same problem in Canada. Its fine for some but definitely not for others. We need to provide safe places for these people, many of whom are the homeless we see on the streets.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 07:05 PM

meself, That is true to a large extent. Much more effective antipsychotic medications really made a big difference in the number of people with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI)who did not require long-term hospitalization because of florid psychosis.

However, costs were what really drove changes in government policy. It was thought a lot of money could be saved by moving the mentally ill into the community. Hospitalization is expensive, most state psychiatric facilities are State funded--Medicaid will not pay for hospitalizatin in a State facility. And the mentally ill were turned out in droves with no thought to what their needs were to live in the community. And law makers still don't get that it costs as much or more than hospitalization to adequately serve people with SPMI in the community. The community services, housing, (both supervised and unsupervised), psychosocial rehab programs, mobile crisis services, ACTT services, and income maintenance programs are still grossly inadequate. The mentally ill are a disenfranchised population, they have no political clout, and no real hope of political power. While plenty of people in the USA arwe homeless who are not mentally ill, the dramatic rise in homelessness in the USA over the last 25 years correlates very strongly with the disinstitutionalization movement.

I was working in the public welfare system back then, in a rural area and was pretty oblivious to it. bobert, you know a lot more about the immediate aftermath of deinstitutionalization than do I. However, I moved over into public mental health after I went back to graduate school for my MSW, and have been working with SPMI populations, as well as other indigent populations in need of mental health and psychotherapy since the early 90's. It was bad then. It is much worse now, at least in North Carolina, where we have just started another cycle of 'Mental Health Reform' (Ha! to quote Bobert.)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 07:07 PM

Good point, GUEST, but yer "in theory" is the operative term here...

Yeah, If I could be with 50 clients every day to be sure they stayed on their meds we certainly would have had a higher successs rate... Problem is that wasn't and still isn't possible...

One thing that could help would be more money for "adult day care" where folks, as part of a condition for being on the street, would have to check in daily and perhaps these programs could administer the meds, mush the way a nurse might administer drugs in a hospital setting...

BTW, and I'm not too why this hasn't been brought up by anyone, but out local departments of mental health have also undergone cuts in funding...

And, BTW, part 2.... As much as I hate to bring this up and perhaps it has changed somewhat and I will defer to Janie on that but when I was a socail worker there wasn't a ltta love between the folks in Social Services and Mental Health... Oh sure, we were cordial and went to some of the same training session but when it came down to clients the folks I worked with tried to get the mental health folks more involved and vice versa... Bottom line, a loot of clients were like ping-pong balls between the two agencies...

Janie??? How's it in yer parts these days???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 07:21 PM

I can only speak about the community in which I practice, Bobert, but here, we have a pretty darn good relationship with Adult Services. I think the child therapists and case managers also tend to have very cooperative relationships with the Child Protective Services workers. Where we do bump heads sometimes is between Adult Mental Health and Child Protective Services. CPS workers don't always understand that I can not share with them chapter and verse of what goes on in a therapy session with a parent and have any hope of doing effective therapy. Of course I report any instances of neglect or abuse of children, but the actual work of therapy needs to stay between the therapist and the client. It is otherwise impossible to build the trust and rapport essential to successful therapy.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 07:31 PM

Oh, don't get me started on CPS, Janie... That's an area where I can get really angry... Like who wrote those regs??? Some angry guy who gets his jollies beatin' his kids???

Heck, when I was in the field I'd reprt lots of stuff to CPS and they would say stuff like, "Did you see the kid gettin' beaten?" and I'd look 'round at kids with whelts all over 'um an' adults screamin' at the top of their lings at 'um and CPS would so much take the referral unless I'd say that I witnessed the beatings...

Hey, it's bad 'nuff that these adults felt is was oaky to threaten and scream at kids in the presence of, ahhhh, me, a social worker but worse that the kids were obviously being beaten and CPS wouldn't do anything...

Hope that has changed, too... Glad to hear that Mental Health and Social Services is doing well in yer parts... That's a bit of good news...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 08:52 PM

I wrote a big long thing about vocational education but I guess it didn't show up. ANyway, I do not believe for a minute that people are doomed to poverty, if they live where there are opportunities..some places it is hard to imagine working your way out of it, say Bangladesh..oh my goodness..where are great miracles happening every day? Where are the microloans started and who got the Nobel Peace Prize? People absolutely, if they are of normal (oh a loaded word) health and vigor can, in many places, get out of poverty. They do it every day. Mental health problems are a whole other story and need lots of intervention, but even many people with mental health problems could be contributing something in a sheltered situation, and many are. They need a lot of help.

One thing we do, another sensitive area, is pour so much money into special education situations where there is not much hope for a person realistically to become productive. I am talking about profound, severe cases. Those same resources put into vocational counseling and training of people with poor environments but "normal" intelligence and capacity, would reap thousands of times the benefits. This is not what people want to hear though and not where the money goes. I have seen money going for one instructional assistant taking one child to the bathroom each day and not much else. That same money could have funded a vocational counselor, such as me, as I would have worked for those wages, and Icould have placed 100 students perhaps a year in programs that would have gotten them out of poverty. Don't tell me it can't be done. You aren't talking to the right people.

It is very important to listen to people with different approaches and not thing one group or profession has all the answers. They have part of the answers. Not all of them. Look at the problems in the Romanian orphanages years ago...it is obvious to the casual observer that so many of the problems there could have been solved by a good plumber or two. Refugee camps..plumbing. Homelessness on the streets, plumbing. Migrant worker housing, plumbing. Need to hear from nurses and place them in the schools and all over the place. They tend to be very results oriented. This is a multi-faceted problem, poverty, and there are some people who it is fairly easy to get up and out. Some it will be impossible and they will have teo be supported in a clean and decent enviornment with supervision. Many of them should just get a small amount for incidentals and should not be given a social security check that can be stolen or not spent on essentials. There need to be almost dormitory situations for many people who otherwise do end up on the streets. There needs to be a sorting process so that people who need to be institutionalized are to least extent possible of course, that those who just need some support, such as day care and transportation get that, and there needs to be not just a financial safety net, but a real safety net, so they can take the bus late at night, so an ambulance will come if they are called, so girls can walk to school unhassled in the mornings, so children can play outside once again. Some of this is not too hard to accomplish...probably if you keep one person out of jail you can hire one policewoman if the money was in the same pot. We could do a lot with better lighting. We could do better security in housing projects. We could have more cameras pretty much everywhere and I know people would complain but too bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 09:50 PM

Do not become disabled in the US of A unless you are married to some one with a good job and you are already carried on their medical insurance. You are screwed whether you have much of a work history under your belt before you become disabled, or whether you don't. If you do have much of a work history and you become disabled because of mental illness, you are, in some ways, doubly screwed.

Without the work history, your only income will be from a program referred to as SSI, and that assumes you do not have assets in excess of $2000, including retirement savings. For 2007, you will get a maximum of $623 a month. That is what you have to live on. In most States you will also get Medicaid. That $623 is all you get to pay rent, utilities, property taxes, household supplies, vehicle or transportation expenses, over-the-counter medical expenses, a $3.00 co-pay for each prescription drug you have to take and for some doctor visits, most of your food (you will probably get about $40 a month in Food Stamps, clothes, everything. There is some housing assistance available but the waiting lists are very long for section 8 housing, and the public housing projects are very dangerous places to live, even in rural area or a small town such as the one in which I live. Where I live there is no public transportation, no soup kitchen, no rooming houses. A dilapidated, rat infested mobile home in a slum trailer court will cost you $450/month plus all utilities. After you pay your rent, you have $177/month to pay for utilites, soap, toilet paper, food, laundry mat, to pay some one gas money to take you where you need to go, or to keep a car running, licensed and insuranced, and for the co-pays on any prescription medications you take. If you have-let's say--schizoaffective disorder, you are probably prescribed (and yes, really do need) 4 to 6 psychiatric medications a month, at $3.00 co-pay per prescription. If you have any other medical problems that require medication, add $3.00 for each additional prescription.

Do the math. What are going to let go? Let them cut off the heat or the water so you can take your meds and eat? Or visa versa.

In 2005, there were approximately 114,000 adults between ages 18 and 64 receiving SSI disability benefits in North Carolina. That is only 1 of 50 States.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 10:23 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 10:30 PM

In the case mentioned above, say the person was not mentally disabled, but just low income with that same amount of money flowing in. In the first place, I know the laws sometimes prevent this, but she should share the trailer with two other people, even if it means bunk beds, sofa beds etc. Now she is paying $200 about in utilities and rent. Hopefully one of them could drive and the others pay for gas and rides. If they each get $40 a month in food stamps, that is $120 for 3 people. Hopefully one can cook. I wish there were more surplus food programs, but I hope they have oats frequently and lentils and nourishing soups and have room for a few carrots and peas in the garden. Maybe one can cut hair and barter with other people in the trailer park for moose someone has shot, or fish they have caught. For fun they go to a garage sale now and then and gradually get some nicer furniture and curtains and fix the place up a bit. They plant a rose bush by the door which they bartered for some child care and some tulips which they bartered for painting a shed. I would live that way myself...and expect that I might have to some day...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 11:05 PM

Now about the rat problem. The owner of the trailer court needs to have an exterminator over and he needs to have authority enough to insist on hygeine practices that are not conducive to rats. Now, every high school student in America and the world should have the knowledge and some skills to fight rats, cockroaches etc. They should know how to repair holes where they come in, how to protect food from them in tight containers, be prepared to set traps and dispose safely of the rats caught. We just can not afford as a nation to keep producing helpless people..I am talking about non-handicapped people of adequate potential etc. Now, a wise community would say, we have a rat problem, and we have an employment problem. Let us contract out with some people to set rat traps and go around and clean up places they like to hide and you kill two birds with one stone. Hopefully either these three women in the above scenario have been taught those skills or can acquire them or they can barter a ride in their car, which one of them hopefully has, or a home cooked dinner of trout and lentils and blackberry cobbler, or a haircut, for someone to set the traps for them and plug up the rat holes. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 01:52 AM

WOW, I'm stunned reading this.
You want to know why some can't pull themselves out of their "poor situation"? They've already been beaten to death by the time they realize that there even exists an out (no light at the end of the tunnel). Poverty produces very few fighters & survivors, mostly corpses & skeletons. There is no "war on poverty" there were only a few battles & they all ended by the 70's. Along with any fights like for higher education & health reforms & the push to rid the homeless from the streets. All these issues tie into one another. There's a reason there's no real "war on drugs " or a war on any other front that will eat up the social services dollar. The pie is getting smaller, the slices are becoming thinner & the poor are very easy scapegoats & become easy prey to any other program looking to steal a buck. Who'd want to be a social worker at what their paid or for that matter a teacher or work in the field of day care services. All these occupations pay little though they are probably the most important to the healthy, moral future of the children who'll be our next generation of "deciders", it's only done for love & humanity & that doesn't help those that are in need very much. We don't think much about what's a priority & we reflect it in their pay scales, that's a social problem. Without a decent education, decent health, a good family network & a decent home life & social programs that will offer at least a drop of hope, most won't do well never mind having the disadvantage of being poor which means most of the resources Janie mentioned above are out of their grasp.

Growing up for me was a fight. In school, after school, in the neighborhood, in stores, trying to get around. Getting a haircut, wearing clean & decent clothes, even having keeping good teeth. Instead of going to museums we played on their roofs, in burned out buildings, no matter what we were doing it was a fight, to stay dry, to stay warm to stay fed & it's always a struggle. I never realized it then & I didn't realize it was the same for the adults too. No wonder there were so many faimlies fighting, drinking, gambling, on drugs. The stress levels without those pressure relief valves had to be explosive. Then add to that the hoplessness & pain of not being able to see an end & the heartbreak knowing that your kid is doomed to the same. Taking painkiller's would be just what the health department would order. I can't tell you how many kids I grew up with became hookers, junkies, bank robbers, killers. I don't know of anyone that's alive now, I'm sure there are some & I'm sure they've all moved as far from there roots as possible too. Just think of how many people you know that still know of a few childhood friends or how many you yourself might know? When you grow up poor & surivive it & you look back & you can't find one person alive from your teenage days back to your childhood you have to look at those percentages with a very sad heart & ask what's wrong here. I haven't heard of one person in over 20 yrs. No wonder I feel rich having a few good close friends. It's funny when when someone says just do this or just do that it might make things a bit easier. They have no idea. After having the life beat out of you day after day it's hard to have a disire. Almost like a drowing person reaching for a rope that drifting farther & farther away. They say that once you give up drowing it's a peaceful way to go, after a while so go the poor.

As for Bobert's mention about a reversal on the poverty programs, that's only the tip of the berg. The poor & middle class subsidize this nation & the middle class are only an acident away from joining their less fortunate poorer class these days. When a blue collar worker pays more in taxes than many corporations what else can you call it but a subsidy. A CEO can make 2-20 million for banckrupting a company & stealing the employees retirements & life savings, then refuse to pay the employees wages, the taxes & the fines, & then gets the same amount of time that a poor person without a high priced lawyer gets for stealing neccessities, what else can it be called. When Exxon kills a way of life, steals the living from a seacoast of industries, eterminates a host of natural resources & makes the public pay for the restoration & cleanup of the disaster it caused, then costs the public to then bring them to account for their ways & when called to justice won't pay up even after 15yrs. & still it pays less in taxes than some mom & pop outfit, why is it, is it because the poor are draining them. These companies are making billions off OUR land, from OUR government, off the backs of OUR people & we're subsidizing them? We should have a national health plan, a fair welfair system that works for those that can't, a NATIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM that's decent for all instead of a system that's not worthy of a 3rd world nation & they should be footing at least a part of the bill.

You want to help the poor, stop the rich from helping themselves.
Spend money at home instead of billions on wars that only the rich benifit from & the poor die in. Bring back the social reforms of the 60's & the money to fund them instead of pissing the dollars into porkbarrel politics. Stop sending jobs overseas along with crates of greenbacks. Kill offshore accounts for multinational corporations that are bleeding us dry of our resources & then milking us with their tax benifits. Like I said there is no war, it's called RAPE!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 06:08 AM

Barry,

I think you have just about covered it all.

Love,

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 11:53 AM

Well said, Barry.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 12:18 PM

I would like to see this thread - and further - become a permanent discussion board, a springboard for action...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wolfgang
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 12:38 PM

The poorest people I have ever seen was in Chad. People I once have stayed with for a night in an American (not: USA) reservation were rich in comparison. The poorest German too is rich for them.

No money for the bus to school? There's no choice because there's no bus at all and what prevent children to go to school for months (before the rain comes) is hunger. They don't have the physical energy to move. And if they still can, sitting all day on the hard floor and doing rote learning (no books, no pencils, no paper) is too much for them.

The Wiki article on poverty in the USA (sorry if I have overlooked someone else linking to this) has some good thoughts about absolute and relative poverty definitions.

Nevertheless, even if someone is subsidised to be "rich" by a Chad perspective, there should be in Western countries (except inability or a lot of young children to look for) no need for such subsidies, but work and wages (high) enough for everyone to be over an absolute poverty line.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 02:08 PM

Barry - Your ability to express yourself is amazing. Most kids that experience the childhood trauma of poverty have trouble learning to write at all. Its a gift. You should seriously explore the possibility of publishing. Your story would open the eyes of many.

When you said, "I never realized it then & I didn't realize it was the same for the adults too," I began to re-think what my own children went through. My daughter still carries some of those scars. Luckily, we did have hope and that was largely due to student loans and grants, subsidized housing, govt. healthcare, a kind dentist and generous friends.

Today we are all doing well and I try to do what I can for the less fortunate but I know its just a drop in the bucket. Most of my time is spent teaching children to read and write but its difficult to access support for families when you realize that a child lacks the essentials in life. All that is left is hope.

We spend billions of dollars making the lives of others miserable through war, when that money should be spent for healthcare and services to the poor. I believe that if we become strong and prosperous as a nation (I mean all people) it will enable us to give meaningful help to the developing nations. Until then, we have to fight the greed around us and speak out.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 03:55 PM

Wolfgang, whilst I admire anybody who goes and works in the third world, I think you're making the old Streets of London mistaken argument

How can you tell me that you're lonely
and say for you the sun don't shine?

Just because there are some people in the world, or in history in BLOODY miserable circumstances, it doesn't mean ones own situation is a barrel of laughs, and you have no moral right to bewail the misery that you feel about your own life.

Those of us with experience of working in the inner cities and have seen the wastage of young lives - somehow engineered by our rich society - we know what we've seen. Its not made any less heart breaking by knowing that there are people somewhere even worse off.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 06:24 PM

Very good, Barry...

I was getting there piece at a time but you have laid it out...

What a lot of folks just can't realize is that they see poverty from a different perspective, with life skills and backgrounds where they were taught problem solving... These are great things to have if you find yerself, ahhhh, poor but like You have said, Barry, kids that grow up poor don't have that perspective...

More later...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 06:24 PM

It is really really important to get the message out to students that there is hope, and there are ways out of a trap. Some places are harder than others, say Appalachia or remote Indian reservations. It may be impossible for some, but not for all. Our ancestors did arrive here in poverty, unless they were Native, and they escaped unbelieveably bad circumstances. For one thing, almost everyone can get a high school degree now, even if they have dropped out. They can go to a community college hopefully. Everyone who thinks things are hopeless needs to talk to the folks at the community colleges. That is their mission, at least in Washington....to provide these opportunities to people. Some classes are free. There are loans and grants and work study. I have worked at 2 colleges who didn't even put out notices for work study students because there were so many more jobs than students to fill them. There were community college courses going unfilled sometimes for lack of students. There is at least one state ( I think it was North Carolina) where someone..the governor??? said students can graduate from a 4 year college debt free by working 10 hours a week and taking the grants available and going to a community college the first two years.

One of the tragedies is not having sufficient resources, but another great tragedy is there being resources that people do not know about. They have to know the plan, the escape route, from these situations. They have to know how a pregnancy can certainly alter their plans and should be told how to avoid it. Things, at least on the fringes of cities, are not totally hopeless. There are jobs for LPNs and mechanics and dental hygenists and plumbers and legal secretaries. In two years someone is out of poverty. Maybe not in a great place, but out of the direst situations.

It sounds to me like people need to coordinate more with the community colleges..not every state is as blessed as Washington but there are good programs here and there. PLEASE DO NOT LOOK AT THIS THROUGH SHE IS BLAMING THE VICTIM BLINDERS YOU MIGHT HAVE On. TAKE OFF THE BLINDERS. We still need lots of social programs, we need more policing of dangerous neighborhoods so people can get to and fro safely (that alone would be such an improvement to peoples' lives) and we need to pass on messages of hope to young people. Tell them this again: no drugs, no pregnancies, graduate from high school and then two years of a community college. I'm not one to believe the sky is the limit and people have endless opportunities, but sending out this message of hopelessness is not healthy for them....we need to fix things, crack some heads, send General Honore down to wherever to inspect the rat infested places...and let people know the way out of these situations.....

P.S. If you are in touch with these people in dire circumstances, please to print this out and give it to them. They need to hear there is hope. If I can, I will try to search out specific programs for them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 06:40 PM

mg--there are some pretty dismal hollers where the coal mines have gone all mechanized in West Virginia--but I think it would be much, much tougher in large urban areas.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 06:57 PM

Ummmmm, not to harp on this one, mg.... But your perspective represents either the very small percentage of folks who grew up in poverty and somehow beat the odds or a more middle class perspective of how folks *ought* to be able to solve problems...

While this may have worked for you it is like speaking Greek to those who, like Barry, grew up in poverty...

No disrespect intended but you seem to be preachin' to folks who ain't got a clue... I'm sure you mean well but I don't think you quite get the disconnect...

I learned this lesson when I was about 20... Yeah, I came from a middle class family and inspite of my family's activism in the civil right movement there were some lessons I needed to learn... I was in my 3rd year in college and got hired By R-CAP (Richmond Community Action Program) and assigned to work in the Hillside housing project in south Richmond... Some of the stuff I did was more like case worker stuff but I also became involverd in NWRO (National Welfare Rights Organization) and organized a chapter in that housing project and did some other orgainizing with the anti-war movement and civil rights stuff and, well, these activities led me to bring both the Black Panthers and White Panthers to Richmond for some rallies and get-togethers...

It was at one of these get-togethers at the housing project with some real ***together*** White Panther folks and we had 'bout 40 folks packed into one apartment and they made their pitch and afterwards I said something that was meant to be halpful but came of as condescending and...

...this dude from the White Panthers took me aside and said, "Hey, man, yer talking *to* these people and not *with* them..."

I remember the feelings of utter embarassment... And, yeah, I was defensive... And, yeah, it took a few days for that lesson to set in but it set in like concrete... And it was the best lesson I can honestly say that came to me from the 60's...

Again, I mean no disrespect here, mg, but you can't preach to folks who haven't been exposed to what you may have been exposed to... Yeah, yer heart can be 100% pure, yer motives 100% pure but, bottom line, if you are to be effective, you can have all the great ideas in the world, yer gonna have jst take folks the way you find them...

I've mentioned something that an radical, young, black minster once told me and it goes like this "You can have sex with a gotilla but you are going to have to do it on the gorilla's terms..."

I don't know if this makes any sense, mg, but it is the cornerstone of being effective in any position where you are dealing with folks who grew up in poverty...

Again, I mean absolutlely no disrespect here...

Ummmmmm, I keep tryin' to get to that "downward mobilty" that Janie has talked about with a case study of one of my formed clients and I will get there but it seems that with this thread there seems to be a bit of "bringing up the rear" and that's okay... Hey, here we are pushing 120 posts and, as far as I can see, we haven't had any trolls jump in and try to mess stuff up so I think we're doin' purdy good... Even if it mean a little back tracking...

See... This post is a prime example of what that guy from the White Panthers was talking 'bout... Hey, ya' gotta take it as it comes and talk with folks...

Yeah, when this thread was started I kinda had an outline in mind of stuff I thought would be benefical and while I still have things I wnat to share, I'm just going to let the thread come to me and see where I can throw some stuff into the mix that will hopefully be informative and, even better, helpfull...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 07:23 PM

mg--I can't decide whether to hug you or to shake you.

You are clearly a good-hearted soul.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 07:41 PM

Don't dismiss what mg is saying - I think you're talking PAST each other. The things she's talking about are going to be useful to a number of people, and no doubt there are a number of people that could benefit from her sort of advice and approach - but it's not one-size-fits-all ... her approach is not THE answer, but it is an answer that would work for some people. Obviously, it is not the answer for everyone ... I don't think you're in disagreement, necessarily; it's more like you're talking about different aspects of the same issue ... if you see what I mean ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 08:06 PM

"We need to provide safe places for these people"

We need to provide a safe place for everyone. The place we all live in and work in and relax in. That sounds like some impossible dream? It's not, it's how things really can be, and for enormous numbers of people round the world it's more or less how things actually are. I'm sure that applies in a lot of places inside the USA as well as outside it.

And don't believe anyone who suggests the old institutions - the asylums, the sub-normality hospitals and all that, were "safe places". The crime was that all too often the money saved by shutting them down wasn't used to provide proper help outside the institutions, it was stolen to give tax cuts to people who didn't need tax cuts.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 08:19 PM

What I have gleaned from this discussion is that folks come from different types of poverty depending on the environment.

ie: The Hillside housing project in south Richmond is a completely different environment than small town Washington State or Rural Manitoba.

Different folks need different types of help and the best we can do is give what we can and pressure the government to provide for those in need. There really is no excuse for children to go hungry or homeless in the U.S., Canada or Britain.

Stop spending billions on useless wars that cause more misery and start spending those dollars at home. Enough is enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 08:32 PM

Lest anyone think I grew up in the sheltered classes, I grew up working class. My father was a postman and my mother was a telephone operator when I was young. They had each grown up in dire poverty. I was on my way to prosperity and actually was prosperous for quite some time but essentially ran out of steam so have had to backtrack quite a bit. But there is this expectation of hopelessness that was passed down even to my generation, that the potato famine would come back, that we'd have to be sharecroppers again as on my mother's side. I had to turn down incredible opportunities because of my parents' beliefs..I was one of those clever but not deep students who could ace all these tests. I turned down hundreds of thousands of dolalrs in scholarships all over the country, and thought, despite being a National Merit finalist, that I would be lucky if I went to the community college. So there is that going on all over the place, from families, from peer groups who are threatened if their members move on, from gangs, from religions who see poverty as a preferred state, as my local Catholic church did. There are chains that can be broken. Sometimes it is easier than you think. Start with the easy ones. The ones that have the motivation and energy and just need the information and encouragement.

Also contact your local county extension agent and get him or her working on the rat problem or cockroach or whatever. And get even the urban children into 4H if you can, and find the vocational teachers, the home ec teachers in the schools. Don't bother with some of the others..they are too focused on the few kids going to Harvard all too often. Coordinate with your employment security department and your community colleges. Get some retired women in to teach some of these mothers how to cook and can and sew. Get people to double up to save rent. T here is no reason someone has to spend $600 a month for a single person on rent and utilities. I have a room for rent for $250..it would be more in a big city.

If you are working with high school students, see that they graduate with a CNA if possible. Almost guaranteed jobs anywhere.

Like I said, I will correspond with the fundamentally OK people..if they have severe drug abuse or mental handicaps I am not the one to help them...I would of course have to cc someone with any conversations so they could be assured I am not abusing etc.

YIKES..when I am the positive person in a conversation, it is a pretty dismal situation....I'm pretty realistic and pragmatic and not given to painting rosy pictures. mg


PS: What would the Mormons do when faced when these situations? I bet they have ways of handling these things. Contact them. They have some very practical wyas of doing things and have thrift stores and stuff. Also, just put out the word of what particular people need...work clothes, or whatever. Sometimes stuff can be gotten here and there..toys for children..school clothes...can be done.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 09:37 PM

I agree, meself. And I think many of mg's ideas are very helpful, especially for young people who already have a few eggs in their baskets of resources. And whose life experience has not already killed hope and maimed the psyche or personality.

AND it is alll being done and is has been done. However, what we as a society mostly offer is false hope. Why? Because we consistently provide too little to get the job done, and even that is usually offered too late.

As dianavan said, there are a number of people who experience poverty as a terrible but temporary time in their lives. These are the people who may go through a terrible patch of not having financial resources-but like dianavan, they had important other resources on which to draw that were also a necessary component of making it out of that state of financial poverty.

It is true that there was a time when anyone who wanted to go to college could problaby find the financial aid in grants and loans to do so. But that is a thing of the past. I can't remember the numbers now, but I recently read an article and was myself shocked to realize how post high school vocational and college aid have shrunk under the auspices of the shrub administration. It was either by 25 or 50%. Either number is huge.   

Suppose you do get the financial aid pulled together. Lets say you are a divorced mother of two. Chances are excellent you are going to be on a waiting list for help with child care costs. Or a child gets sick and you have to miss a week of classes, and then you can never get caught up because you also work at the local convenience store. Swap child care? With whom? Your Mom's a crackhead so you sure aren't going to leave the kids with her, and all the other women you know are at work or at school when you are. And then the timing chain breaks on your 20 year old car.

There are hundreds of thousands of really, really destitute people living in these United States. When they try to borrow or barter with one another, more times than not they end up preying on each other. We are talking desparate straits here.

As a society, we have allowed people to get so far down in a hole that there really is no light to be seen. If we happen to notice them down in that hole, we throw peanuts down the hole. Or we drop down a rope and pull them halfway up then leave them dangling till the rope rots and they drop back down again.

Money talks. IT. TAKES. MONEY. Whether it is a program that provides services, training or education, child care, car repare or bus tickets, or direct financial aid.

IT. TAKES. MONEY.

And the richest country the world has ever known won't fork over.

I am weary down to the depths of my soul of being in this battle. This not an interesting discussion to me. This is the work of my life. And I step back to see what I have accomplished in concert with many others on a number of fronts.

What I look for the results of the fruits my labor, I see that I have been a failure.

Just think how much more weary and soul sick are the men, women and children whose lives we are discussing here.

I think I need to bow out of this conversation for awhile.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 10:15 PM

It is the system - or governments - that have failed, not you. You have done what you could, and continue to do what you can. I'm sure you have been a positive force in many lives, whether you see it or not.

I teach school, and most of the kids I teach live in the kinds of circumstances we've been talking about. For most of them, all I can do is haul myself out of bed in the morning and be there for them when they come dragging in late and sleepy and hungry. Beyond that, it often seems I don't have much to offer them - but for many of them, despite their angry outbursts or displays of indifference, it seems to mean a lot that someone's there who's going to treat them with a measure of respect, and who cares enough to push them to try to accomplish something, whether they do or not. And mostly they don't, by the usual standards, anyway. Most of them will still quit school by grade eleven, most will have troubled lives. But maybe their lives would be worse without having had the experience of being treated with respect and being cared about by a few people who were paid to respect and care about them. I imagine this is analagous to the situation you work in, to a degree ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 12:48 AM

Janie, you never fail when you give what you can.

Sometime, I too, feel like beating my head against the wall. We work in outdated, underfunded institutions run by bureaucrats who have no idea what its like on the front lines.

melf said it well. Give what you can and remember to do it with respect.

Mary - I thought I was the only one with parents that seemed to discourage every available opportunity I had. I was offerred a scholarship to a private school when I was 14. My parents came up with all kinds of excuses. I wasn't allowed to go. In the end, it was because they were afraid they'd lose me. They thought that they might not be good enough for me if I associated with the upper classes.

I didn't go to universitsy until I was nearly forty.

I look back and remember the people who encouraged me - the public librarian, the dentist, the mother of the grocer, the 'outsider' who married my uncle, my grade 3 teacher and last but not least, the step-father of my children.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 04:01 AM

Janie, there's no way in Heaven that you are or were a failure. I have followed this discussion from start to finish, and can say you, and Bobert have been in the trenches, yet it appears you have done well for yourselves and your clients. Burnout is a major result in many who work in Social Services or Public Health. It is at times a thankless job, fraught with many obstacles, poor pay, little cooperation at times between agencies, sometimes obstruction by those agencies...I've met many a mean, rotten civil servant, and I use the term "civil" loosely, in my encounters with the system...and neither you or Bobert are disgruntled or discouraged or burned-out. I would've loved to have worked with you both. What we need is more social workers like you...and MORE MONEY. What is also needed is more historical perspective like the two of you were providing.

I worked in Public Health for a few years. My first job in it was for a Family Planning clinic in upstate NY. I was a clinic manager, which really meant doing everything at one point of time or another...in addition to being in charge. It was during the Reagan administration, so I know Bobert is spot-on, to borrow a British expression. I took a $2000 cut in pay to accept the position. All of my friends were making $11,000 starting pay. You do the math...it was huge! But, I wanted to do it. I loved that job.

Back then, Family Planning clinics were allowed to counsel clients on all forms of birth control...we gave out free samples generously...and we did pregnancy testing as well as treat STDs...there were only a few then...in all of NY state there were only 2 remaining cases of syphilis! Gonorrhea was just starting to become sensitive to penicillin...and there were the usual female disorders....if only we'd known then that HPV causes most cervical cancers...still we treated that, too. AIDS was not even an inkling. We didn't know about it.

I got a real bird's eye view of social services; we had our own social worker, and she was a peach. Our staff was multicultural...we had blacks, hispanics, and whites. Our clients were also from different age groups...I can't say how old our youngest was, but our oldest patients were in their 60's - 70's...getting pap smears and breast checks. We had a sliding scale, so we serviced any and all who came through our doors. We did have some rich people.

I don't have time to get into more specifics, but we did patient education with every prescription or IUD or any of our procedures. It was, at times, an uphill battle...eyes would roll...sighs were audible, and yet one could feel good knowing that you'd done your best. You can give out tools. You cannot make someone use them. We did not do abortions, but we were allowed to do referrals...at least up until I left and went on to another job in Public Health. Things changed rapidly. The first to go was our overtime...such as it was. We were obliged to fulfill county, state and federal mandates. Usually if we fulfilled the federal ones all others were covered. One of the mandates said that we needed to contact individuals under certain circumstances at least three different times of the day...morning, noon, and night...and since most of the clinics only ran till 5PM, we'd have to bring our work home with us...for which we were reimbursed. Needless to say, we all kept doing that part of our jobs despite no longer being paid for it. I could go on, but I did see what the poor, the working poor, and middle-class, upper-class get out of life.

I know I'm rambling. What I wanted to say is that it seems no matter what it's called, health, education, and welfare always get the most cuts...while, as someone far more eloquently pointed out, the rich companies get tax breaks, breaks on pollution, breaks on just about everything...and the poor? They get trounced on. I, too, btw, have been on both sides of the counter. It's not pretty. But, please, keep this thread going. It is important and very informative. And, thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 07:36 AM

Tho I have to get to work and don't have much time I'd just like to say to you, Janie, that as long as you contininue to fight, you will never be a failure and...

... even if you do get "burned out" (something I know too much about) yer still not a failure...

The love you give to people, even the tough love variety, is what you have to give... That makes you a success...

The only failure is within this punitive, self serviing system that serves the ruling class which in itself is the *real welfare class* at the espense of the poor... Yes, it is the Biss Hog's of the US that can't see that they are the ones benefiting from the labors of everyone else and has a "Let them eat cake" attitude...

More later...

Hang in their, Janie...

(((hugs)))

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scoville
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 10:28 AM

I can't remember the numbers now, but I recently read an article and was myself shocked to realize how post high school vocational and college aid have shrunk under the auspices of the shrub administration. It was either by 25 or 50%. Either number is huge.

We think this is a thinly-disguised form of the draft--drive kids into the armed forces by taking away their college aid so they feel like they have no alternatives.

As always: A rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 11:19 AM

There is intellectual poverty, emotional poverty and physical health poverty in the States.
This is exacerbated by financial poverty.

But people in the States don't really know poverty the way other countries have experienced it. Africa, India, Haiti.....

Americans are still economically rich compared to many countries but more poor in other ways.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bee
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 11:51 AM

Stringsinger, as someone else pointed out earlier, just because someone else has lost a leg doesn't make a person feel good about losing a hand.

I understand burnout, and I urge anyone who experiences it to make every possible effort to get away from the cause for a while. I saved enough money (not much, trust me) to leave my job and take a six month leave once, and it was the best thing. I came back with perspective and energy, which I had lost.

I spent over a quarter century working with 3 to 12 year old poor or low income city kids, who acted out and fought and sometimes physically attacked their caregivers, but were nonetheless children with hope and with prospects, if they could be allowed to see them. I've seen most of them grow up and make a good life, and a few die by violence, and a few end in jail.

The best, most treasured compliment I've ever been offered was from a prematurely cynical eight year old girl, who one afternoon looked at me thoughtfully and said: "You really like kids, don't you. A lot of teachers don't like kids, but you do."

If you're too burnt out, you can't feel caring.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 07:10 PM

Now I usually don't get all that excited over polls and stats but thought I'd share just a few that were compiled by the "Mother Jones" staff and published in their June,'06 issue...

*In 1985 the Forbes 400 were worth $221B combined. Today they're worth $1,13T- more that the GDP of Canada...

*Among the Forbes 400 who gave to the 2004 presidential campaign, 72% gave to Bush...

*In 2005 there were 9 million American millionares, a 62% increase since 2002...

*In 2005, 25.7M Ameericans reieved Food Stamps, a 49% increase since 2000...

*Only estates worth more than $1.5M are taxed. That's less than 1% of all estates. Still, repealing the estate tax will cost the governemnt at least $55B a year...

*Only 3% of students at the top 146 colleges come from families in the bottom income quartile; only 10% come from the bottom half...

*Bush's tax cuts give a 2-child family earning $1M an extra $86
,722- or Harvard tuition, room, board and an iMac G5 for both kids...

*A 2 child family earning $50,000 gets $2,050 or 1/5 the cost of public college for one kid...

*Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage has fallen 43% since its peak in 1968...

*If the $5.15 hourly minumum wage had risen at the same rate as CEO compensation since 1990, it would now satnd at $23.03...

*A minumum wage employeee who works 40 hours a week for 51 weeks goes home with $10,506 before taxes...

*Such a worker would take 7,000 years to earn Oraccle CEO Larry Ellison's yearly compensation...

*Ellison recently posed in "Vanity Fair" with his $300M, 454 foot yacht, which he noted is "realyy only the size of a large house"...

*The $17,530 earned by the average Wal-Mart employeee last year was $1,820 below the poverty line for a family of four....

*5 of America's 10 richest people are Wal-Mart heirs...

*The US governemnt soends $500,00 on 8 security screeners who speed execs from Wall Street helipad to American's JFK terminal...

*Poor Americans spend 1/4 of their income on energy costs...

*Exxon's 20005 profit of $36.13B is more that the GNP of 2/3 of the world's nations...

*CEO pay among military contractors has tripled since 2001. For David Brooks, the CEO of bulletproff vest maker DHB, it's risen 13,233%...

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, there were more than the ones I picked out but I thought that since the discussion has touched on just how the ruling class has never had it so good while the poor get poorer, I thought some might find some of these stats intersting...

Do they tell the entire story??? Well, not excatly but they do tell a good portion of it...

More later...

No, not more stats...

Bobert

p.s. Before one of the loyal Bushites jump down my throat and bring up the fact that I haven't been a stats kinda guy, please reread the intro of this post...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 08:16 PM

Sorry for my melt down last night. It has been an exceptionally difficult week in the brave new world of mental health reform in my neck of the woods, where we are transitioning from publicly provided services to privatization. Doesn't cost the taxpayers nearly as much. Of course, we don't deliver nearly as much either. It seems there is money to made from serving the poor, as long as you cherry-pick your clientele and severely restrict what services you are willing to offer. a number of companies have swooped in. My formerly public clinic was divested from the public system about 9 months ago. I work for a corporatation for the first time in my adult life. It's not a non-profit, its a not-for-profit, which means they need to make a profit, but they don't distribute it to share holders. In theory it goes back into the company so services can be expanded. Nice theory. They made me a manager not long after that. So I get to manage the shrinking of services to my community The whole thing stinks. I hate it.

When I say I have failed, that's what I'm referring to-those statistics Bobert posted, and others available in public policy journals, School of Social Work research papers, government statistics, and many other scholarly sources. Bobert, you have failed. All of us who have worked in the public arena since the mid 1970's as social workers, educators, public health providers, advocates, lobbyists, Catholic Charities workers-the list is long-have failed to be effective as change agents on a societal level. The tide is still running out. Individually have we perhaps been able to be helpful resources to a few people our lives have touched? Yes. And that does matter. But have we, by oour individual or collective efforts been able to exert enough influence on public policy such that the numbers on homelessness and malnutrition have dropped? Have we made a difference on a scale that matters in society?

No.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 08:36 PM

"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within ..."

I wouldn't call it boring. I would call it sacrificing your soul ...

I would call it endless days of banging your head against the wall with little or no thanks.

I would call it ...

oh never mind.

Go play some music and dance and give thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 09:06 PM

Best idea I've heard in a long time, dianavan. Thanks!

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 10:36 PM

*Bush's tax cuts give a 2-child family earning $1M an extra $86
,722- or Harvard tuition, room, board and an iMac G5 for both kids...

*A 2 child family earning $50,000 gets $2,050 or 1/5 the cost of public college for one kid...

Harvard Says Poor Parents Won't Have to Pay

Aiming to get more low-income students to enroll, Harvard will stop asking parents who earn less than $40,000 to make any contribution toward the cost of their children's education. Harvard will also reduce the amount it seeks from parents with incomes between $40,000 and $60,000.
        
"When only 10 percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough," said Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard, who will announce the financial aid changes at a meeting of the American Council on Education in Miami Beach today.

Dr. Summers said that higher education, rather than being an engine of social mobility, may be inhibiting it because of the wide gap in college attendance for students from different income classes.

Harvard officials said they believed theirs would be the first selective college to remove the parental contribution for low-income students, though some colleges do this unofficially to attract students they want.

At Harvard, the idea of eliminating the parental contribution grew out of focus groups with lower-income students last fall. University officials found that many of the students were paying some or all of their parents' share themselves.

Peter M. Brown, a junior from Oklahoma who participated in the focus groups, said that was true for him. One of seven children whose father died in 1991 and whose mother works as a schoolteacher, he said he did not show his mother the bill for the parental contribution. Last year it was nearly $3,000.

Only 7 percent of Harvard undergraduates are from families with earnings in the lowest quarter of American household incomes, and 16 percent are from the bottom half. Nearly three-quarters are from families with earnings in the top quarter.

Dr. Summers said that the numbers at most other selective private colleges were similar.

Harvard's tuition this year is $26,066. With room, board, books and other expenses, the total can reach $44,000. Harvard provides about $80 million in scholarship aid.

Parents who earn less than $40,000 are now asked to contribute an average of $2,300. That figure will drop to zero under the new plan, which begins in the fall. Parents with incomes of $40,000 to $60,000 will have their contributions cut to an average of $2,250, from an average of $3,500.

Students will still be expected to contribute by working over the summer and in the school year.

Harvard officials said they expected the new initiative to cost about $2 million next year and to help about 1,000 of the 6,600 undergraduates.

As tuition and other costs at most colleges have risen faster than family incomes have, students have increasingly turned to loans.

Harvard and other universities with large endowments have given more grants in recent years, reducing the amount students must borrow. Princeton has removed loans from its aid packages for all students. Harvard has reduced loans but allows students to use them to offset the amount of work they must do. This year, Harvard graduates will have an average debt of $8,800, compared with $14,600 in 1998.

Mr. Brown, the junior, said his mother's entire salary was well below the cost of a year at Harvard. In the past, he has simply asked her what she felt she could contribute.

"She'd give me a figure," he said. "It was not as much as the school asked. I would say, `I really appreciate that,' and then I would make up the difference."

He said he led a "spartan life" at school to save money. Besides spending about 10 hours a week on a federally subsidized campus job, he is always looking for other jobs or studies that pay participants.

Under the new plan, he said, "I won't have to look every week for people who need boxes moved or other things."

Brian K. Fitzgerald, staff director for the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, said Mr. Brown's situation was not unusual.

"Lots of kids, including middle-income kids, are making up that parental expectation out of their own earnings," said Dr. Fitzgerald, whose committee advises Congress.

Under federal financial aid programs, parents who earn less than $15,000 a year are not expected to contribute to their children's college education; the advisory committee has recommended that that figure be raised to $35,000, or at least $25,000.

"The reality today is that in families earning $35,000, those parental contributions are simply not there," Dr. Fitzgerald said.

Dr. Summers said that making college more affordable for low-income, high-ability students would address only part of the problem. The more difficult challenge, he said, was giving lower-achieving, low-income students the support they need to qualify academically.

He said Harvard would expand its recruitment of lower-income students. Harvard is also starting a summer academy this year for high school students from low-income families.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 11:14 PM

"*The US governemnt soends $500,00 on 8 security screeners who speed execs from Wall Street helipad to American's JFK terminal..."

A. Airline passenger pay for security screening:

AVIATION SECURITY FEES

In total, the Committee has assumed the collection of $1,990,000,000 in aviation security user fees in addition to the $250,000,000 in aviation security user fees that must automatically be deposited in the Aviation Security Capital Fund. The Committee assumes that, of this total, $1,640,000,000 shall be collected from aviation passengers and $350,000,000 shall be collected from the airlines. The Committee cannot support the budget request to increase passenger security fees by $3.00, raising the fee from $2.50 to $5.50 on the first leg of each flight and retain the $2.50 charge for a second leg if the passenger is connecting.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:o7Q_Uptw8CoJ:thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/%3F%26sid%3Dcp109QuAhF%26refer%3D%26r_n%3Dhr079.109%26db_id%3D109%26item%3D%26sel%3DTOC_158414%26+tsa+airport+fees&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us&lr=lang_en

B. Screening at the "Wall Street" Helipad is done by a private firm:

Under the Transportation Security Administration the aforementioned agreement allows US Helicopter to utilize the TSA's Screening Partnership Program (SPP) for the establishment of security screening operations to support US Helicopter's airport shuttle service at the East 34th Street Heliport in New York City. US Helicopter's expanded service from the East 34th Street Heliport will fall under the same TSA security regulations as all commercial flights in the United
States. All passengers, carry-on baggage and checked baggage will be screened in accordance with the TSA's standards for commercial operators. US Helicopter, under the contract with McNeil Security, will provide the screening personnel and the TSA will supply the certified security equipment and oversight, affording travelers with the utmost in convenience, security and service at the East 34th Street Heliport.

http://www.flyush.com/pdfs/USH_Jan04_07_PR.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 03:22 AM

Dickey, it shouldn't be about charity, education should be a right.

I am amazed and delighted by much of the posting on this thread.

But surely experience should have taught that hardly anyone at the very bottom is helped by believing that "God helps those who help themselves" (or analogues).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 06:47 AM

Janie, you & the few others didn't fail. I remember my mother telling me a bit of rememberences she'd say "oh & there was a time when things were really bad & this one woman, I can't remember her name but if it weren't for her I don't think I could've made it, I'll never forget her". The little things count & they're remembered.

Another thing is that the poor may be under-educated but they're not stupid for the most part. They do know when they're being pried upon, taking advantage of, been pushed out the door & passed over for the sake of other government programs. They know that their kids go to war & die in a rich persons battle for bucks. But there's not much to do about it when the maiin struggle is to survive & they know that too, though some may not be fully aware of how they get used & abused.

Great that Havard is doing something about it's enrollments. Richard's right, education should be a right, just like health care, not just a benifit for the rich. It's funny though. I went to school in Boston across the river from Harvard, with what I learnt in the school of hard knocks Harvard wouldn't have let me in to qualify to clean their door steps & why should they have. But kids no matter where they come from should be given the education today that would have at least have put them on a level playing as the others that afforded themselves a high priced education. And that is still not happening.

Yes Frank, in poor & poorer countries the poverty is even bad & worst. But to have it in a rich country is a shame. And twice as shameful when those rich countries not only don't come to the aid of those nations like Africa, India, Haiti..... but won't even come to the aid of their own first. Seeing this why would anyone else hold their breath waiting. Reagan told the world to "just say no" actually he was telling the world no as well as telling his own people no, no aid, no help, no money!
Bush was embrassed into putting $10,000 out of his own pocket for the folks in New Orleans, an actress put up 1 million. How dam cheap can a nation be with it's own?

Poverty with the vets is just another war of words. There are thousands of ex-military living on the streets along side of thousands of phycially, mentally & medically challanged people that are treated as criminals. Begging, working for food & dying on doorsteps trying to find more permanent places of shelter & safety by getting themselves into a hospital or prison. Imagine that, so desperate to survive in the comfort of some safety that they'd prefere prison to what's available though there own government, and some of them are only there because they fought for their government. We do not look after our own and again they know it.

I used to think that my mother was always cooking. Every time someone knocked on the door when my step dad wasn't home she'd always answer it with a big kitchen knife in her hand. Post tramatic stress comes to mind when I think about it. Living in poverty is sometimes like living in a war zone. It's a wonder that some can function at all & the price they pay is high & the price that it costs the rest of U.S. is even higher in the long run, I would think. We are a short sighted people.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 07:12 AM

Yeah, Janie...

I vividly remember my 10 some years workin' as a social worker in Adult Services and I remember, and you will be able to relate to this, the mumber of social workers, case managers, eligibility workers, etc. who had thrown in the towel... Sure, they were still employed but they did the bare minimum... Looking back, I kinda understand how that could happen... With the Reagan administration's dismantling the Great Society programs by starving them to death folks did become disallusioned...

Like you, I wouldn't give in... I'd just try to find other rersources... I had ministers who would hide if they saw me comin' 'cause they knew I was goinna ask them to strongarm their congregations againn for this or that... But it did get to that point where we were asked to fight the good fight without any resources left and, yeah, it was frusterating...

A lot of good social wokers burned out leaving the ones who had allready figured out that they could keep their lousy paying jobs as long as they din't put too much of their emotional self on the line...

But failure??? Yeah, okay... But on the other hand, it wasn't a fight that we could win without the political will to win...

More later...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 07:45 AM

I'm still puzzled why there should be any poverty in a country as wealthy as the United States.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 07:51 AM

I'm not puzzled McGrath, just pissed because there shouldn't be. There's no need for it, except that it does give the very wealthy a good veiw.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 11:27 AM

"*Only 3% of students at the top 146 colleges come from families in the bottom income quartile; only 10% come from the bottom half..."

In the state of Georgia, any student who graduates from high school with at least a B average is eligible for free college tuition and a $300 per academic book allowance at any of the state's colleges or universities.

http://www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-South/Atlanta-Education-and-Research.html

More than 16,000 score free college tuition
By Marie Szaniszlo Boston Post September 16, 2006

State education officials yesterday mailed letters to each of the 16,169 class of 2007 high school students who qualify for a John and Abigail Adams Scholarship, offering four years of free tuition at any public Massachusetts college.

"*A 2 child family earning $50,000 gets $2,050 or 1/5 the cost of public college for one kid."

Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program: Oklahoma residents with a family income of less than $50,000 at the time of enrollment who maintain a 2.5 high school GPA and take a set of required college-preparatory courses can receive free tuition at Oklahoma public institutions and partial tuition at Oklahoma private schools if they maintain a 1.7 GPA for their first 30 credit hours and a 2.0 GPA after that.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060408/8free_tuition.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scrump
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 11:46 AM

Poverty in the USA - wasn't that a hit for John Mellencamp?

... I'll get me coat :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 11:56 AM

Dickey,

Get a life... These stats are national... You are, as per usaul, trying to compare apples with oranges...

Now back to the ***discussion***....

Scrump,

Let me help you with it...

Barry,

Ditto...

McG,

Ditto...

Opps, my 5 minutes of after lunch pudder time is up...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 12:59 PM

*These stats are national... You are, as per usaul, trying to compare apples with oranges*

Recently, processes such as the FAFSA (Free Application for Student Aid), have allowed poorer students to gain a college education through government subsidies designed to eliminate the difference between the rich and poor.

The last 15 years has seen a dramatic rise in the demand for private tuition with a large proportion coming from poorer families who have seen the need for manual or semi-skilled work decrease and who correctly view the education of their children as the only way of their 'breaking free' of the inevitable long queues for a handful of lowly-paid jobs. The matter is often exacerbated by these children being in excessively large classes in schools which fail to attract the best teachers.

In this respect tuition has turned from the private governor/governess of the Victorian era providing education to a privileged few to a non-elitist and cosmopolitan service for the masses.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 01:30 PM

Dickey - "... a $300 per academic book allowance," covers what percentage of the annual required reading at a college or university? One or two texts require that much money! Annually, as many as 30+ books may be required. Do the math. Add that to tuition and living expenses.

Any student from a low income home that is able to achieve a 3.00 or better in high school should be given the opportunity to attend university with books and tuition covered.

I have a daughter that is a A+ university student and is looking at $70,000.00 in student loans. I tell her its O.K., she's young, its an investment in her future but ...

Have you ever tried to pay your own way through university, Dickie?

You should discuss something you actually know something about instead of pulling random figures from questionable data.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 01:43 PM

I have a daughter finishing up her 2nd year & a son going in, $2,050 doesn't slice bread, doesn't come close. With her high grades, scholarships & grants she's already up to her elbows in loans, she works there too. Books $300 that the cost of ONE.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 02:37 PM

That book thing is such a ripoff. There is no reason that professors can't get together and put stuff online for students to download say for $20, especially if they are being paid by the public in state universities.   And there is no reason a book to be used one semester and then passed on (for heavens sakes tell your children to sell their books while they can the minute they are done with them..they will probably never look at them again)...to be hard-bound. The government needs to step in here and state professors need to produce cheaper textbooks that can be used in 80% of classes. What Harvard does is up to them. Speaking of which, I think it is best for almost everyone to go to their state colleges..it is just to easy to disconnect from the family if you can't afford trips back and forth. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 03:02 PM

No it does not include food shelter or clothing or transportation or entertainment or medical expences or spending money or birthday cakes but it does cover the tuition and $300 for books at least in Georgia.

"pulling random figures from questionable data"

The sources were all given If you care to look.

"Have you ever tried to pay your own way through university, Dickie?"

Why would one have to with free tuition? Whoever said going to colege was cheap? Bobert seems to be saying it is impossible for poor people. I have pointed out that there are sources for enabling them to go to college. Is this a good thing or not?

All you are doing is sending a message to poor people telling them they cannot afford to go to college so they will be poor forever.



Low-income in-state students at all 3 campuses will be eligible

By CHRISTINE FREY

Students from low-income homes will be able to attend the University of Washington free under an ambitious scholarship program the university intends to launch next year.

The UW said Wednesday that it would cover the costs of tuition and fees for all in-state students who quality for Pell or State Need grants. The university's new undergraduate scholarship offer, called Husky Promise, is guaranteed -- no matter how much tuition increases.

The intent is to improve access to higher education, particularly for students who are academically prepared for college but can't afford it.

"This is a very simple statement and commitment to the citizens of Washington that the University of Washington will always be accessible to them regardless of their financial circumstances," UW President Mark Emmert said in an interview.

Any new, continuing or transfer student who is a resident of Washington and meets financial requirements is eligible. The university expects to support about 5,000 undergraduates a year through the scholarship program at its Seattle, Bothell and Tacoma campuses.

Students from families who are at or below 65 percent of the state's median income -- 235 percent of the federal poverty level -- can receive scholarships. That means a family of four with an income of $46,500 or less would be eligible.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/288403_uw12.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 03:13 PM

That book thing is such a ripoff. There is no reason that professors can't get together and put stuff online for students to download say for $20, especially if they are being paid by the public in state universities.

Talk to the book companies. Professors often cannot do this--at least not without risking litigation--because of copyright issues. Many texts used in my classes were not "textbooks" per se but ordinary books.

But yes, it is a rip-off. Even buying used mine were usually between $400 and $600 a semester.

* * * * *

I'm sorry, but students should not have to hold down full-time or multiple jobs in addition to full-time school. I'm a good time manager and there is no way in Hell I could have done that and paid sufficient attention to my academic work. (I did work on campus, mind you, but part-time). Frankly, I don't give a crap what are the particulars of the figures, it's just gotten way too expensive and there is simply not enough aid. People should not be in debt for decades to pay for college.

I don't think one can make a blanket statement, however, about what kind of school students should or should not attend. I went to a small liberal arts school 3,000 miles from home and was perfectly happy. My mother called once a week and emailed sporadically (we had never had email until I went away to school); I never got homesick and never felt disconnected (at least not in a bad way). However, I would have felt lost and disconnected in a big state school. I'm currently taking library classes from a large university and I absolutely hate it--no individual consideration at all, one big fat administrative bureaucracy, totally impersonal. Some kids do better in a big university environment, some do better in a small college environment, one size definitely does not fit all. I would not have traded my undergraduate experience for anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 03:32 PM

So where does that leave students from a lower-middle class or middle class family? These are the students most likely to need the assistance because they do not want to add financial burden to parents with siblings still at home or perhaps they come from single parent homes where expenses are not shared with anyone or they simply fall through the cracks of eligibility criteria.

Criteria is very strict and, like welfare, unless you're starving, there is very little assistance except for loans. Why should eligibility be linked to family income? At 18 you are considered an adult, right? If able, most parents do help but not always. I help by providing boots, coats, book bags, computer, etc. but my ability to help is limited regardless of what I am presently earning. I can also provide board and room. Just how far is a parent expected to go? According to the criteria you provided, all the way.

The reality is that even working part-time, living at home and being subsidized by mom, the loan is already $70,000.00. Its interest free and she's young so she has plenty of time to pay it off. Most people aren't willing to take those kind of chances without guarantees.

Barry's right. One text can cost $300.00. Use texts are usually unacceptable. The profs want you to have current editions and these are rarely available. Why should university students study old material? It just doesn't work that way in real time.

What appears on paper has nothing to do with reality of obtaining a university education.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Janie
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 04:43 PM

When I was in graduate school from '90 to '92, my books and coursepaks ran about $1200 a semester. I imagine the cost is double that now. Maybe more than double.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 04:45 PM

No, Dickey, I haven't said its "impossible" (your words, not mine) but based on the real world is is highly improbable... Do you actually know any folks who work with the poor??? if so, they will be glad to bring you up to speed...

Man, I'm glad that I ain't facing havin' to go to college again these days... Yeah, I came from a middle class family and I know it was s struggle fir my folks, even though I worked part-time all the way thru both of my degree programs....

Books were cheap back then and you could by used books for a song... Truth be known, I din't buy alot of my books but just hunted up professors who tested from their lectures and took good notes...

But realisticly, if I were faced with the kind of debt kids are faced with today to go to college I would have just taken a pass, thank you...

But, college ain't a real issue here since poor kids very rarely get to attend college... Finishing high school is a stretch...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 06:19 PM

I just looked up Washington State University..tuition and mandatory fees for one year are about $6300 X 4 that is about 26,000. I would hope and pray that most students could earn enough through work-study etc. to pay room and board and transportation. So they might have student loans for a 4 year state school of under $30K. Now, they could go for two perfectly fine years at a community college for much less. THey could live at home unless circumstances require them to get out. THey could live with a few friends.

Say you have a $30K loan at the end of 4 years, do not marry and do not have children or other people to support. Pay it off at $500/month (and think of what jobs you are likely to get before taking on a debt)or $6K a year and gone in 5 years. I am assuming a takehome pay of $1500/month and being able to live as a single person on $1000 a month, which I don't know why a healthy person could not. Does not include medical insurance so pick a major that will either teach you to do your own surgery or look for a job with benefits. Maybe you need a teaching degree...good benefits.

I don't worry about anything above and beyond a state college education with the first 2 years at a community college. If they can pull it off, fine, if not, they're still fine. Our problems are complex, and include insufficient funding on a number of levels but it also includes producing people without enough skills through both our ever devolving family structures and our educationally bankrupt educational system. I hope we haven't reached the day yet where young people can't fund at least the room and board poart of their education...through their own hard work and enterprise. That needs to be part of their vocational counseling, which if they don't have and they need some, send them my way. I have helped all sorts of people, refugees from places they had to eat rodents to survive..people from hard hard situations so it can be done. Not always. But quite often. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 08:01 PM

Joe Offer, excellent post and course offering.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 09:31 PM

I should say I am an omniist and I am for almost everything other people are for here...but I want to go farther and crack some heads in the process...the drug dealers and the women who let the creepmen into their daughter's bedrooms, the creepmen themselves, the gangs who terrorize the old ladies in the housing projects, the slumlords, the teens who play hooky and defy anyone to educate them and then complain 20 years later about this and that, the media that permits astonishing vulgarity that is absolutely a cesspool for children, the schools that can't or won't insist on decency in clothing, language etc. Bus drivers who won't throw hoodlums bothering other people off the bus...I could go on. A lot of things need to be cleaned up at the same time that things are fixed and without cleaning up the cultural mess you might as well throw money down a rathole. Both things can happen at once. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 11:54 PM

I just want to add a few comments. I vote, yet I feel, as I'm sure many do, that I have absolutely no control over what happens both before and after the elections to those we have elected. This is primarily, I feel, due to PACs, of which most average Americans, I think, are not members. It all comes down to the HAVES and the HAVENOTS, doesn't it ultimately, and this is despite the fact that the HAVENOTS far outnumber the HAVES, and I'm sure the numbers are growing.

We were unable to change what Reagan did to the system...it has just gotten worse since then. All we could do is keep going to work and hoping we made a difference, and we did! There is plenty we can do individually, and I'm sure those who are doing it should be congratulated. Should this keep us from trying? Absolutely not! Peace.

Someone mentioned Pell grants, and it rang a bell in my dusty brain. I did a quick search and settled on Wikipedia's entry on the subject, knowing that their reliability is sometimes questionable due to user amendments. That said, here is what I found:
"Pell Grant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The Pell Grant program is a type of post-secondary education federal aid provided by the Federal government of the United States, and is the largest need-based grant aid program in the country. It is named after Senator Claiborne Pell, though its actual name is the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program. They are awarded based on a "financial need" formula determined by the U.S. Congress using criteria submitted through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Because of the high levels of need required to obtain a Pell grant, receipt of them is often used by researchers as a proxy for low-income student attendance.

Federal budget legislation passed in early 2006 cut the federal financial aid budget by $12.5 billion. While the maximum Pell Grant legislative limit was raised to $5,800 through 2011, maximum Pell grant awards were not funded at this level. The maximum award available to students has been frozen at $4,050 since 2003-04.

For 2006-07, the maximum Pell grant available to students remains $4,050. Due to high increases in the cost of post-secondary education and slow or no growth in the Pell grant program, the value of Pell grants has eroded significantly over time. In 2005-06, the maximum Pell grant covered one-third of the yearly cost of higher education at a public four-year institution; twenty years ago, it covered 60% of a student's cost of attendance, this however also allows a greater number of students to benefit.

President Bush signed legislation into law on February 15, 2007, to fund most federal programs, including education programs, for the remainder of the 2007 fiscal year and increased the maximum Pell Grant by $260 to $4,310. This is the first increase to the maximum award since 2003. The rise in the maximum Pell Grant award is effective on July 1, 2007."

Hardly a drop in the bucket of higher education, sadly.
I do want mention that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." And then, you just keep putting one foot down after the other. I enjoyed the time I spent working with the poor, and doing the best with what I've had to work with at any given time. Can we as individuals do better? Yes. Can we as a nation do better? Not until we find a way to effectively break the stranglehold that people of wealth and power have on the way things are done.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 11:02 AM

"Pay it off at $500/month (and think of what jobs you are likely to get before taking on a debt)or $6K a year and gone in 5 years. I am assuming a takehome pay of $1500/month and being able to live as a single person on $1000 a month, which I don't know why a healthy person could not." mg

Good god. I realize that you are posting that only as one scenario among many but this one is seriously flawed.

$500 a month repayment? With take-home pay at $1500 (good luck!), what about rent, utilities and food? When rent alone will cost you somewhere between $600 and $1300 a month? Frankly, $50.00 is more realistic.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 11:20 AM

Bobert:

If "college ain't a real issue here since poor kids very rarely get to attend college"

Why do you cite statistics on the subject? Remember you said "Like they say, stats are for loosers....

You ain't gonna hear a bunch of stats outta me 'cause I don't need 'um"


I agree that college is not the real problem because there are plenty of opportunities for poor kids to attend college.

The problem is that so many of them do not finish high school.

Why is that?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 12:20 PM

Good Golly Miss Molly. I could easily live on $1000 a month and get a room in a shared house in the cities I know of, Seattle and Portland, for under $400 or split an apartment with two or three people or take care of an elderly person in exchange for free rent or stay with relatives and do some of the housework in exchange for reduced but not free rent. If necessary, I could do odd jobs or get a Saturday job housecleaning or doing whatever. I fail to see the problem. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 01:24 PM

This conversation reminds me of an elderly and wealthy friend I used to have (He has since died).It was his contention that he actually spent less than I did and therefore it was I was being profligate.

In actual cash it may have been true- but he failed to include all the things he already had in place, things like cars, home, contacts, rental properties, large farm (which he leased to someone else), good quality clothing - and lots of it - that wore like iron, credit line, little night life, abstemious lifestyle... In any given month he didn't have to spend much cash.

Any youngster just out of college may be responsible way beyond his years- but he is still a youngster with all the emotions that entails. He and she want relationships, dreams explored and coming true, parties, clothing, concerts and CDs and DVDs and maybe, even, their own wheels.

To expect a youngster to live like my elderly friend is not realistic. Waiting for five years before he and she can start acting young is not realistic. Becoming debt free by the age of 27 is not realistic.

I have no doubt but that it can be done- but expecting it or requiring it it is not realistic.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 01:36 PM

I am flabbergasted. I don't consider someone 22 or so years old to be a youngster. I would not want to turn a young adult loose on the world that could be putting clothing, dvds etc. before paying off debt. Are we asking taxpayers, many of whom are supporting families on $1000 a month..to subsidize these parties and CDs and concerts for these "youngsters?" Yes, I believe we are. It is astonishing. This is not dire poverty we are talking about. This is what I would call irresponsibility. The people I somewhat work with are shucking oysters for minimum wage or vacuuming hotel rooms seasonally. That is who is paying for these dreams explored and coming true. Not boss hog. As for relationships, they should be looking for likewise responsible people who put paying off debt ahead of incurring more or asking others to subsidize it. I am again not talking about dire poverty scenarios..just poorly trained, in my opinion, young people.   mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 01:47 PM

Good luck.

Now back to the original premise of this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 02:13 PM

its probably been posted already http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxvIvd7ecak

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 05:02 PM

Sidebar to Dickey,

Do you want to participate in this discussion or just attack every danged little thing I say here???

If you want to participate, fine...

If not, go find another thread where people actually give a danged about you, your ideas (what ever they are???) and yer little sniping...

Like I said on the last thread yuou completely highjacked with yer baitin' and bullcrap, you are a jerk...

And until you allow yourself to become part of this discussion I'll do what I did in the last thread that you highjacked with yer juvenile behavior and that is...

...ignore yer self righteous, jerk self...

Bye, Part 2 (or is it now 3???)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 05:03 PM

Mary - Nobody expects those who are working for minimum wage to supplement those who have attended university. If that is what is happening, we need to take a serious look at the tax structure.

I agree with Ebbie. After slogging your way through university and finally landing a job, repayment of your loan should be a reasonable percentage of your newly acquired income. It is reasonable to expect that a person with a university level job would have enough money to dress professionally, pay for living expenses and transportation as well as balance the demands of their job with liesure time activities. They have probably had to move away from home to find that job and it takes time and money to furnish an apartment, as well.

When I left university, I was working part-time, raising two teen-aged kids, paying for a 3-bedroom apartment and the bank wanted $400.00 a month. My part-time work was required on order to obtain a full time position. I didn't own a stick of furniture, except my kids' beds nor did I own any kitchen appliances let alone major appliances. I was trapped and being threatened with credit collection. The minute I was given a full-time contract, they threatened to garnishee my wages.

Not all situations are as neat and tidy as you think they are, Mary, and you should stop using your own personal circumstances to judge others. In fact, it may be your life that is abnormal. Many, many people start life with very little and do not have family to fall back on.

My student loan debt was $50,000.00. Had I been on welfare for the same period of time, the govt. would have given me the same amount of money tax free. If people are to become educated, there must be some incentive. Threatening people or making them feel guilty is no incentive at all. Re-paying a loan with interest for the rest of your life, is punishment for daring to break free from a cycle of poverty.

Just because I now make good money, doesn't mean that I'm rich. There are debts to be paid. In fact, Mary, my lifestyle changed very little from my pre-college days. The biggest difference was that I no longer worried about how to pay the rent or whether or not there would be enough food on the table. Above all else, I found the self confidence and acquired enough language to defend myself against those who would try to make me feel like I was a burden on society. My children have reaped the benefits of my education and nobody can ever take that away from me.

Take the blinkers off, Mary, you are in no position to judge.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 05:23 PM

I only attack what I see as the use of "facts" that the poster does not know to be true and does not care if they are true in order to prove a point.

This is especially telling when the poster self righteously claims that he is against using these "facts" while at the same time using these "facts".

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 05:44 PM

I'm with Bobert: Buzz off, Dickey.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 06:02 PM

Sorry, folks, for that little house-keepin'...

Ahhhhh, Janie was talkin' about how the safety net and how it has become almost non-existent and I was trying to add somehting related to that which I have finally gotten aroud to and that is a case study of a client I had who experienced quite a bout of "downward mobility"... And this was during the time when the net was alot stronger...

When I was in social work and would recieve a new case I would take the file home with me so that I could at least scan the various notes that other case workers, case managers, social workers, etc had made so that I'd have a certain understanding of a new client and what had been done and what worked for a while and what didn't and...

...as much as it pains me to say, most fell into very predictable categories... No, I'm not sayin' anything like "seen one, seen 'um all" but there were some definate patterns in terms of behavior, treatments, failures and successes, tho success had to be constantly redefined...

But then I got this young man, Adam (real name protected) who just din't quite fit the usual models... He had attended Randolph Macon College in Asland for 2 years and had come from an upper class family from the suburbs of Richomnd...

Adam had experienced some mild schizophrenic episodes in his teens, had been seen and treated in various private and public facilities and did very well until his 2nd year in college... Yeah, okay, this was the 70's but Adam wasn't a partier, didn't abuse drugs, didn't use alcohol at all and was deeply spiritual but...

...the episodes were no longer as easily controlled with medications and became dehibiliting... He dropped out of school and stayed at his parents house but during the bad times he would be in his room yelling at the walls... His parents tried to get him more private help but Adam wouldn't participate with any consistency and the bad times became longer in duration and, frankly, he must have scared his parents to death...

Finally, they confronted him with an altimatum to go in-patient or leave... He left...

Over the next 4 or 5 years Adam found hiumself in Central State Hospital, jails, flop houses, church sponsored homes, etc. and even occasionally back at his parents house but he just didn't stabilze...

I recieved his case in 1978 and picked him up at Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Va. along with another new client and he was very articulate and came accross as kinda shy and we talked about all kinds of stuff on the 45 minute trip back to Richomnd... He was every intelleget and well read which was something I rarely found in new clients from Central State... And he was close shaved and clean... Something else which stood out...

I took him directly to the eligility department and was able to get him a rent voucher while he waited to get his $56 monthly general relief check and Food Stamps... I then took him to one of my better flop houses on Grace Street (flop house row) and got into a room in the back of the house... I liked this particualr house because the lady who ran it also prepared meals for some of the folks...

Well, I went back two days later to see how Adam was doing and was amazed that he had done something I can't say I remember any of my clients doing... He had bartered with the landlady and had gotten some paint and had fixed his room up very nice... And he had created a little area for his religious studies and had a meditation rung with a small table with his Bible on it with candles and all...

(See, Janie, why I rmember this client so vividly???)

Adam kept all his appointments at Mental Health, stayed on his medications and seemed to be doing fine...

Fine???

Well, okay... Schizophrenic folks kinda stand out a little and most folks are slightly uncomfy around them even where they are doing, ahhhh, fine...

So, one day I got a call from Adam... He wanted to go to Philadelphia to see an old friend but was afraid to go for fear of being locked up or institutionalized... Hey, I can understand how he must have felt since he had spent 5 years in and out of jails and hospitals so I crafted a letter that he could present to any authority who stopped him on his trip telling them that he wasn't a daager to anyone, got some $$$ for the rround trip bus trip and set him on his way...

He was scheduled to be gone for 3 0r 4 days but...

...when I hadn't heard from him after a week was more than a little concerned so I went to the rooming house and his landladt said he hadn't returned...

...hmmmmmmm?

About a month later I got a call from a social worker in Trenton, N. J.... Adam had been living uder a bridge and had been badly beaten by another homeless person... Porbably a territorial thing... But Adam had the letter with him and so we arranged to get him back to Richmond...

I picked him up at the bus station... He wasn't doing well... He had scabs all over his face... I doubt if he even tried to defend himself because he was so timid but we had him back and his landlady was happy to see him and he got back on his meda and seemed to be doing okay...

Then I got to work one mornin' and there were half a dozen frnatic messages for me from his landlady...

...Adam had somehow gotten a gun and killed himself the night before...

Sniff...

Well, my frineds, Adam is one case study... And these were times when the safety net was stronger... Would an Adam take his life today??? Maybe... But that is not the issue here... What is the issue is that regardless of how one might think that being poor can never happen to them, it can... Here was a kid seemed to be on the fast track in the world yet found himself fallen pray to a nother homeless person under a bridge in Trenton, N.J...

And that was when the safety net was strong...

Sorry about the long post but...

And, Adam, I hope you are in a better place....

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 06:40 PM

Mary - Nobody expects those who are working for minimum wage to supplement those who have attended university. If that is what is happening, we need to take a serious look at the tax structure.

------------------------
That is exactly what is happening right now. People in US paying minimum wage and earning very little do pay taxes that subsidize education. And we should take a look at the tax structure and way reduce it for lower income and I dont really care how much upper income people make and I don't care if they double my taxes either. And I want us to reform and simplify taxes and get rid of obvious tax scams particularly.
---------------
I agree with Ebbie. After slogging your way through university and finally landing a job, repayment of your loan should be a reasonable percentage of your newly acquired income. It is reasonable to expect that a person with a university level job would have enough money to dress professionally, pay for living expenses and transportation as well as balance the demands of their job with liesure time activities. They have probably had to move away from home to find that job and it takes time and money to furnish an apartment, as well.
---------------------------

it takes very very little money to furnish an apartment the way most college students and those newly graduated furnish them..a garage sale here, parents' attic there, friends passing on stuff. They don't need to spend much money on furnishing...I doubt I have ever bought new or expensive furniture in my life. Right now, the room I essentially live in, about 10 x 10, and could live in half the space and share with a roommate if necessary, consists of one second-hand bed,one exercise machine, a Costco table, computer, free TV and TV stand and ironing board and folding chair. It is not bad. If I have this much for the rest of my life I will consider myself lucky. There are other areas of the house I could use, and I am buying this prefab house if I can hang on to it, which I might not be able to. But essentially I live in the equivalent of a rented room with shared bath...

-------------------------------
When I left university, I was working part-time, raising two teen-aged kids, paying for a 3-bedroom apartment and the bank wanted $400.00 a month. My part-time work was required on order to obtain a full time position. I didn't own a stick of furniture, except my kids' beds nor did I own any kitchen appliances let alone major appliances. I was trapped and being threatened with credit collection. The minute I was given a full-time contract, they threatened to garnishee my wages.

Not all situations are as neat and tidy as you think they are, Mary, and you should stop using your own personal circumstances to judge others. In fact, it may be your life that is abnormal. Many, many people start life with very little and do not have family to fall back on.

My student loan debt was $50,000.00. Had I been on welfare for the same period of time, the govt. would have given me the same amount of money tax free. If people are to become educated, there must be some incentive. Threatening people or making them feel guilty is no incentive at all. Re-paying a loan with interest for the rest of your life, is punishment for daring to break free from a cycle of poverty.
------------------
They shouldn't be paying off loans for the rest of their lives. That is what I am saying. I offered a simple, doable scenarioro for a single, unencumbered person paying off loans through a state college, the one I work for in fact, in 5 years, without living in poverty. Simplicity perhaps. Poverty, no. Luxuries: a few. Doable? It is done all the time. This is not a bad situation. THis is a situation 90% of the world would love to be in. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 07:11 PM

This thread is somehow moving less toward poverty in America toward the problems of financing college...

Lets get real here... For most kids that grow up in poverty college isn't a goal or even on the radar screen... Heck, a high school diploma would be a great achievment...

This conversation about college, while intersting, has little do do with the subject at hand... It is, for the most part, a middle class conversation...

Mg, I hate to get on you again 'cause I know that in yer heart you belive very strongly in man's ability to survive adversity but...

...people tend to learn life skills very early and if there aren't the kind of role models to teach kids these skills... Kids that don't get them early ain't gonna get 'um later... What they are gonnna get is inforamtion from their peers who tend to be like themselves... By the time these kids get into their teens, unless we have thousands of Job Corpes like programs to bring these kids into the game, they won't develope these skills... Sure, you could live on $1000 a month... So could I... So could most folks who grew up in situations where these skills were taught...

I hate to keep harping on this but if you are going to be good working in any social program it's important that you at least understand that your clients don't have the same skills as you... If you truely want to help them, recognize this very important part of helping people...

Yeah, I know it is tough... And it is frustratin' but once you internalize it then you can maybe try to be what, in the wrods of the late Carl Rogers, "client centered" where you recognize that your client does not have your world of life view... It's hard to teach folks how to get there but if you can just try to see that your clients won't make the choices you would make, it makes it easier... They will make inappropraie choices and for you to say, "Hey, if you'd just do this or that then...." ain't gonna do much more than drive them away...

I'm sorry... It was the hardest lesson for me to learn but once I did then, as a social worker, it made my job easier... And, no, I'm not saying that you don't have expectations for your clients because you should... It's just that you might try setting those expectations not on what you can do with a $1000 a month but what they can reasonably do with it...

Like I said, I'm sorry but if I can just get you to see that then as long as you work with people you will be more effective... Carl Rogers called it "unconditional positive regard" and it has really to do with yer client and not you...

Enough on that topic... By now, I've either broken thru or I haven't...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 07:54 PM

I posted a lengthy post today that for some reason self destructed. The good news is that I PM'd Joe Offer and found I was not black balled or something awful like that but subject to some sort of computer glitch that eats long posts......

So to try again, I read Littlehawk's post of the 9th and thought that it spoke volumes. He said - let me paraphrase - that if many modern societies provided the following FREE as a basis much would be done to balance out the inequities of the world.....

- all medical expenses
- clean pure drinkingwater
- education from primary through college
- modern maintained and usable highways (I inferred this also means decent free or low priced public transport....)
- a decent police force and justice system
- shelters for the homeless and job training

Doesn't this answer many of the issues that this thread is talking about? One of my daughters dates a young man of 22 who was the child of a single parent, dragged up as best she could by someone who had no parenting knowledge or skills (no role models). By 16 he was living in a series of shelters, with no job skills or training, by 18 he was the father of a child, now 4, whom he does not support. He works 'under the table' for $8 an hour and points out he is better off doing that in Maine than working for a regular job at $11 an hour and paying taxes (and in Maine $11 an hour isn't bad money for someone with no HS diploma and no skills and nothing to offer other than his physical strength......). I see no future prospects for him at all ....... my husband and I put him through some training for the trade of lead removal (not everyone's favorite job but it pays and has benefits....) but when he was offered a job he could not take it because he had no car and no way to get there.
Free public transport AND a decent public transport system would have got him to his place of work....and given him a decent job with benefits....!

The cost of medical care overrides everything......; I pay $1400 a month (A MONTH) for medical insurance. It was pointed out to me recently that I was lucky to be able to afford the premiums and I fully accept that........; but this is insane!!! I was talking to my sister, in England, recently about the whole issue of national health, or lack of, here. She said, as many English people do, that National Health is not what I remembered and one had to wait for things like elective surgery...I figured I could live with that! At the end of the conversation when I had reiterated again and again what the lack of national health meant, my sister said - yes, but, surely anyone who is pregnant gets health care - right? Wrong I said. But she could not conceive of a country that did not provide that basic level of health care.......let alone the richest country in the world......

And then we have the issue of the schools and what they provide or don't provide. I have a son with learning disabilities -- significant ones. If he were the son of people with different lifestyles than ours he would have dropped out, or failed out, of school already. Because we are self employed and can run to the school at the drop of a hat. he is still in school, and God (or someone) willing, will graduate this summer. We fight about his support in the school system (or lack thereof) or his accommodations (or lack thereof). If classes had ten students or fewer, this would not be an issue - with ten students in a class the teachers could handle an LD child in a class -- they could work with different students at different levels at the same time.....

But of course, we have a war to pay for.........

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 08:38 PM

Bobert: Instead of attack I should have used the word *point out*. Attack was your word.

I have never seen you so eloquent and your typing has improved immeasurably.

What has brought about this change?

However you still get annoyed when someone points out something you said that was inconsistent, inaccurate or contrary to something you said earlier.

The reason for the thread drift is due to you posting some of your "facts" for the purposes of reinforcing some point you are trying to make.

*Only 3% of students at the top 146 colleges come from families in the bottom income quartile; only 10% come from the bottom half...

*Bush's tax cuts give a 2-child family earning $1M an extra $86
,722- or Harvard tuition, room, board and an iMac G5 for both kids...

*A 2 child family earning $50,000 gets $2,050 or 1/5 the cost of public college for one kid...

If this has no bearing on the discussion, why did you post them?

I have pointed out that college tuition is free to poor people in some areas and under consideration in other areas. Are you objecting because this is a bad thing or a good thing?

UTA, UTD offer tuition free to the poor
Program streamlines, publicizes existing financial aid options

By Jay Parsons

The University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Texas at Dallas on Tuesday announced plans to guarantee free tuition for in-state undergraduate students with family incomes below $25,000.

The two local schools join a University of Texas systemwide push to erase fears among low-income students who believe college isn't affordable. Some of the system schools began programs last year.
http://www.uh.edu/ednews/2007/dmn/200701/200670124tuition.html


A movement to help the poorest students grows at the Ivies
by Anya Kamenetz

You've probably never heard of Gateway Community-Technical College. The fastest-growing of Connecticut's colleges, it occupies a former factory building on New Haven's waterfront but is due to move to a new downtown location next year. Thirty-seven percent of Gateway's 7,391 for-credit students rely on need-based grants from the federal and state government and the school itself, to fund nearly all their direct educational expenses. Eighty-eight percent of the students work, 38 percent full-time, and most are quietly chipping away at a part-time course load, stretching their enrollment out over many years. The average student is a 29-year-old, white, single working mother.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0510,kamenetz,61856,6.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 08:38 PM

I would add food stamps into the list, with WIC-like restrictions on what could be purchased and agricultural commidities when available, with a smaller amount set aside for treats, junk food, empty calories etc.

I would also like to see us really get serious about construction rules. Why do we have everything made out of wood here? I still can't believe it. It is a constant fight under the best of conditions to keep it from molding and rotting. Under sorrier conditions it blows away in hurricanes and burns and kills people. In floods it can't really be cleaned properly. We have better building materials. I don't understand why we have a cement shortage. We certainly have rocks and sand here and they tend to occur where there are poorer areas. Every public house and I would say every house that wants insurance should in the future be made out of cement or something fire and hurricane and bug and floodproof. Unfortunately, then sometimes they aren't good for earthquakes, which wood is, but this gets back into poverty situations. People in general, and I include myself, do not have the skills that they used to and do not have the time to keep after repairs on houses. They also have some bad habits like drugs that can make their behavior such that they burn things down easier. I would never in a million years build group housing, apartments, shelters, whatever, out of something that burned down or could not be totally steam cleaned. if people had houses that didn't need too much upkeep, that would take a signficiant source of strain and stress away, and why oh why do they keep rebuilding stick houses in the paths of hurricanes. Don't bother answering. there is no ansewr that would satisfy me. It is dumb dumb dumb. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 08:58 PM

I know that its different in Canada but really, what kind of a job will a 2 yr. college diploma get you? If you ever hope to have a family, it wouldn't be enough to get by.

I agree with Bobert, it doesn't really matter how many grants and loans are available to low income families for books and tuitions, most kids that grow up in poverty don't even graduate from high school.

I think the only way to put a dent in this problem is to start by educating students about birth control. Of course this isn't a solution. Some will get pregnant and some will keep their child. The next best thing is to provide food, shelter and incentive for the mothers. Healthy mothers mean healthy babies.

There is no way the problem will get better unless there is a will for it to get better and by demanding that your tax dollars be put to better use. That means funding social programs, including health and education. It will cost money, lots of it, but when you realize how much has been spent on war, you realize the money has always been there it just hasn't been there for the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 09:07 PM

Construction, drafting, LPN, physical therapy assistant, mechanics, engineering technician, laboratory technicain, medical technicain, dental hygenist, legal secretary, computer programmer, web designer, executive secretary, medical transcriptionist, X-ray technician, property management...etc. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 10:05 PM

There was a very interesting piece on ,em>All Things Considered this afternoon about the underground economy in poor neighborhoods, how essential it is to survival, and how limiting it is in terms of fostering conditions that would make it possible for people to move beyond survival. It was a long and complex piece that I can not summarize well, but is worth going to the archives to check out.


Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich, Metropolitan Books, New York; 2001. 221 pp. is a real eye opener if you have any illusions about what it is like to try to live on low wages in America.

Read it. Then imagine what it is like to 'live' on even less.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 11:32 PM

Wow, Mary.

I had no idea employment standards in the U.S. were so low. In Canada, you need four years to become a dental hygenist and do you realize the kind of wardrobe that is required by a legal secretary? Only two years required for web design? What are the pre-requisites? Besides that, web designers are a dime a dozen. Nursing? Don't even get me started. There must be a shortage of workers in the U.S. because in Canada, you either need a skill(plumber, carpenter, electrician) or a minimum of four years of university to find a job capable of supporting a family and thats with two people working.

If you have a family member to give you an 'in', two years of college might do, but nepotism is frowned upon. Two years of college in Canada will get you into a four year university if you have the GPA, but there are no job guarantees. In fact, unless you have a Master's degree your job prospects are pretty dim unless you want to work for very low wages.

Gone are the days when a high school diploma and a couple of years of college was enough to get a job that would support a family. It won't get you anything except, maybe, a husband with a good job. Around here its called an M.R.S. degree.

And yes, Janie, I know all about the underground economy. I live in B.C. where the traditional resource based industries are gone. The young, unemployed men have little choice but to work under the table. I'm sure its the same in the States. In fact, I lived in a community where money did not change hands. Any money you had was spent elsewhere. Everything, including labour, was bartered.

Its a pretty dismal situation where it is truly damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 01:01 AM

"Around here its called an M.R.S. degree." Love that Dianavan!

Yes Dianavan, education, about birth control, drug & alcohol abuse, about health care

& Yes Mg, teach these poor folk life skills, like how to cook a healty meal & sow their own clothes
Show them how to fish.

Whose gonna teach them, that ended in the 70's there is no more money to teach/educate/help poor people.

Poor folks, really poor folks don't have the time for an education, their time is eating up by living, by surviving.
Their kids at 16 are usually out the door trying to make it in their own world because their parents world of being so poor can no longer support them, they are in some cases trying to help support the family where they came from or trying to make it easier on their siblings.

There's a reason why poor kids don't finish high school & it's criminal they they don't/can't. Offer what ever you'd like but until society decides that they're a worthwhile investment, it's not gonna change. And the kids that are impared in one form or another have no hope, they eventually are the make up of our homeless.

The reason college education is being mentioned so much here is we know there's a connection between breaking the poverty glass wall & being educated is the way but that's only the visible leap, the last step in the breaking of the barrier. You get a poor kid through college & they've made it, they're in a bright new world, theyve written history. You've better odds at herding cats or bringing horses to water to drink. You get a poor kid TO college & you're witnessing a blessing.

From when they open their eyes & realize that's not a fur coat around their necks their dreams get shattered. Pre natal care wasn't part of the program & neither will any follow up heath care for life. Child care is pretty much a bartered favor with neighbors , so there goes any pre-schooling or any child rearing education for the parent(s). Because one job doesn't cut it the "kid gets left behind" longer than what's exceptable but they're between a rock & a very hard place & usually under-the-table jobs & under full time employment has no benies so there goes any sick time (that's enough to make a poor folk choke) vacation or holiday pay, it's just unhealthy if someone gets sick. So let's move in with your best friend's family so the rental costs can get cut or rent out some one's room, that's for poor teenagers without kids, (how long can an adult see that as a future) not for their poor folks who are already cramped into a hovel that cost 3X it's worth but they can't manage a house of their own because, well you know the system is against them even though it'd be cheaper for them if they did own. Well, one bad illness would wipe it all out anyway, so.
Well if they did have a spot of land at least someone could teach the to grow a crop, let me see you beat a rat to a root or beat the neighbor to a plant that's old enough to be harvested. Do you see the odds that start to mount, are the pattens starting to show & they're not even off the garden path yet.

Scroll back up to the song above & disect it

It's a "life with no hope" & hope is where you need to start, without it the rest doesn't mean squat.

They live under the gun at every turn of there life, you try to function under those conditions! Can you say PTS

Poor folks you'll find that their "language is foreign, the culture is strange" & so far there's only a few here as far as I can see that have an idea of what being really poor is like.
It's like inmagining you're in a war only you weren't

You don't get it!!!

Some people when they get raped or beaten they don't even go outside again & when they have to they're reliving the fear again & again & again. That fear is the same for anyone that fights to survive day after day after day! My wife used to ask me how come you never get nervous about anyting. I still sit in resturants with my face towards the door. I did finally make it to college after I got a GED & then it was nite school & then I never could get any loans, grants or funds to finish & I was one of the luckier few, I did get to start & run my own construction company but I always had the brains I was more of a survivor than a lot of others, though I don't know why.

I'm not trying to pull rank here & say that you can't imagine unless you were poor too. I'm just trying to give a better insite into the life that many think is so easy to work out of. Some do but it so few in comparison to those that come from a healthier backround that it's criminal that the playing fields couldn't be a bit more on the level seeing as it's those folks that really end up funding the rest.

That brings it all back to the way this nation is structured, fix that & you'll win the war on many fronts not just the war on poverty but it's really not a war our government wants to fight.

Sorry for the long ramble.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 02:37 AM

It is frankly sad and horrifying, almost sickening, to see the ideas of the humble and deserving recipients of charity being rolled out here. They are positively pre-Dickensian.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 07:56 AM

Sorry, folks but Sidebar #2 for Dickey...

First of all. I provided my source for the stats I presented... If you have problems with their stats, fine... Contact them...

But really, what I find objectionable about your posts is that they all seem to have one purpose and that is to change the conversation with endless academic data squabbling... This adds nuthin to the discussion but detracts from it...

During the mad-dash-to-invade-Iraq Teribus used this tactic over and over and would get folks attention diverted away from the meat-'n-taters of the issue into his little narrowly defined academic world... Problem is that it is a nuthin' but a tactic to try to *** control** the conversation from ideas to finy little definitions and insignificant bits and pieces of information...

In other words, what you do here in Mudville is attempt to highjack dicusssions that don't support your obvious partisan positions...

That is a plain as I can say it, Dickey... But i guess you are too right brained ('er left, whichever it is that makes folks want to grow up to be accountants) to see what I'm sayin'...

Now, it's back to Bye...

Write "Mother Jones" if you wanta squabble with the ststa I provided... They were the source...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 08:08 AM

I agree with you, mg, about your idea of building better structures... We could certainly do this if we had the will to do so... Wood constructed buildings are cheaper to build per square foot and that is why we continue to build them with wood...

As for concrete, yeah, we do have all the resources to build with it but the cost per square is much higher than stick building... It is a dilemma... I'm building a spec house right now that is part block, part brick, part stone (chimney) and the rest wood... The wood is by far cheaper than the brick, block and stone portions...

Again, it comes down to will...

Just like the War on Poverty that the US valently beagan which has been slowly dieing on the vine...

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,geezer reject of society
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 10:26 PM

Try being a person who is disabled, & well under the poverty level. After an auto accident-which was not my fault-the auto insurance cut me off from any income reimbursement or medical after one year.
I lost my job & most of what I owned except for my best instruments. I used up all of my savings, and when the "settlement" came, I owed over $28,000 in medical bills & the settlement was for $25,000 before attorney's fees. I had to file bankruptcy.
It took 3 1/2 years to get on social insecurity disability, after being turned down 3 times of course. When it was finally granted, the "back pay" was half of the actual amount which I should have been given. (congress saves $$ this way, you see) Medicare is a joke-when you have only a soc security check, you cannot afford to go to a Dr as most Drs don't accept it cause it doesn't pay enough to them, not to mention the deductible, so you end up paying for office visits & most of the RXs.
I no longer have the physical abilities I used to have as a professional musician, and I am in terrible pain every day of my life. The drs these days don't think it's a good idea to have me on painkillers all the time, so I have no pain meds. I had to move to a state which offers medicaid to disabled people in order to have medical. With only a few hundred bucks per month, I certainly can't pay for concert tickets, neither am I able to attend music festivals, it is too painful, anyway.   
Over half of the disabled persons in the USA do NOT have medical. Many end up on the streets, having not enough money to live on even if they get a social security disability check. The upper end of the scale is $816 now, of which about $90 is deducted for medicare.
The waiting list for housing where I live is 5-7 years. Then you get into the projects. If you are very lucky, you have a spouse--I do not--or maybe you live with a relative, however this can be very dificult, as they tend to not understand the seriousness of the pain and depression.
During the welfare reform @15 years ago, I was a caseworker for food stamps, aid to families with dependent children (basic welfare), and medicaid. Now I am one of the throwaways of society with no value according to congress, because I cannot work anymore.
Yes, Virginia, poverty does exhist, and there is no Santa Claus.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 10:38 PM

I've said it before and I will say it agin, with monotonous regularity -- NATIONAL HEALTH......what happened to Guest - geezer reject of society is a crime -- nothing more and nothing less.........

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 12:39 AM

Dear Bobert: Mother Jones did not post those stats.

Why did you post those stats from Mother Jones?

Example:

*The US governemnt soends $500,00 on 8 security screeners who speed execs from Wall Street helipad to American's JFK terminal.

The security is from a private firm and air passengers pay a fee to cover screening. So what good are your stats?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 01:09 AM

According to Mother Jones *MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.'s estate charges academic authors $50 for each sentence of the "I Have a Dream" speech that they reprint.*

I am posting this because MLK was a civil rights leader and helped the poor. I believe this is true because I found this to coroborate the assertion:

The 39-year-old entrepreneur and manager of the King estate is banking on the historical deal to be worth between $30 million and $50 million within three years. According to Jones, the estate's mission is "to teach people all over the world about Dr. King and the impact he had on social change in the latter half of this century."

Since his arrival in Atlanta in the late 1970's, Jones, a New York native, has been creating his own business legacy. From his numerous development deals for TV shows such as the animated morning series Da Munchies and the TBS documentary Assassinations: Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., to his investment in Atlanta Live, the country's largest Black-owned nightclub, Jones has established himself as a local mogul to be reckoned with.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_n7_v28/ai_19945622/pg_4

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 01:59 AM

Guest, geezer, might I ask where it is you moved to? I have friends in similar circumstances.

Janie, thanks for that book reference...I'd forgotten about it. I saw the book review for it when it first came out and meant to get it from the library.

dianavan, I have been furious since Bush and Co. have put abstinence at the head of the list of viable birth control methods. Indeed, tying it to aid to Africa, for one, by stipulating that of the $20 million that we were going to give them, one third had to be spent on abstinence training. I was going to offer my services...for that kind of money, I'd promote practically anything...just kidding...actually I couldn't help but wonder why it would cost that much to preach about it..."just don't do it?" Brochures explaining the procedure? Slide shows? "Gee, I like you; want to do it?" "No, I can't. I practice abstinence....so should you!" I could go on...maybe we should start a thread on the very subject. See if we can come up with $6.6 million ways to say, "Sorry, can't have sex with you."

I'm still reeling that the Surgeon General under Bill Clinton...no jokes, now...well, a few...was fired because she promoted self-satisfaction and condoms.

But, to get back to the real issues here. Poverty is a very sad subject...thank you to Donuel for providing that YouTube link. At first, I was lost watching it. I almost broke it off before the clincher came. That was awesome...and awful at the same time.

I once lived in Mexico briefly a long, long time ago. When we were landing at the airport in Mexico City, I saw these tiny structures...well, it was hard to say what they were, but the closer we came to the tarmac, the more I began to get the picture....they were huts....and people were living in them....right next to the runways. Can you imagine? Can anyone fathom the level of poverty that brings one to live that way? It was the first of many vivid images that changed the way I looked at life in general and my own life. But, I will tell you one thing I learned from Ivan Illich while I was studying there, and that is that we must feed the poor...cure what ails them...and, above all, not preach to them. It actually is based on Maslov's Hierarchy of Needs. I recommend the latter as a reference to this very subject. It actually applies to all of life when you think of it.

Peace to you all, I'm tired now and gotta say goodnight!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 03:04 AM

Its long been said that one of the best reasons for the wealthy to provide for the poor is that if they don't, the poor (who outnumber the rich) will rise up.

In the 60's it was peaceful demonstrations and pleas for reason and compassion. My generation actually tried to change things for the better by becoming social workers and teachers - many have burned out. In Vancouver we are beginning to see something new - violent poverty activists.

In Vancouver, the Anti Poverty coalition and other groups of young, homeless youth are beginning to march and demonstrate aggressively. They are taking over unoccupied building, stealing the Olympic flag, defacing the Olympic clock, marching and confronting police officers. They are very serious about what they are doing and their numbers seem to be growing. These kids are serious.

I wonder if they will be forcefullly disbanded or if others will join them. I wonder if this will spread to other provinces and to the States. It seems to me that angry rebellion by youth is inevitable when there is so little hope. I do think that with the 2010 Olympics on the way, the government will have to deal with the homeless situation. So far, protestors have been dealt with harshly.

I hope that these young people will continue to stand up for the poor and demand better living conditions for everyone. Its going to be a long battle.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 07:35 AM

Yo, Dickey,

Hate to burst yer "ah-hah-Bobert-gotcha-bubble" but "Mother Jones ***did very much*** print those stats...

Source: "Mother Jone", May/June 2006, " The Perks of Privilege, How the rich get richer" by Clara Jeffery, Page 24-25...

Have a nice day, Prickey...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 11:13 AM

Geezer's story is very, very typical of what happens when some one becomes disabled in the USA. There are others dear to us here on the Mudcat who have similar histories.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 01:05 PM

Bobert: I said they did not post them. They printed them but they did not post them in this thread. You did. That's why I am asking you why you posted them here?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 01:22 PM

Bobert - Its obvious that Dickey likes to argue for the sake of argument. He very seldom has a point and will go round and round saying absolutely nothing of importance.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 03:29 PM

Oh, you've noticed that, too, d???

He's like Teribus on steroids...

Very anal...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 05:34 PM

I would like to see Dickey hollering down into a dark well and, in return, hearing nothing.

(

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 06:22 PM

Something I have been meaning to get around to in this discussion of poverty and why rather then seein' it in decline we have had larger percentages of poor people every year going back several years and that is the "Welfare Reform Legislation" during Clinton's asministration.... This was terrible piece of **** legislation that was not comprehensive enough in its scope to actually be effective.... Quite the opposite... It was mean spirited and punitive and took America way back to pre-Great Society days...

It was about as dumb as outlawing cancer...

Hey, I could have understood it if it had included sufficiently funded job training, housing aid, transporation aid and especially child care... The later has been absolutely disgracefull... The pool of money for child care has now been frozen at 2001 **actual dollar amount*** levels... What makes this even worse is that with the time limits on public assistence there are single moms who have tried to play by the rules, get up at 4:30 in the morning, get their kids to day care and get themselves to the bus to begin work at 7:00 making $7.00 an hour or less... But with that ppol of $$$ for child care not changing when new moms become available for the vouchers the moms who have been barely makin' it are now either loosing their vouchers entirely or havin' the value of the voucher reduced to a point where the cart tips back toward abject poverty...

This is what I mean by ill-thouht-out and mean spirited... This is the kind of legislation that one would expect to get from a Congress diminated by men who don't have a clue and this is the legislation that is just now showin' just how enti-human men can be toward blaming women for having kids and not being able to keep "their man" in the home...

It is completely chauvinsitic, cruel and evil...

My hope is that as poverty continues to rise, not just in numbers, but in percentages, that this ill-thoought out bill will be revisited... There are now more women in Congress who understand that nuthing was fixed back in '96... All '96 was was a ticking timebomb...

There are now women having to quit their jobs because they can no longer afford to work??? Can't afford to work, Bobert??? Yeah, can't afford to work...

Here's the part that bugs me the most about Wwelfare Reform... It clearly balmes the women for making poor choices but for every kid in poverty, which BTW is 1 in 5 kids in the country, there is a dad somewhere who isn't taking the balme for poor choices... And guess what???

Give???

Other than court orderd support from divorces, the Beareau of Support Enforcemnt isn't all that excited in bringing the true dead-beat dads into the discussion??? Might of fact, these deadbeats were never seen as being a major part of any plan... Plan, Bobert??? What plan???

That's what I mean...

And so 1 in 5 kids in the richest country in the world will go to bed hungry tonight...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 10:37 PM

Bobert, I think you are overgeneralizing too much in your statements about child support and poverty. More than half of non-custodial parents of children on welfare also have incomes below the federal poverty line. (See http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-05-99-00392.pdf for a 2002 report regarding this from the Inspector General's office. You will need to scroll down to find the appropriate report and section).

While collection efforts and successes by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) vary from State to State and County to County, in most places they go after child support for children on welfare quite agressively these days. Through the auspices of the federal OCSE, State OCSE's have many more tools than they did in the 80's to both locate non-custodial parents and to garnish wages and tax returns.

The main problem is this; You can't blood out of a turnip.

Additionally, when OCSE develops and collects child support for a family on welfare, the child support goes to the public assistance agency first to reimburse government for some or all of the amount of public assistance that has been paid to the family. Any arrearages paid by the absent parent are applied first to past public assistance paid to his (or her) children. A majority of these absent parents do not and cannot pay enough child support to equal or exceed the amount of the welfare check the family receives, so government keeps the money.

Here is an example: Mom and one child get a $276 per month TANF check.

Aside:(TANF stands for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families--name changed from AFDC or ADC when the Work First program was implemented--denotes that the assistance ends after X number of years, no matter what. I think the limit is 3 years, but don't for sure right off the top of my head.)

Back to example--Mom gets $276 per month. Once she goes on welfare, OCSE starts agreesively pursuing child support. 18 months later they locate the absent parent, find out he is working at a car wash for $7.00/hour, and start garnishing his wages for $50 per week child support. That equals $215 per month child support ($50 x 4.3 average weeks in a month is how government figures that.) Government keeps it all. In January, they attach his tax refund of $478. that money is kept by the goverment to reimburse itself TANF payments made to his kids during the time before he was located and wages garnished.

His children reap no benefit from the child support that was developed by OCSE 'on their behalf.' Government keeps it all.

I see the logic of this and understand why it is done. There certainly plenty of deadbeat parents around. But the bottom line is this: poor+poor=poor.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 11:48 PM

Bobert:

I see you are quoting those loser stats again.

How can you claim the US is the richest country in thw world when it is #8 in per capita income?

.         Luxembourg         80,288
2.         Norway                  64,193                 
3.         Iceland         52,764
4.         Switzerland         50,532
5.         Ireland         48,604
6.         Denmark         47,984
7.         Qatar                  43,110                 
8.         United States         42,000
9.         Sweden                  39,694                 
10.         Netherlands         38,618

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 12:17 AM

The longer you keep responding to this guy, the more of your time you waste.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 09:08 AM

Well, Janie, you are completely correct and I do understand that these fathers ain't got a lot of resources and most themselves are livin' in poverty...

I should have made that point...

But with that said, I also think that Welfare Reform places way too much ***blame*** on women... Yeah, I know that one can't really blame victims but that seems to be the crux of Welfare Reform... It's like *** pilin' on*** folks who never had the boots, let alone the bootstraps, with which to pull themselves up...

But I agree that one can't get blood from a turnip...

BTW, what are you seein' in yer area with child care??? 'Round here, and there was just a nice piece in the Post on it, the timebomb factor has kicked in big time and lots of moms can not longer afford to work anymore and the state, with it's budgetary woes, isn't able to pick up the slack... But then again, Virginia isn't big on taxes and is more hung up on building new roads and not kicking more $$$ into child care... I know that N.C. has the 7% sales tax and I believe higher income taxes than Virginia so maybe you all have more resources to cover the Bush administrations failures to keep up...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 10:33 AM

I am ready for the hard questions Bobert but it looks like you are not.

Bobert: I still have never posted a cut 'n paste... All my stuff I come by the ol' fashion way: hard work.

All that stuff you posted on 13 Mar 07 at 07:10 PM was cut and pasted from Mother Jones.

Now again, I am asking you how you figure the US is the richest country in the world?

I researched it the old fashioned way, hard work, and I found out it is #8 down the list.

After we get that straightened out the one in five "fact" is next.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 09:57 PM

Serious lack of funding to subsidize day care here, also, Bobert. Day care services have always been underfunded. I'm not sure of the why's on that. I think the States have to put up a significant amount of the funding for day care supplements, and I think the funding comes from a patchwork of assorted programs and grants.

I know little, if anything, about day care supplement programs or funding, but I'm going to speculate that the State doesn't want to get into the business of licensing and regulating every single woman who provides day care in her home. I think I am correct in saying that in North Carolina, the State will only provide day care assistance when the service is provided by a licensed provider (read facility.) And then, only if money is available to do so. To require licensing of home providers would drive many of them out of business, greatly reduce the already tight availability of day care providers, and disrupt the underground economy enough that it would increase the demand for public assistance. I think there is also a good bit of cost shifting to parents and Boards of Education for school age children who attend school-based aftercare programs.

The lack of funding also probably reflects the remnants of that double standard that women so often get caught in--they should stay home and care for there children, but they should also work for peanuts outside the home.

I don't know that I agree that TANF and Work First blame women anymore than did AFDC. The rules and regs. DO continue to operationalize our western/protestant/capitalistic belief that the poor have only themselves to blame.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 11:02 PM

Let's talk about values and they way values help and hinder finding effective means to alleviate poverty and deprivation.

I'm too tired to articulate this well, but I want to toss it out now, lest I forget or decide it is too much trouble to articulate later.

I'm thinking of a a client with a child in a Headstart program. A number of times she has expressed dismay about the lunches the children in the program receive. I actually think they are very good lunches. But she considers them to be seriously lacking because they are often vegetarian lunches with no meat and light on the starches. She is truly outraged by this. To her, vegetarian chili is an outrage. She sees it solely as cost-cutting at the expense of her child's nutrition.

Her position is certainly partly about ignorance. but it is also about values and past experience. A real meal has meat, and that is all there is to it. In her life and experience (she grew up very poor in rural North Carolina,) if there is no meat on the table, it is because the family can't afford it. And she didn't grow up in a family that had nutritional information, so a meatless meal was also a very meager, unbalanced meal. Her dismay at the Headstart lunches reveals her values about food and nutrition, not merely her ignorance about the same. You can (and I have to a small degree) provide nutrition education, but she ain't buying. Why? Because the issue is one of values and not just lack of information or education.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 01:04 AM

There have been many valid topics raised since I was here last, but I can't speak to them now. Before I forget, I did want to thank Bobert for his well-presented case study of Adam. I remembered it after I'd logged off and was hitting the hay. It is a shame it ended sadly.
The discussion of the changes in welfare and other comments early on reminded me of a patient who was being seen in a clinic I ran. She was an older client...nice lady...who was on welfare...food stamps, etc. who had sarcoidosis. She was very positive, despite her own illness and living situation. She was divorced, and her husband was supposed to be providing her with alimony, but the state couldn't find him. (More on that later.) In addition, she was unemployable. To make matters worse, she had a child, who she adored. I think he was about 5...but this was almost 30 years ago, so forgive my memory lapses. He had cystic fibrosis. (Yeah, I couldn't make this up if I tried.) The woman was in a constant battle with social services because they wanted her to put her child in an institution. Not because she wasn't taking good care of her son, which she did. She was well-groomed herself and smart. At a hearing, she pointed out that it would cost the state, at that time, $1000 a month to institutionalize her son, yet all she wanted was a $500 a month increase in his care benefits. The state, naturally, refused to see the logic in this argument. I'm serious. We couldn't believe it. Still, she forged ahead. Her son was thin and pale and, well, a mess, but she had a stroller...one of those foldable kinds...which she had rigged with his oxygen tank and all of the gear she needed to suction him, which he frequently needed. You could feel the love when she entered a room.
At any rate, one day she came into our offices...we were in a state-owned and operated building, a floor just above the Public Health Nursing Dept. We operated several of our FP clinics onsite, as well as another set of clinics in a house offsite. She'd been crying, and after we'd calmed and sat her down, we asked what had happened. She had her son with her, and he seemed his usual self. Well, amid further tears, she told us that welfare had discovered, during an unannounced visit to the house she rented an apartment in, that she had a male living with her...he was also on welfare. They gave her an ultimatum...either he went or both their benefits would be adjusted to...well, you get the picture. Back then, you were not allowed to share rooms or apts. if you weren't married. That meant two men or two women on welfare weren't allowed to do so either. Which, of course, led us to wonder, well, then, how the heck was anyone to get ahead? We set the client up with our onsite social worker, who knew how to wring the most out of the system with the least amount of ruffled feathers. (BTW, the husband? Our client kept giving welfare his address and phone number, yet they couldn't find him in the next town over? This was before NYS got the legislature to pass the aptly-called "deadbeat dad" law and got the justice system to enforce it rigorously.) That's just one story out of how many? I have more. Even now, though, it takes a lot out of me to relate, let alone relive, them as I do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 01:12 AM

Now, on to the piece I came prepared to share:

Excerpts from:The New York Times Magazine
3.18.07 p.15-17
The Way We Live Now

A Slow Emancipation
In Africa as in America,
slavery's legacy continues to unfold
across the generations.
By Kwame Anthony Appiah

Once, when I was a child in Kumasi, Ghana, I asked my father, in a room full of people, if one of the women there was really my aunt. She lived in one of the family houses, and I'd always called her auntie. In memory, I see her lowering her eyes as my father brushed the question aside, angrily. Later, when we were alone, he told me that one must never inquire after people's ancestry in public. There are many Ashanti proverbs about this. One says simply, Too much revealing of origins spoils a town. And here's why my father changed the subject: my "auntie" was, as everyone else in the room would have known, the descendant of a family slave.

My father was trying to avoid embarrassing her, although I don't think he regarded her ancestry as an embarrassment himself. Undlike her ancestors, she could not be sold; she could not be separated against her will from her children; she was free to work wherever she could. Yet in the eyes of the community - and in her own eyes - she was of lower status than the rest of us. If she could not find a husband to provide for her (and a prosperous husband was unlikely to marry a woman of her status), the safest place for her was with the family to which her ancestors had belonged. So she stayed.

(Then the article goes into the history of that country's slavery and more of the writer's recollections. The last two paragraphs are where I had my epiphany.)

But the politics of abolition and redemption, now as then, go only so far. You can legislate against the peshgi (my insertion: a debt that must be worked off) system, pass laws regulating working conditions and, in a dozen ways, deny legal recognition to the slaveholder's claim to manage the lives of his slaves. You cannot thereby command respect for them or grant them self-respect, because these things are not within the power of the market or legislature. Nor can you guarantee that someone who has experienced only slavery will be prepared to manage a life alone, even if he had the money to do so. There's no neat toggle switch between slave and free.

The woman I asked my father about is not a slave. but she carries on something crucial to the enslavement of her ancestors. Beyond the possibility of being sold away and the impossibility of making your own decisions, slavery meant that certain people were hereditarily inferior. You can abandon the slave markets and demand that all who work are paid for their labor and free to leave it, but even if you succeed, the stigma and the status won't give way so easily. That's why I haven't told you her name. Emancipation is only the beginning of freedom.

I'm not sure if some will get the connection between these paragraphs I've excerpted, but if you substitute poverty for the word slavery, perhaps, the light will glimmer in your mind, too. I thought this might help some who don't seem to get the subject in its entirety. If a society views its poor as if it were their fault they are poor, instead of taking responsibility for the social structures that keep them "in their place" and refuses to acknowledge the way society has actually caused the poverty to grow rather than be reduced, then the poor, even equipped with the tools to get them out, probably won't be able to abandon the life and communities in which they've lived their entire lives. Of course, there are exceptions...there always are, but when even some of the very people, who are there to help them, make them "feel their place" through each encounter, well, how can they escape? And, if even the workers make that feeling felt, how do you think the ones in society that are actively trying to make sure they never leave their situation treat them when they try?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 07:14 AM

Too much readin' and too little time before work today...

Will be back this evening...

Values??? Yeah, Janie, and we can run with them for quite awhile...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 07:47 AM

Very interesting thread. Now, I was raised in the poorest county of one of the poorest states in the union. I have seen poverty first hand. I know the damage it does to one's psyche. So, tell me this: How many of you were born into such poverty, as opposed to most of you who have only been observers?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 01:33 PM

Kendall - My parents were both born into poverty and I was born to working class poor. Aside from their own determination and hard work, I believe that it was the GI Bill and good economic times that helped my parents claw their way into a better situation.

By the time I was born they could be considered working-class poor. My children were born to a university educated (thanks to the Canadian govt.), single mom who struggles to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.

Yes, it can be done with support and government assistance but...

what Wordsmith said is very, very true. Poverty is a social shame. Each time you succeed by climbing your way up the socio-economic ladder, you have to hide the shame of your past. Its like entering another country. You don't speak the same language, your manners are different and you solve problems in a different way.

You no longer have a social structure to support you. You become a stranger in unchartered territory. Not only that, the family and friends from your past, although they say they are proud of you, treat you like you are now different than they are. You are not the same.

So there you have it. You become a stranger to your family and friends and your new peers know that you are different but they can't quite put their finger on it. I'm watching my highly educated daughter experience the same thing. Her experiences, attitudes and her politics are different than mine and she struggles to fit in with her peers, socially.

Sometimes you wonder if its worth it or if you should have just stayed within the security of your own social class. Wordsmith's example was excellent, "the safest place for her was with the family to which her ancestors had belonged. So she stayed."

It takes an immense amount of courage to leave behind all that is familiar to you.   "You cannot thereby command respect for them or grant them self-respect, because these things are not within the power of the market or legislature." Thanks, Wordsmith for explaining why there is no neat toggle switch.

I still advocate, however, for 'equal opportunity'. Its important to have choices and to know that what you become is not pre-destined. Its called hope.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 01:37 PM

"How many of you were born into such poverty"

We were so poor that if you didn't wake up with a hard-on Christmas Day ya had nothin' to play with.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 08:26 PM

There are many poverty jokes, but I'm not going to get into those.

When someone told me that in her situation every morning, whoever left the house first was the best dressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 09:39 PM

You're right. But I had to take the place of the bait in the mouse trap.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 10:12 PM

I am not trying to paint a rosy picture or deny that poverty exists in the US but I found that an average of 3.6 percent of Americans suffered from hunger in 2004/02 according to the USDA:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err11/err11appD.pdf page 2 table D1

Prevalence rates of food insecurity and food insecurity with hunger
by State, 1996-98 (average), 1999-2001 (average), and 2002-04 (average)

This is less than 1 in 27.7 adults and kids, not 1 in 5 but it is still to high.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 10:18 PM

That's more than 11,000,000 people. Been there and done that. "I''ll tell you one thing, Jack, you listen when your stomach speaks [thank you Jesse]."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 05:14 AM

I'm not trying to split hairs, but that USDA figure is actually the percentage of households in the USA that experience hunger, and not the percentage of individuals. Relative to many other places, even that is a low figure. but in the USA, with our resources and with our dumpsters full of uneaten food, no one should have to go hungry for a night.

See http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-basics/hunger-facts-domestic.html for more statistical information on hunger in the United States.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 07:02 AM

The unemployment rate is around 5% which is a relativly small number of Americans, but when you are out of work, you are 100% out of work.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 10:23 PM

"And the Democrats are no better. Let's not forget that it was Clinton who dismantled the system of social welfare we fought for in the 1930s and 60s. He slashed the welfare rolls from 12 to 5 million in a matter of years, and now that there are no jobs to go around, there is no safety net for millions of the most vulnerable members of American society. But the fact of the matter is, we don't want welfare - we want quality jobs, health care, housing, and education, and we don't mind working hard to get these things. But the capitalist system is based on the endless pursuit of profit - our interests come second to the interests of the CEOs and billionaires."

From here.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 11:44 PM

Values.

I'm gonna ramble a bit and not try to tie things together real tightly here.

There are some who would say that many people who live in poverty make choices that put them there and/or keep them there. I agree.

There are some who say that many people who don't live in poverty make choices that cause or contribute to creating and maintaining poverty. I agree.

In all societies, beyond a certain age, people are expected to take responsibility for the choices they make. (Responsibility is not synonymous with blame.) I think this is reasonable, and when people can see and do this, my observation is that it is empowering. If I don't understand that I have responsibility, how can I ever believe that I have the power to effect change from within or from without?

In all my years of practice have I observed lots of people making bad or ineffective choices? Oh yes indeed!

In all my years of practice have I seen people make impulsive and needlessly uninformed choices? You betcha!

In all my years of practice have I ever encountered one single individual whose goal was to make bad choices? Never. Nada. Not once.

With respect to personal well-being, my observations and experience has been that individuals always make the best choice they know how to make at any particular time given the knowledge and the resources (internal and external) available to them at the time. Not once in 35 years of practice have I observed anyone approach a choice from the standpoint of "I want to make the worst possible decision that I can right now," even when they may in fact be making that worst possible decision.

One of the primary influences on the choices each of us make are our values. Our paradigm. Our beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. Our values permeate every big and small decision we make. Our values/beliefs determine the color of the lens through which we view the world. They are the scales on which we weigh the worth of ourselves and others.

No where in the 'rule book' does it say that all the values/beliefs, both major and minor, we harbor as individuals, as communities or as societies must be, or are, congruent.

More often than not, people and societies mistake values and beliefs for 'fact' or 'objective reality,' (whatever that is:O)

So--what do values have to do with poverty?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 11:51 PM

Well, for one, societal values that are in conflict with one another lead to social welfare programs that do not come anywhere close to fulfilling their mandate.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 01:02 AM

Janie - I agree with most of what you say but I wonder about this - "One of the primary influences on the choices each of us make are our values."

I think the primary influence is education because learning to think critically gives us the ability to make informed decisions. Thats why education should be a right.

If you are uneducated, you must rely on values which are contained within a belief system that is handed down from one generation to the next.

So yes, values are the primary influence but values can change or be altered depending on your level of education.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 01:31 AM

Education is the most important weapon in all battles, poverty, drugs, health. Yes it should be an EQUAL RIGHT to all.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 07:04 AM

Peace, you make an excellent point. We don't want welfare, we want jobs. Ok, one thing we could do is stop buying foreign goods. Sure you can save a few bucks on a pair of jeans made in Singapore, but what are they doing for us?
We are selling our country to China and handing them the knife that could be used to stab us in the back. Of course, when they do, we will not be wearing an expensive made in America by union workers shirt!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 02:08 PM

Janie: You may be right about it being the percentage of households. I can't find that report any more.

I did find another report that put the actual number of children as .7% in 2004. A far cry from 20%.

Historically it was

1998        1.0
1999         .7
2000         .8
2001         .6
2002         .8
2003         .6
2004         .7

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err11/err11b.pdf page 5

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 02:15 PM

0.7 +/- 0.1 between 1999 and 2004 inclusive.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 03:14 PM

Fact:

*Exxon's 20005 profit of $36.13B is more that the GNP of 2/3 of the world's nations...

Facts:

Mobil Exxon profit margin in 2006 10.6%
Pfizer profit margin in 2006      15.7%
Citigroup profit margin in 2006   18.7%

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 09:32 PM

Barry:

"Education is the most important weapon in all battles, poverty, drugs, health. Yes it should be an EQUAL RIGHT to all."

There is free public education in the US K-12. There is even free tuition at many colleges including Harvard to the underpriveleged.

However the people need to take advantage of the opportunity and strive to obtain an education.

Why do the Asian Americans do so much better in school, graduating more often and continuing through college more often? Are they more privileged than other xxx-american minorities?

"The national graduation rate for the public school class of 2000 was 69%. The rate for white students was 76%; for Asian students it was 79%; for African-American students it was 55%; for Hispanic students it was 53%; and for Native Americans it was 57%."
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_31.htm

"The study, released recently by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that only 13 percent of Hispanics and 15 percent of Blacks had earned a bachelor's degree. That compared with rates of 31 percent for Whites and 62 percent for Asian Americans, based on 2000 Census data.

The study found that 11 percent of American Indians earn bachelor's degrees, the lowest rate of any group."

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DXK/is_3_22/ai_n13619954

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 11:14 PM

I suspect that if one were to analyze the demographic attributes of high school drop-outs, controlling for race and ethnicity, that the most common denominator would be lower socio-economic status.

Ditto for demographic statistics related to both college attendance and college graduation rates.

What all groups with elevated high school drp out rates have in common, is they are all groups that have long histories of being devalued because of race, ethnicity and/or socio-economic status.

'Isms' are expressions of values. Racism and prejudice of all kinds embody values. While individuals, families, communities and minority groups of all sorts may hold values that differ in some ways from those of the larger or more powerful society, these smaller groups also absorb the values of the larger and more powerful society.

Children are sponges. If a minority child lives in a society that devalues that child's group, the child will internalize that and devalue themselves. If a child is told they are not likely to succeed at something. They are less likely to succeed at something.

And most of us prefer to stay away from places we do not feel welcomed or valued.

One way to cope with this is to be defiant. One way to cope with this is to insulate oneself and find a sense of power and belonging in a gang. Etc. Etc. Etc.

In line with dianavan's remarks about values and education, the age at which we really begin to 'lose' these kids in school and also the age at which they are becoming capable of those critical thinking skills. It is the age at which they are ready to try out different ideas and identities and values that may be different from those of their parents. From a developmental perspective, when that child disengages, a golden, and perhaps critical opportunity has been lost. Or at the very least, the window of opportunity to acquire or to reshape critical values and beliefs becomes substantially smaller.

A kid that is really engaged and who really has a sense of ownership, belonging and entitlement to be whatever they have the potential to be does not suddenly flip a switch off and quit school at age 16. The process of alienation and disengagement begins well before the point at which the kid drops out.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 11:22 PM

"The process of alienation and disengagement begins well before the point at which the kid drops out."

THAT is a major truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 11:33 PM

In my previous post

... begin to 'lose' these kids in school and also the age ...

should have read
...begin to 'lose' these kids in school is also the age....

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 12:44 AM

Dickey, Harvard & the few other colleges that you mention just started this practice. You said many. Name me many that have been doing this practice for any number of years.

I do know that in the US K-12 is free, I'm still putting 2 through their schooling, 1 in college & 1 on his way this yr.

So what are you trying to say?

<"Why do the Asian Americans do so much better in school, graduating more often and continuing through college more often? Are they more privileged than other xxx-american minorities?">

<"The national graduation rate for the public school class of 2000 was 69%. The rate for white students was 76%; for Asian students it was 79%; for African-American students it was 55%; for Hispanic students it was 53%; and for Native Americans it was 57%."
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_31.htm">

<"The study, released recently by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that only 13 percent of Hispanics and 15 percent of Blacks had earned a bachelor's degree. That compared with rates of 31 percent for Whites and 62 percent for Asian Americans, based on 2000 Census data.">

<"The study found that 11 percent of American Indians earn bachelor's degrees, the lowest rate of any group.">

Again, what are you trying to say Dickey?

Are you trying to point out that American minorities a born too stupid or too poor. That they are they from a more socio-economic depressed class? Are you thinking that Asian Americans are born wealthier or that they're born brighter?

I'm not challenging your stats Dickey, which I'd tend to be ok with. But seeing as you attached my name to them I'm wondering what the point was & if you're trying to say that the xxx-american minorities can only fault themselves for being born too poor, born too stupid or just had the bad luck of being too stupid & too poor to pull themselves out of a rut?

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 12:54 AM

Barry: I asked a question. It was not based on any assumtions. Do you know the answer. The reasons?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 01:00 AM

Poverty, Dickey, Poverty!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 03:04 AM

I'm glad connections were made by more than one. Thanks. In response to Kendall's question - a valid point - I wrote a big spiel about my own life, then deleted it. I've been relatively lucky. It's like that song, Sinatra used to sing: That's Life. Since, someone mentioned the company, I thought I'd share these stats instead:

In 2006, ExxonMobil made $39.5B (that's billion) in profits.

That breaks down to:
$1,252 per second,
$4.5M per hour,
$108M per day.

While you read this, ExxonMobil made another $15,000! (SL 2.02.07)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 05:24 AM

"Why do the Asian Americans do so much better in school, graduating more often and continuing through college more often?"

The roles and responsibilies in Chinese families are very clearly defined. If you are a Chinese student, you don't have to do anything other than study. Your food is prepared for you, your laundry is taken care of, you aren't expected to work and you don't have to care for little brothers and sisters. You are an investment for the future. With everything being provided for you, you are expected to do well.

If all family systems were as effecient, their children would also be excellent students.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 07:26 AM

A few years ago there was a college professor who did a study and came up with this theory, that of the three distinct races, the most and least intelligent were:

1. Asian
2.Caucasian
3. Blacks.

He had a number of death threats and I wonder if someone finally got him?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 02:57 PM

Barry: So poverty is the reaqson for poverty?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 04:49 PM

No, Dickey, it's a lack of education & the understanding of their situation & the lack of necessary means to escape it.
I believe that poverty is an institution that serves the very wealthy, the very powerful in government & in the private sector and that witout it the distrubation of knowledge & wealth would be more evenly spread but it would be a cost that those that at present & past had & have & will never part with. So the poor are the grease that the wheels of fortune grind & there they will remain.

Without them the rich & powerful would not live so well!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 05:02 PM

If we all had phDs, who would flip our burgers?

Seems to me that it goes like this. It's circular, ignorance, poverty, crime. Round and round it goes.

Remember the bumper sticker that said, "If you think education is expensive, consider ignorance". Believe me, it's hard to learn on an empty stomach.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 05:13 PM

People who ain't 'been there' generally do not understand, Kendall. To many people, missing breakfast and lunch is hunger. (That remark is directed to no one on this thread.) Some folks will never understand. That's just the way it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 08:59 PM

Haven't had much computer time over the last last 3 days and not mush this evening but since I was last here I noticed a very distinct pattern... There are two camps here...

One camp wants to discuss some very heady stuff...

The other, for what ever reasons, has no interst in discusssing the subject but throwing out endless stats, re-enforcing what my Stats 201 professor told the class on the 1st day which was, "I can use stats to prove 1 = 2 or anything I want to prove..." and then on to prove that 1 = 2!!!

Stat folks, you know, the ones who somehow come up with those 1 = 2 kinda stas in discussions seem to me to be hiding from the realities of the discussion... That's been my obseravtion throughout my life and it holds here in Mudville...

But that's kinda about ***values***... Yeah, there are folks who rather than say to themselves "Hmmmmm, poverty is a real thing... There are millions of kids that will go hungry tonight... What can I do" who rather than stop there will go searching for stats that say the oppisite...

The only conclusion on why folks would dismiss poverty, or balme it on it's vitims, is that these folks hust don't want to share... I can't think of any other reason why folks would go to such an extent to ***rationalize*** po9verty as some kind of ***career choice***???

So, yeah...

...it does come down to "values"...

Some folks "value" every life and have a desire that everyone has an equal right to prosperity and happiness...

Some folks don't and have a "value" that, "If you din't want to be poor, you should have picked richer parents..."

Okay, to be fair, some folks do find their way outta the cycle... But it's very few... Janie and I have seen it up close...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 12:31 AM

Bobert:

You are the one that brought the stats into the discussion. Why?

Now that they are here, if someone feels that they are not accurate or do not relate to the real poverty situation in America, I think they can discuss it.

You throw out a number about how much money Exxon/Mobil made. Is that the reason for poverty? People are piss poor in Mexico where the state took over the oil companies, some of them were seized from the US. Are the people in Mexico better off because they have no huge oil company there?

There has to be the biggest everything. Hamburger chain, ball of string, city, etc. Exxon sells the most oil and therefore makes the most money. Is that the reason for poverty? Get rid of Exxon and the next oil company becomes the biggest.

Exxon made $39 billion off of $339 billion in revenues. Citicorp made $24 billion off of $131 billion in revenues. Nearly twice the profit margin. Is Citicorp less evil than Exxon because they had less revenues or more evil because they made a higher percentage of profit? Microsoft made $12 billion profit on $39 billion in revenues, a 30% profit. GM lost $10 billion on $192 billion revenue.

Stating how much money the largest corporation made is a red herring, a straw man issue, a diversion and will not get to the root of the reason for poverty.

Companies want people with money that they can sell goods and services to, not poor people that can't buy anything and are a poor credit risk.

The only way companies can profit off of poor people is from cheap labor such as illegal aliens. The same anti-poverty crowd is pro-illegal alien. These people work cheap and bring down wages all over the country. The law that makes it illegal for companies to hire illegal aliens needs to be enforced. That will increase wages on the low end of the scale and help poor people.

Now, on to the root causes of poverty. It begins at home, with the family. All you need to do is study the Asian minority for example. They have a sense of family that is lacking among other minority groups. They start out with less than other minorities and soon they are middle class.

It is very true that education is the key to eliminating poverty but the people must want and seek to get an education like the Asian minority does. The government cannot do that for people, they have to do that themselves. Civil rights leaders need to encourage young poor people to get and education and tell them it is possible, give them a positive attitude. Instead I hear them blaming others for the problem and sending the message that they can't get ahead because other people are preventing them from getting ahead.

Dianavan said: "I quite often wonder why some people seem to dwell in poverty while others are able to lift themselves out of misery. I think it may have something to do with the ability to network, socially, and the ability to access services and goods that are available.

I also know that to escape the cycle of poverty, you must be able to see that you have choices and are able to make decisions. You must have hope. When people feel that they are trapped, they become helpless. I also know that you must be very assertive about your right to access the programs that are out there."

It looks to me like the Civil rights leaders need to be giving the poor people a message of hope and making them aware of the opportunities to escape poverty.

I don't want to belittle the sacrifices or important and valuable contributions to society Bobert has made with his social work. He knows a hell of a lot more than I do about the plight of the poor down in the trenches but you have to treat the disease, not just the symptoms. Citing a bunch of stats that may or may not be accurate and that may or may not related to the problem are not helpful and only serve to exacerbate the problem.

The Brown Daily Herald

"Problems facing the black community in America are primarily due to the breakdown of the nuclear family, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson told a half-filled MacMillan 117 Tuesday. His speech was followed by a heated question-and-answer session.

Though he cited personal experiences with segregation during his childhood, Peterson said the major perpetrators of racism in America today are organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and black leaders like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton....."

Bill Cosby

""....What was needed, said Cosby, was "parent power!" He elaborated: "Proper education has to begin at home.... We don't need another federal commission to study the problem...."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 01:24 AM

Beaubear (to borrow from Ebbie) don't get sidetracked by things that don't really matter to this discussion.

You and I, and others posting here, Wordsmith for example, have seen it up close. But others here have lived it.

There is nothing cut and dried, nothing straight forward, nothing black-or-white about any meaningful discussion or exploration of values.

Most of us are familiar with the term 'value-judgement.'

A more accurate phrasing of the way most of us often operationalize that term is 'moral judgement passed on those whose values appear to differ substantially from my own.'

People also tend to pass moral judgement on themselves when their lives, for myriad reasons, don't measure up to the values they have internalized.

Now, I ain't sayin' that we should nver make moral judgements. However, many of the moral judgements we make on others or ourselves, are made on the basis of insufficient information or evidence. When one realizes that, those jedgements tend to be more tentative.

I think, to at least some degree, poverty does cause poverty. Or rather the conditions that accompany poverty and are the result of poverty do contribute to the perpetuation of poverty. I hope we all agree, however, that the conditions that create and perpetuate poverty are extremely varied and complex. In addition, to borrow a term from psycholigical concepts, the factors involved are more oten than not overdetermined. (Means like the layers of an onion. Identify one valid cause. Peel it away. There is another layer beneath it. And another, and another, and another.) The number of layers varies from one place to another, and from one individual to another.) It would not be acurate at all to say that a prime cause of poverty is poverty.

Values are one ring of the onion. Remember that any one ring of the onion consists of many thin layers that can also be separated and examined.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 01:31 AM

One of the false assumptions that I think we make in this country--which has the actual physical resources at hand to shelter, feed, clothe and provide adequate medical care to our entire population--is that the vast majority of people living in this country who are poor, have the capacity to function and work well enough to pull themselves out of poverty, given enough help with education and work skill development.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 02:38 AM

& then there are those that are so beaten that they don't care anymore, life itself have no value, they value nothing, for them there is no hope, they see no hope, they will never see hope nor have any values unless someone or something runs deep & heavy interference. They are LOST & there are many of them.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:00 AM

Janie,

Yeah, it is complex but the one thing that you have pointed out and both of us has seen is the strong correlation between kids who grow up in poverty and that same group who grow up to be poor adults...

There isn't a lot of upward mobility in the US...

What is most disturbing is that it really doesn't have to be like this... The country has the resources but not the courage to redistribute those resources...

Sadder yet, much of the wealth that the US enjoys was created by the very folks who share the least in the product (wealth) such as alot of black folk, in particular, who were responsible for the building of much of the country's infastructure in the 19th century of which the economis engine runs... But these folks didn't share in the spils...

Opps... Gotta go to work...

Later

Beaubear

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:22 AM

Here is Bobert's message for poor people: "black folk, in particular, who were responsible for the building of much of the country's infastructure in the 19th century of which the economis engine runs... But these folks didn't share in the spils"

You were screwed by whitey and he owes you something. Until you get it you will always be poor.

According to the 1860 Census, 8% of familes held slaves. How many Americans died fighting slavery? How much do their decendants owe? How much do the Africans that sold fellow Africans into slavery owe?

Keep on sending those "your can't get ahead because you did not get an even break" messages Bobert, that will eliminate poverty for sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:40 AM

The REST of the numbers that were left out:

Total Population
31,183,582

Free Colored Persons
476,748

Total Free Population
27,233,198

Total Number of Slaves
3,950,528

Slaves as % of Population
13%

Total Number of Families
5,155,608

Total Number of Slaveholders
393,975

% of Families Owning Slaves
8%

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:46 AM

I cannot believe that anyone can try to blame poor people for being poor. What a disgusting thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 12:10 PM

I don't see where Bobert said anything about anybody owing anything.
Dickey are you now shoveling words into Bobert's mouth?

What was said & what you're saying he said are worlds apart!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 03:22 PM

What does "But these folks didn't share in the spils..." mean?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scoville
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 05:08 PM

"Spoils". It was just a typo.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 06:17 PM

Typical rich kid response, Dickey... You are jerk...

And, thanks Scoville, fir the assist... Dickey knew what I meant... But he is a rich fat man who sits 24/7 in front of his computer with his smug little mentality harrassin' me about anything that happens to be stuck up his butt...

I'd like to have him work one real day with me in the real world of, ahhhh, real work... Then he's have some level; of understanding of what life is about without the silver spoon stuck in his face...

Or better yet, give Dicky a night livin' under a brifge in Trenton, N.J...

Yeah....

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 06:47 PM

Exxon is at it again:
When found foraging through a neighbor's trash for food, 19-year-old Bruce Jackson was just 4 feet tall and weighed only 45 pounds.
        
(AP) A couple accused of starving their four adopted sons was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury, a prosecutor said.

Raymond and Vanessa Jackson were each indicted on 28 counts of aggravated assault and child endangerment in a case that inspired widespread outrage and was a touchstone for efforts to reform New Jersey's child welfare system.

The couple was charged in October with aggravated assault and child endangerment after a 19-year-old adopted son was found foraging through a neighbor's trash for food. Bruce Jackson was just 4 feet tall and weighed only 45 pounds.

Authorities found three younger adopted boys in the family's home who were undersized.

By the end of February, the boys, who were placed with other families, had gained between 15 and 33 pounds and grown in height between 1.5 and 6.5 inches, authorities said.

The Jacksons have said the boys had eating disorders that predated their placement with the family. Their defenders said they took in troubled children no one else would take.

But officials said the boys were locked out of the Jackson family's kitchen, were fed uncooked pancake batter and resorted to eating wallboard.

Three girls in the home — two adopted and one a foster child — were of normal size. All seven children were taken from the Jacksons by the state child welfare agency.

A report issued in February by Kevin Ryand, New Jersey's independent child advocate, said state workers consistently failed to carry out state policies in the case. Ryand recommended sweeping changes for the state's Division of Youth and Family Services.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:11 PM

This is a sad and disturbing story - but what exactly is your point in putting it in this thread, with your apparently sarcastic if vague introductory remark about Exxon?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:29 PM

There is no point, meself... He just loves the sound of his keyboard... Or keyboards... Fir all we know Richey may have a staff of righties pumpin' out all this crap...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:52 PM

What does this have to do with poverty?

You are part of the problem, Dickey. There are too many people like you that want to blame the poor for everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:56 PM

....while suckin' on their silver spoons...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:00 PM

Bobert: In case you have not noticed, I have avoided attacking you personally. I merely point out that you claim ststics are for loosers, post stastics, refuse to back up those statics and complain when someone else gives a statistic.

Have you pointed out any root causes of poverty?

Evidently some people here think that Exxon causes poverty because they keep mentioning how much money they make.

Something that was left off of that previous story is that the parents were paid $28,000 per year for fostering those boys, and the state forked it over.
"The Jacksons adopted the boys through DYFS and were receiving a stipend from the state, which peaked at about $28,000 a year before the oldest child turned 18 last year, according to Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Sarubbi said locks apparently were used to keep the boys from the kitchen and that the children were fed uncooked pancake batter, cereals and peanut butter and jelly."


After spending nearly three weeks alone and surviving on raw pasta, mustard and ketchup, a 2-year-old Jacksonville, Florida, girl was in good spirits Tuesday morning at a hospital, officials told CNN.

"The child is doing well," said David Foreman, a spokesman for Wolfson Children's Hospital, where the toddler was brought for treatment. "She was sitting up this morning, talking and laughing with the nurses."

Officer Ken Jefferson, spokesman for the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, said the little girl was brought to the hospital Monday, suffering from malnutrition, after an officer responded to a call from the child's father, Ogden Lee.

Lee, 33, was at the apartment of his estranged wife, 22-year-old Dakeysha Lee, who has been incarcerated since September 10. He told the responding officer that the apartment manager had let him into the apartment, where he found his daughter.

"The child basically survived on raw pasta, mustard, ketchup," Jefferson said.

Lee told the officer that he had been seeking a divorce from the mother and "had limited contact with his daughter during this process."

"After having no contact for several weeks, he vigorously tried to make contact," the police report said.

Jefferson said the mother was charged Monday with an intentional act of child abuse for leaving her daughter alone, notifying no one of the circumstances.

She will appear at an arraignment hearing Tuesday morning, he said.

According to records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Dakeysha Lee had a pair of misdemeanor arrests as a juvenile, and was serving time for shoplifting and a bad check, both misdemeanors."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:23 PM

I still don't get your point. Are you saying that these failed parents (to put it mildly) and others like them are the causes of poverty? Are you saying that the unfortunate children are the causes of poverty? Are you saying that government social assistance programs are the causes of poverty? Or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:25 PM

The root cause of poverty is greed coupled with power...

This country has the resources and wealth so that no child should be going to bed hungry tonight... These kids don't make the choice to go to bed hungry... They don't make the choice to live in a housing project where gunshots are heard every night... They don't make the choice to live in a one parent home... 'or to see their mom get up at 4:30 in the morning to catch a bus to a job that pays her $6.00 an hour...

No, these choices have been made by the greedy people, who BTW are the ***real*** welfare class in America... Yeah, it's their game, their rules, their, their, their...

..and when I read your stuff, Rickey, you reek of folks like them as you try to shift the blame away from your own greed and power and place it on choices that a hungry kid is making tonight...

You show no compassion... No understanding... No Christainity... No nuthin'... Just endless posts of just how folks who have either lived the reality of poverty or those of us who have deeply witnessed it and it's horrid anti-human effects are in your little smug word...wrong...

No, sir, you are wrong... This isn't just my opinion but the opinion of Ghandi, Jesus, Mohammed, Dr. King and just about anyone who has ever lived who knew the meaning of ***compassion***...

Go back to yer silver spoon...

Jesus told Mathew that there is "nothing hidden that won't one day be found and no secret kept that one day won't be public knowledge" and with each of you posts you prove those thoughts to be very true...

You are like the tin-man.... Heartless...

You ask what the cause of poverty is??? I told you... Lyndon Johnson told you... Bobby Keenedy told you... Martin Luther King told you... A 100,000 people told you in the "Poor People's Campaign"...

Yet, you do yer Vinnie Barborina thing... "Duhh, you talkin' to me???"

Yeah, we are...

Get off yer butt an' spend a little less time harrassin' me and a little more time trying to make a difference in the ***real world***... A good start would be to take yer rich 24/7 computer butt down to yer local women's shelter and ask if there's anything that you could do...

You do that and the rest will fall into place...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 10:00 PM

Oh, yeah, in case I didn't specifically say it...

... yeah, I think ***we*** collectively owe a share of our national wealth to black people...

We collectively stole them from their families... We collectively sold them as chattle... We collectively used them as slaves and/or
peasant class workers to build our infastructure... We collectively set them free with absolutely ***nuthing***... We collectively treated them as second class people... We collectively lynched them... We collectively made them feel as if they were no welcome in the only country they knew...

And we collectively continue to some degree doing all the things I've just mentioned...

And it no wonder that though there are more white folks (in numbers) who are poor there is a much larger percentage of balck people who are poor... Much, much larger...

So, yes, we collectively have some "repair"ations to make to blacl people...

Do think diffeerntly is teerribly racist and narrowminded...

But, we also owe "repair"ations to coal miners in West Virginia, to hunkies who ran the steel mills in Youngstownh, Ohio, to migrant workers who have put food on our tables going back as long as nayone reading this has been alive...

Yes, we collectively owe all the oppressed people.... That ***was*** waht the War on Poverty was supposed to be about until rich Republicans hired enough PR people and spent enough $$$ on PR ads to slam anyone who wasn't greedy... Thay slammed liberals... They slammed Warl Warren... They slammed Bobby Kennedy... No, they friggin'paid some poor shmo who didn't even know who Bobby Kennedy was to kill him... Same with Martin Luther King...

If you can't shut 'um up opne way, do it another is what the right wing in America is all about...

"Yeah, I don't have to give them niggers nuthin'... Hey, I didn't do that..." Yeah, this has been the battle cry of the rich, the greedy, the powerfull...

What a bunch of totally anti-human, greedy, uncompassionate, unChristain crap...

So for the smug-among-us... Screw you... You know what I'm sayin' is right...

You want to end poverty??? Change your thinking and the rest will follow... You can't have it all!!! Bring back the funding for breakfast programs so that poor kids would not only have an reason to go to school but also get at least one decent meal a day... Restore child care programs... Fund mental health... Pass a real mnimum wage law... Provide health care for every American... Put yer money where your mouth is on education.... The list goes on... Google "Great Society"....

Yeah, this is all about ***collective*** values... We have ***collectively*** created proverty and the only way to reverse it is if we ***collectively*** change our values and proirities...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 10:20 PM

Well put, Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 10:52 PM

Bobert: You are not smug are you?

Now what is your message for poor people? Is it "you are owed a living"? If that is not the message, what is it?

Seems to me the if "we" owe minority groups anything, "we" owe the Asians just as much as nay of them. How come having something owed to the Asians is not holding them back? Look at their graduation rates. It is better than the Caucasians.

You can't answer the hard questions so instead you try to belittle me. I haven't belittled you. I am just pointing out your inconsistencies.

Are you saying that Bill Cosby and Jesse Lee Peterson don't know what they are talking about? Are they heartless, smug and born with silver spoons? I don't know about Peterson but Bill Cosby was raised up poor as dirt in Philly back before the civil rights movement but due to good parents, none of that held him back. He worked after school to help the family. He was in the Navy.

He is described as an American actor, comedian, television producer, and activist. I don't hear him moaning and groaning about the biggest corporation in the world making the biggest profit.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:02 PM

"Now what is your message for poor people?"

I don't think his message is for POOR people.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 12:00 AM

A wise woman made a wise post a few days ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie - PM
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 05:34 PM

I would like to see Dickey hollering down into a dark well and, in return, hearing nothing.



Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:10 AM

I get a kick out of clueless people talking about poverty. It's like talking about far flung foreign countries. There are those who have read about them and those who have been there.I really think that those of us who have been there have a better picture than those who have read about them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 01:32 PM

I think that's why it should be mandatory for policy makers to live for one month on a welfare check. Give each of them a different scenario, ie: single mom with one, two and three kids, single male, single female, disabled, elderly and so on.

At least when they sit down together, they would have some experience on which to base their decisions.

I also think it should be required for teachers to take at least an introduction to sociology or cultural anthropology.

In fact, the trouble with most of our large, archaic institutions is that the bureacrats that make the decisions have absolutely no idea what its like to live the lives of those who are being effected by their decisions.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 02:19 PM

"Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,sco
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 02:36 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 01:10 AM

One value that I think mg has been articulating (Mary, if I'm wrong, please jump in and correct me) and I have been missing in reading her posts, is frugality, meaning the careful use of material resources. If one values frugality, one takes pride and finds satisfaction in being frugal. If one doesn't value frugality, one resents having to be frugal, and resents being expected to be frugal. I wonder if what mg has been trying to say is this; Teach young people the skills that are needed to be frugal. That is an excellent idea. From her posts, I also think mg values frugality, and practices that value in her life in a very real way. But our dominant culture does not place high value on frugality. If mg's solutions to poverty around teaching home economics, etc., are to be successful, the kids being taught need also to be taught to value frugality. That is much more difficult, since it is not a widely held value in our post-modern American culture.'

My paternal grandparents placed great value in being frugal. Both of them grew-up on poor, eastern Kentucky dirt farms. When young, they were frugal by necessity, but also by religious upbringing. They held to the same standards of frugality throughout their lives, even once it was no longer necessary for them to be as frugal. For them, it had the force of moral imperative.

I am not frugal. And I know very few people who truly are. I don't make alot of money--social workers, teachers and the like never do. If I were truly frugal, and truly moderate-if I consistently put my needs ahead of my wants, I would have no debt right now, would be certain I have put away enough money for retirement, and would consistently have enough money in savings to fix the roof when it needed it, go to the beach for a long weekend occasionally or for a whole week every few years without using a credit card, or pay cash for a new refrigerator when the one I have finally dies (which will be soon, I'm afraid.) And I am not saying I live extravagantly, am a spend-thrift or am in debt up to my ears. But worries about money and finances are constant and chronic. Car or home repairs get left undone because I don't want to go into debt to do them, but am not willing to be frugal enough to have the money put away to do them. Mostly I feel like I don't make enough money to be able to put that money away. More truthfully, I don't live frugally enough to have the money put away.

In two generations what was once a pretty widely held value in our culture has nearly gone extinct. Frugality as a value has been replaced with consumerism as a value.

When those of us who do have some material resources are not frugal with them, we use more than our fair share of the available resources. Directly and indirectly, we are contributing to poverty in our country.

The dominant society expects those who live in poverty to adapt our values regarding, for example, education. And I think most people who live in poverty in this country do value education. I don't think any of us run into many adults who quit school who will say, in hindsight, that they don't wish they had that high school diploma or GED. They well may say, however, that it was not, and still is not, an attainable goal.

We can also expect those who live in poverty (speaking in generalities) to hold the dominant cultural value of consumerism. If I blame a poor person for not being frugal, it is the skillet calling the kettle black. Is a poor person just as responsible for not being frugal as a person who is not poor? Yes. But, I will again say that blame and responsibility are not synonyms. It is unjust to blame the person living in poverty for not being frugal if I do not also blame myself and others who are not poor for not being frugal. And I will say that many poor people with whom I work, while not nearly as frugal as were, say, my grandparents, are much more frugal than am I or anyone else I know who is not poor.

Back to the definition of frugal-the careful use of material resources. For those who live in abject poverty, they have few material resources with which to be frugal. No matter how frugal they may be with the very minimal resources they have, the resources are not sufficient for basic needs to be met.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 01:14 AM

That is a fantastic post. Bravo.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 02:27 AM

"No, they friggin'paid some poor shmo who didn't even know who Bobby Kennedy was to kill him... Same with Martin Luther King"

Bobert: Who paid whom to shoot Lincoln and Reagan?

You seem able to make broad general statements but you can't answer specific questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 04:18 AM

Excellent post, Janie. When you are poor, instant gratification makes more sense than being frugal.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:12 AM

Yes, very good point, Janie...

Our culture is not frugal.... It is not taught... It is not even made to be a life style that is admirable but...

...quite the opposite...

Our society has had it rammed down its throat to consume, consume, consume...

"Man come on the TV
tell me how white my shirts should be
but he can't be a man
'cause he don't smoke the same
cigarttes as me..."

Been goin' on a long time with ad-men, peer pressure, money lenders all in cohoots to keep folks consumin' and more importantly...

...in debt!!!

Didn't use to be like that... When I grew up in the 50's in Northern Virginia everyone was purdy much, ahhhh, for lack of a better term...middle class... Norhtern Virgina in the 50's meant living in a 2 or 3 bedroom house, not McMansions but not slums either... We had Congressmen living in out sub-divison.... We had generals... We had war heros... We had bankers... But everyone lived frugaly by today's standards and debt was something associated purdy much with buying houses and cars... Oh sure, there were a few "charge cards" around for store like Sears or Montgomery Wards but you paid the balance every month...

But these days our society is not frugal... It is an out-of-vougue value and for folks who are poor it is very frustrating to be told that to be a success you have to own __________ 'r ___________ and to not have the resources to do it...

Actually is is downright cruel... And it makes people who are poor feel like failures which gets internalized and that internalization turns to anger and it all becomes a very vicious cycle that doesn't help people learn to make better (for lack of a better word) choices for themselves...

And the absolute boorish display of greed/consumerism is blasted 24/7 on the TV... Yeah, Boss Hog could wear the spoils of his success (theft) with a little more compassion and class but no... He flaunts it...

So, as part of a real national effort to end poverty Boss Hog needs to be re-educated to first stop his boorish consuming but more importantly to be made to see that he hasn't earned the share of wealth that he falsely believes that he has... No, the playing filed is not level... He needs to understand this and he needs to go back to doing waht his parents and grandparents did and that is to live a more frugal lifestyle...

(But, Bobert, if Boss Hog didn't consume so much then the economy would crumble!!!)

Bullfeathers... Actually the economy would do just fine and so would the planet as people would be making decisions not only what ad-men say they should but on what is healthy for society and the planet...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:41 AM

"When those of us who do have some material resources are not frugal with them, we use more than our fair share of the available resources. Directly and indirectly, we are contributing to poverty in our country."

I'm not so sure about the economics of this - whatever its evils, it seems to me that consmerism does create a great deal of employment - and I'm speaking as someone who is frugal to the point of being a skinflint; I have to admit that I don't do my part to create that employment.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 01:14 PM

Good point, Bobert.

Credit creates something else. A false image. Many folks who have credit, use it to create the illusion that they have more than they actually do. Without the credit to fall back on, they too, would join the ranks of the impoverished. In fact, many people are just one step ahead of the creditors.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 02:32 PM

I once heard a poor man say "I don't make enough money to have a budget."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 03:00 PM

I once heard a poor man say, "I don't make enough money to have a budgie."

Okay, I was just leaving ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 03:26 PM

Janie:

A wise man said in a post long ago:

"Bobert, you wouldn't know a fact if it fell out of a tree and landed on top of you."

I still haven't heard any response out of Bobert about why the Asian minority is not held back by the same reasons he gives for poverty, Jut name calling.

I still haven't called him any names. I just ask for some clarifcations of his facts and some answers.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 06:31 PM

Hi meself,

Economics is not my strong suit, but I guess my response to that is, at what real cost? At what wages and working conditions? In the USA, the consumerism that has become the norm is made possible by cheap, foreign labor who work at wages and in conditions that are comparable to slave labor, while causing a substantial loss of jobs in one industry after another in the USA.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 09:31 PM

Bobert: "Bring back the funding for breakfast programs"

Looks to me like it didn't go anywhere :

State by State Performance
While the national ratio was 44:100, thirteen states served school breakfast to at least 50 out of every 100 low-income children
eating school lunch:

State....School Breakfast to School Lunch Ratio
Oregon...............55.9
West Virginia........55.7
Kentucky.............55.4
Oklahoma.............54.7
Mississippi..........54.5
South Carolina.......54.1
Texas................53.8
New Mexico...........53.2
Vermont..............53.2
Arkansas.............53.0
Georgia..............52.8
Louisiana............51.2
North Carolina.......50.5

Six states served school breakfast to fewer than one in three low income children eating school lunch:

State School Breakfast to School Lunch Ratio
Connecticut..............33.0
New Hampshire............32.7
Alaska...................32.0
Utah.....................31.0
Illinois.................28.4
Wisconsin................26.5

Five states had double-digit increases in the number of children receiving a free or reduced price breakfast in 2004-2005 over the
year before:

Percent Increase in Number of Low-Income Children Receiving School Breakfast
New Jersey......39.1%
Idaho ..........17.0%
Nevada .........15.6%
Utah............15.5%
Wisconsin.......11.2%
        
By not reaching the 55:100 ratio reached by the best performing states, underperforming states are foregoing significant federal funding. In 2004-2005, the ten states foregoing the most federal funds missed out on a combined $249.4 million and leaving 1.2 million potentially eligible children unserved (almost two-thirds of the national totals):

State        Students Not Served Dollars Foregone
California........315,101......$63,290,662
New York..........206,688......$41,760,346
Illinois..........185,221......$37,795,649
Florida ..........106,923......$21,570,936
Pennsylvania.......97,495......$19,691,487
Ohio ..............74,620......$15,146,602
Michigan...........66,904 .....$13,558,412
Wisconsin..........64,309......$12,881,144
New Jersey ........62,635......$12,623,828
Arizona............55,147......$11,125,387



http://www.frac.org/pdf/SBPscore_sum.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 09:34 PM

Dickey,

In case you haven't noticed, I'm ignorin' you because you have not ***added*** one sincle thing to this discussion... Not one...

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Others,

Good point, Janie...

There definately is an aspect of sellin' stuff that has been made by other country's poor folks is going to have to catch up to us.... I belive that my Econ 201 professor refered to it as "floating" where stuff like this balances out over the long run... Okay, it may take awhile but there will come a point where the Chinese have so many of our dollars that a natural adjustment will take place...

Throw in the political scene in this country with so many folks who once had good jobs with some decent benefits falling further and futher behind and I think that "adjustment" is going to come sooner than later...

Yeah, Boss Hog has had a purdy good run this time around but if the US is going to survive itself and its corrupt government then only some adjustments will be what it takes to do so...

This isn't going to come as good news to Boss Hog, who BTW, has never had it so good... Like I pointed out in my last post, there waas a time when Congressmen lived in the same neighborhoods as the mechanic at the local Ford dealership... No, I'll be the first to admit that we won't be seeing those days anymore but, if the US is to survive, the gross inequities between the "haves" and the "have nots" are going to lessen...

***Revolutions*** occur when the Boss Hogs can't be brought to the table... I am hoping that won't have to be the case hwere in the US but I am not all that sure that won't be the case and like I have said before...

...if it does come down to ***revolution*** it will start in the South with the angry NASCAR dads who have figured out that Boss Hog is using Budwiser and race cars to placate them on one hand while sticking his other hands in their pockets...

I understand angry NASCAR dads because I have spent my life living with them and there's ont thing about these folks that I have learned is that once they turn on you they ain't turnin' back... So if there are Boss Hogs reading this, you might wants thaink about just how long you think you can get away with screwing folks...

But, then again... Historically, Boss Hog has never hasd the sense to know when he has stolen too much...

And, yeah, this is also all about poverty... If angry NASCAR dad figures out that he will work until the day he dies to pay off the debt to the "company store" then when he hears discussionas about "poverty" he will be less inclined to blame the victims...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:27 PM

Okay, I'm going to try to take on Dickey's recurring question re: success of the Asian minority as opposed to certain other minorities.

If you consider what's been said on this list, your question has been answered to some degree indirectly. Much, if not most, of the discussion has focussed on what could be called the "psychology" of poverty, rather than the systemic (mis)distribution of wealth. Where the latter has been faulted, it's been in relation to underfunding of health, education, and social welfare programs - but, as I say, much of the focus of this discussion has been on the kind of mindset that helps to keep people in poverty. In other words, no one seems to be denying that there are ideas, attitudes, outlooks, and - it's been addressed explicitly - values, that function to keep people in poverty (your posts seem to imply that none of the rest of us will admit this). Where the real difference seems to be is that you seem to feel that if people have such ideas, etc., then their misfortunes are their own fault, and that they deserve poverty, while some of the rest of us feel that they are not necessarily entirely to blame for their psychology, and to some extent are the products of social injustice.

So - I'm going to relate an anecdote which I feel conveys the crux of the issue better rather than would a long and convoluted argument.

I saw this story about a year ago on the Canadian national (CBC) news. It concerned the visit of a black American in his eighties to a small outport in Newfoundland, and this visit was quite a public event there. This man, whose name I promptly forgot, had been a sailor in WWII, and had been involved in a shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland. He and some of the rest of the crew swam to shore, and found themselves on a narrow rocky shore, trapped there by high steep cliffs. It was the middle of a stormy night and they were freezing; he sheltered himself in the midst of some rocks and prepared to die. However, the men of this nearby outport rappelled down the cliffs, at considerable risk to themselves, and were able to carry and hoist the survivors up the cliffs, and from there take them to their village. By the time this black man was discovered by one of the rescuers, he just wanted to die, and would not co-operate, but the rescuer forced him up, and made him walk back and forth on the beach till it was his turn to be taken up. After which, he was taken to a house, stripped down and put into a hot tub, where several women scrubbed the oil off him, at which point they discovered he WAS a black man - he assumed the game was up then, but they went on with their work as if that meant nothing. The next morning, he and the other survivors were taken away on another ship ... Now this man, sixty years later, described that as a transformative event in his life. Before that, he said, no white person had ever spoken a kind word to him, but here, these white men risked their lives to save him. He stayed in the navy for some years, and demanded and fought to be allowed to do such things as to take a radio operator's course, and a diving course, which had traditionally been closed to blacks; later he went into business, and became successful and wealthy. He began to speak to black audiences, particularly of young people, about his experience and what it meant. The implication of his story was that through this war-time experience, he came to realize that he was just as good as anyone else, and it was that realization that allowed him to get ahead. Otherwise, he would likely have remained just another person living in poverty who "deserved" to live in poverty because of his piss-poor attitude. Was his message to the poor kids he talked to that they deserved to be poor? No - his message was that they did NOT deserve to be poor - and they didn't have to be poor -

(That man, by the way, made several visits back to that outport over the years, and made several big contributions to the community, including a community-center, as I recall).

Here's another one. Does the name Lesra Martin ring a bell? He was the kid who ended up playing an instrumental role in the freeing of Hurricane Carter. He was taken from a Brooklyn ghetto by a group of Canadians and brought to Toronto - they found that although he had passed grade 10 (as I recall), he couldn't read ... With their help, he graduated with honours in a couple of years, got a law degree, and eventually became a Crown Prosecutor, the equivalent of a D.A., I suppose. Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn, his siblings led the "typical" ghetto life; one brother shot and killed, another in and out of jail ... The difference? Lesra had been given opportunity, and had come to believe in himself, through a longer-term transformative experience.

Now, what those of us who work in the "helping" professions try to do is give less dramatic transformative experiences to the people we work with every day. Sometimes we are a bit like that rescuer trying to force someone who has given up back onto his feet. We try to convince them that they are as good as anybody else, that they can achieve what others have achieved, and we try to steer them toward opportunity. And, yes, we get distressed when tight-fisted governments and mean-spirited politicians seem to be doing their best to limit that opportunity everywhere we look.

Now for the Asians. First of all, there is a selection process before they even get here. As a general rule, those without self-confidence, ambition and coping skills don't get here. And often they come from backgrounds that have given them very solid and strict rules of behaviour, and clearly defined roles in family, community and work life; the Chinese and Confucianism is a prime example. And they are not arriving on our shores with internalized notions of being second-class citizens. And, for that matter, many of them are not arriving with nothing; I have no idea what the percentages are, but there are many Asians immigrating with university educations and professions ...

Okay, I've said enough; you should get the idea ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:34 PM

Bobert: Is your claim that funding for shool breakfasts whent somehwere and needed to be brought back true or untrue?

You ignore me because you cannot support your statements or statistics and cannot answer simple questions.

By the way, your last post had nothing to do with poverty except in other countries. It is entirely a rant against capitalisim.

It belongs in another thread about capitalisim.

Now Bobert, do you think Bill Cosby and that Peterson guy are wrong about poverty? Notice that this is on subject.

_______yes

_______no

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:41 PM

What does Bill Cosby say about poverty? Remind us, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 02:21 AM

Do you know what's on the menue Dickey? No! I didn't think so!
And those stats are still far to low.

Bill doesn't want to be reminded.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 03:29 AM

meself is right, dickey. You cannot impose the values of one culture on another culture. There is nothing about N. American culture, at present, that encourages anything other than mindless consumerism.

You're going to have to try a little harder, dickey. You keep comparing apples to oranges. This has been pointed out to you previously. You are boring and have nothing to say of any importance. How old are you?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 07:56 AM

Bill Cosby is right when he talkes about balck people taking on personal responsibility but wrong...

,,,in assuming that the conditions are right for any greater opportunity for collective upward mobility...

So, for him to say to blacks, under the current conditions, "Pull yourselves up" is not only cruel, but unrealistic...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 06:42 PM

Even Dianvan, whom I seldom agree with, said:

"I quite often wonder why some people seem to dwell in poverty while others are able to lift themselves out of misery. I think it may have something to do with the ability to network, socially, and the ability to access services and goods that are available."

I think this should be the message for poor people.

Seems to me the Civil Rights leaders need to be telling poor people how to overcome poverty. To empower them rather than tell them it is the fault of so and so and we need to fix that situation or you will always be poor.

For about the third time, What enables the Asian minority to overcome poverty when other minorities cannot?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 06:58 PM

Ho hum.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dickey
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 07:00 PM

My cookie got eaten somehow. The last post was mine.

Breaking the Silence
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.
Monday, March 26, 2007 New York Times

''Go into any inner-city neighborhood,'' Barack Obama said in his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, ''and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.'' In a speech filled with rousing applause lines, it was a line that many black Democratic delegates found especially galvanizing. Not just because they agreed, but because it was a home truth they'd seldom heard a politician say out loud.

Why has it been so difficult for black leaders to say such things in public, without being pilloried for ''blaming the victim''? Why the huge flap over Bill Cosby's insistence that black teenagers do their homework, stay in school, master standard English and stop having babies? Any black person who frequents a barbershop or beauty parlor in the inner city knows that Mr. Cosby was only echoing sentiments widely shared in the black community......"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 07:09 PM

"For about the third time, What enables the Asian minority to overcome poverty when other minorities cannot? "

It is often the case that immigrants are able to 'raise themselves from relative poverty' by acquiring investment money from other people. The problem is for many other folks, there IS no investment money.

The above is a generalization, but an apt one. Some places in Canada have been 'economically taken over' by SE Asian people, and I don't begrude them that. But to suggest it was done by money they made in Canada starting from scratch is balderdash. People do not rise from poverty without a helping hand up.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 07:15 PM

In fact, under the great Mr Mulroney, Canada brought in a policy to fast-track the immigration process for (primarily Asian) immigrants who commit themselves to invest so many tens-of-thousands of their own money in Canada. Many wealthy Asians have gained (bought) Canadian citizenship under this mercenary policy. (So much for "Give us your tired, your hungry ... ").

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dickey
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 07:59 PM

So it is a lack of investment money that keeps minorities other than the Asians from completing high school?

Was it investment money that enabled Bill Cosby to emerge from poverty or was the support of his family?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 08:03 PM

Well, what Dickey is not capable of internalizing is that Asians came to this country as immigrants, not slaves....

Slaves were not afforded an eductaion... Then along came the Civil Wra (which it wasn't...), the Emmancipation proclamation, Reconstruction and Jim Crow which kept black people basically uneducated or grossly under-educated until Brown v, Topeka Board of Education in 1953...

Then it took years after that to make any progress toward black being afforded access to education... Blacks still do not enjoy equal access to an education as Asians ansd whites... Part of the problem is this frustrating cycle of keeping blacks segreagtaed which, inspite of the progress since '53 is still a major problem in many communities accross America...

But bottom line, the Asian argument is not an argument at all but another patented right wing distraction...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 08:10 PM

Was Bill Cosby calling for a reduction of funding for education, health, and social welfare programs? Just wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 08:14 PM

Oprah Winfrey Bio

"Oprah Winfrey rose from poverty and a troubled youth to become the most powerful and influential woman in television and, according to Forbes Magazine, the world's most highly paid entertainer. Though primarily recognized as a talk show hostess, Winfrey also produces and occasionally acts in television movies and feature films.

Winfrey's parents, who never married, were teens when she was born in rural Mississippi. She was originally named Orpah after a woman from the Book of Ruth but a spelling mistake on the birth certificate changed it to Oprah. She spent her childhood growing up in abject poverty on her deeply religious grandmother's farm. When she was older, Winfrey moved in with her mother in Milwaukee, WI. This proved a difficult time as Winfrey alleges she was repeatedly sexually molested by male relatives. Winfrey became a bit of a wild child during her early teens, experimenting with sex and drugs until the age of 14 when she gave birth to a premature baby. It died shortly after, and upon recovering, Winfrey chose to live with her father in Nashville. It was under his stern guidance that Winfrey found discipline, stability, and the inspiration to excel in school and change her life..."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 08:16 PM

Well, myslef, I've heard Bill Cosby a few times an' what he basically says is "pull yourselves up by your boot straps"... He isn't into programs... Hey, he's a rich guy, ain't he??? He is no spokesman for black folks... He represents the ruling class...

He is not only bigoted but doesn't even seen to have any level of understanding of American history...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 08:18 PM

Dickey, look at the Head Start Programs, Bushes poster child for the poor. A couple yrs ago he froze funding. So the program now suffers each yrs as costs for food, teachers, site, facilities & rent increases as well as wages & resources go up. This was the poor program for pre schooling & eduaction. This is the same reason why his "No Children Left Behind" act is a reversal for the poor. It gets worse each year. We are going backwards. Granted this didn't start with him it's been going on for at least a 1/4 of a century.
We were doing better when Crosby was a kid.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 08:25 PM

Slavery in America


"...But slavery itself was not destroyed. In California after the Civil War, thousands of young Asian women were enslaved to serve as prostitutes for the Gold-Rush settlers. Chinese men were virtually enslaved to build the railroads and develop the Western mining industry..."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 08:27 PM

Dickey,

For the last time, I would sooner drink liquid shit than engage in conversation with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 09:07 PM

Dickey - Do not misrepresent my statement. Your interpretation is way off the mark. Here is my key phrase, "...the ability to network, socially, and the ability to access services."

Lets not forget that the Chinese culture has a long standing and deeply held stereotype of Blacks. That makes Afro-Americans the bottom of the totem pole in racist terms. Native Americans may be more disadvantaged today because of reservations, systemic sexual abuse and alcolholism which has also led to some pretty horrible stereotypes and discrimination. But for racists, the Blacker you are, the lower you are. Chinese, by the way, are whiter than most White people.

The separation and destruction of African families as a result of slavery resulted in a total break-down of language, social networks and cultural values. Anyone who can climb out of the years of segregation and discrimination that followed, is the exception, not the rule.

While some Chinese were subjected to less than adequate working conditions and pay, they were able to retain their language and traditions. In fact, the language and traditions are so important to the Chinese, that to this day they encourage their English speaking children to learn either Cantonese or Mandarin so that their values can be transmitted. Their social networks within North America are vast and I doubt if even you, Dickey, could live up to their family expectations.

And don't forget, Dickey, the majority of the Chinese in America today are not the immigrants that came to work on the railroad or the in the mines. Many of them arrived from Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and are from the educated, business class. There are many different Asian cultures and its impossible to lump them all together and claim that they were all enslaved because they worked on the railroad.

That is a far cry from decades of slavery and segregation of African Americans, where many were denied even a basic education. Its very difficult to encourage your children to read if you can't read, yourself. Even if you can only read in your first language, you can still pass on to your children a love of books. Chinese have always valued education. How many Africans do you think could read when they were brought to America as slaves? How many understood the value of education? How many could communicate with each other in their own language?

Let me guess - Oprah's daddy valued education and Bill Cosby's folks could read. Obama is highly educated and my guess is that his family could read, too. All three of the above are more White than Black, Dickie, I can almost guarantee that. I don't think they would disagree. They try to relate, yes, but I doubt that they have the experience to be able to speak for the majority of African-Americans or anyone who has lived a life of poverty with no encouragement from anyone.

We, as a society, can change this but only if we have the will. Unfortunately, there will always be Dickies to make excuses for the greedy and turn away when they see hunger on their own doorsteps.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dickey
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 09:23 PM

the Naturalization Act of 1870 granted the right of naturalization to "aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent," Chinese immigrants would be forced to wait until 1943 before obtaining the right to become citizens. Filipinos and Indians would not gain the right of naturalization until 1946.

http://www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2004_eatingbitterness.asp#note7

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dickey
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 10:19 PM

"anyone who has lived a life of poverty with no encouragement from anyone"

Exactly Dianavan, Who has given them encouragement? Their parents? All they get is sympathy from their "leaders" who turn everything into a race issue.


''A lot of us,'' Mr. Obama argues, ''hesitate to discuss these things in public because we think that if we do so it lets the larger society off the hook. We're stuck in an either/or mentality -- that the problem is either societal or it's cultural.''

It's important to talk about life chances -- about the constricted set of opportunities that poverty brings. But to treat black people as if they're helpless rag dolls swept up and buffeted by vast social trends -- as if they had no say in the shaping of their lives -- is a supreme act of condescension. Only 50 percent of all black children graduate from high school; an estimated 64 percent of black teenage girls will become pregnant. (Black children raised by female ''householders'' are five times as likely to live in poverty as those raised by married couples.) Are white racists forcing black teenagers to drop out of school or to have babies?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 12:39 AM

Poverty occurs on a significant scale in a place where there is 'enough' to go around because of grossly inequitable distribution of resources. It just seems logical, in this instance, that concentrated wealth depends on the existence of a rate of poverty within the population that is far in excess of what the available resources suggest is either unavoidable, and/or mainly attributable to the 'failings' of most of those people who live in a state of poverty.

Racism (or tribalism, or choose-your-religionism, depending on what part of the world you happen to inhabit) does not cause poverty.    Institutionalized racism is, however, a very useful and efficient vehicle by which a society or dominant culture may assign a large number of the necessary number of people to be part of an exploitable underclass. It provides the rationale and 'moral' justification needed for a society to do so, while letting most of it's better off inhabitants be able to go to sleep at night with a clear conscience. It further serves to create and help maintain the social conditions necessary to insure the continuity of an underclass.

Assuming the same history of social and economic conditions and policies exclusive of slavery, I opine that the number of people living in poverty in the USA today would be the same, even if slavery had never existed. Demographic characteristics of the underclass would be different--as a society we would have identified other groups to serve disproportionately as an underclass.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 12:46 AM

Oh why not...........300!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 02:58 AM

I don't buy that..that people are hoping for an underclass. How does it benefit them? More taxes? More crime, which is not a necessary aspect of poverty...but there is one thing that might go through peoples' minds..and that is...my son and now my daughter..is not going to fight in any wars so we just better have some people who will do it instead..so for that reason, which I have never heard anyone voice before, and I think it is subconscious until this very moment...I think people do accept behaviors which almost gaurantee poverty (drugs, crime, children out of wedlock)so that there is a "class" of people who will do the fighting. I think there is no other reason that people would want other people to be poor..they might have to pay more for garbage removal, for dairy products, etc., but they would pay fewer taxes and would be safer and towns would be prettier. They are allowed to be kept poor, and many things stated on this particular thread will keep people poor and drag more into their midst besides...for only one reason I can think of, and that is to die so that your son or daughter might not have to. And no, I don't think this is nice or good civic practice or even humane but I think it is happening on a subconscious level. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 03:03 AM

I followed that story about those underfed kids from start to finish, and it was a real travesty, but it has absolutely nothing to do with poverty, and belongs in a blog about child abuse. The family, as photos I'm sure are available online, was a picture of contrasts. The foster parents hid behind their church, who vouched for them, until the truth came out. Many were suckered by this poor excuse for foster parents, but, again, this does not belong in this thread.

I think baiters are in it just for the superiority they think it affords them...*hint*...*hint.*

BTW, that family was just one in several who featured prominently in the investigation of DYFS in NJ. Another, along similar lines, was a family who already had several children of their own, upper middle class, who adopted two brothers from Russia, then starved them and chained them to a leaky water pipe in a cement basement when they were "bad." One of the boys died down there, which is how the story broke. These people were upright, born-again Christians. It just amazes me how people can be blind to the harm they do regardless of their beliefs.

Now, back to poverty: I read a story in a local paper during my absence...about a podiatrist who, once a year, donates free foot exams and brand new shoes to the men in a homeless shelter. Now that's a doable and very practical project. I like practical solutions. Of course, one has to volunteer such services.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 03:05 AM

Well said, Janie. Somehow this discussion went from poverty to racisim but it is our socio-economic system that creates an underclass. By now, we should all know that if you classify people according to gender, race or class; its the women in every group who are the most frequent victims of poverty. Thats why I say that if we truly want to help, we must focus our energy on helping the women.

Healthy and happy women produce healthy and happy children.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 03:12 AM

The "poor pool" is for the rich to dip into Mary when they have a thirst & after they (the poor) are used up then they can go off to the wars & dies. The poor pool is a rich & valuable resource. The grinding of them is what this nation was built on & what keeps it wheels greased & it's rich & powerful so alive & healthy & so few & the poor so many. Crime is benifical & so are drugs, gambling, a cheap labor force to draw from, cheap housing for cheap workers, low wages & no benifits, migrant workers. Look at what ails the poor the most & follow the money back to the source. We will not drain that pool just to put out the fire!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 07:44 AM

MG, I don't think the vast majority of people in a society sit back and consciously say-"We need some more poor people." I am saying that left to its own devises, and with the way the human mind operates (catagorizing is a primary way the human brain organizes data), this is how societies and social structure tend to evolve. It happens in places where there actually is not enough to go around also. However, when we as individuals in a society are willing to try to take a look at our assumptions and the effects of those assumptions (values and beliefs) on others and the social structure, we can then attempt to change them.

I'm really rushed now and don't have time to develop this right now. If it still seems relevant when I get back tonight, I'll expand.

And Mary, I think you are right on target about the poor as cannon fodder also--it is pretty much all the same process.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 09:20 AM

"Somehow this discussion went from poverty to racisim" -

SOMEHOW one specific "contributor" derailed an interesting and impassioned discussion on poverty and turned it into another re-hashing of the same tired old arguments about race ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 03:45 PM

"If you can't shut 'um up opne way, do it another is what the right wing in America is all about...

"Yeah, I don't have to give them niggers nuthin'... Hey, I didn't do that..." Yeah, this has been the battle cry of the rich, the greedy, the powerfull...

What a bunch of totally anti-human, greedy, uncompassionate, unChristain crap..."


Republicans give a bigger share of their incomes to charity, says a prominent economist.

In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books), Arthur C. Brooks finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others.

Some of his findings have been touched on elsewhere by other scholars, but Mr. Brooks, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University, breaks new ground in amassing information from 15 sets of data in a slim 184-page book that he proudly describes as "a polemic."

"If liberals persist in their antipathy to religion," Mr. Brooks writes, "the Democrats will become not only the party of secularism, but also the party of uncharity."

http://www.philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 04:38 PM

9.8% poverty rate for Asians in 2004, down from 11.8 percent in 2003.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2006/cb06ff-06.pdf page 2

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 Mar 07 - 11:51 PM

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

You can read part of this book on line.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 12:16 AM

Dickey - Do you ever read what anyone else has written or are you just writing to listen to yourself? At least I hope you understand your posts because they make no sense to me. Like someone said earlier, try shouting down a well.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 01:01 AM

A social system is a prime example of an entity that is larger than the sum of its parts.

A society, being the largest human social system, is also the most complex.

The institutions, both formal and informal, that provide the main framework for a societal system usually serve two functions --protection and control. The paradox or dialectic of these two functions is quite apparent, and reflects the paradox inherent in any human social system, be it a system of two (for instance, a married couple) of several hundred (mudcat) or millions (a society).

Imbedded in that dialectic is another--the autonomy of the individual vs. the need of our species for social structure to survive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm realizing I'm a long way from drawing my conclusions, and getting to that point may be so dry and convoluted that I'll be the only one still awake when I get there. I don't want to kill this thread by accident. And I'm guessing most people reading this thread are already knowledgable about social theory and social systems theory, and don't need a 101 course from me to see what I am trying to articulate.   

Where I'm ultimately headed is that poverty and oppression is an effect of society, any society of any size, as opposed to an intention of that society, or an intention of the vast majority of the individuals who make up that society. In macro-terms, focusing on blame-whether you are blaming the poor guy for being poor, or the rich guy for being rich, is probably not very useful to any effort to mitigate poverty.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 03:17 PM

Janie - You are right about the social system and you are right about "focusing on blame-whether you are blaming the poor guy for being poor, or the rich guy for being rich, is probably not very useful to any effort to mitigate poverty," but...

I do blame governments who care more about the interests of the rich than they do about providing for the needs of the poor. I also blame people who support politicians who claim to be Christian but spend tax money on death and destruction while ignoring the poverty at home. I also think it is too damn easy to be smug in the comfort of your own home and assume that you are entitled to health care and education, while others are not. I also blame those who do nothing to promote change.

I also know that I can only do what I can do and I try very hard to remember that but sometimes emotion wins.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 07:51 PM

D is absolutely correct... Beneath this all government certainly has its hand in the mess... Bottom line, governemnt has evolved into existing to serve the monied class... The real "welfare mentality" isn't among our poor but our rich... They just don't get it... All the breaks are aimed at keeping them rich and in trun, they give a "kick-back" to the folks in government thru very generous campaign contributions...

The rich know this... They knoew it all too well and that is why they not only buy off politicans but they now fund blogs that go out and try to change the conversation... Right here in out little corner of Paradise we have several ***shills*** for the ruling class... These people have one thing in common and that is they won't carry on a converstaion... They will, however, rpovide lots of links (mostly funded by the ruling class) to try to turn the conversation away from the realities of poverty...

Now, I'd like to say a few things about the cannon-fodder coming from poor families... Well, okay, I'll admit that most kids from the very poorest families don't finish school and don't end up in the military... It's the kids from the families, who while being poor, aren't as poor and where the kids parent/s keeps them in school long enough for "No Kid Left Unrecruited" to take effect... Kids are ***targeted*** by recruiters in the 8th grade and the usual speil is "Okay, kid, we care about you... We're gonna give you lots of $$$ and we are going to provide you with educational opportunities..."

That's purdy much the deal and so, yeah, lots of folks in Iraq tonight are from these families... Poor??? Yeah... The way outta the ghetto goes thru Iraq... It's sad but it's also true... Problem with this is that it does go thru Iraq and there is no promse that these kids will come home alive or not disabled...

But I don't want to end this post on Iraq as we have enough war threads but will reiterate that the rich will stop at nothin' to get their way... They have had their way since the early 80's when they called off the Great Society...

We won't make any progress but continue to seeing rising per capita poverty rates climb until we get back to the ***good war***..

..the Great Society...

There are those here who can't quite seem to get it that it is going to take some redisribution of our national wealth to fight and perhaps elliminate poverty... This really shouldn't be rocket science but for those folks it seems to be way over these folks heads...

Like I said, it ain't rocket science...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 08:25 PM

Well, I don't know if I am a shill or not but I certainly will not carry on a conversation with you because you are just too rude, pure and simple.

The way to fix and eliminate poverty is to respectfully listen to people with ideas to contribute, and assume that they have good intentions and perhaps experience in what they are talking about. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 12:33 AM

Bobert: Your accusation of there being ***shills*** here is like blaming things on evil spirits.

I sir, am not a shill. I could use the same sort of accusations to explain away your position and to discredit you but I prefer a more realistic approach to the problems in life. You have good intentions and I am never going to make fun of them. You have done a lot of work to help poor people and I am not going to make fun of that.

My intention is to point out the contradictions I see in what people present as facts. Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, Communists, rich philanthropists, foreign governments etc. all have had good intentions in trying to solve the problem of poverty for a long time. They have not been able to do it.

In Russia they had a whole revolution against the powerful and the rich aristocracy. That didn't do it for them. In China, 2 million people starved to death while poverty was being eliminated in a great classless society. Was it the fault of the rich people in China?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 12:35 AM

What's this? Poor Asians?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 01:54 PM

Dickey,

No, you are very much a "shill"... And, worse, you are a "true beliver shill"... From the looks of things here you support 100% of George Bush's policies... I can't remember you ever breaking ranks... That, my friend, is a "pitchman", i.e. "shill"...

mg,

Sorry you think I'm rude... Yeah, I've tried in the most delicate ways, including my terribly embarrassing experience at a W@hite Panther gathering, to get you to open your mind and become more "client centered"... That was meant to be helpful...It was not meant to be rude but apparently you considered it to be...

As for the shots I take at Dickey, yeah, sometimes they get a tad edgy but no more eddy than his to me...

Back to Dickey,

Revolutions by their very nature aren't for ever... Thomas Jefferson once said that for a country to stay healthy it needed an occasional revolution... Okay, I think he was speakin' in terms of revolution of ideas but none the less, revolutions have moved our country forward... We had the industrial revolution in 1n the 1860's... And we had a cultural revolution a hundred years later...

So to equate the need for another revolution of new ideas and policies in the US with the current status of either China or Russia is another apples & oranges red herring...

More later... Lunch hour is over...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 02:49 PM

Bobert:

Tell me which one of those revolutions eliminated poverty?

And yes I do disagree with Bush on some things like his refusal to enforce laws against illegal immigration. It creats more poor people and makes the legal imigrants poorer by driving down their wages too.

Your quotation of statistics like how much money the largest corporation in the world made is a red herring and your blaming poverty on the rich is a straw man issue.

Not a single answer in the lot. Why do you claim the money for school breakfasts needs to be brought back when it was never taken away? Do you make statements like that out of ignorance or is it propaganda?

At one time you stated apartments were $1300 minimum. I pointed out that they average $1300. There is a range of $585 to many thousands up around Rock Creek Park. You still insist that poor people can't afford an average apartment. Who is supposed to rent the lowest price apartments Bobert? Seems to me people rent apartments according to their income or are all apartments supposed to cost the same?

You don't have answers so you try to discredit me by claiming I am being paid.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 07:43 PM

Dickey,

None, but most have at least closed the gap between the haves and have-nots... That is the challenge for the US... There has never been such a wide divide...

As for the apartment "up around Rock Creek Park", it's way the heck up... I mean, almost to the beltway... That area is a notoriously slummy area... I know, I drive that way every August for the DC Blues Society's Festival... Let's put it this way,k it's so bad that you wouldn't last 24 hours there without becoming a statistic... Have you been there??? Would you want to riase a family there... Would you as a qworking mother who has to catch the 6:15 Metro bus every mornin' want to stand at a bus stop in that area???

I mean, lets get real here, Dickey... This is the projects without the Section 8 money...

When I use the twerm average it means just that... That figure was printed in the Washington Post several months ago... Average means that you take all the available housing in an area, add up all the monthly rentsa nd then divided by the number of apartments that were available... Yeah, it factors in the Capitol Heights neighborhoods and the Adams Morgan neighborhoods and the posh Georgetown neighborhoods but it also factors in "up around Rock Creek's and lots of neighborhoods in NE, where BTW, I have gone to play blues going back many, many years at Archie Edwards Barber Shop... I know DC, Dickey... I grew up 'round DC so pleeeeze don't gettin' all righteous about where folks can live fairly safely in that town...

My largest hope for you, my friend, is that one mornin' you will wake up as a 40 year old balck woman making $8.00 an hour, no husband, three kids and trying to make yer way thru life in the DC area... Yeah, that is my hope... If you had to be this woman fir just one day, you'd get it...

But that won't happen and you know it won't happen and that is why you feel all smug and comfy in yer safe little world...

That's one thing about poverty... Rich folks and their shills just don't get it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 08:34 PM

Heric just explained a bit of the new bankruptcy law in (sub prime thread)

With a record number of foreclosures people will be falling into the newly created black hole of the BRAND NEW bankruptcy law.

I don't know enough about it but it sounds horrid.




I predicted 5 years ago that the jewel in Crown of the great Republican Heist , after taking away welfare, pensions, social securty, and stock market investments (billionaire hedge funds exempt) would be stealing people's homes in a great flood of foreclosures.

In another 5 years Banks will be so house property rich that its possible they may suffer because of it. I hope they choke on it.

Hmm, people might just need to move to Mexico and Canada   8*p

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 09:29 PM

Yo, Donuel...

Tell Dickey what it's like 'bout 4 miles north of where you live... You know the neighborhood up there... He thinks its like middle class, 'er somethin'...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 12:36 AM

Hi dianavan--I'm right on the same page with you re: getting angry.

I think most of us experience anger as the most energetic of all our emotions. At least I do. That energy is power. Like all power, it can be wielded for a useful purpose. Like all power, it can be used indiscriminantly (I absolutely can not spell anymore--don't know if I spelled that right or not) and be ultimately self-defeating. Like all power, it can be discharged randomly, leaving behind nothing but chaos.

When I am angry, I try to remind myself that anger belongs on the bus, but not in the driver's seat. If anger is in the driver's seat, it will at least take a wrong turn, and will often run into a ditch. It is not uncommon for the bus to wreak. With me on it. And I forgot the seatbelt.

Martin Luther King Jr. chose to direct his anger at the systems that supported social injustice instead of directing it at 'Whitey.' The effective power of the civil rights movement was due to the ability of him and other leaders to take the energy generated by the anger of his people at the social injustices they endured and focus it in a deliberate way to effect social change. He used that energy to turn anger into power equal to the power of money and used it just as deliberately to influence public policy. He rejected stereotyping, and was careful in his public actions and utterances to refrain from stereotyping Whites. He pointed his finger at systems and institutions, not at people. In doing so, he raised the consciousness of a nation. Clearly he did not harness all of that energy. I don't know that he wanted to. When young, angry, disenfranchised blacks rioted in the inner cities of our nation, the blind and indiscriminant explosion of their anger caused terrible damage to the businesses and infrastructure of their own communities, but the fear those riots generated, in combination with a greater and more refined use of that energy was quite effective.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 01:03 AM

Martin Luther King Jr. was a master manipulator. Good on him.

He kept his 'eyes on the prize.'

Kennedy's "War on Poverty" and Johnson's "Great Society" programs arose directly out of the civel rights movement. By focusing on issues rather than on people, by declining to demonize whites, King's tactics and ability to channel the energy of anger, he minimized resistance and made common cause with others involved in social injustice, or effected by social injustice, and maximized their collective power.

If his approach had been exclusively anger-based confrontation--"You piss me off, you jerk" the whole movement would have suffered and been less effective. the defensiveness that is a natural reaction to personal attack and stereotyping would have substancially reduced his ability to form coalitions.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 02:20 AM

I was just on the food thread, and you know what strikes me as absurd? The fact that people keep ragging on the poor for their food choices, as if they had alternatives. I'm not poor, yet I can't afford most fish these days, unless it's got Mrs. Paul's or Gorton's on the package. (I prefer the latter, actually.) Chicken, which used to be the be-all and end-all for low prices, along with ground beef, is now through the roof, unless you count the higher priced cuts of meat like lamb, etc.

What can poor people buy? Pasta...large loaves of white bread...potatoes...I could go on, but you get the drift, I'm sure. Not to mention junk food, which is extremely tempting, and no wonder why.

I've been in grocery stores in poorer areas of the US where people made rude comments because someone used food stamps to buy chips and beer. Not that I approve if that's all they buy, but who's business is it of theirs? How can we teach nutrition if the prices are too high to make it realistic?

How can you get people to buy prescriptions if it means giving up something else? I'm thinking about Vets, here. BTW, the waiting period for prescriptions used to be 6 months where I used to live.

Fresh vegetables? I don't know about you, but where I live, they're at a premium at the grocery store, which is why I got a membership at Costco's. But that price keeps rising, too. I get more pound per buck there, and the quality is better, but what are the poor supposed to do? They can't even get there, if they could split a membership.

I did some volunteer work before Thanksgiving quite a while ago with a group I belonged to. We went to grocery stores and asked for pledges of food, turkeys and all of the fixings or whatever the store manager/owner wanted to donate. We signed them up and then went back to pick up and distribute the food. I was quite pleased with the results. However, when we were in the initial phases, I had a couple of markets I had to visit that were in poorer areas, and I can't tell you how disgusted I was by the lack of quality of their produce and their meat departments. The meat was literally green in the wrapper. Not just one pack, but almost all. Spoiled fruit and vegetables...it was a travesty. We only asked them for canned or frozen products, and at that we were reluctant. I'm sure that still exists. Is it any wonder the poor react the way they do?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 02:29 AM

Some perspective(s).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 02:35 AM

One in Five Children in Rural America Lives in Poverty


Read it and weep.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 04:16 AM

I can tell you from experience that a child that lives in rural poverty is richer than a child that lives in urban poverty.

If you're poor in a rural area, chances are there is a garden in your backyard and room for you to run. Most likely you have a roof over your head. You might even get to fish and hunt.

An urban area probably provides better educational opportunities but if your food and shelter are lacking, its hard to take advantage of those opportunities.

All in all, I'd rather be poor in a rural area. At least you can fend for yourself and you don't have to live in fear.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 08:39 AM

Well, first of all, I agree with Wordsmith's post with the one exception... Food Stamps *cannot* be used to by beer... But, yeah, you go to innercity mom 'n pop grocery stores in the poor neigfhborhoods and there isn't much actual nutrition to be found in 'um... So when yer choices are limited to this junk food or that junk food yer more than likely going to end up buying, ahhhh, junk food...

As for "anger"... Oh, boy... I kinda need to talk about this because it is a very real danger for anyone working in the human services field... But I don't have time this mornin' to get into this... And I'm not too sure how I want to approach it without makin' some folks angry with me... So let me think about it today as I play "equipment operator" and push dirt around... Hopefully by tonight I'll work up the right way to talk about this and the courage to talk about it but...

... it is very real as it relates to those who have made a decision to except lousy pay to do some of society's *dirty work*...

Later...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 06:51 PM

Well, not much activity since last here but I know there are at least a couple folks reading this thread who have PM'd me so I reckon I'll delve into this "anger" issue...

Now, I'm not speaking for anyone but myself here and these are observations I made during my years in social work, working as a jail house teacher and working in an inhouse drug treatment program...

What I want to talk a little about here is how folks in "human services" deal with anger... And I think it is relevant to the discussion because it is these folks who are on the front lines... Not their supervisors or their supervisors but the actual case workers, case managers, social workers otr whatever job title has been given to folks who are in "the field", which means that they are making the home visits and doing the heavy liftibn in dealin' with folks...

When I was with Adult Services in Richomnd as a "case manager" the job required either a MSW (Masters in Social Work) or a BA and x-number of years of related experience so we aren't talking here about folks with little or no eductaional backgrounds but college eductaed professional people...

Folks who I knew came into the Adult Services with great enthusiasm thinking they were going to make the difference... BTW, very little in college trains folks for the realities of the job unless one was fortunate enough to have had some practicum during their studies... But folks came in isealistic and that ain't a bad thing...

Then reality sets in real quick... Heavy case loads and little resources... I carried between 50 and 65 cases... That is one heck of a lot of paper work if I didn't do anything else... Just typing reporst of the stuff I was doing fir folks and keeping up with the C.I.D.'s (Client Information Documents) took up 10 hours every week...

But the further one gets into the system the less idealism that remains with them... I saw it repeatedly with new hires and waht I also saw was as folks figured out that they weren't really going to have the time or resources to really get folks moving toward independent living they would become angry...

Now, these folks are the same folks who are out there every day on the front lines and, yeah, most of them are angry... But the interesting part of this is how people deal with not being able to change the world and make things better and what I saw were of folks who had been in "the field" for, oh, 5 years....

...and, sorry, but I need go for a walk with the P-Vine thru the geardens now as the day is winding down so...

I'll be back... This may take a while...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 08:23 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 12:43 AM

Hi bobert,

From what you have had time to post so far, I don't have any idea about where you are headed, although I will be interested to see. I just want to say that I am not talking about an 'anger' issue. I am talking about 'power' issues.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 03:08 AM

One of the things King (and Abernathy) did so well was organize poor people so that their 'anger' could be directed and used to create 'power' for themselves. That was part of the reason King was killed, IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 08:34 AM

Well, danged pudder... I wrote a long post that would have tied the begining of the story with the end but when I hit "submit" all that happened was it went back to the main page and the post didn't stick... I'll have to muster up the time & courage later to rewrite it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 09:36 AM

Peace,

I think you are entirely right. From what I have read, King himself knew that he was likely to be killed, and made a decision to take that risk. I'm not a King scholar--I'm pulling from what I have read and heard over the years in newpapers, lay literature, interviews with other civil rights leaders who were close to him.

But what he did, in addition to directing the anger of his own people to useful purpose, was manipulate the carelessly wielded anger of his opponents, such that the civil rights movement benefited. He used their own anger against them. Even unto death.

I don't mean to say he chose death. Nor do I mean to say that his death brought more momentum for change than would have resulted had he continued to live and lead. What I am saying is that he did not squander his death.

Gotta go. More later. I'm sure everyone is waiting with bated breath:^)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 09:43 AM

It is chilling to listen to the sermon King gave in a Memphis church the night before he was assassinated ... "I have been to the mountain; I have seen the Promised Land" (reminder: reference to Moses, who led the Chosen People to the Promised Land, went up the mountain to see it, knowing he wasn't going to live to reach it himself). It is essentially about how will not be with his followers much longer; it will be up to them to carry on ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 07:08 PM

Well, still don't have time to rewrite that rest of the "anger" post seein' as it's half time of the Ohio State-Georegtown game but i'd just like to point out that Dr. King's ace in the hole was none other than, LBJ... Yeah, love Lyndon or hate him, he did have Dr. King's back and I really think that when Dr. King was gunned down in Memphis that it hurt LBJ right down to his heart...

Now back to b-ball... Sorry...

B~

p.s. Guest, meself... A must book is "A Testament of Hope" which is availbale cheap in paper back and has almost every essay and speech that Dr. King ever wrote or gave... It is filled with stuff that will give you the chills...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 07:29 PM

You nailed it, buddy.

"For Johnson, civil rights loomed as the most intractable legislative problem of the decade. The Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, ordering an end to segregated schools, had outraged Southern senators. They circulated a Southern Manifesto urging massive resistance to school integration, but Johnson declined to sign it. In 1957 President Eisenhower proposed a tough civil rights bill that Southerners adamantly resisted. Johnson recognized the symbolic value of enacting the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, but he feared that a protracted filibuster would split his party. His removal of the key enforcement provisions of the law steered it through to enactment. Not until 1964, when Johnson was president, would a strong civil rights act finally win passage."

Although he took lots of flak--much of it deserved--over thge Vietnam War, and despite doing his best he mostly just managed to say "Nigrah", he stood up for laws that enabled a more meaningful civil rights to be realized by people who needed it. There were then and are now many things I admire about Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 11:58 PM

Bobert says poor folks can't afford the rent of an average $1300 per month apartment but he has no answer about who is supposed the rent the apartments renting below $1300 down to $575. His only explanation is to call me a smug rich man's shill.

The part of town I was referring to was like Connecticut avenue whre rents are $4000 and above with a door man and all.

Now if I was to wake up as a 40 year old balck woman making $8.00 an hour, no husband, three kids and trying to make yer way thru life in the DC area, How would I have gotten into that position?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 12:05 AM

End Welfare Lite as We Know It
It's been nearly 10 years since President Bill Clinton signed the landmark 1996 welfare reform law. The anniversary has been the occasion for various news stories and opinion pieces, most of them praising the law's success in reducing welfare dependency.
        
And it's true: welfare caseloads have fallen an astounding 60 percent since reform efforts began. But even as a strong supporter of welfare reform, I find it difficult to muster unqualified enthusiasm for the law and how it has been carried out.

In the years immediately before the law's passage, welfare dependency seemed out of control. From 1989 to 1994, for example, caseloads rose 34 percent. Analysts argued over how much to blame the weak economy; worsening social problems, primarily out-of-wedlock births and drug addiction; and lax agency administration. But few claimed that another 1.3 million people on welfare was a good thing.

Responding to the growing concern, Mr. Clinton campaigned for president on a promise to end welfare as we know it. But he had in mind something far different from what the Republicans handed him in 1996. Nevertheless, he signed the legislation that ended the welfare entitlement and gave states wide discretion, as long as they put 50 percent of recipients in work-related activities and imposed a five-year limit on financial aid.

Many feared a social calamity. But in the years since, although researchers have strived mightily, they've found only small pockets of additional hardship. Even better, the earnings of most single mothers actually rose.

These twin realities--decreased caseloads and little sign of serious additional hardship--are why both Republicans and Democrats think welfare reform has been a success.

But the results are more mixed. Caseloads fell, yet they did so seemingly regardless of what actions the states took. They fell in states with strong work-first requirements, and those without them; in states with mandatory work programs, and those without them; in states with job training programs, and those without them; and in states with generous child care subsidies, and those without them.

In fact, the consensus among academic researchers is that it took more than welfare reform to end welfare as we knew it. If one looks at all the studies, the most reasonable conclusion is that although welfare reform was an important factor in caseload reduction--accounting for 25 percent to 35 percent of the decline--the strong economy was probably more important (35 percent to 45 percent). Expanded aid to low-income, working families, primarily through the Earned Income Tax Credit, was almost as important (20 percent to 30 percent).

What's more, the best estimates are that only about 40 percent to 50 percent of mothers who left welfare have steady, full-time jobs. Another 15 percent or so work part time. According to surveys in various states, these mothers are earning about $8 an hour. That's about $16,000 a year for full-time employment. It is their story that the supporters of welfare reform celebrate, but $16,000 is not a lot of money, especially for a mother with two children.

What about the other 50 percent of families who left welfare? Well, some mothers did not need welfare, perhaps because they were living with parents or a boyfriend, and some left because of intense pressure from caseworkers. More troubling, about a quarter of those who leave welfare return to the program, with many cycling in and out as they face temporary ups and downs.

In addition, when they're off welfare, some of these families survive only because they still receive government assistance--through food stamps (an average of more than $2,500), the Women, Infants and Children program (about $1,800 for infants and new mothers), Supplemental Security Income (an average of over $6,500), or housing aid (an average of $6,000). Their children also qualify for Medicaid. In reality, these families are still on welfare because they are still receiving benefits and not working--call it welfare lite.

So, yes, welfare reform reduced welfare dependency, but not as much as suggested by the political rhetoric, and a great deal of dependency is now diffused and hidden within larger social welfare programs.

As a result, public and political concern about dependency has largely disappeared.

The tougher work and participation requirements added in this year's reauthorization of the law could help states address the deeper needs of welfare families. But many states are already planning to avoid these new strictures with various administrative gimmicks, like placing the most troubled and disorganized families in state-financed programs where federal rules do not apply. This would only further obscure the high levels of continuing dependency.

For now, welfare reform deserves only two cheers. Not bad for a historic change in policy, but not good enough for us to be even close to satisfied.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:05 AM

Interesting article and interesting perspective, Dickey. I would guess there is some validity in support of the point of view it represents. However, it is not an objective survey of the research, and does not include any citations of the research on which it purports to base its conclusions. It is opinion mascarading as fact. It leaves me with no way to judge to what extent the conclusions he draws are valid. As such, it is only a piece of propoganda.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:31 AM

I view the article Dickey cut and pasted above as propoganda. An arguement could perhaps be made that it is actually an op-ed piece. If it is weighed as an op-ed piece giving one man's informed opinion, it is a unidimensionally informed opinion. I am much more likely to thoughtfully consider another pov that is multidimensionally informed, especially when the subject is an extremely multidimensional issue such as poverty.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 02:03 AM

Is Joseph J Besharov connected in any way with the American Enterprise Institute?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 02:07 AM

If so, here are the companies and corporations who support the AEI.


'Most of AEI's Board of Directors are CEOs of major companies, including ExxonMobil, Motorola, American Express, State Farm Insurance, and Dow Chemicals.

Big donors include the top conservative foundations, including Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Olin Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Corporate supporters have included: General Electric Foundation, Amoco, Kraft Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Motors Foundation, Eastman Kodak Foundation, Metropolitan Life Foundation, Proctor & Gamble Fund, Shell Companies Foundation, Chrysler Corporation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, General Mills Foundation, Pillsbury Company Foundation, Prudential Foundation, American Express Foundation, AT&T Foundation, Corning Glass Works Foundation, Morgan Guarantee Trust, Smith-Richardson Foundation, Alcoa Foundation, and PPG Industries.

Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron, was until recently on the board of trustees of American Enterprise Institute. Other famous former trustees include Vice President Dick Cheney.

AEI Fellows and Scholars [partial list]
Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney and former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House.

David Frum, a presidential speechwriter for President Bush, contributing editor to the right-wing magazine Weekly Standard.

Christina Hoff Sommers, anti-feminist crusader, author of Who Stole Feminism? How Women Betrayed Women.

Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, a book that asserted inherent intelligence differences between the races.

Ben J. Wattenberg, host of PBS weekly show "Think Tank."'

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 02:17 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey - PM
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 12:05 AM


Look at the time of the post; look at the day. Dang. Dickey has a sense of humour. Good one, sport.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 03:20 AM

Rats. I too just lost a post.

I mispoke in my last post. The propoganda piece Dickey posted is not about poverty, it is about welfare dependency, a related but separate issue.

One way to reduce welfare dependency is to reduce poverty. However, while a reduction in welfare dependency may indicate a reduction in poverty, we can't assume that. The reasons for reductions in welfare rolls require very careful and thorough analysis before a reduction can be considered a valid indicator of a reduction in poverty.

It is obvious that there is some common ground. I see it. I want Dickey to see it. Or the president of Exxon to see it. If I allow my anger to be in control, or if I use my anger unskillfully and thoughtlessly, there is a strong risk that I will both waste some of my own power and resources, and deny myself access to the resources available to Mr. Exxon. Where common ground is concerned, I don't want to be the only one left standing on it. I don't want my anger to create or contribute to any barrier to me being able to exploit that common ground in service to the goal of reducing poverty.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 03:26 AM

"WELFARE RATES

- Single person, expected to work*: $397 per month.

- Single parent with one child, expected to work: $707 per month, plus $107 from the national child benefit, for a total of $814.

- Single parent with two kids, one over 12, one under 12, expected to work: $856, plus $198 national child benefit.

- Family of two adults and two children, one over 12, one under, expected to work, $1,053, plus $198 national child benefit.

- 'Expected to work' is defined as someone with no physical or mental barrier to employment.

Rates for people not expected to work are slightly higher. For example, for a single parent with one child, not expected to work, it's $839, plus $107.

*******************************************************

The above figures in Alberta are from 2003.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 08:54 AM

Dickey,

Get on the friggin' airplane and I 'll pick you up at the airport and give you a tour of the neighborhoods where you can get an apartment fir $475...

Or shut the heck up...

You don't know DC... I do...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 09:04 AM

Peace,

I'm curious about welfare assistance programs in Canada. Do the programs and payments vary by province or or township, or are they uniform throughout the nation? Is there a program similar to the Food Stamp program in the USA that provides for routine, non-emergency assistance to purchase food? Is your national healthcare system uniform, such that medical benefits are the same for your entire citizenry? Is the funding entirely from federal dollars, or do provinces also kick in money from more local taxes?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 09:33 AM

Do the programs and payments vary by province or or township, or are they uniform throughout the nation?
* They vary by Province, but there is a Federal program that adds a few bucks depending on how many children people have.


Is there a program similar to the Food Stamp program in the USA that provides for routine, non-emergency assistance to purchase food?
* People can get emergency assistance by going to a Social Assistance office. But mileage may vary.

Is your national healthcare system uniform, such that medical benefits are the same for your entire citizenry?
* The medicare program: we pay about $90/month for a family and about $60/month single. The services are uniform across Canada. However, people if they wish can 'upgrade' from a room that is shared to a single room (space permitting) but they have to pay the difference in cost. That is where work medical programs come in. Families on welfare are deemed to have paid their Medicare benefits.

Is the funding entirely from federal dollars, or do provinces also kick in money from more local taxes?
* (From Wiki which explains it fairly well) Canada's healthcare system provides diagnostic, treatment and preventive services to every Canadian regardless of income level or station in life.

Each province in Canada manages its own healthcare system. For example, each province issues its own healthcare identification cards and negotiates with the federal government for money to cover healthcare costs. Each province also provides its own prescription drug benefit plan, available to every Canadian regardless of income level. The prescription drug benefit is, however, adjusted for income, with a higher co-payment required for those with higher personal incomes. The prescription drug benefit is very comprehensive and rarely excludes a medication. Where a medication is excluded that is needed by a patient, the patient applies for coverage under the plan for that drug using a Section 8 form.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 11:06 AM

Back to common ground. I also want to be careful that I don't allow myself to be co-oped by Mr. Exxon. I need to be very clear about the following.
1. My bottom line regarding policy or political concessions I am willing to make with respect to negotiating a limited coalition agreement around that common ground. This requires me to do a 'big picture' cost-benefit analysis BEFORE I even enter into negotiations.
2. I need to do a good inventory of my resources, and I need to have a pretty good idea of the resources available to Mr. Exxon. I want to know that I have enough leverage to avoid being co-oped if I do enter into negotiations, I want to know if I have enough power to not get pushed off of the common ground, but I also want to be sure I have an exit strategy that allows me to retreat with my assets intact from common ground if that is necessary.
3. I want to know my BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement). I want to have a good idea of the strength of my BATNA. I want some idea of Mr. Exxon's BATNA and the strength of his position.

I need to do all of this because there are definite limits to the area of common ground. I want the point of contact and the goals of negotiation to focus on what we have in common, not on our differences. I want my anger to be out on the perimeters of the common ground, patroling, on guard duty. I can always call it in if needed, but I don't want to lead with it.

I want the biggest stick I can find. then I want to walk softly with it.

It goes without saying that I don't even step onto the common ground unless I am pretty sure my stick is big enough to back me up. But I don't want my anger to be so out front that neither Mr. Exxon or myself will risk sniffing around the edges. I don't want my anger to obscure from my vision the awareness that there may be common ground out there on the playing field.

Janie

-

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 11:19 AM

Ignore this post. I'm experimenting with something.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 05:08 PM

Just don't inhale ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 05:11 PM

LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 05:12 PM

I inhale. BUT, I don't absorb!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 06:23 PM

Well, if yer not goin' to inhale, then pass it over to me....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 06:42 PM

Don't Bobert that joint, my friend...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 07:01 PM

Bobert:

Where is your answer to whom is supposed to rent the apartments costing less than the average?

Where is the answer to why you claim that the the funding for breakfast programs needs to be brought back when it dodn't go anywhere?

Excuse me but I do not wish to shut up. The reason I am using the $575 low number for an apartments is because that is the lowest price I can prove exists by searching on the net. I am sure lower priced ones exist.

I was born in Alexandria and I have lived and worked in the area all my life. I have seen every part of DC including parts that do not exist any more due to urban renewal.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 07:25 PM

Jeez, Dickey--go stalk on someone in another thread!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 08:08 PM

Yeah, Dickey...

All your are proving her, my frined is:

1. Yopu don't have any desire in discussinfg this subject

2. You don't wnat anyone else diascussing this subject

3. You don't know jack about DC...

4. When offered an opportunity to learn jack about DC you run like a scared dog back to yer little juvinileistic game playin'...

Ya know what, Dcikey... I think the reason that you won't meet me in DC so I can learnbt you up on the realities of poverty is that you are really a 13 year old girl and yer daddy won't let you...

Have a nice day...

I have no more time for chickensh*ts like you for a while... Go stalk someone who cares....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 08:24 PM

I stay off of most hot topic threads these days so was not familiar with Dickey, while many of you already were. Like most people, I have to learn from my own mistakes. It is my nature to try to get along and it is my training to try to foster communication. Problem is, sometimes I find myself reinventing the wheel. I stand by my remarks regarding anger and power, but I failed to recognize that the rest of you have had opportunities on other threads to assess whether Dickey was worth engaging, and you already knew there is no substance there with which to engage in dialogue. I really didn't want him to be a distraction, but in fact, he really hasn't been, because so many of you already knew you weren't dealing with anything with any real substance.



Dickey--I hope you are not suffering from the delusion that you have contributed anything to the discussion on this thread. You may or may not like or accept what Bobert or anyone else here has had to say. You may challenge their statements til you are blue in the face. You can challenge their assertions all you want.

Can't nobody here stop you.

According to the commercials, can't nobody stop the coppertop bunny, either. but who cares. It's just a robot.

You may be one fine, smart fella in 3D. Wouldn't know. And probably never will, cuz judging from your posting history, you aren't interested in folk music and aren't likely to turn up at the Getaway or other music gatherings where mudcatters might meet one another. Liberals or conservatives, radicals or reactionaries, completely apolitical, whatever our pov's about all the things that get discussed in the BS section, nearly everyone here on the 'Cat have one firm piece of common ground. Folk Music. You apparently don't even have that. You apparently are just something that got its key cranked up, stumbled in here, maybe bumped into a wall so the 'Parade' function button got pushed, and since that is what you are programmed to do, that is what you do. Parade across the field, bump into the fence, turn around as you are programmed to do, and parade back.

On this thread, you act like a mindless robot, programmed with a few set responses to external stimuli. You have linked to the words of other people. Specifically, propoganda pieces. You have quoted statistics, but have not evidenced any critical thinking. You haven't really even expressed a cogent opinion about anything. In spite of being very specifically invited to do so. And you think you are entitled to a response from Bobert? There are some very articulate conservative thinkers on the Mudcat. I bet they cringe when you arrive on the scene.

Mindless. Mindless. Mindless.

When Bobert called you a shill, he wasn't calling you names. He was naming your behavior.

Sorry folks. I guess I just had to find out for myself.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 08:35 PM

Okay, I think I got the little pest calmed down long enough to rewrite the post I started about "anger" and maybe this will be the condensed version as the longer one wouldn't stick but...

Speakin' stricky from my own obseravtions during my years as social worker I found that folks would come in with all kinds of humanistic and idealistic feeelings and after 5 years woule be pared down into two categories:

1. Those who still felt deeply that that could make a difference and were openly "angry" and...

2. Those who had thrown in the towel, stuffed their idealism in their tummies and were just going thru the motions...

I wish there was a 3 category but this is purdy much waht I saw... There wer 6 of us in my Adult Services unit and Ginny Dize and I were the only 2 of the 6 that fit in that first category... The other 4 fell very much into that 2nd category... No, I'm not saying that these 4 did absolutley nuthin' but danged close... They had become paper pushers and weren't trying to put together comprhensive plans for their clients but the bare minimum...

Hey, first of all, given the lack of real resources we were dealing with, I'm not making an judgement on these four... Heck, they had learned how to get along... Ginny and I hadn't...

The point here is that these are folks on the front lines (think "Support the Troops" here) of our waelth nation's efforts to deal with the large percenttage of folks who live in poverty...

It is my premise that this war (which it isn't) on poverty is being waged by folks who either no longer give a danged or go home angry every night...

This is ***not*** a formula for success... It's bad enough that under Reagan and again under Clinton our nation sent an undeniable message to the poor that they aren't a priority but when you have folks who are angry who are left puttin' out the fires it is a sad state of affairs...

And for the folks who become the get along socail workers all is well... These folks have made the supreme consesssion... They have sold their soles to the devil for a pay check and some security and a pension and have willed themselves to just ***do the time***... Many of my friends who fell into this category, including one of my best friends, have now been going thru the motions for some 40 years and roundin' retirement age and, hey, I'm okay with that...

But for folks like me who never quit and I suspect that Jnaie falls into this category, mnay burned the slam out...

I did...

I'm kinda gald that the much longer post I wrote that ended up in the ozone ended up there 'cause it went thru some every personal details of my own burn out and what happens to socail workers when they burn the slam out... It ain't purdy and if it's allright with everyone (except the usual pest) I'd rather not go into it...

I will, however, thru into this discussion that this war (which it isn't) is being fought by some angry folks who have individually statked out the manner in which they will continuie the fight while being angry...

It ain't purdy... Janie knows of what I speak...

So, bottom line, when we talk about poverty in this country, it serves us well to know something about the grunts in the trenches...

Like I said, it ain't too purdy no matter how they individually deal with the anger of not having the resources or support to win too many of the battles...

And I know that things haven't changed much because many of my oldest and dearest friends are still at it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 09:55 PM

Well said, Bobert.

Well said....

I took a 4 1/2 year break, because I saw I was being burned to a cinder. Then, when I had the opportunity to go to graduate school, I resisted the idea of going for my MSW, because I knew what I was setting myself up for. I explored a number of different options. I went to a career counselor. I consulted with friends and family. But it seems this is the work I am meant to do.

At the time I began graduate school, I wasn't sure if I wanted to follow the mental health specialty or hospice. then my sister died and I knew the hospice work would hit too close to home, so I headed for mental health. (I was leaning that direction anyway.) I still intended to protect myself. My 5 year plan was to practice in a public mental health setting until I got my professional license, then start a part time private practice that would gradually turn into a full-time private practice. I'd do a little pro bono work on the side, or work 1o to 15 hours a week in public mental health to feel like I was 'doing my part.' But the need for skilled clinicians in public mental health was too compelling, and my years in public welfare was a real resource to the people I was serving in public mental health.

I've been in public mental health a couple of years longer now than I worked in public welfare. within the past year, public mental health has now been privatized in North Carolina. I find I am teetering on the edge of burn-out again. The public agency certainly had its fair share of flaws, but there I at least had sufficient job protection to speak truth to power. That job protection is no longer there in the private sector, and I am choking on my own phlegm, not sure how much I can risk and still keep my job.

The thing about being a psychotherapist is the possibility of actually empowering some one is always there, on a one-to-one basis. Seeing a person recognize their own power, seeing them learn to use the tools and resources within them, seeing them learn how to acquire additional tools and make some headway, however small, toward leading more satisfying, effective lives, provides a lot of protection against burn out.

With privatization, my clinic is now expected to make a profit. If we don't, the corporation will close us down. Then who will serve the mentally ill population living various degrees of poverty in my community? As a public agency, we were always having to deal with the scarcity of resources, but our presence in the community to provide services was never in question. The tax payers weren't going to provide adequately to meet the mental health needs of this poor, incapacitated population, but they would provide something. There is no longer that very minimal guarantee. Even that guarantee has now been rendered null and void.

For people in the helping professions, I think burn out is largely the result of feeling ineffective. Of so often not having the resources to be able to be effective change agents in the lives of the people we serve. We become like those people, those people living in poverty, who can never garner sufficient resources to get the job done, to get out of a perpetual state of poverty. We lose hope. It is what so many social workers entered the profession to do-offer hope. Once the social worker herself loses hope, s/he is bankrupt, and really offers nothing.

What makes me the most angry is this. the mantra is 'make the best possible use of the limited resources available.' But resources are not that limited. There are lots of resources. In this country, in this state, in this county, in this town, there are plenty of available resources. It is not that the resources are not there. It is that they are not allocated in a justice and equitable manner. (Equitable doesn't mean equal, it means fair.)

This is a a bit of a 'stream of consciousness' post and is probably too personal and also at best pretty egocentric, if not down right narcissistic.

It is what it is.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 10:09 PM

Nothing to apologize for. Nothing for YOU to apologize for, that is. More than apologies are owed from some other sources.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 05:05 PM

Sarah is 60 years old. She has Bipolar Disorder and cycles rapidly between depression and hypomania--in spite of good medication compliance and very close and careful monitoring by her psychiatrist. She had one hospitalization for a suicde attempt 4 years ago during a period when her living situation would have been difficult for anyone to cope with. Other than that, she has functioned well enough to stay out of the hospital and be primary caregiver for her now 15 y.o. grandson, also with bipolar disorder, as well as to provide some shelter, care and guidance to her daughter (mother of the grandson) who has schizophrenia, drug problems, no insight, and who has consistently refused treatment over the years. Her daughter is basically a street person who wanders into and out of Sarah's life when daugh's situation gets desparate and she needs rescued. Her other two adult children have college degrees, are working professinals and live out of state. They are not estranged from her, but are not very involved with her either. I doubt she has let them know what her circumstances are.

Sarah was the victim of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather from age 3 until she was age 21. I won't go into the psychological damage and brainwashing that traps an otherwise intelligent teenager and young woman in such circumstances until age 21. Although extremely bright, her bipolar symptoms prevented her from obtaining a college degree. She did go to school to be a beautician and worked at that trade. she has also managed motels, and worked as a convenience store manager.   

She has been married twice. The first man she married during a hypomanic episode. She was also looking for an escape from her stepfather. He was alcoholic and abusive. The second husband was not abusive, but had affairs, and treated her as unpaid hired help.

She has been disabled for a number of years. She worked enough to draw Social Security, a little over $600 per month. The amount she receives is low enough that she qualifies for Medicaid as well as for Medicare, so her health care is pretty well covered. The original disability determination was due to the bipolar disorder. Since then she has developed a number of other medical problems that in and of themselves would preclude her working at any job she is qualified to do.

Needless to say, she also has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She has legal custody of her grandson and has had him since he was an infant. Because his bipolar symptoms are poorly controlled, she receives an SSI check for him--about $300 per month. He also has some organic learning and behavioral problems, probably attributable to his monther's drug use during pregnancy. As he has entered adolescence, and as Sarah has become less physically and mentally able to cope with him, his dysfunctional behaviors have esculated to the point that she agreed to the recommendations of his treatment providers that he go to a short term therapeutic foster care home. He is doing reasonably well there. Sarah is on good terms with the therapeutic foster parents.    She has him on weekends. It is clear from those visits that he will most likely revert to old behaviors if he returns to her home. She simply does not have the energy and the internal resources left to set the limits with him that are neccessary.

The placement is temporary and is due for review at the end of the school year. The possibility exists, but is not insured, that it can be continued. It is probably in the best interest of both Sarah and her grandson for him to continue to live in a therapeutic setting. (It is also unlikely, given the organic problems, that he will ever be able to function in society completely independently.)

Because the placement is temporary, Sarah continues to receive a portion of his SSI check. She is, for the most part a good money manager. She lives in a run down but very neatly maintained mobile home that she rents for $475 per month. Utilities cost about $200 per month. She drives an old car on which she must pay taxes and insurance, and also has the attendent costs of maintenance, repair and gasoline. She did have ok credit for someone in her situation., which she used sparingly. However, she co-signed a high interest furniture loan for her 1st cousin who then defaulted. Trying to rob Peter to pay Paul, she ran upp her own credit card. Then she responded to a sharkey credit offer she received in the mail that she though would help her situation. She ended up converting a 13% credit card rate to a $24% credit card rate. This happened during a hypomanic episode.

She was on the list for a housing supplement and had moved to the top of the waiting list. Based on conversations both she and I had previously with the housing authority, she and I were operating on the assumption that the housing supplement, if it came through in time, would enable her to keep her housing if her grandson stayed in foster care and his check was stopped. His placement there is voluntary. This is not a protective services case. He wants to come home. She has been struggling in both her individual therapy with me and with the in-home faily therapist who works with her and the grandson together to resolve her own ambivalence about his best interests and her own feelings that she might be abandoning him if she continues to consent to the foster care placement when school ends, should that be clinically an option.   Everyone involved in the case have hoped that a return home will be indicated, but all involved have known it is a borderline situation.

Last month, when she rose to the top of the waiting list for a housing supplement, she was called in for a final review. She heats with fuel oil. It costs %500 to fill the tank. It has to be paid all at once, even though it is used all winter. She scraped and saved and was finally able to have the tank filled in November. Because the bill was paid in full in the previous calendar year, housing would not allow it as an expense. If they had prorated the cost over the heating period, the prorated cost would have qualified her to stay at the top of the waiting list. They say the rules won't let them. She is back at the bottom of the waiting list.

If her grandson does not return to her home now, she will be unable to support herself. (There is not one single rooming house in my area, Mary, and no candidates for room-mates--she has looked.) This greatly complicates the decision making process regarding her grandson.

She is embarrassed and ashamed that she is unable to adequately support herself, that she is unable to work. She is embarrassed that she can not provide for her grandson as she would like. He recently had a birthday, celebrated with her and the foster family. she got him a CD. They got him a nice, new shiny bicycle. She appreciated their generosity to her grandson. And felt terribly humiliated. she felt like a failure.

Sarah is poor, but not destitute.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 05:06 PM

Yeahm Janie, the idea of privitization is scarey... When profit becomes the bottom line it is difficult to alot the time and resources to a client you have that ***gut feeling*** about who you think has a chance to actually beat the odds and succeed... Under the public sysytem there was more room for that because not every move you made was scutinized...

You know what I mean...

As fir burn out, yeah, it is when the internalized anger and the feeling that you can't win collide... That is wxactly what it is and it isn't pleasant...

I my case, I developed a good old fashioned full blown case of anxiety disorder... That stuff ain't no fun at all... I'd rather have a broken leg any day of the week... With the acute anxiety disorder I was hospitalized and this is where the rub comes into play... When a social worker is hospitalized with symptoms of burn out guess who they are hospitalized with??? Yup, folks just like their clients!!!

But nevermind that... A year of nasty drugs and lots ot exercise and counseling I was back to my old self... But it was harrowing...

And though I did change careers I have always attracted and been attracted to folks who used to be my clients... My wife referes to me as a "maga-nut" because of the folks who I enjoy being with and maybe she's on to something... Guess, once a social worker, always a social worker...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 05:08 PM

I should probably begun the last post with the statement that I have changed some details to protect confidentiality, and in this case, anonymity.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 07:21 PM

I am copying this link from BS: Public Libraries and the mentally ill, a thread just started by Rapaire. The article talks about a number of things, but key among them is homelessness and the mentally ill.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 07:37 PM

Many people don't care because they think it can't or won't ever happen to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 10:45 PM

I'm going to post a couple of links that relate to the official 'poverty threshhold' and 'poverty guidelines' utilized for statistical, research, and most importantly, policy decisions and program eligibility in the United States. I'll have to do it two posts.

Warning: this some very dry reading. It is, however, essential reading if you want to have any understanding at all of
1. how our government defines poverty,
2. the benchmarks used in most research studies and statistical    analyses indicating the number of households officially living in poverty
3. The financial eligibility requirements that are used to determine who gets public assistance or qualifies for assorted government needs based programs. (Different programs use different per centages of the federal poverty level. ex. income not in excess of 100% of the federal poverty level. income not in excess of 130% of the federal poverty level, etc. Allowable deductions from income to determine eligibility for assorted programs are also often limited to deductions allowed in the formula used to determine poverty levels.

My next post will contain the first link.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 10:52 PM

The link to the FAQ page of the Economic Policy Institute gives some information about the current official measures of poverty, and a very condensed idea of what goes into the formula. It is geared toward the lay reader. The EPI would be classified by some as a liberal think tank. that may be, but their data is sound and generally presented in a good, objective way. They tend to let the data speak for itself, without trying to put a 'spin' on it.

Pole around the website some for other good information and analysis.

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_poverty_povertyfaq

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 11:16 PM

This is a report from a panel commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the early nineties that proposed a major revamp of the methodology used to determine offical poverty threshholds and guidelines.

Go to the bottom of the page, and especially check the links to the preface and the executive summary. Warning. This is VERY dry reading.

This represents good and thoughtful research methodology, tries to stay out of the politics of the issue, and clearly acknowledges that all decisions regarding social science research includes an element of judgement (value judgement).


Their recommendations have never been implemented. I did not research further to see if they were ignored or outright rejected by policy makers.


http://books.nap.edu/readingroom/books/poverty/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 11:38 PM

Re: the EPI. Well, yes, they are a liberal think tank. I actually found and read the NAS panel report before I found the EPI website. I also posted both links before I went back and read to the bottom of the EPI FAQ and saw where they referenced the Panel's report. I had googled for 'Federal Povery Levels, USA' simply looking to see what the guidelines currently are, and what methodology is used.

Got distracted before I found the actual current numbers. I'll go see if I can find them now.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 11:44 PM

Hey Bobert:

You have expended a lot of energy avoiding answering a few simple questions regarding some "facts" of yours. Who rents the apartments that are below the $1300 per month average and why do you claim the money for school breakfasts needs to be brought back?

You can ask me anything you want and I will try my best to answer but I will never use name calling as a substitute for an answer.

It looks like you really care about poor people and have gone beyond the call of duty in trying to help them but have been frustrated. I feel a little pious in even talking about because I am not poor but I feel for poor people too.

My Dad woke up one day when he was 16 with no parents and three sisters to take care of with no assets, no money and only distant relatives. He told me stories about hopping aboard a truck full of baskets of apples at a stop light in Richmond during the depression. He filled his shirt with apples and when he jumped off of the truck at the next light, his shirt tail came out and all the apples rolled down the street. And the time when he built our first house in Alexandria out of scrap lumber from construction projects scabbed together. The times when he had to hunt squirrels and rabbits for food. Under adverse conditions he took care of his siblings got out of poverty and I guess he is sort of my role model. I don't like the fact that there are poor people. I wish there were no poor people. If there was a sure cure I would support it But I don't see the cure. I think we need to study the cause and eliminate the causes and best as possible instead of concentrating on patches. As Ben Franklin said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

So far I have not seen anybody define the causes except for a lot of maudlin sentiment, government bashing, company bashing and rich people bashing. Some companies like credit card companies are predatory and some people fall prey to them. I think they should be regulated by the government. Pay day loans, video poker and all that too.

I think the key to helping people out of the poverty cycle is education. People that are really determined, get an education even under adverse conditions.

I do not claim to know everything and I make mistakes so If I am wrong, please correct me but I don't see how posting incorrect facts like "Bring back the funding for breakfast programs" when it was never taken away or poor people can't afford the average $1300 apartment serves any purpose except as a red herring or a straw man to be kicked around and to blame things on. Could it be that Bobert was just plain wrong and refuses to admit it?

I think that these so called "civil rights leaders" pander to and feed off of the poor by sympathizing with them, telling them they are victims and that people are plotting against them. They prey on the victim mentality. Others try to send the message that they can succeed if they want to and if they try. The government can't legislate that and rich people can't buy that for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 11:59 PM

2007 HHS Poverty Guidelines
Persons
in Family or Household 48 Contiguous
States and D.C. Alaska Hawaii
1 $10,210 $12,770 $11,750
2 13,690 17,120 15,750
3 17,170 21,470 19,750
4 20,650 25,820 23,750
5 24,130 30,170 27,750
6 27,610 34,520 31,750
7 31,090 38,870 35,750
8 34,570 43,220 39,750
For each additional
person, add 3,480 4,350   

From the following officail website.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/07poverty.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 06:38 AM

Dickey,

Pay attention.

There is a wealth of information on this thread, on the web, in public libraries, within the halls of universities, and in government funded research and reports that identify the many, complex, and overdetermined reasons that people are poor.

I agree that education is one value resource (go back and read dianavan's and mg's posts) and public dollars that promote and support education and job skills training are public dollars well spent. Education should also include educating mainstream America about how our personal and societal values, institutions and choices contribute to poverty. Even so, education is only one piece of a very large picture.



There is no one key.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 07:29 AM

"I think that these so called "civil rights leaders" pander to and feed off of the poor by sympathizing with them, telling them they are victims and that people are plotting against them. They prey on the victim mentality. Others try to send the message that they can succeed if they want to and if they try. The government can't legislate that and rich people can't buy that for them."

Please define 'so-called.'

Please define 'others'

Please go talk to a sample of African-Americans, making sure your sample is mulitgenerational. While we are a long way from having righted the wrongs of institutional racism in this country, look at the increase in percentages of African Americans in the middle class. Look at the increased percentages of African Americans who go to college. Look at the increase in the percentages of African Americans in white collar and skilled jobs. Look at those percentages in terms of percentages of the African-American population. Look at those percentages in terms of increase in total percentage of the general population. Compare the numbers pre-civil rights movement to post civil rights movement.

Then come back and tell us that the preponderent effect of the civil rights movement, and of the civil rights leaders, was to foster victimhood and dependency.

The leaders of the civil rights movement helped people stand up and NAME their condition. It did not create their condition.


Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 01:33 PM

dickey - Access to education is very important but its not the answer for everyone.

How can a single mom go to college if she can't afford day care?

How can people learn if they are hungry or sick?

How can people look for work when they have nowhere to sleep?

You talked about your father's experience in the depression. That was a national experience. In other words, most everyone was in the same boat. Its not like today when the gap between haves and have nots is ever widening.

Politicians must look at a re-distribution of the wealth to fund social programs that will benefit everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scoville
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 02:43 PM

I'm sorry, but the poverty guidelines are a joke. You can't actually support yourself on those. Twelve people sharing a house and absolute bare-minimum food and clothing, maybe, but it's life on the edge at best. That seems to be assuming you and your dependents never get sick or injured, nothing you own ever breaks or wears out, you can live somewhere where everything is within walking distance, your portion of the rent doesn't go up, and you are able to work until the day you drop dead so you won't need to plan for retirement or old-age care.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 06:46 PM

Dickey,

Actually, compared to the nergy you have used up stalking an' attackin' me, I've used up little to no energy in avoding answering your question... Your question is so simplistic that I can't understand why you think it's the "holy grail" of this discussion... You have elivated your rather benign nit-pick into some kinda ah-hah-Bobert-gotcha-monster when it is is less than a cockroach... I just don't get your question...

I point out that poor folks are being displaced becuase of high rents in DC and if they can saty in the city are having to live in very dangerous neigborhoods and you go balistic??? I just don't get yer question, I guess... What is the big deal here, Dickey??? I mean, gol danged... It ain't rocket science...

You want to ba single mom working fir 8 bucks and hour with a couple kids and no husband in DC... Do the math... This woman and the millions just like her accross the US are seeing the same situation with urban center being revitalized and rents pricing them into the nastiest neigborhoods that haven't gone revitalization...

This isn't my imagination... It is a national trend...

So yeah, you can get a friggin' $475 a month apartment 3 miles north of Rock Creeek apartment... Do you want to raise yer kids there???

Now back to yer dad... Hey, my dad went thru the same crap... His mother died when he was 11 and he was sent off to work at age 11 on a farm but he made it okay...Never finished high school but ended up working as a district manager for Ford Motor Co... But that was then and this is now... Lots of folks came thru the depression and did just fine because after WW II there was work for anyone who wanted it and the pay was decent by late 40's/eraly 50's standards... That is as long as you were white...


But beyond that, Scoville is entirely correct... The guidelines are a joke... If we used realistic guidlines we'd probably double the number of folks who are living in poverty...

And guess what...Wiht the exception of the upper 1 ot 2% everyone is one catastropic illness away from joing those ranks... There isn't even a friggin law on the books that says that a health insurance carrier can't drop you if you get sick...

So, Fickey, lets say that tomorrow morning, you wake up and go for you annual checkup and the doc finds a spot in the exray and it's cancer... And so yer health insureer drops you 'casue, ahhhh, for no other reason but "they can" legally...

And the treeatment is going to be 'round $500,000, which it can very easially, you might be looking fir one of them $475 apartments in some ghettoe yerself...

Farfetched???

Well, yeah...

But this can happen to you...

Do, yeah, this is why I rail against the governemnt... Rather than "govern" a civil society they are stealing our national accumulated wealth and funneling it to the upper 1 to 2%...

This is not the way enlightened societies behave...

Period!!!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 08:11 PM

Now I'd like to make a comment about "education"... Yes, while education seems to be that threshold that folks who don't really understanf the cycle of poverty, it is the "holy grail" but...

...this is for folks who don't understand what it is laike to grown up in poverty these days... And it is somewhat part of the4 problem in breaking the cycle of poverty but...

... it isn't the folks who are stuck in the hampster wheel of povertyy but the folks who have some "power" to exert their values on the folks who spend the money...

Yeah, the folks who nedd some educatin' are the folks here, like Dickey, but not only Dickey but the Dickies of the world who would rather preach to poor peoploe how to get outta of poverty which is like speaking a forieng language or smugly balaming folks for bad choices...

Either way, it won't break the cycle... No, the American people in general need to be educated, top to bottom... And if that were to occur then we could get the War on Poverty back on track... There isn't a silver bullet herer but many pieces of buckshot that need to be fired in this war...

And yeah, it's gonna take breakfast programs... It's gonna take more $$$ for child care subsidies... It's gonna take more Section 8 housing... Bottom line, inspite of the right wing rhetoric that you can't fix problesm with money, it's goning to take money...

Heck, we give Billions and billions to rich fat cats wioth the hope that it will trickle down... It's time to level the playing field and invest those billions in our poor and let it trickle ****up****....

This is some basic bottom line stuff here...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 09:51 PM

I'm about to post another series of links, this time regarding distribution of wealth and income in the USA. Some pretty interesting reading on some of these sites, in addition to the graphs. Again, I only know how to do it one post at a time.

Hhttp://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.htmlere is the first.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 09:58 PM

Here's number 2

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/american_income_taxation.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:02 PM

Fixing first link. (I hope)
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:08 PM

Straight from Uncle Sam

http://www.sipp.census.gov/sipp/workpapr/wp233.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:09 PM

For your reading pleasure-more links to census bureau data.

http://www.sipp.census.gov/sipp/pubsmain.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:13 PM

Don't just look at the stats. Read (or at least skim) the explanations and analyses.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:23 PM

The guy who needs to read those links won't. His mind's made up and that's that.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 11:00 PM

I am not a believer in leveling. It is fine with me, and probably in the nature of things, that some have more and some have less.

But if you are looking for the most significant reason there are significant levels poverty in a nation with our total wealth, these numbers tell the story.

Grossly inequitable distribution of wealth.

Who determines how resources are distributed? Those with the power to do so.

Who has power? People with money. Lots of money.

How many people have lots and lots of money? Not very many.

The richest of the rich, and the richer of the rich could still be rich. The merely rich could still be very well-to-do. The upper middle class could still be middle class. The vast majority of us could still muddle along from payday to payday and be ok barring any catastrophic illness. And we could guarantee that even the worst off among us were guaranteed a basic but adequate standard of living. That basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and medical care were sufficiently met.

In this country, in these United States of America, in this, the richest country in the history of the world, the only reason so many are so poor is because that is the only way the richest can stay that rich.

That, my friends, is social injustice.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 11:18 PM

Bobert:

I never said it would not take money to "fix" poverty but the money should be spent in the right places.

Education is one factor. Parental neglect is another.

And yes, people should be told when they make bad choices. Like this: Here is a good choice and here is a bad choice. Joe made a bad choice and he suffers. If you make a bad choice you will suffer like Joe. It is not rocket science.

But you still have not explained who rents the apartments that cost below average or why you say the money for breakfast programs should be brought back. Spending on school breakfast programs has gone up not gone away so please explain your rhetoric.

I just remembered that my dad told me he had a car that was so worn out that the spark plug holes were stripped. He had to wrap a strip of a rag around the threads and screw in the spark plugs real gently to get them to stay. He had to featherfoot the gas pedal or the plugs would pop out and put dents in the hood. It was a flat head.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 11:20 PM

Janie: I like your link. Here is what I found

Stop Blaming the Media!
by G. William Domhoff
October 2005

"Like everyone else, progressives have a strong tendency to blame the media for their failures. As horrible as the media can be, they are not the problem. Blaming the media becomes an excuse for not considering the possibility that much of the leftist program is unappealing to most people -- third parties, calls for a planned non-market economy, the use of violent tactics by some groups, and a tendency to rely on charismatic leaders. None of these has any appeal to average Americans, and it is not the media that created this negative reaction.

When activists complain about the nature of media coverage, they are actually demanding that the media abandon an independent journalistic stance and champion their cause by reporting what they want reported. This is in effect what people from the left and right constantly do: attack the media with the hope that they will bend in their direction, then blame the media if their program fails.

Today the main culprit is said to be television, with its misleading or distracting images, and non-stop advertising, but the complaint goes back to the days when there were only newspapers. It leads to endless dissection of every media story to find any mistakes and distortions, but progressives rarely consider the possibility that the media distortions are not the reason why they often lose. Blaming the media reinforces tendencies toward conspiratorial thinking. It crowds out creative thinking about how to make use of the media as part of strategic nonviolent campaigns....."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:02 AM

Here's what I found at http://www.sipp.census.gov/sipp/workpapr/wp233.pdf page 51


It tells me that the majority of families make between $25,000 and &49,999 and the majority of thise hava head of household between 35 and 44years old.
TABLE B-1
SURVEY OF INCOME AND PROGRAM PARTICIPATION, WAVE 7 SAMPLE SIZE:
UNWEIGHTED COUNTS OF FAMILIES, BY AGE OF HEAD AND FAMILY TOTAL INCOME, 1995
Family Total Income
..........Less than..$10,000-.$25,000-.$50,000-.$75,000-.$100,000..All Income
...........$10,000.....24,999..49,999....74,999...99,999 ..or More...Classes
Age of
Head
25-34.......576........1,318...1,389......515.....164........50......4,012
35-44.......409..........982...1,609......926.....345........182.....4,453
45-54.......271..........663...1,131......741.....388........277.....3,471
55-64.......318..........572.....798......378.....179........120.....2,365
65-74.......388..........877.....715......206......68.........36.....2,290
75 and
Older.......536..........866.....371.......77......20..........9.....1,879
All Ages*.2,498........5,278...6,013....2,843...1,164........674....18,470

---

* Age 25 or older.
Source: Capital Research Associates analysis of Survey of Income and Program Participation.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 04:00 AM

I've chosen to ignore any comments by a certain someone...HE WHO SHOULD NOT BE NAMED...which, btw, makes reading this thread somewhat of a challenge. It's been a while since I've been here.

First, I forgot to give kudos to Bobert a while back for his case study. It was truly moving. And, yes, you're right about beer not being able to be purchased with food stamps...I guess I didn't make that clear. What I meant to say is that I've seen people rag on those who buy beer and, say, cigarettes with their welfare money as well as buying chips with food stamps.

Second, thanks to both Bobert and Janie (your case study was also poignant) for lending us their expertise and for their patience with us. It is truly a difficult subject, but I think your examples make it easier to understand, for some, at least.

dianavan was right about it being somewhat better to be poor in a rural rather than urban setting, however, it's been my experience that in the rural communities I've lived in, there's more people who are willing to stick their faces into your business, and who have no qualms about making you feel the size of a peanut, but less worthy. Manners don't seem to exist. People say out loud whatever their brains are misfiring over when they're in public, or in private for that matter. The gossip is outrageous. It's far worse than that game of Telephone we used to play. It adds depression to the mix and skims what little self-worth you had down to the bone.

Janie's case study pointed out exactly what happens in the system. Your furnace goes out in the middle of winter, for example. You call the company that services it and provides you your fuel. They send a guy out to examine it, incurring a service charge. He says he can't get it to run, goes out to check your fuel meter and discovers you're out of fuel. Ironically, you have an appointment to see social services for an emergency fuel allotment check you qualify for that very day. Service guy says, I'll talk to my boss and get him to deliver 50 gallons of kerosene before you have to leave for your appointment, even though you've made it clear that you're behind in your payments to the heating co. because you've been waiting on the appointment with social services. The fuel is delivered, the guy can now check the furnace and finds, much to your relief, that the problem was the lack of fuel. Off you go to your appointment.

Instead of getting the "nice" social worker you've had in the past, luck of the draw gets you one of the angry "thinks it's his/her money being doled out" ones, who proceeds to run you through a mini-version of the book, "Catch-22." (Mind you it's been a while, but) the dialog goes like this:

SW: How much fuel do you have in your furnace? (Remember, they have your supplier on record, so there's no point in fudging.)
C(lient): 50 gals.
SW: 50 gals? Well, then, you don't need emergency fuel funds.
C: But, I do. My furnace went out in the middle of the night, and when the fuel co. finally called back from the message I left on their machine, they sent out a service man.
SW: Well, you're not supposed to contact your supplier to fix a furnace. We have a contract with a business here in town (45 mins. away from your house by car.)
C: I didn't know.
SW: Well, I'm not responsible for what you don't know.
C: Sorry, I was just trying to explain. So, what was I supposed to do?
SW: You were supposed to call us and tell us your furnace was down, and then we'd send a repairman from that co. to check it out.
C: I didn't know. Besides, as it turns out, I was out of fuel.
SW: How'd you know that?

The dialog went on in this circular reasoning for over an hour...almost reducing the client to tears, but not quite breaking her. I think that po'd the SW even more than the fact that the client really wasn't trying to scam her, and the SW knew it. BTW, the client never got the emergency funds, but instead had to make due with the annual allotment to which she had already qualified, because, of course, since the furnace now had 50 gals. in it, it wasn't empty, was it! This is a true life story, and a real participant was hurt in the process, but she's since recuperated...yet dreads having to visit Social Services ever again.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:23 AM

Good example of public policy in action, Wordsmith.

The most disturbing thing to me about what happened with the woman whose story you tell is this: Had it been a 'nice' social worker, the outcome would have been the same.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:48 AM

Oops! Got it wrong. The real culprit is she made two bad choices.

First, she had the temerity to call some one to see what was wrong with the furnace. She compounded it with another bad choice when she let the guy put 50 gal. of fuel oil in the tank.

I really admire the effectiveness of the social worker with whom she dealt, the one who made it clear the problem was her bad choices.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:51 AM

A few days ago I was walking with a friend. We were talking and I wasn't paying attention. I started to step out into the street when she grabbed my arm and jerked me back. I had nearly stepped out in front of a car.

Maybe she should have let me do it so I could learn from my mistake?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:12 PM

I lived in a mobile home once when I did not have the money to buy a house. It had a kerosene pot burner. When it quit heating the first thing I would do is check the fuel to see if it was empty. If it was empty I could always get go to a local place an get a 5 gal can filled to get me by for a few days.

To light it I had to let some oil into the pot and drop in a piece of burning paper. Once it had burned a short while, gone out and there was a fog of vaporized fuel in the bottom. When I dropped in the burning paper to relight it, the fuel "blew up" like gasoline vapor and singed my face, removing my eyebrows and eyelashes. I stood there stunned for a few seconds and then I heard the clang of the vent cap landing in the street.

I never made that bad choice again and if someone had warned be thay my face was in danger, I would not have made the bad choice to begin with.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Charmion
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 05:27 PM

Mr. Dickey, has it occurred to you that the woman in Wordsmith's example may have had absolutely no idea how to tell what the problem was with her furnace? And even if she had, how can you be so sure that, like you, she was strong enough to carry a five-gallon can of kerosene from the nearest service station -- possibly miles away? I'm a well-fed middle-aged woman who works out frequently, and I know darned well what a 20-litre jerrycan of gasoline weighs -- too much for me to carry more than a block without injuring myself!

Let's not get into the dangers of amateur furnace-starting: the woman in Wordsmith's example was almost certainly brought up from babyhood not to do dangerous things, but to call someone qualified to do it who could be trusted not to burn her house down! Which she duly did, and for which she was severely punished.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:29 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie - PM
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:44 AM
...Are some people lazy and/or ignorant and make bad choices that contribute to their own position of poverty? You betcha. But do each of us who do not live in poverty make choices about what we do, how we vote, what we spend, what we think we must have, and what we place the most priority on that results in other people being pushed into, or held into conditions of poverty? Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. And unless or until a majority of the individuals in society assume personal responsibility for the effects on others of the choices we make, a huge number of human beings around the globe are doomed to suffer needlessly....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:37 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie - PM
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 11:44 PM

Values.

I'm gonna ramble a bit and not try to tie things together real tightly here.

There are some who would say that many people who live in poverty make choices that put them there and/or keep them there. I agree.

There are some who say that many people who don't live in poverty make choices that cause or contribute to creating and maintaining poverty. I agree.

In all societies, beyond a certain age, people are expected to take responsibility for the choices they make. (Responsibility is not synonymous with blame.) I think this is reasonable, and when people can see and do this, my observation is that it is empowering. If I don't understand that I have responsibility, how can I ever believe that I have the power to effect change from within or from without?

In all my years of practice have I observed lots of people making bad or ineffective choices? Oh yes indeed!

In all my years of practice have I seen people make impulsive and needlessly uninformed choices? You betcha!

In all my years of practice have I ever encountered one single individual whose goal was to make bad choices? Never. Nada. Not once.

With respect to personal well-being, my observations and experience has been that individuals always make the best choice they know how to make at any particular time given the knowledge and the resources (internal and external) available to them at the time. Not once in 35 years of practice have I observed anyone approach a choice from the standpoint of "I want to make the worst possible decision that I can right now," even when they may in fact be making that worst possible decision....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:38 PM

And once again we are back to folks who make poor decisions... Yes, lots of poor people ***do*** make poor (bad) decisions but preaching to them isn't going to change much... This is what "client centered" social work is all about... Yeah, someone from a middle class back ground with a MSW certainly is more apt to make good decisions in a pinch but poor people don't have those backgrounds and experiences that provide them with the larger menu of choices that middle class people have...

Also, poor people tend to move more becuase of various financial factors and when it comes to mechanical systems from one pl;ace to another it can get comlpicated...

Lastly, since Dickey seems to wonder who rents what in the DC area as if when I tell him he'll leap down upon me from a tree I'll tell him... The folks who can... Pure and simple... I still don't get his point, if he even has one...

I'll be back later with just one more personal story to tell about life as a social worker...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 07:05 PM

Bobert: My question is simple. You say that poor people can't afford an average apartment. What does that mean in the context of this thread? What does it imply? It seeme to me you are trying to imply that it is some sort of problem for poor people. Why is it a problem when there are less expensive apartments? Are middle class people supposed to rent those cheaper apartments? Are the lower priced apartments supposed to go empty because poor people deserve to have an average priced apartment?

They probably can't afford an average priced automobile either so should someone give them financial aid so they can afford one?

I don't drive an average priced automobile and when I rented apartments I went to the lower priced ones and not the average priced ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 07:13 PM

Hmmm - Good choice or poor choices? Seems a bit subjective to me.

The oil furnace is a good example.

As a kid, my family was up and down financially. During an up time (with the help of a GI bill and a job at the mill), my parents bought a very humble house and struggled to make the mortgage payments for the rest of their lives.

Since both parents worked, I had to come home from school at 11 years old and start the furnace. I had to remove the grate from the floor, stand over it and drop a match down the hole. Everyday I thought I was going to explode. Did my parents make a good choice or a bad choice when they gave me this job?

Another time I had to go into the crawl space under the house because my mom and dad couldn't fit. I had to replace something on the furnace (could it have been the pilot light?) and I had to scoot in on my back with a flashlight, a screwdriver and the part. My dad gave me instructions on his hands and knees talking into the crawl space and I got the job done in spite of the cobwebs and my fear. Good choice or bad choice on my parents part?

Then there was the job of helping my dad shingle the roof...

What I'm trying to say is that what may appear to be a poor choice is actually the only choice for some. Sometimes when you're struggling, you don't have a choice, you just have to do it and you do it with whatever resources you have. You just blink back the tears.

I've worked in schools where the poverty rate was very, very high. If you want to survive, you check your psychology at the door because everyone knows that psychology was made for rich folks. It doesn't apply to the poor. Hats off to those who struggle and make it in spite of all the odds and hats off to those who have the compassion to help the others.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 07:22 PM

"If you want to survive, you check your psychology at the door because everyone knows that psychology was made for rich folks. It doesn't apply to the poor."

Amen to that!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 07:50 PM

Dickey,

Well, my friend, we are now down to arguing over how many angels can dance on the end of a pin...

I just don't see where the questions you have asked are relevant to this discussion of any other discussion fir that matter...

Fold live where they can afford... If you can afford a $1300 a month apartment yet choose to live in a $475 apartment in a neighborhood where you will be dodging bullets on a daily basis, fine... Move there... You mentioned the area in the Rock Creek area where there were $475 apartments... Please just ove there... If you are white and look middle class, you will be dead in matter of days... However, if you are a black woman makin' $8 an hour with 3 kids you might be able to live there without be killed but, then again, yer kids might not turn out too good...

The only folks that live in these areas live there becuase of default and not choice... Many folks just need the assistence from family that live in those neighborhoods...

I'm not too sure what choices you think that poor people have and I am kinda curious as to just what you thinbk poor people think about their world??? Do you have any idea??? This ain't about yer daddy sellin' apples during the depression... It's about a much different paradyme... And I'm guessing from the poasitions that you take on variuos issues that you don't have a clue what it is like to grow up in an impoversihed family...

Yeah, you perhaps have learned enough from ***your*** eductaion and ***your*** experiences to make choices that would allow you to escape a temporary bout of poverty... I could as well... Most, if not everyone I know her in Mudcat could, too...

But we're dealing with reality here... Not pure academics... Not preaching to folks who don't have our expiences to draw from... If we, as a nation, are going to ever win the so-called "war on poverty" it's going to take folks like you to make a fundamental shift in attitude toward facing reality... Reality is what social workers face every day of their working lives...

You reality doesn't mean jack to someone who has grown up much differently...

That is what I tried to explain to mg but I don't think she ever got it and accused me of being rude... No, I'm not being rude... I am being real... I have been in the trenches, have suffered from the dialy disapointments of seeing folks make what seems to middle class educated people, ahhhh, "bad choices" and from it all I learned that the only way I could be effective was to become more "clinet centered"...

Yeah, I keep coming back to this concept of "client centered" and if we are ever going to make any progress we are going to have to accept,***** without judgement*****, where the folks we want to help are in their lives...

And we are going to have to have the resources that we once had at our disposal to throw into the mix as we ***try*** to nudge and cajole and teach and nurture folks to make changes...

...and that ain't easy, Dickey...

Take yourself, fir example.... You are a very dogmatic person who is highly resistent to make any changes... So are most poor people...

But, and I will put this into the mix, Dickey, I will give you credit for hangin' in this discussion (even though most of of yer hangin' has been of the ahh-hah-gotcha-Bobert academic variety...) becuase it shows that you have at least some rudementary curiousity about this terrible American problem...

Bobert

p.s. Just needed to do that little bit of house cleaning... Maybe tomoorow night for the story I promised...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 08:25 PM

Choice. Options. Without options there is no choice involved.

Usually there are choices. Options.

The internal and external determinants that govern the visibility of options, the reality of options and the nature of options is so complex that somebody could, and probably has, written a number of books about them.

Learning takes practice. Lots of it.

We definitely learn from the choices we make. Depending on the circumstances, the lessons we learn from our choices depend on the choices available. This includes both the number of options and the kinds of options.

So much of learning is trial and error.

Sometimes people have options that they don't recognize.

Sometimes people don't have the experience or the knowledge to know how to evaluate options.


Education plays a big role here. Both formal education, and the education of life experience. Notice I am not defining the curriculum or the quality of the education. Simply the process.

Any observant person, any person with even a slight ability to self-reflect will confirm that experiencing the natural consequences of our actions teaches powerful lessons. The underlying assumption is there are different options between or among from which to experiment. The actual lessons learned depend largely, but not exclusively on three conditions: 1. What is the natural consequence of my first action; 2. How many other options are there and 3. What is the degree of distinction between the natural consequences that result from choosing the other options.

Sometimes people don't have much in the way of options from which to choose.


In a very real way, control the choices and you control the person.

The most efficient and effective way to control a group of people is to control (limit) their options.

Disney World and Wendy's does it with gates and switchbacks made of rope.

Social Control is acheived by controlling options. The exercise of social control may be about protecting the people, protecting those exerting the control, or both. Often it is both. When both, the balance varies, but over a sustained period of time, the balance tends toward protection of the power of those in control. That is not to say it is clearly intentional or conscious. But it is a social reality.

On a societal level, our social welfare institutions provide just enough protection to keep resistance to control manageable. The rest of the function serves to protect those in power. Institutions insure an underclass by limiting resources, and thereby limiting options.

It is not transparent. The boundaries between the functions are very co-mingled. It is not either/or, black or white. It is not dichotomous. The extremely wealthy and powerful do not sit in their mansions, rubbing their hands together with an evil gleam in their eyes. The underclass is not filled to the brim with virtuous saints full of noble suffering.

But it is real.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 08:37 PM

Dang, Bobert and dianavan, I sit here laboring for 2 hours over precise language--should I emphasize this or emphasize that... how much detail here...should I let that point go for the sake of 'brevity', etc. etc.,   Finally hit 'submit' and see you two wonderfully articulate people have cut out all the bs and gone straight to the heart of the issue, in real words, and probably while you were eating popcorn with one hand or washing dishes.

Jeez, Janie.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 08:39 PM

Not only that, Bobert up and got '400.'

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 08:44 PM

I would have to say I am for social control, in situations such as described, where people are afraid to leave their houses, where they live in terror every minute of their lives. These things can be improved..yes they can. They are having talking telephone poles or something in England..just a story on them..and they tell people to please pick up their cans and put them in the trash. They have really reduced the amount of violence. I also think that when anyone enters public housing they have to offer in exchange some of their privacy...and should expect to have to go through checkpoints, videotaping in lobbies and elevators and varous forms of security. That to me is the only way things are going to change. If there are other ways that are working, then discontinue suggsetions like these..but the very fact that people know someone is watching what is going on will reduce the behavior. Oh dear we are trampling on their rights. Yes, we are. But we are helping to secure the rights of those who are preyed upon, and we are protecting our ownselves as well. The amount of violence in an area will determine how much surveillance is necessary..and if we all need it all the time then so be it to be fair to everyone. As for these neighborhoods with the $475 apartments and thugs terrorizing everyone...I would have so many cameras going all the time. Probably pipe in some polka music as well.   They would become gardens of earthly delight. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 09:27 PM

As Janie once said, mg, I don't know if I should strangle you or hug you...

You seem so dog-goned determined to force safety and comfort on poor folks... Problem is that it's like a square peg and a round hole, especially given the meager resources available for the long forgotten "war on poverty"...

It shouldn't come down to better law enforcement.... We're doing purdy good in that with the high percentage of folks who have come from poor families now incarcerated...

No, what I have been trying to talk about, as well as d and Janie, is a basic paradyme shift toward solutions v. incarceration... Cameras, while maybe being of some value, isn't the answer... Programs & resources are... We used to have "midnight baasketball" leagues in DC an' the youngin' who would normally ahngin' ther streets would show up and play b-ball... The funds for thast program got cut off and now the kids who used to be in the gym at midnight are back on the streets...

We used to have school breakfast programs that enticed kids to come to school so they would get at least one good mean a day and we cut the funds... Now these kids don't bother comin' to school anymore...

That's what I've been talkin' about... You can't just wish poverty away and you can't magically implant middle class experiences onto people who are clueless and expect that they will get it... They won't...

No, what it's goina' take a real commitment by our very wealthy nation to redistribute the wealth, thru money, theu programs, thru social workers, thru teachers, thru, thru, thru....

If we are not willing to make those changes we will continue to pay for our failures in incarcaretion ($42,000 per yer per inmate) and the knowledge that we had alternatives to letting the rich hoard all the riches...

This is very much about revolution...

The gap between the haves and have-nuthings has never been greater and it's time that we quit blaming the have-nuthings...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 09:43 PM

Bobert:

I referred to an area near Rock Creek Park like Connecticut Avenue just west of Rock Creek Park where they have doormen. You jump on my ass and say there are bullets flying there and I don't know anything about DC.

You still have not explained what poor folks not being able to afford the average apartment means in the context of this thread. Evidently I have got you because you avoid answering and heap a bunch of names one me instead. You like to throw out these straw man statements and won't come back to defend them.

Sure poor people are forced to live in crime ridden, pimp infested, drug saturated, gang menaced neighborhoods. But who are these criminals? Is it Exxon or rich folks that make these areas so dangerous? It is people who turn to a life of crime rather than take on the difficult task of working for a living. Kids join gangs for a feeling of family that they don't get at home. This creates a cycle of poverty.

It makes me happy when I see a neighborhood banding together to fight crime. A group of citizens who realize that the Police cannot do it without the help and cooperation of the citizens. And then you see a kid wearing a no snitching T shirt, obviously for the sake of making a profit by selling a T shirt. Where are the parents of these kids? Don't they have a choice in what they allow their kids to do and what standards they set?

These are the roots of poverty that need to be defined and addressed. People need to be educated and enabled to stand on their own two feet at an early age. They need parental guidance. Can the government legislate parental responsibility? Can big corporations and rich folks buy it for them?


Street Code # 1
Never Snitch T-Shirt
$16.99

Snitches Get Stiches
$17.99

Bread Over Bitches Shirt
$19.99

Bros Before Hoes
$17.99

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 09:45 PM

The only people with the power to change the lot of the poor are people with money. It ain't happenin'.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:29 PM

It ain't happenin' because the roots of poverty are not being addressed, only the symptoms.

Why wait until a girl drops out of school and has three illegitimate kids by "men" that take off when the fun ends and the responsibility begins?

Do you hear rich people telling them to get pregnant? Dp you hear Exxon telling that "man" to take off and get another one with no kids to bother with? Take drugs? Steal and murder? Do thay tell parents to neglect thier kids and treat them like they are unwanted?

Throw someone else's money at the problem seems to be the consensus here.

Why is the unemployment rate among the Asians 2.7 percent? Racisim and slavery does not have anything to do with it. It is their family culture and sense of responsibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:31 PM

Who the fuck was talkin' to you?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 03:16 AM

The "I'm rich, so I'm entitled to to rob, but you're poor so you're not entitled to rob back, and anyway, fucking is much too good for the poor" mentality in some on this thread enrages me. Janie, your posts are excellent, for the most part.

Dickey, if you think the Asian kids are innately or through social indoctrination diligent and law abiding, you simply have not done your homework. The UK experience is that the actual immigrant Asians were largely submissive, but there are large portions of second generation Asians in which the kids fight and fight back. Check out Nottingham, Sheffield, large chunks of West London. Plenty of rude Asian boys with microscopic phones and electric blue Scoobies.

Your apparent assumption that there is something innately undisciplined immoral or inferior about the disproportionate numebr of blacks amongst the American poor seems openly racist, and your approval of your father's thefts in the depression while you condemn the claiming of welfare in the new depression created by the US neocons is at best hypocritical.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 04:41 AM

"Can the government legislate parental responsibility? Can big corporations and rich folks buy it for them?".

No. But one could argue that they bought it from them when both parents started having to go to work to make ends meet.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 07:12 AM

Well, some of us have the capacity and willingness to understand that society is organized around a social contract conditioned on not only interdependency, but also mutual responsibility.

Some of us, while readily acknowledging that each of us is responsible for the effect of the choices we make in our own lives, understand and are just as willing to acknowledge that we are responsible for the effect of the choices we make on the lives of others. Those of us who choose to accept this, also understand that opportunity is not equal, that the playing field is not level, and that those of us who have more and better options, are only able to have that nice, big menu at the expense of others.

Some of us believe that those who have power are morally responsible for the effects of the ways we exercise that power on other people.

Some of us are willing to deal with complexity. Some of us are willing to acknowlege the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.

Some of us are willing to strive to base our opinions and beliefs on all available information. Some of us form our opinions and beliefs, lock on to any information that supports them, and then willfully and wantonly ignore or discount any information to the contrary.

Some of us not only understand that resources are finite, we can also do basic math. We therefore understand that if the vast majority of resources are concentrated on one side of the equation, there will be vastly fewer resources on the other side. The side with the most resources has the most power. Has the most choices. Has the most responsibility to insure the terms of the social contract are kept.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 09:53 AM

The "WAR ON POVERTY" has been fought & was lost years ago. Most don't even remember fighting it. It came with a roar & a riot & went with a hand out & a wimper and it was a long time ago.

Warning: Long story

Sit down child & let me tell you how I lived through those wars. Yes, those wars there were others to, ya know. There was one on crime & another on drugs. There were a few, one on child illeracy & another against infant mortality. Anyway there were a lot of wars back then even ones about education, some times I still think that I see a spark of those days every once an' awhile but I just don't pay attention to that any more just an old man reflecting on his youth.
Well where do I start, I guess it would've been sometime back in the 50's. The big war was over and I was just born, there was a new feeling that nothing was impossible, evil had been beaten & all was well with the world. Folks started having lots of kids, every one who wanted to work could, those that came home from the wars were looked after & looked up to & cared for too and when you got old the companies you worked for & the governemt that taxed you took care of you, you even had a chance of making it big time through business or politics and other ways too. Even those who didn't know much could do very well for themselves, it was a dream time. But not all did well, there were still pockets that got left behind, sort of left overs that were hidden from the light & joy. They were always there but they somehow survived & with all the handouts, the social programs & the other Sallys, churches & well to do, do gooders, they got by. Sure they didn't get the good jobs, some didn't even get jobs, maybe they weren't able to do them & sure they didn't get the education either but in the end they didn't die on the streets, they were looked after. Yes those were good times for the most part. I guess it was around the 60's, I was still just a boy but now I was in my teens & it seemd that the world was changing. Folks that had less were asking for more, an' getting it too. They wanted to be able to have a chance to feel as if they were equal to all the other folks that were doing well. They wanted to be treated better than servants or slaves or wanted to educated. Well if men can become schooled why can't we women do it too? Yes the world was going though alot of changes back then, mostly for the good too. But it was looking like there was a cost to it & a toll was to be taken too. It was an all about us, no a me kind of thing mind you but about us. Yup, about us we were the us'es. We were poor & uneducated but so was everyone around us. We didn't know that some folks lived differently, we didn't know that those big houses that we'd see on the TV belonged to real people & how they talked, very fancy & they seemed pretty smart an rich an powerful too. Yup, there were things we were learning about that we had never known about before. We were seeing things like live war and things like how the other side lived, and how the blacks in those other projects across the street lived. Funny they were living just like us and we never knew it. Funny what we leant back then. A lot of people were caring about each other, yes the people were seeing things they never saw before, almost like waking from a slow dream. That's when it started happening, they were beginning to see how some got more & how more got less & it was a bit confusing & a bit unnerving at the same time. The feelings that got to running around about this was off the charts too. Everybody started yelling & hoarding, gabbing & pulling for the things they never had but saw that they now wanted & thought that they should have too. And others thought that they should have & were entitled to itra too, after all they had it and didn't even have to work hard for it either, it was like it was gifts from their parents of from their parents society. Well, that's when it all started falling to shit, maybe some time around the 70's the programs & churches, the armies of Sally's & the social government programs they all started to fight back, in a knee jerk kind of way. Making things harder on the folks that they always helped in the past & started looking at the fund like they belonged to themselves or belonged elsewhere. Yup, they were redirecting, not only the money, funds & resources but they way they thought too. Gone was the helping hand & the eye on the down & outer. About the same time the available money's were starting to run low. The big backers of these programs started finding other uses for their funds & other reasons for the redirecting. So that's when the not so lucky started feeling the crunch. They were always uesd to being & getting by without before but now they had had a taste of what it was like not to go without for so long, they had tasted a good time for once in their lives, what it was like to taste the food off a better & bigger plate. Yes child, they had had a taste of education, knowledge & a taste of freedom & equality, of the pride of a staedy job, or at least they thought they saw what it was like. Before you know it parts of cities were burning up all over the nation, groups of radicals were marching all over the place, some yelled louder than others & others worked quitely & on the sly but they all saw what it was they were fighting about & for even if some of them didn't know quite what it was they knew it was right for them. Any way the fighting continued at home & sometimes over seas too. Government officials & politicians were all asking folks what was the reasoning behind all the fighting but most really knew the answer, the world was changing. Anyway, as the fights got fiercer the costs grew higher. Sure some battles were won & some were lost but mostly the money, the opportunities, choices, means, funds & the brains started to fade. And there were more people coming into the wars all the time too, some being born into them & some coming from other places where things were even worst. The more they fought the less there was to fight about. Less food, less freedom, less jobs. Some even cared less & others even knew less, it was like one step forward three steps back some times even six or seven steps back. So it was a time where folks became divided. Many were just having a hard time getting bye, some asked why the hell are they fighting & some even said what a nerve they had to go an fight & some could no long afford to fight and then some were just plain beaten so bad & so often taht they just fell where they stood & some just had to move on. They were starting to realize that they were back at the beginning but this time they knew that they had lost, they knew that all was for not & they knew what they were being left out of. They knew they were had. They knew that they had lost the wars. Sure some still had some fight left in them & sure some still wanted to help them but in the big scheme of things they lost. Actually they lost so bad and had fought so hard that there were attempts to make sure it never happened again. Those get ahead programs disappeared almost completely & it seemed like it was overnight too but it really took a little time. Those educational places of higher learning closed a lot of their doors, some forever, some are just beginning to open them again. The job markets started to dwindle, some of it even went overseas, some just started paying less in the form of money and benifits and no longer would they promise to keep you or care for you, even if you were getting older & better at your job. And the government they really let us know too, they really started taxing us and all for nothing too all the while giving most of it back to their friends that helped them during the war times, yes they made out very well, still do. Meanwhile the left over lost got to gamble more, that got legalized, funny, they're even draining the losers of that account and making a killing at it too & the drugs that started pouring in during the wars, well the folks that started on that road sure payed the way for a lot of others and they got less & less help as time pasted too and they were making a killing at this too. Funny how those folks made at killing every time there was dying to be done. Actually alot of the hospitals that used to help turned alot of folks that fought these wars away, some even closed & kicked many out on the streets. They even built more prisons, not just for the people that fought these wars but for those that got turned away from the hospitals & social programs & for a lot of the strugglers too, even made it into a big money making business, yup they sure figured it out, they came down to hard on us if you ask me. So there you go kid, most don't even know the story, some didn't even know there was a war going on & some didn't give a shit too, others, some others were making a bundle off of these wars & are still doing very well by keeping the legacy going today. So I want you to remember this, all of this & someday maybe you'll be able to tell it like it really was & how it was forgotten about and how they suffered like hell and still do. Ya know sometimes I almost get to thinking when I look at you & some others that I can see a little spark of those days in your eyes & it almost gets me to beliving that those battles may one day come again, of course with out all the suffering too, maybe a few are learning that it didn't have to be that way. Someday take a driveby where your old man grew up you'll still see loads of those lost ones (don't you ever go calling them losers either, they've earned their battle scars) sitting on the stoops & stairs tossing some dice or playing at cards with a bottle by their side or a needle stuck in their arm. Don't you ever go disgracing them, their dying so that some can go on living, I know it ain't right but it still is how it is. It's bedtime now, let's turn out the lights & go to sleep. Don't forget to pray, maybe you can pray for them, they earned your prayers an' pray that that you'll never become one of them & promise me that you'll go to college one day so that you never have to go hungry like my sister an brother & I did when I was your age. My brother, oh you never met my brother, he died during those wars but that's another story son. I'll tell you about how brave my brother was another night.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 10:02 AM

Tryin' to explain poverty to some people is like tryin' to explain quantum physics to a dog. After a while it is just plain irritating!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 12:15 PM

Mr Bridge:

I have purposefully avoided refering to black people except in quotes from others. I have only named the Asian minority because they have the least precentage of poor people and amongst those poor, the best graduation rates etc.

People try to immediately turn the economic and social issue of poverty into a racial and or class issue. A wedge issue to divide people into different groups that can gain power from the problem rather than fix it collectively.

Straw man issues like "*The US governemnt soends $500,00 on 8 security screeners who speed execs from Wall Street helipad to American's JFK terminal..." when in fact a private security firm is doing the screening and every passenger pays a fee for screening are not useful in solving the problem of poverty. Anybody can use the helipad, not just Wall Street execs. Suppose I said "the US government spends $500,000 on 8 security screeners to speed movie stars from Manhattan to American's JFK terminal? Would that throw the blame for poverty on rich movie stars?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 03:13 PM

Yes I would impose safety on people...darn tootin...and what would happen then? Children could go outside and play. Old women could go shopping. People could sit out in the sunshine and be healthier. Small businesses would come into the neighborhood...a grocer perhaps..and then trucks would go to the farms and bring in fresh vegetables...people would start to paint their houses or storefronts...people could hire taxis who would show up....people could become taxi drivers....there would probably be more bus traffic coming and going...there would be more bikers and shoppers coming into the neighborhood..the downside would be gentrification..and that is a problem...I sometimes think crime is a way of protecting property prices so people can afford to live there..but we have to break that anyway.....then you would have an ice cream truck that wasn't afraid to go there..then a little laundromat...then a used bookstore...things would escalate up instead of down.

I would hesitate to provide too much comfort to single, working age, non-handicapped people. Basic shelter and hygeine, washing machines etc...but not too much comfort...spartan conditions but safe and clean. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 03:18 PM

"I would hesitate to provide too much comfort to single, working age, non-handicapped people. Basic shelter and hygeine, washing machines etc...but not too much comfort...spartan conditions but safe and clean. mg "

Sounds like the army.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scoville
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 04:52 PM

Sounds like the army.

Or dorm life. Dorm life wasn't bad; I'd go back if I couldn't provide it for myself.

Oh, wait--I can't right now. That's why I live at home and pay rent and housekeeping services to my parents.

Seriously, though; I greatly exceed the national poverty guidelines but if I didn't have family here I'd be living in a very tiny place in a very scary part of town. Right now, I'll trade having any privacy or control over my living space for not having to worry about having my car stolen/stripped or being mugged.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 04:55 PM

I live in that part of town. It's different for guys, however.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 05:40 PM

Well, first of all, thank you, Barry, for your most thourough telling of the story... Like yoy, many of us are of the same generation who purdy much see it the way you reported it...

Yeah, in the words of Bruce Springtein, "Sooner or later it all comes down to money"...

I think that is where we are with this discussion... It is about money and it is about power that money brings...

But what it isn't about, which I believe that mg is missing, is that just ***giving*** money to poor people isn't what many of us are talking about... No one is suggesting that...

But what it ***is*** about is funding priograms that empower people... That's what Barry was talking about... That's what d has been talking about... That's what Janie & I have been talking about...

The war on poverty ***can not*** be won giving money to poor people... It cannot be won by ***ruling*** poor people with cameras... It cannot be won by providing ***spartan*** necessities...

These are all ***colonial*** controls and not ways to what Janie called "leveling the playing field" by "options" for poor people...

Poverty is very much a self perpetuating vicious cycle and unless the ***War on Poverty*** is cranked back up there will be no progress...

And, Dickey, yes... It is very much a class struggle.... Very much... No, not a political one but very much a class struggle...

Oh, BTW, Dickey.... With 7 years of college and 2 degrees, for the life of me, I can't figure out exactly what your question is that you are so sure the you have "got" me??? I mean, I pointed out that poor people have been priced out of $1300 amonth apartments in DC because, ahhhh, if they could afford $1300 a onth they wouldn't be porr people and yet you don't seem to get what I see is the ***answer*** that you say I have been avoiding...

I'm not trying to avoid anything and I don't get you saying that I am and, to be honest, my friend, I don't think anyone in this thread understands how you make the statement that I, in any way, am avoiding answering your question...

Maybe you heed to rephrase it 'cause until I understand what you are missing here there is nuthin' else I can say that will make you happy... So until you can put forth a better question that folks can understand, I don't care if you ask the same ***un-question*** a thousand more times I'm not going to respond to it...

Einstien said that "insanity is repeating a behavior expecting different results" and that is about where I see your relentless attack on me for not answering your poorly worded question lays...

Lastly, thanks again, Barry....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 07:14 PM

Barry,

You are such an eloquently expressive person. Your posts are as articulate and powerful as is your singing and your songwriting.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 07:29 PM

Is Responsibility something you choose or something that just stands as true?

It is something you choose. We can choose to take responsibility. We can help our clients to choose responsibility. Under law, sometimes responsibility is decided by others. Within ourselves we can look for the place where we had responsibility - whether it was as an individual or as a member of a society. When we allow situations that are not acceptable to continue - even when we are not directly involved, we share in the responsibility.

                                  Rita Carroll, Life Coach

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 07:31 PM

We are always only responsible for our own actions, but our actions can cause ripples that deeply affect others. We are responsible for what we send out into the world and when we truly take responsibility for our words and actions we also take responsibility for considering how those actions may affect others.

                               Rita Carroll, Life Coach

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 08:42 PM

There was an essay printed in the January, 1969, "Playboy" by Dr, Martin Luther King entitled "The Testament of Hope""" I would certainly ***hope*** that every Dickey of the world would have to read this essay from front to finish but...

...in this essay Dr. King says some things that could very much describe where our country still is today:

"If we look honestly at the realities of our national life, it is clear that we are not marching forward; we are groping and stumbling; we are divided and confused. Our moral values and our spiritual confidence sink, even as our material wealth ascends. In these trying circumsatnces, the black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rightd of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws- racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals sustemic rather than superficial falws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."

This, folks, is what many of us have been talkig about here... I've used the "r" (revolution) myself... Yes we will not become a just nation where everyone has the promised laid down in the preamble to the Constituion without a "revoltuion" of sorts... It is my hope that the rich will get it before it gets them... But there is no assurance as the rich historically haven't gotten it...

No one here is asking foer the rich to give up there wealth but their stanglehold on wealth... Yeah, the Bushite richies, if this country is going to survive itself, will have to take a pay cut butm hey, they have been on the gravy tr4ain way too long and "For what?" I might ask...

I mean, like these folks and their families have never had it so good but their spoils are at the expense of those at the bottom...

This isn't rhetoric... It's reality... Dr. King saw it when the programs were being funded.... Now that the programs have been gutted or discontinued entirely the observations that Dr. King made 38 years ago look like the good old days and...

that, my friends, is a sad commentary on the state of our country but worse...

...telegraphs the sadder state of our future nation...

This ain't "Sky is falling stuff".... It is, however, the ticking time bomb that the ruling class continues to ignore... There will come a tipping point and when that occurs this nation is going to be in the biggest trouble it has been in since 1776... It will make the War for Southern Independence look like a picnic because it will be fought through out our country and rich people will have to retreat to their compounds like in Haiti...

Yeah, this discusssion is about poverty in the wealthiest nation on earth but it is this divide between the haves and the have-nots that has the greatest potential to bring this nation down... Not the bin Ladens...

Class warfare, Dickey??? It's not too far down the road and now that Boss Hog is Hell bent on screwing over the middle class, it is not too far-fetched...

We have not moved since Dr. King's esay in 1969... Yeah, we did move a little forward and now we are in *full* retreat...

Too bad that rich people don't study history... Voltaire observed that "those who don't know3 history tend to repeat it"... Guess the rich are too busy stealin' to learnt up on that ol' dusty stuff...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 09:45 PM

As I go back and read posts, it seems to me that Dickey is the pretty much the only person posting who focuses on the responsibility of one group to the total exclusion of other groups.

Give him two websites stock full of statistics, and complex analyses. He comes back with "Oh, look what I found! A table and an op-ed piece that agree with me." I don't know if that means he ignores all the rest, or if he simply considers it garbage and not worth considering.

Dickey, all by himself, doesn't much matter. On this thread, Dickey is a stand-in, shining example of the myoptic sight, and unwillingness to really grapple internally or intellectually with the inherent paradox that comprises the relationship between the individual and the group, and that insures a significant minority in a society that has enough to go around will be poor, regardless of how much responsibility they might take for themselves.


Root cause of poverty = lack of resources. Period. It doesn't matter where in the world or when in the world. It doesn't matter if it is only one person, one family, one community, one class, one nation or one continent. Poor = insufficient resources.

If no resources are anywhere are to be found, no amount of education, job skills, personal or societal action or acceptance of responsibility will fix it for anybody.

Things get complicated when resources and more than one person enter the picture. That is when power, values and personal choice come into play.

I just had a windo pop up that the 'puter is having problems. I'll stop here and hope this post is not lost when I hit submit.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 11:10 PM

Watch you don't hurt yourself or the computer screen.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 11:45 PM

Certainly true for some situations..not all...there can be poverty in the midst of resources and that is truly tragic. There are people poor right now who had resources in the form of public education and fought the people trying to literally force the resources on them. So you could look at it as a lack of the resource of a supportive peer group..at some point people are going to have to tackle that monumental problem..peers keeping each other down with harassment, brutality and great social pressure. That is one aspect of poverty that social pressure going the other way could eliminate. There are cultural pressures to dress a certain way that intimidates others..that will just about guarantee anyone will not get a job...and a job is a step out of poverty..maybe help is still needed...

That doesn't mean that lack of resources is not a problem. It is. I don't think it is the only problem, or flooding people with resources like pouring molasses on pancakes is going to solve every problem. There are some social nuts that have to be cracked. There is a roadmap out of poverty for people who live in places where there are at least some resources..(for the able bodied, non-handicapped etc.. get a high school diploma, do not get pregnant or get someone pregnant and stay away from drugs and alcohol. Hopefully get additional community college training in a specific skill field.). .now if you are in Appalachia or way out in the Badlands somewhere...it will be far different. We are getting to the point though with Internet and FedEx etc. that an educated, sober, hardworking group of people will attract work to them..I am thinking of Navaho Indians who sew for NASA because of their sewing skills. One thing we do not do as a country is deliver resources anywhere with efficiency...there are clothes, building materials, surplus food...more sheep in Australia than they could afford the bullets to shoot at one time...we need to figure out ways to get the clothes to the flood victims or the chronically poor. Do more with surplus foods.

One thing that is essentially here and that is there will be tremendous opportunities for people installing alternative energy systems..windmills, solar retrofitting etc. There are chronic medical needs to be filled. We should be training every prisoner in medical fields and construction fields right now.

I am for spending money. Lots of it. Other peoples' money. I don't make a huge amount now but they can have more of mine. But I do not think that alone will solve the problems. It will for the 90 year old, incontinent, blind person in an inadequate nursing home.   But other situations are going to require police force, cleaning out of the $475 month apartments that no one wants to live in, and changing the cry of hopelessness to one of hope and determination. Hopefully President Obama will rise to the occasion, as I think he will. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 01:58 AM

Mary,

You and I may not march to the cadence of the same drummer. Our points of view are very different in significant ways. But it is clear that you are as determined to be part of the solution as am I and some others posting to this thread. You put your money, time and talents where your mouth is. I want you to know how much I admore and respect that.

All the best,

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 08:22 AM

Ditto on both counts...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 12:57 PM

oh thanks..mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 01:45 PM

Just came across this; it's in the introduction to the autobiography Halfbreed, by Maria Campbell:

I am not bitter. I have passed that stage. I only want to say: this is what it is like; this is what it is still like. I know that poverty is not ours alone. Your people have it too, but in those earlier days you at least had dreams, you had a tomorrow. My parents and I never shared any aspirations for the future.


Note she says, "in the early days" ... In her adult life, she saw the poor white people who had lived around her starting to slide into hopelessness. (She would be in her seventies now, I think).

Another good book about growing up in poverty is All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg. Much insight into how poverty affects outlook and behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 01:55 PM

People who think that poor people have brought it on themselves or 'deserve what they get' will never read those books.

"The City of Joy" by Dominique Lapierre. Worth reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 02:42 PM

I conclude that Janie is saying that family values have nothing to do with poverty.

The key to success for poor people is being withheld from them by the rich.

Attasntion poor people: It is not your fault that you are poor. It is the fault of the rich people. You will always be poor because of the rich people. Forget trying to get ahead, it won't happen, can't happen

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 02:46 PM

As I said . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 02:53 PM

Attention poor folks: Don't pay any attention to Obama, Oprah, Cosby or Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson telling you you can succeed, They don't know what they are talking about. You need people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Bobert and Janie to take care of you. We will fight the rich folks for you down in the trenches so you can continue to have illegitimate kids, no education and still have everything middle class people have. No self improvement is necessary on your part.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 03:00 PM

like you said

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Janie
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 03:24 PM

Well, Peace, I suppose there is some small, though sad comfort to be had that our observations have been validated....and by the subject of those observations himself:^)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 03:41 PM

Bobert: Who has a "stanglehold on wealth"? That is another one of your straw man issues.

Why do you say "We used to have school breakfast programs" when they have never been stopped? Is this question to hard for you to understand? I have asked you several times.

During the first year of operation, the SBP served about 80,000 children at a federal cost of $573,000.
For Fiscal Year 2005, the School Breakfast Program cost $1.92 billion, up from $1.77 billion in Fiscal Year 2004.
The cost in previous years: 1970: cost of $ 10.8 million: 1975: cost of $ 86.1 million; 1980: cost of $287.8 million; 1985: cost of $379.3 million; 1990: cost of $ 599.1 million; 1995: cost of $1.04 billion; 2000: cost of $1.39 billion.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/breakfast/AboutBFast/SBPFactSheet.pdf

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

P.O. BOX 2120

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 23218-2120

SUPTS. MEMO NO. 43

September 29, 2006

ADMINISTRATIVE

TO:
        

Division Superintendents



FROM:
        

Billy K. Cannaday, Jr.

Superintendent of Public Instruction



SUBJECT:
        

School Breakfast Program - State Funding Incentive Payment for Increased Student Participation 2005-2006



The General Assembly provided $892,020 per year in fiscal years 2007 and 2008 to continue state funding for the school breakfast program as an incentive to improve the level of student participation. This incentive funding is available to any school division that increases its breakfast participation above the baseline established in school year 2003-2004 (base year). Each school division's baseline is unique to its base year breakfast participation. The level of funding is $0.20 per meal served above the baseline number of meals served per student for each division.
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/suptsmemos/2006/adm043.html


The two said Newark schools deserve praise for making sure all schoolchildren eat breakfast.

The goal of the project is to educate parents, teachers, administrators and students about the importance of breakfast and the options available for schoolchildren to receive breakfast in school.

"A good breakfast gives you a good start to the morning, and you respond better to teachers," said Dole, the former Kansas senator. "You can't run a car without gasoline, and you can't run a body without some food."

Dole, the Republican nominee in 1996, admitted the young audience probably didn't know who he or McGovern was. "I know you young children are really excited to see me and Senator McGovern," he teased.

He said a lack of interest in school breakfast programs is unfortunate because there is public money available to pay for it -- about $500 million.

In fact, millions of children in need do not get breakfast at school, even though they are eligible to receive it, Dole said. Out of 55 million children who attend public school in the United States, 29 million participate in the National School Lunch Program, yet only 9 million eat breakfast at school. These children are entitled to breakfast through the "School Breakfast Program."

---

Newark should be lauded for its efforts, they said.

"This city may have the strongest school breakfast program of any city in the nation," said McGovern, the former senator from South Dakota who ran for president in 1972. "We decided to come here and take a look at the program."

The two former senators were invited to the school by East Side Entrees, a New York-based company that supplies food products to schools. The company launched "Breakfast Breaks," a kid-friendly "grab and go" breakfast in a box that, when served with milk, meets all of the USDA guidelines for a healthy breakfast.

Gary Davis, company CEO, said he asked the two senators to head the program because of their past roles as leaders on issues of nutrition, health and hunger in America.

Davis said so far, 160 school districts have signed on to the program, and that his group would like to use Newark as a blueprint.

As senators, Dole and McGovern's work has helped form nutrition policy in America, he said. For one, they teamed to lead the fight for the International School Lunch program, also known as the McGovern-Dole Global School Feeding Initiative.

Dole was a leading sponsor of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, the reformed food stamp program, and the expansion in the 1970s of the school lunch-breakfast program. McGovern helped found the U.N. World Food Program and chaired the Select Committee on Nutrition and led the effort to reform the food stamp program and expand school lunch and breakfast programs.

At the event, two Newark school officials -- Valerie Wilson, assistant school business administrator, and Tonya Riggins, director of Food and Nutrition Services -- were honored for expanding the school breakfast program.

Wilson said that the district has traditionally offered a breakfast program, but that last year, it decided to expand it. In the past, breakfast was offered only prior to the start of classes, but now students can also eat during the first 10 minutes of class while the teacher takes attendance.

"Teachers have said that children are quieter and there are less sick calls," Wilson said, referring to the benefits of breakfast.

Each winner will be featured on a fall 2006 edition of the "got breakfast" poster, to be displayed in schools in their area.

McGovern said eating breakfast is the best way to start the day. "It's hard to be quiet and to learn when your stomach is growling," he said.
http://www.alliancetoendhunger.org/articles/2006/star-ledger_mar_8.htm

---

Attention poor kids: Even though the FDA spent $1.92 billion on school breakfast programs, Bobert says you needn't bother going to school because the breakfast program has ended. Boss Hogg did it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 03:53 PM

"The key to success for poor people is being withheld from them by the rich." - Dickey's twisted interpretation.

No, Dickey, you have it wrong. The key to success is internal motivation which is fed by hopes and dreams. If you take away hopes and dreams, you are only motivated by external rewards and you dwell in poverty.

The govt. can do alot more than its doing. It can redistribute the wealth so that tax breaks and shelters are not given to the wealthiest segment of society. The govt. can also provide programs that give the poor hope. That doesn't mean hand-outs and it doesn't mean fuelling the belief that God will reward the righteous and punish sinners.

But most of all - The govt., the middle classes and the rich have to stop blaming the poor for being poor. Its people like you, Dickie, who are so afraid of losing your middle class status that look at the poor as a threat or some kind of disease, who do the most harm. You are bound and determined to keep them down for your own sake. You need someone to look down upon so you can feel superior. By doing so, you reveal yourself to be an insignificant piece of trash with no human compassion.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 05:03 PM

Dickey, you gotta be built like a brick shit house, cause man you are thick. That's not what Bobert or Janie or dianavan was saying. Man, what's it take to get through to you?
Read slowly what dianavan just posted. No one has said anything about handouts.

Read again


Inside the ghettos dwells the greatest of crimes
Where kids with no hope are serving their time (KIDS WITH NO HOPE)
Where they're shocked into feeling that life has no price (FAMILY VALUES)
They live and they die no tomorrow (LIFE BECOMES WORTHLESS)

With no higher learning, no place they can turn
They see daily the wealth from crime they can earn
They're under the gun every time that they turn
And we ask why they have no values (YOU ASKED ABOUT FAMILY VALUES)

Their language is foreign, their culture is strange
There's slight chance for survival outside of a gang
To get life from drugs beats the pain of no change
There's no light at the end of their tunnel (AGAIN, NO HOPE)

There's abuse of all kinds that runs rampage with rage (A SELF FEEDING NEVER ENDING CYCLE)
And the cycle runs deeper with each passing age
Until lock them away is all we can say
They've been locked away all of their young lives (LOCKED INTO POVERTY)

We'll draw cheap labor from them that'll slave
And watch while we help the rest into the grave
Keep them from good health, good schools and good wage
And HOPE that there isn't a backlash

So now let us finish and shake hands with our fate
And don't be surprised when you're a victim of hate
What they've been robbed of, to you they'll relate (YES< ROBBED OF)

You'll be hunted as prey by your victim

It's all there Dickey. In studies of the slave rebellions during slavery times it was found & known that if you leave a flicker of hope for a slave they will not revolt they will grasp for the hope. It's only when hope is gone that they will rise up & rebell, they no longer have anything to lose. That's the same life that one lives when in constant povert, there's a flicker of hope. Then it gets quashed and you have pretty much lost that person. Like depression, they lie in bed & can no longer function like you or I. You think it's easy to wake up & live when your living like that, like I said you fight every day, you fight for survival, you fight just to keep breathing, you fight to stay healthy, you fight to learn. Many, many just can't keep fighting for that long. They just die by the wayside. They get lost in drugs & booze or gambling or just become lost on the street. Send them to school to be fed? That gets them by for a couple hours & then they're gonna need something else, because their worrying & wondering where am I gonna get my next survival need filled. What planet are you from? You pull these stats off the internet, you might as well pull a rabbit out of you ass for all that's worth. You haven't a clue as to what your spouting off about. You think that some offer of a decent meal & a trip to some unversity & a cheap room will do the trick. Your as far out in left field as you can get. Go home try & raise some goldfish or get a puppy from the animal shelter, go do some good where you won't be in the way. We had a saying as kids, "you can take the boy out of the getto but you can't take the getto out of the boy". My step father finally moved us from the housing projects when I was about 15, I was already drinking & using hard drugs. I went to sleep to the sounds of gunfire at least once a week, today it's evry other night. In the suburban high school I went to I fough at least once a week for nearly the 1st year because I was different, poor, didn't dress like them, didn't talk like them even though we were probably only 5 miles from where I had come from. I came from a school of hard knocks, I stayed back that 1st year because I had no idea of what they were teaching. I wanted to go back to where I came from, back to people that understood me, back to where I was good at what I did & excepted, back to the shit pile & the hell hole. But luckily we couldn't go back & I just kept fighting every day. No one bothered me after a while because I had no values, I was close to being lost myself, didn't much care about anything. It was easy for me to wack someone with a board or a pipe. These middle class kids were easy pickings. I did try to push my way into college, I couldn't get excepted, until finaly I made it into night school. I had to work to survive that always comes first. I couldn't pull it off. I just couldn't afford the books. Well I did fight & I did survive & I did pull myself away from the poverty, but I left behind every one I ever knew that I knew as a kid. I know of no one from those days that made it out. I do know that many of them are dead. You think that things have changed that much since, NOT, they've gotten worst. There are more people living without that hope now than back then (50's & 60's & some of the 70's). There's less of all of what Janie & Bobert were talking about today. I see it, I know it, it's in the news every night, I remember it & it's uglier today than it was back then.
Dianavan just put it in a nut shell. If you want to go look at a breakfast program in the works visit a "Head Start" program & ask the teachers how's it going, ask them when they last saw a raise in their funding, ya they still feed them & they do try to do the best they can but ask them how's it going & you won't post another stat again.
You'd be better off just not thinking about poverty anymore.
What's in your wallet, HaHa.

Now that that's off my chest

Sorry that I felt like being so direct & blunt but I got tired of reading some of your trash.



Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 07:00 PM

Very well stated, Barry...

Yo, Dickey....

Nice try, pal... You keep thinking that yer gonna suck me into a **stats game***... That ain't gonna happen... I mean, you'd have to have a team of attornies to cut thru the cooking of books when it comes to the lack of transparancy in Bush's budgets... There are more twists and turn and smoke and mirrors in them to fill up a tanker vessel...

Bottom line, the breakfast programs have been cut by Bush but some states and localities have chipped in to make up the cuts... So, if we are going to look at the ***big picture*** rather than zero in on one locality or state, we have fewer federal dollars going into that program...

But, I know that you love to divert a converstaion toward the realities that are being discussed... Have at it... BTW, if you want to argue with anyone take on OMBWatch.com...

But please accept the reality that folks here ain't like friggin' lightweights and you ain't the big fish in the small pond... We see thru yer games...

...so get off yer stats and join in of the meat & taters of the discusssion 'cause stats, when used repeatedly as a debating trick, are bogus...

Like I said, you wanta argue questionable smoke and mirror cooked booked stats, find another thread where folks is dumb enough to fall for yer usual crap...

Bottom line, and you can't prove me wrong with any ***reliable*** source, regardless of throwing in various local or state data is that the US governemnt has been cutting back on breakfast programs for some time now...

That is the relavent part of the discussion... Not playing apples and oranges against one another...

Like I said, go to OMBWatch and do a little reading as to just what trickery is being used to hide the fact that Bush has been cutting into this program...

Ohters,

Be back later... But maybe tomorrow... This has been one diffiuclt week of work and I'm beat and need some rest....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 07:34 PM

Dickey isn't gonna see anything that Dickey doesn't want to see.

And what Dickey most doesn't want to see is himself.


Dickey wants to play the blame game but Dickey doesn't want to own it. So he projects it.

Dickey is a cruel, antisocial, selfish, socially irresponsible menace to society. His chices and actions in the world lead to death, unnecessary suffering, and the maiming of the hopes and psyches of millions of people the world over. He has a lot in common with those gang members that get interviewed on TV. They care about nothing but their own group and power.

At least they are honest about it.

You are spot on, dianavan. He is trash.

Janie

Be careful, Dickey. The natural consequences of your choices just might catch up with you one day.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 03:20 AM

Yeow! It's getting to be a minefield in here. Nice visual, Peace. A picture is worth a thousand.... Well, I came to ask a few questions. One is: Is there a rulebook for welfare recipients?

Second one is: Are welfare recipients still allowed to have a funeral fund or whatever it's called?

The next is: Is there still a cap on how much a welfare or SSI recipient allowed to have in a savings account?

The reason I ask the last two questions is because, in perfect harmony with the topic of this thread, The New York Times Magazine last Sunday had an article entitled (I thought condescendingly:) Can Poor People Be Taught to Save?

For two nights, I've tried to access the text through various programs on my computer after having scanned in the article. I even uploaded it to a website I frequent and tried several different ways to copy it so I could paste it into this thread. I even converted it into a PDF file thinking I could copy it that way. Well, I finally got so frustrated, I gave up, esp. after the realization that I could've typed the darn thing into a Wordpad file and been done with it. I haven't got time this weekend, but I will try again next week, but I think the answer to my questions will decide the legitimacy of the article's main points. So, I await your helpful answers.

BTW, if someone can tell me what I did wrong with the procedure, I will not feel bad.

I leave you with the words of Mohandas Gandhi: Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Happy Easter!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 03:29 AM

Wordsmith, here's a link to the article.

Article.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 03:42 AM

Dianavan: I agree with your "The key to success is internal motivation which is fed by hopes and dreams." statement. If that is the key then it is a lack of internal motivation which is fed by hopes and dreams that is the cause of poverty. Janie says it is a lack of resources and Bobert says it is Boss Hogg and ricjh folks whith their "stanglehold".

Your statement "If you take away hopes and dreams, you are only motivated by external rewards and you dwell in poverty." Is very true but what I see out of Janie and Bobert is that they cannot suceed no matter what because Boss Hogg, Rich people etc are working against them.

Bobert: "cause stats, when used repeatedly as a debating trick, are bogus" Is that why you brought stats into this thread?
The reports I poseted were from the FDA and the school breakfast and lunch program funding has been increased avery year.
If any of you do not agree with my interpretation of the message Bobert and Janie are sending to the poor, Let me know what their true message is.

Mr Barry: "ask the teachers how's it going," Yes I did ask a teacher and she said they serve free breakfasts and lunches at her school for the poor kids. I asked a parent in another very poor state and she said they serve free breakfast and lunch at her son's school. Who did you ask? When did Bobert or Janie ask anybody about it?

What I have been trying to say here is poor people need "internal motivation which is fed by hopes and dreams." to emerge from poverty. Without that all the resources in the world wont cure the problem. It may treat the symptoms but it does not reduce poverty.

By treating them like a bunch of poor helpless critters you increase their dependancy on welfare.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:13 AM

Dickey, my wife has been involved with early education all her life. She's run & directed non profit & now for profit programs. Bush's pet program is Head Start & he capped funding maybe 4 yrs ago. What that means is that they didn't get a decrease in money but the line item was limited. Therefore no rise in prices, wages, facilitiaties upkeep & maintenance, food increases & an increase in children will be met. The kids lose. Getting to the kids at pre school age is paramount. And as far as the food it takes a hit even though as much as one would want it to be the last item to suffer it does. So I don't need to ask them, I hear it from her, her workmates at social gathering where she talks shop with other professionals in the industry at family get togethers, she is one of six siblings all are somehow involved with the poor (her brother works as a Gov. advocate for the poor his wife is a minister, 1 sister works for the UN helping to head up it's AIDS program in Africa, 1 sister works as an attorney for battered women's shelters 1 sister also works in early education & 1 sister is a teacher (25yrs) in the Mission District of San Francisco) so who do I need to ask?
It not just what Dianavan says either, it's not that easy to say it's one problem, it's a multi facet problem of what Janie & Bobert are saying too & more. There is no pride in being poor, it is not a badge to be worn lightly but non the less it is worn & seen & in this nation they are treated as 3 world, 4th class citizens, they are ashamed, taken advantage of, humiliated, preyed upon by the government, finical & educational instutions, hospitals, courts of law, free markets, the housing industries & the list goes on. One topic that hasn't been much talked about here is perception of the poor & the attitude of the general public's view of them & their own attitude & view of themselves, that also plays a part in why the poor stay poor.
All this also needs attention if the "war on poverty" is even gonna be considered, which in my opinion hasn't even been given lip service never mind considered.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:29 AM

Barry:

My wife has been a teacher all her life. The only complaint she has about the current state of affairs is that the school system has difficulty keeping up with the no child left behind program.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:43 AM

The only reason the USA has issues with poverty is because they continue to eat too much fast food !! Cut back on the fast food, and everything else will take care of itself. It's so obvious, am I the only one who get's it ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 12:40 PM

Dianavan: I agree with your "The key to success is internal motivation which is fed by hopes and dreams." statement. If that is the key then it is a lack of internal motivation which is fed by hopes and dreams that is the cause of poverty. Janie says it is a lack of resources and Bobert says it is Boss Hogg and ricjh folks whith their "stanglehold".


If any of you do not agree with my interpretation of the message Bobert and Janie are sending to the poor, Let me know what their true message is.

My remarks which follow are not addressed to Dickey. They are addressed to the rest of you.

This is the game that Dickey plays.   

Dickey pretends that Bobert and I, and many others who are participating in this thread, are talking to the poor on this thread instead of to him.

Dianavan has made a number of posts to this thread that articulately provide context for her recent statement. Dickey has willfully taken that statement out of context.

Barry has beautifully and compellingly illustrated from his own hard experience that there is an interplay between the internal development and maintenance of hopes and dreams within the individual, and the social context in which the individual is imbedded. Dickey has ignored that.


Dickey is not ignorant. Dickey is not deaf. Dickey is not blind. Dickey is not stupid.

Dickey is stonewalling.

I didn't start from that assumption, but a preponderence of the evidence supports that conclusion.

There is no 'getting to yes' with the likes of Dickey.

Dickey represents that part of the established power structure that KNOWS it is on top and will consciously, willfully, and with all deliberation do everything and anything it must to try to hang onto that power.

Wordsmith, you're damn straight it's a minefield. It is the mindfield laid out to protect the wall.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 12:50 PM

I wholeheartedly agree with Dickey. I have read many of the posts on this thread and find many to be quite con-descending, to say the least. Especially those by Janie, and to a lesser degree, Barry Finn.      To quote Janie... ' Barry has beautifully and compellingly illustrated from his own hard experience that there is an interplay between the internal development and maintenance of hopes and dreams within the individual, and the social context in which the individual is imbedded. Dickey has ignored that.'    What exactly does THAT mean ??? I think Barry has over-simplified the issues relating to the obvious problems that exist in a 'multi-contextual' and diverse society. Dickey seems to be one of the few who totally understands the issues, and accepts the facts presented to him without trying to make excuses and twist said facts to suit his own arguements ! Bravo, Dickey. Boo to Janie and Barry!!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 12:53 PM

Bullshit, AWG.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 01:09 PM

Really, IS it?? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 01:12 PM

Well, you certainly belong in the same section of the bleachers as Dickey - where the spectators cheer one side and boo the other, and throw lots of garbage. If only it were a simple little game we were talking about ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 01:21 PM

Sorry if it appears that way, GUEST,meself. Sounds like you are throwing garbage to me, Im just saying that Dickey has a grip on the issues, and accepts them, without the 'holier than thou' attitude. Actually, I find that refreshing.   P.S. The comment about people eating too much fast food being the cause of poverty was un-called- for on my part, and only made to 'lighten the mood'. It was getting pretty serious, but I shouldn't have said that. I don't think (obviously) that is the cause of poverty in the USA, it's the cause of the obesity problem, which seems to be reaching epidemic-like proportions. Bye for now.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 01:56 PM

"...made to 'lighten the mood'. It was getting pretty serious..." awg

Heaven forfend that poverty should be treated as a serious subject.

AWG, if you cannot tell the difference between rhetoric and hands-on experience, it might behoove you not to take sides. Only makes you look ignorant.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 02:50 PM

AWG, when you have 35 years experience that has encompassed every aspect of social work including direct practice with individuals and families, policy analysis, and academic research, or when you go get yourself born into a ghetto and live there for the first 15 years of your life, you come on back and tell Barry and I that we are not only condenscending but do not have any grasp of the issues.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 03:14 PM

This is all I plan to say on this particular subject - but in amongst Dickey's numberless and copious cut-and-pastes he has raised a valid issue or two - but mainly what he has done is try to goad and score points off Bobert. He puts words in other people's mouths, then argues against those words, ignores half of what the others actually say because it doesn't fit his preconceptions of them or the issue under discussion. Unfortunately, people have been taking him more seriously than they should and have been trying to reason with him - eventually they get frustrated and say something intemperate, which he then jumps on it triumphantly. Like a bratty kid trying to get the better of the teacher. Look at the number of times he's talked about how we're all trying to give the message to the poor that someone else is to blame for their poverty - when no one has indicated anything at all about giving any kind of message to the poor about blaming anybody. What we have talked about is working with the poor and trying to help them onto their feet and out of poverty, and, yes, there has been considerable complaint about lack of funds for social welfare programs. I suppose Dickey thinks the poor are all avidly reading this thread and getting dagerous messages about who's to blame ... There has also been a lot of talk about self-defeating attitudes that are part of the cycle of poverty - then Dickey comes in and says in effect none of us want to admit that the poor have self-defeating attitudes. Then he lists a whack of statistics, and if someone responds to them, the next thing he does is claim that no one has responded to his statistics, or asks a question, and if someone answers it, he is soon declaring that no one has answered his question. It is apparent he has no interest in discussion, no interest in trying to reach any deeper understanding - which is why I gave up trying to respond to his posts way, way, way up the thread.

Okay - I've wasted enough time ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 05:15 PM

Dickey - What you fail to understand (or refuse to understand) is that it is the availability of resources and the access to education that provides the hopes and dreams. Hopes and dreams do motivate but basic needs must be met first.

This is a great thread. I haven't read the article. "Can Poor People Be Taught to Save?" quite yet but I will. The title is enough to make me wretch. How can you save when you don't have enough for basic necessities?

Thanks to Janie, Bobert, Barry and everyone who has thoughtfully contributed to this thread. Its been a good read.

btw AWG - Before contributing, its a good idea to read the entire thread. You'll get a better idea about those who are sincere and those who have no insight or compassion. If you think Dickie is where its at, its no wonder you're concerned about fat. He's enough to make anyone bulimic or anorexic.

Fast food is a problem but its not what is causing poverty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 08:15 PM

GUEST, meself,

Yeah, you hit it purdy much on the head but not to worry... Dickey is serving a valuable purpose here... He represents the ruling class and without him we wouldn't have their ignorant "let them eat cake" attitudes... He serves a purpose...

He doesn't frustrate me at all... All I gotta do is come here for 20 minutes a day, get caught up on the posts I haven't read and fire stuff off that comes from my 20 some years working in human services... Plus, I keep up with what's going down....

But Dickey is kinda outtta his league here and has to work very hard googlin' 'n scrathing his rightwing Boss Hog financed blogs and/or cherry picking thru lots of rather boring charts 'n graphs from various gov.coms...

This, for him, is almost a full time job... Meanwhile, I have a rwal life... A real job... Real interests and hobbies... Plus, a regular perfroming scheduale so, hey, he doesn't frustrate me... I just call him on his games and move on but...

I honestly am grateful to have him here 'cause if we didn't have him, we'd have to invent him... It really doesn't matter that he has bag of tricks... We've all seen them all... He doesn't have anything left in his trick bag that we haven't seen...

It's now just Dickey being Dickey...

Hey, there is no hiding that he is a shill for Boss Hog... He put up some fight when I first brought that up but with Dickey, if he doesn't see that one trick is working he moves on to the next and it'
s been awile since he put up any fight on the charghe that I made that he is a "shill"...

So, not to worry... He doesn't "goad" me... I "goad" him... I am comfortable with what I know because I've lived it... He hasn't so he has to google 'n scratch and work hard at this...

I don't... I could debate him (without notes) in a public forum on this topic and tear him up 100 times out of a 100...

No brag, just fact, 'cause he is a stats guy and I'm an experience guy... That what seperates us... Janie could put a good whup on him, too... She'd prolly take him 102 times outtta a 100...

Now back to the discussion...

Bobert

p.s. Please don't leave, Dickey... We need you...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 08:26 PM

Okay, its time to get serious for a change. Poverty IS an issue, not doubt about it. Can poor people be taught to save?? Some maybe, but most...of course not. Theyr'e too busy whining about being poor, while making excuse after excuse not to get a job. How can you teach someone to save when they dont even want to work ?? Self defeating attitudes ? Nice sound bite, but it equates to 'I feel sorry for myself, so Ill convince myself Im screwed for life, therefore maybe everyone else will feel sorry for me and give me handouts'. The answer to poverty is simple. Get a damn job !!!! You may think Im harsh or whatever, but the reality is most poor people are quite capable of working, so why don't they ? Is it easier to blame everyone else for your problems ? Is it easier to feel sorry for yourself ? You want to talk statistics ? How about 'the gap between rich and poor is growing, rich get richer, poor get poorer.' (dont have exact numbers, but you get the idea), why is this ? The answer is simple... Most rich people are highly motivated, most poor people are not. Thanks for listening (Im sure Ive done nothing more than anger people, at least those who refuse to accept the way it is).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:07 PM

Well - you've sure told us.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:11 PM

Oh, and Peace. I noticed in your thread-opening post that you think Canada caused the poverty in the USA. Hmmmmm...how was that, how did we somehow convince a country 10 times our size (self-professed super power of the world, no less) that they should be lazy, and that it would be much more in their best interests to stay home with their hand out, rather than maybe, say, get a job. Please enlighten me... P.S. This forum must be mostly non-Canadians, as nobody has set you straight yet. (I repeat...YET) (dum dum)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:11 PM

Save exaxctly what, AWG...

Gross pay = $8.15 an hour

Rent = $475 a month, plus electricity

3 kids, with dad off makin' more of them somewhere else and payin'
$Zero$ into the equation...

Working single mom with bus fare, child care, food... Nevermind entertainment 'casue their ain't no $$$ for that...

You do the math, Einstein...

Yeah, all it takes is a simple calculator...

Show me the "save" in this very real scenerio...

This is the real world we are dealing with here... Not Boss Hog's qworld but the real world...

I'll offer you the same offer I made to yer comrade, Dickey... Get on an airplane to Washington, D.C. and I'll see to it that you meet the mother I just described... And guess what... There are millions of mothers just like her...

Yeah, show me your math...

No disrespect intended but you. like Dickey, are not living in the ***real*** (yeah, as in rality) world...

Bobert

p.s. Let me know when your flight arrives... I 'll pick you up for your persoanl tour of the D.C. that they don't show on the TV...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:12 PM

Oh no.....

Not another spoiled brat who has never experienced poverty; who thinks people are poor because they're lazy! Ugh!

I'm sure your folks made sure you were well fed and had a roof over your head. I'm also sure that you had access to education. Too bad you didn't learn to think critically. Maybe the reason you have no compassion for others is that you had everything given to you when you were a kid. Thats O.K. - live your life. Just don't judge those who were less fortunate than yourself, to be lower than you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:30 PM

Note... Gross pay of $8.15 per hour constitutes poverty ?? I doubt it, but hey, if that's it, then lobby to have the minimum wage raised, (or work 2 jobs, my father did when I was a child). Just more excuses. And why is the lowest common denominator always a single mom ?????? 3 kids with a deadbeat dad ? Yeah, real winner. I have compassion for the children of these lazy adults. And Im sure if my parents were lazy, I would have been poorer in childhood, but they weren't. Now, I work and support myself. P.S. Everyone in my country has access to education, I thought you said you live in the US ?? Everything handed to me ????? Ive worked since I was 11 years old, paper routes, restaurants, etc. Nice try though. P.S. This thread is about poverty, how can you come up with a cause without judging someone ?? Lazy, Lazy, Lazy................

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:37 PM

Looks like we got a new know it all troll on the block. A few days here & he's nearly worked himself up to 80 posts. Go get 'em kid.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:38 PM

Yes. Pull themselves up by their own boot straps, 'cept they got no boots.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:50 PM

Im sorry guys, Im still a fuming about Peace's comment about Canada causing the poverty in the US. *** AWG tries to cool down *** Why not tell me the reasons for poverty then, Dianavan and Bobert. Is it because the parents aren't working hard enough ?? Oh, they are working hard you say ?? Oh, but you say there are no jobs (I thought the 'mighty' USA had a 4.6% unemployment rate historically one of the lowest ever) The economy is slow, you say ? Check the statistics, positive growth rate , low inflation, low unemployment, just check your stock markets lately, lots of wealth being created. Unfortunately, its only by the few. Why ? Because they WANT it. Lazy adults = poor adults = poor children, and the cycle continues. Unless people stop the cycle, and I hate to break it to you, but the government couldn't give a rats behind about the poor, except at election time. People have to get off their asses and help themselves!! NOW who's living in reality ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 10:03 PM

Well then Barry, sorry, I didn't realize it was frowned upon to refrain from following the herd, you know, having my own opinion. Next time, Ill just agree with everyone. That way, these threads will remain safe, happy, and ....BORING. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 10:03 PM

Thanks, that was so enlightening. Read the thread through before spouting off, Johnny come Lately!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 10:20 PM

To all:

When someone speaks about poor people, children, old people, any group that has ears. They get a message from what is said.

I asked what message was being sent. All I heard was more blaming So I stated what I interpreted the message from all that blame game to be.

For instance if you say kids are not able to learn to read until they are 5 years old you are limiting them.

When you tell poor prople they can't succeed because of this and that, you are not only limiting them but telling them it is futile to try to get out of poverty. Welfare is best for them.

I say give them hope and encouragement. Have faith in them and they will do better. Keep showing the way to self improvement and success.

Treat them like they are helpless without welfare and they will always be helpless and need welfare. I think it is condescending and insulting to poor people.

And I don't need a guided tour of my home town. Am I supposed to leave town and take an airplane trip back?

From a Blog:

TKCal If you were truly an enlightened person as you claim to be, you would take the time to notice everyone's input in the breakdown of African American relationships. Take the time to examine the persona of women. Our parents in the past, taught the daughters not to give up sex to a man with no wedding and no foundations layed for himself and tried to teach the sons to stand up straight in spite of the obstacles. Why is it that the males have a harder time getting around those obsticles. If a person can't make it in this world it is their fault and noone else's. Women are not responsible for men's choices and vice versa. When you grow up and leave your mother, quit trying to find another one. Stand on your own two feet and learn to surmount the obsticles. It's not anyone's responsibility to do it for you. We don't take the time to tell our kids that the obsticles are layed out to everyone in the attempt to keep a wide gap between the rich and the poor and has very little to do with race. We take that issue upon ouselves and the "powers that be" are laughing because we are running ourselves into the ground with our own self hatred so much that it clouds our thoughts and makes it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let's start teaching our kids(especially our sons) not to get so hung up on the system and help them to learn to plow right through it with a thick skin and not get the mind-set to look for someone else to carry them through life."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 10:40 PM

Great point Dickey !! I'll give them some encouragement. Get a job or starve. How's that?? Hey Barry, Dickey could debate circles around you, by the looks of it !!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 10:47 PM

"When you tell poor prople they can't succeed because of this and that, you are not only limiting them but telling them it is futile to try to get out of poverty."

Dickey can you please site this quote? Where has anyone told poor people they can not succeed. That may be your interpretation but that's, again, not what's been said.

Where has anyone said they were helpless or that welfare is best for them?

Whew, I give up Dickey, you're on the right track with hope & encourgement & that's has been stated here already but it goes much further than just that but I guess you haven't been following what's been said.

Good bye Dickey.

Barry
Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 10:55 PM

"Get a job or starve."

I hope you realize what you just said.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 10:59 PM

You know, I've been following this thread and have noticed a rather disturbing trend. The subject is 'Poverty in the USA'. Fine, but when someone (like poor Dickey, or myself) tries to give their opinion, everyone jumps down their throat (Barry, for instance). Just because you don't like an opinion, you must respect it, right? But you know what, I see a lot of 'I used to work here or there, and have observed this or that, etc etc, but never any opinions from anyone else as to possible solutions or reasons for the poverty in the USA. It seems people just want to tap-dance around the issue, give their resume, or whatever, but when the finger pointing starts, its never at the people responsible, just at other forum members who have an opinion some people don't like (God forbid you should call poor people 'lazy'). Not much of a discussion. Dickey, keep your chin up !!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:02 PM

Hey Peace, just being facecious. It was more directed at those un-willing to work, not the unfortunate casualties of said 'non-workers' (is that a word ?)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:07 PM

AWG says, "Why not tell me the reasons for poverty then, Dianavan and Bobert."

Its pretty obvious, AWG, that you have not read our comments on this thread. Before you jump in, it's considered good manners to know what is being said.

I certainly do not need a lecture on learned helplessness.

What you fail to understand is that it is children who learn this and they learn it because it is all around them. The cycle will not be broken unless meaningful programs are put in place to give them hope and encouragement.

btw - I'm from Canada and you cannot tell me that post-secondary education is free to everyone. Some people have parents who pay and others rack up huge student loan debts.

I'm glad I was not one of the people who welcomed you. I despise ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:22 PM

Hello, Dianavan, how are you ? Please allow me to make a few points if I may...1) You said alot but never gave any valid reasons for poverty in the USAj, 2) Why not show some manners to me and give me a quick briefing then, or I guess I could read 500 posts, before jumping down my throat for having an opinion, 3) To quote you, 'What you fail to understand is that it is children who learn this and they learn it because it is all around them. The cycle will not be broken unless meaningful programs are put in place to give them hope and encouragement.' How about a program to get their parents a job?, that's a start, and it won't burden the already over-taxed American people. Nothing gives a child more hope and encouragement than parents who WORK. 4) Who said post-secondary education was free, not I, I said everyone has access to education (you indicated they didn't). And if their parents pay, they aren't poor, are they? 6) You didn't welcome me ?!?!?   That hurts.:(

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:25 PM

This is more of a blame game rather than a debate about the causes.


One person says "Like I said, it ain't rocket science..."

Another says "The internal and external determinants that govern the visibility of options, the reality of options and the nature of options is so complex that somebody could, and probably has, written a number of books about them."

Will the real expert stand up?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: pdq
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:31 PM

Is it too late for me to welcome you, AWG? We need a few more original thinkers here at Mudcat and you seem to be a breath of fresh air. Welcome.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:32 PM

I prefer the short-winded guy because they both said the same thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:33 PM

Much as it pains me to say it - Dickey has made a funny ... !

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:11 AM

Dickie's my hero !! Go Dickey !!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:32 AM

AWG - I'm not going to repeat myself. Read what I have already said and you will have your answers. If you don't understand it, read what Barry or Bobert or Janie have said.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:37 AM

Can't nobody here stop you.

According to the commercials, can't nobody stop the coppertop bunny, either. but who cares. It's just a robot.                                                                                                                                              Actually, Janie, its a rabbit, the 'energizer', not 'coppertop' rabbit.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:43 AM

That's real important, AWG.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:51 AM

Let me start with a quote form Peace....'Tryin' to explain poverty to some people is like tryin' to explain quantum physics to a dog. After a while it is just plain irritating!' Ive actually had some time to catch up on some prior posts on this thread. You know, Ive seen a lot of 'Dickie bashing', for no apparent reason, Janie has issues, serious issues (plus a thing for Barry, apparently), and Bobert talks a lot, but says little (if you know what I mean), no disrespect intended to anyone. However, I saw very little in the way of substance (not including Dickie), and a lot of 'finger-pointing'. Bottom line is, if something isn't done soon, this problem is going to be a BIG problem, so stop the finger pointing and let's hear some ANSWERS (please).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:55 AM

Oh, by the way, nice cop-out Dianavan. 'look back and you shall have ye answers', cute. Way to not take a stand. Typical.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:24 AM

AWG - From my first post on this thread:

"To stop the cycle of poverty, we must also insure that childcare is available and that minimum wage is increased. We can certainly do better. The only thing stopping us is greed."

...and ignorance!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 09:56 AM

Very nice Dianavan, spend some more of the taxpayer's money. That sort of thinking is why the USA is where it is today, and why they are well on their way to fiscal ruin !! I agree about the greed comment, though. But that just goes back to my original point. Most poor people feel they need a handout, why is that?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 10:18 AM

Seems as if some folks like to jump into discussions who have no earthly clue about the what is being talked about... Why should I, Barry, Janie or anyone else who has made an investment of time and sharing here have to reteach "Bonehead Causes of Poverty 001, (non-credit, remedial" to folks who are too lazy or too arrogant to actually have to read this entire thread before jumping in with blind and ***ignorant*** accusations...

Like d said, that's is rude... Not to mention borish...

At least Dickey has been involved since the beginning and has demonstarted that he knows what has been said here in this thread...

The ***new shills*** are clueless and haven't made much of an attempt to hide it...

Well, yeah, they have as much right to participate as anyone else but if they had any idea of just what fools they have shown themselves to be by demonstarting they haven't done their homework here and not done the ***suggested reading, i.e. this thread", they would be some ashammed they'd have to sit at their computers with bags over their heads...

So my suggestion for the Dickey ***cheerleaders*** is, ahhhh, read the danged thread... Or not... Make fools of yerselves... It's a free world here in Mudville...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 10:51 AM

Nice rant, feel better now ?? As far as Im concerned, this thread contains a lot of babbling, but not much in the way of solutions. Mostly bashing other forum members (sound familiar, Bobert). The only fools are those who try to squash another's views, and offer non of their own ! But hey, like you said, it's a free world. Babble away !!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 11:00 AM

Beware the new pest!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 11:03 AM

Nice comment on poverty, Barry. Way to stick to the subject. I see you are bored this morning and looking to 'stir the pot' a bit, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 11:05 AM

How would you know what this thread contains, my friend... You admitted on another thread that you hadn't read this thread before jumping in...

The "babbler" to anyone who has been in this thread since the beginning ain't me, pal, it's you...

Now back to the discussion because until you have demonstrated that
you are up to speed I will treat you just like any of the other trolls her in the Catbox and ignore your ignorance...

No rant, just fact...

Boberte

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 11:17 AM

Bobert, I said I haven't read the ENTIRE thread, boy you don't listen well. By the way, back to what discussion ?? Nobody has been discussing anything about poverty since I offered my opinion yesterday. Just a fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 11:42 AM

Well, it's one thing to have an opinion but when you make statement that the causes of poverty haven't been discussed when you really haven't read the "entire" thread then that is "ignorance"... Thta;s not meant to be a put down but an observation...

Okay, it's like getting to a basball game late and the score is 1-0 and you don't have any idea how the run was scored but you are peefectly willing to say that the folks who did see how the run was scored don't know how it was scored either???

We are all ignorant about lots of stuff and that's okay until we profess to be up to speed when we really don't have a clue...

Your opinions are perfectly welcome, however, but if you are going to make statements about stuff that has or has not gone on in this ling thread, I'm sorry, but you have to read, ***and comprehend***, the thread in its entirity...

This ain't a rant... Maybe a suggestion... But no rant...

Believe me, when I rant, folks who have been 'round know it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 12:02 PM

"Nobody has been discussing anything about poverty since I offered my opinion yesterday."

You getting it now!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 12:22 PM

Thanks, Barry. I get it, when someone offers sensible solutions to a problem, that's a 'no-go' in this thread. Gotcha. And Bobert, your'e ranting again. P.S. *** AWG wondering when, if ever, someone will get this discussion back to the issue of poverty. Wow, what a concept, sticking to the subject. ***

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:04 PM

Anybody that disagrees with Bobert and his "facts" or statistics (which he caims are for losers) is automatically branded a *************shill************** working for Boss Hogg which is another straw man created by Bobert.

A very nice attempt at creating class warfare using straw man, ad hominem and red herring debating falacies.

Take for instance this "fact" that Mr. I come by all my stuff the hard way Bobert cut and pasted from a left wing propaganda site:

"The $17,530 earned by the average Wal-Mart employeee last year was $1,820 below the poverty line for a family of four...."

CHICAGO â€" The Illinois Legislature wasted no time heeding the national voters’ mandate, overwhelmingly passing a bill to raise the state’s minimum wage from $6.50 an hour to $7.50 effective next July. The bill, which Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he looks forward to signing, will make the Illinois minimum wage one of the nation’s highest.

The measure provides for the minimum to increase 25 cents a year until it hits $8.25 an hour in 2010.

According to figures released by Blagojevich’s office, the wage increase will boost the average annual income for nearly 650,000 full-time minimum wage workers and their children from $13,520 to $15,600 next year. By 2010, the yearly pay for a full-time minimum wage earner will be $17,160.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/10286/1/351/

Seems to me that Walmart is four years ahead.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:07 PM

A sign of insanity is doing what you've always done while expecting to get different results.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:21 PM

It seems that Dickey has a similar perspective to that of our old friend, MG. He has just skipped the profanity. Both he and AWG aren't worth the bandwith. AWG won't even read the thread and complains about what hasn't been discussed. They're both trolls. Why do I bother?

I'm outa here. Never to respond to Dickie or AWG, again.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:32 PM

Well, it's kinda hard to get it back, ahhhh, 'cause it's now obvious that we have a couple new kids in the class who aren't up to speed and that has kinda thrown the class a curve ball... I mean, most threads that discuss serious issues don't have to deal with this... Yeah, there are occasional trolls, which get ignored and the discussion continues but in this case, many of us are at a loss as to whether or not we should rediscuss that apparently the new kids haven't taken the time to discuss, treat the new kids as trolls or just sit back and see if the new kids will make the attempt to get caught up...

And by making generalized statements about the posting of various people, myself included, doesn't really demonstrate, to me that is, that the new kids are ***serious*** about joining in the discussion...

So, let's talk a little bit about the 1996 Welfare Reform...

In it there was money budgeted for child care for working parents (almost exclusively women)... This was all fine and good ezcept what the legislation didn't do was to allow that pool of money to grow with the number of parents who went to work and what has happened is that with newer parents having used up their ADFC assistence and having to take any lousy paying job they can find the money for child care is being cut back for the parents who have tried to play by the rules and are now in a crisis situation with many not being able to ***afford*** to work???

Huh???

Yeah, back to our $8.15 an hour mother who has been recieving vouchers to pay for child care and not being able to make ends meet and now she is told that her voucher will only cover 70% of need... This ain't to difficult a math quaetion here.... If @ $8.15 an hour one can't make the ends meet with child care vouchers, if you cut the value of the voucher then you have worsened this women's situation...

Some might say, "Hey, lady, get a better job" or "Hey, lady, go back to school so you can get a better job" but for those of us who have worked in social work and for those of us who haven't but have some understanding of what it's like to be a woman with 3 kids, an $8.15 job that she once thought she was lucky to find, there is the very sad reality that it is virtually impossible...

(Are you saying that it is impossible, Bobert???)

No, I'm saying that the sytem isn't designed to allow very many women like this to figure a way out... There aren't enough resources being thrown in these parent's (women's) direction for that to happen...

Like I've said before: The right wing loves to say that "you can't solve problems with money" but as they themselves are the ones who have corraled the vast majority of America's wealth, how would they know??? No, this is what Hitler referred to as a "Big Lie"... We've all heard it, over and over... It is thr ight winged mantra... Menawhile the right wing has it's hands in everyone elses pockets...

No, before this thread got slightly highjacked, this is what we were talking about.... It does come down to money...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:35 PM

I think Dickey makes a very good point. However, with all due respect to everyone else, 'poverty' is only a word. Just a word used to describe a citizens 'rank' on the economic scale. Many poor people are happy and healthy. Many 'rich' are unhappy and unhealthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:47 PM

". . . 'poverty' is only a word."

It's obvious, AWG, that you've never experienced it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:53 PM

Hello Don, it depends what you mean by poverty. Are you talking about a level of income, or a lifestyle. The 2 can be mutually exclusive. Please try to be more specific. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:10 PM

Your question, AWG, tends to prove my point. Poverty is not a "lifestyle."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:20 PM

To quote Bobert ... 'Well, myslef, I've heard Bill Cosby a few times an' what he basically says is "pull yourselves up by your boot straps"... He isn't into programs... Hey, he's a rich guy, ain't he??? He is no spokesman for black folks... He represents the ruling class...' He represents the 'common-sense' class, if you ask me. Americans whine about taxes, are about an inch from causing a world-wide economic collapse, and are holding record deficits, but people like Bobert want a whole raft of new social programs to help the lazy. Hey, I don't mind helping those who truly need it, therein lies the rub. Who IS that ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:23 PM

Don, to quote you...Your question, AWG, tends to prove my point. Poverty is not a "lifestyle."

That was MY point all along, poverty is not a lifestyle, just a word do describe a level of income. And what WAS your point, you never made one.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:44 PM

"Lifestyle" is generally a matter of choice. Poverty is not. Unless a person has joined Holy Orders and takes a vow of poverty (in which case, his or her basic needs are met by the order to which they belong), poverty is not a matter of choice. You seem to think it is.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 02:48 PM

Well Don, if poverty is not a matter of choice, why discuss it ? If poor people have no choice but to be poor (according to you) then we might as well give up, nothing will ever change. My arguement clearly states that poverty IS a choice. It's people like you, Don, that are keeping them down.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:01 PM

AWG, our philosophies are worlds apart. We apparently don't even speak the same language.

Goodbye.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:02 PM

"Americans whine about taxes, are about an inch from causing a world-wide economic collapse."

This is of course a vast simplification. Take into account the huge defecit caused by over-extended credit + money spent to fuel the war industry + tax breaks to the rich and off-shore tax havens, and most of you can figure it out. Once again the poor are being blamed for poor fiscal management.

Here's a solution. Read the above.

Re-distribute the wealth by providing jobs
Raise the minimum wage
Provide daycare
Stop pouring tax dollars into the corporate/military complex.

Stop making excuses for a govt. that isn't doing their job.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:17 PM

Very well put, Dianavan. That's what Ive been so patiently waiting for all this time, someone to come up with solutions, not just rhetoric. Now, if Don could only take your lead.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:20 PM

That's where I've been all along, AWG. Obviously you're new here.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:22 PM

Guests coming momentarily for Easter dinner. I may or may not be back to this discussion later.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:26 PM

"The mother of revolution and crime is poverty."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:35 PM

Anybody remember 'Guest, G.' from a 'poverty' thread a year or so ago? Conservative. Very well-informed and thoughtful. Had a good grasp of the issues. I valued his perspective in spite of not agreeing with it. A well-informed opinion is always worth listening to.   

Dianavan, like you, I'm outta here.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:37 PM

"the sytem isn't designed to allow very many women like this to figure a way out"

What system is that Bobert? Is it your straw man system that is to blame? Yes, keep on feeding that to the poor folks and sooner or later they will be brainwashed into believing you and quit trying. You can't beat this straw man system I am telling you exists, this Boss Hogg that is responsible for your being poor.

Now you have elected your self to the office of lecturer. I am not in your self proclaimed class Bobert.

You clearly exhibit the same characteristics you attribute to Mr Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:48 PM

Poverty Facts:
Every 43 seconds in the United States a child is born into poverty
Every 53 minutes in the United States a child dies from causes related to poverty
In 2002, the official poverty threshold, as defined by the federal government, for a family of four was $18,250. Yet, most researchers agree that a basic family budget for a two-parent, two-child family ranges from $27,005 a year to $52,114, depending on the community.


* Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau


Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2003

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 03:51 PM

National poverty data are calculated using the official Census definition of poverty, which has remained fairly standard since it was introduced in the 1960s and is useful for measuring progress against poverty. Under this definition, poverty is determined by comparing pretax cash income with the poverty threshold, which adjusts for family size and composition. 1 In 2005, according to the official measure, 37 million people, 12.6 percent of the total U.S. population, lived in poverty (Table 1).

Is poverty different for different groups in the population?
The poverty rate represents an average over the entire population, and does not really tell us who, in particular, is well off, who is worse off. For that, it is necessary to examine poverty levels for particular groups. Most notably, blacks and Hispanics have poverty rates that greatly exceed the average. The poverty rate for all blacks and Hispanics remained near 30 percent during the 1980s and mid-1990s. Thereafter it began to fall. In 2000, the rate for blacks dropped to 22.1 percent and for Hispanics to 21.2 percent—the lowest rate for both groups since the United States began measuring poverty.

The Current Population Survey, from which the poverty statistics are drawn, implemented a new question in 2003 to collect information on race, allowing individuals to report one or more races. There is no way of knowing how people who reported more than one race would have reported their race under the old question. Table 1 shows that those who defined themselves as black only or as black and some other race had the highest poverty rates—around 25 percent. Among those of Hispanic origin, who can be of any race, the poverty rate was 21.8 percent. The poverty rate for Asians was 11.1 percent.

Among children under age 18, 17.6 percent, 13 million children, lived in poverty. (See Table 1 and also the FAQ, How Many Children Are Poor?) The poverty rate for those over 65, which in 1959 exceeded the overall poverty rate, fell below it beginning in 1982. In 2005, poverty rose slightly for this group—the rate was 10.1 percent. The poverty rate for whites who were not Hispanic was below the overall poverty rate from 1959 through 2003. In 2005 it was 8.3 percent.

In 2005, the poverty rate for families was 9.9 percent, comprising 7.7 million families. Of all family groups, poverty is highest among those headed by single women. In 2005, 28.7 percent of all female-headed families (4 million families) were poor, compared to 5.1 percent of married-couple families (2.9 million families).

Poverty levels also differ depending on where people live. The metropolitan poverty rate differs greatly between suburbs and the central city. In 1979, the average central city poverty rate was 15.7 percent; at its highest point, in 1993, it was 21.5; by 2005 it was 17.0 percent, almost twice the rate for the suburbs (9.3 percent). Poverty in rural areas is not negligible either; in 2005, 14.5 percent of people living outside metropolitan areas (that is, in the countryside and small country towns) were poor.

The poverty rate also varies by region and within regions. In 2005 it was greatest in the South, at 14.0 percent, and lowest in the Midwest and Northeast, at 11.3 percent, and between the two at 12.6 percent in the West. Adjoining states may have radically different levels of poverty. In 2005, the poverty rate in the state of Maryland was 9.7 percent—yet in the adjacent District of Columbia, it stood at 21.3 percent.

from

http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq3.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 04:18 PM

It's called "corporate America" which by no menas should be confused with capitalism because of its coziness with the governemnt, which it, for all practical purposes, owns lock, stock and barrel...

The real "welfare class" in this country are these corrupt corporations that make the rules to extract more and more from the working class and take more and more, in terms of cutting funds from the programs that were once designed to help folks out of poverty, from the poor...

Meanwhile, our corrupt governemnt just goes along with the highest bidder... The poor don't have lobbiest... They don't make the big cmapaign contributions... They have beeen rendered powerless and Peace is entirely correct that a sustained corrupt system to guarentees a large peasant class is ripe for crime (which we now have which is growing) but also "revolution"... It has happened over and over throughout mankind's history and the US is not exempt from it happening here...

But like I ahve pointed out, it won't start with the folks who have allready been beaten down mentally but will happen with Southern and Midwestern man who finnally figures out that he has been screwed and that he can no longer make ends meet... See, I know Southern Man purdy well having spent all my life around him and, yeah, he is very resistent to change and about the only way that he will change is if he is backed into a corner and he figures out who is doing the backing... Up to now, corporate America has used all kinds of PR ploys to get Southern Man drenkin' his Budweizer, watching NASCAR and listenin' to country music and I have to give corporate Amercica credit where it is due... It continues to work but corporate America (the system) isn't throwing 'nuff bones & taters at Southern Man these days... The off shoring, the out sourcing and the two tiered labor agreements are jsut beginning to hurt Southern Man where he don't like to be hurt and that is his wallet... Corpoarte America saw this coming so they thought they could ***lend*** their way out of it but now Southern Man is in debt up to his knees and wondering just what the Hell is going on...

So, yeah... Revolution is a very real possibility... The US is one Dr Martin Luther King away from Southern Man connecting the dots... Oh sure, as in the past cororate America will assasinate the next Dr. King, as they did the last time around, but once the seed is planted and Southern Man gets it corporate America won't find a PR firm that will turn it around...

Are there any other scenerios???

Well, yes and no... It's gonna come down to a redistribution of wealth one way or another...

And this ain't "Animal Farm" here... When the playing field is level and the laws are passed for the good of our entire society there will be no reason for future revolutions of this magnitude... And this ain't got one danged thing to do with the Democratic party which is just as subject to pressures of corprate America as are the Repubs...

You ask what is the system... I've answered it... Pure and simple....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 04:36 PM

Good answer Bobert. I tend to agree. Poor people need breaks but not handouts. Most of all they need an education and exposure to family values beginning when they are young, not as a stopgap measure when they are stuck in the rut.

The Institute for Research on Poverty

Has poverty changed over time?

In the late 1950s, the overall poverty rate for individuals in the United States was 22 percent, representing 39.5 million poor persons. Between 1959 and 1969, the poverty rate declined dramatically and steadily to 12.1 percent. As a result of a sluggish economy, the rate increased slightly to 12.5 percent by 1971. In 1972 and 1973, however, it began to decrease again. In 1973, the poverty rate was 11.1 percent. At that time roughly 23 million people were poor.

In 1975 the poverty rate increased to 12.3 percent. It then oscillated around 11.5 percent for the next few years. After 1978, however, the rate rose steadily, reaching 15.2 percent in 1983. Thereafter it remained mostly higher than 13 percent. In 1993 it reached a new high of 15.1 percent, and then began to fall slowly. In 2000, 31 million people were poor (11.3 percent of the population). In 2001 the number of poor and the poverty rate both rose as economic difficulties moved into recession, and the rate has continued to rise; in 2003, 35.8 million people were poor by the official measure of poverty. By 2005, the number had risen to 37 million people (12.6 percent of the population.

Poverty using different measures of income

The existing official measure of poverty has been widely criticized. Under the procedures by which the official poverty rate is calculated, only cash income is counted in determining whether a family is poor; cash welfare programs count, but benefits from noncash programs, such as food stamps, medical care, social services, education and training, and housing are not included. Taxes paid, such as Social Security payroll taxes, and tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, are also excluded from poverty calculations. Because government spending on means-tested noncash benefits and tax credits has increased more rapidly than spending on means-tested cash benefits over the years, ignoring noncash benefits is an increasingly serious omission if we want a broad picture of the impact of government programs on poverty.

In 1995 a panel of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published an influential report on revising the poverty measure (Measuring Poverty: A New Approach, edited by Constance F. Citro and Robert T. Michael). The Census Bureau has calculated alternative poverty rates using various experimental adjustments to the official poverty rate. It has, for example, expanded the definition of income to take into account some noncash income, including government benefits. The experimental poverty measures are the subject of an issue of the IRP newsletter Focus (volume 19, no. 2, Spring 1998, "Revising the Poverty Measure", pdf, 64 pp.), were discussed in an April 1999 IRP conference, and were the topic of a June 2004 workshop hosted by the Committee on National Statistics of the NAS. Papers presented at the workshop reviewed the effects of possible changes in the measure, drawing on the decade of research that has followed the publication of Measuring Poverty.

http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq3.htm

The Census Bureau's poverty report for 2002 estimated the effects of government programs on poverty using experimental measures. For example, it compared the official measure of poverty with measures based on recommendations of the 1995 NAS panel. The panel suggested, among other changes, adjusting the poverty measure to account for geographic differences in housing costs, counting noncash benefits as income, and subtracting from income some work-related, health, and child care expenses. Using alternative definitions of poverty based on the NAS study, the poverty rate for 2002 was in general higher than under the official measure, depending on the particular definition of medical costs and on whether geographic differences were taken into account (see the 2002 Poverty Report, Table 7, "Alternative Poverty Estimates"). Not all groups are affected uniformly, however, when the poverty definition changes.

There is considerable disagreement on the best way to incorporate medical care in a measure of poverty, even though medical costs have great implications for poverty rates. But costs differ greatly depending upon personal health, preferences, and age, and family costs may be very different from year to year, making it hard to determine what exactly should be counted. Subtracting out-of-pocket costs from income is one imperfect approach, but if someone's expenses are low because they are denied care, then they would usually be considered worse off, not better off. If the value of Medicaid or Medicare benefits is included, should not the value of private insurance also be included? And although poor persons are clearly better off with medical coverage, such benefits, unlike cash, cannot be used by recipients to meet other needs of daily living.

Including the value of housing is equally controversial. How should the respective value of rented and owned housing be measured? Including the equity value of housing would alter the distribution of poverty according to age, because of the large numbers of elderly who are homeowners.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 05:42 PM

Exact point I was trying to make about the DC area... Yeah, where as some of the new kids in class think that $8.15 an hour for a mom with 3 kids isn't poverty it disagree... When one does the math, $8.15 in the DC area with it's high cost of even slum housing is very much a poverty wage...

If we are to look at ways of helping folks escape the cycle of poverty we are going to have to have programs that "subsidize" or we are going to have to enact laws requiring employers to pay "livable wages"... One way or the other... Or maybe a combination of the two... There are small mon 'n pop businesses that just don't have that corporate America profit margain that cannot afford to pay a "livable wage"... I'm one of them... Yeah, even though I pay my two employeees well over the minimum wage if I had to pay them a wage that I *thought* was a livable wage, meaning they could afford a house, a car, health insurance, college fund then with what I make in terms of profit I would be in a loss situation... But corporate America isn't in this siutation and they can pay.... And they can be requird to hire folks right here in America rather than outsorce jobs...

So I'd be willing to look at some kind of subsidy/corpoarte-regulation system where programs are restroed that are intended to help folks that want a better life have the opportunities to have one... This would be some movement toward "social justice" and give people some hope... The worst thing I saw during my years in social work is what hopelessness and despair do to people's motivational level... It kills it...

A good read about what happens to folks when they get beaten down is a book by historian Kwenneth Stampp entitled "The Pecular Institution" where he taslks about the sytemic and institutional thinks that were done to "manage" slaves and these things weren't purdy and given what most folks think about the hiostory of our country were downright Draconian...

Some of those same things are being done to our poor today...

America does have a "soul" that is much more righteous than it is showing today...

Like I said, we've beaten our poor into submission... They have given up... There is no pursuit of happiness... There is no equal opportunity.... There is about what the black among us got from the Emancipation Procalmation: Ya' got nuthin', We ain't given you nuthin'... But yer free... Free to do what???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 07:24 PM

A start would be, not only a national chid care program but also a national health insurance plan with a sort of sliding scale. The poorer one is the sicker they are lible to become, the same goes for the kids, which ends up as a burden on the state, the present health care system, the local ecomomies & end's up effecting us all. But this would be a career stopper for the political rascal that dared put forth this issue. The AMA, the insurance industry, the Hospital networks & others would be in an uproar, even though it would benifit the nation as a whole as well as help to solve the poverty issue.
Dickey posted above a track of poverty from the 50's onward. If one were to add on the left out factors & put them into the same equation I would bet that the raise & fall of the true levels would closely follow the same rise & fall levels of the social programs that previously dealt with poverty but ended up cut or scaled back. Me belief is that those programs did work, had made a very big dents in the poverty levels. I know that growing up & taking advantage of the available programs at that time made a world of difference for the whole community. Today without those programs I believe that these same communities are dying without them. The drug & alcohol abuse, the crime rate, infant mortality rate, child pregnancies, homelessness rates & the rate of the poor youth signing up to fight wars for lack of better employment are shyrocketing while education levels are dropping, the level of health care is disappearing, the prisons systems are bursting at the seams and it seems to me that the nation's economy benifits from this situation. The benifits include an undereducated labor force destained to low competive wages along with a labor force that gets no health insurance & their costs get passsed on for the rest to subsidize. What also comes of this is a class of people that will vote as manipulated by their needs for survival dictate. They cost very little to maintain & when they do contribute they put up more than their fair share of the (tax) burden. My belief is that as the gap between the poor & the rich grow wider that this will eventually suck in & include the working classes also. The tendency to tip the scales so that the rich & powerful will, if not already, become a very small elite with control over a much poorer & huge percentage of the population. This divide is happening today & will continue with more becoming poorer unless there's a change in policy. It seems to me that the war on poverty is an issue that overlaps & it'll take more than just money, education & programs, hope, values & internal incentive, that won't be enough. There's also, as I said above, the perception of the poor by not only themselves but by society as a whole. Without a change in the national image of the underclass they will stay & remain as the underclass forever being blamed for their situation as their own fault. Instead we should be having a national attitude that sees this as every one's problem & something that everyone needs to proudly kick in with a hand to surrmount what should become a national achievment& goal. But then there are those that say let 'em eat cake, they need to pull themselves up by their boot staps when they've no boots & those that say the bastards are just lazy.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 07:35 PM

"My belief is that as the gap between the poor & the rich grow wider that this will eventually suck in & include the working classes also."

Thats exactly right, Barry. Thats why the Average White Guy is so afraid of poverty. He knows he's only a paycheck away. He thinks he can maintain his middle class status by denigrating the poor and calling them lazy. If only I work hard, says he, I won't be as poor as they are. He's in for a big surprise. Especially if he keeps voting for the neo-conservatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 08:11 PM

Exactly, d...

Those "average white guys" are who I was referring to as "Southern Man" in my post above... Southern Man lives everywhere... Not just the South and these are the very people who Boss Hog should be very afraid of because these are the folks who when they turn on you, you ain't gonna get them back without major sacrifices...

And Barry...

Right on... Yes, therwe is a correlation between spending on programs and poverty.... I believe that there are some folks here who either are or were very recently of the opinion that what we've been talkin' about is some kinda "handout system"... That won't work... You know it, d knows it, Janie knows it and I know it... Yes, folks talk about education... Fine... But in order to get an education it ***does*** involve both health care and child care and some renatal assistence...

When I was in socail work I never met a mother who wanted to be worse off in 5 years... It's just hard... Heck, it's hard enough for middle class families to get their kids educated...

But theunderlieing problem is jobs... The "system", as define above, isn't manufacturing jobs with livable wages right now no matter how qualified the general population...

This is the other half of the contract... We are going to have to put some laws on the books that force corporations to pay lvable wages to workers where ever those workers might be... If they had to do that then they would hire Americans and there would be hope within the rabnks of the poor that making the sacrifices to get training or education would have a pay-off...

Right now, what is the incentive... Poor folks ain't stupid and they are looking at the working class and seein' it getting screwed and thinking, "Hey, why bother"...

So like I siad before... We need progtrams and we need to reel the corporations back in...

If we are not willing to do that I think that the US will one day look very much like Haiti where the rich live like prisoners in their compounds and cannot leave without body guards...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 09:46 PM

Wow, I actually owe you guys an apology. Well, except Dianavan, you are too political, and not realistic enough. But everyone else, thumbs up !!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 09:51 PM

Almost scared to comment because I admit to not having read the whole thread -- and am too tired to right now. But coming from UK, I think one of the huge issues is that Americans don't DEMAND national health as a basic right. When you talk to Europeans who have a health system they simply don't understand why people don't rise up and demand basic health care. It seems to me that ever since I came to the US, one of the key things I have always had to think about, plan about, worry about etc etc is health care. How WONDERFUL if one were sick one could go to the Doctor, as it is in many other countries of the world, without worrying about how in hell you are going to pay for it and for the prescription. If that were dealt with it seems to me that the positive effects would permeate through society and so many things would be better.....it is EASIER to hold on to your job when your health is under control..

Please note that I am not naive enough to suggest this would be FREE but if basic wellness were offered and paid for out of taxes that everyone pays, the wealthy could go off and buy enhanced coverages if they so wished -- but the poor would at least get the basics.

Good night one and all - I have a busy full late day tomorrow.....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 10:26 PM

Barry, you've got me to thinking about the difference in a social safety net and a welfare-to-work program. The enabling legislation for just about all of the programs of the 60's and 70's was found in assorted titles of the Social Security Act. The Food Stamp program was enabled by it's own act, and to this day is housed under USDA instead of HHS. They were basically updated versions of New Deal programs and were designedprimarily to be 'safety net' programs. aOver time, work incentives and punishments were tacked on, find of willynilly, but they were not designed to be welfare-to-work
programs.

Today, the programs are welfare-to-work programs. As somebody already said, TANF has replaced AFDC. the Food Stamp and Medicaid programs have had rules cobbled onto to them rather than a major overhaul.

I just bored myself to sleep. I'm going to bed. I'll be back to finish this unless it gets diverted by unintelligent life forms.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 04:00 PM

Now I see Bobert's agenda. He wants the government to subsidize his business so he can make even more money. Corporate welfare is OK for Bobert Incorporated but not for Exxon and Walmart.

Do you pay them as much as Walmart? Do you put money in a 401K for them like Walmart?

Well the good thing about America is you can start out a pauper and end up a Billionaire. How did Sam Walton, John Cash Penny or Ray Croc start out? A different era you say? How about Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Larry Ellison the owner of that evil $300M, 454 foot yacht start out?

"Ellison was born in New York City to Florence Spellman, a 19-year-old unwed mother who asked that her aunt and uncle in Chicago, Lillian Spellman Ellison and Louis Ellison adopt him when he was nine months old. Larry did not learn the name of his birth mother or meet her until he was 48; the identity of his biological father is unknown."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison

By the way your left wing cut and paste facts are exaggerated and wrong again:"Ellison owns the fourth largest yacht in the world named "Rising Sun" which reportedly cost over $200 million to build. Rising Sun is 452.75ft (138 m) long."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 04:01 PM

A whole ten people in a nation of 330 million. What ARE the odds?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 04:16 PM

About 1 in 33 million, if the numbers are correct. By the way Dickie, very well put. But how did those guys do it if all they did was sit around collecting handouts ? I mean, hard work certainly isn't an option, is it??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 05:12 PM

You guys give a whole new dimension to the word "callous". Hard work is an option, of course, and not only an option but to the truly poor, it is a fact of life. I would hazard a guess, Mister AWG, that the migrant poor you see up and down the San Joaquin, doing manual agricultural labor, are working ten times as hard in a day as you are, and earning less than a tenth as much. There is a DIFFERENT variable at work, which men of your ilk like to roll into the notion that the poor don't work hard. How long has it been since you worked for minimum wage? Did you try to support anyone else by doing so? Have you ever watched your own children go hungry or go without health care because you work with your muscles at minimum wage and don't have any cash to spare?

I doubt you have experienced any of these things, nor have you talked to anyone who has -- that's my guess, and it is about as justified as yours elsewhere about Peace working. In other words, I pulled it out of my ass. How'd I do?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 05:28 PM

Apparently Larry Ellison's adoptive parents weren't poverty stricken and Bill Gates wasn't the least bit poor (He went to a private school).

Thats eight to 330 million.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 05:41 PM

I see your point Amos, and it looks to me like maybe I should re-iterate my stand to you. What your'e basically saying is that there are poor people who can't afford to feed their children because they don't make enough money. Fair enough. However, after separating those who 'fell on hard times', and I realize this happens, we are left with those who are just lazy and would rather collect welfare and other handouts courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. And they number in the millions, dont kid yourself. Those are the ones I have been talking about from the beginning ( other members are happier labelling me a 'monster' who doesn't care about poor people, and that is simply not the case. I grew up watching my father work 2 jobs for years so we could have a decent life. We barely got by, and I never knew what it was like to be 'spoiled', like so many of you think. Ive been working since I was 11 years old, so that I could have a few of the things so many of my friends enjoyed. This isn't meant to be a 'sob story' by any means, but be aware that I know what its like to just get by and it was only by hard work and sacrifice. And I see so many people sitting at home collecting welfare and scamming the system it makes me sick, when there are plenty of jobs available if one is willing to work for 8 or 9 dollars per hour.   Youre probably not going to like this, but I think people who cannot support their children shouldn't have them until they are able to. (not including the 'fell on hard times' cases, of course). As far as solutions go, I have several viable and practical ones, using my own country as an example. First would be raising the minimum wage (which Canada is doing as we speak), second would be government programs to encourage people to educate themselves and gain skills, third would be to re-allocate some of the billions of dollars the government spends on frivolous and wasteful programs into ones that help those who truly need it, fourth would be to get the Republicans out of the whitehouse, they are spending the USA right down the toilet, and fifth would be to put the brakes on the absurd number of immigrants entering the USA each and every day !! Anybody with solutions to add....?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 06:22 PM

I would like to see a program in place that encourages people receiving social assistance to go to school and get training for jobs available in their area. It would be costly, but to quote Bok, the then President of Harvard (and I read he was quoting someone else), "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

A program of that nature would allow an adult to receive funding to support her children and herself while having her education paid for. I'd suggest making it work like student loans, with maybe a ten-year amortization of the debt, no interest.

I know from many years back that the cost of keeping one person in jail in Canada (I think it referred to maximum security institutions) was around $55,000/year. I always thought that investing half that at the right time could have saved millions of dollars, to say nothing of lives. I feel much the same about social assistance. The general argument against it is "Why should so-and-so receive a free ride?" Well, so-and-so would not be. We recognize that sometimes people need a helping hand. Canada gives interest free loans to some countries through CIDA because as citizens we recognize that we DO have a responsibility to actually BE our brothers/sisters' keepers (although I think helpers would be a better term to use.

The solution is not simplistic. It's just one that is simple. I cannot buy into a culture of "work or die". I think despite this type of program there would still be people who due to mental illnesses or physical inabilities would require financial assistance. Hell, give it to them. But I have had too many discussions with single moms or dads, and in fact all they usually need is that one break and they are happy to leave social assistance behind for good.

I could give anecdotal 'evidence', but those who think 'welfare' should not exist in the first place would just discount it, and those who believe we should help fellow humans already know the stories from their own work or lives.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 07:09 PM

I think both of you have excellent ideas on these issues.

AWG, thanks for the clarification; sorry I got a little bit hissy there.

I too have known folks who gamed the welfare system, and I have no respect for them. Nor, I think, do they have much for themselves. I think that deep down, the real origin and well-spring of self-esteem and morale is personal productivity of some kind, no matter what kind.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 08:11 PM

First of all, and Janie will confirm this, there isn't any welfare program for lazy people... Might of fact, there is now a cutoff date on anyone recieving welfare.... No one can just wake up one morning and say to themselves "Hey, work sucks... I think I'll just go down to the wlefare department and get me a check"...

And, contrary to the opinions of many folks who rerally don't know much about welfare programs in general, there has never been such a program...

And, yo Dickey...

Yes, you have it... I do expect the government to subsidize my business... They subsideize the Halliburtons and the Exxons and big-agriculture so why shouldn't I expect some help too...

Here is the ***reality***... I know that you don't always do well with reality but here's the real deal... I build houses the old fashion way... One stick at a time and I have two guys who work with me... Though I am pushing 60 years old I do everything that I ask of my youngin's... I have to borrow the money to build a house... I have to borrow thwe money to buy the land... I pay my guys a little over $10 an hour which is $2 an hour over what other coptractors pay folks in this very poor county... It take me between a year and a year and half to finish a house 'cause the 3 of us purdy much do everything except the excavation and heat and air... At the end of the deal I make about $50,000 gross on a house and I'm the one carrying ***all*** the risk... If a wind comes up when we've just set a 12/12 roof with 18 foot long 2X12 rafters and takes it out before I can get the roof racked then it's my loss...

This is reality... There are millions of folks like me in this country who are providing jobs for folks but not making enough to be able to afford health insurance... As it turns out I can barely pay for my own health insurance.... Yeah, okay, I do have a couple real estate investment which are my 401(K) but there isn't enough in there for me to be able to take out from it to throw into 401(k)s for my guys....

So, yeah, I do expect a little help for my workers... I'm just one on millions of small businessmen who don't have the $$$ to buy into the corrupt system so that I can get back the big $$$$ from the feds...

And, yeah, considering the cost of living, I do consider both my workers as folks who are living close to poverty...

What is my choice??? Quit and let them go back to making $8 an hour ot do the best I can for them while being very angry that my country's governemnt would rather give me tax dollars to rich folks than my workers... They don't get jack... LIke zip from the federal governemnt... I don't get jack... Like zip from the federal governmnet...

Wish I could say the same for the Halliburtons... Then ther might be a few taters left to help my workers...

And if any sumabitch call me or my workers lazy I'll hunt yer chickensh*t self down and put a whup on you that you'll so embarrassed to have put on yu by a skinny ol' hillbilly that you'll have to wear a bag over yer danged head to go home at night... We ain't lazy... We'll outwork any 24/7 cyber-crybabies any day of the week...

But my guy are living in poverty and that ain't ***my*** fault... And it ain't their's either...

This is another aspect of poverty that folks here maybe ain't considered... But is reality that there are more adults living in poverty who work than those who don't...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 08:46 PM

Hey Boert, let me try this again.... I know that the situation there in the US is different; here in Canada, anyone with a permanent address and who shows they are actively looking for work (lots of ways around that)can collect welfare. That however, fails to help the homeless (another issue). Those who work for minimum wage do struggle, its a sad fact of life. Governments will always cater to the rich, always have, always will. We don't have to pay for health insurance, in fact it was only a couple of years ago that we actually had to start paying for eys-exams. I know the health-care issue has been a hot topic in your country of late. I think a big difference lies in governmental budget priorities, the USA seems a little too concerned with their millitary, and less about the people that millitary is designed to protect.... And I personally don't blame you one bit for wanting the government to subsidize your business, in fact, since small business makes up a far bigger chunk of the economy than big business, it should be a governmental priority. At the very least, allow the same tax-break considerations as the big guys. And I applaud you for running a business, and providing jobs for people; and the pay seems more than reasonable (judging by what similar work up here would pay). Its a shame even that isn't enough to live comfortably (everyone should have this right). I feel for the American people in the way that here you are, the richest country on earth, and there are so many people who can barely get by, if at all. But there are solutions, and they will take time and effort, I just wonder how hard the government is looking.    P.S....I would be interested in the stats regarding #working vs non-working poor in your country.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 09:17 PM

Too busy workin' my life away to give you those stats... Maybe Dickey who apparently has more time on his hands can provide them but I'll guarentee you that the working adult poor outnumbers the very few (by comparision) welfare moms who are just awiting their own "cut-off" dates when they gotta get on the bus at 5 in the morning and trek across town to make minimum wage...

And, AWG, there are way too many sterotypes of what it's lie to be on welfare in the US... But these sterotypes have been beaten into folks heads by rich folks who have passed down their hatred for the FDR's New Deal from generation to generation... George Bush is a prime example... In college he argues with his teachers about this... Yeah, he put forth the sterotype welfare recipent as ig he actaully knoew anything about the subjexct... Problem, is... he didn't and still doesn't have so much as a clue...

While he was arguin' that there were lazy folks on welfare I was workin' for a community action program in a housi9ng project, Hillside Court, in South Richmond and all the women there were on welfare... The dads were gone... Why??? Because the welfare system in the US demanded that dads ***had*** to be out of the house or the mother wouldn't get jack!!!

Talk about the hypocrisy of "family values"??? The right wing in the US wouldn't know "family val;ues" if bitten on the ass...

This is and was the real deal...

Janie will tell you...

People in the uS ain't lazy... They outwork every industrialized nation in the world and that is top to bottom... Out poor outwork most people in the world..

This ain't about laziness... It's about "the system" that is stacked to the hilt in favor of fat cats and rich pweople at the expense of the folks who build their homes, teach their children, nurse them when they are sick, drive the buses, take care of their eldery parents, fix their plumbing, clean their gutters, etc. etc....

So, yeah, I am very pissed off!!! I don't accept that this is all that my government can do for its people... Tihis, if it didn't involve so many folks living in absolute squaller, would be a joke...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 10:22 PM

Driving the fathers out of the homes was one of the most horrible things America has ever done. I don't know if we will ever be able to count all the problems this has caused. Now some fathers need to go. Boyfriends who molest the mother's daughters (and perhaps sons) have to go. I would certainly provide for married men, assuming they are not violent, on drugs etc. Children need their fathers desperately, working or not. I do believe that fathers or mothers, with the excpetion of those caring for very small children, and perhaps even then under some circumstances, should be expected to contribute to the community in some way if they are receiving any sort of benefit..and the benefit should be increased when they do. They could be doing maintenance, working in nursing homes, day care centers, etc. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:42 PM

"Because the welfare system in the US demanded that dads ***had*** to be out of the house" Was that a requirement or just a a rule that only familys with no dad could get support? It sounds like a reasonable requirement that dads support their family.

Nobody told my father to leave his family. He started up a business with my uncle and a few others in the basement of that house he built out of scrap lumber scavenged off of construction jobs. He made a machine to bend metal using railroad tracks and hydraulic bottle jacks. His big break came making housings for exhaust fans in army barracks because of the quantity. He used to go to a bank in Georgetown and borrow $200 at a time for operating capital. The interest was around 2 or 3 percent. Poverty back then was twice what it is now. He never went to school except maybe elementary school but he could read. When ever he needed to learn about something he would find a book at the library. He learned to speak German for some reason by himself.
He never even considered welfare. He never whined about anything. Never complained abut what other people had that he did not have. He just worked. The only thing I ever heard him complain about were Jews. He was raised in an era where Henry Ford had a whole hate Jews movement going on.
As kids we didn't have a lot of stuff to play with. I remember my Mom went to the dump and brought back a bunch of disgarded bikes. We took parts from some to fix others. Other that that we had rocks and sticks and old hound dogs to play with but we had great outdoor adventures being surrounded on three sides with farms and woods and creeks to go buck swimming in but we lived right on the edge of Alexandria that had some of the worst slums.
We had a family of Pollock Immigrants on a farm one side. Thier house was once used as a hospital for a civil war battle fought on the ridge to the west. A family of Hillbillies from Harrisonburg had on a farm on the other side. I used to go to visit and they would give me a Quaker Oats carton full of tiny banty chicken eggs. A German family moved in up the road and they built a shack that had a toilet consisting of a terracotta drain tile sticking up out of the floor in the middle of the room that led to a drainfield. Later they built a house and turned the shack into a ckicken coop. Now it is all condos, warehouses and shopping centers and those slums are history.
Our Dad supported us and provided a home starting with nothing in a very bad era. There are even more opportunities now than there were then for able bodied people who work for it. Back then only a few rich folks could send their kids to college.
Almost all the people who lived through the depression are gone now but people these days have no idea what real poverty and insecurity is like.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:57 PM

"...being surrounded on three sides with farms and woods and creeks to go buck swimming in but we lived right on the edge of Alexandria that had some of the worst slums"

It sounds like you enjoyed your childhood. I wonder how the kids in the slums remember theirs? Compared to them, your family was rich.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 12:06 AM

Well put Dianavan, I liked Dickey's post, but you make a GREAT point. There are definately 2 sides to every coin.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 01:10 AM

Dainavan:

Not living in the slums, I would not know and neither would you.

You clould read what Bill Cosby who did live in the slums has to say about it.

We were poor then but it was no problem because I had a Mom and Dad that cared and did their best. There was nobody telling us how bad off we were, that the rich people were to blame and that we could not get ahead without assistance.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 04:02 AM

Well, this may be just a bit of thread drift, but not so far off topic as to be completely out of line here.

In earlier posts I had talked about the privitization of Public Mental Health in my State, and also that I was struggling in the private sector to figure out to what extent I could speak forthrightly without jepardizing my job.

My direct boss, the Clinic Director of the clinic where I am the Outpatient Services Manager, called me tonight in tears to give me a heads up that a Division Director will be coming in the morning to tell me I am out of a job for the first time in my adult life. She had surgery on Friday and is on medical leave. At the insistent urging of the Division Director, she will be in the office tommorrow, full of Vicadin, to carry out her official duties. She called me at great risk to her own position if I am unable to conceal that I have been forewarned of the message that will be delivered to me tomorrow. I will be forever grateful for the chance to psychologically prepare, and will do my best to behave in a manner that does not result in her loss of employment as well as mine.

This is primarily a business decision resulting from an announcement the State made last Thursday that they are reducing the reimbursemt rate for community support services by 1/3, retroactive to claims paid (not services rendered) on or after April 30. I understand and accept that. The reimbursement rate for Outpatient and psychiatric services has never covered the cost of providing the service. Community Support was the money maker and kept us afloat. When I read the State memorandum, I knew it meant trouble. And I knew from the start of mental health reform that the new system, as designed, would not be financially viable. The question was always-How long?

The current company took us over at our predivestiture salaries.    Though not large, they were higher than this company typically paid. Regarding annual leave benefits, they started us earning based on our tenure in the public system. This company had been a private, children's therapeutic foster care and residential treatment provider prior to taking us over. They had some professional level staff, but these types of services are not provided by licensed professional staff. They were fairly large, with offices in 5 States, but quite specialized. They served children. Children have Medicaid. Medicaid was their primary payor source. (Private insurance does not cover therapeutic foster care or residential treatment such as group homes.) In the last 18 months, including the take over of our 4 clinics, they have grown 150%. They did not understand the financial risk they were taking on to provide therapy, psychiatry and community support to uninsured and underinsured adults. 80% of the adults we serve do not have Medicaid, medicare or insurance. Those of us who had worked in the public system knew the reformed system was not fiscally designed to be viable with low income adults, that adults are the largest popluation we serve, and that there was no way private companies were going to be able to break even, much less show a profit. The State went with it anyway on March 22 of 2006.

I am going to speak very personally now. In part this is out of my own need to write as tool to sort this out, but also because I think my situation is not unique, and that there is value to others in my sharing it. I am well aware that in doing so, I can not assume that either Dickey or AWG, or others like them, will respect what I am doing, or what I risk in doing so. I hope they surprise me. If not, well, I'll deal with it.

I do not make good money, several thousand dollars less than the median income for the region in which I live, but at the time of divesture I was the third highest paid clinician in the 4 public clinics operated by the Area Mental Health Program I worked for. Tenure played a role in that, but I also had received a number of merit raises that pushed my salary out in front. I say that not to toot my own horn, but by way of explanation. In the 1st 5 months after the private company took us over, I received another merit raise and then a promotion. The end result is I am the highest paid employee in the clinic.

At the time of divesture, in June, 2006, I was providing psychotherapy full-time. Our long-time clinic director took early retirement and left. He, too, saw the approaching train wreck, was in a position to leave, and did. So did many others. From June until October, we were without any on-site manager at all. I had been, and continued to be, the team leader for both of our adult treatment teams and was also providing clinical supervision to a majority of the Licensed Clilnical Social Workers among the outpatient therapists. I had previous administrative experience from my pre-graduate school years with the Dept. of Human Services in another state. By default, and by neccessity to the operations of the clinic, I fell into the role of de facto manager. The salary that was being offered for the program director's position was not competitive and for the longest time therew were no applicants. I wasn't interested. Direct practice is where my heart is. After 5 months, with no Program Director in sight, the Division management promoted me to Outpatient Supervisor. At this point I was still carrying a full therapy caseload, offically took on the Outpatient Supervisor's job, and was still functioning as the de facto clinic director. I do not assert that I was able to wear all those hats well. Working 50 to 55 hours a week, I was able to keep them on my head-at least most of time.

We have an awesome, dedicated staff, professional and clerical, and everyone else was working very hard also, trying to maintain a level of functioning that allowed us to serve our community, but systems- wise, we were a mess. We lost our data system when divestiture occurred. The new company had one in the pipeline, but 5 minutes before daybreak, realized it was woefully inadequate, pulled it and started from scratch. There should be a data system in place within the next 3 weeks. I won't be there to see it, but I understand from support staff who have started training on it that it is a good one.

Just before Christmas, we finally got a Clinic Director, she is fresh out of a doctoral program and had no prior management experience. Nada. At first it was awful. Slowly, we have started to get on track. She made some very serious blunders early on, but is a quick study. I work with her closely and think she is on the way to being a good manager. She unintentionally but seriously alienated staff, me included, when she first came in. But she is very direct, open and straightfoward and we have forged a good working relationship. Other staff, who have had less direct contact with her, have been slow to come around, but it is happening. She'll get there.

When she saw the number of hours I was working, (no comp allowed with this company) she told me to start transitioning out of direct therapy. I am now down to about 5 billable hours a week, and rarely work more than 45 or 46 hours a week.

So, here I am, relatively highly paid, and not seeing clients to bill out the hours. When I leave there tomorrow, the clinic expenses will decrease by the amount of my salary plus benefits, plus whatever other taxes and insurance a position costs a company. There will again be a supervisory/mangement vacuum that will have long term consequences, but the bottom line will improve in the near future.

The company operates a dozen or more clinics in my region. Heads are going to roll in those other clinics also. No one will be given notice. No one will receive severance pay or packages. In January, the company changed from annual and sick leave to paid time off. Under company policy, you are not entitled to be paid for paid time off at resignation or termination. We had the option, In January, of being paid for accumulated vacation, or we could roll it over into paid time off. I rolled 4 weeks over. I will not be paid for it because it is now paid time off. I willnot even be able to call my clients and tell them there will be change in therapists. This is a huge ethics violation. I can not prevent it.

Neither I or my boss know who gets riffed in other clinics tomorrow. Neither do the other outpatient supervisors I have called tonight. (And I did not tell them I was being riffed tomorrow.) But their impression is that in other clinics, tenure will play some role in determining who goes. There may be some demotions. No one really knows. It is very hushhush. A team of Division management will spread out to all the clinics tomorrow morning so that everyone cut gets the word at the same time and can be gotten out of the offices before they have a chance to talk to other staff. My boss was not given a choice re: who goes. There are two new clinicians that I hired in the last 6 months. They need their jobs also, but if tenure were considered, they would go and I would be demoted back to clinican (the work I really want to do.) I am not wishing them gone. If it were presented to me that two go and you stay. or two stay and you go, I can not truthfully say what my decision would be. I guess I'm glad I do not have to make it.

What my boss does know is this. Her boss said that the Division considers me to be too outspoken, not a team player. She asked him about this. He could not identify one example of unprofessional or inappropriate speech or conduct. I had simply dared to disagree. I had dared to challenge the party line. He acknowledged my personnel records are impeccable, that all my evaluations, going back 15 years, and including the one that has been done since divestiture, are very good to excellent. He tried to get her to say I have verged on insubordinate with her. She declined.

What this is about is, they would like to keep me from drawing unemployment.

I hope I don't have to. I'll be out beating the pavement as soon as I get my office packed up tommorrow. It is not going to be easy to find a job in my field. I'm 55 years old. Mental health reform, in reducing services, has also reduced the job market. the program I used to work for is still around. They are now a 'Local Mangement Entity.' I've heard they may have openings in care management. That would be a good interim solution, but I think within the next 6 months, they will also have a round of lay-offs. I have a close friend who could probably put me to work as a cook. It wouldn't pay much, but it would bring something in until something better turns up. Assuming something better does turn up.

No notice, no severance, and if they have their way (they won't) no unemployment to tied me over.

If you read the papers, you know my story is not unique. If it were, it wouldn't be worth telling.

Oh. Did I tell you the company's mission statement? I'm goin to paraphrase, cuz I wouldn't want this post to turn up if the phrase were googled. It is to the effect of take really good care of both the clients and the people who serve the clients.


Well, it is almost 4:00 a.m. Going in tommorrow on 2 hours sleep is not the best idea I have ever had. Oh well. I doubt I'd have slept before now anyway.

Good night, and may the dawning day shine on a new path, for me, and for America.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 09:05 AM

That's tough, Janie. Sounds like you're tough enough to get through it, but what a sad situation, in so many ways ... Keep talking to us ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 09:45 AM

Best of luck, although I suspect you won't need it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 10:02 AM

Jaysus, Janie. When you get home, I hope you can get some rest.

Have you considered private practice? I suspect you'd be very successful at it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 12:33 PM

That is tragic. For you and the clients. At the very least, fight like crazy for the unemployment. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 12:38 PM

Good luck, Janie. Spread your nets wide.

By the time the Getaway rolls around, I fully expect to find that you are working hard in the field you love.

{{{{hug}}}}

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 12:52 PM

Janie - You said a few things that I picked up on.

You're 55, the highest paid employee and outspoken but eith not "one example of unprofessional or inappropriate speech or conduct."

"No notice, no severance, and if they have their way (they won't) no unemployment to tied me over."

Why should they pay you when they can replace you with someone younger and more malleable at less cost to the company?

This is the story of someone being forced into early retirement.

Get a lawyer.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 01:05 PM

See a labour lawyer. ASAP.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 06:32 PM

Oh, believe you me, guys; I read Janie the riot act about lawyers, newspapers, you bet. I'm ready with my finger on the dial. Do you hear me, Janie? Mosi Secret at the Indy, Rob Shapard at the Herald.... they'll be all over it like flies on a forgotten picnic.

Send her some more hugs, guys. She'll need them.

I have said for a long time that Janie should be in private practice. Perhaps some hybrid of this with a 'real' job would work. The world would be a much rougher place if she wasn't therapizing in it.

BTW: I hear John Edwards is hiring..... and I think he needs to be reading this thread...... the wisdom and insight you (Janie) and many others of you would be a wonderful thing for his campaign/administration to absorb.

xo, friend.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 10:17 PM

Good on ya, Dani -- she's lucky to have you on her side!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 10:52 PM

The plot thickens. There are dead bodies everywhere. As it turns out, mine is not one of them - yet. And I am jumping ship just as soon as I see a rowboat with an empty seat.


As you read, keep in mind that this is a 'not-for-profit' corporation whose business is providing human services, in this instance, mental health services.   It is not unreasonable to expect that such a company would be more inclined to follow ethical practices in its dealings with its employees. Not.

Chapter 2.

If I had posted an hour earlier, I would have told you that my own boss jumped in front of the bullet intended for me. She awoke at 3:00am this morning, so disturbed by the way the company was planning on dealing with me that she arose from her bed and sent an e-mail to all clinic directors and the Division managers. The title was "Where is the Integrity?" She also had written a resignation letter, though she was not sure she was going to hand it in.

She arrived at work a little after I did. I went to her office and we sat together, awaiting the executioner. She looked awful and was mildly doped up from the pain meds. Remember, she had surgery on Friday. I had told her it was not necessary for her to come in, but she felt very strongly that her place was to be beside me. We tried to prepare outselves for what was to come, making an agreement that neither one of us would cry in front of the axeman, both of us knowing we were lying to ourselves and each other. She talked more about her conversation with the axe man last night. I asked her if she was sure her head was not also going to roll. she said, "I don't know. I'm prepared for anything. Then she showed me the e-mail she had sent. I won't say it was an elegantly written protest, but she got her point across. I was pretty sure she was going down with me. Axe man still had not come, so I told her I was going outside to smoke a cigarette. We figured he could wait five minutes to can me if he showed in the interim. As I walked out of the lobby, I saw this guy in a white suit, and speculated it was the Axe Man. He could wait. I kept on going. After putting another bullet in my lungs, I went to the ladies room and then headed back to the clinic. I wasn't gone more than 7 minutes. Outside the door I stopped for a minute to make sure I was as centered as I could be under the circumstances. I wanted to handle myself with dignity. I opened the door into the clinic, and there she was, going around hugging people and telling them good bye. I was confused. I figured if we were both going, he would tell us both together. Axe Man was standing over to one side. My boss was in the Med. Records room, surrounded by others. I figured we'd have time to talk as we walked out the door together. Being a brave, good girl, intent on preserving my own dignity, I walked up to Axe Man, held out my hand and introduced myself.
"I expect you want to talk to me," I said.
"I'd like to meet with you, the office manager and the CSS manager if I may. (Oh jeez, we are all going to get it.)
"Sure. Let me find CSS Manager."

I walked into the office manager's office to see if she knew where the CSSM was. I had given her a heads up earlier that I was to be canned. My boss came in very briefly, gave me a hug, said to hang in there, take care of my son. I told her I would be in as soon as we were done with AXE Man, too niave to realize that she would be booted out the door long before that. Internally shaking in our collective boots, we compliantly follwed him back to my office, and settled in to hear we, too, were fired. Instead, he smoothly 'explained' the company wide situation, told us there were people being let go at all 11 clinics and the Division, and then addressed cuts in services to the inidigent, etc. To me he said I was retained instead of my boss because my firing would cause a much bigger uproar among staff, given my long relationships with them, strongly implying that it was a political decision and had nothing to do with any regard for my work performance. At some point he made an off-hand remark about the experience of going arouond firing people (he was headed for another clinic when he left us.) What he said was this. "You just have to detach, and look at them as them as names on a piece of paper." That phrase is still echoing in my head.

He finally left, staff went about the business of serving clients as best they could, and when time permitted, huddled together, or came to my office to see if I had more information, or to seek reassurance that I was unable to give. I called a staff meeting at lunch, and told them what I knew. Individually, I went to each of the professional staff and told them that our boss had called me the night before, that I had been who was supposed to be fired. In those phone conversations with her, she had noted the difference in our circumstances. She needs to work, but her husband is employed and she has a private practice, not to mention a PhD. I, on the other hand am in the middle of a divorce after twenty years of marriage, Our assets are currently frozen pending proberty settlement, and I have always been the family breadwinner, my spouse being chronically under-self-employed.

In light of this, I interpreted her brave but very rash e-mail as intended to accomplish just what had been accomplished. She got canned instead of me.

to be continued next post.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:11 PM

What a scene ... don't know what to say ... except, hang in there ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:20 PM

Cahpter 3.

What really happened was much worse.

I finally was able to speak on the phone with my (former) boss this evening. It was a set-up. She was always the intended target. Axe Man had told her it was me in order to get her out of her sickbed to come into the office so he could fire her there.

While I was out smoking, he went into her office and sat down. She began a defense of me. He said, "Stop. It's not about Janie. It's about you. Your postion is being terminated. May I have your cell phone, your office credit card, and your keys. You may take your 401K." And that was the end of the conversation.

We were among the first clinics hit. As the day rolled on, phone calls passed between clinics and the scenario was the same everywhere. One or more Axe men arrive, people were told their jobs have ended, and they are gone. Clerical staff, clinicians, case managers, program managers. It was the same for all. When I left at 5:00 today, the death toll was still rising, as we waited for other clinics to check in. "You are done. Cell phones and keys please." No notice, no severance pay, no nothing. Not even an I'm sorry it has to be this way. No termination with clients. No thank you for the hard you have done.

Names on pieces of paper.

No more new referrals for indigent people. No money in it.

I don't know what this outfit was like befor June of last year. In the fall, they sold themselves to a for-profit managment company. It is somehow structured so that the division I work for 'still meets not for profit status.

Good forbid someone take secrets with them about how to do a diagnostic assessment.

Naw, Boss Hogg's just a figment of Bobert's imagination.

Janie.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:22 PM

That's appalling.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:38 PM

Well Janie, I hope you sent the ex-boss some flowers. People like that are rare. I'm not sure where you live but in my town the only men who wear white suits are gangsters.

This sounds like another example of privatization. They are doing it with social services and now they want to do it with education. In Canada, they even want to do it with health care. Why? Its cost effective in the short term.

In the long term, the costs are enormous when you take into consideration the level of professionalism, the integrity of the system and the availability of services. Its easier to make these changes to services for the poor and the mentally challenged because they aren't as able to stick up for themselves. Its disgusting the way the people in need are walked on and then discarded like so much garbage.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:40 PM

Gawd, Janie, this is gruesome.

Will you still be "there" at the end of this week? What do they think they are doing?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Azizi
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:45 PM

I'm just reading this thread for the first time. I feel for you Janie. I've been there and, since I work in the same field as you under similar circumstances but in different state, who knows how close I am to being there again.

I don't have any answers. I wish I did.

God bless you. I'm sending your positive vibrations.

Azizi

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 12:45 AM

Wolfowitz is doin' OK, though. And his friend. Neato, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 03:37 AM

I feel like crying, but if Janie can take it, so can I. Lots of hugs and support to you, Janie.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 04:01 AM

Janie, open your own practice.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 06:49 PM

First of all, (((hugs))), Janie... This idea that private companies can our peform public agencies is crap... You know it, I know it, George Bush knows it... Boss Hogg knows it... Donald "Friggin" Duck knows it but yet...

...Boss Hog must be kept happy and that means privitizing everything in the friggin' world...

Next thing ya' know they'll be tryiong to privitize the air we breathe and send us monthly bills form Halliburton Air, Inc...

But this was soemthing that I have been talking about since the Ray-gun days when Boss Hog pulled back on the movement started in the 60's and let it be known that there wasn't going to be no "War on Poverty"...

An' like you, Janie, I was outspoken and made a pest of myself... I reckon if it it weren't for my strong job reviews they woulda put me out as well... But I was real angry...

I still have a lot of friends in mental health in Virginia and they say that things are really screwed up so when you do jump, don't bother checking out Virginia... Mental health is a mess here...

More later...

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 07:49 PM

Okay, so lets do a little review of the recent history of mental health in the US and we'll se that privatization is just the latest in the ill-thought-outmess of our national resolve and conseguent policies...

As a result of the 60's revolution we collectively focused on the individual as valuable and salvagable and so we said, "Hey, why are we institutionalizing so many folks who suffer from mental illness???"...

This was a noable question to ask and so many people who would have spent their entire lives were "de-institutionalized", reassigned back into society and with adaquate funding for mental health, adult service and adult day care programs, many did well for extended periods of time before needing little ***refresher courses***, ahhhh, you know, another 30 or 60 days in state hospitals... Some actually assimilated back into society and are still functioning...

But then with the Ray-gun administartion the funds for the support programs was drastically cut and so the states were scurrying trying to find funds for mental health and those funds weren't there and so things began to unravel and have been unraveling ever since...

But what came out of this unraveling process is that what, in essence, occured is that hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people, who once were "institutionalized" in mental health hospitals where they had at least some services and medications and stability, or "de-istitutionalizd" and had a funded support system on the "outside" (living in the community) was there was now little of either...

Huh???

Yeah, $$$ for mental health, be it for programs to support the "de-institutionalized", or for those temporarially "institutionalized" just got cut, cut and cut some more and...

...guess where these folk have ended up???

Ya give???

In our prison/industrial complex, that's where!!!

Yes, out prisons are now filled with mentally ill people...

Hey, don't believe me... Janie will tell you, too... This is America's dirty little secret.. Every socail worker in adult service who has been around since the 70's knows this...

(But, Bobert, what does this have to do with Janie and this discussion???...)

Think about it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 08:00 PM

BTW, I didn't want Dickey's post to go unanswered...

Yeah, there was a time when a white guy with a little work ethic could and would make it... While you were living in Alexandria I was living 3 miles up the road in Farlington... Back then it wasn't much different than where you lives... I know... My dad had a good friend who lived down there back in that swampy area 'round the scrap yards...

Like yer dad and just about very dad of everyone in Mudcat who is is on the plus side of the hlaf-centry mark we know that our parents came out of the Depression and WW II and know that in the late 40's and early 50's things turned a round for all of them, providine they were white...

My dad quit school in the 6th grade but went on to have a decent career with the Ford Motor Company... Big deal... So did all the rst of the white dads...

You are copmparin' yer usual apples and oranges...

Heck, fir that matter, congressmen lived in our neighborhood in the 50's in the same 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom houses that we finally moved into when I was in the 3rd grade...

I mean, you seem to be trying to say that thease days are the same... They very much are not... The system isn't goin' to ***allow*** much upward mobility... Downward mobilty, however, seems to be just what the "system" has in mind for everyone but the upper 1%... Just like Haiti...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 09:52 PM

Bobert: What makes you think I am white?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 11:10 PM

First, let me say thanks for all the good thoughts and words of encouragement. And just writing out the story has helped me to process it.

But the point of posting it to this particular thread, is that it is a good, first hand account of corporate America's disregard of the social contract and failure to behave in an ethical, socially responsible manner.

Balance of power is a good thing. What is occurring in the business where I now work is small potatoes compared to what we all have read about in the newspapers, or which some of you have experienced yourselves with plant closings or buy-outs of small companies by larger ones.

And it is the same that has happened with the social contract to provide a safety net for the poor.

Advance notice of firing, or severance pay in lieu of notice is a safety net. The ability to accumulate annual leave that must be paid is a safety net. Companies demand loyalty and a two week notice if you are going to leave, but offer no reciprocity.

The same hold for the relationship between the overclass and the underclass. Even the middle class owes a debt to the poor. We all stand on their backs to some extent. We owe the underclass an opportunity, and we also owe some sort of safety net. IMHO.

Mick, if you are in the house, this is a good lead-in for commentary on the historical role of labor unions in balancing the power of the overclass that is corporate America.

North Carolina is an 'employment at will' state. (Boy, am I glad that term is now used instead of the old 'right to work' state.) There are few unions, the ones that exist are small and weak, and labor laws favor employers to the point of absurdity. Worker's Comp here is an industry tool. (boy could I tell you some stories about stuff like worker comp reps. slashing tires while the guy with the back injury is in the MD's office and then video taping him changing the tire as proof his back must not be that bad...like he has a choice not to change the tire--true story-I was subpeoened, and not the only one like it.)

I was born and raised in West Virginia, a union state if ever there was one when the coal industry was less automated and employed a lot of people. In union States, labor laws tend to offer more protection to employees, even if they are not in union jobs.

Of course, over time, the big Unions turned into big business themselves, and became abusive with their own power. --but that is for another thread. The important thing to note is tthis. With the decline of the labor unions, the balance of power is again out of kilter, and coorporations, over the last 20-30 years, have slid back to their old ways. As a force for social justice, the labor unions helped not only the working man, but also the underemployed, the unemployed and the poor who can not work.

In post-industrial American, the new working class dress in white collars or work in service industries. The average 'working class' citizen now sits in front of a computer in a cubicle, and has some higher education. the working poor wear a black apron over a pine green polo shirt with a restaurant or motel logo on the breast pocket.

I'm gonna go hunt up Mick. He probably has a different view than do I, but he should--he knows more about it, and I think he could add to this discussion of Poverty in the USA.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 05:31 PM

Believe me, Dickey, you are whiter than white... Don't think so??? Go ask the danged mirror...

Yeah, Janie, I don't think Mick would find much to disagree with in your observations of "unions"... Remember the pillow factory that shut down in Charlotte a couple years ago??? It was all over the "Observer" and guess what happened to the $$$ when it went "under"... It was divided up among management...

And guess what happned top all the machinery??? It was shipped to Pakistan....

Yeah, I agree with yer observation that 14b is nuthin' but continued worker abuse and the lousy wages that accompanied the Jim Crow years...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: autolycus
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 05:44 PM

Milton Friedman,the economic guru of the current situation in the States thought and said that corporations who put ethics or social responsibility up with profits were bad,misguided corps.



   Has anybody pointed out that it wasn't so long ago (and maybe still true) that 1 New Yorker in 10 depends on food handouts to stay alive?






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 06:28 PM

Hi Janie
I'm happy that you're still where you should be though I guess you're reading the hand writing on the wall. It seems that the current fashion of handing over what should be government programs to "for profits" is a basic washing of hands as far as responsibilties on the part of the program's entrusted. That way if the "for profit" can make a go of it all well & good & if it takes the "for profit" stripping away the guts of the program or cutting the benifits or the number of benficiaries out to accomplish this , well the government bares no resonpsibilities here either, take it up with the "for profit", after all it is their program now. A bit like outsourcing only on a local level.
Persently this is happening with schools & prisions alike, hospitals are inventing their own versions of this & the health care system & the related health insurance industry are finding their own varients of this, just look at social security reforms. What it boils down to & the bottom line is a cheap stream lined machine that caters to the bare neccesities of those that were originally supposed to be benifiting from these programs. Now it is to benifit these "for profits" & the folks that were supposed to beifit are now only the excues so that a profit can be made from them. It has become a business rather than a social program which our taxes have paiid for & now support. So we in essence are subsidizing & paying these "for profit" businesses that were established to aid the poor but are now enabling themselves to what the poor should be recieving. If that don't beat all & they call it reform. An' here I thoght the poor were supposed to benifit, silly me.

It pays businesses to have the poor around so that a profit can be made off them. Not only do these business get supported by our tax dollar it would seem but it would also seem that they would reap & rape the tax system too at the same time. Count the benefits of what they're charging the government for their services & add any double dipping for health costs & this is not a cheaper way to run things. But again it's not about the poor any longer it about the profit.

For "help agencies" are getting stripped & gutted, this has always been the case but now there is a diferent slant on them. Before it was "the good fight" to help those less fortunate & God knows that those doing the fighting for those doing the dying weren't getting paid much for it either. Now it's a "for profit business" & the botton line is the profit, plain & simple. No longer can people like Janie & others hold up a proud smile & head & say "what I do helps others in need". They've being stripped of their pride. A sorry way to see how the folks in Social Services are turned around IMHO.
A sorry way to treat the needy too.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 06:37 PM

OK...let's take Hewlett Packard...or General Motors...do you really think they sit around hoping to have more poor people? They don't benefit as far as I can see from having poor people. They benefit from having educated working class people I would say..but desparately poor..why?????? THis does not make sense...how do they benefit from people in jail and mentally ill on the streets and TB epidemics waiting to happen? I don't think they do. They don't hire in the poorest sections of a state do they? Especially where poverty is confluenced with crime..no one wants to set up there...

I think we have to look more to biology...and count heads...oh dear..now she is going to say babies cause poverty..well....they prolong it if nothing else...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 06:58 PM

I didn't say they did but they don't really need to. They can outsource. I didn't say evrbody or every company binefits from a poor class but most would if the working class does become the poorer class.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 07:43 PM

mg,

What I am trying to say, and not doing a very good job with is this:

The effect of the unchecked exercise of power in favor of the powerful is to disempower those with less power. It is not necessarily that a bunch of CEO's get together to decide how to oppress people.

Some on this thread argue that only the poor are accountable. The powerful are also accountable. Our social policies tend to emphasize the accountability of the lower socioeconomic class and deemphasize the accountability of the upper socioeconomic class, represented by corporations.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 07:54 PM

mg,

Check out what the CEO's of both Hewlett-Packaard and GM are making rlative to their employees... In recent UAW (United Auto Workers) negotiations the unions are prurdy much just asking that management live up to previous agreements... They ain't askin' for raises... They ain't askin' for more bene3fits... All they have been askin' for is to not go further behind....

This is really part of what many of us ahve been talking about... When the corporations can go back on their word it has a ripple effect on labor in general and is felt all the way down to the poorest of workers...

(Well, how can this be, Bobert???)

Well, you see, General Motors doesn't make every thing themselves but they have suppliers.... Many of these supppliers aren't maga corporations but smaller companies that employ much smaller numbers of people and what we are finding in the 43,000,000 folks without health insurance is that they work for these smaller companies who, flat out, can't afford to pay for health insurance and make any profit...

In a way, I fall in that category even though I hire only two guys... If I had to furnish health insurance for them I wouldn't make minimum wage yet I work hard... Real hard...

Like amny of us have tried over and over to point out is that while GM's CEO make more in 3 hours that most of his UAW employeees make in a year, Boss Hog has ***never***, in the histyory of this country corraled so much wealth all for himself...

This one fact, like striping off the layers of the onion, is the crux of this thread.... TYge upper 1% had bought out governemnt and thru corruopt practices corraled the wealth of the nation... This isn't just rhetoric... This is reality!!! But Boss Hog is never happy with how much he has because he is infinately evil and greedy and wants even more... There is no end to just how much the ***silver spooners*** think they are ***entitled*** to...

Yeah, like I have said... We do have a "welfare nation" but it's all goin' to the top...

Meanwhile, Janie's boss (with Janie next), carrer socail workers are being pinched out by the same coorupt corporations that have convinced (thru campaign donations/ kickbacks) out so called democraticaly elected corrupt officials to ***privatize*** everything in the friggin' universe???

This is what poverty is all about!!! It ain't rocket science... It ain't about boot straps, it ain't about poor folks working harder or accwepting ***personal responsibility***, it ain't about bad choices, good choices or in-between choices...

It's about greed!!!

Nothing else...

Just greed...

Beam my boney but up, Scottie... There are to many folks here who can't do simple math...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 08:42 PM

mg - I do not think the wealthy "sit around hoping to have more poor people".

Its just that they care about themselves more than anyone else and they are very greedy. They think they are smarter than everyone else and more deserving.

Look at the latest scandal. Wolfowitz arranges a secondment for his girlfriend. He gives her a salary increase from the World Bank that makes her more highly paid than Condoleeza Rice. She then goes to work at the U.S. State department with Liz Cheney.

Do you think its because she's qualified or do you think its because she's his girlfriend? Did Wolfowitz and girlfriend convince Bush to invade Iraq because it would bring democracy to the Middle East or because they thought they could manipulate the market? Does Wolfowitz and his girlfriend work for the Worldbank because they want to help the poor or because they want the power to manipulate the economy?

When you think of all the time and energy that they spend securing their wealth and status, don't you think that they are scheming? They may not do it to hurt the poor but by being so greedy, they hurt us all. They simply do not know how to share and they believe they are better and deserve more than the lowly masses.

They are masters off manipulation and they do it with OUR TAX MONEY and they do it on the backs of OUR LABOUR. They are no more deserving than you or I or that child in the ghetto.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:26 PM

Oh Janie -- what a horror show. What an absolute horror show. My heart is with you........! Some years back I survived a 'night of the long knives....' in corporate America where 12 positions (all filled) were cut to seven positions and only five of us survived to fill the positions - two new people were sought out for the 'vacancies'.....we all worked in one building and were asked to go over to the other building to hear our future - ONE BY ONE. As we walked over we met our colleagues coming from their meetings -- as I went over I met two colleagues both of whom had been canned....I think I was about six months pregnant at the time.......

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

You have such artistic talent and such personal integrity -- you will do fine......I know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 11:39 PM

Bobert: So you say I am white because you say I am white? Try explaining why you think I am white.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 11:48 PM

Whatever you are, be proud of it and all the ancestors who contributed to it. No one should be ashamed of his or her heritage and one's heritage should never be flung around as an insult to anyone. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 12:56 PM

Yo, Dickey...

I personally couldn't care less what color you are... You might be green for all I know...

But you certainly are quick to defend the white power structure...

Make Bill Cosby look like a flaming liberal...

...yer white... Let's just leave it at that unless you want to offer up some evidence that you ain't....

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 01:40 PM

Bobert:

I still want to know how you judge if someone is white or not without seeing them.

Are you afraid this disclosure would expose your biggotry?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 02:28 PM

In John Steinbeck's classic novel (and movie), Grapes of Wrath, there is an interesting lesson in economics. I can't remember the conversation precisely, but the gist of it is this:

        Tom Joad says, "Wait a minute, the handbill says they need 800 pickers. You laugh and say they don't. Now, who's the liar here?"
        The migrant tells him, "Now, how many of you men got them handbills?"
        The men standing around respond that they all have them.
        "There you are," the migrant continues. "Same yellow handbill. '800 Pickers Wanted.' All right, the man wants 800 men, so he prints 5,000 handbills and maybe 20,000 people see 'em. And maybe two or three thousand people start west on account of that handbill. Two or three thousand people that are crazy with worry, headin' out for 800 jobs. Now does that make sense?"
        When pressed further, the migrant says, "If you have one job, and only one guy applies for it, you have to pay him what he asks. But if you can get 200 men to apply for that one job, and if they're all worried sick 'cause their kids are goin' hungry—and you offer them just a nickel a day, they'll take it rather than see their kids starve. So, 800 jobs, 20,000 people needin' a job. If your kids are so hungry they're shiverin' and whinin' like pups, you'll work, not for money, not for wages, but just a nickel or two to buy a cup of flour and a spoon of lard."

Outsource enough jobs, lay off enough people, and you'll soon have a potential workforce of people willing to work for a cup of flour and a spoon of lard.

Basic economics.   Law of Supply and Demand.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 02:52 PM

I know a guy that read in the want adds that the Post Office was hiring mail carriers or somesuch and quoted a good hourly pay. He went to the post office, filled out an application, handed it in and quit his current job.

After a few weeks he inquired about his application. He was told that it was on file with a dozen others in case they had an opening. When he protested he was told that headquarters does that sort of thing when they have an opening somewhere that needs to be filled.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 03:49 PM

That's a fairly common practice of a number of corporations and institutions.

Best to follow the First Rule of Wing-Walking:   Don't let go with one hand until you have a firm grip with the other.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 07:56 PM

Good point, Don but as you know the ever incresing situation is lettin' go, or better said, being let go and landing a job that pays half as much as the last one...

I'm surprised that this discussion hasn't come around to Boss Hog's newest idea on how to hrod more of the wealth and that is the "two tiered" labor settlements with the oldwer workers agreeing to conracts that basicly offer them nuthin' other than not going backwards with newer folks being hired having to accept much less in the way of pay and benefits... This is what came out of the California hotel workers strike...

Strike???

Waht a joke...

Boss Hog has broken the back of the labor movement in the US and labor no longer has any leverage... All that we can hope for is to get an administartion that isn't ***goon oriented***... Goons, BTW, are defined in Webster as "strike breakers"... The current administration is so ***goon oriented*** that it is downright scarey...

Like I said, I hope that Amercia will realize increasing poverty rates is not in ther best interest of the future of our country...

I know that Boss Hog wikll pull every stupid PR act to get Redneck America to side with him, you know, labeling folks who have the moral conviction to stand up for the American worker as "liberals" and "intellectuals", as per usual but...

...these terms are a tad thread bare these days and just don't get the mileage they once got...

But think about this....

You know that a party in power has to be purdy friggin' hard up when it has to use "intellectual" as some kinda whippin' boy... What is the converse???

Well, I'll tell ya what it is: dumb ass!!!

So the choice may one day be reframed as "Do you want a smart guy running the country or a dumb ass???"

See how the shelf life is quickly evapolarting on Boss Hog attacking folks because they happen to be eductated???

And, yeah, this is about poverty 'cause part of getting back to rededicatin' our nation's "war on poverty" is to see thru the PR crapola that Boss Hog has used to stall it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:28 AM

Bobert: I thought Liberal and Intellectual were complimentary terms.

Can you put your smugness aside long enough to expalin how you determine if someone is white with out seeing them?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:51 PM

This thread is about poverty... Not you...

Sorry, but if that's all you have to ***add*** top this discussion then "Mr. Ignore" is all you'll get from me...

If you want to continue this personal discussion, do it thru PM's and save the others from your games thank you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:01 PM

Well, with the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking of the "color barrier" in baseball, I'd just like to relate aome observations that Michael Wilbon of the "Wsahington Post" made this week in a column which is somewhat related to this discussion...

He observed that there are fewer and fewer black kids makin' into the professional baseball these days and theorized that it is because in primarially black neighborhoods recreation budgets have been cut and baseball is one of your more expensive sports with eqipement and field upkeep... Okay, yeah I can see his point... He points out that is a lot less expensive to maintain basketball courts, especially in inner cities...

(But, Bobert, then who did the Jacki Robinsons and Willie Mays and Hank Aarons' of the past make it to the big leagues, one might ask???)

Well, the demographics have been increasingly changing with a greater percentage of balck people living in urban areas... When The Mays, Aarons and Robinsons were coming up baseball was played in more rural settings where a greater percenage of black folks lived than today...

(Okay, Bobert. but why are you harping on blacks folks as the only folks that are poor???)

Well, yeah, in actual numbers, there are more white people so I don't mean to dismiss this part of the discussion... It's just when you look at percentages you find upwards of 3 times the number of balck folks living in poverty than white folks...

Just some food for thought here...

Also, I was up early this mornin' and turned on the TV and there was the kinda discussion discussion that should be aired when less folks is still asleep...It was about DC schools, particularially in NE and east of the Anacostia River where, and I missed the "Washington Post" article but will try to find it, the commentator said that the drop out rates in these areas was 2 out of every 3 at the high school level...

These are the neighborhoods where the $475 a month apartment are located. BTW...

I was thinkin, "Hmmmmmm, wonder what the drop out rate is in McLean, Virginia where the popultaion is almost exclusively wealthy and white???"

Mg has made some fine points about education but if the nyumbers are even close then what we are seeing is that urban blacks aren't gettin' educated... One reason that Dr. Janey, who heads up the DC school system and noted in the show this morning, is that black kids don't see any incentive to go to school... The jobs aren't there waiting, he said, so why would a kid go thru it with little ***hope*** (his word) that doing so would benefit him...

Okay, yeah, I can see where the man is coming from here...

I'm not trying to over-generalize this discusssion... One can't really do that... As we have seen, this is a discussion that does have some meandering room... I think that is part of the beast we are dealing with...

I will, howver, stick to my guns that regardless of which facit of poverty we are looking at, it will take an effort (funded rograms) to deal with it... And I will stick to my guns that our nation has allowed the Boss Hog's to divert both resourses and attention away from this very dispictable situation...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 02:58 PM

Bobert - I don't know the answer to school drop outs but I do know its nothing new. I hated high school. I did not like the social scene, the subjects bored me and the teachers were from outer space.

The only thing that kept me in school was that my father said that I had to go to school until I was 18 and that I wouldn't be allowed to live at home, otherwise. I took an alternate program that allowed me to take the required subjects in the morning and I worked in the afternoon. The only thing I cared about was fashion. I worked retail and had money to spend on clothes (shallow but true). I went to university at age 38.

My son also wanted to drop out. The only way I kept him in was by finding a program that allowed him to take the required subjects in the morning so that he could train in the afternoon (he was a competing athlete). I wouldn't sign for him to join the cycling team (he was the junior member) unless he passed every course with a C or better. His big interest was riding his bike. (At age 33 he's a contractor that makes more money than me).

Maybe we need to offer alternatives to those kids who are at risk of dropping out. I think its important that kids begin to take an active role in their future. There has to be a way to expose them to all of the interesting kind of work that is out there. Perhaps the trick is helping them to find an area of interest and then providing the opportunity for them to pursue it. Its not good enough to tell them that school is their only option.

I'm a teacher and I think high school sucks!

Something has to change. We have to stop looking at schools as holding tanks or a babysitting service. We have to give kids the opportunity to pursue their interests, no matter how silly it may seem. We need to expose them to the variety of occupations that are available. There needs to be more apprenticeship programs. School need to become more flexible.

I think we really need to look outside the box to solve this problem. Maybe there should be schools for itinerant youth? Maybe schools should offer courses at night so kids could work part-time during the day. Not only Government but parents need to look at ways to make schools viable.

As usual, it comes down to money and will. Its a huge bureaucratic system that does not change easily.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 04:19 PM

Like Dr. Janey pointed out,d, there has to be an incentive for kids to go thru with graduating... And we both know that flipping hamburgers ain't it...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 06:01 PM

Flipping hamburgers is a time-honored way to put oneself through school..then the person can become an electrician, physical therapist,nurse, whatever. If they have a full-time job flipping hamburgers, and are single, and have minimum wage in my state, which is not too bad, they are out of the direst forms of poverty that have been described. They are a success story. They made it. They can afford food, a shared apartment or rental room, a bus pass and a few clothes. Medical problems would be another story and I hope we soon have national medical programs. I would have loved to have had a job say at McD. when I was in high school. Next step is the community college where they can get loans, grants etc. Then they get a decent job that the community college (in my state) will essentially place them in, because that is how they keep programs going, and leave the hamburger job for someone else.

McDonald's issued a request for educators (if you can call them that) who kept threatening kids with jobs flipping hamburgers, and described, with examples, how people used these jobs either to stay with the company and do fairly well, or to educate themselves into other positions. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:00 PM

But not a exactly a career choice, mg, which for a majority of inner city black kids is all that they realisticlly have to lok forward to... These kids don't have ***your*** survival skills... Nor do they have ***your*** experience background... Throw in that the ***system*** isn't designed to accept upward mobility the ***realities*** on the streets in out urban centers is a million miles form ***your reality***

I know you mean well but you aren't going to ***preach*** a million kids outta poverty unless the sytem is prepared to accept them, which it isn't...

Now for a couple new thoughts...

I believe that most of us agree that it is going to take programs and resources to tackle poverty.... Good advice, like mg's, isn't going to get the job done... Is it neeeded??? Well, yeah, but won't get the job done...

The rich folks have devised new ways to corral our nation's wealth... One way that has become very popular since 2003 is off-shore account which have taken $100B outta the US Treasury a year... That would go along way in itself to fund day care programs, job tarining, etc...

Another is usary lending practices where they invest in "pay-day loans" that bilk the poor outta up to 336% interest on short term loans....

If these two loopholes for the rich were closed buy Congress we'd have a lot more dough to fund programs and the poor would have alot more of their own money...

And this without even disussing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 08:32 PM

Awww, what the heck...

...600...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 11:17 PM

why doesn't anybody discuss ways to stop the abuse of power, rather than just crib over it ??, before the window of opportunity closes i.e before United States becomes another third world country.

for those who don't know , a country becomes a third world country , when people for various reasons, lose hope for their future in their country.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 12:02 AM

Bobert:

"This thread is about poverty... Not you...

Sorry, but if that's all you have to ***add*** top this discussion then "Mr. Ignore" is all you'll get from me...

If you want to continue this personal discussion, do it thru PM's and save the others from your games thank you..."

Bobert:

You chose to ***add*** your personal accusations that I am smug and you said you knew I was white.

Now you refuse to elaborate on the grounds that it is not about me. This is another example of your stating things and refusing to substantiate them. You are under the impression that your "facts" do not have to be supported by you but they have to be accepted. They are absoulte and not debatable.                 

Oxford English Dictionary:
smug • adjective, irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied.

Now who is being smug?

I prefer to have a public debate about your public personal accusations about me which you seem to think supports the assertions you have made in this thread.

You are no doubt going to accuse me of trying to hijack this thread but I have noticed it is a ploy of yours to state things as a red herring andor an ad hominem attack and when someone trys to expose it as such, you avoid having to defend your accusations by accusing them of trying to hijack the thread. Another example of being smug and unable to debate logically.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 01:15 AM

Actually, Dickie, I can tell from your opinions that you're White. You're probably White with a very red neck.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 07:00 AM

Good point, Guest.

Containing the abuse of power ain't gonna be easy, but I have to believe it can, over time, be accomplished.

One big question is from what quarter will the leadership come?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 08:53 AM

Good point, GUEST and this is kibnda what we've been talking about here... I have suggested that the US is closing in on a ***tipping point*** with the vast divide between the "have and the have-nots"...

The income duisribution is so out of wack that when we get to that point the folks that the wealthy have traditionally ***used*** as pawns (i.e. Southern Man and his close cousins in the Midwest) to hold power will turn away from the greedy... History is repleat with such scenerios... Right now, the ruling class is content on making loans to the pawns to keep the pawns somewhat content with toys but those loans will come due and with Southern Man's real income stagnant or going backwards there will come a breaking point...

Traditionally, Southern Man has been led to believe that "BIG Government" and "welfare" are the boogie-men but that dog is gettin' a little slower and a little blinder and his hunting days are numbered...

I'm sure that Boss Hog has PR folks working hard trying to come up with boogie'men-de-jours for Southern Man to blame when the notes come due but, hey, it ain't college professors, liberals, intellectuals or black folk who will be calling in the notes...

So, yeah, most of us here understand the connectiveness between power and poverty but "revolutions", be they violent ot not, find their own times... They are not channeled thru some kinda light switch...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 10:23 AM

"Editorial

Counting the Poor
            

Published: April 17, 2007

It's not official, but it's virtually indisputable. Poverty in America is much more widespread than has been previously acknowledged.

According to the Census Bureau, nearly 37 million Americans — 12.6 percent of the population — were living in poverty in 2005. That means that four years into an economic expansion, the percentage of Americans defined as poor was higher than at the bottom of the last recession in late 2001, when it was 11.7 percent. But that's not the worst of it. Recently, the bureau released 12 alternative measures of poverty, and all but one are higher than the official rate.

The alternative that hews most closely to the measurement criteria recommended by the National Academy of Sciences yields a 2005 poverty rate of 14.1 percent. That works out to 41.3 million poor Americans, 4.4 million more than were officially counted. Those higher figures indicate that millions of needy Americans are not getting government services linked to official poverty levels.

The census's official measure basically looks only at whether a family has enough pretax income, plus cash benefits from the government, to pay for bare necessities. The academy's criteria called for adding in the value of noncash government benefits like food stamps, and for subtracting expenses like out-of-pocket medical costs and work-related outlays, including child care expenses.

They also take into account geographical differences in the cost of living and the fact that poverty is relative. To be accurate, a poverty gauge cannot simply measure a family's ability (or lack thereof) to subsist. It must also capture the extent to which the poor cannot afford the requisites of modern life.

All told, under the official measure, the poverty line for a family with two parents and two children is $19,806. Under the alternative it's $22,841"

New York Times 4-17-07 Editorial

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 06:01 PM

And, Amos, look who has the job of definin' what poverty is??? The finacial thresholds are a joke...

I believe if we were really serious and factored in the increase of cost of housing and energy we'd find those numbers sunsatantailly higher than those provided by the Census...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Scoville
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:55 AM

Flipping hamburgers is a time-honored way to put oneself through school..then the person can become an electrician, physical therapist,nurse, whatever. If they have a full-time job flipping hamburgers, and are single, and have minimum wage in my state, which is not too bad, they are out of the direst forms of poverty that have been described. They are a success story. They made it. They can afford food, a shared apartment or rental room, a bus pass and a few clothes. Medical problems would be another story and I hope we soon have national medical programs. I would have loved to have had a job say at McD. when I was in high school. Next step is the community college where they can get loans, grants etc. Then they get a decent job that the community college (in my state) will essentially place them in, because that is how they keep programs going, and leave the hamburger job for someone else.

Okay, but most states still have crappy minimum wages and a lot of underprivileged kids have kids of their own or feel obligated to help their families. Most large U.S. cities, at least in the South and West, have poor public transport so people end up spending a lot of extra time on the bus when they could be studying.

Also, a lot of kids are hamstrung in the first place because they and their parents have not learned to work within society to the point where applying for school loans, etc., is in their frame of reference. Seriously. They may not speak English. They may be reluctant to deal with financial or government organizations because their parents are here illegally. They may simply have no clue that this stuff exists or where to find it. My mother's friend has neighbors who have lived here for sixteen years who do not speak English and whose native-born children did not begin to learn English until they got to school (where they are doing poorly because they cannot read well and cannot read at all in English). They are extremely isolated, even in the middle of a neighborhood and school district that does not have a high immigrant population and that has probably better-than-average access to this sort of help. Sometimes there are multiple steps involved in even reaching the minimum level of functionality that would enable one to do the above.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's rarely that straightforward.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:28 PM

"Actually, Dickie, I can tell from your opinions that you're White. You're probably White with a very red neck."

The assumption that one can tell the color of anothers' skin by their opinions is biggoted and racist.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:50 PM

I just read someting I missed that I throughly agree with exceot for the revolution part. I think that has already occured:

"Many of the "charity" programs have moved away from long-term handouts, and have changed to a focus on providing seed money for community organizing so that people can pull themselves out of poverty.

The books I've been reading differentiate between charity and justice. Charity is giving people things to fill their temporary needs. Justice is giving people what they deserve - the right to be able to provide for their needs themselves.

Both are necessary, but justice is the long-term solution. I don't think that violent revolution will accomplish anything good - but there certainly is room for a strong but nonviolent revolution.

-Joe Offer-"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 04:26 PM

Dickie - Your skin could be purple but based on your opinions, I would still call you a red-necked, White boy.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 04:46 PM

That is uncalled for. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 06:50 PM

Well, actually it isn't uncalled for... Dicket has been **tryin*** his best to highjack this thread because it deals with a subject that doesn't exactly make the ruling class shine...

Yeah, I have mentioned race in this thread in terms of discussing poverty... Anyone who has worked with poor people fully understands that race is part of discussing poverty because such a large percenttage of black folks live in poverty as compared to wghite people...

It should be noted that I didn't say that Dickey's was white before Dickey challeneged me to prove he wasn't...

This is race baiting!!!

Yeah, I believe that Dickey is white but like I've said, who the heck cares what color he is... He, not the others here, wants to play thias race card over and over and over and over and...

...yeah, mg... For what purpose??? NO one called him a white guy until he laid out the challenge to prove he was white????????

Now if it's okay, can we get back to the discussion or are reasonable peole going to be held captive by a shill for the folks who don't want this discussion occuring???

That is the bottom line here...

Can Boss Hog's shill highjack a reasonable discussion???

And, yeah, living arounf redneck, this is what they would do as well because they are currently "true believing" shill for Boss Hog and if you don't think so, come to Page County, Virgina for a short tour...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 06:56 PM

I don't necessarily think it was wrong to call someone white..after all, you are or you aren't and whatever you are be proud of it. It is however insulting, and we all know it, to call a man a boy. It is not done in polite society. There is an area where who knows...16-18 or so...but a grown man is not called a boy, a grown woman is not called a girl. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 08:01 PM

And I don't call grown men "boy" either unless it it is used an an endearing term... But the4 bottom line is that I didn't call Dickey anything until ***after**** he accused me of having called him white...

That is the issue here... It shouldn't be, but somehow Dickey has used the "race card" in an attempt to ***stop*** this discussion...

Be carefull who you side with, mg...

You may think I am rude but I know enough to try to keep an important disusssion alive without having to accuse people of saying stuff they didn't say...

This seems to be the only tool left in the Bushit's tool box here in Mudville... I've seen it over and over... When they cannot defend their positions it comes down to putting words in their adversaries mouths and then go on arguing against the made up words...

This is not only dishonest but rather juvinilistic...

Now can we talk about poverty or do we have to go thru another round of BS from Dicky trying to subvert this thread???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 09:14 PM

And what about the preditory lending practices that the ruling class has entered into in order to keep their 10-plus% return on their wealth...

Why are they entitiled to 10-plus%??? They produce nuthing!!!

The "cleaning lady" produces more than most rich people... Rich people aren't part of out economy... They cheat more frequestly on their taxes... They don't create wealth... All they do is, ahhhh, nuthin' but eat grapes and hire PR firms to convince Southern Man to keep them richy...

That's about it in a nut-shell...

Th8is is waht poverty is about... These rich people have hired the right PR firms to ***frame*** some purdy decent programs as evil and sold it to Southern Man who in turn has gone to polls and kept rich people in power....

Thus, juast about every Great Society program is either dead or on life support... This isn't rhetoric, folks, it's what is going down...

Bottom line, if the rich don't want a revolution, violent ot not, they are going to have to learn to share 'cause it it unacceptable for the wealthiest country in the weastern hemisphere to have such a high number of folks in poverty...

Just adding $5B to child care would keep over a million single moms working for the crappy $8 an hour... Heck, the wealthy in the US steal that much in unreported or undereported taxable income every month of the year....

People ain't askin' no one for handouts... Just a fair shake in this economy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:09 PM

I agree that Dickey has contributed little, if anything, to this thread. Not because he has a different pov, but because he has no real voice, and his main purpose on Mudcat seems to be to stalk and harrass Bobert. Click on his name and read his posted messages. He is a 'knee-jerk' conservative. (Yes, there are knee-jerk conservatives just like there are knee-jerk liberals.) He posts links to, or cuts and pastes selected quotes from articles, usually, but not always, propoganda, or links to statistics that are questionable or taken out of context, and does his best, with some success, to provoke others, myself included, to react with angry, ill-considered words. He is a troll.

Most of his posts on other threads are of the same ilk-they are either links or cut-and-pastes with no indication of actual thoughtfulness or exploration of the topic, or they are challenges aimed at Bobert. He is playing games. He thinks he is playing 'Gotcha.' He is extremely manipulative in the way he posts. And very shallow. Notice how he avoids actually expressing or developing any thoughts or ideas. He is, however, a useful foil to react to and which most of the rest of us have used to continue to explore and discuss a number of very broad and important issues that touch on many aspects of our current society. In the absence of any truly intelligent and thoughtful conservative voice on this thread, we manage to use him well. I suspect there has been no intelligent and thoughtful conservative voice on this thread for the simple reason that truly intelligent and thoughtful philosophical conservatives also see what has happened in this country and don't generally disagree with the observations many of us have made about the socioeconomic realities we now face in the USA. A philosophically conservative individual is not the same creature as an 'I got mine, to hell with the rest of you' political conservative.

Having said all of that, I dislike the use of perjorative stereotypes, including 'redneck.' Being from the much maligned state of West Virginia, now living in North Carolina for the past 20 years, and having suffered myself from the the stereotypes people have of both southerners and West Virginians, I find the hackles on my neck rise at the term 'redneck' or 'southern man', or even 'Boss Hogg', unless they are used in quotes to denote that you are using them as generalizations and recognize them as such.

One of the ways whole socioeconomic classes of people are kept down, is through the manipulative use of stereotypes. I don't think the language of stereotypes serves anyone interested in social justice well.

End of sermon:>)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:44 PM

Amen. And I will start another thread with that in mind. There is too much selective brutality..I can say this to that person because I am more politically astute. I can demean this person because I am from a protected group. I can call other women "ho's" but now I realize I can't do that if they are basketball players. I will look around and see who it is safe to insult and demean and go for it until the tide of public opinion makes that group unacceptable to torment. Universal respect would go a long ways. It would make some marginally intolerable jobs tolerable, it would chew on the edges of poverty. It would perhaps reduce the number of massacres that we have seen lately from kids who were pushed to their limits...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 11:26 PM

I always thought the term red-neck referred to a gun-toting, God-fearing, hippy hating, neo-conservative. I didn't know it had anything to do with Southerners - more to do with someone who worked outside.

That being said, in the context of this thread, if someone is accused of having opinions that are White, male and red-necked, it relates only to a particular perspective on poverty. Yes, it is a stereotype but without knowing Dickie, I can only guess where his opinions are coming from.

Being White myself, I think I am qualified to call White attitudes, white. Growing up in red-neck country, I can also identify red-necks. Dickie may not be a red-neck but he most certainly is White.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 12:18 AM

Didn't you grow up in the exact part of the world I did? It doesn't sunshine enough to give us red necks. Well, sometimes it does..strawberry picking etc. And there is no getting around the fact it is not used usually in a complimentary way. It is an insult, unless the people themselves call themselves that, which is a whole other can of worms. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 12:20 AM

Dickey ain't worth arguin' with.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 01:12 AM

Hey Bobert: You accuse me of being a shill and trying to hijack the thread in order to avoid answering questions about your erronious "facts".

Anything you can do to smugly weasle out of answering.

Bobert grew up in Bull Connor country. There was an underground railroad around here to help escaped slaves make it to the north. I don't own a gun.

Apply your pejorative terms to me if you want but it shows biggotry to say that you know someones skin color based on their opinions.

I merely bring attention to the contradictions I see in people's postings such as Bobert calling someone else smug or Dianavan calling someone mean spirited. I do contribute my own thoughts and opinions. They are dismissed with persaonal attacks because they do not agree with those who think they "own the thread"

When I see something I agree with, I say so and I respect the opinions of others. However I seldom get any respect in return.

It is my understanding that redneck referred to teamsters, people that drove wagons with teams of mules or horses in the areas of the south, mainly Georgia, with red clay. The dust from the clay made their sweaty necks red. Cracker means the same teamsters cracking their whips to drive the teams. There were Georgia crackers and Florida crackers too.

I don't see how they apply to anubody today except as a demeaning label to try to put someone down for their beliefs.

I see a lot of hatred being expressed here without much logic to support it. Also a lot of misleading "facts" that are not supported by the poster.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 01:16 AM

You started here being rude. Why do you expect anything else back? YOU are the bigot. Your perjorative crap about Canada is how you started. Fuck you asshole, yesterday, today and tomorrow. You worked hard to get an enemy. You got one.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 07:30 AM

Well, yeah, lots of folks (some Southerners included) don't like the term "redneck"... I guess it doesn't bother me because it is a label that many folks I have lived with have endeared... There is a bar here in Virginia entitled "Rednecks"... Folks in these parts buy large "Redneck" decals which they proudly display in the back windows of their pickup trucks right next to the #3 decal which is right next to the confederate flag... This is my reality...

"Southern Man" comes from Neil Young's song of the same title and purdy much sums up the "ignorance" of lots of southern folks toward accepting change for the better...

Of course, "Boss Hog", though borrowed from t5he TV show "The Dukes of Hazard", represents the ruling class...

But I think most of you know these things...

I must admit that I like to use these terms because they kinda sum up the kinda folks I am talking about... Generalizations??? Well, yeah... But their are some generalization that can be made about blocks of folks, while still having some individulality, tend to be like members of schools of fish: willing to go with the pack rather than think...

But, okay, having said that, if it will make these terms less offensive, I will use "quotation marks" around them...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 08:13 AM

A recent study on income distribution in the US found some striking information... In this recent period where poverty rates are on the rise, the rishest 10% corral 44% of the "taxable" income (1) which is the highest percentage since the 1920's and 1930's... What happened then was the rise of "labor unions" which gave rise to the middle class... But this study went even further and this perhaps is where the rub comes into play in finding that the richest 1% now corral a whopping 17% of pre-tax income (ibid)!!! In 1980 the upper 1% brought in 8% of pretax income (ibid)!!!

This trend is disturbing and while not explaining why the poverty rates are rising, must be at the very least factored it...

Now I do not begrudge people making money and, yes, I do realize that the richest 10% pay half the federal taxes but it should also be pointed out that evn after paying these taxes they are rich beyond 90% iof wage earners wildest dreams...

And, yes, I agree that if we tax folks too much then there will be no incentive for folks to try to get ahead... But my problems with the ruling class is that the governemnt--- yes, the same governemnt that has been cutting programs for the poor-- has tilted the playing field for the rich... In a dmocracy, everyone is supposed to have the same level of access but that has been disappearing in porportion to the increase of wealth by the ruling class... This, IMO, is why poverty rates on on the increase...

Like Janie said... It is about "power" and the rich have all the power and thus, "access" to the folks who make the rules... And the rules have been increasingly going in favor iof the rich...

So, yeah, I've spoken of a "revolution" and, yeah, I guess that's what ity's going to take to get the governemnt to create opportunites for ***everyone***... If we would just level the playing field of "power" then thwe programs would return because they are the ***only*** tools to "repair" the conditions that have led to an increase of poverty...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 08:28 AM

Opps...

Source: Study by Emanuel Saez of the University of California at Bearkley and Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economicas... "The Rich and the Rest" by Robert J. Samuelson, "Wsahington Post", April 18, 2007

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 08:45 AM

Bobert still avoids explaining why tax revenues are increasing rapidly. He just posts more "statistics are for loosers", "I don't need 'um" statistics.

"income distribution"

Income is not distributed. It is earned except in countries like Saudi Arabia and Alaska where the oil profits are distrubuted to all.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 04:31 PM

"...To calculate the top 1 percent's share of total income, we need a definition of total income. For postwar data, Piketty and Saez use a modified version of adjusted gross income (AGI). Unfortunately, the Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates that AGI is not even a good measure of AGI -- it was missing $1.1 trillion dollars in 2004, called the "AGI Gap." It is also missing income of non-filers, estimated at $479 billion in 2000.

Transfer payments of $1.5 trillion are arbitrarily excluded, too. Benefits from private pensions qualify as "market income," yet benefits from Social Security do not.

The famed Canberra Group of experts insisted that household income must include cash transfers, food stamps and everything else that "increases the recipient's potential to consume or save." Most or all transfers are included in every official measure of pretax household income from the Congressional Budget Office, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Fed. My family will collect more than $3,000 a month from Social Security next year, but Piketty and Saez say that's not income (the IRS disagrees).

In the American Economic Review last May, Piketty and Saez explained that their top 1 percent figures for other countries "are obtained by dividing top income shares by personal income." Their U.S. figures for 2005, however, are obtained by dividing top income shares by "market income" of $6.8 trillion -- a figure 38 percent smaller than pretax personal income. Income of the top 1 percent ($1.2 trillion) was 10.8 percent of pretax personal income ($11.1 trillion).

Everyone imagines the increase in the top 1 percent share, from about 13 percent in 1988 to 17 percent in 2005, must reflect the lavish salaries of a few thousand CEOs and celebrities. Samuelson tells us, "There were about 18,000 lawyers, 15,000 corporate executives, 33,000 investment bankers (including hedge fund managers, venture capitalists and private-equity investors) and 2,000 athletes who made roughly $500,000 or more in 2004." But that totals 68,000 -- less than 5 percent of the 1.4 million in the top 1 percent...."

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/AlanReynolds/2007/04/19/what_is_income

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 07:24 PM

I mean, no offense, but do you have an real point, Dickey??? If so, it was not articulated in yer hodge-podge of research which seems to actually say, ahhh, nuthin'...

What is your point???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Apr 07 - 07:57 PM

As Janie and I have pointed out, the politicans who have taken over our country have no stomach for a "War on Poverty"... Any other kinda war and you can count them in but not for the poor among us...

I mentioned that the funds for child care have been frozen and therefore there are moms coming off welfare into workfare and needing assistence with child care are cutting into a frozen pool of $$$ fir child care and thus moms who have tried to play by the new rules and are at a break even point with their existing child care assistence can no longer afford to work...

Can I get Dickey to respond to this ******in his own words***** and without right wing blog crap... I mean, this is the real world... This isn't "Boss Hog's" world where you just pay off enought PR to make chicken salad outta chicken sh*t... This problem has been substantiated by not only the media but anyone social worker in family serivices will atest to it as well... This is a major problem but the Dickey's of the world will find their little allies who say, "Don't worry, be happy..."...

Yeah, this is a part of our country's responsibility to "repair" the ills of poverty and our country is thinking it will just go away...

Do the math... This problem won't go away anymore that our governemnt outlawing cancer...

This is the real discussion...

It ain't about what color Dickey is or I am... This is the meat and taters of the discussion...

Dickey will paly games with this one, too, because he is totally incapable of discussing anything but hiding behind propaganda...

My hope is that each Dickey would one day have to wake up and be one of these women...

"Now ya' don't talk so proud" (Dylan)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 04:35 AM

Politicians don't make "War on Poverty" any more because it doesn't bring them any more money. This is all about the "haves" and "have nots." Everything is about money. We outsource our soldiers' mess, their water supply, and, lord knows what else. I wanted to throw up yesterday when I read how much the US embassy in Baghdad is going to cost us...$600 million. For a building...well, actually I'll have to get the article to explain the complex...which includes a gymnasium, swimming pool...and all of the other necessities. I can't even remember where I read it...must've been the NY Times. I'm too tired right now, having just caught up on this thread from where I last posted. We can't armor our soldiers and their vehicles...I know this isn't the right thread...but it is germane...but we can build this complex!!! You know the military stopped allowing parents to send their kids bulletproof vests. It embarrassed them. All of the money we're pouring into somebody's pockets...who could that be?

Here's a thought: what if the only choices one has are all bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 10:12 AM

May I send you guys a brick? It would be available when you want to smack against your heads. No offense, but Dickey's posts are not worth reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 12:17 AM

"do you have an real point, Dickey???"

Yes. Piketty and Saez define the top 1% to suit their anti capitalist agenda and Bobert falls for it bug time. Anything that makes the rich folks out to be the bad guys has to be true and anything to the contary must be a lie. That is the result of subjective logic VS objective logic.

Now if this is a *******REAL****** discussion Bobert, please explain why tax renenues are increasing so rapidly while you claim rich folks are hiding income offshore.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 12:38 AM

Picture this hypothetical scenario:

Bobert is building a spec home. He has some operating money from real estate deals and good credit from a history of borrowing and paying back on time. He gets the best prices from the suppliers. He has efficient, seasoned employees. He has the best tools and vehicles due to his efficient management. The house is going up fast and Bobert stands to make a good profit.

Another contractor is building a house nearby for a customer. He had to bid on the job so he is the lowest bidder. He is a less experienced contractor with bottom of the barrel, absent on Monday employees, no operating money, poor credit, gets gouged by the suppliers and creditors because of a poor history of paying due to circumstances beyond his control. He operates from draw to draw, hopscotching from job to job.

Contractor #2 will make little or no profit from building the house. He sees Bobert doing good and hates him because he is "rich" compared to him, making much more profit. He bumps into Bobert down at the Home Depot and tells him "Why don't you rich builders share you profits with us poor builders?" I read in the Washington post how all you rich guys are crooks because you are getting breaks that us common people don't get like from the bank and all. You have it fixed so you make all the money that we should be making.

So what does Bobert say to contractor #2?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 02:40 AM

Dickey - When most people talk about the rich, they are not referring to anyone who shops at Home Depot. Believe me when I say the nobody is really worried about building contractors stashing money in offshore accounts. Its not working people who have to hide their profits.

How old are you?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 04:55 AM

BTW, it was Parade Magazine, and I posted the entire article on its own thread. See Dickey...go read: "Is Our Baghdad Embassy Too Extravagant." This is what our tax dollars and the future of America is being spent on.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 08:55 AM

Diavan:

I am still working and my income is not dstributed to me. I work for it.

I tried to put in terms Bobert can relate to and contractors do not "shop". They buy materials. Why do you automatically assume I am talking about people stashing money offshore? You lash out automatically againts anybody with a different opinion. I am talking about Boberts misconception of sucessfull people taking advantage of the less fortunate.

Perhaps you can explain why tax revenues are increasing so rapidly while rich folks are stashing their money ofshore?

If you notice, IRS is going all out to detect offshore accounts. The problem is not a new one as Bobert asserts but the IRS is just now cracking down. Perhaps it is this crackdown that is causing the increased revenues.

IRS Says Offshore Tax Evasion Is Widespread
By David Cay Johnston New York Times March 26, 2002

"...It is legal to have an offshore account, provided it is reported and any taxes are paid. Failure to disclose such holdings is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. In 1999, the I.R.S. said, 117,000 Americans checked the box on their income tax return disclosing an offshore account, far fewer than the number of MasterCard accounts the agency found in just Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands.

Because of secrecy laws in the tax-haven nations, the charge records reveal only account numbers � not names. So investigators, in a laborious process, must turn to merchants to obtain the names of the individuals through their credit card receipts.

Investigators will have an easier time finding tax evasion by customers of American Express, which agreed to turn over some records after giving the customers warning. But the agreement is limited to those accounts, billed to addresses in the three tax havens, that incurred at least five charges in the United States in 1998 and 1999 and in which at least one was for at least $2,500 on certain types of purchases, including automobiles, jewelry and yachts. Unlike MasterCard and Visa, which as networks do not know the names of customers, American Express knows its cardholders.

A senior I.R.S. official acknowledged yesterday that the agency lacked the resources to prosecute most of the offshore tax evaders or even to pursue civil penalties against more than a fraction.

"We have lots of indications of tax evasion here," said Dale Hart, an I.R.S. deputy commissioner, "and we are going to be using the resources we do have to work those cases to the best of our ability." But, she noted, "every day, several times a day, we make decisions about which cases we will work and which we will not."

Congress has sharply reduced the agency's budget for tax enforcement. Today, just 23 tax auditors remain on the payroll in Manhattan, the richest tax district in the country, down from 150 several years ago.

When the I.R.S. obtained records of one bank in the Cayman Islands, it said it found 1,500 cases worth prosecuting. "How many have they brought?" asked Larry Campagna, a criminal tax lawyer in Houston. "Maybe 10?" Mr. Campagna said that when the investigation was completed many of the credit cards would be found to have innocent explanations and not involve tax crimes. Ms. Kneally and Mr. Kagan expressed similar views. But Ms. Hart said she was confident from the data analyzed so far that the I.R.S. had found many deliberate tax evaders and not innocents caught up in a fishing expedition...."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 09:41 AM

"Can I get Dickey to respond to this ******in his own words***** and without right wing blog crap... I mean, this is the real world."

Bobert, you are the one that cut and pasts left wing crap statistics here.

As for the Mothers, I have been trying to tell you for a long time here, no matter what you do for the mothers, you will only have an increasing amount of mothers in need unless you find and eliminate the causes for mothers in need.

I saw a person on Cspan talking about the effect high stakes testing on the schools.

In the course of his speaking he said, if I remember it correctly "kids spend 1000 hours in school and 5000 hours in an unhealthy community and in an unhealthy family. We are trying to correct for the unhealty family and the unhealthy community in the schools. It is amazing what the schools do accomplish in those 1000 hours."

I bounced this off of my wife which has been in education all her life including teaching at Johns Hopkins, and she agreed. I said to her "the only way I can see for them to escape poverty is through education." See agreed and added that they also need better examples to follow.

I say the root of the problem is family values and the community/environment in which poor people are raised, not in a lack of bandaids to apply to the wounds.

Now you can rip me to shreds with personal assults for my opinions written in my own words and get back to your posting of left wing crap about the US government spending $500,000 for security screening for a Wall Street helipad in Manhattan when in the *******real******* world, the screening is done by a private company and paid for by the passengers or how apartments rent for $1300 minimum when in the *******real****** world, $1300 is the average.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 09:53 AM

What is the skin color of the person that said this?

"Lastly, parents must be made aware of the need for good education of the child, boy or girl. Like teachers, parents should set an example for the child in their overall behavior and conduct. What students learn in class from their teachers is complemented by what they learn from their home environment; what a child learns from his or her father, mother, elder brother or sister is very important for the future of that child."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 10:11 AM

George Soros is known as the wealthiest speculator of all time. His trading all took place in the Netherlands Antilles, where his earnings compounded tax free.

http://www.turtletrader.com/oig.html

In 1970, this Hungarian-born contrarian investor-philosopher created the Quantum Fund with Jim Rogers… It went on to return about 3,999%, compounded, over the next 30 years… Soros is famous for going short the British pound and earning $1 billion in a single day, Black Wednesday, 1992.   He was dubbed the "Man who broke the bank of England" for his move, which forced major reforms to the British banking system. Today he fights the "evils" of the U.S. brand of capitalism even while profiting handsomely from it (he's worth an estimated $7.1 billion).

http://www.investment-u.com/ppc/splash_soros.cfm?kw=XVVIU317

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 01:03 PM

"As for the Mothers, I have been trying to tell you for a long time here, no matter what you do for the mothers, you will only have an increasing amount of mothers in need unless you find and eliminate the causes for mothers in need."

Mothers can't work and take care of their kids, too. In order to work, they need affordable day care and health care benefits. Since minimum wage won't cover either, they need education. Why do you think abortions among the lower classes are so high. At the same time you have the right wing nuts pushing two ends against the middle.

Ever heard of "dead beat dads?"

Yeah right, you're wife teaches at John Hopkins!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 09:36 PM

LOL, Dickey... Are you on drugs, or what???

I am the contractor who has to go up against the rich fat cats... Do I shop for materials??? You bet I do...

But this thread isn't about me even thou you think you can make it about me...

It's about poverty....

If you have a problem discussing the issues that I have put forward, such as the frozen resources for child care, in this thread and want to turn it into some personal thing, there is something called "PM" here... I ain't hiding from anyone... I'm 100% transparent here in Mudville... Folks know me face to face... Folks have heard me perform... Folks have stayed in my house...

How 'bout you, Dickey???

Yeah, all you do is sit in front of yer tiny little computer in your tiny little cyber world lobbing your tiny little cyber grenades at me...

You want to talk about poverty or not???

Yes ______

No _______

If not, then find someone else to stalk...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 10:39 PM

'What is the skin color of the person that said this?

"Lastly, parents must be made aware of the need for good education of the child, boy or girl. Like teachers, parents should set an example for the child in their overall behavior and conduct. What students learn in class from their teachers is complemented by what they learn from their home environment; what a child learns from his or her father, mother, elder brother or sister is very important for the future of that child."'

The person who said that is Black.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 11:22 PM

I am talking about poverty Bobert but you are talking about mantaining and continuing poverty and expanding the base.

I am talking about the root cause. I guess you think it is an incurable disease.

"Yeah, all you do is sit in front of yer tiny little computer in your tiny little cyber world lobbing your tiny little cyber grenades at me"

I case you want to know what I did today in the ****REAL**** world, I was putting foam foil reflective insulation in my attic and then I had to load up my ladder and go checkout a membrane roof for damage. One piece of flashing blew off in that big wind a we had a week ago monday. After that I finished out the day lopping limbs that were overhanging the roof so if one breaks off, it won't poke a hole in the membrane. Now I have to order a sideload storefront door closer to replace one that was damaged in the wind.

You can get all personal and laugh haughtily all you want to avoid answering the questions but if you were as good as you say you are, you could explain about those left wing fairytales you keep cutting and pasting here.

You are the one that "celebrates" and throws the stink bombs by your own admission. All I am doing is tossing them back.

"Can I get Dickey to respond to this ******in his own words***** and without right wing blog crap... I mean, this is the real world."

You want me to answer in my own words but when I do so you leap on it with your usual vicious personal attacks and accuse me of stalking.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 11:24 PM

"The person who said that is Black." How did you figure that out?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 11:33 PM

Dianavan:

Are you saying the root cause of poverty is deadbeat dads?

Yes my wife used to teach at Johns Hopkins. She taught education to other teachers. She went back to teaching high school and not in a good neighbor hood either.

She sees this unwed mother dead beat dad thing at the beginning and kids dropping out. She also sees the ones that make it in the face of adversity due to parental support.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 11:50 PM

'"The person who said that is Black." How did you figure that out?'

1) David Kabuye is a master of spin. Very pro-government (Rwanda) writer.

2) It stands to reason you'd quote him.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 07:58 AM

Okay, Dickey, perhaps you'd like to elaborate on the "root" causes of poverty...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 04:35 PM

I'll start again. Don't think the last one went. These things obviously interact with each other, but if you fix the easier ones, through education, supplementation of working people's efforts, easier transportation to work, protection of workers' rights, environmental protection (all without choking the economy)...things will improve to the point of only having to have society take care of the truly intractable poverty situations. Obviously the infirm, the elderly, children, certain types of handicaps will always have to be taken care of, and can be taken care of and jobs provided to the currently unemployed through good programs.

Anyway, root causes.
1. Geography. Lack of natural resources of agricultural land, water, sunshine. And here in America,and here in Washington state, we sit on the most beautiful land inthe world and what do we put on it? Junky beige houses that could be grazing cows or growing oats or something. Need to be incentives or zoning or laws to protect all agricultural ground for agriculture. Similar for woodlands. Encourage movement to rocky areas for housing. Build out of rocks, all over America. Fireproof, tornadoproof, bug and mold proof and provide jobs to poor areas, which almost always would have rocks and more rocks and sand.
2. Too much population for the immeidately available resources. That could be a city, a country, a world. A family. Teens especially having children strain the resources of a family and a community. This causes so many problems they can't be counted. It is irresponsible for a society to allow its teenage girls to get pregnant through abusive situations or to run so unfettered that they will follow nature's imperative and get pregnant voluntarily. I am mostly referring to the way younger teens. Likewise, any woman having children without benefit of a husband does great financial damage to herself, to her family members, to her community. She deprives a child of at least 50% of potential support, and 50% of extended family usually. This is an incalculable burden on society, and a tragedy for the child involved, often, but not always. Some truly don't notice the difference of not having a father, and some are born with a broken heart because they don't. Am I blaming the teens or unwed mothers? No. Am I blaming those who won't put the mildest of disapprovals on this behavior, even less than they would for those say using plastic rather than paper bags? Yes. (and paper bags cause bad bad problems in landfills, probably worse than plastic).
3. Bad bad awful education in the public and private schools, where the differing capabilities and backgrounds of children are not taken into account, where the needs of those not college bound are totally dismissed. So little vocational education, when if it was mandatory for each and every student, it would prevent many dropouts, and insure that each and every American would have a skill to support themselves in hard times even if they thought they would never have to cook or type...I can not say enough about how serious this is.
4. Exploitation. People will take advantage of poor people, but I don't think there is a group of the high and mighty looking for ways to keep people poor, or hope that they stay poor. Capitalism works best with a flexible, educated and capable workforce that will have other opportunities and so the bosses know they can walk away to something better. I honestly don't see deliberate actions of the ruling classes trying to keep people poor. I feel they would rather poor people just would go away. I think there is no benefit to anyone to deliberately having poor people as a pool for something or other, except as said recently, to serve in the military so their own sons and daughters will get excused.
5. Outside threats. It is true we could build x number of schools and clinics instead of 1 B1 Bomber..but the world is so dangerous we must find ways to do both. The highest and most necessary social and health service a government must provide is to protect its citizens from attack. It would not be pretty, trust me.
6. Drugs. Huge amounts of money diverted. Whole neighborhoods and cities unsafe. This of course means companies don't want to move there and hire people. Leads to all sorts of gang fights, people afraid to leave their homes, difficulty to and from work. Horrible horrible problem. Anyone taking public money in any way, public schools, state colleges, public housing, heck a library card, should be screened for drugs. No privacy afforded to them. THis leads to housing problems...if you have a young man or woman who is clean and sober and wants to work in another city, someone has an aunt or grandparent who could put them up and they do yard work in exchange for a while. Can't do that with the threat of drugs...no one is safe.
7. Other social issues. Generational poverty. Lack of fathers...oh that is so huge a problem...one of the functions of the father has been to control his offspring....now they are running loose in gangs and with their cell phones they are meeting and doing great disservices to neighborhoods....I'm not saying none of them have fathers, but there is a collective effect.

Where would I start: Drug screening, having each and every teen meet with a nurse about family planning, hopefully after marriage and way in the future. Vocational education for every single student, including those with the Harvard aspirations. More lighting in rough neighborhoods. More video cameras in public areas and by convenience stores and other likely targets. Provide those places with loud sirens and direct lines to police station, perhaps monitor at the police station a group of buildings and intersections, like private security firms do.

Certainly programs to supplement those who are working already, with childcare, family planning, transportation, safe and clean public housing. Better care of the handicapped. Respite care.

Also, we have to have figured out by now that we need bunkhouses or some safe, clean, minimalistic shelter for single men and women, probably more men. Concrete, steam cleanable. Segregated by if they have problems...violent ones under strong security. Ordinary down on their luck one category. Mentally ill but not dangerous in separate facility with some support services.

No not ever giving social security to people who are drug or alcohol addicted. Give them hospice care and an allowance for an occasional new shirt and haircut, but not money. Food and shelter provided somewhere.

WPA type jobs for those who find it difficult to go through the job seeking process. Many people could and want to work, but as mentioned in other threads, do not know the process, are demoralized, etc. These could be in child care, elder care, facility maintenance, gardening, office work, safety patrolling of neighborhoods, escorting children to schools safely, and hopefully would lead to other opportunities in education and employment for people.

Have plans to take back the scary neighborhoods and housing projects. Read how the other half lives..life in New York tenements turn of the century. They said when the Germans came to a hopeless neighborhood, they turned it around. They put flowerpots int he windows. They put matrons in the tenements to keep an eye on things..we need way more eyes in some of these places, and way more daylighting so people can go to and fro without threats.

Well, that is all for now. Straighten up some easier problems, do not give people a message that it is all hopeless, go ahead and do drugs because there is no job in the world you will ever ever get, oops you have one flipping hamburgers, not good enough....there is still no hope...nonsense...give them messages of hope and pathways of education etc. that they can follow. It is called community colleges for those who are not severely handicapped in various ways....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 07:53 PM

Well, mg, we might differ in some areas ***but*** a very well thought out and, excuse the dated phrase but, very "right on" posting!!!

I mean it...

Bobert

p.s. And client centered, too...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 11:15 PM

Good job MG but it smacks a little of big brother and the ACLU would be the biggest opponent.

My eyes are screwed up tonight from pollen and cutting grass but basically the root causes of poverty is a bad family environment and a lack of education. A bad community environment, drugs, crime, gangs, Bad influences from the entertainment industry (folk music not included) run amok, in the name of profit. Bad role models being glorified for profit.

Kids should be shown right from wrong at an early age and taught to make the right choices. This is usually done by the family but it seems there is a new breed of parents now that believe this is not their job. They think it is up to the government and schools to guide their children's lives and be responsible for their welfare. All these patches applied to society reinforces that mindset, promulgates the problem and increases the number of people dependent on it.

I can hardly stand to watch most movies and TV now because of the sex, violence and, abnormal behavior depicted. Even kids movies need to have farting, nose picking, disobeying parents, lying, abusive behavior towards others etc. What's next, drugs and sex in kid's movies?

What kids see on the screen is emulated by them. By the time they get a car, they have seen so many fake car crashes where the people just get up and walk away that they are desensitized and don't really understand the consequences. Here's a movie about a cop who is supposed to be the good guy because he shoots the bad guy in the back while he is running away or beats information out of him unknown to the "Chief" and gets away with it. After a cars chase through town, through traffic and demolishing dozens of vehicles belonging to innocent citizens, he has a pistol and a bunch of bad guys are shooting at him with Uzis, firing hundreds of rounds. He draws a bead and fires one of, a bad guy crumples, then another. Of course the biggest bad guy has to die in a vat of acid or a blast furnace for extra shock value. The good guy has quite a few gunshot wounds with blood all over him but at the end of the movie he is going home to get some rest cause he has been crashing cars for three days straight through 18 gunfights. They are carting off the dead bodys as he heads for home, walking past the wreckage.

What can we expect from a society that is fed this unrealistic, violent crap?

What they should see is what really happens after you get shot or when you shoot somebody, beat up somebody or steal something. What you go through after you get pregnant and have to raise a child on your own or get jail time. Reality and the real consequences of making the wrong choices is what kids should be exposed to, not this garbage they call entertainment, it is poison. It is the exact opposite of all that is good and healthy for society.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 11:36 PM

"My eyes are screwed up tonight from pollen and cutting grass but basically the root causes of poverty is a bad family environment and a lack of education. A bad community environment, drugs, crime, gangs, Bad influences from the entertainment industry (folk music not included) run amok, in the name of profit. Bad role models being glorified for profit."

Dickey, I never thought I'd be saying this, but I will. Bravo! Your eyes might be screwed up tonight, but yer brain ain't. I think that post--the whole thing--is insightful, considered, thoughtful and smack on.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 11:51 PM

I agree with the TV stuff especially..there is rotgut being served up to the whole nation every night. There is something very distressing..the very creepiness of some young and even not so young men being glorified. Not just foul mouthed, but dirty, unkempt, greasy..you will see a lot of them in various food commercials eating with their mouths open etc. And the cartoons are just appalling...they have to be insulting every ethnic group out there, using the foulest language possible, suggesting not just normal but inappropriate sexual behavior but wierd creepy stuff...it is very alarming to me. Might as well give the kids poison to drink. And we worry about the air pollution index. Perhaps we need an airwave pollution index. One of the worst has two not even very young men, probably in their 30s, taking a young boy, probably 13 or 14, and telling him these nasty things to say to women in stores etc. I have no idea how that is allowed to be broadcast and why it is not considered child abuse as well as sexual harrassment of the women.

And hooray. Rosie O'Donnell is gone from the View. She has a nasty mouth on her. I mean, stevedores (no offense) probably are always going to say bad words when other people aren't looking, but now they blast the air with them, on the bus, in the store......and that leads to other stuff...I think cleaning up the airwaves is a very important step we must take to reverse the fouling of America...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 12:09 AM

Thanx Peace. I reckon tonight I am the blind hog that finnaly found an acorn.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Wordsmith
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 12:31 AM

Just a little something I picked up off Yahoo:

Ore. gov. starts week on food stamps By JULIA SILVERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Apr 25, 3:27 AM ET



SALEM, Ore. - If Gov. Ted Kulongoski seems a little sluggish this week, he's got an excuse: he couldn't afford coffee.

In fact, the Democratic governor couldn't afford much of anything during a trip to a Salem-area grocery store on Tuesday, where he had exactly $21 to buy a week's worth of food — the same amount that the state's average food stamp recipient spends weekly on groceries.

Kulongoski is taking the weeklong challenge to raise awareness about the difficulty of feeding a family on a food stamp budget.

Accompanied by reporters and food stamp recipient Christina Sigman-Davenport, Kulongoski headed straight for a display of organic bananas, only to have Sigman-Davenport steer him toward the cheaper non-organic variety.

The governor pined wistfully for canned Progresso soups, but at $1.53 apiece, they would have blown the budget. He settled instead for three packages of Cup O'Noodles for 33 cents apiece. Kulongoski also gave up his usual Adams natural, no-stir peanut butter for a generic store brand, but drew the line at saving money by buying peanut butter and jelly in the same jar.

"I don't much like the looks of that," said Kulongoski, 66, staring at the concoction.

Other shoppers in the store were bemused by Kulongoski's quest.

"Obviously, he doesn't shop often," Barb Sours of Salem said, as Kulongoski bounced around the aisles in search of granola. "He's all over the place."

Kulongoski did pause to chat with shoppers John and Bonnie White of Salem, telling them all about his $21 limit.

"Don't spend it all in one place," John White warned.

Along the way, Sigman-Davenport, a mother of three who works for the state Department of Human Services and went on food stamps in the fall after her husband lost his job, dispensed tips for shopping on a budget. Scan the highest and lowest shelves, she told the governor. Look for off-brand products, clip coupons religiously, get used to filling, low-cost staples like macaroni and cheese and beans, and, when possible, buy in bulk.

At the check-out counter, Kulongoski's purchases totaled $21.97, forcing him to give back one of the Cup O'Noodles and two bananas, for a final cost of $20.97 for 19 items.

After the hourlong shopping trip, Kulongoski said he was mindful that his week on food stamps will be finite and that thousands of others aren't so lucky.

"I don't care what they call it, if this is what it takes to get the word out," Kulongoski said, in response to questions about whether the food stamp challenge was no more than a publicity stunt. "This is an issue every citizen in this state should be aware of."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 01:37 AM

You all have good points on what you claim to be the 'roots of poverty' and I especially agree with t.v. (video games an computers, too) creating a false reality and encouraging unrealistic expectations. I also think that anyone who thinks that its easy to live on hand-outs should take the same challenge as Kulongoski.

I do think that there are reforms that can be made to welfare to encourage those that are already receiving assistance to become independent. The way the system is set up at present, it is almost impossible to break away.

If you find work, its usually minimum wages and you can't afford childcare. On top of that, its immediately deducted from the monthly allowance. If you receive student loans, your children are no longer covered by welfare assistance. If your boyfriend moves in to help make your life a little better, you are cut-off or penalized. If your ex-husband is supposed to be making monthly support payments but is out of work or missing, you have to take him to court thereby ruining any possibility of a healthy relationship in the future (for you or your children).

Basically you are given no opportunity to make decisions that you think are best for your family. All decisions are made for you and you come to believe that you are powerless. The worst thing about welfare is that you have to sacrifice any degree of independence in order to qualify. If you want to escape the welfare system, you have to lie your way out. They seem unable to recognize that for most, social assistance is a temporary situation.

Sure, there are chronic welfare recipients but those that can be helped need more than worthless, back to work programs, more layers of bureacracy and endless hoops to jump through. Lets face it, by the time you are able to meet the criteria for assistance, you're too exhausted to have time to do anything else. It soons becomes a chronic condition for you and your children.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 12:11 PM

"JUAN GONZALEZ: Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, has formed a coalition with labor unions and other large corporations to call for quality affordable health coverage for all Americans by 2012. The coalition includes AT&T, Intel, Kelly Services, the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America. Three public policy groups are also backing the campaign dubbed "Better Health Care Together." Wal-Mart's CEO Lee Scott said, quote, "Our current system hurts America's competitiveness and leaves too many people uninsured." This is SEIU president Andrew Stern.

      ANDREW STERN: Today, I stood on the stage with leaders of American business, civic organizations, a former senator, to say it's time for every American to have quality affordable healthcare. I stood with Lee Scott, the CEO of Wal-Mart, a moment I never would have expected would have happened in my life, along with business leaders from Intel and Kelly Service and AT&T and another union leader from CWA. We stood together for a very simple reason. We share a common value and belief that by 2012, every man, woman and child in America needs to have quality affordable healthcare."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/09/1614226&mode=thread&tid=25

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 08:12 PM

Well, okay, Dickey.... Good to see that the pollen, if nuthin' else, has gotten to you... Your "root" causes are purdy much accurate...

Now, if the pollen is still in control of your thinkin', can I see your roadmap for this very wealthy nation to move large nyumbers of folks outta of poverty???

And, BTW, do you know why Wal-Mart would be behind wanting affordable health care for it's workers???

Hint: Most of their employees live near or under the poverty line...

Hint #1: Five of the 10 richest Americans are Wal-Mart heirs...

Bobert

p.s. BTW, you seem to never have much to say about the Halliburton's of America who are the biggest welfare leeches on the tax payers... What's you view on them??? Do the tax payers "owe" them something???

p.s. Part B... Just like to follow-up on your crack that I, as a builder, don't shop for materials:

3000 ft. STK cedar sidin'
450 ft. STK 1X6
750 ft. STK 5/4X4
150 ft. STK 5/4X6

Lowes: $10,241
84 Lumber $8,257
Valley Bloc $6,957
Gilliam Lumber $4,275

Yeah, I shop... And guess who got the order???

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 12:39 AM

Been trying to follow the thread, without much time to post-or think-for that matter. It is good to read your 'voice', Dickey.

I agree with the comments of Dickey, mg, and others in that they highlight major societal problems. (And also tend to agree with Dickey's comments about big Brother and the ACLU.) I think they are universal issues for our modern culture that negatively effect nearly all families, schools, children. Among the poor, their impact is multiplied. Address those issues, and we would see a decrease in a number of the ills of modern society.

However, at the macro level, to the extent any of these issues or problems are more prevalent among the poor, they are much more a product of the conditions of poverty than cause. They are in no way 'root' causes of poverty. Some of them represent descriptive attributes found more commonly among people who live in poverty than among those who don't. But attribute and cause should not be confused. I think I said in an earlier post that the skills needed to survive are often not the same skills needed to thrive. They can, in fact, be mutually exclusive. And it may be necessary to have a different set of values in situations where physical, psychological and/or social survival is precarious. Ask Barry. Read his own story. Once he was put in an environment where the survival skills he had learned from an early age in the projects were no longer necessary, they were also no longer appropriate. But it is a good thing he learned and used them while he was in that environment. And it was a lot of work to set those survival ways of being in the world aside to a significant degree, and to learn a different set of skills and social values.

The 'root' cause of poverty is, and always will be, not enough resources. In societies where there are actually enough resources, but access to those resources is severly restricted by public policies that favor gross inequitable distribution of resources, what you are calling root causes, are actually simply some of the ways a society evolves to insure the playing field remains uneven. To the extent you address these issues, you are indeed creating greater opportunity for people to compete for resources. But the system itself will insure those resources will still be distributed in a grossly inequitable manner.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 02:47 PM

Well good for you Bobert for shopping around. What I meant was, as a former purchasing agent, contractors get bids or compare prices unlike a person who goes to a retail store and shops. I think Lowe's and HD rip people off after they drive the locals out of business. I have noticed that they are cutting back on their variety too. I saw a program about the rice of HD and at one point they would actually send a black wreath to their nearest competitor when they opened a new store.

Getting back to poverty. I am not a social engineer and I don't know how the fix the mess created by various forces but putting more and more patches on the situation is not working. If a feasible plan to clean up the social environment that these people live in could be drafted I am sure that rich folks and big corporations alike would back it. They are bristling with foundations that while being a tax dodge can still benefit the lower class. Get rid of drugs, rid them of bad influences, provide them with good influences, keep the financial predators off their backs.for starters. I have seen over and over again slums being replaced with decent brick apartments which turn into crap after ten years or so and the people are no better off. Something needs to change in their social fabric.

Like I said the ACLU would fight anything that would curtail these peoples right to self destruct. Like birth prevention, vaccination for cervical cancer or drugs.

Some companies would fight it like the entertainment industry who wants to feed them social poison, credit card companies who want to get them in a credit trap and some others I can't think of right now that prey on the poor. But others that would profit due to their increased income would be behind it. You mention Exxon. How do they profit from poor people? The more money they have the more cars they own and the more gas they buy. How does Microsoft or Bill Gates profit from poor people?

You have to give me some concrete reasons why the rich people and big corporations profit from the existence of poor people, not just some straw man stats from a left wing, pro-socialist, anti-capitalistic outfit.

Do you know that the third richest person in the world lives in Mexico? The next American is #6 on the list. Out of the top twenty, Americans are #1,2,6,11 and 12.

Here is one example. It is admittedly Company PR and hype BUT the money still gets given and somebody benefits:

Corporate Social Responsibility - AT&T Foundation

Our Giving Record

For more than 60 years, AT&T and the AT&T Foundation have committed $1.8 billion to philanthropic programs supporting education, community development, the arts, health and human services, and technology access in communities across the country. With its strong giving record, the foundation was ranked by Forbes magazine as being among the most generous corporate foundations in 2006.

With the creation of the new AT&T, the predecessor charitable organizations of the former BellSouth and Cingular are being combined. The new company will maintain historical commitments of charitable contributions and community activities. One example includes continued support for the 20/20 Vision for Education, designed to integrate technology into education in order to improve learning throughout the Southeast — particularly among low-income and minority students — to address the growing achievement gap and increase graduation rates.
http://www.att.com/gen/corporate-citizenship?pid=7736

$1.8 Billion is a crumb compared to what they made but multiply that by thousands and thousands of companies and you have some real money to fix the problem with.

Instead of engaging in class warfare, blaming and beating on these big, greedy, evil, companies and private citizens, they should be cajoled, wheedled and milked for that grant money and the money should be spent to eliminate the root causes of poverty, not just to ameliorate the effects and do nothing to stem the tide.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 02:51 PM

I am starting to like you!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 03:29 PM

In case anybody thinks I am talking through my ass about grants from foundations, there is a search site for foundations. I searched on Virginia and found at least 1875 charitable foundations. They let you see their 990 tax returns and how much they contributed to what. After a random viewing of three, I found this:

ALLOY FAMILY FOUNDATION, INC.
Form 990 -PF(2005) C/O STANLEY MARTIN COMPANIES, INC. 20-31427 87 Page 10 Part XV Supplementary Information (continued)
3 Grants and Contributions Paid During the Year or Approved for Future Payment
Recipient If recipient is an individual,
show any relationship to Foundation Purpose of grant or
Name and address (home or business) any foundation manager status of contribution Amount or substantial contributor recipient Paid dunng the year

BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF PUBLIC GREATER WASHINGTON, 8555 CHARITY 16TH ST., SILVER SPRING, MD 20 /A GENERAL 25,000.

SHELTER HOUSE, PO BOX PUBLIC 4081, FALLS CHURCH, VA CHARITY 22044 /A GENERAL 1,000.

http://lnp.foundationcenter.org/finder.html

I paid for one of my wife's formewr students tuition to clown college once and deducted it from my taxes. She had every intention of paying it back But I told her the only thing she owed me was her sucess. When you donate to a general charity, a lot of the money is eaten in over head, telemarketers, abvertizing, salaries etc. but when you give direct, more of the money gets to the destination.

I guess a lot of people do not trust the government or even a charity to spend their money in the places they would want it spent so they would rather have some control. Like Harry Reid wanting $20 million in pork to eradicate Mormon crickets.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 04:28 PM

Why Wal-Mart would be behind wanting affordable health care for it's workers???

Because that is what you are demanding Bobert. Now that it looks like they will comply you are still bitching.

Halliburton was given LOGCAPS by the Clinton administration under competitve bids in order to cut down on military spending. They were hooting and hollering and praising Halliburton about how much money they saved but now that Halliburton won the competitve bid again, under the same terms as the Clinton administration, Halliburton is suddenly declared evil because of Dick Cheney.

Do you believe in Witchcraft too?

Halliburton Foundation           
.
Established in 1965, the Halliburton Foundation supports education at all levels and charitable organizations in the following ways:

    * Matching U.S. based employee donations on a two-for-one basis up to $20,000 annually per employee for accredited junior colleges, colleges and universities;
    * Matching U.S. based employee donations to accredited elementary and secondary schools on a two-for-one basis up to $500 annually per employee;
    * Making direct donations to U.S. based elementary and secondary schools and colleges and universities; and
    * Recognizing and supporting active U.S. based employee volunteerism with direct donations through the Halliburton Volunteer Incentive Program.

http://www.halliburton.com/Default.aspx?navid=367&pageid=1003

Now Halliburton is being chased offshore so none of the money paid to Halliburton will come back into the US. Another drain on the trade Deficit and loss of jobs in the US.

But that did not keep George Soros from buying $62.6 million worth of Halliburton stock.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 04:52 PM

"When you donate to a general charity, a lot of the money is eaten in over head, telemarketers, abvertizing, salaries etc. but when you give direct, more of the money gets to the destination."

Now that I can agree with. There should be a tax deduction for those who want to pay tuition for others. In fact, why not a tax deduction for those who want to donate directly to the support of mothers who need childcare? I can think of alot of people who would rather directly donate to those in need.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 07:57 PM

Nah, Dickey... You still have a few bolts that need torqueing... The corporations, be it Wal-Mart or Whatever, Inc. have no interst in the poor... If they did they would step to the plate and give campaign money to candidates who favor restoring the "War on POverty" programs... But, no, they run like pigs froma gun from those kinds of cabdidates... They give to candidates who they think can win and who will keep the playing field unlevel in favor of the, ahhhh, corporations....

This is why I make the statement that the real welfare state has nuthin' to do with the poor among us, but the rich...

What Janie has pointed out about dwindleing resources to fight the supposed "War on Poverty" is the problem and it doesn't come around to a general lack of national wealth but national resolve... The rich have squeezed the middle class so hard that the middle class is now just 2 or 3 pay checks away from the poor house... They are living on the edge and "Boss Hog" knows it and knows that he can bust unions and bust the middle classes' rssolve to support funding for programs that "Boss Hog" has spent millions on PR folks to be made the scapegoats of why the middle calss is so close to ruin itself...

So, what we have right now is "Boss Hog's" ***perfect storm***... They have outsourced everything they can... Thay have hidden their profits from the tax-man... They own the governemnt lock, stcok and barrel and here we folk singers are talking about how to reverse these trends toward a nation that actually gave a danged about the poor among us??? Yes, a "perfect storm" indeed for "Boss Hog"... A "trifecta"... But the win for "Boss Hog" has a hollow sound to it in that he has won while having the power to change the rules allmost at will...

This is really what this is about...

Corporate greed and excess of power...

I have mentioned that it will take yet another revolution to get these greedy bastards to realize that it "ain't all about them" and I believe this strongly... Revolutions take their time to ferment and I can guarentee everyone that such a fermentation has begun... I hear it everywhere... Even the "rednecks" and "huillbillies" that I live around have no loyalty to corporate America...

So we can talk about solutions, and I don't think it takes a rocket surgeon to figure out that it's going to take some redistribution of wealth, but until the next American revolution, which in MO will involve "Southern Man", we're not going to be revisiting the "War on Poverty"... And poverty levels will continue to rise...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 02:04 AM

Bobert: You still have not given the motivations for all the evil corporations and rich folks to keep poor people poor. You assume the worst about everybody.

You keep talking about the real this or that like only you can see the way things really are. That is thinking from the dark ages. Things are what they seem. Talk about being in denial, You take the prize.

Companies are not going to donate to the campaign of politicians who are against them. Whould you donate to a candidate that goes around badmouthing contractors and blaming them for keeping people poor?

Now show me a working model of the redistribution of wealth. It it Cuba? Is it North Korea? They don't have all those greedy rich people and corporations and all of the people get the same thing equally, they get shit.

Did the French Revolution of 1789 do all that much for the French? The Islamic revolution of Iran? The Mexican revolution? the 4 Russian Revolutions? The Chinese Revolution?

Show me where a revolution, other than the American revolution or war of independance, has brought human rights up to American standards.

You just need to get your head screwed on straight and figure out a way to keep those people from falling in the poverty trap to begin with.

I know a contractor in Oregon who has been going down to New Orleans with a whole bunch of other contractors in a church group and fixing up peoples houses for them. Your idea of helping folks is starting a revolution that will force the government to make up for everything that might happen to people. Like a nursemaid for everybody in the world and have someone else pay for it. That's real charitable. By the time you get through, there won't be anybody able to pay for anything including yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 03:40 AM

"I know a contractor in Oregon who has been going down to New Orleans with a whole bunch of other contractors in a church group and fixing up peoples houses for them." - Dickie

I don't think this is going to solve the problem of poverty in America.

What needs to happen, Dickie, is that corporations need to start paying their fair share of taxes and those taxes need to go into social programs instead of war.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 08:52 AM

You can't make any generalization about all "contractors", Dickey... You have two basic models: Fat-cat corporate buildersw like Til Hazel in NoVa and small custom builders like me... And, yeah, just like everywhere else, the corporate guys ain't exactly my buddies... They cheat... The use their muscle to beat on the independents and the playing field isn't level in the building industry...

I'll give you an example... I Have had 3 exterior double door with transoms ordered from a certain building supply house in Harrisonburg now for over 2 months... When I call, I'm told that the "factory" got in a big order for 1100 doors from a corporate fat-cat... When I ask when the 1100 door order came in I get the "Well, ahhhh, geeeze, man, you know how it is, blah, blah, blah" BS...

See, "Boss Hog" ain't happy just throwing 'round his weight to rig the game with rules that hurt the poor but also the middle class...
This is the point I've made over and over... If the middle class is gettin' squeezed you can bet that the poor, whyo had a lot less in the way of resources, are gettin' a major ***trickle-down-squeeze***...

Now, you ask what I would do???

Well, first of all, a guarenteed "national minimum income" for anyone who wants to work that is higher than the poverty threshold, which, BTW, would be revisted based on real cost of living differences from one region to another... I would finance this by rollin' back the Bush tax cuts for the upper 1%, creating a value added tax for anything corporate America produces in foriegbn sweat-shops and close the $100B off-shore tax shelters that only the upper 1% benefit from...

That's just for starters...

Secondly, a publicly finaced ***single payer*** sliding scale national health insurance program similar to Medicaid paid for from income taxes, which would rise for everyone but not to the extent that would not reduce any families after-health-insurance net income that is less than $100,000 a year...

(Oh, but Bobert, then you are going to take capital away from the rich and then they won't have the $$$ to build factories to hire everyone else...)

BS, right now the only factories that are being built by "Boss Hog" are in Idia or Pakistan... They have no interst in investing in America other than to make junk loans to the working class... That isn't investment... That is usary... An immoral, to boot...

Gotta go fior now...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 11:53 AM

$19M Synsil factory being built in Cleburne NY

---

Intel has announced plans to build a 300mm wafer fabrication facility, which is set to be completed in the second half of 2007. The US$3 billion project is set to be completed in the second half of 2007 and would be Intel's sixth 300mm facility. It would manufacture chips based on 45 nanometre process technology.

---

WRIGHT TWP. – Bedding giant Sealy Corp. will hire 107 people at an average annual salary of $33,000 at its new factory in the Crestwood Industrial Park. The Archdale, N.C., company, the world's largest bedding manufacturer, is investing $30 million into the factory on Elmwood Road. The facility will make latex foam, a material used in specialty bedding products, and a foam-encased inner spring for the company's Stearns & Foster luxury brand. The company broke ground in April and expects the 210,000-square-foot facility to be operating in the first quarter of 2007. Sealy, which has 25 plants in North America, including two ...

---

Building materials maker CertainTeed Corp., of Valley Forge, said it will construct a fiber cement manufacturing facility - the company's third, and largest - in Terre Haute, Ind. The new 300,000-square-foot factory will employ 100 when it is completed in the second half of 2007, and up to 145 when it reaches full capacity, the company said. CertainTeed expects to invest "upwards of $70-million" in the facility, Chris Altmansberger, vice president and general manager of the fiber cement division, said.

---

Manco to build new factory April 17, 2000. The Avon, Ohio, duct tape giant recently announced plans to build a new 150,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Oklahoma City.

---

Mich. scores two new plants
Carmaker plans engine factory in Trenton along with plans for a new axle factory in Marysville. DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group, forging ahead with its turnaround plan, is expected to announce today that it will build a new plant in Trenton to manufacture the automaker's next generation of V-6 engines, code-named Phoenix

---

Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. plans to invest about 830 million U.S. dollars to build an auto factory in Mississippi state and it will be the automaker's eighth vehicle assembly factory in North America.

---

BASF said it plans to build a new resins plant in Wyandotte MI by the end of 2009.

---

UPM Raflatac has announced its plan to build a new pressure sensitive labelstock factory in Dixon, IL, USA, 105 miles west of Chicago. The new factory ...

---

March 2, 2007 SolarWorld to Build 500-MW Solar Factory in Oregon
Camarillo, California & Bonn, Germany SolarWorld AG is set to establish an integrated solar silicon wafer and solar cell production facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, that will become the largest solar factory in North America once the plant reaches its projected capacity of 500 megawatts (MW) by 2009.

---

Swiss food giant Nestlé has announced plans to open a $359m factory and distribution centre in Indianapolis, to cater for rising demand for its ready-to-drink beverages. The 190 acre site, located 40 miles outside Indianapolis, will produce Nesquik Ready-to-Drink and Coffee-Mate Liquid products for sale throughout North America. Construction will begin later this year, with the completion date set for spring 2008.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 12:35 PM

Bobert:

I didn't ask "Now, you ask what I would do???" I asked you to show me a working model or even something close to whay you say will work.

Looks to me like all those steps you proposed have ben tried and
failed.

I agree that the financial undustry takes advantage of the poor people. They would take advantage of anybody they can rich or poor but the poor are more suceptible and less secure. Teach them how to become more secure.

Instead of guranteeing a minimum income which takes away ones sense of achievement, Get on the financial institution's asses. Pass some laws limiting what they can charge to whom. Credit is a tool to financial sucess of you handle it right. Educate them on matters of credit cards and so forth. You want it so people don't have to learn anything. They never have to bear the consequences of bad decisions. They get by no matter what. What does that do for the level of education?

If you were ordering 1100 doors, how would do it? Would you tell the factory "don't hold up any small contractor's orders because of me?"

You ordered 3 door units. Maybe some poor shmuck ordered one and your order is over riding theirs. Would you be crapping on them?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 05:59 PM

Raising the minimum wage wouldn't take away anyone's sense of achievement. Nor would adequate childcare or interest free student loans (or grants to single moms).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 06:51 PM

These things ***have not*** been tried, Dickey.... Or at least not in the good ol' US of A... What I have proposed ***will*** go a long ways toward elliminating pverty... What I have proposed is a public/private patrnership where small business's are crippled by having to do all the lifting and where workers will be subsidized to bring them and their families above the poverty line...

Tell me again just how what I have proposed has been tried before...

As for "Boss Hog" investing the dough that Bush gave him in new factories, sure, there is ***some*** domestic investment but not at the levels that is bringing the US economy back into a "ptoduction" economy... Jobs are being lost steadily in manufacturing... Finding a few new plants doesn't change that reality...

As for the door, I know the guy at the building supple joint purdy well... His brother is a neighbor... Ain't no mix up here... Just a good ol' fashion corporate screwin' of the independent builder... Happens all the time... Sub-contractors and suppliers serve "Boss Hog Builders, Inc." 1st!!! That, my friend, is another case of reality...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 06:53 PM

"(or grants to single moms). "

Not single dads, too?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 10:00 PM

Sure. I should have said single parents.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 10:12 PM

Dickey had you left out the bit on Nestlé building a $359 mill facility I wouldn't have bother to post again to this thread. But you did, so. Nestle has raped the women of Africa, it supplied free to hospitals fomular for babies & went on a scare campain to drive the women away from giving breast milk to their offspring therefore asuring themselves that the poor, undereducated new mothers would dry up of their on healty milk in lieu of having to but Nestles formular. Worst than a drug empire hooking new clients. That only begins to tell the Nestle story, that only begins to tell why they can afford to built a $359 million dollar facility, may thier facility burn to the ground before it's completed. OK, there you are 1 example of how corporate America benifits from the poor & uneducated classes. Does it say how Certainteed closed it's plants in the north, to move to a cheaper production local & how it now sells a new inferior product with a lifetime of half of what it says, they won't even put their specs on the label & I doubt that you'll find the on their web site eiter. Of course they can afford to build a plant. If some of these "Big" corps gave their employees their worth, made a product that was half as good as their foreign competitors paid a fair share of their taxes, stop recieving subsities (either by government handouts or by having the government penalize foreign competitors), then I would buy American. What they pay a CEO's & the upper top management is foul when compared to what they give to the lower tier employee. Can you say Enron Everywhere? Yes they do need to make a profit in order to survive but it seems to me that they're the one who are surviving well off, off the backs of those who end up dying at early ages or end up, if they're lucky, with a pension the may just be enough to get them by for the next 10yrs, when they have to go out & work just to cover their medical bills & perscriptions. You still just don't get it, do you! Ya, we can all work for shit & in the end eat it because we're left without the means to make ends MEAT. We can make billions for the top 5 or 10% or for that 1% & then go piss in an alley after 30 yrs on the night shift. The elderly are fast becoming the poorer class, this is not what the American dream promised them. So whose at fault & how to fix it? Tell the government that we will no longer fight their wars for profit, we want, for everyone, the same free heath & care benifits that every Washington politician recieves, after all we've been giving them a free ride long enough espically when you think of how they'll vote their own raises but not for the min. wage act, a right to a retirement that is in line with what profits they made for the corprate empire, a free & decent education for as long as needed, create legislation that keeps companies comitted to R&D, to keeping the buck at home, to start developing greener pastures & expand techology in what would be the front runner in the "GREEN INDUSTRIES". We don't need to go offshore or to outsource if the government & big industry didn't put the almighy dollar before the people. Take care of the people & the people will take care of rest, just allow them their fair share instead of raping them for all they're worth. It's not rocket science but then we keep elected idiots in office who've managed to fix it in such a way that we can't get any intellegence into the offices that aren't on some one's takeor owes someone for their position. An honest intellegent person without corrupted ties hasn't a snowballs chance in hell of being the type of people that we need to lead, they are smart enough to stay as far away from the that type of profession as possible & that's a shame for US all & that's why the poor will become a poorer & larger class with more of the working class following right behind them swelling their ranks.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 10:18 PM

I would have to strongly oppose letting boyfriends move in to subsidized or public housing, if that is what we were talking about, in order to help the mother. I am all for them helping, but there are so many problems caused by moochy men, to say nothing of abusive ones, to say nothing of ones who molest the daughters. If he is good enough to move in as a boyfriend, hold out for when he marries you. If he doesn't marry you, that is a pretty strong signal that he is not all that in to you...I am all for encouraging decent men moving in as husbands, but they should go through criminal and drug screening before being allowed in public housing. For those who can not find housing, as I have said before, we need spartan public dormitories, for various configurations of clients, for single men and women. They should not have to find a woman to mooch off of. Which is different than moving in to help the mother, but if they are not married and/or do not pass screenings, they can help in other ways, such as keeping a car going, providing transportation, taking the kids to the park for the afternoon etc. (well, pass screening for that). There is too much violence in public housing and there is too much molestation of girls and women and there have to be checks on this. I definitely do not approve of throwing perfectly good fathers and husbands out though. They should be rewarded for their contributions to the family, and if they are unable to contribute much financially, they are still totally valuable as parents etc....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 10:45 PM

Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 10:47 PM

So if a women is poor she's to stupid to make her own judgement call? We should put them all in seperate cell blocks? We should direct the direction of they're poor stupid life? What slippery slope do you live on? We should also include stupid single poor fathers too, from those women that live off them. Let's marry them all off to each other. Call it speed matching no need for the idiots to bother picking out their own spouses we'll do the picking for them & then place them where we want, maybe we can put them into a neat little sweat shop & futher take hold of how they live. You have no call or right to demand how one chooses to live but you can offer them a free education so they'll know better than just how to live with someone. Offer up some child care along with the education while giving them a check to get them by untill they're on their feet or do they need to have good working feet first?
Lay off with the stipulations & get on with more real assistance, like I said above, free health care, child care, free education, meaningfull job training/counsuling/placement. Give them more than a check, give them the farm & show them how to run it & then they'll produce!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 11:33 PM

Yeah Barry! When I was pregnant with my first child, yeah, these 25 years ago, it just never occurred to me not to breast feed her. I'm European and in the environment where I was raised, women nursed - end of discussion. I was far from the earth mother type (as far as you can get!!!!!) but messing with bottles never occurred to me. I shared a room in hospital with a young woman far younger than me -- I was 32 and she was about 19. Talk about women of Africa -- she thought breast feeding was disgusting, messy and inconvenient (that one I just could not understand.......) and cheerfully took shots to prevent her lactating.......I could have afforded formula at the time (just!) - she certainly could not. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE. My only caveat with what Barry says is - let's not use the word 'free'. It scares everyone.....the things we need to have are NATIONAL health care, NATIONAL child care, NATIONAL free education etc etc -- paid for by one and all from our taxes -- I would cheerfully pay. My younger daughter (21) called me the other day to say she has been doing wonderfully but she had a meltdown in large part due to the death of her ex boyfriend in Iraq (those interested see my thread -- Another Death in Iraq - but I knew this one.....'

She didn't know what to do because she is close to graduation from 2 year college and she knows her INSURANCE WILL RUN OUT SOON......I told her to call her counselor, and get back onto meds if she needed to - and we will sort out the bill. WHAT KIND OF A WORLD IS THIS.......????????

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 11:37 PM

I think the public has an absolute interest in maintaining safety for tenants of public housing, and yes, I think very many women, both poor, middle class, and rich, are extraordinarily stupid in their choices of men. If it only affected them, perhaps fine, although others should not have to subsidize them. But it affects their children if there is molestation, and there is, and I work with those girls and not with their mothers, but they have to take repsonsibility. IF they can't or won't, the public must. It also affects neighbors if there is public violence, drug behavior etc. It affects whether they can call a fire truck, or get a taxi to pick them up, or get groceries. Absolutely and positively I have no problem at all setting down and enforcing some very strict rules for damn near everyone, but especially those who are in public housing, both for their protection, and to lessen the burden on those making minimum wage and paying for them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 12:21 AM

Well, doesn't the public have a responsibility for maintaning the safety of everyone -- isn't that why we pay taxes (cheerfully so....) that support police, firefighters, etc etc, But as you say many women are singularly stupid in their choice of men (and of course, not to forget that many men are stupid in their choice of women)--what are you going to do? Run a prison camp? I know rich people who live disgusting lives and poor people who live wonderful lives that are a credit.......but isn't that part of what life is? We can't mandate behaviours or emotions......IF THERE WAS A DECENT SAFETY NETWORK in the cases where people (rich or poor) make bad choices there are some protections for those poor souls, usually children, injured in the blast.......

Many years ago, about 30 years now, I was divorced, and going to college here in the US planning to return to the UK once I had my degree. The college was paid for by a full scholarship for foreign students, which I technically was, -- but it was hard to make ends meet paying for the apartment and food. So for a while I was on foodstamps. Being European and used to a social services blanket I was appreciative but not ashamed. One night I was out with a date at the local food store buying food for a late night supper....he offered to pay and I said no, I have my food stamps. Someone reported me.....I was hauled in front of some local administrator and accused of abusing the system. J was just living MY life using MY food stamps in a way that was appropriate to ME -- they withdrew benefits which is just as well as I would have starved before I would have allowed someone to dictate how I spent my money......

It seems to me that you just can't go there....you hope for a degree of integrity from everyone but accept that - RICH AND POOR can screw up and be abusive sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 12:33 AM

Mg, I was one of those children of a poor stupid, undereducated, single mother that took on a stepdad. It probably was not much of a choice for her but she made a good choice. Those idiot mothers you're refering to were smart enough to survive under conditions that would make many well to do parents buckle under & give it up. You also don't subsidize them & molestation happens in the houses of the rich too & it happens just as much. You really have a wonderful view of humanity, where the poor are depraved & the well to do walk around with the rights of man. Don't tell them to take responsiblity, there's no one whom they can take it from & they do perform responsible just by the nature of their survival & by living, that's the point, they are the responsibility of us all but you would have that too taken from them as well as any diginity too. Don't blame them for the crime that happens in their poor neighborhoods either, that's as close to blaming the victim of a rape, they aren't committing any crime by being poor, though some may turn to crime in order to survive. If you want strict rules set them for yourself not for them, they were raised by the rules of survival & the street which were already imposed upon them by others just as you would impose more, why because it's a cost to you, you bare no burden for them except what you bare out of ignorance fosted on you by a government that would prefere that they could sweep them all under a rug while not needed or have them taken care of by some reglious org or some charity. We have police to protect all citizens though you think that they (the poor) recieve better survice? Thanks for caring about their minimum wage but your type of care they absolutly do not want nor need. You think it's just single mothers hat are poor too, get up on it the poor come in all sizes, shapes & colors & with & with out kids. You seeem to have no problems at all with the poor, set them up in a walled off getto, that'll do you for a good nights rest but when you wake they'll still be there poor, uneducated, sick, hungry & tired of your rules, walls & treatment. Wait until they come knocking on your door, will you feed them, cloth them, wash them? Or would you rather see a bit more of your war taxed moneys' go to helping them to escape that life for good & become productive. Because under what you'd prescribe they'll end up finishing out their lives in that same walled up getto.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 12:35 AM

a guarenteed "national minimum income" does not mean minimum wage. I am in favor of raising the minimum wage for citizens and legal aliens.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 12:41 AM

Congress is to after a 10 year wait & to many paid raises for themselves. So they'll get a pitence now.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 01:10 AM

No they would not end up their lives in a walled up ghetto. They would have been able to walk freely in and out of that ghetto, eventually moving out, because they would have been safe, which is the first rule of society. They would hopefully have not had a series of mother's creepy boyfriends in and out of their houses, crack houses next door, nasty teenagers scaring people into not using the elevators, which were also used as bathrooms, old ladies being afraid to leave their units to go grocery shopping etc. If you take care of the crime and violence, and part of that means providing separate housing for the more violent and abusive so they have a place to go, you automatically will make the experience of poverty more tolerable, because then poverty is a lack of goods, rather than a gauntlet that has to be run every day by the vulnerable. Goods can be provided. Resources will come into a place, jobs will come into a place where there is safety. It is a duty of government to provide it, and it is a duty of every citizen to accept it and not make conditions worse for others. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 01:18 AM

I don't mean to be discourteous but this does seem somewhat of an oversimplified view. It seems to me we have a chicken and egg dilemma here - how much of crime and violence comes out of the frustration of poverty. Believe me - I am not countenancing anti social behaviour (using lifts as bathrooms is revolting...... and inexcusable) but truly, there are wealthy people who behave in totally unacceptable antisocial ways too - it just receives less publicity.

Unless you have been poor, really poor, it is hard to understand the way society views you and the stigma it carries. It does not excuse poor behaviour but it somewhat (to me, at least) explains it...........

I cannot help but think a basic standard provided to everyone would help....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 01:27 AM

Of course apply standards to everyone. And we leave out a step when we understand what causes people to tend to behave in certain ways..and that step is to be sympathetic, to provide barriers to that behavior, both cultural, physical like stoplights etc., and say, we understand why you want to beat your wife, but sorry, you can't. We leave out the step that says they can't do certain things because we think once we understand why they do certain things our job is finished. No, it is not. They still don't get to kick the dog. We can understand what makes them want to, but they don't get to. We can understand why they might want to use drugs, but they still don't get to. If they do, any temporary relief is offset by their lives being ruined, cops being killed, their neighbors living in fear etc. So no, you don't get to kick the dog. We understand that you are lonely and in dire financial straits, but no, you can not let this child molester in your home to rape your daughter. No.   mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 01:31 AM

I don't think we are too far apart. I absolutely agree that you cannot condone antisocial behaviour. BUT I don't think it hurts to have some understanding of where ant social behaviour might come from. And I believe certain levels of help and support will make it easier for those who tend towards antisocial behaviours not to follow that route.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 01:41 AM

Over 80% of U.S. Manufacturers' Investment
Takes Place Right Here in America?
Many individuals appear to believe that U.S. manufacturers are hurrying to shut factories in the United States in a "race to the bottom" to invest in low-wage countries.
But that is not what the facts show. The truth is that U.S. manufacturers invested about $170 billion in factories and equipment in the United States in 2005 (latest data) while their foreign direct investment outflows to the rest of the world were only $39 billion.
That means 82% was invested here in America. Moreover, this proportion hasn't really changed over the past decade.
And the vast bulk of foreign direct investment goes to high wage countries – 90% in fact. Fully 71% of U.S. manufacturers' foreign direct investment in 2005 went to high-wage Europe. What kind of a race to the bottom is that?
Moreover, Commerce Dept. data show that 90% of what U.S. multinationals produce overseas is consumed overseas – only 10% is shipped back to the United States.

http://www.nam.org/s_nam/bin.asp?CID=5&DID=238191&DOC=FILE.PDF

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 02:32 AM

mg - I wasn't talking about subsidized or public housing specifically but I really don't think you can tell a grown woman who she invites into her home or her bedroom. He may not have enough money to support a family but if he has enough money to support himself and provide some extras for the family, whats wrong with that? Besides that, she may not want to marry.

A woman should not be deprived of male companionship just because she's poor. Thats ridiculous. Not all men are pedophiles and rapists. Some of those men are actually very good step-fathers. You can't punish the poor for crimes they haven't committed just because you're suspicious.

...and Mary, I have worked in a group home with young children who have been apprehended by social services. Believe me; there are perverts in all social classes.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 02:50 AM

Amen!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 03:19 AM

Mg, you must think that abuse & poverty are twins, they're not. Drug abuse & gambling, abusive drinking may have "some" roots in poverty but not spousal, phyical or mental abuse. That's a different horse & color, all classes suffer from that, the rich can get away with hiding it better that's all. Your hung up in the wrong places. Beating your wife, kicking the dog & raping you girlfriends daughter is not poverty driven. What a misconseption you have of the poor. Poverty breeds self abuse, sure enough & drug use to be sure & crime, yup but poverty does not breed sexual predators & spousal abuse, get a grip. You take hope & intellect away, we've been here before, & you get to a place where the community falls apart & fails, becomes dangerous, criminal & violent. Now put a wall around that & you've put us back into the dark ages. Again you set up a national education program where everybody can use it no matter your income, a health & welfare system that includes a free national health plan for any that can't afford it, you set up child care for those that can't afford it, then you can say that there's a start on the war on poverty, illiteracy & infant mortality, homelessness, crime, drug abuse. You set up a fair employment agency & a dept of labor that has not just the interests of business in mind but also the welfare of the work force then you can say that there's a war on poverty. You want gettos & you'll get more of the same only worst, you'll have a black market underground society that makes fiction look like a party.
Why the focus on boyfriends living with the poor girl? I think there are bigger issues than who chooses to shack up with who, again education is the first step in making good judgement calls, not some ban on what is a natural. Boyfriends, I can't believe that anyone would make that an issue. Is it ok for the rich girl or guy just cause she or he can afford to be the sugar daddy. Your standards are double standards, warped, selfish & not real. Why don't you declare saying no to sex altogether maybe that will prevent unwanted pregnancies in our youth, wait is that a poverty driven issue? Nope, that's an educational issue. That's like Reagan's war on drugs "just say no" or his fight against AIDS, "just say no". Education, education, education. The poor aren't stupid, undereducated maybe, lack the resources, yes, trying to hard in their struggle to survive most certinally. You don't want an excuse for poverty, neither do I, there really is no excuse for it in this country. We have some of the best educational facilities in the world and we're to stupid or selfish to allow those in need of them most the access to them. Well ignorance costs a hell of a lot more & most of the ignorance comes from those that would deny the poor the ability to get a head & rise beyond their stated place in life. Nothing like an education & a helping hand. Give me a fish today & I'll be hungry tomorrow, teach me how to fish & I'll never go hungry again, give me a dollar today & I'll be broke tomorrow, educate me & I'll never have to ask you again for a handout.

Then there's Dickey saying how great the business world is doing. I couldn't agree more, they're making profits hand over fist, they're investing like crazy but to who's benifit not the underclass that floats them with their sweat & their unfair tax breaks. Industry is doing just dandy while the little guys dying to keep the it in business. It's kind of like the company stores all over again. You work to produce a product you can't afford to buy yourself, you go into hock just to get by & then you can't even pay off the interest, you're owned by big government & big business. You try to attend a school "to learn to earn" & end up having to take a back seat on the bus ride home carrying an empty lunch pail.

Time for me to go have a nightmare, good night.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 03:27 AM

"right now the only factories that are being built by "Boss Hog" are in Idia or Pakistan"

12 new US factories was all I could fit on one screen. How many do you want Bobert? Do you want some built in countries other than India and Pakistan? How many do you want?

Where has the revolution you want done anything for the people? The only one I can think of that did any good was the American Revolutionary War / War of Independance which you are benefitting from right now but you don't appreciate it. You must have some huge shoulders to carry that chip on.

Portugal is by far the closest a country has come to actually having fully implemented such a system. This is because the Portuguese government made a guaranteed minimum income a legally enshrined right for the entire population in 1997. The policy remains at present. However, their income security policy is rather residualist, with an amount guaranteed well below the poverty line, and other income security policies such as the minimum wage are thus still in place as a consequence. The system also forces participants to attend social integration sessions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income

15% of adults and 19% of children live in poverty across the EU. There are, of course, significant differences between member states, with child poverty as low as six or seven per cent in Sweden and Finland, going up to 27% in Portugal and 26% in Ireland.
http://www.povertyalliance.org/html/publications/briefings/Briefing02-Europe.pdf


The U.S. State of Alaska has a system which guarantees each citizen a share of the state's oil revenues (see Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend). Those greedy oil companies strike again with a strangle hold on the poor folks.

Has Boss Hog Builders, Inc taken any work from you?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 03:35 AM

Ever hear of the military handing out no bid contracts?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 08:19 AM

Yo, Dickey...

I'm sure you could fill a couple screens with plants that have been built or updated... That is not at issue here... What is at issue is that the US economy is not creating manufacturing jobs at the rate to keep up with it's labor pool.... What that means is more unemplyement and, just as cruel, *under*employment.... Underemployment is a large factor in why kids in the inner city loose hope that finishing high school will make their lives any better... The jobs they can get with a high school diploma are about the same jobs they can get with an 8th grade education... This is a majoe piece of the puzzle...

No matter how many decent paying jobs the Dickey's of America ***think*** are being created, they arern't in comparision to the potential workforce...

That is why I support a ***guarenteed and subsidized national minimum income*** for anyone who wants to work... And an income that exceeds the poverty level... Then maybe we could start to talk about ***no*** subsidized housing and social workers being told to snoop on boyfriends... It's not American to be snooping into people personal lives...

But it's not just subsidized housing but Food Stamps and Medicare and, and, and the list goes on of programs that could be elliminated if every one who wanted to work was paid a ***living wage***...

The system we have now is very colonial and is based on the premise that folks can't be trusted to make correct decisions... Well, okay, I have argued that we need to restore programs but if folks knew they would paid a living wage then it is my porsition that these programs coule be phased out as people became ***empowered***... A guarenteed income for everyone who works will go along way toward that...

BTW, in my last post I left out an all im portent word in talking about small businesses and that is that a guarenteed income would ***help*** them as well as their workers...

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 11:50 AM

Yo Bobert:

Eighty one percent of respondents to the Institute/NAM 2005 Skills Gap survey said they could not find qualified workers to fill open positions.

http://www.nam.org/s_nam/sec.asp?CID=201507&DID=229891&rcss=print

Note the word "qualified". They need educated workers with skills.
Manufacturing activity

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 08:14 PM

Of course these companies can't, Dickey... Can't you see that first of all "qualified" is a very subjective term and can't you see that with the wages these companies are willing to pay, they aren't going to change the paradyme???

If I could go to an 8th grade class in NE Washington as an empoloyer and say to the kids that if they would sign a contract to finish high school then I would hire them at a "livable wage and benefits" then I'd guarentee you that you'd seea major drop off in drop out rates... It has worked where the occasional rich guy has offered a certain graduating claass the same offer...

Boils down to opportuntiy... Like why put in the effort is yer goina' be flippin' burgers the rst of yer life...

Hey, kids will work if they see that they are workin' ***for something***... Think this goes back to Skinner's box... No reward, no learnin'... Garbage in, garbage out...

America has become the one western country that has lost sight that folks needs carrots... Not prisons...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 01:19 AM

Is "livable wage and benefits" a subjective term?

Bobert:

First you say there are no factories being built in the US So I prove that that is not true.

Then you say "That is not at issue here... What is at issue is that the US economy is not creating manufacturing jobs at the rate to keep up with it's labor pool."

So I prove thet there are unfilled manufacturing jobs and a chart that shows increased manufacturing activity.

Then you start blabbering about guaranteed minimum income again. That is in force in Portugal since 1997 and it don't work. It was tried in Canada ans the US and the programs were cancelled.
From 1974 to 1977, the residents of Dauphin participated in the only Canadian guaranteed annual income (GAI) experiment. The Mincome experiment, as it is known, was one of five projects developed to find out what would happen if people were promised a yearly minimum income. Would people still work?

The projects began during the 1970s when “history was changing in some fundamental ways,â€쳌 says Dr. Evelyn Forget, professor of Economics at the University of Manitoba. “People believed we were just a hair’s breath away from creating a just society.â€쳌

A hopeful young Premier of Manitoba, NDP leader Ed Schreyer, was interested in the concept of the GAI. He and the cabinet RED Committee, dedicated to social justice, secured the province as the Canadian test site. Similar experiments had been undertaken in the U.S. in New Jersey, rural areas of North Carolina and Iowa, Seattle and Denver, and Gary In as part of President Johnson’s “war on poverty.â€쳌
http://www.uniter.ca/view.php?aid=38460

"These things ***have not*** been tried, Dickey.... Or at least not in the good ol' US of A"

Looks to me like they *********have*********Bobert. You need a laxative.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 02:49 AM

"An overall guaranteed income program ... worthy of consideration (must) offers a substantial level of benefit to people who are normally in the labour market. Therefore, a great deal of further study and investigation, like the experiments now under way in New Jersey and Seattle in the United States, is needed to find out what effects such a program would have on people's motivation, on their incentives to work and save. Until these questions are answered, the fear of its impact on productivity will be the main deterrent to the introduction of a general overall guaranteed income plan. [2]"

http://www.geocities.com/ubinz/Canada/HumSimpson.html

You will find that this article concludes that a GAI has no negative effect on the incentive to find work.

"Moreover, while directly improving the standard of living of their target populations, they would do so while encouraging rather than dampening incentives to become more self-sufficient through earnings."

http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/ssrgai.htm#Conclusion

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 03:41 AM

"The U.S. State of Alaska has a system which guarantees each citizen a share of the state's oil revenues (see Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend). Those greedy oil companies strike again with a strangle hold on the poor folks." Dickey

Trust me, Dickey- it wasn't the oil companies that set up the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. It all happened under one governor. The premise is that since individuals don't own sub-service rights, all Alaskans share in a proportion of what is extracted.

By the way, you don't seem to realize how unpleasant you come across as being.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 11:54 AM

Hmmmm. Replace 'sub-service' with 'sub-surface'. The brain is a funny thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 12:45 PM

The reason I make scenarios about what the evil oil companies do is to draw attention to the absurdity and unpleasantness of stating the profits of the largest company in the world as having something to do with people being poor or that the company wants people to be poor. Ergo when you see a poor person, you are automatically supposed to blame big oil companies and they must be greedy and evil. A straw man issue.

Yes, the oil companies would not share in the oil revenues with Alaskans voluntarily but they never the less pay them a share and help to aleviate poverty at least in Alaska.

Who might really want people to be poor so they can keep them in a credit trap are credit card companies, payday loan companies etc. The profits of the banking sector are much higher that the oil sector. WHy not regulate them?

Exxon/Moblie profit margin 10.6%
Citigroup profit margin 18.7%

Actually if you go by assets, Citigroup is the largest company in the world but they don't produce anything to sell like Exxon.

When I hear someone is poor and can't pay thier credit card debt, I automatically blame the credit card comapnies for giving them credit and allowing them to spend more than they can pay back and I consider that evil and greedy. John Cash Penny resisted accepting credit acrd sales at jc Penny stores into the 50's because he considered it usury to sell people things on credit.

And poverty sure as hell is not caused by someone not being able to get their doors when they want them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 01:35 PM

Studies of the Guaranteed Minimum Income Big, NIT, whatever you call it, experiments did show that people cut back on their working hours.

I think it is the word "guaranteed" that irks people. Why should anyone, except for the elderly or diaabled, be guaranteed they will be paid even if they don't work? How can it not give rise to a society that is non productive and eventually dies out?

If the guarantee could be removed the concept might merit more testing and study.

I still think an increased minimum wage for legal aliens and citizens and elimination of the basic causes of poverty including controling companies that actually prey on poor people is a better approach.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 01:37 PM

I think that some people are quite willing to hold the poor as hostages until poverty is relieved by the way that they want it to be relieved and no other ways. It causes great stangleholds on society and does the poor terrible harm. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 02:25 PM

"the oil companies would not share in the oil revenues with Alaskans voluntarily but they never the less pay them a share and help to aleviate poverty at least in Alaska." dickey

No. The oll companies do NOT pay Alaskans a share. Read the act and you will know a little more about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 02:34 PM

What is the skin color of the person that said this? No Googling.

Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible -- Democrats who are rediscovering poverty and blaming it on George W. Bush, or Republicans who are rediscovering poverty and claiming that the government can fix it.
As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. And that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.
Guess what the president and politicians from both parties are asking the American people to do? If you said, "Enact programs that will sustain and enhance dependency," go to the head of the class.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 08:31 PM

Why the **race card***, Dickey???

Ahhhh, as for the guarenteed national income, how can you comment that the model is unworkable as it has never been tried here in the US???

Hey, it would elliminate poverty as we know it in families that have a working parent...

Minimum wage has been a joke... It has never been set at a level that would take someone earning it out of poverty... Even in 1969 when it had its highest spending power, a family could rise above the poverty line on it...

Plus, consider this... There are lots on samll companies who don't have the clout of the "Boss Hogs", mine for example, who could not compete if I had to pay a "livable wage"... This is a reality we have here in America... Most working folks who don't have health insurance are younger folks working for independent companies...

And, yeah, it does come down to doors... "Boss Hog" is gonna have his doors and guess what??? He pays less... Get's 'u when he wants 'um and the independents get the hind teet... This is not a level playing field and for me to build a house I can't pay a "livable wage" and ***benefits*** and overcome the "Boss Hog" unfair advantage...

This is reality in the, ahhhhhh, real world where real people get up in the mornin' and go to work... And it's part of our discussion of poverty... Both my employees live under the poverty line... Am I proud of this??? Heck, no... Do I have any choice in this??? Heck, no... When the playing field is so unlevel this is what happens...

Yeah, I think that thr governemnt needs to ***govern*** the wealth distributuion and I think the *govern*ment owes as much to the working poor as ot owes to "Boss Hog"...

Yeah, this is about doors... And much more when the rich get the breaks and the rest just get broke...

Think about it, Dickey...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 08:47 PM

"The reason I make scenarios about what the evil oil companies do is to draw attention to the absurdity and unpleasantness of stating the profits of the largest company in the world as having something to do with people being poor or that the company wants people to be poor. Ergo when you see a poor person, you are automatically supposed to blame big oil companies and they must be greedy and evil. A straw man issue."

Just when I was starting to like you, you say something like this.

Let's go back to Economics 101. There is only so much money to go around: let's call that quantity 6,000,000,000 x. By the meresst chance, there are that many people on Earth. Do the math. Everyone has $1. Except for some poor bastard whose $1 was scoffed by an oil company. There is no 'automatically blame an oil company'. I just have a naturally inquiisitive mind, and when I see lots of poor people I have to wonder who took their dollars.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 09:00 PM

Yeah, brucie... This is the crux of issue... It's all about those who have purchased a corrupt *govern*ment and let the governin' tilt the scales in their favor...

I would go so far as to say that if it weren't for corruption and the failures of our country's to *repair*, as in *repair*ations the ill-effects of slavery then we wouldn't be having this discussion...

Folks don't make poverty a career choice...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 11:59 PM

"I have to wonder who took their dollars"

So who did take their dollars?

And tell me Bobert, If you were ordering 1100 doors, How would you do it so as to avoid hurting any little guys?

You avoid answering and just throw up more Boss Hoggeries that you will also refuse to elaborate on.

In the ************real*********** world, you won't answer the questions. You said you would answer my questions and now you are going back on that.

You claimed you can tell a persons skin color by reading their opinions so who is playing a race card?

How about this quote: "Workers earning the minimum wage or less tend to be young, single workers between the ages of 16 and 25. Only about two percent of workers over 25 years of age earn minimum wages.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Sixty-three percent of minimum wage workers receive raises within one year of employment, and only 15 percent still earn the minimum wage after three years. Furthermore, only 5.3 percent of minimum wage earners are from households below the official poverty line; forty percent of minimum wage earners live in households with incomes $60,000 and higher; and, over 82 percent of minimum wage earners do not have dependents."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 May 07 - 12:07 AM

'"I have to wonder who took their dollars"

So who did take their dollars?'

Don't fuckin' waste my time.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 May 07 - 12:22 AM

"No. The oll companies do NOT pay Alaskans a share. Read the act and you will know a little more about it."

The oil companies pay royalties into the fund, The fund invests it and pays a dividend to Alaskans.

"Contributions from oil make up the vast majority of our royalties, and high oil prices produced the largest royalty deposits to the Fund over the last two years."
http://www.apfc.org/reportspublications/pfhistory.cfm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 May 07 - 12:26 AM

So who did take their dollars? Was it drug dealers, loan sharks, credit card companies? or an oil company?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 May 07 - 01:39 AM

"Ahhhh, as for the guarenteed national income, how can you comment that the model is unworkable as it has never been tried here in the US???"

I presume you are talking about the GMI or BIG concept that ****has**** been tested here in the US and Canada.

I didn't say it was unworkable. According to the experts "the results needed more study"

You see Bobert. I try to answer your questions but you avoid mine.

---

Each family in the test group was given a guaranteed income by the government whether anyone in the family worked or not. There were no strings attached.

The control group got no special treatment. They went about their lives in the normal manner.

Both groups were closely watched by government economists, to learn: Would the test group all quit work and go to the beach? Would they turn into lazy freeloaders? Would they work less than the control group? Would they cheat on reporting income?

The results of the tests showed the men in the test group worked six percent less hours than the men in the control group.

The results were surprisingly consistent. One of the four tests showed test-group husbands worked seven percent less hours than control-group husbands. Two tests showed they worked six percent less. The fourth test showed only one percent less.

The tests were the most massive social experiment ever undertaken. The four experiments were in:

1)        Urban areas in New Jersey and Pennsylvania from 1968-1972 (1300 families).
2)        Rural areas in Iowa and North Carolina from 1969-1973 (800 families).
3)        Gary, Indiana from 1971-1974 (1800 families).
4)        Seattle and Denver, from 1970-1978 (4800 families).

The Seattle-Denver experiment was the biggest. It covered 4879 families (2063 white, 1960 black, 856 Hispanic-American), more than the combined total in the other three tests.

3)        Gary, Indiana from 1971-1974 (1800 families).
4)        Seattle and Denver, from 1970-1978 (4800 families).

The Seattle-Denver experiment was the biggest. It covered 4879 families (2063 white, 1960 black, 856 Hispanic-American), more than the combined total in the other three tests.

Estimated reduction in work hours, by test group compared to control group in four income maintenance experiments:

           NJ-PA        IA-NC        GARY        SEA-DEN
Husbands      6%         1%         7%         6%
Wives            31%        27%        17%        17%                                
Total            13%        13%         8%         9%
Female heads --        --         2%        12%
http://www.usbig.net/papers/013-Sheahen.doc

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 01 May 07 - 02:59 AM

I can guarantee you that if I were offered a deal such as that, and didn't feel I was taking money that others needed, I would never work another day in my life. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 May 07 - 07:50 AM

Some poor reading skills here...

I have never advocated a "guarenteed national income" for just anyone but one for those who, ahhhhhh, ****work****....!!!

(But, Bobert, what about the fact that theei ain't enough jobs to go around??? What about the folks that get laid off when "Boss Hog" closes a pillow palnt in Charlotte and are not working by no choice of their own???)

Well, folks, this is where the ***Bobert Model*** comes into play, which, BTW, has never been tried no matter how much Dickey wants folks to believe it has... Part of the plan is to incorpoarte a "value added" tax to US corporate manufatcured goods rergardless of where they are made... Hun???...

(Well, ain't that like communism or sociailism or some kinda ism other than captitalism, Bobert???)

No, it isn't... It is socio-economic engineering... And its a way to employ Americans and irradicate most poverty in America... And it ain't welfare but workfare...

Heck, if a country can decide to roll habeas corpes, a legal priciple going back to the Magna Carta, then it can certainly find a way to level the playing field for its own citizen's pursuit of happiness...

BTW, Dickey, in my America if I ordered 3 doors prior to "Boss Hog Builders, Inc." then I should get my three doors before "Boss Hog Builders, Inc."... I mean, buttin' in line is a terrible display of bad behavior...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 May 07 - 08:17 AM

Bobert:

Have you hijacked this thread to talk about your personal frustrations about doors?

Can you answer the question about how you would order 1100 doors so as not to hurt the little guys?

If you are so ashamed about underpaying your employees, why don't you build a spec home with them, give them a share of the profits and quit being a Boss Hogg yourself?

More and more I think you are just pulling our leg with this crap. Poverty is about doors? I can't believe a grown man could be so whiney over doors.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 May 07 - 08:01 PM

Hey, listen, apl... It ain't me that keeps bringin' them up... It's you... Reread ***your*** responses to my postings over the last several days and guess what??? Give??? Seems everytimwe I post anything and come back a day later ***you*** have brought up the dpprs yet again so I have been responding to you...

BTW, I have a full time job so I don't sit 24/7 infront of a computer sop that does give you an opportunity to post on the avergae of 2 to 3 times between me havin' any pudder time...

If anyone is tryin' to highjack this, as well as many other threads, it's you... Look up "projection" in yer ol' Psch 201 text book...

But it ain't all about doors but independent contarctors who hire folks who are one ot two pay checksd away from rock bottom... If a supplier decides that I'm not as important as "Boss Hog Builders, Inc" and sends my doors to "Boss Hog Builders, Inc." then guess who get hurt???

No, don't guess 'cause you wouldn't have a clue... My workers, that is who... Right now, I'm havin' to take other smaller jobs just to keep my guys employed while I wait for the doors that I ordered before 'Boss HOg Builders, Inc" who butted in line because they could...

My guys are poor... Dirt friggin' poor... I'm having to hustle my butt off to find anyhting to keep a few beans on their family's tables...

This is a reality that you, Dickey, have no knowledge of since you are all comfy being able to be on a computer almosy any time you want while real working people are oput there working...

That, my friend, is reality...

You think it's okay for the "Boss Hogs" of the world to butt in line, cheat and buy into a governemnt that makes the rules...

No, would you like to respond to the maet and taters of my last post rather than divert attention away from a serious proposal that you would rather not have to contend with because it involves ideas that would go a long way toward elliminating poverty???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 May 07 - 09:57 PM

Bobert:

If it makes you happy I will vote for the ***Bobert Model*** when I have the opportunity. I will also vote for any no butting in line for doors legislation when ever I can. In the mean time I will support raising the minimum wage for citizens and legal aliens and anything that eliminates the causes of poverty.

However you have not said how you would have ordered those doors to prevent problems for others. You know what is wrong but you don't know what is right.

How about the manufacturer. Is he complicit somehow in allowing Boss Hogg to butt in line?

I am really serious about building the spec home and sharing the profits with your down and out employees. I am not just teasing you.

By the way where can I buy R15 and R21 insulation at a discount?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 May 07 - 12:04 AM

"Have you hijacked this thread to talk about your personal frustrations about doors?"

Hey, listen up! This thread ain't hijacked until the person who started it says so. And he ain't said so.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 02 May 07 - 07:40 AM

Exactly, Bruce and thanks...

Now back to the real discuss...

B;]

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 May 07 - 09:27 AM

NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School Poll Poverty in America

Some Highlights:

4. How would you rate your own financial situation today? Would you say it is excellent, good, only fair, or poor?

Excellent7%
Good 43%
only Fair 38%
Poor 11%
Don't know *

6. Would you say you are not doing so well financially because of something you yourself have done or failed to do, because of bad luck, or because of things other people have done to you?
(Results for respondents who rate their own financial situation as only fair or poor)

Something I have failed to do 43%
Bad luck 22%
Things other people have done to me 20&
Don't know 15%
        
        
I draw from this that there are some people classified as poor (12%+) who don't think they are poor.

And I conclude that many of those who think they are poor, blame on themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 02 May 07 - 05:05 PM

Hi y'all. I've been doing some catching up in this thread, and have noticed a common theme. A lot of finger pointing, personal attacks, and just general complaining, but not a lot of solutions to poverty, which is the subject, is it not ? (I bet I get jumped on over this one...). Also, way too much talk about doors, and Boss Hogg (never really liked the Dukes anyhow). As far as poverty goes, I mean if anyone actually wants to discuss it, lets look at todays jobs report. The USA created 65,000 new jobs this week. However, I suspect not too many will argue with this..."full employment will do little to reduce poverty". How about a cap on rents (that might hurt the landlords who have to pay outrageous prices for real estate), okay, how about a cap on real estate prices (smoke another one, you say ?), okay then let's raise the minimum wage to compensate for higher cost of living. Great idea, but we wouldn't want to hurt the Wal-Marts of the country, would we ? (Im being facecious). Let's face it, the USA is based on capitalism, which tends to create a large gap between the rich and poor. This will always be the way it is, however, on CNBC today, they mentioned that philanthropy is on the rise, (remember Warren Buffett ?) It would only take one Bill Gates to solve poverty in the USA forever. (lets see, say 50 million poor would get about half a million each, not bad). Or maybe get the heck out of Iraq, how many billions would that save ? If the US wanted to, they could completely eliminate poverty, without hurting the rich at all, although they might have to cut back on their 'pork barrel' programs and other such wastefullness. Blame your government, I say. I think they may have another agenda other than the well-being of the people they represent.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 02 May 07 - 07:01 PM

Yup, AWG, you are right... The governemnt does have another agenda and that is serving the folks who have bought it: rich people...

This is not a government of the people an for the people... It is very much a governemnt that sucks the life outta the middle class and the poor because the rich wants it to...

This may seem to be a "complaint" against the government and, well, it very much is... but beyond that it's also an observation...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 May 07 - 10:40 PM

I learned today the Warren Buffet has given $30.7 billion to the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. Bill Gates has pledged to donate 90% of his fortune, $50 billion currently, before his death.

Not bad for the world's #1 and #2 Boss Hoggs.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 May 07 - 11:20 PM

"It would only take one Bill Gates to solve poverty in the USA forever. (lets see, say 50 million poor would get about half a million each, not bad)."

That would get poor people about $1000 each.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 03 May 07 - 07:46 AM

Sorry Peace, I based my figure on 25 billion donation = 500 thousand each, but actually it works out to $500, not $500 thousand (bad math, did it quick in my head, but added too many zeroes). I stand corrected.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 03 May 07 - 07:47 AM

I guess it will take a few more Bill Gates', but is still quite doable.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 May 07 - 08:33 AM

"because the rich wants it to" How so Bobert?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 03 May 07 - 01:55 PM

Dickey - For the same reason the rich wanted slaves.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 03 May 07 - 07:43 PM

Well said, d....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 May 07 - 08:07 PM

I thought Bobert could speak for himself and elaborate on his claims.

I can see how slave owners benefitted from having slaves but It still does not explain why rich people want the government to suck the life out of the middle class and the poor.

Bobert: You should look up Paranoid personality disorder.

Paranoid personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that denotes a personality disorder with paranoid features. It is characterized by an exaggerated sensitivity to rejection, resentfulness, distrust, as well as the inclination to distort experienced events. Neutral and friendly actions of others are often misinterpreted as being hostile or contemptuous. Unfounded suspicions regarding the sexual loyalty of partners and loyalty in general as well as the belief that one's rights are not being recognized is stubbornly and argumentatively insisted upon. Such individuals can possess an excessive self-assurance and a tendency toward an exaggerated self-reference.

You evidently believe I am picking on you but all I want is explanations for these conflicting and ubfounded things you say. Instead you duck and dodge and try to discredit me for asking.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 May 07 - 08:30 PM

As for the claim about Exxon/Mobile being a cause for poverty, I would like to state that drug companies make a much larger profit margin, in particular th Pfizer profit margin in 2006 15.7% VS Exxon 10.6%

While looking for the side effects of taking anti-depressabts, I found this evidence of corporate greed:

Since 1988 the pharmaceutical companies (starting with Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of "Prozac") have advertised to the people (direct to consumer) as well as to their family doctors, that if you suffer from depressive feelings, you must have a "biochemical imbalance" in your brain. The advertising finger was pointed at the neurotransmitter "serotonin", and it is used to explain nearly any emotional problem a person might have nowadays. Many other pharmaceutical companies came out with so many variants on the SSRI-antidepressant to try and capitalize on its popularity, by spreading this theory even further amongst the people. Theory? Yes, only a theory!

The Truth is that nobody in the medical field really knows if a "biochemical imbalance" is the cause of any mental disorder, and they do not know how even the hypothesized "biochemical imbalances" could produce the emotional, cognitive, and behavioural symptoms that characterize any mental disorder. Clever marketing tactics exercised on us by the pharmaceutical industry, prevailed above scientifical evidence and research. Greed, dis-respect and contempt of the population, prevailed above altruism, medical care and responsibility. It's the greatest shame of of this era. More information:

    * The Invention of the Biochemical Imbalance Myth
    * Organic conditions that are commonly misdiagnosed as mental disease
    * Can Psychiatry Be Retrieved From a Biological Approach?
    * Neuroscientist Elliot S. Valenstein Says No to Drugs ...."

http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/introduction.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,RRR
Date: 03 May 07 - 08:57 PM

I am poor in the USA

However, I am rich, Rich, RICH....throughout the rest of the world.

I could hire a Canadian to do my job, collect 2/3 his pay and give him back the other 1/3....and we both live as PRINCES in our own country. The best part is neither of us pay taxes....for me...he is a "contract expence" and for him "he is on the Candian Dole" visits family twice a month to collect the cheque.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 May 07 - 09:42 PM

This is a small thing but I don't want Dickey to get or give the idea that Big Oil is giving Alaskans a share of their profits, out of the goodness of their hearts.

The State of Alaska exacts royalties from BP, Exxon, Conoco Phillips and others in the amount agreed upon. Alaska then divvies up the money for its own uses. The Alaska Permanent Fund dividend is one of the uses.

Here is a good summing up of the plan. Note that the principal is not touched.

"The Alaska Permanent Fund1 is a case study in a new concept of the role of government - that of agent to equitably distribute resource rents to the people, thereby securing democratic common heritage rights to land and natural resources.

"Purchased from Russia in 1867, Alaska became the 49th state in 1959. Under the Alaska Constitution (Article VIII. Section 2. General Authority) all the natural resources of Alaska belong to the state to be used, developed and conserved for the maximum benefit of the people.

"Ten years after statehood the first Prudhoe Bay oil lease sale yielded $900 million from oil companies for the right to drill oil on 164 tracts of state-owned land. Compared to the 1968 total state budget of $112 million, this was a huge windfall.
By legislative consensus, the original $900 million was spent to provide for basic community needs such as water and sewer systems, schools, airports, health and other social services.

"Although the oil fields were proving to be the largest in North America, Alaskans came to agree that a portion of this wealth should be saved for the future when the oil runs out. In 1976 voters approved a constitutional amendment, proposed by Governor Jay Hammond and modified by the legislature, which stated that at least 25% of all mineral lease rentals, royalties, royalty sale proceeds, federal mineral revenue-sharing payments, and bonuses received by the State shall be placed in a permanent fund, the principal of which shall be used only for those income-producing investments specifically designated by law as eligible for permanent fund investments.
"The Alaska Permanent Fund was thus established as a state institution with the task of responsibly administering and conserving oil and other resource royalties for the citizenry.
There are two parts to the Fund: principal and income. The principal is invested permanently and cannot be spent without a vote of the people. Fund income can be spent, decisions as to its use being made each year by the legislature and the Governor."

If You're Interested...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 May 07 - 10:22 PM

Dianavan: If you read what I wrote you will see that I said they would not do it voluntarily.

"Yes, the oil companies would not share in the oil revenues with Alaskans voluntarily but they never the less pay them a share and help to aleviate poverty at least in Alaska."

They pay them a share in the form of royalties paid into the fund and the fund gives it to the people.

Is there something incorrect about this statement?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 May 07 - 10:31 PM

Southern Man:

I heard screamin' and bullwhips crackin'..............

"So, yeah... Revolution is a very real possibility... The US is one Dr Martin Luther King away from Southern Man connecting the dots... Oh sure, as in the past cororate America will assasinate the next Dr. King, as they did the last time around, but once the seed is planted and Southern Man gets it corporate America won't find a PR firm that will turn it around...

Are there any other scenerios???"

Alabama Militia Planned Violent Attacks on Mexicans

10:00 H | Topics: Alabama - Immigration - Justice

Last week six men were arrested accused of being part of the Alabama Free Militia plotting a machine-gun attack on Mexicans. During the arrests federal police recovered truckloads of explosives and weapons, including 130 grenades, an improvised rocket launcher and 2,500 rounds of ammunition. Yesterday five of those arrested were denied bail and the sixth man was granted a $10,000 bond. The charges? No, not terrorism but a pretty weak charge of conspiracy to make a firearm, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

http://vivirlatino.com/

Does Southern Man feel threatened by Corporate America or Illegal immigrants?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 May 07 - 10:59 PM

pttui...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 04 May 07 - 12:07 AM

Southern man feels threatened by anything that ain't him. In the lexicon of foolish posts to Mudcat, that one ranks in the top ten.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 04 May 07 - 03:08 AM

"Is there something incorrect about this statement?" - Dickey

Well dude, I could care less about your statements. You can't even address the right people.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 04 May 07 - 07:37 AM

Yeeeeeee Hawwwwwwww !!!! Just woke and it's a wonderful day, sun shining and birds chirping (and a squirrel raiding the bird feeder). For the moment life is good. Who needs money ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 04 May 07 - 07:44 AM

Dianavan, you should find Bobert and Dickey and the 3 of you should have a great big cyber hug. Be kind and love each other, and be thankful for the life you all have. Peace to all.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 04 May 07 - 09:50 AM

Excuse me. That was Ebbie I was responding to.


"be thankful for the life you all have." I am.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 May 07 - 11:58 AM

from the Washington Post:

If Democrats Want to Help the Poor . . .

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, May 4, 2007; Page A23

Republicans once preached compassion, but then went off to war. Democrats waged a war on poverty, but then lost some elections. They decided the middle class is where it's at.

But the poor are still with us, and their ranks are growing. One in eight Americans lives in poverty, which seems obscene given that the really rich are enjoying a level of privilege that makes the Gilded Age Vanderbilts look like abstemious Puritans.

"Rising inequality" is a bloodless term. But consider the facts behind the phrase: In 2005, the richest 1 percent of Americans had 19 percent of the nation's income, the largest share since 1929; the poorest 20 percent had only 3.4 percent.

The historically inclined will recall that 1929 was the year of the great Wall Street crash, which was followed by the Great Depression. History suggests that concentrating wealth and income in a small group of privileged people is bad for economic growth.

One reason our nation has maintained generally healthy levels of economic growth is our success in spreading income around -- particularly from the 1940s to the early 1970s. This created more purchasing power among an ever-larger group of Americans. We are thus tempting fate by following the formula of Andrew Mellon, the Republican Treasury secretary in the Roaring '20s who never met a tax cut for the rich he didn't like. He was rather popular until 1929.

Here's the odd thing about the present moment: As a country, we are much more practical about poverty reduction than we were in the 1960s. Most plans on offer are not utopian schemes. They promote work and would build ladders so today's poor can become tomorrow's middle class.

That's the significance of the anti-poverty report issued last week by the Center for American Progress, the think tank that is the closest thing we have to a Democratic administration in exile. The report deserves more attention than it has gotten, not because it breaks new ground but precisely because it brings together some of the most pragmatic ideas on poverty reduction. The task force that prepared it included veteran liberals such as Peter Edelman and Angela Glover Blackwell but also resolute middle-of-the-roaders such as the Rev. Floyd Flake, a champion of faith-based approaches to poverty, and Charles Kolb, president of the pro-business Committee for Economic Development.

Their first recommendations aren't revolutionary, just sensible: They'd raise the minimum wage, and they'd expand the earned-income tax credit, a program supported by Ronald Reagan and expanded by Bill Clinton. That tax credit has done more than any other measure to keep working Americans out of poverty. The task force would also make unionization easier, on the theory that giving workers the power to bargain for themselves is better than a government handout.

More should be done for 16- to 24-year-olds near or below the poverty line who are out of school and out of work. In 2005, the report says, there were 1.7 million of them, a number big enough to be alarming but small enough to give public policy a chance to make a difference.

Other recommendations are designed to promote upward mobility through expanded child-care assistance, "early education for all" and stepped-up efforts to make higher education more accessible. The panel would modernize the unemployment insurance system and other programs for low-income people that date back 30 years or more. Capitalists should like their proposals to give the poor more access to financial services and expand their ability to save. And to prevent a new crime wave, the task force urges us to do a lot more to "help former prisoners find stable employment and reintegrate into their communities."

Will all this cost money? You bet, about $90 billion a year -- a little over one-fifth of the annual cost of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, many of which benefit the rich. This would not break the bank of a country with a $13 trillion gross domestic product, and it's for programs that cannot be demonized as more of "the failed old liberalism."

The new Democratic majority in Congress seems determined to "fix" the alternative minimum tax, which unfairly pushes many middle- and upper-middle-income taxpayers into brackets they shouldn't be in. That's just fine. But these taxpayers are still doing reasonably well after taxes. A lot of Americans in the ranks of the working poor are not doing well, and they are people with whom Democrats claim a special bond.

And it would be awfully nice if Republicans revisited their commitment to compassion. As President Bush knew in 2000, swing voters like that sort of thing.

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 04 May 07 - 08:09 PM

Thanks for the article, bb...

I haven't gotten to the op ed page as yet today (and might not seein' as I have a gig tomorrow to get ready for) but E.J. has it purdy much right on....

Thanks again...

BTW, the Repubs don't get 100% of the blame... Well over 50% maybe but the Dems ain't done jack either...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 05 May 07 - 07:40 AM

BTW, if one looks at some of the principle componemts of what the Center for American Progress has propsosed you see that the crux of what they have come up with is not unlike the "Bobert Plan"...

In fixing and expanding the "earned income tax credits" program thaey are, in essence" creating a "guarenteed minimum income" for folks who ***choose*** to work...

By raising the minumum wage they understand that fighting poverty is a public/private partnership and that employers will be asked to make some sacrifices in the deal...

And by expanding "child care" programs, something that I've been talking about for months now, they understand the ***reality*** that our country has way too manmy single parent households and that employement is not possible in poor households without this greatly needed help...

Again, thanks beardedbruce (thought I never say that...) and thanks to E.J. Dionne for his thoughful op ed piece...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 05 May 07 - 11:20 AM

"***reality*** that our country has way too manmy single parent households and that employement is not possible in poor households without this greatly needed help..."

I agree with this 100% but I would like to point out that merely supporting these single parent households and making them successful eventually causes more single parent households and increases the need for support rather than to decrease it. Therefore it does decrease poverty in a temporary semse but increses the need for overall assistance. To me, that does not translate to reducing poverty.

The poor must be educated to the point where they can make the proper choices in life. Giving them a saftey net so they can get immediate gratification without any negative consequences is not education but a stopgap measure to cover for a lack of education. To me the carrot on a stick approach means that poor people are inherently dumb and need to be treated like subhumans.

I shudder to think of the future of a society where people can do any stupid, self destructive thing they want to do without suffering any consequences.

Yes, there are business sectors and corporations that prey on poor people, middle class too for that matter, in collusion with the government through lobbying and contributions and outright corruption. I think they should be identified and corrections should be made.

A general overall comdenation and blaming of rich folks, white folks, slavery, corporations etc, is as wrong as blaming poor people for crime.

I get this mental picture of people marching up to Frankenstein's castle with pitchforks and torches ready to mob the castle or people looting stores during a riot to get what is "rightfully theirs". Civil disorder will only result in more civil disorder. That is what civilization is about.

One first step would be to somehow take the big money out of political campaigns. Why should it cost so much to campaign in this day of the internet? It reminds me of racing these days where the group that can spend the most money wins and not the driver and team with the most skill. Money driven politics needs to be replaced with results driven politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 05 May 07 - 02:36 PM

"...supporting these single parent households and making them successful eventually causes more single parent households..." - Dickey

Where is your proof for that outlandish statement?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 May 07 - 02:53 PM

"I agree with this 100% but I would like to point out that merely supporting these single parent households and making them successful eventually causes more single parent households and increases the need for support rather than to decrease it. Therefore it does decrease poverty in a temporary semse but increses the need for overall assistance. To me, that does not translate to reducing poverty.

"The poor must be educated to the point where they can make the proper choices in life. Giving them a saftey net so they can get immediate gratification without any negative consequences..." Dickey

I suppose by that, you are saying that if a prospective single parent should have a guaranteed income, said parent would happily troop off and set up a separate household.

Tell me, would you agree that there are parents in this country who, in spite of abuse and neglect, do not feel able to survive financially on their own? If getting that income makes it possible for that person to leave the existing situation, I say more power to her, or him.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 05 May 07 - 03:20 PM

"Where is your proof for that outlandish statement" Does the number keep increasing?

"I suppose by that, you are saying that if a prospective single parent should have a guaranteed income, said parent would happily troop off and set up a separate household."

Offspring of said parent would happily troop off and set up another single parent household, not necessarily by choice but for the same reasons they were in a single family household. Is this not happening?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 05 May 07 - 05:32 PM

Dickey, Dickey, Dickey...

I couldn't disgaree with you more about your assertion that supporting single parent families will increase the number of them... This is mind boggling logic...

Anything that society can do to bring more stability to children growing up in one parent households will create a higher level of security for the child and therefore creat a more psoitive environment for that child to grow... I don't even think this is arguable...

Now as for education??? I agree... How would you suggest we get there without spending more money??? Charter schools??? They aren't proving to be any better than public education... So what is Dickey's answer???

Aow as to armed revolution and Frankensteins castle and all that... As I have pointed out and now E.J. Fionne has pointed out we have a major problem with hording wealth by the upper 1%... Same as back in 1929... Things happen for a reason... This trend alone will bring about a revoultion of one kind or another... Wouldn't be so bad but the upper 1% doesn't have enough class to not flaunt their corraled wealth... Its disgusting...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 May 07 - 12:43 AM

One of the most striking changes in family structure over the last twenty years has been the increase in single-parent families. In 1970, the number of single-parent families with children under the age of 18 was 3.8 million. By 1990, the number had more than doubled to 9.7 million. For the first time in history, children are more likely to reside in a single-parent family for reasons other than the death of a parent. One in four children are born to an unmarried mother, many of whom are teenagers. Another 40 percent of children under 18 will experience parental breakup.

Ninety percent of single-parent families are headed by females. Not surprisingly, single mothers with dependent children have the highest rate of poverty across all demographic groups (Olson & Banyard, 1993). Approximately 60 percent of U.S. children living in mother-only families are impoverished, compared with only 11 percent of two-parent families. The rate of poverty is even higher in African-American single-parent families, in which two out of every three children are poor.

http://www.hec.ohio-state.edu/famlife/bulletin/volume.1/bullart1.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 06 May 07 - 09:41 AM

Well, yeah... Ain't that what a lot of have been sayin'???

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 May 07 - 09:55 AM

In 1970, the number of single-parent families with children under the age of 18 was 3.8 million. By 1990, the number had more than doubled to 9.7 million.

In 20 years, while the war on poverty was being waged full force, before the horrible cuts blamed on the current administration, the number of single parent families doubled. Ergo: Did the support for single parent families reduce or increase the number of single parent families?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:09 AM

Societal norms gradually changed as the result of so many wives and mother's going to work for pay during WWII. Other changes directly traceable to WWII also occurred. The USA was a sleeping bear pre WWII. The technologies and manufacturing capacities that we developed to supply the troops of the West radically and permanently changed our economic system, led to rise of major corporations as societal influences, began the shift away from agrarian (spell?) norms, resulted in increased mobility, in population shifts, in the loss of community and social supports that were essential to the care and maintenance of the nuclear family, etc., etc. The 'Welfare State' arose in response to these changes. It did not cause these changes.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:22 AM

In the past 20 years the number of single parent families might have doubled, but so have the numbers of a lot of other groups, say prison populations. To say that helping single parent families causes an increase in single parent families simply makes me want to bang my head against the wall. The reason for the increase in single parent families is (imo) because all young people want to do is party and have sex, check the stats on teenage pregnancy. If today's youth had any ambition to actually better themselves and had goals in life other than how they will spend Saturday night, and with whom, then maybe things might be different. Todays youth have lost touch with God, and find themselves in a downward spiral, so to speak. I mean, let's be honest, it it wasn't for unprotected sex, how would all these single parent families exist. Young girls must be naive to think a young man would want to stick around to raise a family (assuming the girl even knows who the father is). Okay now, everyone jump down my throat.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 06 May 07 - 01:16 PM

Well, AWG, no one has styuck with this discussion this long i the hopes of finding openings to jump down anyone's throat... Actually. by Mudcat standards, this discussion has been one of the most civil for those with this high number of posts...

Three things you hit upon are things that I think most of us can agree on and that is young poor people (generally speaking) need a greater spiritual relationship, achievable goals and education, yes, including sex education...

How do you see this occuring???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 06 May 07 - 02:06 PM

"Did the support for single parent families reduce or increase the number of single parent families?" - Dickie

Correlation is not causal.

Perhaps you and AWG should be looking at why the number of single parent families have increased. Its certainly NOT because of the amount of support that has been received. Would you rather these women stay in abusive and/or dyfunctional relationships?

Thats a very old argument and does nothing but blame the poor. Moral judgements only provide a justification for keeping them down.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 06 May 07 - 05:38 PM

Well, if single parents had the time to pay attention to what was going on in their children's lives and be there to supervise them, it would help a great deal.

I don't believe in punishing single parents, but I do believe we'd all be better off if society (in terms of economics, social programs and "values") was more geared towards supporting couples and extended families to help them raise responsible children. Subsidized child care should be available to help families in crisis. Period.

Also, sometimes when we focus on the childcare issue (who pays so that parents can work outside the home?) we forget that teens who are getting pregnant aren't directly touched by this issue.

I am fortunate to be able to work only one (1) very flexible full-time job while keeping tabs on two teenagers. Many, many parents are not so fortunate. I do what I do because I have to, but strongly believe that two parents focused on a child's raising (preferably married to each other and supporting ONE household, not two) is absolutely key to produceing responsible children. In the absence of that you find a preponderance of IRresponsible children who may not understand the consequences of their actions, and have no good way to learn about relationships and families by example so that they perpetuate untenable situations.

There are way too many ways for them to fall through the cracks.

Dani (who has been lurking, listening, learning)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 06 May 07 - 05:55 PM

"I do what I do because I have to, but strongly believe that two parents focused on a child's raising (preferably married to each other and supporting ONE household, not two) is absolutely key to produceing responsible children." - Dani

That is bullshit. I have two very responsible children (a contractor and an architect) who were raised by a single mother. Furthermore, I know of plenty of children raised in a nuclear family who are in big trouble with stealing, racing, promiscuity, drinking and drugs. Just because you're married doesn't mean you are good parent or insure that your children will become responsible adults.

Take a look at Paris Hilton. Whats her excuse?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 06 May 07 - 07:55 PM

There are exceptions, and exceptional people, and I'm glad your children are some of them.

But we are talking in this thread about poverty. And when you are struggling every day to figure out how to juggle which bills to pay and which not, how to handle the pressure and stress of day-to-day existence and maintain your personal sanity and health, it makes it extraordinarily difficult to give children and their needs (healthcare, school work, just plain time) the attention and care they require. It just is. And that's normal life. Imagine throwing into that mix any kind of problem (drug use, illness, injury, mental health issues, academic challenges) and it is quickly overwhelming.

And you can forget about people in such situations being involved in public schools (which desperately need parental and community involvement to succeed), and you can forget about their being involved in meaningful ways in community, neighborhood, nation, advocating for themselves and their needs. They're too damned tired, and rightfully so.

This is only one ingredient in the disaster of poverty and hopelessness.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:18 PM

But Dani - Being in a nuclear family does not protect you from any of the set-backs or pitfalls that you mention. Its not single parenting that creates any of those problems and nuclear families are no guarantee that the parents will be capable of handling those problems, either. I know couples who are so busy making each other miserable that they have little or no time for their children and others who think if they give their kids everything (except discipline) they will be loved.

All parents are overwhelmed at times. Most parents can cope with pressure and stress and still have time to devote to their children - being single or married doesn't make the difference. A double income might. It certainly helps if healthcare is paid, you have housing and some sort of assistance to see you through the tough times. As a single mom I had to deal with injury, serious illness and academic challenges but with part-time work and student loans, we made it.

As I said before, single parenting is not the cause of poverty and does not lead to more poverty if there is social assistance. I had no spousal support or immediate family to help me. The only thing that helped me overcome was universal healthcare, an educational loan and govt. assistance (School clothes and supplies for the kids, Christmas and summer holidays) when we needed it.

Just because my children have been raised by a single mom does not mean they do not want life-partners. My son has found his life mate and they are very happy. My daughter is still looking but in the meantime, she has been going to university and looking after herself.

Those of you who are hanging on to the notion that single parents are a blight on the landscape, are doing the children of those families a great diservice. Both of my children had to overcome that prejudice. It certainly doesn't help when society thinks that you don't have a chance.

I am totally grateful to be living in a country that gave me and my kids opportunities but at the same time, we need to provide more support for those who do not have the skills to overcome the many obstacles that are placed before them.

Neglect and abuse create poverty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 May 07 - 12:32 AM

If I am completely wrong then support of single parent families reduces the number of single parent families or at least keeps the number from increasing. Correct or am I wrong again?

Single aprent families do not automatically mean failure and nuclear families do not necessarilay mean sucess but the sucess rate is lower among single parent families.

I just heard today about a couple who kept their 5 and 10 year old sons in dog cages.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070503/NEWS03/705030400/-1/NEWS

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 07 May 07 - 03:21 AM

I don't think there are any figures to show that single parent families create more single parent families or vice versa.

I think pointing the finger at single parent families as a cause for anything is misleading and prejudicial.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 07 - 07:23 AM

Single or two parent families may be morwe of a red herring issue... What we were talking about the lack of resources... Okay, a stay at home mom 'r dad **might** be a resource but this isn't a given...

I do agree with Dani that we need to put more money into ***subsidized child care***...

BTW, as I ready myself to go to work this mornin' I kinda wonder what I would be doing now if my son were 8 years old and still living with me and I didn't have the P-Vine to help out... I certainly wouldn't have the time to sit here at a computer participating in this discussion... Now take my situation and throw poverty into the equation and the word "nightmare" comes into play...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 May 07 - 01:12 PM

Sociological research shows that illegitimate children are seventy percent more likely to be expelled from school; half as likely to do well in school; over twice as likely to have illegitimate children themselves; almost twice as likely to get divorced if they ever do marry; less likely to use contraceptives as teenagers; 25 to 50 percent more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, hyperactivity, or excessive dependence; twice as likely to engage in antisocial behavior; and two to three times more likely to need psychiatric care. All these results are based on studies that held other variables (such as race, parental income, or parental education) constant.

http://www.i2i.org/main/article.php?article_id=479

This does not say that support for single parent families causes the children to have illegetimate childern,although it could be a factor.

I think the empahsis should be placed on preventing single parent families. Otherwise the number of single parent familes will keep growing.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 07 May 07 - 03:38 PM

Whenever you see terms like, "Sociological research shows...", you can almost guarantee that no such research exists. If it did, the source would be given. Add to that the fact that the article was written by Dave Kopel, and you know for certain that there is absolutely no truth to his point of view.

Blaming poverty on illegitimate children or single parent families is stereotyping at its worst. Like bobert said, its a red herring.

You're just trying to justify your own reason for existence. What if children didn't need two parents? Where would that leave you? What if your wife decided that she didn't really need an ignorant, gun-toting, red-neck to pass his beliefs on to their children? Would the children be better off without you? I think they might.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 07 - 05:42 PM

But for the purpose of discussion, Dickey, let's for a moment assume that the "sociological research" is true, how do we change the cycle???

Yeah, can we get betond the blame game and look at some things that we, as a moral society, can do to change things 'cause waht we are doin', in the words of Doctor Phil, "Ain't workin' fir us..."...

I mean, passing deiculous laws that pretain to some folks and not others ain't the answer... You know, like requireing all poor people to marry ot have their tubes tied or whatever crap the right wing can come up to further disenfranchise and seperate the poor...

I have laid out the basic premises of what I think can work of a guarenteed national income thru low income tax credits, coupled with greater subsidies for child care for anyone willing to work...

I have proposed paying for it by:

1. Creating a "value added tax" on all goods produced by US corporation regardless of who produces them...

and...2. Rolling back the tas breaks to the upper 1%...

I haven't heard any of Dickey's or AWG's ideas but would love tyo hear them....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 May 07 - 07:22 PM

Bobert, I've been reading the latest posts and agree with most of what I've read. I think my views on poverty, though seen by some as harsh, are at least put clearly forward. I strongly feel that society must start to accept some personal responsibility for their situation, and stop looking for a free lunch courtesy of the US taxpayer. Bear in mind, this would only apply to those physically and mentally able to work. There will always be those who need the assistance. As far as single parent families go, why does everyone seem to feel the need to have children when they know damn well they are unable to properly support them ?   It is a different situation when a couple splits up and a single parent family results, but then isn't it the father's responsibility to support these children ? Why doesn't the government get tougher with deadbeat dads ? Why further burden the taxpayer ? For those single parents who really need the help, I agree with your ideas, Bobert, however since relying on the government to bail people out when they get in trouble is wishful thinking at best, (in most cases), society will continue to rely on philanthropy. Let's hope it continues to increase in the future. ..... and I can't emphasise enough the importance of the role of the school system. Poverty is a vicious circle and one sure way to reduce it would be to start with the children.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 May 07 - 07:44 PM

Here's the deal..the moral society runs two ways...the haves do have an obligation to help the unfortunate, and the have nots have to totally behave themselves so as to cause the least amount of burden to the taxpayers, who themselves are working in coal mines, 7-11s, etc.

I can not say strongly enough how much I hate the idea of a woman deciding that she can just go ahead and have a baby without benefit of marriage. I think it is child abuse in some cases because some children, not all, suffer tremendously from lack of a father. I am not talking poor women, uneducated women, I am talking about Katie Holmes, Movie Star...rich women, powerful women. I think it is just plain an awful thing to do. There is no shortage of children to adopt or take in as foster children (and yes I would have like to do it myself and might be able to when I retire..foster, not adoption). It is unbearably cruel to some, not all children, to deny them a father, and not just a father, but the father's economic support, the father's family...I could go on and on. I am passionate about this. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 May 07 - 08:17 PM

Also, heard of global warming? Remember Katrina? See the pictures of the latest tornados? Who is safer? A child or children with a father, or single mothers and children? We live in dangerous times, with terrorism, natural disasters etc...Most societies are very strict about this and disregard this at their peril. I think some..again, not all...things rarely apply to everyone...children are fundamentally frightened without a father, some with good and immediate reason because they live in dangerous places.

Also, a little point I might raise...there are some very disturbed women out there...and not to say that having a father around would undisturb them, but there is a witness, there is another parent....of course said mother could make things very difficult for the father...

Two things I have read that strike me as very important about the role of the father..besides being a loving parent, a protector and provider of some sort...

1. A man wrote to a Vancouver WA paper and said the function of a father was to protect society from his children.

2. Bob Dylan said the function of a father was to protect them from the mother...

I am not blaming the victim ..except the rich ones who frankly should know better and in my opinion are being just horribly selfish...but there needs to be an understanding of the damage this is doing to everyone, the children first and foremost, the father who might want to be involved but isn't, the mother's parents who often bear a burden they shouldn't have to, the taxpayers often...

Yes..I believe that this has spread, will continue to spread and will seriously affect the economics of the country when some people have to work way too hard and too much to take care of other people's children, which we must do...but there has to be personal accountability and there has to be less, way less, enabling and almost sanctifying this...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 07 - 08:52 PM

So, I beg the question... Do we ask our legislators to ban divorce???.... Do we legislate that any single parent who recieves any assistence be forced into marriage???... If no suiters are available do we demand that the single parent marry someone who the state appoints???...

Imean, let's get real here for one moment... We aren't going to legislate our country's way out of povertyy thru moralistic codification... That is what the Taliban is all about... So...

... I'd really like for the folks here who have laid blame at the feet of the poor and want to legislate how the poor must accept this "personal responsiblity" for their plight to talk about specific ideas on how to end the cyle of poverty...

I can accept, though disagree with every bone in my body, your position that poor people shold be sterilized, but beyond the Hitler-ish remedies I haven't yet heard one "rightie" say anything about how to get from A to B...

So, Dickey, mg, AWG, et al: How 'bout some ideas... We are beyond the observations, the critiques, the pablum stage of the discussion... I have thrown out my ideas which seem to something that that *** you folks*** (for lack of a better phrase...) don't have much, if any thing, to say much about...

I mean, sure, we'd like poor folks to make better choices but ya' ain't gonna have much more luck with that than passing legislation outlawing cancer???

We're pushing, what, some 8 or 9 hundred posts now, and it's time for the ***blamers*** to get real and step to the plate...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 May 07 - 09:09 PM

Bobert, if what you say is true, that is, it is virtually impossible to get poor people to make good decisions, then short of handouts there really is no solution to poverty. The topic makes for interesting and sometimes heated discussion, but at the end of the day we must be realistic and accept the fact that poverty is here to stay. Ive offered some potential solutions, being raising minimum wage, tax breaks for those below the poverty line, government assistance for childcare, starting a business, food stamps, all of which are currently available (correct me if Im wrong, please), or in the works. I mean really, what more can we do ? The answer lies with education, not handouts. Give a man a fish, you know the rest. The whole idea of such a rich country having even one poor person makes me bang my head against the wall !!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 07 - 09:11 PM

"Give a man a fish, you know the rest."

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll sit in the boat and drink beer.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 07 May 07 - 09:14 PM

Start with chaperoning older children and young teens. No one should be physically able to get pregnant at the age of 14 because they should not have the opportunity. After school programs until mother is home from work or if mothers or fathers are not working they should band together and watch the kids. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 07 May 07 - 09:17 PM

Food stamps somewhat like WIC program, where they have to purchase mostly real food, with perhaps 10% of coupons special for treats, junk foods, etc. Meats, fruits, vegetables, rice, beans, dairy OK. Top ramen, kraft dinner in 10% junk food category. Food stamps good at farmer's markets. If rural, or there is room, community gardens and dairies, perhaps with goats. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 07 - 09:19 PM

This for every 14 year old, mg, or just for poor 14 years olds???

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 07 May 07 - 09:24 PM

Each and every student past age of 14 meets with vocational counselor, who includes economics of having children too early and sans partner. Not from a religious or moral perspective, just economic, both to them and what they are doing to others in just barely better circumstances. Boss Hog will still be OK but remember the chicken slaughterer who occasionally slices off his or her arm is paying for this so spend their money wisely.

Bottom line: don't do anything that hurts anyone, that reasonably scares anyone, and that costs people money, if you can help it. There will be plenty of people who are disabled, mentally or physically, who must be helped, that we just can not afford to constantly increase the pool of people.

Tell them two things. One, finish high school and take occupational education while there. Two, stay off drugs and alcohol, especially drugs. Three, do not get pregnant and do not get anyone pregnant. Make them watch about three Jerry Springer shows.

Start with the easiest, most fundamental step: telling them not to do it and that it hurts people. Many many will just comply. Trust me. In my experience, which is wide-ranging, this notion that if you tell someone they can't do something they are just going to want to do it,is just not true for the majority of kids.....most are fairly compliant.

Talk with them in groups, in assemblies, and most importantly, one to one. Use vocational counseling as the opportunity...family planning is part of it.

Address these young boys who think it is cool to father a bunch of babies by different girls. If they can not provide child support, and are not working, they should be working in some sort of free capacity cleaning graffiti or picking up trash or something, and I mean a good 40 hours a week. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 07 May 07 - 09:25 PM

every. Of course. Anything I say ever is for every. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 May 07 - 11:16 PM

Please explain where I am "Blaming poverty on illegitimate children or single parent families"

Poverty is the result of illegitimate children and/or single parent
families.

---

Social scientists have demonstrated conclusively that divorce, illegitimacy, and lack of fathering contribute to poverty, poor achievement in school and throughout life, greater crime, greater drug abuse, lower mortality, poorer health, and a litany of social ills. Truly four out of five children will not grow up with an intact family by the year 2010. The poverty rate for a child in a single-parent home is six times above that of a child in a married, two-parent home. Typically, the household income of a divorced family declines 37 percent.

# Research suggests a connection between positive fathering during childhood and maintaining long-term marriages and close friendships during adulthood. (Franz, McLelland & Weinberger, 1991)
# A white female growing up fatherless is 2½ times more likely to have a child out of wedlock. 40 percent of the fatherless white females do not finish high school.
# 70 percent of the African-American males without fathers do not finish high school.
However, in Chattanooga, 74 percent of those polled agreed that "in most cases, children raised in a home with both natural parents grow up more stable emotionally than do children with one parent." Only 18 percent strongly agreed that "most fathers in Chattanooga are sufficiently involved in raising their children," while 24 percent agree somewhat.

http://www.firstthings.org/inflow/templates/default.aspx?a=121&z=32

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 May 07 - 11:43 PM

Bobert:

I really don't know how to break the cycle. I am not a sociologist. But I do know that just providing support, while it does aleviate the suffering, does not break the cycle.

There are lots of ways to prevent teen pregnancys but the teen must use them. It is like trying to keep them from using drugs or smoking or drinking or stealing.

It seems like a job for parents rather than the government but what do you do with one parent who messed up?

It is not about morals. It is about common sense. Is immediate sexual gratification worth ruining the rest of your life? Is puffing on that cigarette and being cool worth dying 20 years early in pain and suffering?

I don't see religion and morals entering into it. What religion or morals guided prehistoric people to live in families and groups?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 12:08 AM

The sociologists are not the only ones who can say how to break the cycle. They have part of the picture. They do not have the whole entire picture. Everyone needs to be heard from -- one group that is extremely important, but probably way underused, is occupational therapists. Get some no-nonsense nurses on board. The kind you don't mess with. Law enforcement. Technology experts that can provide lighting and alarms etc. to make places safer, video monitoring. Nutritionists, if they are totally up to date and knowledgeable, which is a problem but not their fault. Adolescent medicine doctors. Recreation therapists -- teens need to socialize and congregate, but they are like water and they need to be channelled. Driver's ed instructors. Martial arts trainers. Vocational educators. Family planning specialists. Clergy.

People tend to choose careers, and there are about 6 to 8 (or were) major paths or interest groups, because they think in similar ways. A sociologist given the exact same problem is not going to see it, or attempt to solve it like a football coach would..hey put coaches in mylist. She is not (or he) going to approach it like a truck mechanic is. No one has a monopoly, or should, on this very important issue..we must also hear from economists, who can discuss some of this very dispassionately, but brilliantly. We need to look at a whole lot more math in this equation..we can support maybe 10% of the population, but if it keeps expanding so we are supporting 30 and 50 and 70%, with an aging population no less, with international terrorism that requires huge budgets to fight...you have a problem.

Home economicsts....PLEASE BRING THEM BACK. WE NEED THEM DESPARATELY.
Architects, who can think of ways to encourage positive social interactions and inhibit negative ones. Dance teachers who can teach them non-vulgar dances...let them have polka parties...some would like it I guarantee it, if they weren't worried about their cool image.

All hands on board por favor. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 12:20 AM

Outdoor education specialists. There is now considered to be something called nature deficit syndrome, which even many rural kids, who are essentially containerized most of the day, have. Certainly most inner city kids.

One problem is that educators tend to be drawn from the social career path..and I would presume so do sociologists, but I don't know. Most students however are from the realistic (hands-on, highly rational, technical etc.) group..or at least that is how I remember. Also, if you look at auditory, visual, kinesthetic learners, most teachers are either auditory or visual and most students are kinesthetic..again subject to my fading memory. Anyway, there is a huge disconnect in education, which is hoped to be the great solution..but you have a great and fundamental problem in education with this disparity between learning styles, in fact, basic brain architecture, between students and teachers. Oh, how do we solve this you ask. ALmost any problem you can think of in society can be reduced at least by vocational education (who tend to be drawn from the other groups). And what kind of respect do they get? Go figure. If you want to read something really good, that will tell you step by step how to get out of poverty, read Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. Of course I mean it applies to everybody. It is universal..apply to rich and poor...everyone..well, the rich don't have to get out of poverty right at the present time, but the day could come...anyway Booker T. --the one book I will always have in my personal library...hero of vocational educators. I will tell you this..unless we can speak candidly and honestly and bring our best thoughts to this...and spare me the blame the victim crap...I am one of the aforementioned realistic types...I just want to solve problems...we won't make a dent in this and the problem will expand faster than the solutions. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 12:29 AM

run them through vocational interest tests beginning in early high school. When you have poor kids, you have these truly..oh I am on a roll here...not very bright people telling them..oh you don't have to choose anything in high school. They, some of the lucky ones..get to college...oh you don't have to choose a major your first year or two..or even in college...you can choose in graduate school. Now fine, if you want a young man lounging on your sofa at the age of 25 and can afford to support him and perhaps some drug habits..but no. When there are poor students involved, and I of course would say this applies to everyone...tell them..do make a choice. Now. There are only about 6 paths they have to choose from, and they will be reasonably happy in the right one..regardless of how they go..The trick is not how high you go, but getting in the right path. Most people know in high school, with some help, where their interests and strengths lie. If you decide later you made a mistake, there are ways of backtracking etc. There are students who are truly not sure...ever...nature put them there for a reason..to be flexible. Suggest they get the proverbial teacher's degree, or a business degree, or learn a skilled trade. It is better to not allow them to get stuck in this endless..oh I can't choose a major syndrome...the consequences are greater if they are poor..but again it applies to everyone.

And encourage them to go to state schools, unless they are the most brilliant person ever, which most aren't. Good and competent, yes...it causes too many problems for them to be too far from their families and they can't afford to come home for holidays and visits etc.

Well, I have to get back to work now. Thanks for asking for my input.

Don't let me get started on cheerleaders. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 May 07 - 12:31 AM

One small step could be school uniforms or rather a specification for clothing. It seems to be legal in any school, public or private.

Longstanding has been the debate over the effectiveness of school uniforms.

Traditionally reserved for private parochial schools, school uniforms have recently been implemented into public high schools throughout the United States. Dress codes banning the wearing of revealing, suggestive, inappropriate, and/or gang insignia clothing have
been replaced by a more strict uniform policy allowing students to choose from an array of solid colored collared shirt, pleated pants, jumpers, sweaters, cardigans, and vests.

While many students oppose this adoption of a school uniform policy, critics argue, citing the longitudinal study completed by the Long Beach California Unified School District, that school uniforms foster a more academically focused learning environment, enhance school safety, heighten school pride, and reduce truancy, absences, and violent acts.

Following in the wake of the horrific school shooting at Columbine High School, the issue of mandating school uniforms in public schools has come to the forefront of educational debates. Since the massacre, schools, both public and private, have increased security and rewritten their dress codes in order to further restrict dress.

Despite these preventative measures and their correlated results, many pose the question if these actions are needed in their local schools. Research conducted by means of qualitative observation, surveys, interviews, and literature reviews examines and analyzes the need
for the implementation of school uniforms at PNHS

http://www.kzoo.edu/educ/sip/2004sips/Weitzel.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 12:33 AM

You can read Up from Slavery on the internet. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 12:39 AM

Absolutely school uniforms, or something similar..beyond a dress code..like you can wear navy blue or beige pants of your choosing, no shorter than Bermuda shorts..a white or pink or light blue shirt, no sayings on any shirts...no sayings on anything...nothing revealing..tell them what they can wear and they will buck the limits but do it anyway.

Part of the problem is ...oh no..I have to finish up so I can get home...is the horrible way girls are allowed to dress in some of these schools. It creates horrible problems for the boys, and the people who have to ride the bus with them, and the male teachers etc. etc. Do Ithink a woman has a right to dress however? No. Do I think she deserves any consequences? No. But don't tempt nature, and don't tempt people who can barely hold it together under the best of circumstances.

OH MY GOODNESS. DID I JUST IMPLY WOMEN HAVE TO BE RESPONSIBLE ABOUT THIS? Yes. And girls need to have limits. They think of it as fashion and don't realize some of the effects. This gets into my cheerleader rant...why are they flashing themselves in front of the student body like they do? Are their no consequences? Yes...you have these terribly frustrated and lonely young men and there are consequences...This is not good for them....or society. Put some proper clothing on those girls...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 01:08 AM

And this is not only for the young teens. Women have to be more modest...I wanted to put that assistant press secretary what's her name in a burkha..she was showing more than I personally wanted to see. Watch what the news anchors (female) some are wearing today...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: dianavan
Date: 08 May 07 - 03:14 AM

mg - Occupational therapists and Speech and Language pathologists are worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, these specialists are often the first to go when the cuts come.

You are also right about the focus of high schools. The curriculum is geared to those who are preparing for college or university. In other words, they take care of the upper 20% and ignore the vocational needs of others. I also agree that home economics is important but maybe even more important would be courses in parenting.

Most of all we need apprenticeships. Programs that will allow students to take required courses and work part-time as an apprentice in the various trades. Our tradespeople are retiring and we need to pass these skills on to the younger generation. We need plumbers, electricians, carpenters, stone masons, etc.

Unfortunately, our schools are lumbering, old institutions that are slow to change because the bureaucrats are more interested in pushing paper and counting beans than listening to teachers who are on the front lines.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 03:41 AM

we need to really get electronics people in..

I just got a AAA phone for $10 a month..I can only call them and call the police...give certain people..women (or men) who have to take the bus late at night...teens who have been bullied...girls who ahve been harassed..they can call the police or a community service office and no one else..you don't want them making their drug deals...oh but they have to call their parents..no...the community service staff can make that call and relay information. Give lots of people portable cameras to record stuff if they can safely. Give people portable alarms. Every dark alley in America, and the world, should have well publicized video monitoring and there should be staff at some central location that could flood any place with light and sound and photograph everything...


An awful lot of criminals are opportunists...not career criminals...if it is easier for them to prey on old ladies they will. If it becomes more and moer difficult they will do it less and less. have like I said spartan housing for them, segrated by their behavior and level of danger and also hygeine...so nobody needs to say..oh but he needed a place to stay. Well, now he has one and get him the hell out of your house if there is any abuse of any sort...oh but I love him. Tough. Oh but he (she) is only like this when he drinks. Send him shipping..

A lot of problems are caused by women, some of whom are not too bright and have men who are also not too bright and that is a whole other story...not getting rid of creepy men in their lives. For one thing, these creepy men get the women pregnant. Here is a place to break the cycle.."Empower" the women to be responsible..many many people want to absolve adult women of any responsibility..they can do nothing wrong..the hell they can't...some for biological reasons can't and they need social workers working with police to help them separate from these men, by which I mean the ones who are violent, drug users, etc. They are the other side of the coin and you have to look at both sides of the coin. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 04:03 AM

There is another problem that has to be addressed -- that of very low-status men...with people not settling down with one mate often..with women tending to mate upward of their social status..that leaves a pool of men who can not attract women in this hyper-sexualized society. Since they can't attract women because they don't have an income, plus they might be unattractive to start with etc...they are of course frustrated, angry..bombarded with stimulation both from media and aforementioned women who in my book are underclothed. And we have to address the fact that some people are just not highly intelligent..there have to be jobs or some sort of something for them...now, one area we are so deficient in is animal husbandry...there should be a whole higher ratio of worker to animal in some situations...

Naturally, everyone should be taught to respect every worker, including those who work at home, who raise their children, who do volunteer work if they can't find other work..who barter and trade and scavange...that might reduce their feelings of inadequacy..it probably won't help them find mates...this whole issue of constantly rotating partners essentially has many many facets...the whole issue of lonely and frustrated and angry men who will take out their frustrations on women and children (and some of the women do push their buttons) is very serious and has to be looked at dispassionately and without favoring the men or the women..just trying to make things better...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 04:15 AM

run each and every student through a medical exam every year and include a drug test..all the way through state colleges. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 May 07 - 07:16 AM

Whoa!!!

Big agenda you have going there, mg... And some good ideas... Sounds is if yer ready and willing to let "big governemnt" get a whole lot bigger 'cause in order to get all these people involved with our kids it's gonna take a lotta real-world $$$...

So where are you gonna get it???

Plus, I hate to keep going back to this but as resourcefull as you are, keep in mind that you're going to have to deal with a lotta 1`4 year olds who will pulll a gun or knife on you if they so much as sniff that you are preachin' to them... That is reality... And while we might agree that your motives are all well and good, unless you are willing to turn our country into some kinds military state you are going to have to deal with some kids where "they" are and not where "you" are... Back to that ***client centered*** part of the equation...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 May 07 - 10:09 AM

SCHOOL DRESS UNIFORMS: A REVIEW

Decreased Absences/Suspensions
In 1998, a study conducted by Brusna compared the effects of uniforms on tenth grade students. The statistical samples were taken from both catholic schools with and without mandatory uniforms and private schools with and without uniforms. Brusna wished to determine "the catholic effect", in addition to the effectiveness of uniforms in general on absenteeism, behavior, drug use and standardized test results. Results showed, not only that uniforms had no significant effect on any of these variables, but that catholic students who wore uniforms were absent more often and scored lower on achievement tests than those catholic students who did not. On a broader level, conclusions show that uniforms are not effective on a high school level (Brusma, 1998)

The Long Beach Unified School District study showed suspensions significantly decreased from the 1993-1994 to the 1994-1995 school year. Middle school suspensions decreased 36% and elementary suspensions were down by 28%. No direct correlation can be found between study results and uniforms (Stanley, 1996). In 1999, five years following the completion of the study, suspensions were down by 90% (Chatterjee, 1999).

Two urban Texas middle schools were used in 1996 to study not only the effect of school uniforms on both behaviors and perceptions, but whether or not uniform type (formal vs. informal) had any impact. Formal uniforms were defined as specific brands and styles dictated by the school. Informal uniforms were loosely defined styles and colors and allowed parents and students to select from a variety of manufacturers. The year following implementation showed an average decrease of 30% in disciplinary referrals. Referrals included three types of infractions: minor, moderate and violent. Dress code violations are included under minor infractions. The formal uniform dress code school decreased less than the informal, at 11% to 45%, however the informal school had considerably more infractions made (Hughes, 1996).

Increased Academic Achievement
In 1995-1996, a study was conducted using two Charleston, South Carolina secondary schools, one with a uniform policy, and one without. Both schools had similar socio-economic status, and contained approximately the same ethnic ratios. The study administered language arts and mathematics tests, as well as a survey and Cooper's self esteem inventory. The school with a uniform policy reported higher attendance, esteem and academic scores (Gregory, 1996).

Decreased Drug Use and Vandalism
Possession of chemical substances decreased significantly, down 69%, one year following the implementation of uniforms in the Long Beach Unified School District (Stanley, 1996). In a follow up study conducted five years following the implementation, vandalism had decreased by 69% (Chatterjee, 1999).

http://web1.msue.msu.edu/msue/programs/cyf/public_html/cindy/Revisedrevoflit.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 May 07 - 10:22 AM

Case Study 1- Long Beach California: comprising nearly 60,000 students, this was the first large urban school district in the United States to require school uniforms for all students.
Since 1994,
when mandatory uniform policies were adopted in this school district, officials have found that violence and discipline problems dramatically decreased. In the first year following implementation, overall school crime decreased by 36%; sex offenses, by 74%; physical fights between students, by 51%; weapons offenses, by 50%; assault and battery offenses, by 34%; school suspensions, by 32%;
and vandalism, by 18%.11

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/pam230/Paper%20Examples/PAM%20230%20Example%20Paper%201.pdf

Enter the poor man's friend, The ACLU:

In October 1995, working on behalf of low-income families, the ACLU of Southern California filed a lawsuit against the Long Beach Unified School District. The lawsuit claimed that the district fails to help low-income students purchase uniforms and has punished students who do not wear them. It also claimed the district does not adequately inform parents about their rights to request exemption from the program. ACLU attorneys assert that low socioeconomic families are going without food, utilities, and rental payments in order to purchase mandatory school uniforms. In response to these claims, Long Beach Unified School officials state that the district has spent more than $100 thousand in donations from individuals and organizations to purchase uniforms and other supplies for financially burdened students. The officials quickly point out that typically, a set of three school uniforms for the year costs between $ 70 and $ 90, an amount far less than many students spend for one item of designer clothing.

http://www.danenet.org/ncs/forumuniformseval.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 01:21 PM

I guess then I would have an armed, locked and loaded policemen with me then when I preached to the 14 year olds. A country that lets itself be run by 14 year olds with weapons is already lost. And people who think this is all right are lost. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 01:59 PM

Think Cambodia in 1975. And I am for, like I said, almost every program that anyone can think of, as well as tax reform etc. But simultaneously, and I seem to be a lone light in the darkness here, I want people to behave, voluntarily or not, in ways that do not increase the burden on other people. And I want to extract some public service from everyone who is not otherwise working or taking care of many family members or one requiring a lot of help. That means, every able bodied/minded person who is available will rake leaves, shovel snow, work after being screened in nurseries, schools, parks etc. Up and out of the house by 8 a.m., or work another shift. You have to get people in the mindset of working, in the routine of working, in the expectation of working, and they have to be respected for their work. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 02:21 PM

I also think that it would be best for most of us to work 6 hours a day..less for parents or at least one parent. So perhaps phase people in with 6 hours a day if they aren't used to working and up it for the young and healthy without dependents to 8. Four hours for those with young children, and 6 when they are in school. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 05:03 PM

I think before lumping all people in an area as hopeless entities, there needs to be a person by person, household by household assessment of their skills, health, desire for training and work....if you have a 62 year old and you have a 20 year old, other things being equal, train the 20 year old. At some point too you have to look at the education money in special education and the results it may or may not get with the most mentally handicapped students. I mean way worse than mildly retarded. I do know that some even fairly severely retarded can be productive, but when you look at the resources that are sometimes spent, especially disproportionate in small districts, on very few students, with no realistic hope of anything really...I would say make them comfortable and happy and put the money, the same amount of money into educating dozens if not hundreds of non-handicapped but disadvantaged and uninspired youth. At some point you have to look at return on public investment, and if you can get hundreds of people off public money, and they in turn support the seriously mentally handicapped..isn't everyone better off? I know this will horrify parents of special needs students, but if I had limited funds I would train the mentally non-handicapped first and foremost...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 May 07 - 05:49 PM

How come some people can live on 2 or 3 hundred dollars a year, and be quite happy with their lives ?? Why does everyone have to make 20 bucks or more an hour ?? Poor is only relative. And what ever happened to man being resourceful...now everyone wants everything handed to them. I'll say this, nobody should go hungry, but there is no need to resort to crime, or begging, is there ? Society is getting lazy, bottom line.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 May 07 - 05:55 PM

This may be 801.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 May 07 - 06:19 PM

Bobert, how can you stand it?
Nothings changed since the begining.
Put up the money or suffer the results.

Free education (including, sex ed, drug ed, career counsuling, voc training, etc)
National Free Health Care
Free day care for those that can't afford it.

Just tell 'em to say no, just doesn't cut it.

Bye, bye Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 May 07 - 06:22 PM

or you can regulate the shit out of their poor enough as it is lives.
Might as well have them living by the bell. One ring to piss, two rings to pray.

Barry, bye for real

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 06:33 PM

the only ones you really have to regulate are the ones who are preying on the weaker of them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 May 07 - 07:52 PM

mg,

What you have in mind is a police state... You want to strap people into chairs and scream at them all of yer values and ideas... You want coaches and cops to rough up kids... This ain't gonna work, my friend... Never has... Never will...

And when one allows the thoughts of cops holding kids down so that you, or someone else can preach to them, what about the adults??? You are on a slippery slope here with not only the real world but the history of our country which, according to the constitution, is wrapped around raights for all, not just the 14 year old kid that you want a cop to hold down while you preach to him...

I think you need to rethink your "War on Poverty" plan that doesn't turn our country into a police state...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 08:49 PM

Gee I wasn't going to ask the mythical police officer to hold anyone down. I can't preach. I am too nonverbal. But just to have on hand when the mythical 14 year old pulls a gun on me.

And why in the world would you think a coach would rough up kids? Or a cop? It actually was not part of my plan. Don't know where that came from unless BOss Hog whispered it in yer eer. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 09:02 PM

Bobert, I have decided that I must put you on a filter, and please feel free to do the same to me. I can not and will not even attempt communication with someone who takes something I say and turns it into something so far afield I can't even recognize it, other than I think at times it approaches abusiveness and I do not play those games. Of course, I have to figure out how to do it first. If someone wants to PM me instructions that would be handy. Anyone feel free to filter me out. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 May 07 - 09:43 PM

Gangs are a Bad Bad influence on kids. What can be done about gangs?

I think kids join gangs for a sense of family support that they do not get at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 May 07 - 10:02 PM

LOL....

Well, ahhhh, how do I put this so it won't come off as rude... Okay, given the things you have said on this thread you, IMHO, come off as very maternal... You have advice on everything from how to save a few cents on this or that to figuring out how to apply for this or that job...

Please don't get me wrong... These are attributes... They are valuable life lessons... They would sho nuff come in handy if one day *you* woke up in an alley in some uirban area and needed to figure out how to survive... Might of fact, my wife, the P-Vine, is very much like you... She is a real pioneer woman... Cans food... Clips coupons and all that...

But its like what you and my wife have is like a square peg in a round hole when it comes to sharing this knowledge with poor people... Yeah, like I've said, the folks who work for me are poor people and, bless her heart, she tries to be helpful in their lives but it comes off as too motherly and they don't buy one danged bit of it... I, on the other hand, being street hardened at an early age have no problems gettin' my message thru... Okay, perhaps I don't know the "survival" details that you and my wife know but what I do know I have no problem in teaching...

Yeah, we can be as righteously motivated as one can be but if we don't have the humility to communicate with poor folks then we are talkin' down to poor folks... Poor people aren't stupid and they know when folks is talking down to 'um...

Yeah, I know you probably won't get this, mg, 'casue you didn't get it the last several times I've tried to communicate it bit it is a large part, if we are serious about fighting a war on poverty, that all the warriors will have to have down pat 'cause this war won't be fought with cops....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 May 07 - 10:12 PM

What is a filter???

Is that like an MOA inhibitor??? Or a Beta blocker??? What, it's okay for ***you*** to blast away with 6 or 7 posts in a row of ***your*** opinions and values but not okay for one very overworked ol' ex-social worker to throw a couple posts in a day???

Hmmmmmmmm???

Sounds like George Bush to me who has a mindset that if you agree with his stupidity than all is well and if you don't, then you're fired!!!

Real adult, mg, real adult... And you think you have anything to offer the poor among us??? What a joke...

...'cept no one is laughing...

Bobert (unfiltered to everyone else who happens to have an open mind)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 09 May 07 - 07:34 AM

Maybe if you both turn the heat down just a tad...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 May 07 - 03:39 PM

I appreciate the reminder. I need coffee filters. Thanks, all.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 May 07 - 04:09 PM

A well-defined case of MSPD - Multiple Sequential Posting Disorder.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 09 May 07 - 05:33 PM

Why the hell join a forum if your'e going to 'filter' anyone who has an opinion you don't agree with ? What a joke. Those people who do this need another hobby, because participating in a forum and then filtering certain people is just ignorant, self-centered, and closed minded. But hey, go ahead. Pretty soon the forum will contain only opinions that match your own. Won't that be fun ??? Get off your high horse, mg.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 09 May 07 - 07:41 PM

Ahhhhhh, has anyone noticed that John Edwards has staked out his chances of getting the Democratic nomination on America getting back to more than a discussion on poverty but ways to combat it???

He may not win the nomination but, hey, I think I'll send a few bucks to his campaign for having th courage to take on an issue that a lotta people would rather see swept under the carpet...

Yo, Dickey,

I still haven't gotten a response to the "value added tax" on stuff that corporate America produces in swat shops outside of the country... Okay, I'll admit that this is my own idea and their aren't any folks out there offering this as a way of both protecting American jobs and raising $$$ for a war on poverty... That means there aren't any right wing blogs who have put together an attack team... That means, this is like virgin territory with no cahrts, no talking points... Just an idea of mine... I probably will get around to sendin' it to the John Edwards' folks and let them run it up the pole a couple times to get the bugs outta it but until that has been done, I think it might work...

Whaddaythink???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 May 07 - 12:26 AM

People who are poor are people first, not poor first. People who live in poverty are not 'them'. They are not 'those people.' People who are poor are, first and foremost, part of 'we', part of 'us'. The values of people who live in poverty are not any more different from Dickey's values, or mg's values, or Dani's values, or my values, than are each of our values from one another.

The well-healed, narcissitic, jerk who walked into my community mental health clinic last Monday and laid-off 9 well-qualified, experienced and dedicated true public servants with no notice and no severence pay, without regard for the indigent people we serve, in violation of all ethical guidelines in allowing no opportunity for psycholigical termination for clients, no transition plan for extremely psychologically fragile people who are poor and mentally ill, is a thief and a scoundrel who stole from this community in general and the mentally ill in particular out of greed. He doesn't recognize as such. Hey, he's sorry, but it's business, you know? Whether he recognizes it or not, it is valueless greed. The state of North Caolin is ultimately responsible for designing a lousy reformed system of care, and then grossly underfunding even that lousy system, and inviting in private companies with no legal or moral obligation to actually serve the community. jWhat are his values, really?

The poor father of three with a felony drug conviction from 10 years ago and bad health for any number of reasons, may steal to have enough food for his children. He, however, feels like a conflict about it, about the need to put basic survival over his values about not stealing.

I don't know why I am bothering to post this. It is like 'talking to the hand.'



It really is gonna take a revolution.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 10 May 07 - 12:29 AM

Bobert:

I am not familiar with how VATs work. That's a European thing. I am afraid the all these crackdowns on companies making things offshore will drive them completely offshore. What reason do they have to stay here?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 10 May 07 - 04:23 PM

Janey -- you are right -- a revolution is what it will take. If I had a vote, it would go to Edwards......

Did you lose your job in the debacle

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 10 May 07 - 05:06 PM

Janie,

Yep, you are 100% correct...It does come down to "revolution"... The thing about revolutions" is they begin before anyone really knows it and once folks do recognize them, it's too late... Someone is going to have to change...

I am a firm believer that the "Boss Hogs" of America have allready inadvertantly planted the seeds and now it's just a matter of time... Things cannot continue to go 100% "Boss Hog's" way... This is going to come crashing down on him...

BTW, now we find that the Va. Tech shooter wasyet another mentally ill person who fell thru the cracks becuase of underfunded mental healht care in Virginia...

No surprise...

Hang in there, girl..

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 May 07 - 12:22 AM

I kept my job, Deborah. One of 4 who did. After the carnage I asked for and received a demotion back to psychotherapist (kept my pay though.)

120 adult patients lost their doctor. I can probably find other doctors in the community for about 40 of them. 70 patients lost community support/case management services. 50 to sixty lost their psychotherapist. Some of the numbers above include patients who lost all three of their service providers. Approximately 30 of them also have children who were in services and the children also lost their community support workers, and 15 of those lost their psychotherapist. Some small number of these people will be referred to one of our clinics in another town. However, most of them won't have transportation to get there, or won't be able to buy gas at $3.00+ dollars a gallon to get there.

These are poor people. Many of them are very anxious, frightened people. Probably 60% of those who can work out transportation will still not go. The next town is a foreign country. Probably close to 25% of the clients I have worked with over the years suffer from panic attacks when they leave familiar areas, expecially if they are behind the wheel of a car.

For 38 years the clinic provided a full array of mental health services, including 36 hours of psychiatry per week, psychotherapy, case management, Adult Day Treatment (milieu treatment) and walk-in crisis services to the intire community, but especially to those on Medicaid, Medicare and the uninsured.    Until last Monday, we had an active case load of 465 children, families and adults. In less than 24 hours, we went from that to serving no children, providing no case management or community support, no adult day treatment, 8 hours of psychiatry, no crisis services, and to wait listing the uninsured. The other remaining therapist and myself are to encourage and market ourselves to middle class, high-functioning adults with good insurance.

The response of the Chairman of the County Commissioners was basically, gee, that's too bad.

The doctor who was let go was our best doctor and worked 20 hours at our clinic and another 12 at a sister clinic 40 miles away. She refused to compromise care, to crank patients in and out of her office in 10 to 15 minute intervals, insisted on spending non-billable time on the phone with clients as needed. She insisted that the poor arw as entitled to good psychiatric care and attention as anyone else. The remaining, 8 hour doc, cranks 'em in and cranks 'em out. When patients destabilize, he sends them to the hospital instead of working to stabilize them in the community. He has a psychoanalytic private practice, and is probably good at that. He is lousy and devaluing to indigent people, and doesn't even see it. He works one day a week to do 'good works' to feel good about himself. Don't get me wrong, he is a nice guy-I like him- but I hate the way he condenscends to his patients, and so do they. A good, insightful, worried-well patient with the means to pay comes along now and then, and gets whisked off to his private practice.

I had the awful job of going out and getting each person who was being let go and bringing them back to my office to meet with the muckymucks from the home office in Ohio. These wonderful, committed people conducted themselves with such grace and dignity. To a person, their first concern was for the people we serve. Several have come in on their own time since being laid off to work on proper termination with their clients, or took phone numbers with them to call patients from home to try to help with transitioning or to give the patient some time to grieve. I would be fired if the muckymucks knew I was allowing non-employees to do this. The muckymucks apparently think the former employees might sabotage equipment, or steal 'trade secrets.' These are people who have served this community for 15, 20, in one instance, 33 years.

The lay-offs happened on Monday. Friday night I had a party for everyone at my house, to give us a chance to grieve the death of the clinic and the of community mental health in our community, but also to honor and celebrate the dedication and service the clinic and the people who have worked there over the past 38 years have provided. We did a champagne toast. The toast ended with "May each of us find new ways to serve."



For myself, I am staying on the verge of tears, I am so full of grief at what has happened to my clinic, my colleagues and my community. I have 3 job interviews in the next week. I do not want to work for this company. But I am very conflicted about leaving before I am kicked out the door. If I leave on my own, I will be abandoning these same clients, at least as many of them as I can manage to continue to serve.

The voting public in North Carolina is ultimately responsible for this travesty. They are indifferent, and as long as they remain so, our elected officials can continue to ignore and refuse to fund public mental health at a level adequate to provide even the most basic services to those who need them. Except for fee-for-service dollars from Medicaid, public mental health is primarily the financial responsibility of the states. The federal block grant is, I think, about 500 million a year (divide that by 50 states.) The State demanded privitization, then structured and funded it in a way that makes it impossible for private companies to provide adequate services and stay in business.

but my company has pockets deep enough that they did not have to go about it in this manner, with this abruptness, without offering severance pay, without time to notify and terminate with clients, or help make any transitional arrangements for clients, without even the appearance of clinically sound practices or responsiblity to the communities in which the clinics reside. The other remaining therapist and myself are struggling with the same issues. We need to work, we need to take care of our families. If we are not making money for the company in a couple of months, we will also be let go, and the clinic will close entirely. If we don't jump to their unethical and greedy tune, we get kicked out the door. Both of us see our real masters as the indigent and uninsured population of our community. It is clear the company has no loyality to us, and we would be very foolish to to have any since of loyalty to the corporate entity. Hoever, if we act in our own self-interests, and leave the company,we will be acting against the mentally ill who need services, whther they can gert them or not. I am thrust into a place where my own values conflict with one another, but where values push up angainst survival. If we leave, there will no services abailable to the community. If we (the other therapist and myself) we are coopted and compromised, but we may still have jobs to provide for our families. If we leave of our own volition, the last vestiges of public service to the mentally ill in our community are gone by own acts of will.

And no matter what we do, because of the decisons by the haves, the poor are once again tossed on the trash pile.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 May 07 - 01:24 PM

{{{{{Janie}}}}}

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 11 May 07 - 11:27 PM

Janie -- it is just horrible.....HORRIBLE .... but I fear it is the way of the future....hugs to you - I am thinking of you as I am sure are so many others..

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 May 07 - 11:42 PM

Oh, Janie! ((((HUGS)))

It sounds as though you may HAVE to walk away for your own mental health, darlin'...so much to protect and so little resources for you and your colleague. YOUR voice needs to be heard. Have you thought of sending out exactly what you just wrote to us (with a little editing) to the media and congresspeople? I know you are in survival mode, so probably don't have the energy. I have done that kind of thing for years, working on human rights issues. If you'd like some help, I would be honoured to spearhead it for you. It might not do much, BUT it might just turn some heads, make some people take note. I don't know, but I hate to not do anything...any way that we can help, we should, imo.

I came here to post a link to a story I heard on Colorado Public Radio, today. It is about people who are not poor enough to qualify for services, but not well-off enough to have health insurance, own a home, etc. Click Here, then scroll down to 11 May "New Report on Poor Coloradans" to hear some real insights.

Janie, please PM me if you'd like me to help out.

luvyakat

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 May 07 - 12:37 AM

Bobert, there is no question but what the field is plowed, the furrows dug, and many of the seeds planted. Some of them have begun to sprout. Sooner or later, (and I believe it will be sooner-at least within your and my lifetime)one or two, or even a few of those seeds are going to sprout an effective, charismatic leader or two. It had better be more than that, because whoever is in power will use repressive measures such as the Patriot Act to good effect with respect to domestic affairs. The limiting of our rights and freedoms in the name of the 'fight against terrorism' not only result in increased terrorism throughout the world, it will likely result in an increased number of domestic terrorists focused on domestic issues.

Large scale, fear-based social control, such as mg advocates is as frightening to me as is social chaos. It may offer assurance that nearly everyone's basic needs are met, but it also insures unremitting misery in its stranglehold on free will. The role of society is to moderate chaos, not to extinquish it. Some amount of chaos is inherent in and essential to all of creation.

Balance

Always seek balance.

There is no balance of power now in the USA, Economically, the balance is so out of kilter, the power structure has moved so far toward fascism, that radicalism is neccessary to set the pendulum in motion again.

I wonder what our our sociopolitical system would look like if 65% of eligible voters routinely went to the polls on local, regional and national election days. I truly do not know. If that were to happen, however, I stronly suspect that the lives of people as opposed to the wealth of corportations at the expense of the lives of people (employees and unemployed alike) would figure much more prominently in the politcal arena.

Deborah, Don't let John Edwards fool you. He has enabled some good work in the area of poverty, but he is mainly interested in being powerful, just for the sake of it. I voted for him when he ran for Senator from North Carolina, but was very disappointed in his actual record, and in my dealings with his office as Senator on behalf of individual clients I was absolutely unimpressed. I don't yet know who I will vote for in the Democratic primary, but it won't be Edwards.

Janie

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 12 May 07 - 12:47 AM

Janie - noted!! Perhaps not having a vote slows me down -- since I know I can;t vote, I maybe don't go into things as deeply as I should.....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 May 07 - 12:58 AM

Thanks for the hugs, I need them. But the mentally ill need much more than do I.

Kat, I'll be in touch. Under company policy, I will be fired if I make any public statement. I am working behind the scenes as much as I can risk.

If I get fired, I can't draw unemployment, which I may need if I don't find another job immediately.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 May 07 - 03:32 AM

No problem, Janie, understood. I'll be here if you need me.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 12 May 07 - 08:17 AM

The Millions Left Out

By BOB HERBERT
Published: May 12, 2007

The United States may be the richest country in the world, but there are many millions — tens of millions — who are not sharing in that prosperity.

According to the most recent government figures, 37 million Americans are living below the official poverty threshold, which is $19,971 a year for a family of four. That's one out of every eight Americans, and many of them are children.

More than 90 million Americans, close to a third of the entire population, are struggling to make ends meet on incomes that are less than twice the official poverty line. In my book, they're poor.

We don't see poor people on television or in the advertising that surrounds us like a second atmosphere. We don't pay much attention to the millions of men and women who are changing bedpans, or flipping burgers for the minimum wage, or vacuuming the halls of office buildings at all hours of the night. But they're there, working hard and getting very little in return.

The number of poor people in America has increased by five million over the past six years, and the gap between rich and poor has grown to historic proportions. The richest one percent of Americans got nearly 20 percent of the nation's income in 2005, while the poorest 20 percent could collectively garner only a measly 3.4 percent.

A new report from a highly respected task force on poverty put together by the Center for American Progress tells us, "It does not have to be this way." The task force has made several policy recommendations, and said that if all were adopted poverty in the U.S. could be cut in half over the next decade. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 May 07 - 11:18 AM

And here's the gist of that new report found on THIS PAGE at Center for American Progress:

Imagine if everyone in California were poor. In other words, all 36.5 million inhabitants of California—the most populous state in the richest nation in the world—are living lives of privation. Holding on to life and liberty, maybe, but with little hope of engaging in the pursuit of happiness. A pretty sad state of affairs, right?

Well, you can stop imagining. Not everyone in California is poor, of course—Steven Spielberg lives there, after all—but it is the sad case that 37 million Americans across the country live below the poverty line, and millions more are struggling to make ends meet.

The Center for American Progress has a plan for how we can cut the number of Americans living in poverty by half in 10 years as a first step to eradicating it in a generation. Fighting poverty won't be easy or cheap, but CAP's plan can be paid for in full by bringing better balance to the federal tax system. Serious action requires serious investment. And allowing millions of American families to languish in poverty—in what is supposed to be the land of opportunity, the American dream—is clearly not an option we can afford to choose.

Here's how we can cut poverty in half in the next decade—in just four steps.


Step One: Make it easier for people to earn a living.

As of 2005, a quarter of all jobs did not pay wages high enough to keep a family of four out of poverty. We should make work pay by increasing the minimum wage—which, at $5.15, is the lowest it's been in real terms in over 50 years. Congress should raise the minimum wage to $8.40, which would make it 50 percent of the average wage again (right now it's just 30 percent of the average wage).

We should also make the lives of working families easier. Over 70 percent of working families have children. To give low-income families with children a hand, federal and state governments should expand the child care tax credit and guarantee child care help to families that make less than $40,000 a year.

Another way we can reduce poverty for workers is to help them get better jobs and working conditions by making it easier for workers to create unions. Passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which establishes stronger penalties for violations of employee rights and puts in place another method of creating unions, would achieve this goal.

Step Two: Help people achieve economic security.

After helping people get decent work, a good second step to cutting poverty is to help American families retain a minimum level of economic security. We can start doing that by patching up our tattered safety net. Right now, it doesn't do enough to keep people from slipping even deeper into poverty if they are temporarily between jobs or to help them get work in the first place.

All levels of government could do much to simplify and improve access to benefits for working families. The Food Stamp Program could be strengthened to improve the benefits it provides, increase the number of people eligible for it, and make it easier to access. And the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program could be reformed to shift its focus from cutting caseloads to helping workers belonging to needy families find steady jobs.

The Unemployment Insurance system could also be reformed to allow low-wage workers to get unemployment insurance, broaden eligibility, and allow the unemployed to use their time without work to improve their skills.

There's another way we can help people achieve economic security. Turns out that being poor is expensive: poor families often pay more than middle- and high-income families to buy the same products. The federal government should establish a $50 million Financial Fairness Innovation Fund to support states' efforts to make mainstream goods and financial services available to people in predominantly low-income communities.

Step Three: Open up opportunities that will provide paths out of poverty.

To help people climb out of poverty we should provide better access to jobs and educational opportunities to people of all ages, from pre-school through adulthood.

States should be encouraged to improve the quality of their early education programs and make them accessible to all children. Teenagers and young adults from poor families could also be helped in various ways. About 1.7 million poor and near-poor 16- to 24-year-olds were not in school and jobless in 2005. The federal government should resume giving communities Youth Opportunity Grants, which fund effective and promising youth programs. CAP also proposes the creation of a new Upward Pathway program that would give low-income youth opportunities to take part in service projects like Americorps and get training in high-demand fields such as health care.

Making college affordable is another key area where we can open up opportunities for young people from low-income backgrounds, who are much less likely to go to college than their higher-income peers. The federal government could make the awards of Pell Grants, which fund college studies, more generous so that they'd cover 70 percent of the average costs of attending a four-year public school. As the federal government does its part, states should develop strategies to make college affordable for everyone, following some promising models already in place around the country.

We shouldn't stop with the young: opportunities should also be opened up for adults. We should do more to help former prisoners find steady jobs and reintegrate into their communities. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and a recent Bureau of Justice report found that more than 5.6 million people are in prison or have served time there. That's equivalent to the entire of population of Maryland – a whole lot of people to just write off.

Another strategy is to give people "opportunity vouchers" for housing that will help people live in communities that have employment opportunities and good public services. We can also encourage the creation of affordable housing in these communities and efforts to make sure that economic growth that makes central cities more prosperous also benefits poorer neighborhoods.

Step Four: Help people build wealth that will allow them to escape poverty for good.

The final part of CAP's plan to cut poverty in half in 10 years is to help people build assets that will help them financially weather periods of crisis like the loss of a job or an illness in the family. Assets are a key to upward mobility.

The Earned Income Tax Credit supplements the earnings of low-income working families and helps them build wealth. But the current EITC doesn't do much to help workers without children. We should triple the EITC for childless workers and make the aid packages we give bigger working families more generous. We should also make the Child Tax Credit—which provides a tax credit of up to $1,000 per child—available to poor families that are now ineligible or only eligible for partial credits.

Another way we can help people make economic progress is to help them save for education, homeownership, a small business, or retirement. The federal government can encourage saving by overhauling the federal Saver's Credit to make it fully refundable and broadening it to apply to other ways people can invest in their future.

We can cut poverty in half in 10 years. It'll take time and money. But we can cover the combined $90 billion cost of the recommendations in CAP's plan by restoring balance to the tax system and recovering part of the money that's been lost by the excessive tax cuts of the past few years. Consider that, in 2008 alone, the value of tax cuts to households with incomes over $200,000 a year is expected to be $100 billion—enough to cover all of CAP's recommendations and then some.

We can take the time; we can get the money. All we need now is a shared national commitment to help the 37 million people living in poverty among us achieve prosperity and have a fair shot at the pursuit of happiness.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 May 07 - 02:20 PM

Janie,
Keep a diary. If you get fired you can collect unemployment - I did it. But I had a diary and copies of emails showing a pattern of abuse and deception. Another time I quit and was able to get unemployment because again of documentation. For the record - I am not a proponent of milking the unemployment system but having paid the premiums and needing the money to survive, I used it. Other times I did not because I didn't need it.

For one year I worked in a for profit company (America Works - run far and run fast!). They offered "training for welfare mothers going (forced) to work". I discovered a sad truth which will no doubt raies an outcry but here goes: these women grew up in the welfare system and see it as a way of life not a stop gap temporary help. From childhood they were not taught the basic principles of succeeding in the work place - you must be dressed appropriately (business clothing was supplied); you must be on time EVERY DAY; you cannot shout at or physically attack a co-worker for any reason; you can not threaten a co-worker; your boyfriend is not welcome at your worksite; you cannot spit at customers...I could go on and on about issues that arose that simply baffled me.
I do not blame these women. Most were eager to work. But most had unrealistic ideas of what work is. All wanted to be receptionists and thought they would sit at a desk and read magazines and answer a phone occasionally. They could not understand that it was more important to have the price of a subway token than garishly decorated three inch finger nails that cost $50 per week to maintain. Do I sound bitter? I am. These were potentially brilliant young women who have been robbed of their ability to function and prosper in a society that desperately needs them.
The rare few that I was able to place in first rate jobs with futures quit. One decided to get pregnant again and called to ask how to get her welfare benefits back. She was managing a retail store in Manhattan. Another quit when a long time employee of the law firm where he worked was allowed to come in late because his wife was dying. My friend formerly living in a homeless shelter, shouted "Discrimination!" and threw away an opportunity to go to school to become a paralegal at the company's expense.
How do you explain to a young woman who had a temper tantrum and broke every mirror behind the counter and in the ladies and men's rooms that "No. They won't let you back even if you say you are sorry."? Or one who was late for work on Day 4 because her botfriend wanted sex and "Well I was on time for THREE DAYS!"
I am bitter about their situation. I am furious about the next two generations of children who are also lost. Yes - a few will rise above it and prosper. But that is not good enough. It starts with birth and early education. We have to have first rate day care to inspire the babies to excel. Instead we cut the funds for the most basic needs and stand back in disgust at those who bleed the system. We need the best in education to show our young people the opportunites that are there for them.
When my son graduated high school he came home beaming and informed me that he didn't have to go to work right away. He had applied for welfare. I was dumbstruck! But the fact was that all of the neighborhood kids whose family collected welfare had done the same. Some of these families were poor. But some owned multiple homes and businesses. All viewed welfare as a right and an acceptable form of income for an 18 year old with a high school education. At eighteen they should have been aching to start work or college or tech school not looking to postpone life with a welfare check.
Or am I missing something? My son said I was wrong and that I took work too seriously. Maybe he was right. And no - he did not get a welfare check.
Poverty will always exist. But the widespread waste of brainpower that enables poverty from generation to generation is not a given.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Janie
Date: 12 May 07 - 11:23 PM

I remember 'those' women from my years with the Dept.of Welfare in WV, Sins. But I also think it is important to note that such women (or men) do not make up the bulk of people living in poverty. You do a good job illustrating how poverty can breed poverty through the lack of opportunity and support to learn the life skills needed to get and keep a job.

I also wonder, realisticly, how many of those women would ever have real opportunity to improve the quality of the lives of themselves and their children, even if they stuck with it long enough to acquire the life skills. They would mostly likely experience improved self-esteem by successfully keeping a job, but they are still likely to be poor and struggling without medical benefits, no on-going quality day care, still having transportation problems, still struggling to pay the rent and the utilities once the short-term supportive benefits that continue for a brief period of time after a person goes from welfare to work ran out. Most of them would still be largely without realistic hope of a noticably better life.

I think you are describing the effects of lack of hope that Barry has talked about. It is dangerous to have dreams when the your own life experience, and that of your parents demonstrate that dreams only make it harder to tolerate the present. So many of the poor people I work with simply can not invision a future different from the present and the past. Depending on the circumstances of one's life, one may wait as in delayed gratification, or one may wait for the other shoe to drop. I would agree that one of the flaws of the programs of the 60's and 70's was the potential to foster 'welfare dependency.' However, I think the behaviors and attitudes you observed were at least as much caused by the conditions of multigenerational poverty as by programs that bred dependency.

Social programs for children and youth are more abundant and better funded than for adults out of recognition of the need for early intervention. However, we consistently miss the mark when we don't support the parents, when we design programs that give up on the parents too soon. It is, after all, the parents who will ultimately have the most influence one the children. Social programs for adults are more coercive and adversarial than not. They tend to contain many more elements of negative consequences for lack of compliance than rewards for success. Fear does not lead to growth or to progress.

There is no possible homeostasis at the point of intersection of the individual and the social group. There is mutuality and interdependence, but no fixed fulcrum point where personal rights, responsibilities, freedom of choice, and the experience of the positive and negative consequences of those choices balance perfectly with those of other individuals and of the social group. It is forever dynamic, forever dialectical and forever paradoxical.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 13 May 07 - 12:48 AM

Amos and Kat,

Thanks for the articles and links. The Center for American Progress is well respected for good reason.



My son plays recreational lacrosse. (It's a great game and in the USA is gradually becoming more acessible through county recreation departments and public schools!) In the USA it has primary been a game played by the priviledged, and the rec league in which my son plays is still largely made up of well-to-do kids. The end of season tournament was held today at a very posh private school in the very well-to-do community of Cary, NC. I saw a bumper sticker on a 2006 luxery SUV that so reflects the attitude of the upper and determinedly upwardly mobile classes. It read "Vote Democrat. It's Easier Than Working."

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 May 07 - 09:32 AM

Well, unless things have changed drastically, an 18 year old boy cannot get welfare... Maybe some temporary "general relief" but not AFDC or ADC...

Secondly, yeah, the choices that some poor people make are maddening but that goes with the territory... Yes, we definately need more money for Head Start and for child care programs to catch kids earlier to try to break the cycle but wwe also need jobs that enabler folks to live above the poverty line...

Janie is correct in noting that a majority of our non-senior poor work at lousy paying jobs that keep them in poverty... And, BTW, when it comes to lousy payin' jobs, that's purdy much what our economy is producing these days...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 May 07 - 11:43 AM

Poverty is the same whether in the US or other parts of the world. The reason it is so demoralizing is that it not only attacks the pocketbook but gets into the mind. There is a poverty mind-set in the US that leads into drugs, prostitution, mafia, gangs etc. It's a sense of hopelessness and no way out. Also, cynicism.

It has become clear that the present Administration has no intention of helping the poverty conditions here in the US. New Orleans was only one example. They get Blackwater mercenary soldiers to herd the poor people around like cattle.

The Adminstration dodged the bullet by schlepping the issue to Faith-Based Initiatives which do little to deal with the problem. Those groups are interesting more in saving souls than giving people tools to deal with the ravages of Capitalism.

Those "haves" and "have-mores" are not going to deal with poverty in the US. Are we going to hear the cries of "Egalite, Liberte and Fraternite" again?

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 20 May 07 - 02:11 AM

Bobert:

I was thinking about redistribution of wealth today and I wondered what the total wealth in the world divided by the number of people in the world would be. How much wealth would every person end up with?

There are around 6 billion people in the world and in 2003 there was supposedly $51 trillion total wealth. Hummm. Clickety click ching, that's $8,500 per person. Are you ready to live on that?

Now how are these rich bitches going to fork it over? Much of this net worth is property. Ok they all sell their multi million dollar houses, pieces of art, yachts, expensive autos etc. Who buys them? Everybody's got just $8500 to spend so property is pretty much worthless. There goes a goodly amount of this world wealth. Now what does each person end up with? maybe half of the $8500.

The rich bitches can at least sell their stocks and bonds etc. and get a lot of money for them but who buys them? There are no more rich people to buy large quantities of equities. Everybodys got $4250+-

I think that very shortly into this redistribution, most of the people will be worse off than they are now and the world economy will crash.

If that won't work then just redistribute the income worldwide. Let the rich bitches keep all their stuff and just fork over the money coming in. The worldwide median income is around $850 per year. Are you ready to live on that? Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day so it would give them a boost $.32+ per day boost. The other half of the world would suffer a major decrease. The billionairs would have a hard time paying their taxes on $820 per year much less a mortgage payment so they would hae to sell everything and collapse the economy.

Well lets just jump on Boss Hogg Exxon and make them fork over that $39 billion profit. That would give everybody in the world another $6.50 per year or $.18 cents per day to live off of.

Of course I could be wrong in this thinking or my math could be off.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 20 May 07 - 04:18 AM

I'm not going to bother to check the math but your thinking is definitely 'off' - way off.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 20 May 07 - 10:24 AM

The point, of course, is not to immediately redistribute the wealth here, there or anywhere. Let's not get side-tracked.

It may or may not help change my poor neighbor's life and legacy if I sell my house and buy us both trailers that are a nicer than the one they already have.

It certainly won't teach their kids about better nutrition, or make them buy better food so that the kids are healthy, alert, and keep their teeth past their twenties. It won't un-do the legacy of under-education, bad management of resources, and the effects of frustration, confusion and hopelessness.

Of course there is a place for charitable giving, well spent, and accompanied by our personal involvement. We as a nation, in many ways, give generously. But we are also, many of us, very separated from our giving. How often do we write a check, check a box, throw a dollar in a pot, with a vague sense of having helped a hungry or homeless person?

A better idea would be to get in your car, go someplace where you can help person-ally. Hand a hot meal to hungry person, go under the bridges and around the dark corners in your city and find where those vaguely-numbered homeless people live. Instead of just 'donating' that pair of gloves you replaced because they're ugly, find someone who doesn't have any, and hand them over. Cover a cold, sleeping person with a warm blanket. Gives a very different perspective.

Works great to bring your children with you. If you think it's too weird or hard to do this on your own, many organizations are creating opportunities to do just this kind of work, and people are finding it life-changing. As we should.

The point is that we need a two-front offense: personally engaging in easing suffering, AND attacking the ROOT causes of poverty in a nation of wealth and abundant resources.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 20 May 07 - 11:13 AM

Dani:

I agree with "attacking the ROOT causes of poverty in a nation of wealth and abundant resources."

But I think handing out hot meals etectra, while being a good thing to do is just a feel good approach. Like sending a truckload of blankets to the Indian reservation so you can sleep better at night. Send a truckload blanket weaving equipment and supplies they can use to make a living with and a teacher to show them how.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 20 May 07 - 11:50 AM

More thinking about redistribution of income in the US.

The median income in the US is around $33,000 per year. If everybody made the same $33,000 amouint, how would the billionairs and millionaires or even the middle class going to live on that? They would have to scale back and dump a lot of their personal property casuing an economic collapse.

Even if it was done over a period of time, property values would plummet and monetary investments would be worthless. Then what would the median income amount to?

I am sure Bobert could live on $33,000 per year.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 20 May 07 - 04:08 PM

"But I think handing out hot meals etectra"

If people starve to death, equality ain't gonna help them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 20 May 07 - 05:06 PM

And what, Dickey? Let them freeze until they learn how to do the weaving?

You miss Dani's point entirely.

It is both a shame and completely predictable that you perceive serving the poor by distributing meals as nothing but something to make the server feel good, and as being of no benefit to the people who get those meals.

I am currently on sabbatical from coordinating a multi-church ministry in my little town where we distribute approximately 350 evening meals to both the homeless and the hungry. This is a small town, a village, really. We know who we are serving. And some of them are or have been my clients, so I have intimate knowledge of their lives. Sure, there are a few deadbeats who are just looking for a handout. The majority of those we serve, however, fit in one of the following circumstances"

1. They are disabled, and the Social Security check doesn't stretch to the end of the month.
2. They are employed full time in jobs like the Street Dept., CNA's, custodians. After they pay the rent, the utilities, the care insurance so they can get to work, and the doctor bill from the last time their child had an ear infection, they can't buy enough food to get through to next payday. (Get them more education, you say? We still need garbage men, custodians, and people to help your aged mother to the bathroom in the nursing home. It is all good, honest work. It's a shame you can't live on the pay, no matter how careful.)
3. People on unemployment or whose unemployment has run out who worked at the Burlington Mill for 10 years until it closed down, and then worked at the Flint Mill until it closed down, and then worked at the Haynes Mill until it closed down, and then went and got training and worked assembling high tech parts for Nortel or Lucent Technologies until they moved their operations overseas.

One-on-one service matters, Dickey, whether you want to admit that or not.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 20 May 07 - 08:52 PM

You have it all wrong, Dickey...

When I speak of redistribution of wealth I am ***not *** spaeaking of everyone having exactly the same income... That is nuthing but a red herring in the discussion...

What I am talking about is a guarenteed minimum income for all working people that allows their families to live above the poverty line...

This is quite do-able and has absolutely nuthing to do with your stats...

Yeah, what I put forward will in no way take every millionaire and make them live on $8000 per capita...

You missed the point entirely...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 21 May 07 - 10:53 AM

"It is both a shame and completely predictable that you perceive serving the poor by distributing meals as nothing but something to make the server feel good, and as being of no benefit to the people who get those meals."

I said while being a good thing to do (meaning it is beneficial for the person) is just a feel good approach. Meaning it is not a permant fix or a long range solution.

Your response to my statement is a knee jerk reaction by someone who thinks in the short term. All this short term thinking has lead to an increased poverty level and it will increase unless we focus on the roots of poverty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 21 May 07 - 11:00 AM

And who assumed the Indans were freezing?

Bobert:

We have a median income of around $33,000 in the US. So tell us how this should be redistributed. Scrape the possum guts off that slide rule of yours and figger it out fer us.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 07 - 07:47 PM

Okay, Dickey, seein' as I'm down to about a half an hour of pudder time a day for research and seems you have time on yer hands, is that per capita??? "er what... I'm good at seeing thru stats when they are presented with all the standard garnishments but you above post can mean a lot of different things... Family of four...

If you are saying that the mediun income for a family of four is $33K, you'll force me to to do some research 'cause that seems to a be a highly manipilauted (for whatver reason) figure)... But still, as low as at is still well over the pverty level for a family of four...

Hah... Who wants to step forward and even explain how a family of four is going to live on $33,000 a year with any plans of their kids going to college???

B~h

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 21 May 07 - 08:12 PM

"We have a median income of around $33,000 in the US"

A figure like that can be arrived at with half the people in the group making $5,000/year and the other half making $61,000/year.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 07 - 08:21 PM

Yeah, Brucie, that's kinda like what I'm askin' myself... Dickey is a stats kinda guy but he tends to leave out the *portant* parts... Gotta wahtch the boy...

BVw, Dickey... Before you go and twist what I siad in my last popst into meaning that pverty is just fine if you have a good "qwuality of life", please don't waste out time...

There's a big diffrentce between someone like me (middle class) who can take a survive a hit to my income... Am I being squeezed??? Well, heck ya, I am...

People living in poverty don't have the resources to sit dowen and rationally do what my wife and I do by asking what we can cut out of our budget... They are absolutely slammed... It's just a matter of becoming poorer... Unfortunately, what it tarnslates to is 1 in 5 kids who go to bed hungry at night in a country of tremendous wealth...

That should be criminal...

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 21 May 07 - 09:29 PM

The only two knee jerk things going on are Dickey's transparent distortions, inability to interpret and use statistics honestly and effectively and his stalking of Bobert. (See the resurrection of the 'Bubba" thread as an example.)

Root cause does matter. dickey can read even if he can't think, so he know I know that. Root cause=lack of resources. When there are enough resources to assure minimal needs are met, but a small minority of the population hoards a hugely disproportionate share of those resources, a disproportionate number of the rest of the population are gonna be cold, hungry and sick.

Again acknowledging that Dickey knows how to read, Dickey knows that no one on this thread has advocated for absolutely equal distribution of resources. He makes a falicious (spelling?)arguement, grossly distorting what Bobert, especially, but others of us in general have been saying, in a failed attempt to make Bobert look like a fool. All he does is undermine his own, already shakey credibility.

If Mr. Corporation has 70% of the resources, 80% of the readily assessible power, and Mr. Corporation chooses to hide behind the non-entity that corporations actually are, then all the skill building through education, 'family' values, putative laws, and social control to make sure everyone is 'safe' and living according according to what promotes Mr. Corporation's well being is not going to make a dent in the poverty rates in this country. Talk about 'feel good' actions. What little of their resources big money interests 'donate' are for pr purposes. Corporations are amoral, and the people who run them hide behind the 'corporation' so they can say 'not me'-it's just business-I'm not responsible personally.

The Dickey's of the country, and they are, unfortunately, legion, only look at the surface of the realities of our society and our times, buy into, and are co-opted by, the propoganda machine of the prevailing power structure, and say "Look what Exxon, or Target, or Microsoft are doing to try to help these poor fools who won't help themselves.

The poor, the working class, and more and more, the lower and middle middle class are held accountable by the blood and the flesh. The corporation, is held accountable by the dollar. WHO is the corporation? Values? You want to talk about values?

This society is going to be ripped apart. And for a long time, no one will emerge as better off for it. And those at the top of the heap will be mostly to blame, because they had the power and the influence to intervene effectively, responsibly and in a value driven manner, but chose not to.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 May 07 - 03:28 AM

Janie: Sometimes I state things in an exagerated way to get a response or to draw attenion to something somebody said that I think is totally wrong or in conflict with other satements they have made. Like Exxon did it or Boss Hogg did it. Nobody here is dumb but I think they sometimes look for something to blame things on and they choose the wrong things.

Bobert: Per capita is the income of everybody down to age 15 divided every man woman and child down to newborns.

That means a family of four would get $132 K +- if everybody in the US got an equal share of the total income. That makes the task a little easier.

But I am really interested in what you come up with. I think it basically depends on what you consider a living wage.

Keep in mind that the dollar value of wealth is built on a lot of inflated things like artwork or real estate. Some joker pays 32 million for a picture of a soup can but his 32 million can turn into fire wood if there are suddenly no people left that can blow 32 mil on a soup can picture. Or somebody buys a house for 100 thousand and ten years later it is "worth" 300 thousand so their wealth is that much higher unless hard times hit and houses get hard to sell.

Even if you focus on income rather than wealth, things can loose value if people are unable to make payments on thier expensive things or have to cash out thier financial investments to get by.

So all of these income adjustments have to be done so as not to upset markets or it is like pulling the bottom card out of the house of cards. Drop someone's income drastically and it starts up a chain reaction, even for a corporation.

Like Hillary say we should "take" the income from Exxon and spend it here or there. 70% of Exxon's income comes from foreign operations. Why would they stay in the US while Hillary grabs their profits?

Would you live somewhere that taxes you a lot more than somewhere else or would you move?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 May 07 - 03:51 AM

Yes Janie, One-on-one service matters and people appreciate it. But if you are serving 350 meals, is it reducing the poverty level? is the number of meals going down due to the process of serving meals?

I am not saying to quit serving the meals but you have to look beyond that to something else to fix the problem or start it shrinking.

There is a program in Africa and other places that give poor people a couple of goats or rabbits and teach them how to care for them and breed them. Their only obligation is to give a pair of rabits or goats to some other poor person and teach them in the future. This starts a chain reaction that improves their lives. If you give them a meal they eat it and they are hungry the next day. You fixed the problem for one day without lessening the problem. Other programs dig them a well and install a manual pump or build the a community grinding facility to grind grain or nuts for marketing.

Here is an example of attacking the roots:

Local firm collects old sneakers to fight poverty, hunger in Africa
Wednesday, May 16, 2007

NEW PROVIDENCE -- A local company is collecting used sneakers as part of an international Adopt-A-Family program to save lives in Africa.

"If you or your organization would like to help stomp out poverty, all it takes is your used athletic shoes (Adult sizes 7+) that have been sitting in closets for years untouched," said David Allegra.

"Rather than sending your old shoes to the landfill, you can feel the satisfaction and joy of helping to lift a family out of poverty."

Allegra and Company, Mr. Allegra's financial planning and tax accounting firm, will collect donated athletic shoes at its offices at 309 South St., Murray Hill, during regular business hours of 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

The used shoes are sent to Africa to be refurbished with new laces, insoles and sanitized. They are then given to street vendors which creates jobs in the cities. The income generated from the shoes is shared between the street vendors and the Adopt-A-Family program.

According to Mr. Allegra, every 500 pairs of shoes provides one family with

A water well and pump installed on the family farm.

One pregnant rabbit and hutch

Three hens and one cock

20 fruit trees plus 100 additional trees

Seeds for a quarter acre vegetable garden plus a colonized bee hive

A bicycle to transport product to market

"The adopted families are also educated and trained by local professionals with decades of experience, who understand the challenges of small farmers. The instructors go directly to the village and provide training on the family farm," Mr. Allegra said.

"The impact is powerful and personal. The family becomes experienced in regenerative farming practice, from the introduction of livestock and year-round irrigation to organic farming skills, animal propagation, ad marketing of produce," Mr. Allegra said.

The recipient families also receive free dental and eye screening as well as free malaria medication and HIV education, he said.

"There has never been a comprehensive bottom-up approach this complete to end poverty," Mr. Allegra said.

For more information, call Allegra and Company at 908-665-1696.

http://www.nj.com/news/independentpress/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1179332161192090.xml&coll=18

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 22 May 07 - 04:33 PM

Great plan, Dickey. How would you apply that to poverty in the U.S.A.?

I'd say an increase in minimum wage, subsidized childcare and educational opportunity would be a start.

What are you doing?

Voting Republican certainly isn't going to solve the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 22 May 07 - 07:29 PM

Living wage = the amount of money it takes to live in various regions + the costs of education for your children... Nothting more, nothing less...

$33,000 per capita should do the trick quite nicely and still leave a wealthy class...

But I seriously doubt the $33,000 figure since it is most likely based on "taxable income"... Taxable income is what is left after all the crooks hide their wealth off shore, after the middle class uses it deductiona and exemptions... If that is what we are talking about then you can probably double the per capita figure... Maybe triple it...

But even with the Dickey figure, there is not reason for poverty other than greed...

Bobert

p.s. Sorry folks for my lack of proof reading skills... They generally aren't as bad as of late but I've been working like a crazy man and am just worn slap out these days...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 May 07 - 08:58 PM

"$33,000 per capita should do the trick quite nicely and still leave a wealthy class"

Bobert: If every person had a $33,000 income, there would be no wealthy class unless you consider $33K wealthy.

I looked for a source that you could trust for the per capita income and at Mother Jones it said $37,610 for the US.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/01/barrel.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 May 07 - 09:27 PM

While searching for per capita income at Mother Jones, AKA MoJo, I found this that says Puerto Rico is the happiest country surveyed with a per capita income of less than $10,000:

What You Think You Know about Happiness and Why You're Wrong

Commentary: Some number-crunching to accompany Bill McKibben's Reversal of Fortune in the March/April 2007 issue of Mother Jones.

By April Rabkin

February 28, 2007

You might think that richer countries are happier. But there's actually no correlation beyond about $10,000 per capita income. See how each country compares on this scatter chart. One surprise is that Vietnam, with a per capita income of less than $5,000, has been just as happy as France, with a per capita income of about $22,000. The happiest country surveyed was Puerto Rico. The unhappiest were Indonesia, the Ukraine, and Zimbabwe. Within Europe, the happiest countries were Denmark, Ireland, and Iceland.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/happiness_extra.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 May 07 - 07:53 AM

I didn't say that everyone would have $33,000, Dickey... I said that if that is the actual per capita income, which I think is not evn close to being accurate, that we would certainly have suffient resources to redistribute wealth in a manner that would end poverty for all those who are willing to work...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 May 07 - 10:41 AM

"$33,000 per capita should do the trick quite nicely and still leave a wealthy class"

Please reiterate this Bobert because it indicates to me that everybody would get $33,000 but there would still be a wealthy class getting more which is not possible if everybody got $33,000.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 May 07 - 10:56 AM

"Great plan, Dickey. How would you apply that to poverty in the U.S.A.?"

How about some community based private enterprize like a babysitting co-op for working mothers, subsidized by the government?

Is there anything that single parent households can produce at home for profit?

It would have to be a network sort of thing. I saw a show on TV about Taiwan. A family, mother, father and kids, took turns manniung a toy wheel making machine in their living room while watching TV. They would make a big cart full and roll it out the back door and down the alley to another family that would make or assemble something else.

Government regulations stand in the way of much of this private enterprize. For example, day care centers required to have a commercial type kitchen to be legal and zoning laws preventing work at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 23 May 07 - 04:44 PM

"...a babysitting co-op for working mothers."

That says it all. You obviously cannot think beyond your mouth.

If they are working, who will be the babysitters?

I guess you expect that they will arrange their working hours to suit the babysitting arrangements. Dream on.

How about govt. subsidized daycare? The govt. could offer incentives to employers to offer on-site daycare or they could offer direct subsidies to parents.

...and Dickey, the reason the Taiwanese family has the option of working at home is because that kind of job is outsourced by the U.S. You'll have to think a little more creatively if you want to offer an alternative to staying at home to care for your own children while collecting welfare.

In fact, staying at home with your child (welfare) until the child is school age is probably a very good solution to the problem. When the child enters school, mom could be given subsidized training and/or education in addition to after school daycare.

That would help but it still does not account for the huge number of people with mental health issues that deserve better care than they are receiving.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 23 May 07 - 04:58 PM

Some people are of the mindset that poverty is a matter of choice for most poor people. It isn't. You have heard from a single parent on this thread who did a good job raising her young 'un, and she managed to become a professional. However, she is astute, intelligent (except for the occasions on which she disagrees with me), and she knows whereof she speaks. SHE has empathy ofr poor people, and she's been there herself. So too was another gal on this thread. She's in the opposite end of Canada. She too has been there and done that. They are great women in their own ways, and if they can find it in their hearts to recognize that all people who are poor deserve ways to get back on their feet just because they are human and their mistakes be damned, why the hell can't you, Dickey?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 23 May 07 - 05:08 PM

It isn't always about money first. Sometimes it HAS to be about people first.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 May 07 - 08:04 PM

Yeah, if the per capita is $33,000 then this is enough dough per capita to get started... This doesn't mean that everyone get's $33K, only that if that is the figure then collectively we have enought wealth to pull it off...

I still dought this is the figure...

I think what one needs to do is take:

1. The GNP

plus 2. Collective wealth and...

...add those 2 mubers up... You know, kinda like doing a financail staement... That would better represtent the national wealth...

Now divide by 300M people and that would provide a more realistic number which we could talk about... I believe that amount might be at least 3 times and probably more like 10 times the $33K per capita...

That is the real way of looking as reditribution of wealth...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 23 May 07 - 09:12 PM

This is without a doubt the clearest article I have ever read about the issue of poverty, how it comes about and why it comes about. Article here.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 23 May 07 - 09:44 PM

Thanks, Peace!

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 May 07 - 09:44 AM

Again I ask how is this wealth to be divvied up and what happens when the Boss Hoggs have to sell their stocks, $50 million dollar homes, $300 million dollar yachts and their $32 million dollar soup can paintings (oops, actually $11.8 million) to accomplish the task?

Does that "wealth" stay the same or does it shrink because there are no billionaires that are able to pay such artificially inflated prices for things or buy such large quantities of stock?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 May 07 - 10:28 AM

This may explain distribution of wealth in more detail

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 24 May 07 - 11:28 AM

The total distribution of wealth makes for nice discussion, but in reality it will never happen. People would be better served spending less effort trying to come up with ways to take away from the rich and spend more effort bringing up the standard of living for the poor. Do you actually think the rich are going to volunteer to part with their wealth ?? Me either. This discussion is starting to wander into never-never land, just when some interesting points and sensible solutions were being presented. Without philanthropy you will never get a nickel out of the rich, at least not in the USA. Again, it's back to education, social assistance where required, and more social awareness to the needs of the poor people amongst us.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 24 May 07 - 03:36 PM

I think we all understand the distribution of wealth quite well, Dickey. From the article you linked:

"Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America."

What needs to happen is a re-distribution of financial wealth.

That wealth can be re-distributed through tax reform and govt. funding of social programs.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 May 07 - 05:32 PM

Ever since Reagan told the lie about the "Welfare Queens", the rise of poverty in the US has increased. During his presidency, street people appeared in droves. There never was a Welfare Queen. Another Reagan myth such as his "war stories" retold about the parts he did in movies.

The Neo-cons actually want poverty to occur. They want the separation between have and have-nots and they started the Class Wars. They intend to exploit poor people in this country by attacking them for being poor and giving them Walmart jobs to live on.

One of the biggest poverty aspects of the US today is its cultural and artistic poverty which is engendered by dumbed-down education and the crap on the media. The privatization of education will favor the rich and exclude the poor. Corporate sponsors are robbing the people of decent programming on the airwaves so that news becomes irrelevant and entertainment puerile.

L.H.,

There are cities in America where you can't go out at night if you are wise. Same deal, if you get robbed, mugged etc. the cops will ask what you were doing there at that time of night. Some are under the delusion that we live in a free country. Free to get killed if you happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 24 May 07 - 08:30 PM

Excellent posts, Frank, d, and Bruce's link...

Yeah, here were are pushing 900 posts and this is really what it comes down to: a redistributuion of wealth... Heck, I don't care as much how wealth is defined for now as long as we understand that redistruting it is not only the right thing to do but the only way that this country will survive its own self...

We can start offf with Dickey's rediculously low figures or we can look at the big wealth picture... Doesn't much matter now as long as we start...

I would think that for starters we could use the low income tax credit as the vehicle and cutting back the Bush tax cuts for the upper 5%, taxing off shore accounts by the rich and returning to a saner estate tax will go a long way toward paying for ***ending poverty*** for all people who get up and go to work...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 May 07 - 10:27 PM

Bobert:

I am was hoping you would come up with an answer. What was my ridiculously low number? What is the right number? How is it to be distributed? Who gets what?

Taxing off shore accounts will mess up George Soros, the father of offshore investing.


Now that the hook is set, look at http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html and notice Figure 6: CEOs' pay as a multiple of the average worker's pay and Figure 7: CEOs' average pay, production workers' average pay, the S&P 500 Index, corporate profits, and the federal minimum wage, 1990-2005 (all figures adjusted for inflation). You will see that it made an incredible increase of 400$ between 1994 and 2000. It topped out right about at the beginning of 2000. It has not reached that level since. Bubba did alright for his corporate donors.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 25 May 07 - 09:37 AM

After you have digested that, look at Figure 2a: Wealth distribution by type of asset, 2001:

What does this wealth actually consist of? Looks like 90% of the 69% of the total wealth held by the top 1-% is business equity. How can that be redistributed?

Bill Gates sells Microsoft along with the other billionaires that must sell their businesses and who would be the buyer?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 May 07 - 06:32 PM

Ummmm, Dickey, it's no secret that CEO's have and still do very well... That isn't the issue here...

What is tghe issue is the number of people who are poor... Now how well CEO's did during Clinton's years...

Why can't you just leave Clinton out of the discussion... You don't hear me bashing Bush all that much in this thread otheer than his freezing the child care subsidies...

This discussion ain't about Bush or Clinton so get over it and get back to the meat and tater's and leave those buks alone... There are no shortage of Bush and Clinton bashing threads to play in...

Poverty ain't about partisan politics but an American problem that needs to be addressed by Americans, regardless of party affiliations...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 25 May 07 - 11:53 PM

Ummmm, Bobert:

Once again you contradict your self. Here are "facts" you posted:

*CEO pay among military contractors has tripled since 2001."

*If the $5.15 hourly minumum wage had risen at the same rate as CEO compensation since 1990, it would now satnd at $23.03...

*Such a worker would take 7,000 years to earn Oraccle CEO Larry Ellison's yearly compensation...

Ummmm, Dickey, it's no secret that CEO's have and still do very well... That isn't the issue here...

So why do you enter things into the discussion and later claim they not an issue? Are you always so wishy washy?

Bobert says "Why can't you just leave Clinton out of the discussion" but he posts:

ADC (Aid ot Dependent Children) and AFDC (Aid to Families (ha) with Dependent Children, the two mainstays of public assitance for women and tbheir kids prior to the "Welfare Reform" (ha, part 2) under Clinton, was anti-family...

under Clinton our nation sent an undeniable message

"Welfare Reform Legislation" during Clinton's asministration

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 26 May 07 - 12:05 AM

Bobert:

You say my number was ridiculously low but you have no idea what the correct number is.

My number was the average per capita income. I went in search of a number that you would trust and I found a higher one at Mother Jones who you quoted so I thought you had confidence in their "facts"

Here is your latest statement that you will no doubt abandon:

"I would think that for starters we could use the low income tax credit as the vehicle and cutting back the Bush tax cuts for the upper 5%, taxing off shore accounts by the rich and returning to a saner estate tax will go a long way toward paying for ***ending poverty*** for all people who get up and go to work..."

No please expand on that and tell us how much money that would raise and how it is to be distributed to the poor and how much they would get. Remember "what it comes down to: a redistributuion of wealth"

I don't think you have a clue Bobert, you just blabber on as if blabber will fix the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 26 May 07 - 11:49 AM

Bobert, thanks for providing context to those two posts of Dickey's where he reposted a link I had already posted earlier in the thread. They had me scratching my head because I was trying to read them in the context of this thread. Could tell the secnond post was supposed to be another 'gotcha' attempt, but otherwise, I was beginning to think he was actually paying attention and 'getting it' instead of 'gotcha-ing it.'

I don't think you have a clue Bobert, you just blabber on as if blabber will fix the problem. Dickey

Excuse me Dickey, I must have overlooked some of your posts where you talked about which agencies and for how long you worked serving disadvantaged populations. And you have the nerve to say Bobert just 'blabbers.' Tell us, in detail, just exactly all the many ways you work or have worked to deal with the problem of some one other than you being hard up.

Fine Dickey. I'll accept your premise that distribution of wealth and income is just fine the way it is and should not be touched. Without any redistribution, and using the percentages from the article you reposted above, show us your solution to 'fix the problem' of poverty. Show us how you are going to created so much sustainable wealth and income, without an increase in costs of meeting needs, that the bottom of the heap has enough to meet basic needs adequately.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 26 May 07 - 02:12 PM

Is working for an agency a requirement for having an opinion?

So far I have seen nothing from the experts about how to eliminate the roots of poverty. All I see are patches being applied while the problem grows worse and this is blamed on a ficticious straw man, Boss Hogg.

All you can think about is helping the poor buggers who cannot help themselves as if they don't have the mentality. Hang a carrot on a stick etc.

On the redistribution of wealth I see no methology put forward, no facts and figures except stats which Bobert claims he don't need, supposedly showing the terrible injustices of who owns what.

Here is blabber "cutting back the Bush tax cuts for the upper 5%," After saying "This discussion ain't about Bush or Clinton" He goes back to saying it is about Bush.

Bobert, just what were those tax cuts dollar wise and how much would this amount would go to the poor?

Taxes were cut 33.3% for the bottom bracket and 16.6% for the top bracket.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 26 May 07 - 05:35 PM

Unfortuantaely, Dicky, unlike you, I don't have unlimited desposable time to sit in front of my computer doing research... Ahhhh, I have a real job... You know what they are??? Nevermind that one...

What I was pointing out in my last post of a couple days ago is that your reverting to bringing up the CEO cempensation packages under Bush vrs. Clinton was nuthing but another red faering baiting on your part... Seems when you have nuthin' else to offer, you drag Slick Willie ou of your tackle box... The probelm is that, sure, I have used ***actual historical events*** that have occured since the beginning of the War on Poverty as part of an overall discussion on poverty... I have not sugar coated Clinton and more than Bush becuase ***actual historical events*** have occured under both admninistrations which have not been helpful...

But for you so say that I am blabbering shows me that you really aren't taking this thread with any level of seriousness... Why is that, Dickey??? This thread isn't about me regardless of how much you would love to highjack it and make it about me...

Like I told you a few months back when you were stuck in yer childish "Get-Bobert" mood, when you do this stuff it makes you out to be a real "jerk"... You, I guess, are about the only person on this thread who doesn't see that...

You were doing okay for awhile but now that yer back to playing your juvinilistic games and trying to highjack this discussion, I reckon it's back to "Ignore-the-Jerk" time for me... If you post somethibng that shows any level of repentance and a willingness to discuss this very important issue I'll respond... Until then...

...bye-dee-bye...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 26 May 07 - 10:23 PM

Bobert, you whine way too much !! Less criticism, more solutions, please. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 26 May 07 - 11:41 PM

Hey Bobert: You are deliberately avoiding the nuts and bolts or as you prefer meat and taters of what to do. You blame it on Boss Hogg and say rich folks need to pay for fixing it but you can't say how to fix it, how much money and where it comes from. Just talk about revolution and redistribution of wealth.

That is because you cannot define the root cause of poverty so you want to cover up the problem with somebody elses money while the problem gets bigger.

If you are such a problem solver let's hear something besides a patch job.

I say much of this wealth that is concentrated at the top is based on intangible things that cannot be distributed to the bottom end without a collapse of the whole system of wealth valuation anyway. And I didn't read it anywhere.

I say revolutions to eliminate the Aristocracy have done nothing but cause destruction and killed millions of people with no improvement in the standard of life.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 May 07 - 12:13 AM

There is no 'fix', Dickey. There are multiple and complex ways to address the multiple and complex issues of poverty on both societal and personal levels in this country that mitigate and significantly decrease the number of people in this country who are unable to acheive an adequate level of income and resources to assure that basic needs are met.

Everyone, has, and is entitled to an opinion. Informed opinions based on extensive education and professional experience, or on the first-hand experience of having lived in poverty, tend to carry more weight than do others in most discussions--unless one is talking about religion or poverty. Those of us who work with indigent and disadvantaged populations understand and accept that the contempt and devaluation of the human worth of poor individuals carries over onto us. But that doesn't stop us. And one of our tasks is to try to keep that contempt of the poor from stifling the voice of the poor.

Still waiting for details of your 'fix' that does not alter the percentages and ratios of distribution of wealth and income that currently exist in this country.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 27 May 07 - 12:35 AM

Again the soul/you/tions would be fair tax accountability for the wealthy & the poor & put more of a burden on high end corporations & put a premium on those, espically, that use the resources that belong to John Q Pulbic, those that steal from us with the permission of Congress & pay a user fee that's akin to spit in your eye. Next free health care to those that can't afford it & free education to all, free child care to those that can't afford it & it should be offered as a company benifit to those that could make use of it just like a company offers health benifits, it should be mandated that they offer child care too, well maybe they could do a bit better than that existing model. Some kind of Welfare reform that would make it easier & fairer for the mentally challanged, the homeless & the families with children in need able to apply for assistence in a friendly user form. Put back the money that was there at the start of the "war on poverty" instead of the money hat's put into the "war on the world". Finally we got a wage increase that's a doller short & a day to late, my son makes that, thank Christ he's got a family instead of a Government to fall back on.

There it is in a nutshell.

I get pissed every time I think about big business, governemt & our taxed system (yes, that's a pun). The Government wants my money but when I was a baby & the milk dried up where the fuck was their tit. Today 56 yrs later they're still sucking the wind out of the mouths of the poor while shoving slogans of reform up they're asses & spening like a drunken sailor on things that profit only the rich & mighty, I can't seem to find any programs that are doing better, only ones that keep getting worst but gas prices are flying high while the industry's in a windfall situation posting the highest profits ever. The politicans are the only ones that'll keep themselves fucking warm this coming winter, you'll see. The only ones that have been sucking on that tit are the ones that are already very well off.

Do you think I'm a bit pissed about how this nation deals with poverty, you bet I am, I had to live it & be born into it & since the first day I sweated to earn a dollar I've been paying for this system ever since & still don't ever plan on seeing a return on it though I watch what I've paid for go into the pockets of them that don't deserve it instead of those the need it, like it was supposed to be, like they promised it would be, my taxes should go to benifit the good of this nation & it's people not it's corporations & they're CEO's. Since when did "We the people" & "for & by the people" turn into "we the wealthy & me the mighty" what's left for the "meek & weak" what happened to give us your "sick & poor". We could've been contenders instead we have become a nation of concubines & courtesans that is now our culture. When will this government marry it's people?
This government sees that it get it's support from every one in one way or form or another. Even from it's poor who don't or can't work, just think of them as the children of those that did once contribute even if you have to go back a few generations, weither they were slaves or fought in some war they & we all came from deserving familes at some point that gave it's due to this nation. So when will the nation as a whole say "in sickness or in health", for richer or for poorer", "in good times or in bad", "till death do us part"? Because for my money I see that the people of this country have been standing by they're promises all along, through wars, through taxes, by their sweat & blood & by their brains & backs. We've been nation building from the start & have never stopped, the poor & middle class machines have never broken down (What have the rich done for us, there's a thread worth posting) but this is getting a bit one-sided, they're dying, it's killing US. I'd say that by now the government & the industries that were made so powerful stop draining it's living foundation of it's support & start living up to it's commitment to stand by it's men, women & children as if they were it's life's blood & give back a bit of what's due it's people.

Pissed? I grew up poor & hungry, fought every day of my childhood life, worried & wonder what's around the corner, under educated, labored my way out & created a business that payed more than it's due in taxes, insurances, medical & legal fees, employed quite a few & took care of those that worked for me, paid into all the unemployment funds, the SS (sounds a bit Nazi) taxes, only to be run down by the IRS when I became hospitalized & driven into bankruptcy & have what income I earned for the next 10 years garnished unfairly. After paying into this country my whole life I end up collecting a lously check once a moth that doesn't even cover my family's monthly medical prescriptions, never mind my children's education, all the while knowing that if my wife's job or health becomes shaky that we'll be one of those that alot of the stat poster's here are complaining about, and I know that, that's the same for many of the blue coller workers in this country, one step away from a civil disaster.

Yes, I'm pissed. "War on poverty" my ass, asshole!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 May 07 - 12:56 AM

Ok Janie so to simplify what you are saying, there will be more and more poor people as time goes by. When will the percentage grows so large that the problem cannot mittigated any longer?

I don't think the problem is rich people VS poor people. I think it is the part of society that screws up their future and expects to be saved and those who facilitate the idea that no matter what they do, they will be taken care of.

I think it is society on self destruct because of the garbage being fed to our young people I spoke about earlier and this "mittigation" is part of the destruction sequence.

The "fix" would be the elimination of garbage and replacement with reality 101. The only Boss Hoggs involved are the ones profiting by feeding them this garbage. There are some other Boss Hoggs that take advantage of the poor for profit but it has nothing to with how much money rich folks have or how much taxes they pay.

Rather than identify and solve the problem it is much easier to patch it over with someone elses money.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 27 May 07 - 07:57 AM

1. "Guarenteed minimum income" for all workers thru:

2. Universal and affordable "single payer" health insurance with premiumns based on a sliding scale...

3. More money for job training and education

4. "Child care" subsidies

5. Increase funding for Mental Health

6. Public/Private partnerships between employers and prisons

7. Reform the "manditory sentencing laws"

8. Public Service ads that promote better understanding of poverty so that the rest of these ideas will be embraced...

How to fund:

1. Roll back the Bush tax cuts

2. Reform the tax codes that allow the rich to hide income in accounts off-shore

3. Institute a "value Added Tax" on all all good produced by the "Boss Hog, Inc.s" on stuff made in forieng plants with labor indexed to what it would cost to produce here in the US

4. Raise taxes on everyone who now pays for helath insurance by the amount that they will save with a centralized and more efficient "single payer" system...

5. Stop stupid people from starting stupid, expensive and unnecessary wars

Yeah, this is a bsic framework... These are all things I have advocated in the past and they are all serious suggestions on how to win the war on poverty...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 27 May 07 - 08:35 AM

Opps, forgot one other thing...

We need to redfine poverty levels to reflect regional difference in cost-of-living...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 27 May 07 - 10:10 AM

Pretty good Bobert. There are a few things I disagree with. The most glaring is "Reform the tax codes that allow the rich to hide income in accounts off-shore" the tax code says they must pay, it does not allow them to hide it and IRS is actively trying to detect offshore accounts and make them pay. Also these are not only availble to the rich. They are available to anybody.
The next most glaring is the fact that the Bush tax cuts have resulted in increased tax revenues. The poor got the biggest cut.

And I see nothing to attack the roots of poverty. The things that cause people to be in poverty to begin with. Something to raise their set of values that is ingrained into them when they are young.

For example slogans on T shirts that say snitches get stitches made off shore and sold by Boss Hogg.

The shirts' message - interpreted with slightly varying twists - essentially urges people to stop talking to and cooperating with police.

Made popular in Baltimore last year by a "Stop Snitching" DVD featuring rappers, a Denver Nuggets player and others, some wielding guns, wishing harm on police informants, the T-shirts, sometimes spelled "Stop Snitch'n," have caught on in urban centers from Boston to Philadelphia and Denver and are now among the hottest fashion trends in Milwaukee.
"I have five, one for each day of the week," said 16-year-old Mike O'Connor, a sophomore at Madison University High School. O'Connor says he wears them just to be fashionable.
But the shirts are fueling more than fashion, police and prosecutors say. They send a dangerous message to others that, if followed, has the potential to "destabilize the whole criminal justice system," according to John Chisholm, Milwaukee County assistant district attorney.
"This is a tremendously big problem," Chisholm said.
Witness intimidation is a real and longstanding difficulty for prosecutors nationwide, and "Stop Snitch'n" apparel, which includes baseball caps, makes solving crimes more challenging, he said.
"We're trying to go in the exact opposite direction," he said.
Police and prosecutors depend on informants to crack homicides, shootings and other serious crimes. If people feel it's unsafe or uncool to cooperate with law enforcement officials, "no one is going to come forward. No one is going to testify and the neighborhoods will suffer," Chisholm said.
Florence Howard knows such suffering.
Her grandson, 21-year-old Austin Howard, was killed this year for reportedly providing information to police.
According to a criminal complaint, just after 7 p.m. on Feb. 15, near 10th and Locust streets, Sheffield Groves entered a house where Howard and some friends had gathered. Groves reportedly pointed a gun at Howard and asked why he had snitched on him. When he didn't like the answer, Groves said, "That don't sound right," and shot Howard in the head, according to the complaint. Groves, who was charged with that and another homicide, then said to someone else in the room "You don't see nothing . . . or I'll be back to see you," the complaint says.
Florence Howard isn't sure what sort of information her grandson may have shared with police, but regardless, she says the shirts should be outlawed.
"They (police) need to do something about those shirts," she said. "They need to let them know they can't go around trying to stop justice...."

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=363034

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 27 May 07 - 09:41 PM

This thread continues to be so moving. Barry's justifiably angry words don't leave a lot to be said. I keep saying this and I fully accept I am being perhaps naive and certainly repetetive, but why - WHY - is national health not here. Much that has been referenced in this thread would have been solved to a large extent by national health. There will always be people born into wealthier families than others -- that is acceptable. BUT if the people born into the poorer families started out with at least the level playing field of THEIR HEALTH, how much fairer would things be.....? I continue to find it totally appalling that one must make life style decisions, job decisions based on medical coverage. My eldest girl has medical insurance because she 'works' for my company; my younger girl is dancing around her home because she has just been offered a full time job with benefits. My son, who is no student, will lose his medical insurance once he turns 19 unless I can squeeze out a 'job' for him in my company also.......THIS IS WRONG......it is just wrong.The thing that Barry speaks of so eloquently - losing one's livelihood due to illness......it isn't right, it cannot be right, it will never be right -- yet we continue to tolerate it.......

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 27 May 07 - 09:44 PM

"Something to raise their set of values that is ingrained into them when they are young."

You are fuckin' pathetic.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 May 07 - 09:50 PM

About 15 years ago an Australian woman told me of an incident at a drug store (chemist). She said she was in line behind an elderly man who presented a prescription to the pharmacist and said, How much?

At the answer he shook his head and took back the prescription. Too much, he said. I can't pay it.

My friend was distraught and irate. How can this be! she asked.

One of the things that I don't understand is why do we think that we have to come up on our own with a formula for national health care? Why do we think we have to re-create the wheel? Why can't we look at other countries' systems and cherry pick the data?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 27 May 07 - 10:01 PM

Exactly --- exactly........ And in response to people who say - well, it wouldn't be FAIR -- how would you make decisions around cosmetic surgery for example, or weight reduction surgery - stomach stapling. Seems to me I would rather be in a philosophical debate about whether it is 'fair' to pay to have someone's tummy tucked (which I don't believe most national health systems would pay for anyway) than in a debate about paying for life saving medications.........

Our town is beginning to have a lot of people begging on street corners. It kills me to see it.....I can't help them all so I watch for one particular elderly gentleman who stands there quietly by the side of the road. He doesn't make eye contact with the cars -- he just stands there looking dignified and sad. When I gave him some money once I asked him, did he not have any family. His answer was no -- and he had lived in a rental but the building had been bought and condominimized (God help me, with people like me selling the condos to fat cats) -- he says he was cheated out of his security deposit and didn't have enough money to come up with a security deposit for a new apartment -- if you could find an affordable apartment in our town for someone retired and living on just social security.

I saw him today and double parked so I could give him some money.....I have him a big hug and wished him Happy Memorial Day. Glad I did -- wish I could do more.

This stuff is sickening..........

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 May 07 - 10:47 PM

You are wrong, Dickey. A CEO making more than 400 times the money of the average worker is the one taking other people's money.


Still waiting for your 'fix', Dickey, with the current percentages regarding distribution of wealth.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 May 07 - 11:00 PM

You did not simplify what I had to say, Dickey. You said what you had to say, and misrepresented it as a simplification of my writing. That is dishonest.

I promise you I will let you know if I ever give you permission to edit my writing. Until then, I strongly suggest you refrain from doing so.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 May 07 - 11:59 PM

I will say that Dickey has done a beautiful job of proving my point about the way the poor are devalued and held in contempt.

I can't wait to go back to work on Tuesday to spread the news to all the extremely hardworking and extremely hard up poor people I work with that the problem is their values.

"If you would only work 4 jobs instead of three, dear, and eat dogfood instead of spam, all your problems would be solved. YOu obviously don't have a good work ethic and waste money on expensive food. You live right behind Food Lion, surely you could go dumpster diving in your free time to extend that food budget.   I know it is tough washing all your clothes in the bathtub for the past 3 years, since you can't afford to go to the laundry mat. (Why you can't afford that is beyond me--three jobs as housekeeper at anywhere from $1.95 to $2.50 a room, and your rent in the bonifide lowest rent dumb in town is only $500 per month plus utilities.) Now, even though your IQ is 85 and you were beaten and raped for years by your well-off father and your stepbrother, there is no need for you to quit your job as a housekeeper at the local upscale motel just because the manager feels you up everytime you go in to get your pay of $2.50 per room cleaned. He's in the middle socioeconomic class, so his values are just fine. It is somehow your fault that he does this every Friday afternoon. If you quit that job, you just don't have a good work ethic. Now, let us sort out those values a little better. Yes, it does get confusing. If you dump the husband who drinks, smokes crack and beats you your children will not have their father in the home and you will demonstrate a lack of family values for not keeping the family intact. If you don't dump him, you are a wimp, a loser and a fool who deserves what she gets for being so stupid as to stay. Tough one--well--not really. You are poor, no matter what you do, and will stay that way, no matter what you do. And since you are poor, you are a loser with no family values or work ethic--the fact that you are poor proves it. Now, get out of my office, if I try to do something or work with you to try to help you, I am mitigating and simply contributing to your problem."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 12:01 AM

Dickey is given altogether too much attention on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 May 07 - 12:18 AM

You are right, Peace. I need to check out of this thread for awhile and go find a way to start a revolution.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 12:19 AM

A sign of the times.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 12:22 AM

Janie, when people ask what the poor are up against, it's the type of attitude and argument from people like what's 'is face that shows only too clearly that indeed a 'revolution' of sorts would be required to change anything for the better. Some people just don't give a damn.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 12:52 AM

"But as I travel around this big old world,
There's one thing that I most fear;
It's a White man in a golf shirt
With a cell phone in his ear."

That is by Tom Russell. Hear the whole thing on the following youtube video.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 12:55 AM

"Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 May 07 - 03:22 AM

Great video, Peace. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 May 07 - 07:56 AM

"That is dishonest" That was my interpretation of what you said. If there is no fix for the problem, the problem grows larger.

And I did not say the fix is a redistribution of wealth.

"if I try to do something or work with you to try to help you, I am mitigating and simply contributing to your problem."

You are helping by mittigating the problem but you are doing nothing to prevent others from being raped etc and ending up in the same situatuion and requiring even more mittigation.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 May 07 - 10:18 AM

"And I did not say the fix is a redistribution of wealth."

That's right, Dickey. You have been very clear on that point. I don't have any problem at all understanding what you write. That is why I am still waiting for your fix that does not involve redistribution of wealth.

J

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 May 07 - 11:55 AM

"...but you are doing nothing to prevent others from being raped etc and ending up in the same situatuion and requiring even more mittigation."

I'm doing nothing in areas of prevention? I'd send you my resume, Dickey, but with 35 years (and counting) of both micro and macro practice, it takes awhile to get through.

I do confess, however, that I did not offer to go to the motel and beat up the manager or remove his hands and cojones. But according to your view of the root causes of poverty being bad values and bad choices, the root cause of not being poor must be good values and good choices. The manager, the Dad and the step-brother are/were financially comfortable. Your internal logic dictates that their values and choices are therefore good.

I do believe you have watched too many 'Ozzie and Harriet' reruns.

It also interesting to me that you assume that work with individuals is nothing but mitigatory.

Reality 101: People are people. People with resources are not morally superior to people without resources. People without resources are no more likely to make bad choices (when they have choices between good and bad choices) than are people with resources. The primary difference, when it does come down to making a poor choice when a good is available is this - resources protect people from the consequences of the bad choices they make. When your middle-class neighbor's kid gets in trouble for drugs, you may never know about it. And - that kid will probably get a deferred prosecution while Daddy sends him to rehab. 5 blocks over, on the other side of the tracks, the drug bust will be in the newspapaer and all names of participants will be published. That kid's father, who works hard cleaning the floors in your high-rise office building, won't have the money for a good lawyer or the resources for rehab. His kid will go to jail.

Reality 101: People without resources do not have the same array of choices as do people with resources. People without resources are much more likely to have to choice between the lesser of two evils.

Reality 101: One can not learn to differentiate between a good and bad choice, much less learn to make a good choice, when there are limited or no good choices available in the learning environment.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 May 07 - 05:48 PM

Janie:

You used the word mitigate. Prevent has a completely different meaning. I am not trying to impugn your knowledge or efforts or professionalism or Bobert's either.

What I am trying to say is the causes of poverty must be addressed. Evidently they are not being addressed because the problem is growing larger. More people needing more and more help.

You say "If you would only work 4 jobs instead of three, dear, and eat dogfood instead of spam," What causes a person to be in this situation? I realize that they are usualy born into a bad situation but how did that situation come about? One bad situation leads to a worse situation. Reverse engineer the problem and go back to when the problem first began.

"One can not learn to differentiate between a good and bad choice"

Where did that come from? I have not heard it before. I know I can learn, I think you can. Rats can learn. There may be some mentally disabled people who cannot learn. People can be influenced to make bad choices (by the garbage I spoke of) but they still know it is bad.

To say that people can't learn something is to declare them mentally incompetent. Sounds bigoted to me. Like saying "Hey, you people are so dumb you can't make the right choices so just go ahead and make bad choices and we will mitigate the problems later. It here is not enough money we will bitch, moan and find someone to blame."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 May 07 - 06:37 PM

Read (and quote) the whole sentence Dickey.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 06:40 PM

"One can not learn to differentiate between a good and bad choice, much less learn to make a good choice, when there are limited or no good choices available in the learning environment."

There is the whole sentencem, and there is a world of difference in the implications between that and what you quoted, Dickey.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 May 07 - 07:23 PM

If you don't choose to quote the entire sentence, please follow proper conventions for indicating you are quoting only part of a sentence written by another author. You know, the dots before and or after that let the reader know the quote is not complete, and might therefore be out of context? Or at least clue them that part of the sentence or germaine idea has been left out by the quoter?

I have no reason to believe you are ignorant of those conventions.
And they are very strong conventions. People who fail to use them in editorials, publications, letters to the editor, reasearch papers, term papers, etc, sometimes find themselves in legal difficulties when they fail to use them. I doubt, and certainly don't intend to try to find out, if the same legal consequences apply to an internet forum. Your failure to follow these conventions, taught in any high school English class, contained in the Harbrace College Handbook, and required by any professional guide to writing professional papers, such as the APA rules regarding quoting other sources, is simply another indication of your lack of integrity.

Now, tell us more about your values.

Also, I'm still waiting to read your fix for poverty that leaves the current distribution of wealth and income untouched.

J.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 May 07 - 07:24 PM

You are right Peace. What I am trying to emphasize is that children should be taught to make good choices at an early age.

They all have a brain that is more or less equal at the beginning but the garbage being fed to them beginning at an early age clouds their judgment.

It seems to me that some people think that is unavoidable and we must deal with the result. I don't agree. We must deal with the cause or we will always have the same results to deal with and increasing level of poverty.

It all goes back to education being the key to eliminating poverty, not mitigation.

Here is an example of what our young folks are exposed to :

Niggaz4life upped the violence and aggression for this 1991 classic. I remember me and my boys riding around drinking brew and being ready for whatever when this joint came out. Without Cube in the fold, they were out to prove that they did'nt need him. They succeed in proving that they could make it without him. MC Ren steps up to the plate and handles his business on key tracks like Prelude and Real N*ggaz Don't Die, and pretty much the rest of the album. Dre and Eazy deliver some of the best rhymes of their careers as well.

Top Joints:
Prelude (Ren disses so called hiphop purists - "N*ggaz rapping since the 70's and still never went Gold")
Real Niggaz Don't Die
Niggaz 4 Life
Protest (Funny)
Appetite For Destruction (Classic, nice bounce)
Alwayz Into Somethin'
Message To B.A. (They were cut his hair off, yall know the rest)
Real Niggaz
One Less Bitch (Hard)
Findum, Fuckum & Flee
Automobile (Eazy's country western parody)
She Swallowed It (Get it all baby)
I'd Rather Fuck You (Eazy's interpretation of Bootsy Collin's classic)
Approach To Danger
The Dayz Of Wayback (That's my joint!)

http://www.amazon.com/Niggaz4life-N-W/dp/B000003B74

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 May 07 - 07:47 PM

THE ROOT CAUSE OF POVERTY IS LACK OF RESOURCES.

Yes, I was just shouting.

The root cure for poverty is resources. There a number of things that effect how accessible resources are.

There are a number of factors that effect how skillful a person may be in getting their hands on resources.

Fact is, if 1% of the population has a vast majority of the available resources locked up, a significant number of the other 99% are going to be hungry, cold and sick, no matter what education, skills, values, etc., they may acquire. UNLESS, they figure a way to get their hands on some of that vast majority of resources the 1% is sitting on.

Yessirree. People can and do learn.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 May 07 - 08:19 PM

Again I ask, What does this perceived wealth er, resources, that the greedy stingt 1% consist of and how is it to be redistributed without collapsing the economy?

There are thousands of wealthy foundations to fund projects for education. The foundations are funded by Corporations and rich individuals. Warren Buffet gave $30.7 billion to the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. Bill Gates has pledged to donate 90% of his fortune, $50 billion currently, before his death.

If you have a particular peoject in mind, why not apply for a grant?


I think this old fart was the richest man of all time and he started a foundation:

Andrew Carnegie’s charge that the Corporation dedicate itself to the “advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understandingâ€쳌 has led it, over nearly 100 years of work, to support efforts to improve teaching and learning. Our history resonates throughout the current work in education, which is focused on three major areas: 1) advancing literacy, 2) urban school reform, and 3) teacher education reform. A theme that unites these subprograms is ensuring that all students gain access to an education of the highest quality that will prepare them for success in today’s knowledge-based economy.

The central ideas that inform the Corporation’s grantmaking in education also arise from a concern with strengthening formal schooling while at the same time supporting innovative educational strategies and reforms that address the needs of individual students at all levels. Our concerns include the need to build a deep capacity in the citizens of the United States for literacy and for analytic and interpretive skills; recognition of the essential importance of the quality of teaching to the production of effective learning; and acknowledgment of the idea that all students are well served by a commitment to rigor and high standards.

How to Apply for a Grant

The Corporation accepts requests for funding at all times of the year and welcomes inquiries from potential grantees whose work fits our strategic guidelines. There are no application deadlines.

Grantseekers who would like to approach the foundation with a preliminary request for funding are encouraged to submit a letter of inquiry. If the project described in the letter fits the foundation's guidelines, the sender will be contacted and asked to submit a proposal in the Corporation's format. A request to submit a proposal is not an indication of the Corporation's intention or commitment to award a grant.

Please read the program guidelines and funding restrictions carefully to determine if your organization and project fits the Corporation's grantmaking strategies and take the Grantseeker quiz to help you determine eligibility. If you are still unsure about the appropriateness of your submission, please call Dorothy Delman at [phone] for further assistance.

If you are confident that your project meets our funding criteria, please follow the instructions below to submit a letter of inquiry.

http://www.carnegie.org/sub/program/grant.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 May 07 - 08:22 PM

Still waiting....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:51 AM

Also, I'm still waiting to read your fix for poverty that leaves the current distribution of wealth and income untouched.

The fix is to identify the things that cause it in the first place and eliminate them. One way to is to quit feeding them garbage, social poison.

I am waiting for you to tell me how your mitigating activity reduces poverty. It reduces the effects but does not reduce poverty. It does not break the cycle and therefore it grows worse.

As I have pointed out the wealthy and corporations donate to foundations and trusts that support programs to fight poverty.

Here is the 2004 tax return for the Gates foundation. It is 2565 pages long. It lists contributions such as $29,385,243.00 to the institute for world health to establish and validate a manufacturing process to makes artmisinin type drugs affordable for the world's poorest people.

$750,000,000.00 to The Vacine fund in Washington DC for general support.

$220,000.00 to the Seattle housing authority to support construction of Alder Crest Apartments and provide services to families in crisis during their period of transition to a more stable condition.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:53 AM

Oops, I forgot the link
http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org//990pf_pdf_archive/911/911663695/911663695_200412_990PF.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 May 07 - 08:17 PM

Well, well, well.... And the beat goes on...

Personally, we had a major weather event a few days ago which blew the crud ouuta my modem so I ain't been 'round since...

Yes, let me reiterate what Janie said: "The root cause of poverty is a lack of resources"....

Yeah, this is what it comes down to...

I proposed a step-by-step plan for dealing with that problem...

Some would argue that the upper 1% shouldn't have to be part of the fix but seein' as that is where a major piece of the wealth lies, I don't agree...

I also don't agree that the IRS or the Justice Department is making much of an effort to catch the off-shore tax thieves, especially since most of it is perfectly, ahhh, friggin' legal???? What, can this be??? Well, yeah, it is... But you have to be super rich to afford the accountants and attorney's to pull it off but it collectively is in the hundreds of billions of taxable income that the rich are currently squirreling away from Uncle Sam...

The Washington Post recently did an article on this and it's big friggin' bucks... Enough to pay for No-Child-Left-Behind, child care subsidies and have more money in the kiitty for other programs...

This is theft that rich people have paid their corrupt governemnt to make law so that they can leagally steal.... We ain't talkin' the right winged "Wefare-Cadillac" here but real theft!!!!

But some here just think that that's okeeee-dokeee with them...

No, it is about resources... 100% about resources....

Problem is that, after the real "welfare state" (the rich), there ain't nuff left to do the country's business...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 29 May 07 - 08:20 PM

Fifty billion here, a trillion there--hell, pretty soon it adds up to real money.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 29 May 07 - 11:38 PM

Easy peasy Dickey. Mitigation is about finding, providing and or linking people to resources. Increased resources = decreased poverty.

Don't send a mother or father to school and expect them to do much with that 'opportunity' if they are consumed with struggling to provide the most basic of needs for food, clothing and shelter to their family. Mitigation aimed at meeting of basic needs will increase the likelihood the parent will make good 'use' of the educational opportunity, and therefore increase the likelihood that at some point in the future, the family will not need mitigation to meet basic needs.

Need based scholarships and grants are mitigation.

Subsidized child care or health care, section 8 housing, bus vouchers (in those places where there are buses or mass transit) are mitigation.

Little mitigation is needed to prevent poverty. Prevention is something that occurs in the absence of a problem. Prevention is an action taken to avoid the occurrence of a problem. Mitigation will almost always be a necessary part of any successful effort to remedy a problem, however.

You talk so arrogantly of values, and give the impression that you believe that you, and people who are financially able to take care of their basic needs, have a corner on the market on good values. If you actually knew many poor people very well, (and provided your own sense of well-being and moral superiority was not too threatened by the realization)you would not, with such an extremely wide brush, cling to your assertion that the root cause of poverty is lousy values.

Mitigation is sometimes simply the right and moral action, even if it will set no stage for opportunity. Sometimes I seek ways to mitigate simply because my values dictate that I offer a plate of food if some one appears who is hungry. In the face of hunger, who is to blame doesn't matter. It is not for me to judge who deserves to eat when there is enough food to feed everyone. I am always mindful that there some seeds of hope and opportunity included in that meal I hand over, but I have no control and no attachment to the ground on which the seed lands. Maybe it is barren. Doesn't matter. Maybe the seed will rot or die before conditions occur in which it might germinate. Doesn't matter. Maybe it is one of those seeds that remain viable for a long time, and down the road, when I am long gone out of the picture, something will happen to change the conditions, and the seed will germinate. Doesn't matter. Maybe the seed will wash right off of that ground, flow down the creek, and land on some other ground where it will germinate. Doesn't matter. If the seed ever does germinate, maybe it will wither. Doesn't matter. My responsibility as a human being is to offer the plate with food on it to the hungry person in front of me.

Still waiting....

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 29 May 07 - 11:49 PM

'Catters that want Bill Gate's to fork it over, don't read:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF) is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates in 2000 and doubled in size by Warren Buffett in 2006. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the United States, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington, is controlled by its three trustees: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett. Other principal officers include Co-Chair William H. Gates, Sr. and Chief Executive Officer Patty Stonesifer.

On June 25, 2006, Warren Buffett (then the world's second richest person, after Gates) pledged to give the foundation approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares (worth US$30.7 billion on June 23, 2006) spread over multiple years through annual contributions. Buffett set conditions so that these contributions do not simply increase the foundation's endowment, but effectively work as a matching contribution, doubling the Foundation's annual giving: "Buffett's gift came with three conditions for the Gates foundation: Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in its administration; it must continue to qualify as a charity; and each year it must give away an amount equal to the previous year's Berkshire gift, plus another 5 percent of net assets. Buffett gave the foundation two years to abide by the third requirement." The Gates Foundation received 5% (500,000) of the shares in July 2006 and will receive 5% of the remaining earmarked shares in the July of each following year (475,000 in 2007, 451,250 in 2008, and so on).

[edit] Activities

As of 2006, the foundation has an endowment of approximately US$33.7 billion. To maintain its status as a charitable foundation, it must donate at least 5% of its assets each year. Thus the donations from the foundation each year would amount to over US$1.5 billion at a minimum.

The Foundation has been organized, as of April 2006, into four divisions, including core operations (public relations, finance and administration, human resources, etc.), under Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Scott, and three grant-making programs:

    * Global Health Program
    * Global Development Program
    * United States Program
United States Program

Under President Allan Golston, the United States Program has made grants such as the following:

Education

NewSchools Venture Fund
    The Foundation contributed US$30 million to help NewSchools to manage more charter schools, which aim to prepare students in historically underserved areas for college and careers.

Gates Millennium Scholars
    Administered by the United Negro College Fund the foundation donated US$1 billion for scholarships to high achieving minority students.

    Official site: www.gmsp.org

Gates Cambridge Scholarships
    Donated US$210 million in October 2000 to help outstanding graduate students outside of the United Kingdom study at the University of Cambridge. Approximately 100 new students every year are funded.

    Official site: www.gates.scholarships.cam.ac.uk

University Scholars Program
    Donated US$20 million in 1998 to endow a scholarship program at Melinda Gates' alma mater, Duke University. The program provides full scholarships to about 10 members of each undergraduate class and one member in each class in each of the professional schools (Schools of Medicine, Business, Law, Divinity, Environment, and Nursing). The program also pays for a full-time administrator who organizes seminars to bring these scholars together for interdisciplinary discussions as well as the selection process in the Spring.

D.C. Achievers Scholarships
    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced March 22, 2007 a $122 million initiative to send hundreds of the District of Columbia's poorest students to college.

Texas High School Project http://www.thsp.com

Criticisms:

The Gates Millennium Scholars fund, according to its official website's frequently asked questions section, only provides scholarships to African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Pacific Islander American or Hispanic American applicants. Because the program focuses on racial and ethnic minorities, it has been criticized for excluding Caucasians. However, such grant programs are argued to be necessary to counteract more broadly occurring trends of systemic racism..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

Ahhhh, Well Well Well, 5% of $33.7 billion, that's $1,685,000,000 per year min. That number gets higher each as the assets grow plus Buffet aims to double that. Ol' Bill is 42 now so within 40 years or so he will have given away 90% of his fortune which will probably quadruple in 40 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:33 AM

Janie: You can keep on waiting. If Increased resources = decreased poverty then eventually there will be no need for these resources, correct?

You said correctly that Prevention is an action taken to avoid the occurrence of a problem. Mitigation will almost always be a necessary part of any successful effort to remedy a problem.

But you do not state how mitigation prevents the occurence of poverty.

Prevention is something that occurs in the absence of a problem.???????? Prevention eliminates the problem before it exists. Prevention does not occur.Prevention is proactive. Mitigation is reactive.

And I do not agree that scholarships are mitigation. Handing out a hot meal or food stamps is a good thing to do but the hunger re occurs. Hand out a scholarship and the need does not re occur.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 May 07 - 01:58 AM

Dickey, is all that shit that you just printed supposed to mean something to the hungry kid in the street. Cause to me it's just a bunck of worthless numbers on a page that can't be eaten.

Maybe you can explain what all that means in terms of an empty stomack?

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 May 07 - 06:27 AM

Well, if all those in the upper 1% were like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, we might not be having this discusssion... They seem to have come to moral ground that makes them re-evalute their own person wealth...

Good for them....

But they don't represent the morals of the those in the upper 1% by any means.... They are the rare exception... Not the rule...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 May 07 - 06:51 AM

Yup. Only I wasn't really waiting. Because I can do math and already knew you couldn't provide an answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 10:35 AM

Janie:

You are attempting to get me into the Ron Davies Iron Jaw Trap. You claim I was supposed to do something and when I don't do it you use it to disprove other things. I have shown how Boss Hogg helps poor people. I show one example and Bobert claims that is the rare exception.

Tell me how many examples I need to show before Bobert puts his bias aside. I suppose he would rather force Bill Gates to liquidate his $50 billion fortune and preclude the greater amount of money given to charitable causes over the years.

Here are some example foundations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Foundations_based_in_the_United_States

Here is another example: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

The priorities of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities are:

    * Books, Reading, and Literacy--the importance of the text as a means of transmitting, exploring, and broadening our understanding of the human experience.
    * Media and Culture--the global influence of electronic media on culture, how the media may promote or undermine positive social change, and how media may influence individual perception and creative thinking.
    * Violence and Culture--the roots of violence and personal dislocation, and the struggle for individual survival and self-determination within systems of violence.[Doesn't that sort of cut right through to the roots of poverty?]
    * Rights and Responsibilities--the still-evolving American traditions of self-government and justice, and the special role Virginia has played in shaping the concept of freedom worldwide.
    * Science, Technology, and Social Change--advances in science and technology, the challenges and opportunities they create, and how they are redefining culture and community life.
    * Virginia History--the stories of Virginia, its people and institutions, with particular emphasis on the history of minority communities in the state.


"How the media may promote or undermine positive social change." I like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 30 May 07 - 11:56 AM

Dickey you need to study up. Masolow is a good start.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/maslow.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 May 07 - 07:13 PM

Good one, dianavan! I had been tempted to refer to Masolow in the 'easy peasy' post. Glad you did. It won't interest Dickey, or influence him in the least, but it may well others who are reading.

Dickey, I don't know about Ron's Iron Jaw trap. I am acquainted with Ron from Getaways, and greatly admire his fine musicianship. However, I don't often inhabit the same threads in the BS section as does he, or you for that matter.   

Feeling trapped...how interesting.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 May 07 - 08:14 PM

Well, well, well...

Seems the only traps I've seen here are self-set by Dickey... Seems he loves the attention.... Even if it means trapping himself...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 May 07 - 08:25 PM

I know just what you mean about the media, Dickey. It really pisses me off, all those poor people sneaking into the offices and board rooms of Ad agencies and Media corporations, holding guns to the heads of those CEO's, decision-makers, college educated marketing specialists and graphic artists. Those poor brand name only sluts make the people who run those companies, and the thousands of bright, college educated middle and upper middle class young adults who work for them promote and sell all that crap and disregard decent and humane values to the almighty dollar. Those trashy poor people. They make the media do it. Those no-good poor people made the brand names market themselves in such a way that only a brand name will do. Those poor people demanded that (in my book) unethical people with PhD's in psychology put the big bucks in front of the welfare of people and go to work applying their skills and knowledge to manipulating human behavior in the service of effective advertising and the making of big bucks. Those goddamn poor people. How dare they be exploitable.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 May 07 - 09:19 PM

"Tell me how many examples I need to show before Bobert puts his bias aside...."

Hmmmm.

Telling.

Very telling.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 May 07 - 09:38 PM

Okay, I will freely admit that I have "biases"... Biases, however, are much different than "predufices"... Biases come from a life time of learning...

Yes, if by our age we havent settled into a set of "biases" then there is seomething drastically wrong???

"Hmmmmmmmmm????", Dickey asks...

Yeah, bias mean that we think toward one value or another... That, in essense, is what wisdom is all about... No one should be ashamed of genuinely well feveloped biases... It is what we live be... Biases are another word for our belief systems... Our values... Our core...

Sure, I have biases but they are from a lifetime's experiences whci included 20 years "in the hole"... LOL... Working as a jail house teacher, a drug counselor and a social worker... Yeah, I hope I came out with a good number of biases or...

...what a waste...

But what one can never say about me is that I pre-judged an indivudual or a situation...

That dog just won't hunt...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 May 07 - 09:45 PM

And the people say "Amen!"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 08:37 AM

Janie:

Just what the hell are you talking about? I try to explain how some companies really are boss hoggs who prey on poor people through the media and you make some sort of parody that seems to imply I am doing the opposite. This exploitation through the media must be identified and ended as part of the elimantion of the roots of poverty.

Your concept seems to be to try to mitigate the damage from exploitation through the media after it is done by blaming it on every body with money and forcing them to pay. That is reactive rather that proactive action.

I show how some of Bobert's imagined boss hoggs actuly contribute to poor people and that he is automaticaly biased against anybody that has money and he claims bias is good. "But what one can never say about me is that I pre-judged an indivudual" How about me Bobert? You have called am a shill, a rich guy, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 08:59 AM

How to Create a Neighborhood
Babysitting CooperativeDianavan:

"...a babysitting co-op for working mothers."

That says it all. You obviously cannot think beyond your mouth.

If they are working, who will be the babysitters?

I guess you expect that they will arrange their working hours to suit the babysitting arrangements. Dream on."

Regardless of your ongoing personal attacks:

How to Create a Neighborhood Babysitting Cooperative
A How-to Guide for neighborhood leaders working to make life better for people in Battle Creek. Yes we can.
http://www.wkkf.org/Pubs/GreaterBC/Babysitting_coop_00254_02987.pdf


BABYSITTING COOPERATIVES

Dorothy Labensohn
Family Life Extension Specialist
Human Development and Family Studies
Iowa State University
http://www.nncc.org/Choose.Quality.Care/qual.sitter.coop.html

    Creating Opportunities

    Any project or area of work in the framework for community-based poverty reduction can be a springboard for enhancing employability and promoting economic development. Any organization can become the base for skills training, assistance with job search, worker co-ops and job creation.
   
    Peer support groups and neighbourhood associations, for example, can encourage unemployed members to coordinate setting up a business or a food or babysitting co-op. Immigrant settlement programs can act as the base for employment counselling, referral to training or promotion of self-employment. Adult high school and language programs for adults can incorporate job referral and employment counselling.
   
    A social housing complex can become the centre from which to teach home or furniture repair skills to young people or unemployed residents. Families whose children participate in early childhood development projects can exchange services such as home repairs, babysitting, lawn care, typing of résumés, transportation or snow removal. Family counselling programs can extend into training and job creation.

http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/Detail/?ID=378

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 31 May 07 - 08:12 PM

Well, okay...

Yeah, this coop might be of some help but in the big scheme of things, ain't even a drop in the bucket of what we are talkin' about here...

BTW, the fact is that the upper 1% are hiding tens of billions offshore... Is Bill Gates??? Nah, he dosen'have tiome to hide his money.... Same with Warren Buffet... These ain't the folks who are hiding the money but the money ***is*** being hidden...

I suggested that, as part of a larger package of revenue creating ideas, that "legal" off-shore hiding of taxable income be made "illegeal"... This certainly isn't going to hurt either Gates or Buffet, or any other upper 1%'r who is playing fair and not stealing "legally" from our country...

Just close the loopholes, will ya'???? This will help finance the stuff that I suggested as ways to end poverty....

Bobert

BTW.... Can I assume, Dickey, that you are part of that upper 1%??? You certainly jump in to defend them at the drop of a hat...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 11:17 PM

"the fact is that the upper 1% are hiding tens of billions offshore" Please explain that fact Bobert.

"legal" off-shore hiding of taxable income be made "illegeal" If it was legal, why would they have to hide it? Does not compute.

It is already is illegal to hide taxable income off shore, in a mattress, anywhere. Where did this fairy tale come from? You spout this crap without even checking to see if it is true. You don't even care if it is true. You are not concerned with the truth. You can't recognise the truth.

"Making investments or doing business internationally is legal, but numerous schemes have been devised in which the true ownership of income streams and assets has been hidden or disguised using offshore activity, which is not legal."

No Bobert, I am way far below that 1%, probably where you are at. I just don't believe in class warfare like you do. It is easier to solve problems by blaming them on someone and demand they fix it. McDonalds made me fat for instance.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 01:55 AM

Do you ever read your sources?

"Babysitting co-ops usually are intended for occasional and not regular child care."

Working mothers need regular child care, not occasional child care!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 02:36 AM

If it walks like a duck
Talks like a duck
If there's duck doo on your pick up truck
You can just about bet your last bottom buck
That it ain't no armadillo

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 09:06 PM

Tell ya what, Dickey... Seein' as you have the opinion that the upper 1% ain't using loopholes to hide taxable billions offshore then give ne a couple days and I'll find the Washington Post article and then you can have it out with the reporters who researche the piece... I have it somewhere but I'm a tad busy being not the upper 1% and, ahhhhhhh, consequently, working my brains out to survive in these time of corporatization that I don't have the time I had a few years back for research and collecting and filing stuff I read... But I still read a lotta stuuf...

BTW, Dickey... Why is it that you are so quick to defend the upper 1%???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 12:40 AM

What you said Bobert was:

"Reform the tax codes that allow the rich to hide income in accounts off-shore" when it is already illegal.

"It is legal to have an offshore account, provided it is reported and any taxes are paid. Failure to disclose such holdings is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison."

Did you read that OK Bobert or do you need some help? New glasses?

Just fess up and admit that you parrot things that are not true and then try to blame it on somebody else.
You are very big on blaming someone and small on personal accountability.

---

Babysitting coops:

YOUNG WOMEN WORK
Community Economic Development to Reduce
Women's Poverty and Improve Income
Molly McCracken,
with Kate Dykman, Francine Parent and Ivy Lopez
Partners:
Andrews Street Family Centre
Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence
SEED Winnipeg Inc.
Wolseley Family Place
Project #105

Worker-owned Child Care Coop: Provide loans for young
women with low incomes to be trained as Early Childhood
Educators. Loans are forgivable if young women start a
worker-owned Child Care Coop in the inner-city and are
working members for two years. Proper supports and
infrastructure would have to be provided to train worker
members and help them to set up the centre, get capital for
building etc.

YOUNG WOMEN WORK
discussion on this topic found in the literature scan for this
research project.
More direction from the Aboriginal community is important
because we know that teen pregnancy and motherhood have
important implications for young woman's education,
economic status, and health. Teenaged mothers are less likely
to finish their education, although they may return to finish at
a later date. Staying out of school for a portion of time does
set them back. Additionally, since they are more likely to be
single, they lack a partner to contribute to household income,
therefore they are more likely to live in poverty.

If they do become pregnant, teens with low incomes have a
higher probability of parenting their children than choosing to
terminate the pregnancy. Winnipeg pregnancy rates by
income quintile demonstrate that:
…birth rates were highest, and abortion rates lowest, among
young women in the lowest income quintiles. Birth rates decreased,
and abortion rates increased, with each income quintile. Pregnant
young women in Winnipeg's wealthiest neighbourhoods were least
likely to give birth and most likely to terminate their pregnancies.

What is the connection between poverty and teen pregnancy?
"Research has shown that those teens who have low
expectations of their own future have a higher risk of teenage
pregnancy and often welcome the pregnancy as a way to bring
meaning to their lives"

. Lack of supports for teen mothers
means that they often experience risks such as low income,
low expectations of their futures, low self-esteem, alienation
within family, sexual abuse, and poor parenting...."

http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/admin/vh_external/pwhce/pdf/yww.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 04:37 PM

No, it ain't glasses.... I stick by the intent of my post which is to close down the "legal" tax loopholes that allows rich people to stash the cash in places like the Caymen Islands that is not taxable...

Not too many other ways I can put it... in 2006 over $1.3 trillion dollars were stashed away in these accounts around the world and that costs the US about "$100 billion" a year... Tell you all what... That $100 billion would go a long way toward funding the proposals I have made that would, in essence, end poverty for anyone willing to work plus bring our elderly poor out of poverty, as well...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 03:03 AM

"It is legal to have an offshore account, provided it is reported and any taxes are paid. Failure to disclose such holdings is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison."

Bobert:

Please re-read and tell me where it says it is legal not to pay taxes on offshore accounts. It says it is not legal but you keep saying it is legal.

If money is stashed away and not reported and taxes not paid, it is illegal. It is not a tax loophole but you insist it is a "legal" tax loophole.

You are pulling our leg. You can't be that niaeve. But then again, anybody that believes the minimum rant for an apartment is $1300 could possibly be that niaeve.

And you insist that only rich people can have offshore accounts. Even you can have an offshore account so I guess that makes you rich.


Now, About That Account in the Cayman Islands - John M. Mathewson's computerized records may expose tax evaders he helped in the Cayman Islands - Brief Article
Insight on the News, Sept 6, 1999 by John Elvin

The light federal sentence handed down to John M. Mathewson of San Antonio for helping U.S. citizens evade taxes while running the now-defunct Guardian Bank and Trust Ltd. of the Cayman Islands could spell trouble for tax-evaders. Mathewson was given probation after providing prosecutors with computerized records that authorities say may produce charges against 1,500 Americans.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_33_15/ai_55739267

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 09:02 AM

Well, that's what I'm saying, too, Thick-heady... Close down the friggin' loophole that is costing the US Tresaury (i.e. the US governemnt and the US people) $100B (That's billion, Dickey!!!) a year in lost revenues...

What is it that you still can't understand???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 11:19 AM

Bobert: What happened to "legal" in your discription? Have you shifted ground on that while still claiming you were right?

Now let's examine your characterization of illegaly not paying taxes on money stashed away offshore as being a loophole. Are loopholes legal or illegal? If those 1,500 Americans mentioned were using a loophole, why are they subject to being charged with illegal tax evasion?

A loophole is a legal technicality. Therefore anyone that does something illegal cannot be using a loophole.

Have you abandoned your "fact" that only rich people can have an offshore account?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 09:02 PM

Get another hobby, Jerko... You line of questioning would be stopped by any judge with an I.Q. greateer than that of a box of animal crackers... Might of fact, get a life to go with your new hobby... Yours, apparently, sucks big time...

Bye...

Now, lwt's look at what a $100B could do toward the larger discussion of poverty in the US... It could fully fund the child care subsidies pool which the Bush administartion has frozen.... Child care is a disgrace... On one hand, with the Clinton also disgraceful Welfare Reform legiaslation or 1996, it says to mothers, "We ain't gonna provide for even in slightest you so 'Get a job'"... But it did recognize that that these mother's wouldn't be able to afford to work, pay rent and living expemses and child care for their kids...

(BTW... Just for the record, this wasn't a challenge that any of the men in and ***man dominated*** Congress of '96 actaully knew anything about first hand as none of them were poor and mothers, but that's another story...)

So here we had a shiny new "Welfare Reform" program that wasn't all that new... It was a logical extensiion of redneck/right wing "Welfare Caddialc" propaganda which was based 100% on disinformation, hatred, bigotry and all the other stuff associated with rednecks and uneducated people...

But here we had this new program which, is essence, said "Get a job. We don't care if you have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, egt yer kids to a child care provider and stand in snow waiting for a danged bus to make $5.15 an hour cleaning tioletes down town... Just get a job"... "But", they continued, "we'll help out with the child care and may a little job training (very little)..."

So Bertha Williams up on 27th Street did just that... Got herself a job paying $6.50 and hour (whooopeee, the big bucks...) cleaning motel rooms at the Motel 6 on the other side of town... She tried to find a job closer but in the only area she could afford to live there weren't any jobs...

So fast forward to 2007.... With more and more moms like Bertha Williams using up their ADC or AFDC windows and having to "Get a job" these mothers are now also needing assistence with child care...

Problem: It don't take a rocket surgeon to tell ya that if you freeze the $$$$ amount going into a program and more folks are dependent on that program that Bertha Willaim's subsidies are going to be cut... Well, Bertha has gotten two 25 cents and hour raises since 1886 so she is making $7.00 and hour now... Problem is that prices have outrun the 50 cent and hour increaes and so Bertha Williams has, in essence, taken a pay cut since going along with the program back some 10 years ago...

And, of course, the Dickey's of the world can rationalizee this and blame it folks like me... It's always easier on them to have a big ol' belly laugh as they discount the ideas of the "liberal, the communists, the hippies" or whatever buzz word the Rush Limbaugh's have provided them to discredit people who actually give a rat's ass about human rights...

But here we are with an extra $100B--- Yes, billion, folks--- by closing a loopehole that is expolited almost exclusively by rich people and this money is now available to be used to fight pverty in the USA??? Hmmmmmmmmm???? Congress can't get this loophole close fast enough for the Bertha Williams of our country... No, not fast enough....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Jun 07 - 09:59 AM

As much as Bobert would like us to believe, there is no loopholes that rich people use to avoid taxes with offshore bank accounts.

Such activity is illegal and it is actively persued by the IRS. It is not a loophole as he claims.

Also offshore bank accounts are available to anybody, not just the rich as Bobert claims.

Here is a list of illegal methods that people use to avoid paying taxes.

Bobert wants you to believe that ***only*** the rich can use offshore banking to avoid taxrs. It is a straw man issue intended to stir up class warfare and hatred just as racisim is used to divide the population and pit one against the other.

Yes people avoid taxes. Yes this money could be used to fight poverty.

I don't have any personal comments to make about Bobert in order to impune his charactar but he is wrong to blame the rich for the existance of poverty.

$100 billion divided by 300 million people is $333.33 per person.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 04 Jun 07 - 05:15 PM

Here's the poverty thresholds from 1995 - 2005 following NAS recommendation according to the U.S. census (two adults, two children).

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/povmeas/altmeas05/nas_povmeasures2005.xls

What is the amount of a welfare check for a two adult, two child family?

What is the amount of a welfare check for a one adult, two child family?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jun 07 - 06:51 PM

BS, Prickey... You are either a liar, stupid or just listening to folks who happen to make a living misinforming people like you... One of the three... There isn't a forth option... Poor people can't afford these off shore tax havens... Middle clas people are beating their brains out trying not to sink into poverty so guess what, Creepo... Rich people, I wil repeat, rich people are the ones who are benefiting from these loopholes... Close them the heck down...

You live in a dream world, pal... Come on outta yer castle and see what it's really like out here....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Richey Rich, aka AWG
Date: 04 Jun 07 - 07:16 PM

Why is everyone against the rich ? Without rich people, who would donate the Billions to charity each year ? Certainly not the Boberts, or Dickeys of the world. Without the rich, the poor would be far worse off then they are now, FAR worse off. So instead of crucifying the rich, maybe be thankful for their existence, and make a vow to say THANK YOU to the next rich person you see ! Let the rich Fat Cats keep their offshore accounts and be thankful for their generous gifts to the poor, along with other equally important charities each year (tax deductable, of course). Rich people make the world go around. Think about it !

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 04 Jun 07 - 07:34 PM

BTW, illegal (non-declared) offshore bank accounts are more a tool used by criminals, not law abiding 'rich people'. Legitimate rich people have accountants to hide their money legally (using deductions or so-called loopholes), and there is no need (and in most cases, desire) to resort to anything illegal. Some people are too suspicious of everyone with money. Hope I have been able to clarify the situation. PS I don't hate rich people, I admire them (most of them), for their generosity, work ethic, and the fact they actually hire people ( I don't mean a handful either) because they can. Without the rich, where would people work ? For themselves ? For the government ? Without the rich, the economy would quickly grind to a halt, then we would all be poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jun 07 - 08:53 PM

Noy everyone is against rich people... The rich, for instance, think that since most of them are rich by either luck of the draw or having gotten there thru corrupt means, love themselves... The there are the groopies, like perhaps the folks herer in Mudville who come to their defense at every turn, who worship the rich and are perfectly willing to act as their shills...

One thing is fir sure is that many of them think that off-shore cheating, just because it is legal, though immoral as Hell, is fine behavior... I have a cousin who falls into this category... I hate it when he goes into his tax loopholes monologues... He's just too borish to understand that folks like me are working our brains out and don't have all that much dough left at the end of the onth to hire shadey accountants to find ways to aviod paying taxes... From what I have heard from my cousin, who makes half a million a year, he pays less taxes than I do with my meager earnings...

Yeah, not all rich folks are like him but when one drives around the prestigious neighborhoods in just about every city in the US and ses the opulant wealth that drips from the upper 1%, it's more than justa tad on "in-your-face peasants"...

I grew up in Northern Virginia with war heros, high level governemnt people, Congressmen and the like... It was the 50's... Everyone lived purdy much the same... Three bedroom houses and maybe two baths... Now it's 10 bedrooms and a dozen baths... This is over tthe top... It pisses off working and poor people to no end!!! It is criminal, it is borish, it is opulant and it is the reason why the upper 1% are coming onto the radar screan... They have no class and they have thimbed their noses at everyone else...

So, yeah, the upper 1% is a major part of the problem... Just as it is in Haiti...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 09:37 AM

Bobert: "what one can never say about me is that I pre-judged an indivudual or a situation"

Read your quote and compare it to what you wrote above. Do you see any contradictions?

Your speech is full of misinformation. It is biggoted and intended to spark class warfare.

Can't afford does bot equal not available.

"most of them are rich by either luck of the draw or having gotten there thru corrupt means"

Most of the millionaires and billionaires today did not inherit their wealth. They created it. Bill Gates was a dropout. His parents were not wealthy, just average. Steve Jobs, same story. He and Woz started making computers in the family garage. Larry Ellison was the bastard son of an immigrant. Warren Buffet Bought and resold Cokes when he was six years old. Friggin thieves eh?

Your insinatuion that they got wealthy illegally is biggoted. How about George Soros and his offshore investment fund?

Instead of hating these people, they should be viewed as a resource and cajoled into helping the poor in a constructive manner. Not thru taxation but directly.

You sir, are a hate monger driven by socialist rhetoric. You call anybody that disagrees with you names as if it proves your point.
I agree with you that a lot of people cheat on their taxes and it is wrong. I agree that this money would do a lot to help poor people but I think that attacking the rich folks and blaming them for poverty is wrong.

I see nothing in your speech to single out people and corporations that prey on poor people and hold them back. How about drug dealers? Do rich people send them around to sell drugs in crime ridden neighborhoods? Do rich folks form gangs? How about loan sharks? Payday loan companies? Credit card companies? Rap Gangsta record companies and rappers?

You want to take a simplistic short cut to cover up the effects poverty rather than do the hard work needed to identify and attack the roots of poverty.



"The Roots of Poverty

Remedying only the superficial manifestations of the deeper underlying problems of extreme poverty will never end poverty itself. At best, this approach will temporarily relieve urgent problems at worst, it will exacerbate them or create long-term trade-off problems. If we want to eliminate poverty, we must look at its roots and apply
sustainable, pragmatic development solutions."

http://searchwarp.com/swa7174.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 10:07 AM

Fact is there is no poverty in the world. Simply a very unequal distribution of wealth, assets and resources. How's that for cold water on a hot fight?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 04:52 PM

"Do rich people send them around to sell drugs in crime ridden neighborhoods?"

Now that you ask, yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 11:33 PM

Ebbie: Who does that?

AWG: To divest the wealth from the "evil crooked rich people" would collapse the economy and most material things except food would be nearly worthless.

27 million starved to death in China under Mao and I recently heard 30 million starved to death in Russia under Stalin.

They leveled the playing field and brought social justice.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 11:57 PM

Has anyone read what Sharon Beder has to say about the work ethic?




Articles - The Work Ethic

Sharon Beder, Consumerism – an Historical Perspective, Pacific Ecologist 9, Spring 2004, pp. 42-48.
Sharon Beder, Digging your own grave, in The Ideas Book, edited by Linda Carroli, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland, 2005, pp. 30-39.
Sharon Beder, The rising levels of debt that stop workers clocking off, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 August 2003, p. 15.
Sharon Beder, Are We All Masochists?, Australian Financial Review, 20th June 2003, Weekend Review, p. 6.
Sharon Beder, 'Selling the Work Ethic', The Sydney Papers 13(4), Spring 2001, pp. 43-47.
Sharon Beder, The Promotion of a Secular Work Ethic, M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture, 4(5) 2001.
Sharon Beder, Selling the Work Ethic, Australian Rationalist 55, Spring 2000, pp. 8-13.
Sharon Beder, 'Selling the Work Ethic', World Review 4(4) 2001, pp. 36-38.
Sharon Beder, Welfare, the Work Ethic and Propaganda, Illawarra Mercury, 16 Mar. 2001, p. 13.
Sharon Beder, Selling the Work Ethic, Australian Rationalist 55, Spring 2001, pp. 8-13.
Sharon Beder, 'Ethics of Work', Herald Sun, 1 November 2000, p. 17.
Sharon Beder, 'Wheels of progress fall off the Protestant work ethic', Sydney Morning Herald, 23 October 2000.
Sharon Beder, Why hard work isn't working any more, The Age, 21 October 2000.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Janie
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 12:26 AM

Thanks, Harpgirl. I didn't take the time to do more than skim right now, but clearly she is a voice worth listening to, and I will definitely take time later to read what is available on-line.

Here is a link to some Publications by Sharon Beder.

harpgirl, do I recall correctly that you have either a Ph.D. in Social Work or a DSW? What are your particular areas of interest?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 12:27 AM

"most material things except food would be nearly worthless"

Most material things except food ARE nearly worthless. You have a mixed up sense of priorities. To quote a lime from the movie 'Platoon', "Ya gotta be rich in the first place t' think like that. Sheeeeit."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 07:30 AM

Ah hah... Finally we have the "the-economy-woould-collapse-without-rich-people" argument... This is the cvornerstone of the Bush economic policy... Problem is that, like the flat-earth scientists that Bush brought into his administartion, he also surrounded himself with flat-earth economists...

There have been a couple full page ads in the Post over the last few years paid for and signed by hundreds of real-economists 'round the country who say "hog-wash" to the theory that the tax cuts that Bush gave the upper 1% are driving this economy...

Actually, the only segment of the population really feel the economy is doing well are the rich and upper middle class... Everyone else fully understands that this is not a full-service economy as these "everyone elses" are losing ground from stagnant wages and run-away inflation....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 12:22 PM

"Rich people make the world go around"

You have it exactly backward. Its those who provide service and labour who make the world go 'round. If the rich people had no employees, they wouldn't be rich at all. They would have to do their own work. How long do you think that would last?

If you start appreciating the contributions of the working class and pay them accordingly, their taxes would be able to provide programs and services for the poor. The upper classes have little or no understanding of poverty but the middle classes do, unless they've brainwashed into worshipping the rich.

I would go so far as to say that it is the worship of the rich by the middle classes that does the most harm to the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 12:52 PM

"Most material things except food ARE nearly worthless"

Very true Peace. There are rich people in varying degrees who are willing to pay too much for things and that creates an inflated net worth on paper.

Take those people who can overpay out of the picture and we are back to the barter system. What would a Van Gough be worth if there was nobody that could afford it? Someone that owned a chicken that could lay eggs would be richer that the Van Gough owner.

Bobert: It is not that "the-economy-woould-collapse-without-rich-people". It that the economy would collapse if rich people had to liquidate all the stuff that makes them rich, like $300 million yachts, in order to fork it over to the poor folks. Who would buy it? The poor folks?

Who would buy Larry Ellison's Yacht for $300 million? It would be worth about as much as a rowboat if all the rich folks were selling all their expensive stuff in order to fork it over to the poor.

Bobert has his mind fixed on rich folks as his final answer and he thinks objectively to find whatever it takes to arrive at that conclusion. Objective thinking rather than subjective thinking.

Why did those "real economists" have to pay for that ad Bobert?

If it is true and the rich folks and the government are in control of the media, how did it ever get published?


(Asked of 484 adults in Form A) Do you think the tax cuts which Congress passed and George W. Bush signed into law have mostly helped the U.S. economy, have had no effect or have mostly hurt the U.S. economy over the past three years?

Mostly helped          39%
No effect               23
Mostly hurt             35
No opinion               3

(Asked of 531 adults in Form B) Do you think the tax cuts which Congress passed and George W. Bush signed into law have mostly helped your family, have had no effect or have mostly hurt your family over the past three years?

Mostly helped          34%
No effect               48
Mostly hurt             16
No opinion               2

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 01:03 PM

"One of the most disturbing and extraordinary aspects of life in this very wealthy country is the persistence of hunger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that in 2005:

35.1 million people lived in households considered to be food insecure.

Of those 35.1 million, 22.7 million are adults (10.4 percent of all adults) and 12.4 million are children (16.9 percent of all children).

The number of people in the worst-off households (previously called "food insecure with hunger" and now called "very low food security" households) rose in 2005, from 10.7 to 10.8 million."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 01:20 PM

My dear friend Janie asked me to lend some perspective a while back and I forgot to do it. I apologize for that.

I am not going to get into all the issues here, as that has been handled admirably, but rather I will provide a bit of historical perspective on labor, and where it is today.

Before doing so, I would like to second Dianavan on the issue of the underclass vs the overclass. It is quite simple to see the effect of capital centering in fewer hands, which is the mark of success for the overclass. When it happens, we create and ever larger underclass, and at the top of the underclass is the working poor. Folks like Janie who are eminently qualified, educated, and effective in their profession. Yet they have a hard time supporting their families. I don't dispute that business create jobs. But business is created by a healthy middle class. The dream that became the United States of America happened because, after a bumpy start, we created a prosperous middle class. Look at all the great civilizations, they rose to prosperity on the backs of the middle class, and failed when the middle class weakened. It is not a new concept.

One of the most important pieces to creating this prosperous middle class, was their empowerment by law, beginning in 1888 with the first federal law that protected workers. This was in the railroad industry. It is interesting to note that all labor law is rooted in commerce law, to protect commerce. In the case of the first federal law, it was to insure the trains ran. Many laws followed, including Taft-Hartley, Landrum-Griffin, etc. These are now embodied in the National Labor Relations Act. Labor law is a favorite ping pong ball in politics, depending on the mood of the electorate. The years beginning with the Reagan Administration until present have seen labor weakened to point worse than we have seen in many years.

Much is made of the fact that Organized Labor now represents around 8% of the workforce. When one eliminates from the figure the workers not eligible to be organized, the number is somewhere around 20%. At one time the labor unions represented about 36% of the workers in this country. There are many reasons for the decline, including technology. But one cannot minimize the effects of two very important things. One is the unfair trade laws which penalize American workers for having fair wages and benefits. In the pursuit of profits, the company CEO's justify shifting work to countries that have very poor environmental standards, very poor worker safety protection laws, and no ability to form effective collective bargaining units. The effect of this is simply moving the sweatshop to other countries and thenshipping the same product back here. Testament to this is the incredible profit made by corporations. Once upon a time in America, the boss would keep a company going as long as s/he could cover expenses, and try to preserve jobs. Today a company will close, not because it isn't profitable, but because it isn't profitable enough. The second reason for the shrinking of most unions has to do with the steady erosion of labor laws which served to protect the workers right to organize. I used to wish that I had the Canadian laws to organize under. Unfortunately the disease that has decimated America's Unions has spread north and infected Canada. Their laws are still superior to ours, but they are in decline. And there is a corresponding drop in the prosperity of the middle class with the labor laws being weakened. I used to be able to assure workers that they could not be fired for organizing a union. I can no longer say that with confidence. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is ostensibly the organization that was created to represent the interests of the worker. Today it is run by pro business interests. At the street level, the Board Agents are still overwhelmingly pro worker. But the Administration is so pro business that Board Agents often are worried that if they find in favor of the worker, it will be killed at a higher level. These things, among many others, have all contributed to the shrinking of America's organized workforce. One last thing before I move on to the next piece. Many unorganized workers have expressed a desire to be organized, and support for the concept of unions, but are very afraid because they have families to raise. Were there the climate free of harassment and intimidation, as the law supposedly protects, there would be a much higher percentage of organized workers.

As to the state of labor. Janie suggest that the International Unions have strayed from their traditional roles and have become big businesses unto themselves. While I am sure there are some like that, I must tell you that is not the case in my union, or in many others that I have worked with. Virtually every labor leader that I have worked with are radically inclined, and in the fight every single day of their lives. I have seen examples of labor officials that were simply drawing their checks and not really working hard for the membership, but they are the exception rather than the rule. In virtually every institution this is the case, and Organized Labor should not be held to a different standard.

But that does lead me to an area that I believe some labor leaders need to pay attention to. When we started, we were a movement. Once Unions became established as legal bargaining representatives, they became institutions. When we are under attack, as we are now, we take on the radical aspects of a movement, and that is when we shine. I am always troubled when labor organizations call themselves partners with management. We are not partners with management. Workers are not associates. Workers need to pay attention to the perceptual attack they are under. An Associate plays golf with the boss. We are workers. We bargain our labor for wages and benefits. When the economy is good, and laws fair, we profit by virtue of our labor's worth to the company. When the economy is down, and laws weakened, it is often our concessions that save companies. The perceptual battle occurs after concessions when we try to get back our share. We are called greedy. Another example of perceptual warfare is going on right now with the sale of Chrysler. The press and management are prepping the public for their attack on retirees and workers by creating the perception that the legacy costs are outrageous, and of course they must be brought in line. They are trying to get you to buy into this,in the hopes you won't remember the pension raids of 20 years ago. Want to know why the funds aren't there for retiree health care and pension benefits. Because the Reagan courts allowed the raid of the excess pension funds even though they were simply the earnings of the negotiated pension contributions of the workers. This left the pension funds underfunded. And here we are.

Be careful of the perceptual attack. These folks talk about retiree health benefits as if they were a bad thing. And you folks nod your heads. I kind of liken it to gas prices going from $2.00 a gallon to $3.00 a gallon and everyone being happy when it drops back to $2.50 a gallon.

Do you feel like you just asked an Irishman what time it is? **smile**

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 08:34 PM

Well, fir a gub nut, that was purdy well said, Mick...

Awww, jus' messin; wid you about the gun thing... Go shoot off yer gun at midnight and I'll shoot mine and all will be okay...

But really, this is the real deal on wealth, money and the short end of the stick the non-rich have gotten since the RayGun years and if you ain't ben in the upper 5% then you know exactly what we are talking about here...


I still wonder why a couple of folks here continue to support the rich, Unless of course they are part of the rich??? Other than that, I don't get it???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 09:35 PM

bobert - "I still wonder why a couple of folks here continue to support the rich, Unless of course they are part of the rich??? Other than that, I don't get it???"

I think they are envious of the wealthy. They also have the distorted idea that good = wealth and bad = poverty. Some people actually believe that God rewards people (financially) if they are righteous.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 10:06 PM

Probably it's more complex than simple envy. Remember the hit TV show of a few years ago, called something like 'The Rich and Famous', hosted by a Robin somebody. Some people enjoy looking in, so to speak. And fantasy is a powerful thing.

Maybe after putting oneself virtually into a beautiful home and whatnot, it is difficult - maybe not seemly - to put them down.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 11:51 PM

Well written Mick. I do not know a lot about unions except that In my experience we avoided them as much as possible. When I think of unions I envision Mafia types as leaders and people sitting around reading magazines and making the upper $20's an hour at Ford because of some contract requirement and some lack of work for thier particular expertize. WTF? They can't stoop low enough to do something else? The earth might crack open if they do something that is not in the contract.

We had an ex-union man in our shop because he was banned from the union. He was a Business Agent who had taken bribes and embezzled money. I used to bum around with another and he damned near got me in jail several time by infulencing me into stealing things.

I am realted to another that is a real straight, workaholic and he has occasionally sided with the companies on the wages they have to pay. He also relates to me how his company buys another, liquidates it an fires everybody to eliminate competition.

All that said, I realize that I am probably biased against the unions and they are probably not so bad if I just knew more.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:13 AM

Bobert:

To make a class of the rich people is like saying Black people are responsible for this or Mexicans are responsible for that. You who spout off about bigotry are blind to your own bigotry.

Suppose I said poor people are responsible for crime or black people are responsible for the murders?

You have to take things on a person by person or company by company basis. Is every used car dealer a crook? Every politician? George Soros, John Kerry, Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy are all wealthy but no doubt you will think they are great. I have associated with rich folks and most of them are so nice they make you feel good just to talk to them. They know how to lift your spirits and bring out the best in people. I also know a few rich greedy assholes that try to beat you down an demand more and more.

Why don't you draw your bead on MS13, drug pushers, credit card companies, rap artists with lyrics like find'em fuck'em and flee as a source of problems for poor people? Teenage unwed pregnancy and dropping out of school?

To me, Citicorp is a prime example of an evil company that tries to entrap niaeve young people into an 18 to 24% credit card debt that they will never be able to pay off. Their profit margin is mich higher than Exxon but you focus on Exxon as being evil. How does Exxon entrap poor people into anything?

You just look for the biggest easiest targets and claim they are the reason for poverty. Is it too hard to identify the real culprits and go after them? Is it too much trouble to try to separate the good from the bad or do you lack the judgement?

A lot or maybe most of the rich folks you are issuing a blanket comdenation on are cash cows that can be milked instead of killed and eaten.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 04:03 AM

Dickey I will pick on Exxon for you. In it's push for profit it has costed the people of Alaska there lively hoods, depleated their natural resources, poluted their coastline so that many of the coastal animals that inhabited the area will not see a rise in their population for generations & the fines imposed even after all these yrs have not been payed & the clean up was never completed & who paid for that?. Think, where do they get their oil from? What do they pay in costs to the owners of the land that they draw the oil from? Someone own's that land, someone owns those resources & those someones aren't seeing much from the granted oil & land rghts. The price of gas is skyrocketing & their profits are enormous, their tax brakes & shelters are getting larger all the time & the workers that are producing are not really seeing much in the way of wages & benifits. As a matter of fact Exxon has been pushing consistently over the years for reduced crews aboard their tankers & fighting double hull plating as saftey standards. So Dickey tell me about your rich friends & how they take care of the poor.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 08:12 AM

Flawed Thinking 101

Synopsis: This course will cover the the Big Three lies that the ruling class has propagated over the last half of the 20th century:

*** Union members are lazy and/or immoral

*** Exxon is your friend

*** Poverty is a choice

Schedule: Daily, flexible hours

Place: Mudcat

Teacher: Dickey

Notes: Enroll early as this class fills up quickly with True Believers

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Kipp
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 10:03 AM

I just have to interject here There is something that nobody on this thread seem to acknowledge and that is that poverty is a big businessand that a lot of the self profess dogooders are making a lot of money off the poor. It is in ther interest that the amount of poor people increase and that they get there welfare checks madicade housing subsidies and what ever so that they can get a peace of the pie. I anyone really didany real research they would come up with this themselves. And these poverty pims are not the rich but they do become rich and the are for the most part liberals not republicans. You only have to be homeless for a couple of mounths and live in a shelter as I have I live in the State of New Jersey which is Democrate Controlled property taxesare the highest in the nation and the State goverment is the biggest employer or at least on of the biggest. Housing is very expensive hare and that is not the fault of the rich,it has a lot to do with taxes

                   Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 11:42 AM

Bobert's class warfare 101:

A.Why try to do things the responsible way?

B.Just attack the biggest target and try to convince everybody that it is the cause for something or other.

Independant thinking 101:

A. Witch hunts and burnings do not cure anything.

B. Class warfare and straw man falacies are misleading and do not cure anything.

C. Cures are found by studying the causes and removing them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Kipp
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:24 PM

Not all the people are poor because of what happened to them they are poor because that is there choice. Just as it is the choice to be rich as some would say. It is lifes choices that put us where we are. And we have the choice to change. A good number of the poor are adicted to drugs of some sort or alcohol it may not be an easy thing to over come but then again life is not easy either.
There is a school district here in New Jersey that it was just reveal in the media that the school administrators falseified the records of about 100 students and made them thak over classes they had already passed,kee-p others back even though they recieved the credits to pass, and also gave some credit for classes the have never taken. The parents should have known and said somethingyet the did not. there was a whistle blower But after the stae finally stepped in the parent sueded the school board. which is not going to fix anything. there are a number of student that will not graduatebecause of the actions that the admistrator took. Nothing will happen as they have tenure.There are more details.
Anyhow we as Americans have stood back for far to long and have become vitums of the politcal systm in this country. It is both the right and the left republican and demicrate it does not discriminate. We have both parisites from the top and from the bottom. It is the working class thouse in the middle that are paying the most and have the most to lose. When the middle class start to become homeless then we are really in for some trouble. And I don't think that is to far fetched
                         Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:53 PM

"Nothing will happen as they have tenure."

That is speculation on your part. IMO, it's pure unadulterated bullshit. Tenure has nothing to do with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:49 PM

I am not your friend. Piss off. You are the reason guests should not be allowed to post to the BS section.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 06:06 PM

"...*** Union members are lazy and/or immoral

*** Exxon is your friend

*** Poverty is a choice..."
First off, most union members (not all) are lazy, because they can be, that's a fact. Second, Exxon is not my friend, just another huge company (the biggest in the USA, by revenues, I believe), and lastly, nobody chooses to be poor, IMO, they may end up that way possibly because of some of the choices they have made in the past, but they can also choose to try to reverse their misfortune. They may or may not be successful but not for lack of trying. I guess I might fail Dickey's course. Oh yeah, just a thought... Exxon is raking in the cash, but is that their fault ?   They make more money as oil prices rise, but do they set the price of oil ? Let's face it, it's about supply and demand and demand is huge due to the gluttenous appetites of Americans and others who refuse to conserve. So blame yourselves, not Exxon !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 06:19 PM

Also, Barry, I agree with most of what you said but keep in mind that although Exxon may be pushing to increase profits, (what company isn't ?), they are also pushing to keep up with the ever increasing demand for their product. How do you get to work ?? Try it without companies like Exxon ! Better yet, try walking or riding a bike, or car-pooling (if you don't already). If you want to get smart, buy shares in Exxon, Haliburton, Chevron, Petro Canada, Suncore, Encana, and so on....just pick one and fatten your wallet. Then donate the profits to the charity of your choice !! Maybe youll sleep better at night, and find yourself saying " Go Exxon ...!! "

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 02:13 AM

It is not a fact that union members are lazy. Union members are organized so that they don't become slaves.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:28 AM

AWG, do you understand what a gratuitous assertion is? What an idiotic thing you have said.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:52 AM

Exxon is the biggest company in the world so naturally they have the biggest profit in the world, not percentage wise though, that goes to drug companies.

Exxon makes 70% of it's profits on operations in foregin countries.

Noam Chomsky, invests in Exxon and Halliburton through the TIAA-CREF stock fund.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:54 AM

"First off, most union members (not all) are lazy, because they can be, that's a fact."

I don't suppose you want to get bogged down with anything as cumbersome as proof?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:03 AM

Tenure has a lot to do with it Tenure that once protected teachers from gitting fired because of bad School boards Now school boards can not fire teachers for the things they have done that is criminal The school superhas choosen not to proceed because it would require to take thoose involved to court. All of this is in our local paperhere in Trenton New Jersey Also in the local paperit has been reported thaton of the male teachers 53 years old has been cought for the second time having sex with the same 17 year old student. He is still teaching by the wayUnbelieveable but sadly true. Ther are many stories like this but they don't all get to the news. Ireally does not make much difference as the public seems to be more interested in Paris Hilton, What Brittney Spears is not wearing and the whole soap opera surounding Anna Nicole Smith.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:14 AM

Guest: if you have a name, use it. Otherwise, you are just one more friggin' troll out to stir shit. Also, your post has zero relevance to this thread which has to do with poverty. If the substance of your allegations are true, take your knowledge to the police and the school board. You'll have to do so under your real name. Until then, kindly take your shit off this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:27 AM

An I will stand by my statemnet that that there are many if not most people that are in poverty because of the choices that they made . They may not be aware of it but there choices, life choices lead them there.
Right now I am living in a shelter and in that shelter areare one person with a Masters degree in finance from Harvard another person with two masters degrees a nuber of people with under graduate degrees. They are the most ovious and there aree many that have been in prison And most of all there are those that are crackheads alcholics and these people have no intention of stopping they have money coming in the sell there food stamps will sleep out side untill the money runs outand make their way back in. The other night some one had theor throat slashed over a dispute over who cut in line in front of who. The next night a man got the shit beat out of him for his cell phone. These are the poor people and they don,t all live in the shelters. They are violent visious hate white people and would just as soon kill you if it was not that they would go back to jail. I am not saying this is all but this a big part that live in the magor cities. And they want everything we have and they have no intention of working. They sell drugs get welfare get ther women hooked the y become prostitudets. its all here This is the reality and no one I mean no one has any answers and if they saay they do than they are liars

Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Kipp
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 12:22 PM

Education and lackof it has a lot to do with poverty. And when people are denined education because of a couriped school Board and administrators that is a travistry of justice And lack of read justice also has a lot to do with poverty

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 12:23 PM

Hey, Peace... The poor guy is livin' in Trenton... That explains a lot.... Everyone is Trenton is lazy... LOL...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 02:25 PM

1) Please, either block that guy

or

2) Close this thread.


Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:06 PM

I said not all union members were (are) lazy.(just most). You want proof, take a tour of any automobile mfg. facility operated by the big 3, or keep an eye on your local parks and rec. crew (you know, 10 guys leaning on shovels, while one guy digs). Don't get sensitive, just pay attention. If you are in a union, you are most likely lazy, but there is no guarantee of that, you might be one of the few who actually breaks a sweat. Why the heck do you think companies fight like hell to keep them out ??!! Duh. And Peace, you sure are touchy these days, but I admit, you sure spice up this thread. LOL (friggin' trolls, eh?)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:08 PM

Testy, not touchy.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:15 PM

Kipp,

I am sorry you are going through that. I agree that for many poverty is a result of bad choices. It is not that way for ALL people, or even the majority. Some folks have no choices to begin with. They later have no choices to end with. You are correct that some know how to work the system. They can be bad MFs, and they tend to be until they meet someone badder.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:18 PM

Ah heck, I was just trying to cut the union members some slack. The truth is they are ALL lazy, each and every danged one of them. One giant group of lazy dog f***ers, looking to do as little as possible, for as much money as possible. Oh yeah, and do whatever they like because they know they will never be fired by the poor, poor company that gets saddled with them. I can't believe you people who feel bad for poor people actually defend these union 'workers' (and I use the term loosely). I say get rid of unions all together, and donate the saved BILLIONS to help the poor. There, problem solved. Who's with me ???

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:32 PM

Okay, AWG... and Peace...

This is a rediculuous discusssion going on here that has absolutely nuthin'---I repeat---absolutely nuthin' to do with this thread... It is a deliberate attempt to change the conversation... Okay, a little comic releif is fine but now it's going beyond fine and disrespecting the folks, myself included, who have ***invested*** a lot of time and resources into this discusssion...

This thread is about poverty... Not labor unions... Not Trenton...

It has been and can continue to be a very worthwhile discussion and one that our nation needs to be havin'....

Please, folks, if your intent is to change the dicussion (for whatever reason) or to dirive entertainment values from having highjacked a thread, please rethink why it is that you are posting on this thread...

And, for the record, yeah, you have a 1st ammendment right to say whatever you want (kinda) but there are lots of other threads that, IMO, need a good highjacking so why not take your 1st ammendment rights over there, thank you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:53 PM

Just having some fun while you were gone, Bobert. But now that you are back, its back to business. Okay, now you and Dickey can continue your bickering and everyone else will leave you two alone. And Peace, please stick to the subject, how many times have you been told ?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:00 PM

Well well well, some folks believe labor unions improve the plight of the working man. That was true way back when but I think unions have outlived their time. That is why they are shrinking.

It used to be that there was an excess of labor and greedy employers took advantage of this for cheap labor (see Bound for Glory or read The Grapes of Wrath). Now there is a shortage. I saw a guy being interviewed in the unemployment line on TV. He had his stylish jacket and his walkman on. The took off the earphones long enough to say "I ain't goin to bend over an pick sumthin' up off tha groun' man."

Now days it is the illegal aliens getting boarhogged instead of the Okies. That could be fixed if the minimum wage was raised to at least $10 per hour for citizens and the law that forbids hiring illegal immigrants was enforced.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 10:12 AM

I am not from Trenton I am from somewhere else in New Jersey. But Tent, Like Camden ans Newark and I think Atlantic City are the only shelters in the state. So that when people become homeless and poor that is a few of the choices they have I am sure that there are others. I have gone through the tranportation hub in Camden and ther are people sleeping on the floor at all hour I suppose. and this is one more choice. The shelters are a place that some people go when they have know knetwork to help them there they apply for welfare and wait. Some apply for section eight housing not everyone can get it it depends apon the avaslability. It seem to have a hirerarhy as to who has the best chance of getting it women with children have the easist time of it men have a harder time. A jewish man with a MA from Harvard might not ever get it, it does not help even if he is sixty years old. Cercomstances put him where he is even though he made the choices that more than likely put him there and will keep him there, although he is now sleeping outside now.
Not all the poor are who we expect them to be. and as the rich seem to get richer and the poor get poorer, and the amount of poor people just increases all the time. It will not be long before the middle class in greater number will find themselves in simalar circumstances. I believe that unless something changes this is what will happen.
Saddly for some if not most the people that are thought to be the support group for these people will say even if they can help they wont there relpy is go to social services. But they will not say but it is implyed we don't what nothing to do with you .
No one what the poor around it is bad for the bottom line property values will go down. Hang around and the police will run you out of town take you to jail or a mental ward.
Now if any one thinks what I have to say is not about poverty then they do not know poverty then. You can not talk about poverty from an ivory tower you at some point have to get your hands dirty poverty is a very complex problem that will always be with us That is at the very core of any solution because I think it is a part of human nature to be selfish and greedy

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 10:19 AM

Well said, Kipp. I couldn't agree more. I think that 'ivory tower' is getting pretty overcrowded these days, mostly from a lot of posters on this thread. I, for one, don't mind getting my hands dirty, and it looks to me that Dickey and yourself are also in that camp. How about you, Bobert ?? Peace ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 01:48 PM

AWG, how can you consider an ivory tower to be where Bobett and Janie live? If 'getting your hands dirty' means what it should: that you are out there laboring with all your heart to make a difference, their hands are dirty.

As opposed to those who only have dirty tongues.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 04:39 PM

Ebbie, I never said that about Bobert or Janie specifically, just many posters in general. Let's face it, when it comes to solving poverty there are a lot of 'armchair quarterbacks' on this thread. I think Kipp made a great point about the ivory tower. Are YOU there Ebbie ? I know I'm not, as Im sure Dickey and Kipp aren't either. Haven't heard from Peace, yet. Any particular reason for the sudden silence, Peace ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 06:09 PM

Busy.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 06:16 PM

Well said, Peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 10:00 PM

"Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert - PM
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:32 PM

Okay, AWG... and Peace..."

Tell ya what, Bobert. It's all yours. Keep it under control, will ya? Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 10:49 PM

I would like to hear some details from Kipp like why he is in the situation he is in, how he got there going back to his childhood.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 12:52 AM

Kipp,

Thanks for coming into this thread and sharing your experience and observations. I hope you consider carefully before deciding to appease Dickey's (or anyone else's) curiosity about your particular circumstances.

I wonder, when you talk about people making big money in the industry that has indeed arisen around 'services' for the poor, if you are speaking of the privatization of traditionally publicly run programs? You don't say enough about that for me to know exactly what you are talking about. I know there are definitely businesses making money, and lots of it, who contract for job training and job development programs, and in mental health. It is the CEO's and the very upper level management of these firms who are profitting, and profitting nicely. I also know that New Jersey has some famously corrupt municipalities (don't know about county and the state gov't) where agents of the the government historically have made tidy sums from kick backs, etc. I don't think of these people and the management of these companies as 'do gooders.' I think of them as corrupt opportunists. I also know from my own professinal experience that the amount of 'spin' that goes into programs, public and private' that are touted as services for people in need are in reality something else intirely. I do not mean that no one in need is ever helped by these programs. However, the publicly stated mission of service is simply a cover. The real mission is something else intirely. Usually some combination of profit for a small number of top level management, irresponsible cost-shifting, and the creation of political capital for some one else. This is a whole topic unto itself, so I won't comment further on it at this time.

As you know much better than me, shelters are appalling environments. The most dysfunctional of the poor, the bottom of the barrel so to speak, make up the majority of the population in shelters. but the this is not who comprises everyone utilizing a shelter. And those in shelters are representative only of those in shelters, and not all who are poor in this country. I think you make that point, actually. What I hear, when I read the few posts you have made, is confirmation that stereotyping people is an ineffective way to view people. And contrary to popular belief, people are people, whether they are poor or not.

A related but somewhat off-topic aside - crack cocaine - is probably one of the most destructive agents to influence our society in our history, and it is definitely a contributor to the maintenance of poverty to an extent that no other addictive substance has ever been. It's corrosive effects on the personality and behaviors (choices) of crack addicts goes well beyond that of opiates, alcohol, meth-amphetamine, powder cocaine, or any other drug I can think of. It is also most definitely a poor man's drug. Short of the extinction of the substance, I do not know how this destructiveness can be stopped or slowed. No amount of law enforcement or treatment known to mankind today can stop it. I'm not convinced that even extremely draconian measures such as automatic, permanent removal of children from the homes of crack addicted parents, or even forced sterilization of confirmed crack users as the only way to prevent increasing numbers of 'crack babies' born with significant organic brain dysfunction from en utero exposure to crack would bring it under control.

More later. gotta go to bed.

Thanks again for posting Kipp. Hope we hear more from you.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 12:53 AM

Aw shucks! 1000.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 10:05 AM

'AWG, how can you consider an ivory tower to be where Bobett and Janie live? If 'getting your hands dirty' means what it should: that you are out there laboring with all your heart to make a difference, their hands are dirty.'

Please do tell, how have Bobert and Janie acutally helped the poor ?? By having full time jobs ? By spending half their life in this thread , talking about it. I'm itching to know, as are others I'm sure. What have they done to improve the lives of the poor ? (since you brought it up, Ebbie).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 12:35 PM

There are people who collect paychecks. There are people who   consult, consider, connect. Guess to which one AWG belongs?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 12:54 PM

Slick, Ebbie, very slick. However 'consult, consider, connect' doesn't put food on poor people's tables. Or give them shelter they can afford. Nice sound bite, though. I wonder which camp YOU belong in Ebbie ?? Seems like a lot of people have all the answers to solve poverty, and criticize others who's ideas don't match their own, but what have any of these people actually ever done to help the poor ? You know what they say about talk being cheap...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 01:02 PM

It appears that to you putting food on the table in front of the poor is your idea of 'helping'. Going to bat for families in need, connecting them to available resources, ensuring that no one falls through the cracks, advising them as to what is available, getting vouchers for emergency shelter, food, clothing, childcare- that and a hundred other things- oh, yes, it does help.

I am semi-retired but in the past I have tutored - did you know that that too helps the "poor"?

I think you are pulling serious leg here.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 01:10 PM

AWG - The question is what have you ever done to help the poor?

Not all education happens in a school.

If their were no Janie and Boberts, the poor would not have anywhere to turn. Its J and B who help them find available resources so that they can survive. They both know that in the U.S., survival is not enough to end the cycle of poverty and they are both advocating for better services and opportunities.

What have you ever done, AWG?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 01:47 PM

I do plenty, thanks for asking. Also, I accept everyone's ideas without criticism or harsh language, however ideas don't solve anything unless they are put into action. By the way, poor people don't want people 'counselling' or 'comforting' or should I say 'patronizing' them. They want food and shelter and a better paying job with perhaps some help with daycare. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. P.S. I thought Bobert built houses. ...And that helps the poor how ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 01:52 PM

You more than most here understand the economics of market fluctuations and their occasional relation to rents. Most poor people cannot afford to own houses so they rent. In places that have no rent control, life can be a cast-iron s o b. Rather than take Bobert and Janie to task, why don't you tell us what you have done to help people? As it is at this moment, you don't have one whole helluva lotta credibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 01:54 PM

Troll alert.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 01:58 PM

Sorry, I don't want to dis-respect anyone's efforts to aid the poor, even though it seems some people may think that's what Ive done. It's just that everyone talks a lot about solving poverty but where is the action ? Kudos to anyone who helps, the rest is just lip-servie, imo. By the way, among other things, for 15 years I supplied low-cost rooms for rent for many people on welfare (who barely get enough to live on here), and people making minimum wage and students struggling to get an education. During that time I made next to no actual profit, and had more headaches than many of you will have in a lifetime. I know it's not much compared to Janie and others, but it's still something. I really don't want to turn this thread into 'what have you done for me lately'.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 02:03 PM

Thank you. And to top it off, I believe you.

The issue of poverty is complex--hell, beyond complex. I don't think it's something that can be solved, because there are no quick fixes available, and the economic restructuring that would be necessary is beyond the means of most nations/countries. But individuals can be helped, and if that's the best folks can do then that's the best that will be done.

I appreciate your answer, AWG.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 04:51 PM

First off, AWG, you are the one who started the "who does what" bit.

Second off, I generally like Canadians, but not trolls, even if they are from Canada.

Finally, there are those that work to improve peoples lives. They don't sit and pontificate on who is lazy, or who deserves help, or what kind is best. They get up every day, roll up their sleeves and go about the work. Some, like Janie, help folks work through problems and assist in getting them a start back on the road. Others work in the front end. I can't tell you how many times I have been with single parents, most generally women, who are working 2, and sometimes 3, jobs just trying to keep the bills paid and food on the table. These folks aren't lazy, but they are a victim of a combination of the system, other folks effect on their lives, and greedy employers who don't feel like health insurance is something folks should have. Because you are a Canadian, you can't relate to that as you have national healthcare.

I know you are simply trolling for reactions here, but the subject is a serious one. The folks I see, the great majority of them women, are heroic in their efforts to work their way out of poverty. They might be undereducated, but they value education and try their best to influence their children to study hard and get ahead. But with the way things are stacked against them in the US, it is increasingly difficult.

Oh yeah, ....... I forgot one thing ...... I am a musician so I will count this off ...... 4/4 time ....... ready? .......

1-2-3-4

....... bite me.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 05:06 PM

lol There's our Mick.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 06:50 PM

Hey Big Mick, I'm not 'trolling' for reactions, sounds like you just want to play kiddies games. I'm looking for solutions, simple as that !!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 07:40 PM

Not trolling for reactions, eh? Let's take a look at these quotes from AWG:

Ah heck, I was just trying to cut the union members some slack. The truth is they are ALL lazy, each and every danged one of them. One giant group of lazy dog f***ers, looking to do as little as possible, for as much money as possible. Oh yeah, and do whatever they like because they know they will never be fired by the poor, poor company that gets saddled with them. I can't believe you people who feel bad for poor people actually defend these union 'workers' (and I use the term loosely).

If you are in a union, you are most likely lazy, but there is no guarantee of that, you might be one of the few who actually breaks a sweat. Why the heck do you think companies fight like hell to keep them out ??!!

Can poor people be taught to save?? Some maybe, but most...of course not. Theyr'e too busy whining about being poor, while making excuse after excuse not to get a job. How can you teach omeone to save when they dont even want to work ??

Janie has issues, serious issues (plus a thing for Barry, apparently),

And this is from a cursory run through. I am sure I could find plenty more. You have a bad habit of making gratuitous assertions, blanket statements, etc.

The fact of the matter is that union members in the States are some of the most productive workers. It is because of their apprenticeship and training programs. Folks with an agenda rely on stereotypes to make their point. You throw around gratuitous assertions which can just as easily be denied. How about you come up with some cites on union members? Or aren't you interested in the facts?   If it weren't for the unions and their members fighting for healtcare and pensions, who would? If it were not for the unions and their members fighting for safe working conditions, who would? If it weren't for the unions fighting to protect the rights of injured workers, who would? Unions and their members aren't perfect. But they do have representation and rights. And they act in a concerted way. What management sycophants don't want to acknowledge is that without collective action, we would revert right back to the "black ball", company store type system we once had. In fact, after years of Republican controls, we have already started.

While you are at it, perhaps you could justify your comment about Janie and Barry.

You seem to me to be long on unsubstantiated comments, and ideas but short on any substance.

Just my opinion.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 12:49 AM

Thanks for chiming in, Mick. I think your observation that the unions (at least the big ones) became institutions, combined with your discrimination between institution and movement, is both astute, and generalizable to all other dialectics around social welfare in general, and, in keeping with the topic of this thread, the conditions that lead to and maintain the state of being poor in particular. I phrase it like that instead of saying 'poverty' to acknowledge the millions of people and families in this country whose income and resources well exceed the official 'poverty line' but who are poor nonetheless.

Gonna go cogitate in my dreams.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:37 AM

Thanks Mick, I stand by each of the quotes you used. Except for maybe the last one. Funny you should bring that one up, got some suspicions of your own, do you?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:45 AM

Strange tale pointed to alcohol use on tanker
In post-Exxon Valdez era, crew members still imbibe

By ERIC NALDER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

Sixteen years after Exxon Valdez Capt. Joseph Hazelwood's drinking habits became international news, another captain has been associated in court papers with alcohol use on a tanker in Prince William Sound.

This time the case is even murkier than Hazelwood's. A galley worker said in a Texas court that she'd discovered alcohol use by the captain and other sailors aboard the tanker Polar California in May as it sailed toward Valdez, Alaska. After she reported it by cell phone to company headquarters in Houston, alcohol was found in her room. A friend said she was set up, perhaps for previously reporting a steward for drinking.

The galley worker alleges she was taken off the ship in Valdez by ConocoPhillips human resources employees. There, she says, she was handcuffed and tossed into a mental institution for five days until a doctor said her condition was "unremarkable" and released her, according to court papers.

Whatever happened -- and none of the parties is talking -- it isn't the behavior one desires on a 925-foot tanker approaching one of America's most highly secured locations, the terminus of the Trans Alaska Pipeline.

"Wow. Well, that's frightening," said John Devens, executive director of the Prince William Sound Citizens' Advisory Council.

The lawsuit -- which ended in a confidential settlement -- is one fragment of a picture the Seattle Post-Intelligencer assembled on continued alcohol use by tanker crews.

Other aspects include union memos that mention alcohol and drug abuse, a crewman's account of an inebriated chief engineer and the recollections of bartenders in Port Angeles, where tanker crews can drink with considerably less worry about gate security than at the pipeline or the refinery ports...."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/oiltankers/217168_polardrinking23.asp

Was Exxon at fault or drunken union members?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:46 AM

Don't see what that has to do with unions.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:59 AM

Most probably the drunken union members. Exxon only hires them, it doesn't babysit them. At some point they should be expected to carry themselves in a competent and professional manner to the degree demanded by their jobs. Looks like they weren't.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:04 AM

Then have a look at management. If they'd been doing their jobs that stuff wouldn't have happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:06 AM

BTW, and I do mean this in no uncertain terms. I started this thread so that people who wished to discuss poverty could do so. If either of you guys want to discuss unions then please start another thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:15 AM

Sorry Peace, I don't even remember who brought up unions (Bobert, I think), but now that we can agree they are for the most part, lazy, we can get back to the subject at hand. Got that, Dickey??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:43 AM

I will go into more detail later but the one most interesting place is the shelter that I am in in Trenton. Everytime someone signs in at the shelter to get a bed for the night the government recieves money per person. We have to be in line before 4 o'clock every nightand we are out before eight in the morning we get two meals dinner and breakfast. I think that all the food is donated with a few exceptions. As I have said the goverment pays per person per night. we sleep in prision type beds there are thre showersand aproxinitly 80 people during the spring ,summer season. I can not exactly say for sure but it has been said that the amount the gov. pays is about35 to forty dollars per night. We do get clean sheets and sometime pillow cases and towels about the size a little larger than a hand towel. but this is not always the case for the last week or so the pillow cases has been missing. The place for the most part is run by the former thugs that have at one time stayed in the mission and are now in some program run by the missionWe have a Women CEO that runs the overall place and it is she that makes the money she is paid very well don't have the figures yet but am working on it. She get all kind of awards from this and that groupfor her humanitarianism (SP) All of which no one believes she deserves. She is in reality funelling the money from the shelter over to the other programs her pet programs that get the higher profile and makes her look good. I will tell more as it starts to get interseting.
I have to take a breif monet here to let anyone know that does not that Trenton is the State Capital it was once a thriving industral city home to Ussteel American Bridge The Robling Wire Company that invented and made steel cable for suspention bridges. These companys together or sparate ly made some of the biggest and well known bridges in at least the USA.
Trenton besides Stoke on Trent England were the poterty capitals of the world Trento up until the end of WWIIas potery was than mass produced Many of the imagrents that came to Trentom in the 1850 we from Stoke on Trent an the years to follow including my family. Trenton potery could compete with Royal Dulton at one time. My greatgreat grand father's stuff can be Found in the Metropolitan Museum in New York
Now the bigest industrys in Trenton State Workers and the poverty industry which included transitional housing halfway housing drug and alochol treat programs abound hereand much more.
Beside the meals that are given at the shelter there is a soup kitchen that has two meals per day monda through thursday lunch only on friday. and it is not open on Saturday or Sunday. On the week end mostly Saturday the churches take over Some saturdays there are more than one choice and all are very good meals run by very good people. The Major Catholic Church St. Mary's Cathdral provides meals on the lst tw Saturdays of the month starting at 9 o'clock coffee and donuts. The Salvation Army has coffee evey dayalong with newspapers frome eight in the morning until 4 in thwe afternoon there is a large screen TV the and tables to read or sit and talk to your neighbors at the tables they havee their rule and for the most part are enforced prople must sign in as they two get funding from at least the city if not more.no one is required to yet on a daily basis thre is a bible study is going on
More later I am now in the local library using their computer from where I get my email and post to this message board I started by printing out the songs that I knes the melodys to as I am a folk singer. I have always had a think for songd about Hobo's they are still around the are now some of the homeless
So long I'll post more later

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:04 AM

Nice post Kipp, very interesting and enlightening. Take care, and see you soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 01:49 PM

Kipp, what kinds of songs do you prefer?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 02:24 PM

We can't discuss unions, but it's okay to talk about what kinds of songs Kipp listens to. Very interesting. What if Kipp likes songs about unions ?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 02:50 PM

What if Kipp likes songs about oranges?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 05:26 PM

Well, folks... My mudum (modem) thing in the pudder crapped out 'bout 3 or 5 days ago an' so I just got as new one installed and back in the game... Haven't had time to read thru the the last 40 or so posts but will and be back later...

Congrates, Janie, on busting the ***1000*** mark...

BTW, folks, when I do come back I'm gonna to have more to say about how our country's pulling back from it's responsibilities for child care has contributed to the poverty mess we have gotten ourselves into...

Later...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 06:18 PM

Peace, my friend, I am not trying to hijack the thread. Janie introduced unions as a solution to poverty, and also she criticized. She asked me to pop in and lend my perspective, given that I have been a Union Organizer for the best part of 30 years.

I was our buddy AWG that made an assertion I just couldn't let stand.

But I will return to lurking and only jump in if I feel the need.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 07:02 PM

I know that, Mick. I have been union in one way or other since I was 17. I'm gettin' real near 60. Forty-two years. So, why don't you and I start a thread on the value of unions? History, need, necessity.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:23 PM

Well, first of all, I'd like to direct a couple of questions to AWG, who has in my absence from Mudcat asked what I have done to help folks are poor... Apparently, you have not read this entire thread so I'm not going to rewrite pages of stuff I'ver allready posted about not only what I have done but what I continue to do... It's all been laid out here in this thread...

I won't comment on your background of helping folks by renting them "low-cost" housing but when I was a social worker I had a lotta landlords who did the same who I set my clients up with but guess what??? These landlords weren't doing this because they wanted to help poor people... They made money... Only you can answer the question of what your motives were and, frankly, considering many of theings you have said here, I might no believe you if you were to say that your sole motivation was to help poor people...

But enough of that housekeeping...

Ahhhhhh, likie I have pointed out over and over, child care subsidies should be obne of our highest priorities in a war on poverty...

Think about this:

Over the last 40 years women have been forced into the work force so that families would have the "better life"... This wasn't about feminism... It was about money... But the "male dominated" sopciety has never held up its collective end and thus women have continued to the the "care givers" anmd even in middle class families the woman has had two jobs: employeee and care giver... America has never really wrapped its arms around the males chipping in... Oh sure, there are a few men who have gotten it but it isn't, what you say, a popular concept with most males...

Now, when the male leaves the family (for whatever reason) you have now a family with only one bread-winner who is now having to perform the two step without the income... This, unfortuantely, akes up the bulk of America's poor... So here we have a woman, who is trying to play by these screwed up rules (legal and societal), working for low wages and trying to make ends meet and the rub is ***child care***... There isn't enough $$$ to pull it off... Most women want to do right by their kids but the system is failing them (and their kids) badly...

The Welfare Refore legislation that was passed under Bill Clinton in 1996 was the most punitive bill that the American male dominated Congress has passed against women in my life time... It, in essenece, said something similar to what the Emancipation Proclamation said ion "You got nuthin', you ain't gonna get nuthin' but yer free.."

Free???

Free to do exactly what???

The law forces woman to make very undesirable, anti-faimly choices... Thrwo in the decreasing pool on money for child care to assist these women, the Welfare Reform may be the cruelest piece of legislation ever passed in out country's history...

I mean, you folks do the math...

The minimum wage had lost 42% of it's value since 1969 and now we have a male dominated (Taliban) system that is intent on punishing women and their kids for what??? Playing by the rules???

This is a stacked deck...

You wanta help???

Well, cloes the loophole that allows primarilly the rich to evade paying $100B a year in off-shore schemes anbd put some of that money in supporting women and their ***families***...

This is what "family values" is all about...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:22 PM

Actually, Peace, I think a discussion of unions, especially their role as agents of social change, is very pertinent to any discussion about poverty in the USA. I believe a revived labor movement will be an essential element in effecting the rather massive changes in the current power structure, laws, and formal social institutions that are going to have to occur to effect social change on the scale that will be required. And I don't think the labor movement that will be an essential element in effective change in the future will look exactly like pre-globalization labor movements. That labor movement, (and the rest of us) are going to have to 'think globally, act locally,' to borrow a cliche that has merit.

I'm thinking out loud here. I opine it is going to take a lot of thinking out loud to figure out the means by which important and necessary changes might occur to improve the social welfare of our society.

___________________________________o_______________________________



Mick's comments on the transformation of the big unions from labor movement to institution continue to intrigue me. Many of the social institutions that have arisen to promote the welfare of the people - 'the common man' - have their origins in social movements that began outside of the established systems and power structures of their time. Agents for social change challenge the institution.

Thesis=the Establishment. Antithesis=the 'outsider change agent.' Synthesis=a reformed institution, or sometimes a new institution that may replace, or may be in addition to the existing social institution. Then, out of the sythesis arises a new or transformed set of challenges; A new thesis and a new antithesis emerge. This is the nature of the change process.

And what the f*ck does this have to do with poverty? It is a framework for understanding and effective problem-solving that accepts dilemma. It acknowledges the complexity of the issues, and also that every solution, i.e. synthesis, brings with it another set of problems and issues. It leads to more "yes, and" thinking, and less "yes, but" thinking.



Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:24 PM

OK by me. If y'all want to include labour then I'm all for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 12:43 AM

Thanks, Peace. Most of the poor are laborers. And the Labor movement is first and foremost about human rights The social conditions that foster poverty and the the existence of a large number of the working poor are human rights issues. The labor movement is about much more than the hourly rate a worker is paid. The labor movement is about redistribution on wealth, health, and safety, to mname but a few of the issues that labor movements address that foster an underclass.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 02:00 AM

Yes, Unions are first and foremost about human rights.

Health and safety in the workplace is one of the major concerns.

Then there are medical benefits and pension plans.

Its about protecting people from harassment.

Its about seniority and job security.

Its about child labour laws.

Most of all, its about what's fair.

All workers should belong to a union. If all workers belonged to unions, we would have far less poverty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 04:04 AM

Consider this...Company says "you stole from us and you're fired"...Union worker says "so what, take it up with the shop steward".....Company says (after talking to shop steward), "we're sorry, forgive us and please don't sue us"...Union worker says "okay, but don't let it happen again"...Company says "we won't".....That about sums it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 04:15 AM

To quote Janie..."Thanks, Peace. Most of the poor are laborers. And the Labor movement is first and foremost about human rights".....Forget that, Janie, not all laborers are in unions, in fact, I bet it is a minority. Most have no rights at all. And Dianavan...Unions are first and foremost about collecitng dues, everything else comes second, don't ever forget that.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 09:20 AM

AWG, I have read most of your posts and you seem like a reasonable guy, pretty smart. Then you throw out that post, setting up the straw man argument, based on a flawed, demagogic premise. Just when I think "this is a bright person that I can have a productive debate with" you come up with this stuff. It says to me one of two things. You accept your own flawed perceptions as gospel, hence are not able to accept any evidence that is to the contrary. Or you have a bias, and only seek to advance that.

Your example of the theft above is so flawed that it almost doesn't bear addressing. I am not sure where the idea that someone could get caught stealing, the proof is there, and they would get off, comes from. One of the basic priniciples in contract administration is that the employer must be able to prove their case before they discipline or discharge. Another principle is that the punishment must be appropriate. In virtually every case of theft I have had, where the management was able to demonstrate the theft with a preponderance of evidence, the termination was upheld. The one exception, where the proof was there, was an employee with over 20 years of service, found a broken bag of M&M's. He ate a handful and was observed by a manager. They termed him for theft. We were able to make a diminutive loss argument, and get the employee reinstated. But he was returned to work without backpay by the arbitrator, and he was off work for months.

Facts are what you need to deal with. Every time you start to come off as something other than a troll, you inject these phoney premis arguments and end up looking foolish.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 10:20 AM

Hello I was asked what kind of sones I like and I guess that I'll respond I like all kinds of songs but perfer folk songs Songs of the people even more than Rock and Roll Rock music seems to have lost it I think but that is my opion. Folk music has more power to get across stories about the human condition. Woody Guthrie Pete Seeger I guess now that I am thinking of it so does some country music. Music has alway been the medium to convey the news and even today it can as the major media is not really reporting the news or what fits thier guidelines.
So it is my opion that it is both the time for a revalution and a major folk move to make it's way back to the fore front as it has in the past we are in the need of some major social change not only here in this country but this is a start
What does this have to do with poverty , It has a lot to do with poverty Folk music or for what we now call folk music has for most of it life has been about exposing the evils of socity. and in order for something to be done about thoes evils they have to be exposed.
Folk music do what Charles Dicken did with his novels over a hundred years ago. The main message nothing has never really changed only the means to get around the laws that were meant to protect the working population and those in need
Sorry about the spelling I only have a very short time here in the puplic library
   Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 12:19 PM

Kipp,

Your spelling is just fine. I love what you are writing. Thanks for sharing your views, and please keep returning.

Do you play an instrument?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 12:58 PM

Janie : As I could have quoted more of what you have said but this is exactly what I am talking about and to me it seems as though all the different angences are working together to keep people poor and dependent on the system. And it matters now at what point that a person enters this maze it's like get the money that you are entitled to you so we can help you ate the same time make it so hard for you to ever take charge of your life again we will take care of you just give US the money because we will do more for you. and if you live in our place you just have to be in by 5:00 PM lights out at 9:00 PM and you have to be out of here by a certain time in the morning. This is only one of several examples. ......So I know your are right on the money so to speak but this is one of the reasons that people are kept down so to speak Thank you

I wonder, when you talk about people making big money in the industry that has indeed arisen around 'services' for the poor, if you are speaking of the privatization of traditionally publicly run programs? You don't say enough about that for me to know exactly what you are talking about. I know there are definitely businesses making money, and lots of it, who contract for job training and job development programs, and in mental health. It is the CEO's and the very upper level management of these firms who are profitting, and profitting nicely. I also know that New Jersey has some famously corrupt municipalities (don't know about county and the state gov't) where agents of the the government historically have made tidy sums from kick backs, etc. I don't think of these people and the management of these companies as 'do gooders.' I think of them as corrupt opportunists. I also know from my own professinal experience that the amount of 'spin' that goes into programs, public and private' that are touted as services for people in need are in reality something else intirely. I do not mean that no one in need is ever helped by these programs. However, the publicly stated mission of service is simply a cover. The real mission is something else intirely. Usually some combination of profit for a small number of top level management, irresponsible cost-shifting, and the creation of political capital for some one else. This is a whole topic unto itself, so I won't comment further on it at this time.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 01:52 PM

Big Mick, thanks for the compliment (I think). Sounds, though, like I hit a sore spot. Perhaps you are a union member ? Actually, I was (WAS) willing to concede that the theft example I made was a bit of an exaggeration to make a point that union members get away with murder (not literally, or maybe so), until you gave me the one example who was re-instated. If that one example you state was not a union member, that person would be kicking stones right about now. Thanks for making my point. By the way, you also seem like a guy with all his ducks in a row, but you are way off and baised on this union angle. Take care.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 02:34 PM

Whoo- eee! Beware those who read and not comprehend...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 05:12 PM

I have been a union member since I was seventeen. I was a miserable sonuvabitch when I joined and I'm still a miserable sonuvabitch. Don't blame the union for that.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 08:02 PM

Well, at the risk of soundin' like the true cynic that I am, I hold very little faith that the American labor movement is in any position to jump start the war on poverty...

"Boss Hog" has hated the labor movement going back to the days of FDR and hasd made it his most single "cause" to cripple it... And, well, he's done a purdy good job of doing just that... The percentage of folks who are members of unions are at a 40 year low and unions have had to retreat from a position of power to one more of begging...

The hotel workers strike in California a few years back was, IMO, "Boss Hog's" day in ther sun as an American labor union succumbed to a negotiated "two tier" settlement which meant that younger and future workers wouldn't get squat... The older workers caved and went along with the idea... Yeah, they rolled their own children under the bus...

And over the last 10 or so years, outsourching has been the last coffin nail in the labor movement...

That's my take... So if anyone expects that this dieing movement is going to lead the charge on the war on poverty, I wouldn't bet the farm on it...

BTW, I will give credit where credit is due and "Boss Hog" has certainly put together one fine PR campaign to go along with his killing of all the true threats (Kennedy, Kennedy and King) to plans and where I hate him for doing what he has done to our country, I do have a healthy level of respect for his power to cahnge the course of current events...

I find it incredulaous that we are still reading the results of "Boss Hog's" misinformation campaign that was spun 30 years ago about the evils of unions??? Incredulous... Best PR cmapaign since the Repubs did the hatchet job on the word "liberal"...

And they say the media has a "liberal" bias...

Beam me up...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 08:29 PM

I want Kipp to tell us how he ended up in his sutiation and wht could have been done to avoid it.

His statement about "make it so hard for you to ever take charge of your life again" sounds like self perpetuation of poverty to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 09:51 PM

AWG, that is the oldest trick in the book, and wasn't even executed very well. Try and shift the debate by claiming that you hit a nerve. Actually you didn't. I am used to shills, when they don't have a cogent response, to attempt to provoke response.

Yes, I am a Union member. In fact, I am a Union Organizer of almost 30 years experience.

Your comment about the man who got his job back, once again, shows that you have no interest in real give and take discussion. You have an agenda, and are attempting to win the day by playing to perceptions and half truths. Your program must receive funding from corporate interests. I would think a person with credentials could do better on the debate part of all this.

So you have a problem with the concept of "just cause", do you? You think there is a problem with management having to justify the taking of a person's livelihood? That is the message you sent.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 10:37 PM

There has to be more to the story than eating a bag of open M&Ms. I used to give stuff to employees to keep on the good side. Lend them trucks to move and so forth. Employees are not easy to find and keeping them is the trick, not firing them for stupid shit. There must have been some other friction.

Mick must be a shill for the Union.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 10:59 PM

My hope, Bobert, is not in the leadership of the institutionalized, established union. I refer you back to Mick's distinction between institutions and movements. Things are gonna get worse before they get better. Mick works to organize some of the worst paid and most exploited workers. Their numbers are growing as more jobs move off shore or are lost to technology. It won't be that long, perhaps in yours and my lifetimes, that enough workers have so little left to lose that the risks in fighting back no longer seem so daunting.   In fact, the more decline in membership and power of the institutionalized union, the more likely will be the rise of a new, post-modern labor movement from the ashes.

And you had better believe there are bright minds already pondering what the issues will be, what the social processes will be, what to make of, and how to deal with the present and probable future realities of globalization, how to think about the American labor market, values and ideas of social justice and social welfare in the context of globalization.

Mick, would I be wrong to think you find yourself pondering on some of this at least every now and again?

I'm not prepared to say that Labor will provide the over-arching vision, but Bobert, but without a strong, well-led post-modern labor movement, it ain't a gonna happen.

Your 'Southern Man' will simply wreak havoc and destroy himself in the process of blaming and hating everything and everyone different from himself in the absence of leadership that provides a unifying focus for the rage. Labor has the best chance of fulfilling that role. a post-modern labor movement can succeed in organizing southern workers, which the old labor movement had not been able to do to a significant degree.

another hosiery mill shut down today. In Mt. Airy. Theyare moving off shore.

Janie

I've rambled on too much, perhaps.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 11:24 PM

Uh, Dickey? Your ignorance is showing again.

Noun 1. shill - a decoy who acts as an enthusiastic customer in order to stimulate the participation of others
decoy, steerer - a beguiler who leads someone into danger (usually as part of a plot)
Verb 1. shill - act as a shill; "The shill bid for the expensive carpet during the auction in order to drive the price up"
cozen, deceive, delude, lead on - be false to; be dishonest with

By definition an avowed union organizer who clearly proclaims who he is, what he does, and what his agenda represents is NOT a shill.

You, on the other behave as a shill repeatedly in this discussion, just not a very effective one.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 11:52 PM

Dickey, what I relayed to you absolutely happened. The reason employers fire folks for any theft whatsoever is to keep their options over. Another of the tenets of collective bargaining/contract administration is that discipline must be consistently administered. So they take that to mean stealing is stealing, with no mitigation of the consequences. That, of course, flies in the face of the "punishment must fit the crime". Makes for some interesting arbitrations. But the bottom line here is that workers, for whom job loss is often catastrophic in these times when living check to check is so common and necessary due to costs, should have an absolute right to a grievance procedure in which all mitigating factors come into play. The problem usually is that management wants to be accountable to no standards other than their own selfish, profit driven motives. It is a system of checks which prevents a return to times when whole families were destroyed at the whim of the capitalist.

Janie, I have pondered on these issues for a number of years. I suffer from the curse of being a street level organizer who also works at very high levels of the political process. I have suffered the elitist fools who dismiss actions as "the way of it" while I look at the faces of the families that will suffer from decisions that they have no hand in. It has radicalized me in the late stages of my career, much like I was in the early years. Individuals have little or no power against the powers of capital, and the stratification of wealth demonstrates that clearly. I have returned to the street level, as I believe that is where the battle will be fought, and I intend to be there in that fight. While the institutions of labor certainly are in need of a tuneup, they still represent the best hope of combatting entrenched capital. We have the knowledge, and we have resources. And most importantly, we have access to the workers. If we can knock the dust off, and organize internally as well as externally, return to the values of our early days when we were a movement, and respond to the conditions, we will be an effective voice in the new world economy. If we fail, the consequences will be historic.

Ramble off,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 12:59 AM

"So if anyone expects that this dieing movement is going to lead the charge on the war on poverty, I wouldn't bet the farm on it..." - bobert

That may be true at present but lets just say they are definitely keeping the fire burning. I belong to a union and we are active in educating the public about everything from child labour to same/sex relationships. We show up for every peace march and protest. In order for our movement to become stronger, we need more unionized workers. Unions take the lead when it comes to health and safety issues in the workplace.   

btw - The membership on these committees is voluntary.

I'm with janie on this. My hope is that we will soon see a post-modern labour movement like no other.   

With increasing hours in the private sector, extreme stress and anxiety, a lack of job security, and unhealthy competition between employees (not to mention low wages)- its only a matter of time.

Its time that we remind people that prosperity is dependent on the workers of the world. Business would be nowhere without their employees.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 01:39 AM

Hear, hear!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 03:02 AM

Wow, Mick, where do I start ?? For starters, if I didn't hit a nerve, you sure acted like it. Read your post. What exactly am I supposed to be a shill for ? All Im saying is the thief kept his job because he was a union member, that's all. Anyplace else, he'd be out of a job. Why can't you admit this ?? Your story states what I have been saying all along. C'mon Mick, you're better than this, you must be holding back or something, I expected a better exchange of ideas. All I see is a union member who is defending fellow union members from criticism, saying they get equal treatment, even though he openly admits this fellow 'brother' kept his job after stealing, because he was a union member. Hmmmm...... Oh yeah, almost forgot, I do believe in just cause. I just don't believe that when a company demonstrates it, it should be ignored for union members, but not non-members. I mean, he did steal, didn't he ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 03:21 AM

Bobert, I'll respond to your allegations by saying that no, when I started out renting rooms 15 years ago, my motive wasn't to help the poor. It was to pay the mortgage, and I made very little profit. But as time went by, as I kept rents low, more and more people called who were on social assistance, well below the 'poverty line', and students. It was then that I started thinking about the benefit I was providing to people on welfare and students, by offering them low cost, quality housing, when most other landlords in town wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole, or wanted outrageous rents. I made very little, if any, profits over just 'paying the bills', and that's the truth. Rich landlords are the one's who own multi-unit buildings like apartments, etc. But I felt better knowing I was doing a little something to help them out, and my rents were secure by Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer (isn't that what you all wanted, government programs to help the poor). I just took more risk. Sorry for the delay to respond, Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 07:51 AM

Ahhhhhh, okay... In a perfect world a second labor movement could be the vehicle for leading our nation outta poverty but the only way that can happen is for progressives to ***out frame*** the issues and not allow the goons to change the discussion...

(For Dickey: Look up the term "goon" in your dictionary before accusing me of using inflamatory terms...)

As for "out-framing" issues in these times it usually comes down to the folks who have the most $$$ who can buy PR/media access... The Amercian people are too busy runnin' in "Boss Hog's" hamspter wheel of life trying to make ends meet to have m,uch time to delve into the facts of issues and tend to just go along with who ever has the most money to tell them what to think... The immigration issue is proof positive...

More later... Gotta go to work...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 09:40 AM

Mick:

If you take the Union's threats and ultimatums out of the picture you get a more friendly attitude toward employees. You are evoking class warfare and creating animosity where none exists and shilling for the Union.

Union Goons are the ones that pour acid in the electric panels of establishments because they did not hire union electricians. They are trying to make a living too without having to pay blood money to the union.

I suppose Janie gets great satisfaction by calling people ignorant while stating there is no fix for poverty and being unable to identify any of the root causes of poverty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 09:45 AM

A friendly reminder:

Dues Reminder
Submitted by smw63 on Wed, 09/13/2006 - 8:31pm.
2006-04 April 2006

There are absolutely no late dues exceptions. Dues are to be paid one month in advanced. The Union books are to be closed on the last business day of the month, every month by 4:30 PM. Delinquent dues result in suspension, which in turn adds on a $200.00 re-instatement fee, (Vermont Members $150.00 re-instatement fee) plus a two-month advanced payment of dues, in order to be re-instated. Suspension will also have you immediately removed from the shop or job site you are working in. Please be prompt with dues payments!

http://www.smwlocal63.org/node/218

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 10:07 AM

Fist of all to Dickey,
I don't have to explaine anything to anyone if I choose to I will it is up to me I'am not asking wnyone else to explain why they are where they are where they are I't is really no one business I would not be so rude.
Next to Peace
I can play several instruments But the one thakr for me is my greatest achevment is ther fiddle, to that I will add the guitar the five string banjo, mandolin and the Irish flute I had voice lessons also that is the only real music lessons I have had.
But to and to this I wiuld like to restart the coffe house movement over again but this time it has to be a bit different. One of it main functions is to help to restore the sense the sense of comunity that has either been lost or taken away this I think is one way is for us to have our voices heard and to form networks of like minded people all ocver this country for starters. But they the coffee house has to also be a serious business also
More on this later
    Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 01:21 PM

There seems to be a grass roots movement to do just that. Today the meeting places are people's homes or yards, and folks get together to sing and exchange songs.

Thank you, btw. I play guitar and sing a bit. Do you write songs, Kipp? I really like where your head's at to do with poverty, and I am wondering if you've written songs that express the way you feel.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 01:55 PM

Peace, I am in the process of doing just that but right now I am being kind of careful because if some on discovers something I have written down they just might take it the wrong way. I have been offered a chance to write some things for a local paper same thing though being carfukl is the word for now Any way the coffee house thing is my idea in that it might give people with different views a chance to find a comon ground I am not about limiting it to conseritive liberal but forintance christian Jew Moslem Athest etc. on a different range to things if only to get all these folks talking to each other and making music to gether sharing their poetry there art what ever

Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 02:01 PM

That is wonderful to hear, Kipp. If you ever feel like messaging me just to shoot the breeze, please do so.

PS, I'm an old 'folkie' (OK, more folkieishrocksorta) from the 1960s, and I agree that the religion stuff has no place in folk clubs.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 07:18 PM

Actually, Dickey, I have clearly identified the root cause of poverty. Lack of resources.

You are absolutely right. I stand firmly by my statement that there is no 'fix' for poverty, even in the presence of sufficient resources within a society. There has never been, and I hope there never will be, a government, society, entity, or machine that is able to exert sufficient control over the thoughts, choices, and behaviors of each and every human being to the extent that would be necessary to 'fix' poverty.

Of course, you may have some fantasy that you would somehow be exempt from being under that absolute control.

I suppose Janie gets great satisfaction by calling people ignorant while stating there is no fix for poverty and being unable to identify any of the root causes of poverty.

Noting your ignorance is neither satisfying or unsatisfying. It is an observation.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 08:38 PM

And as for "goons", Dickey... I see you ***didn't*** bother to look the term up in the dictionary...

No, you are quite wrong...

"Goons" is a slang term for anti-union people who used intimidation to stop labor union organizing... This is the historically correct use of the term...

Your interpretation of linking labor union folks to term is incorrect...

Like Janie said "Noting your igorance is neither satisfying or unsatisfying. It is an observation."

My exact sentiments...

I might add that if it is true that a "little learning is a dangerous thing" then if taken to the extremes of a " a lot of little learning" then where does that leave you???

You were **almost** doing okay at some point in this discussion but you have regressed... AWG, at the very least, hasn't relapsed and has made an effort... But you???

Betty Ford material...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 08:41 PM

Is there something going on between Dickey and Janie ?? Lot of tension there.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 08:44 PM

Kipp:

I am not demanding any thing. I am just asking politeley.

Janie:

What creates the need for resources? How do people get in the position of needing these resources?

I gather from your wishes that you want there to be poverty. Several people here claim it is the big corporations and rich folk that want poor people to be poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 08:51 PM

Bobert, to quote you...'You were **almost** doing okay at some point in this discussion but you have regressed... AWG, at the very least, hasn't relapsed and has made an effort... But you???',......What the heck does that mean ??!! Who do you think you are, you don't run his thread. Remember, there is a new sheriff in town !! I hope you like the taste of crow.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 08:57 PM

To quote Dickey...'I gather from your wishes that you want there to be poverty.' (to Janie). I'll defende Janie here, and say she wants less poverty, but cutting off government funding won't get us there. Resourses means more than just money. Hi Janie.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 09:14 PM

Exactly, AWG... Cuttin' off funding for programs that were originally deisgned to help fight poverty won't get us there...

We need to reinvest in our own citizens, especially the 1 in 5 kids who live in poverty...

There were 21 million women living in poverty in 2005 and there are more now... Most of these women had at least one child and a large percenttage of those who had children had more than one child... That is one heck of a lot of poor women and kids...

This is the reason that I have harped on the importance of child care subsidies to help women who are playing be the rules and working crappy jobs paying crappy wages...

This is doable and affordable...

The Washington Post reports that about $100B a year in tax revenmue is being hidden in places like the Caymen Islands... Less than 20% of that would shore up our nations child care needs...

The US is about the only civilized (???) nation that does not recognize that caring for our children is part of the entire "family values" package... We do not even have a law on the books that says women should be given paid leave when the bay is born... Evey Europen country has such a law in place...

I mean, here wwe have these self-appointed, self-rightous rigth wigers going arounf blowin' crap about how they are for family values but when it come to "walkin' the walk" these creeps walk it like a man with no legs???

Makes me sick that stupid rednecks actually believe these anti-family bigots and actually vote for these anti-family bigots because these anti-family bigots bash gay people???

Only in Redneck America...

Go figure and while yer figurin'...

... beam me up...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 09:33 PM

Bobert, are you saying you are against gay people ??

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 12:13 AM

"And soon the situation there was all but straightened out,
For he was always known to lend a helping hand."

Gospel of Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:04 AM

What creates the need for resources? How do people get in the position of needing these resources?

In no particular order, not even close to inclusive or even mutually exclusive,and rarely, if ever, solely because of any one of the following reasons: drought, natural disaster, greed, selfishness, stupidity, illness, injury, stacked decks, bad choices, overpopulation, war, public policies, disenfranchisement, caste systems, arrogance, mines played out, new technologies, social injustice, pestulence, narcissism, cruelty, fear, the inertia of large social systems, discrimination, lack of education, lack of opportunity, lack of motivation, lack of altruism, lack of empathy, self-righteousness, personality disorders, cognitive disortions, racism, classism, failure to operationalize values, masking selfish interests as values, intolerance, failure to be responsible for the self, failure to be responsible for the effect of the choices one makes on others, failure to be responsible for and to others, ignorance (intentional and unintentional), lack of life skills, lack of social support, oppression, lifestyle choices, house fires, living too long, being too young, repression, did I already say oppression?, having skills become obsolete after age 45 or 50, corrupt government officials, raided pension funds, grossly inequitable distribution of resources, substance abuse, head injury, genetic disorders, being human, failure of the human race in general, and those who should know better in particular to opt for sustainability where possible, and the natural and inevitable tension, or dialectic, between the individual and society.

It is not simple, Dickey. Get over it.

I gather from your wishes that you want there to be poverty....

I gather from this statement, Dickey, that you

a. Have reading comprehension difficulties
b. Have not actually read most of my postings to this thread
c. Your reality testing is significantly impaired by cognitive distortions
d. You are attempting to be manipulative and/or disengenious
e. Some combination of b, c, d, but not a, above.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:48 AM

Yeah Janie -- great post and so TRUE.......people very rarely choose their disadvantaged positions..............shit happens a lot of the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:54 AM

What creates the need for resources? How do people get in the position of needing these resources?

Shame on me. My apologies, Dickey. I misread and misenterpreted the above statement. I'm not sure if it is because of my own cognitive distortions, or if the question is so absurd that I didn't take it in at first. I missed that you are actually wondering why anyone would need any resources.

Most people need food if they are going to eat. Without the resource of food, they go hungry, and, eventually, starve.

There are some climates in the world where people probably don't actually need any clothes. They may need shade (but that would be shelter.) It might be nice if they have luxuries like animal fat to attempt to ward off hordes of mosquitos. However, if they stay to windward, the wind might be luxury enough. In most climates on earth, however, the protection of clothing during certain parts of the year is essential to survival. Clothing, be it cloth, woven from grasses, or a deerhide thrown around oneself, is a resource.

In any climate in the world, there will be, at least occasionally, the need for shelter. That shelter might be a house, a hut, a tent, a cave, a tree, or a hole inthe ground. That shelter is a resource.

Now, how do people get in the position of needing resources? Well, if they don't care if they live or not, I guess they don't need resources. If, as a general rule, physical survival doesn't matter, then people don't need the resource of food. People don't need the resource of water. People don't need shelter or covering to insure they don't freeze to death.

Dickey, people get in the position of needing resources by virtue of feeling like they need to stay alive. I'm surprised you have never figured that one out.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 03:46 AM

Nevermind.

Dickey is more intent on blaming the victim than supporting anyone who is seeking solutions. In fact, he'd rather attack those that
attempt to help. Poor people make him feel superior. He needs the poverty of others for his self-image.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 07:11 AM

Just a quick note before heading off to the salt mines, AWG... No, I'm not saying I am against "gay people"... What I am saying is that these so called "family values" conservatives understand that ***their*** base of voters can be whipped into a lather by bashing gay marriage or civil unions...

Same trick, different election cycle...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 09:21 AM

"supporting anyone who is seeking solutions"

Indeed I see no one seeking a solution. All I see are people seeking temporary solutions. I see no one trying to identify the root cause.

You can attack me all you want and claim I am attacking someone else. It makes no difference. Poverty will continue to grow until the root causes are eliminated or at least reduced.

I have never impuned anybody in their efforts to help the poor. I merely point out that that is not going to eliminate poverty.

"There has never been, and I hope there never will be, a government, society, entity, or machine that is able to exert sufficient control over the thoughts, choices, and behaviors of each and every human being to the extent that would be necessary to 'fix' poverty."

Janie:

By the above statement it sounds to me like you do not want a fix for poverty. You do not want the government to fix poverty or a government that can fix poverty. You want the government to mitigate the effects of poverty. Would this not lead to and ever increasing need for mitigation?

How about pollution? Do you want the government to eliminate pollution or just fix the results of pollution? How about Aids?

I hope Bobert realizes that liberals understand that ***their*** base of voters can be whipped into a lather by bashing rich folks and corporations. Bobert: do you run a union shop?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 09:59 AM

I think that there are several reasons for poverty. One right noe is that were are in a transition from an industral socity to a inromatiam society. and there is only rome for so many. Things that used to be done like for instance tune a car is no longer the same technology has changed that car no longer a tune mechanicaly but by computer or parts are just replaced thus requireing new skills. Other thing are just not repared they are just thrown away an we get new.New always it seems new Even the things tat were mass produced on an assembly line are now done in part by machines or robots of some sort. Labor is now hired through temp angencies and for the most part they are not covered by the existing labor laws. I my self have found that the temp angencies are in colution with the corporations that they provide workers for. The temp angencies are a way around things like union organising discrimination suits and the like. Of course it is more insidious than that. No benifits no unimployment compensation well maybein some instances It is an easy way to fire some on by only just say your services are no longer need.
I could go on with this topic for a long time but in reality we have this work force that is underpaid but with promises they will become full time but that never ever happens and the works move from one temp job to another. And put up with more that the perminate workers do because of those promises
Kipp
PS another way of cercomventing this is for a corporation to move to a place like China

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 10:33 AM

Indeed I see no one seeking a solution....

I wonder why that statement does not surprise me.

By the above statement it sounds to me like you do not want a fix for poverty. You do not want the government to fix poverty or a government that can fix poverty. You want the government to mitigate the effects of poverty. Would this not lead to and ever increasing need for mitigation?

How about pollution? Do you want the government to eliminate pollution or just fix the results of pollution? How about Aids?

Hmmm...I'm inclined to think the answer 'e'. But it is possible, though not probable that I left one possibility out and should have included 'f. all of the above.'

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 12:09 PM

The issue I have when 'values' are introduced into socioeconomicpolitical discussion and debates is that the term is often given lip-service only in support of fallacious arguments.   

People, groups, governments, agencies, politicians and preachers should be prepared to really examine their own values, to weigh how consistently one operationalizes one's espoused values in one's own life, to acknowledge and overtly deal with the internal conflicts and dilemmas that always exist within one's system of values, to acknowledge and recognize the inherent dialectic between values and self-interest,self-preservation, and the id, to own up to all the many times in each of our lives we choose to ignore what our values otherwise guid us to do,and to otherwise treat a discussion that includes talk of values with the seriousness and importance it deserves.

Yes they should. But mostly they don't. What they are likely to do is rationalize some justification for failure to implement or operationalize their own espoused values. That being the case, playing the 'values' card is usually bullshit.

Incidently, in today's corporate world, those who allow their behaviors to be consistently guided by their moral or ethical values are likely to find themselves fired. Would that make ethical behavior a root cause of poverty?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:00 PM

On 13 June at 9:40 AM, Dickey posted this gem:

Union Goons are the ones that pour acid in the electric panels of establishments because they did not hire union electricians. They are trying to make a living too without having to pay blood money to the union.

OK, Dickey, just who among the "goons" are you referring to? You have made a pretty broad generalization there. Do you understand what demagogery is? Would you like me to start pulling up stories of the violence against striking workers by management goons? Outfits such as Armored Group International? How about the Security Guard in North Carolina, who in his day job was a Sheriff and harassed workers trying to organize? There are so many examples of violence against workers, that you would be foolish to try and make that comparison.

Here is another one for you. You indicate that the company was trying to avoid paying "blood money" to the union. Now that is exactly what I talk about when I make the case that folks like you operate off preconceived notions instead of facts. What the company was trying to avoid was the payment of fair wages and benefits.

Dues. Of course dues are to be paid on time. How the hell else would the union be able to carry on the duty of fair representation? How do they pay their light bill, etc? As to you having to pay dues, of course you do. You are getting the same wages and benefits as the union negotiated. The cost of negotiation comes out of dues as well. Here is another one for you, but read it slowly for comprehension, OK? In the States, Unions are tasked with defining which of its costs are for the business of collective bargaining, contract administration, etc. These are known as chargeable costs. Other things, such as political activity, are non chargeable costs. They are known by these indicators, because some folks don't want to be a part of the union, and/or don't support the political aims. This legislation was passed by the right wingers and the National Right To Work Committee, to damage unions. Unions can only charge folks that elect non-member status the amount equal to the chargeable costs. Guess what they found out? The Unions range between about 88% and 98% of their money being spent directly on administering the contract and serving their members. So much for one such bit of misinformation.

I want to take on one that my friend Bobert threw out there earlier in this conversation. He said:

So if anyone expects that this dieing movement is going to lead the charge on the war on poverty, I wouldn't bet the farm on it...


I understand why he said that, it is a popular perception in todays world. Another variant is something like "unions were important once, but they are not needed anymore". Let me take a crack at both of these perceptions.

Our labor movement is not dying, but it has been injured by years of anti union legislation, and by supposed friends in the Democratic Party and their inaction to take a principled stand on these issues. They are their with their hand out for the money, but when it comes to meaningful labor law reform, can't find them. At least the Republicans tell us they are going to screw us. But we are still out there, we continue to plug along, and the issues are of critical importance. Our demise has been predicted many times, but to paraphrase, they are exaggerated. As long as a soul-less bottom line on a spreadsheet governs corporate actions, we will be here fighting.

As to being important once, but not needed now. Tell that to the workers at the Tar Heel, NC, USA pork processing plant. They have an incredibly high worker injury rate. Their pay is substandard, as is their health benefits. There is a company store approach to Workers Compensation, with the company forcing the workers to use the same Doctor for Workers Comp as they do for personal health care.

Tell that to the workers in the turkey processing plant I was organizing a few years back. The company would plant managers by the bathrooms and harass the women so badly that they would wear Depends adult diapers to work to avoid leaving the lines. I will never forget watching through the fence at shift change and seeing a crying woman, as her hands warmed up, because they hurt so bad, and her friend holding her and giving comfort.

Apologists for Corporate World can say what they want. But these are things I have seen. They couldn't care less about the little folks and view them as nothing more than a commodity to be used. The Ugly American would like to think that this stuff happens only in the Third World. Horseshit. It is going on daily in this country.

We are the only major group out there speaking out on these issues. We have our problems, but I am seeing daily a more radicalized movement emerging. I intend to be in that group.

Save your canned responses.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:54 PM

Well said, Mick. All of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:58 PM

Well said indeed.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 03:55 PM

For the most part, well said, but let's back up the truck a bit. I think the main reason the labour movement is 'dying', so to speak, is the fact that companies are finally beginning to smarten up and treat workers other than like a 'commodity' to be used and abused. Compnaies are realizing that paying and treating workers fairly will keep the 'leaches' out of their business by keeping the workers happy. Happy workers with fair pay and benefits want no part of a union and their blood-sucking ways. Compnaies were stupid 100 years ago, but they are starting to get it. Sorry Mick, yours is a dying breed.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 05:49 PM

I'm really encouraged to hear what you are saying Mick. I have reached the point where I tend to be sceptical about the intent and good will of the chief muckymucks of most large organizations, including Unions. It is important to hear from within the labor movement what is fomenting there, and to get a better idea of how well the orginal values and mission are being expressed by the institutional union in the field, where the actual work is done.

Radical change needs to happen in this country. No matter who gets elected to national office in the next election, the tendency will be to consolidate and preserve the established power structure. The pressure for changw will have to build from without and from the bottom.

This will occur only if real information makes it into public awareness, and not just official statements from organizational representatives.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 06:21 PM

Prof, the fact is that as the labor laws and OSHA protections have been weakened, the incident rates have gone up. The cases of abusive treatment towards employees have gone up. When employees try to organize, the employers purposefully violate NLRA because the enforcement dollars have been cut to the point of almost being useless, plus the Board in DC throws out many cases because they are dominated by right wing members. Imagine the part of government that was established to be a watchdog for workers rights dominated by right wing, pro business partisans.

Employers have gotten smarter alright, but not at treating their employees better.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 06:42 PM

NO, quite the contrary...

Employers are jacking up their demands for increases production at the very same time that they are perfectly willing to allow the standard of living to go down for their workers...

Oh, sure... There are exceptions but these are just that...

"Boss Hog" has never had it so good... He gets to polute all he wants because the Bush administartion has stacked the E.P.A with flat earth managers and he gets to run rougshod over his emloyees...

A perfect storm...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 08:01 PM

And, ahhhhhhhh, let's get beyond the root causes... They are too debatable and the debate is not that all constructive on what we can do about remedies...

It's kinda like being told you have cancer... Do you want to delve into what might have caused it or how to treat it... After over a thousand posts I believe we have beat around the "causes" bush enough for that discusssion to no longer be helpful...

Face it, poverty in this wealthy nation is a national disgrace... It is one thing that folks from other countries look at about the US and just have to shake their cellective heads as to why our collective "value" system allows, even rationalizes why it isn't their problem, poverty...

No, it is a disgrace... And it hurts us not only domestically but in the eys of folks who think that we represent some kind of role model... Yeah, we do get a lot of things right but on poverty??? We get an F...

It is a disgrace...

I could no longer care less to trace it's every meandering path... We have it and it's a disgrace...

I have proposed a way to alleviate it...

I have show how to pay for it...

Okay, my proposals are "large brush strokes" variety but that is what it is going to take...

Janie talks about how folks run like "pigs from a gun" when we get to discussing "values"... She is right when it comes to those who beieve that the status quo is just peachy... Or those who are not willing to put their values on record but would rather just attack those of us who have been perfectly willing to step to the plate...

Everyone here knows who is on each team...

So, screw root causes... We have a problem and we need a cure...

Plus, Einstien said that a problem cannot be solved with the same consciencness that created it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:03 AM

"collective bargaining, contract administration, etc. These are known as chargeable costs. Other things, such as political activity, are non chargeable costs. They are known by these indicators, because some folks don't want to be a part of the union, and/or don't support the political aims. This legislation was passed by the right wingers and the National Right To Work Committee, to damage unions. Unions can only charge folks that elect non-member status the amount equal to the chargeable costs. Guess what they found out? The Unions range between about 88% and 98% of their money being spent directly on administering the contract and serving their members"

Yes. All of that is overhead the the workers must pay. Blood money that feeds the union bullies. And union GOONS do come around on construction jobs and but things up if it is not strictly union.

Where did Jimmy Hoffa go?

October 3: Last night at Philadelphia City Hall, union thugs ruthlessly and violently attacked critics of President Bill Clinton gathered to protest at a fundrasing event he was attending.

In the midst of a heated debate between a legion of 300-pound Teamsters bribed to come out in support of the President and impeachment supporters, the union goons started throwing punches at the protesters. In one instance, a Teamster mercilessly threw an impeachment supporter to the ground and started kicking him -- without provocation.

Even the Clinton-loving Philadelphia Daily News confirms this account: "[T]he friction between pro-Clinton Teamsters Union members and anti-Clinton protesters erupted into not one, but two separate brawls in which beefy Teamsters kicked and punched some anti-Clinton protesters. Blood was trickling down the face of one man and other protesters' signs were torn."

http://www.patrickruffini.com/new.htm

Union Goon @ Work

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 07:47 AM

I stand by my assertion that companies are realizing that treating employees better is the way of the future, both from an economic point of view, but also it's 'the right thing to do', and keeping unions out is 'the icing on the cake'. Mick is so baised on this topic that it's laughable. I never expect him to agree to anything said against unions, true or not. C Ya.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 07:49 AM

I think it important to lay out some assumptions. These assumptions suggest questions. How we as a society answer these questions will impact the pool of solutions we consider to be viable.


Assumption: Our focus is on remedying poverty in the United States.

Assumption: There is no turning back the clock on the globalization of economies, communications and information.

Assumption: It is not possible for the United States to remedy conditions of poverty world-wide. This is not a value-laden assumption and does not imply that we have either the right or the responsibility to do so. It is simply an assumption that it is not within our power.

Assumption: The United States controls enough global resources at the present time to have the capacity to take care of it's own population.

Assumption: Systemic changes that are likely to significantly remedy poverty in the United States will impact economies and social conditions in other parts of the world.

Question: Are there currently sufficient resources available in the world to meet the basic needs of the world population? If yes, for how long?

Question: To be considered viable solutions, how future-oriented and sustainable do solutions need to be.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 10:36 AM

"Our focus is on remedying poverty in the United States"

Why not focus on fixing the roots of poverty?

Janie mentiond some root causes:

greed
selfishness
stupidity
bad choices
overpopulation
the inertia of large social systems
A lack of education
lack of opportunity
lack of motivation
self-righteousness
failure to be responsible for the self
failure to be responsible for the effect of the choices one makes on others
failure to be responsible for and to others
ignorance
lack of life skills
lack of social support
lifestyle choices
corrupt government officials
substance abuse


A great conflicting statement:

"So, screw root causes... We have a problem and we need a cure"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:48 AM

The resources to 'fix' things are dwindling, being held in fewer hands. An example is the family farm. They are being bought out by conglomerates, and as that has happened, people have had to rely more on 'jobs' as opposed to a way of life. IMO, we will have two classes of people soon: thems what's got, and them what don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:10 PM

This is not just to any specfic person , But we we do not any kind of revelution that pit one group or class against against another. I am not against the rich if it were not for some of these people to take achance and creat a product the a lot of people could use where wpould we be because of this we as a human race and this country would not be have for thr most part be haveing the standard of living we have and for yhe most part would like for every one in this country to attain And to think that thoes that took the risks should not have the finanical compensation for what they have done and that includes job for people Fact poor people can not create wealth nor can they create jobs. Granted we are to comsumtion oriantated but for now that is the nature of the beast. One more factas the future unfolds we will have less and less unskilled jobs. eventually technogy will more that likely take over all most every aspect of life and our jobs.
Education is one of the best wepons to fight against poverty and yes I realize we are behind it that area. There seem to be another fact that some seem to overlook the more skills that a person has that is marketable the more they are worth
So eventually someone with no skils will have vert little worth in the job market place. So every one has a roll to play here in this war on poverty. For instance when a rich person buy's a yhat someone or one have to build it don't they. This is away to redistubute weath is it not. If the poor are thught the skils to produce some thing that those with money want or need than we all benifit don't we.


If you give someone a fish they eat for a day , If you teach them to fish they eat for a life time and then make they can teach someone else to fish

Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:10 PM

There you go again, Dickey, with your misquotes, mistrepresentations and outright lies about what I have said.

Do not again attribute to me any statement defining the root cause of poverty as anything other than the lack of resources. I have typed that statement so many times that I will simply copy the last one. Actually, Dickey, I have clearly identified the root cause of poverty. Lack of resources.


The items you listed above, as you very well know, were an answer to a question you asked which was, "What creates the need for resources? How do people get in the position of needing these resources?" Later, after I realized what you were actually asking, I amended my answer and very clearly and carefully explained to you that people need resources in order to stay alive.

Your 10:36 am post, to which I am responding, is simply another way in which you reveal that any concern you actually have related to poverty, and I am not convinced it is an issue you consider of importance at all, is about trying to insure you and the masters for which you are such an ineffective sycophant don't have to give up any portion of your excess wealth, power or other resources.

The value of continuing to 'play' you and to occasionally mess with your pointy little head is that you provide a very simple and easy to discern example (and thus not very effective) of the tricks and deceptive practices used to try to manipulate public opinion, obsfucate issues to conceal your real agenda and lack of values and integrity, use of specious logic and and fallacious arguments, feeble attempts at 'bait and switch'. You illustrate the intentional deceptions through misquotes, misrepresentation and, as you just did regarding my statement on root cause, outright lies. You demonstrate how to dodge responsibility for your words and deeds, and also for the actual intent and meaning of those words and deeds.

I wish there were not a real person behind what you exemplify in your words. But there is. There is you. I do not pretend to know any other aspect of who you are than what you reveal of yourself, intentionally or not, on this thread. I do not want to believe that there exists a real person who so clearly embodies the stereotype of Bobert's "Boss Hogg" and his sycophants, even if that is only one piece of who that person is.

In terms of the psychological make up of such a person, there is little difference between the values and morals of "Boss Hogg" and a gun-welding gang member. The gang member is at least honest about who and what he is. He will readily acknowledge his antisocialness, his greed, his total disregard for anyone who is not one of his gang. And it is possible to have some empathy for the gang member. It is possible to imagine how the conditions of his life and environment made him into what he is. That doesn't mean he is not accountable, but it does make empathy possible.

What you represent is as big a menace to the health, safety and welfare of our neighborhoods and communities as is the gang.

This is indeed a personal attack on you, but also on all those of whom you are representive. You have blood on your hands, Dickey. But before you wielded the knife that sliced through the muscle, sinew and bone of the back you stabbed it in, you were careful and deliberate to create a lens, a filter of psychological defenses, and incomplete and inconsistent bits of information, ideas and justifications, through which blood is not visible, and through which who and what you are is also not visible to yourself. then you grafted that lens to your eyes in such a way that you don't ever have to be concerned that they will come off. So you will never have to see the blood, death, suffering and destruction that you wreak on the people and the earth. You are incorrigible and absolutely corrupt, but so well protected from yourself that you will never, ever have to know it. You'll just have to rot in hell.

I am surprised at myself for saying these things, but I mean every word.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:50 PM

Best case study I think I have ver read...

Much better than those I used to read about even the most dreaded of my clients...

Yes, Janie... This, very sadly, sums up Dickey... He is "sealed dead in his armor"...

Oh, the life of being a "Boss Hog" shill is a lonesome one, indeed...

Hey, if this means the end of this thread then so be it... It's been fun (kinda) and not-so-fun (kinda) but the htread is at a point where it either needs to go forward with "What do we do now about poverty" or just turn it over to Captain Dickey and let him do what he has tried to do now since ity's beginning and run it into the iceburg...

But he won't see it that way because, yes, the lense has been perminently attached and he is no longer capable of doing much more than trying to change the conversation because the conversation does not fit his and "his handlers" values...

So, I'm kinda with you, Janie... We both have dealt with lots and lots of folks with mental problems and use all kinds of games to keep the "professionals" at bay and it has grown somewhat tiresome here...

The games that Dickey has played have become both borish and not productive to the discussion...

But if he lived to be a 1000 years old he wouldn't have a clue what we both have come to realize...

Yes... It is about values...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:33 PM

***CHUCKLE*** Typical academic. AWG's response to my arguments is that I am so biased that I can't be taken seriously. I suppose that I could say the same of you. You are so pro management that you can't possibly be unbiased. Pretty weak, Prof. What really bothers you is that I won't let you just pass off perceptual biases that have been used against the unions by management for a long time. One of the reasons I win so many union organizing elections is that I inoculate the workers against the half truths, misperceptions, and outright lies used by management consultants to get workers to vote against there own self interests. I let them know early on what they will hear, and tell them the truth of it. I don't seek to shield them from the facts about what is wrong with labor. I let them see that when one balances the plus' and the minus', they are always better off with a voice in the workplace. And try as you might to convince folks that we are a dying breed, you should realize that our demise has been proclaimed many times. But a righteous ideal cannot be killed.

Dickey, you have a problem with overhead? What the hell kind of capitalist are you? Or is overhead a bad thing only when it comes to unions?

Try as you might, you cannot deal in facts. You just keep throwing out these tired old management lies. Here is one you can check out. Check the financial bonding rates for union officials as compared to virtually all parts of society.   And especially among business owners. We have one of the lowest rates out there. What does that mean? It means that the risk of loss due to malfeasance or criminal activy, as calculated by scientists known as actuaries, is among the lowest in the nation. So much for your attempts to brand us as thiefs and wasters of our members money.

We are not perfect. We have among us those that don't represent the workers well, take exorbitant salaries, and shouldn't be a part of our movement. I know this from first hand experience as I just came out of a fight of over a year with one of these. But when you compare our ranks with those that would see us gone, we do very well.

Yeah, I am a Union Man. Proud of it.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 12:44 AM

Mick,

I would be interested to know what your ponderings have been regarding labor in the USA and globalization. Economic development has to figure in to any systemic approaches to remedy poverty in this country.



Incidentally, I'm headed out on a family vacation in the morning, compliments of my parents and sister. I don't think I'll be on-line much for the next week. I'll be interested to see what y'all come up with when I return.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:20 PM

Janie,

Evolutionary processes are very hard to predict, because they will respond to what is presented as an obstacle to survival. Hence, the labor movement will be a result of their own activities, the political process, and happenings around the world. What I can say is this. Due to globalization of business, all that is old will become new. The IWW (Wobblies) were about a century ahead of their time. In those days, communications and transportation being what they were, the idea of an employer that was abusing his workers in Iowa having a problem with Unions as a result, in Romania, just wasn't feasible. But today that is the case. A good guess as to where labor will head will be towards a truly international model. We see a lot of this already. I don't see the USA unions merging with others in other countries soon, as the US labor unions are all independent of government control other than the laws they operate under. Many union in other countries function as an arm of government. But I believe that workers around the world will unite more and more, and the labor movement will be the impetus behind that.

More later,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 06:55 PM

Oh, what the hey...

1100...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 08:13 AM

Mick, I never said anything about being 'pro management'. I'm only pro 'companies that treat their employees fairly'. Those companies don't need a union, and as the number of these companies increases, unions will only be able to cling to the companies they already have. The numbers will not decrease, only as a percentage of the entire work force, as the work force grows. Eventually, maybe, unions will be something we read about in the history books. (we can only hope).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 08:52 AM

Words of wisdom by Kipp:

"If you give someone a fish they eat for a day , If you teach them to fish they eat for a life time and then make they can teach someone else to fish"

You others who are so busy trying to prove that I am some sort of enemy should spend your time and animosity trying to figure out the root causes of poverty and what can be done about them rather than persue your class warfare agenda.

Yes there are some Boss Hoggs out there feeding on poor people. Is it too much trouble to sort them out? Do the Unions care? I think the unions see a corporation as a target and whip up controversy between the company and the workers for their personl gain. What has this done to Detroit? It is the most crime ridden country in the US. Good job Unions. You bled that one to death. Toyota will soon be #1. Will they be the next target?

United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger says his union is still interested in helping to organize workers at Toyota's U.S. facilities, despite having been unsuccessful so far.

In fact, he said he wants to help the world's No. 2 automaker "continue to be a success."

Uh, oh! It's no wonder that Toyota isn't exactly jumping for joy at the prospects. They've done just fine without the UAW, and probably don't need the UAW to come to its "rescue."

Consider what has befallen General Motors, Ford and Chrysler the past few years. The UAW has certainly helped them continue to be successful, hasn't it?

And thanks to the union, GM has given its workers more than $73 billion in benefits over the past 10 years, according to a Newsweek article. Which in turn means has meant $1,200 of every car GM sells goes toward health care costs. In contrast, Toyota's health care costs are about $200 per car.

http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=239002&pub=1&div=News

Yeah, I got a problem with overhead when it is totally wasted. It is another case of "You people are not capable of surviving in this world without us"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 08:52 AM

Then maybe I should have said "anti union". As a concept, I cannot imagine why you would want unions to disappear. Unions are nothing more than bargaining groups for commodities. In this case the commodity is their labor. This is where folks like you have their arguments fall apart. You are generally all for any step that a business takes to protect itself and grow. But when workers do precisely the same thing, you have a problem. They are simply protecting the source of their profit. They are attempting to improve their bottom line through the use of collectively bargained wages and benefits, for which they sell their labor.

As to the decline, perhaps you are correct, but don't expect us to sit around and wait for that. We are developing and implementing new strategies daily. We are increasing our presence in labor groups around the world. We are focusing more on organizing.

As to why, it is simple. The incidents of work place injury is rising. The incidents of corporations taking advantage of poor workers is rising. And the capital is gathering in fewer and fewer hands as the gap between the richest and poorest widens. Workers increasingly are finding it harder and harder to survive on one job, or one wage earner.

So, if you don't mind, we will hang out a bit longer and see if we can't lend a little assistance.

Oh ........ yeah. Happy Fathers Day

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 09:03 AM

What a marvelous piece of horsehit information from Kipp/Dickey. Perhaps you could take a bit of time to do a little research before you throw out opinion that isn't based in fact. What has killed Detroit is not it's overpaid, lazy workforce. Every single piece of data available shows the US autoworker as the most productive in the world. And every bit of data available shows that the Big Three are failing because of their bloated middle and upper management levels. The problem with those companies lies square in the middle of bad management practices.

And they bitch about the "legacy costs" of the fairly negotiated benefits. The real reason that they are struggling to keep up, again, lies in greed and mismanagement. Anyone remember the pension raid era of the late 80's and early 90's? Of course not, because no one wants to talk of this. This was a time when unions fought, and lost the fight in the right wing Reagan courts, to not allow corporations to raid the excess earnings in the pension plans. We said then that these funds would be needed to maintain benefits in slow times. But the courts allowed them to strip out the earnings of these negotiated benefits. I still don't understand that one. My money earns better than projected and you get to take the earnings. The offshoot of that some 15 years later is you have funds that are underfunded (another gift of the Reagan administration, being allowed to underfund pensions)and folks talking about cutting the fairly bargained benefits that workers planned on for retirement.

Kipp/Dickey ...... just admit that you are over your head in this discussion.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 10:34 AM

Well, I can't sy that Kipp has been over his head since the beginning of this discussion but Dickey sho nuff has piled up quite a pile of evidence that he is...

Perhaps he'd like to explain what he doesn't understand about the "root causes" of poverty that were laid out early in the discussion...

But, no... His little left brain (or is is right brain) wants some kinda Holy Grail, E=MC2 type root cause as if there is but just one single root cause... This is way beyond *remedial* here... Anyopne this far into thias discussion who hasn't figured out this part of poverty isn't going to figure it out...

That's what Janie pointed out a few posts ago, for which I seconded...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 11:03 AM

Imagine that. A person living in a shelter AND a person accused of being a shill for the rich are against unions. A conspiracy is unfolding.

What is the productivity of those GM workers reading magazines because of some loophole in their contract?

I hope Bobert runs a closed union shop.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 11:12 AM

See Dickey, right there you revealed, yet again, what is wrong with your debate style. Your comment about the most productive auto workers in the world (GM workers) shows that you don't have a real fact in your head. All you can do is spout cliche'd comments.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 11:59 AM

You missed one Mick:

"...unionized firms have profits that are 10 percent to 20 percent lower than the profits of non-union firms. Further, the evidence from Britain also suggests that closed-shop unions have a stronger negative impact on profitability...."

http://oldfraser.lexi.net/media/media_releases/1997/19970623.html

You can keep trying to personally villainize me all you want but it won't change the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 12:25 PM

Part of the issue, DIckey, is that you believe profitability to be the sole criterion for an organization's effectiveness. This is the kind of blindered analysis that makes for corporate greed, white-collar crime, and bad television. In supporting this "one good" idea of the purpose of companies, you are subscribing to these values. The most profitable comapnies I know personally share a different value: to make a group of people who are both profitable and happy, and who do something of value for the world.

Every time GM has failed it is because they went cross-eyed on this balance of intentions.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 02:20 PM

Actually, Dickey, I am not villifying you. Disagreement is not the same as vilification.

Of course Union companies are less profitable than non union companies. Non union companies, in the interest of increased profitability, make their employees pay if they want decent health care (in the States) as opposed to a bare bones, cover nothing but major illness, type plans. Non union companies don't provide pension plans, instead opting for 401K's which are really just savings plans for the employees. They try and make you think that these are your pension, while in reality they are just you saving your own money with no corresponding increase. In short, it is just cost shifting to you. Non union companies also pay less on the paycheck. Another reason Union companies are less profitable is because of the safety and work rules which are implemented by the collective bargaining process which makes for safer workplaces. I know you think that safety in the workplace and ergonomic standards should take second place to profits, but pardon me for disagreeing.

The point here, Dickey, as Amos initially pointed out, is that profitability is but one measure of success. If you want to see what profitability over safety does, visit the plants across the borders in Mexico. You know, the ones with no environmental controls, the ones where they dump chemicals in the groundwater to the point that the rate of children being born with only part of a brain is much higher.

The fact of the matter is that being less profitable does not mean that the company isn't profitable. But in this case what it does mean is that increased profitability comes straight out of the pockets of the workers and their families; it means it comes at the expense of more workers being injured; it comes at the expense of workers who can't afford to take their kids to the Doctor because the deductibles are so high on their plans, if they have a plan at all.

There was a time when an employer would keep a plant open because they felt a sense of obligation to the workers. They would do this as long as they didn't lose money. Nowadays these corporate bastards will shut a plant down, not because it isn't profitable, but because it isn't profitable enough.

So, Dickey, I am not vilifying you. I don't even know you. But your words do convict you. And they show you as unable or unwilling to look beyond the world of cliche'd responses and demogogic example. These are the self same cliches that management has been planting out their for years.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 03:48 PM

Hey Mick, where do you come up with these so-called 'facts' ?? GM workers the most productive in the world....? What a laffer that is !! You can't possibly be serious. I like Dickie's comment about the magazines, I hear at GM they can prepare meals on-line, smoke in the cars while doing 'quality' checks,(that is a fact), they get holidays and sick days coming out of their ying-yangs, I bet nobody ever got fired from a GM because they called in sick, no matter how many times it happened. The amount of resourses that GM wastes every year could feed a small nation, and you call them 'productive' ?? Yeah, okay.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 04:25 PM

Its obvious that AWG does not think that workers should be allowed to get sick and that they should not be entitled to holidays.

Union bashers are just jealous.

All workers should have the same rights. Thats why everyone should become unionized. Workers that are not unionized do not enjoy the benefits (pensions, medical, dental, sick days, holidays, overtime wages, seniority, etc.) that union members enjoy. Why don't they unionize? Intimidation! Thats the best thing about unions. They won't let your boss intimidate you or treat you unfairly.

Guys like Dickie and AWG are union bashers because if you belong to a union, they can't bully you and they are too stupid to realize that happy, healthy workers increase productivity.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Big Mick
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 04:32 PM

And their responses amount to a version of "Oh yeah?????".

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 04:56 PM

.....'Guys like Dickie and AWG are union bashers because if you belong to a union, they can't bully you and they are too stupid to realize that happy, healthy workers increase productivity....' Are you saying employees can't be happy and healthy without a union ??    For your information, Dianavan, I have spent 2 decades working for an auto manufacturing facility (Japanese), and have seen the UAW try on several occasions to get in. Imagine how 5000 new members would increase their bottom line. However, they have failed each and every time, not due to intimidation (the company does nothing of the sort), but due to the fact that the employees know how well we are treated (pay + benefits), and we don't need a union. The common response employees give is 'why pay the outrageous dues, they can't get us any more than we have now'. The only reason people might like to see the union get in is they like the idea that it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to get fired, and they can 'stand around doing nothing' without recourse. Only the lazy workers like the idea of a union getting in. When it comes to productivity, we would eat GM's lunch. When GM is on strike, we're working away every day. Take that Mick !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 05:10 PM

So why has the bottom line become more important than values, Dickey and AWG???...

No wonder the world is in such a mess... Our collective values are being trumped by corporate greed.... We keep hearing how the American laborer is so much more productive than his foriegn counterparts and that should mean that the American worker should be enjoying a piece of the wealth but, sadly, over the last 20 or so years that is ***not*** the case... No, the Amercian worker is produsing more and more and getting less and less... There was a time when folks could look forward to retirement... Oh sure, we hear that the abby boomers are doing just fine... That is an allusion... The baby boomers are quickly realizing they have been had and that retiremnt is not affordable... Health insurance alone has more than doubled in the last 7 years... Baby boomers, unless thety were lucky enough to be born into wealthy families opr extremely lucky to have worked for a union that BOss Hog's goon haven't yet busted, will be paying around $1000 a month just for health insurance for a realtively health couple... That is insane and makes retiremnt out of reach for many, if not most, baby boomers...

And, hey, the baby boomers have it made compared to their kids and grandkids... These two generations are absolutely screwed... There will be no chance for retirement for most of them unless, of course, they were smart enough to be born with rich parents, or lucky enough to hit the Power Ball lotto...

But the sad thing about this that the US has squandered a perfect opportunity to demonstarte what "human rights" is all about right here in our own back yard but with the way our corrupt governemnt has allowed the corportists (Hitler called them the industrialists when he buddied up to them) to run roughshod over everyone who aren't them the US has not demonstrated it care about "human rights"...

And we wonder hey other folks behave badly???

Hmmmmmm???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 09:26 PM

Values don't keep the shareholders happy, Bobert. You know that.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 10:41 PM

AWG:

You are mistaken. Smart shareholders look for more than transient spikes in profit, because they know that growth is ALSO a good in an investment, and growth occurs more readily in corporations that have a sense of ethics and atttention on their people's well-being. It maky take some time for the low-brow and the unaware to learn this the hard way -- I am sure there are a few Enron execs pondering this little lesson even now. There are exceptions where bloody-minded aggressiveness appears to make fast growth and high profit appear, but they breed human misery and contain within them the seeds of implosion. Shareholders who are not aware of these things are missing the boat.


All MHO, of course.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 01:20 AM

Union Carbide and Dupont both had very large facilities along the Kanawha Valley, in and near Charleston, WV. Union Carbide was unionized. Dupont was not. I had a very close friend who worked at Dupont. He said they were better off with the union knocking at the door. To keep the union out, Dupont stayed one step ahead of worker benefits, safety, etc., than did Union Carbide. My friend was not at all anti-union. He understood very clearly that he and the other workers at Dupont were benefiting from the union presence at Carbide and WV strong pro-union bent.

My husband worked as an electrician at one of the Carbide plants where asbestos was in heavy use. He was the first to sound the alarm about asbestos. Without the protection of the union he would have been kicfked out the door promptly. Instead, the union not only protected his job, but got involved in the asbestos problems, which Carbide, predictably, was poopooing as senseless health concerns. It was the collectivebargaining power of the union that finally forced Carbide to aknowledge the very serious health risks to it's workers at that plant, and to take corrective actions to protect them.

Both Union CFarbide and Dupont, eventually moved all, or nearly all of their chemicfal operations out of Charleston and overseas, under pressure to be envirnmentally responsible. Remember Bhopal? That was an operation that was moved out of Charlestion to India.

I heard a fragment of a discussion on NPR several days ago about the US auto industry. I'm not sure what show I was listening to (maybe the Diane Rheimsshow?) or who the two speakers were as I was briefly in my car and just caught the middle of something. However, I think they were economists. One of them was attributing a portion of the financial problems of the us auto industry to the wages and benefits US companies are held to by union contracts. The other speaker disagreed. She compared the US industry to the Japanese industry, pointing out that Japanese auto workers are very well paid and have excellent benefits. She suggested the issue is simply that the Japanese desing and produce better vehicles, so the market for them is better. Shedidnot give the impression of being either for or against unions. She was simply makeingan objective observation.

Clearly, non-union employees in heavily unionized industries are much, much better off because of the labor unions.

What Amos is talking about is 'enlighted' self interest. Would God there was more of that floating around Corporations these days.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 08:05 AM

Yes, 14(b) uis a very cruel law... It allows many workers to let the others do the heavy lifting while enjoying the benefits... Your frined, Janie, I think is more the exception to the rule... The ones I knew in Richmond who opted out were just as content to ***believe*** that, if they got anything at all, it was because management cared for them... Ha...

Not in Richmond, Va... Maybe in areas without such screwed up views of the world, but not Richmond, Va. where you still see lots of adults smoking cigarettes...

And, just for thought... We always hear how Hollywood is so "liberal", right??? Well, when was the last real movie about the working class's struggles.... Seems it was "Norma Rhea" which came out a long, long, time ago...

If we are talking values here then Hollywood needs to get with the program and show us that so-called liberal side thety get accuse of having...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 08:54 AM

Non-union=stupid. Typical bullying tactic.

Union values: What do I want you to do? I want you to kill the cocksucker! I want you to stuff his arms up his ass, that's what I fuckin' want!

Now that Kipp does not agree with Bobert, Non-union Bobert starts calling him stupid brush.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 08:58 AM

"just you saving your own money with no corresponding increase"

Mick: What do you call matching contributions?

And what is wrong with you saving your own money? Is that stupid or something?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 09:02 AM

10 supermarket, union executives charged with pension mismanagement
June 29, 2006 CBC News

The trustees of one of Canada's biggest pension funds have been charged with mismanagement after Ontario's pension regulator alleged they invested more than $225 million of their workers' pension money in questionable Caribbean resorts.

The Financial Services Commission of Ontario said on Wednesday it has laid 15 charges against trustees of the Canadian Commercial Workers Industry Pension Plan, claiming they broke the conditions of the Ontario Pension Benefits Act with numerous major investments over a two-year period.

The people charged include senior executives of the major supermarket chains and senior officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 310,000 mainly supermarket employees.

The charges are regulatory, not criminal. Each carries a penalty of up to $100,000.

The FSCO said it has laid charges against eight current and two former trustees of the pension fund, claiming they failed to exercise due care when investing their workers' savings.

The trustees allegedly invested about $166 million in real estate companies and Caribbean developments run by a defrocked priest. They also invested more than 10 per cent of the plan's assets with a small number of associated persons or affiliated companies in violation of the pension rules, the FSCO claimed...."

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/06/29/pension-thurs.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 09:12 AM

Amos, what you say is true. However you could count corporations that consider 'values' and those who also turn a high 'bottom line' on one hand. Those are the exceptions. However, like I said earlier, companies are getting smarter and finding ways to both keep employees happy AND increase the bottom line and keep their shareholders happy as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 09:59 AM

Economics 101:

There is only so much money (define that how you will) to go around. Therefore, the more being kept by the few means less being handled by the many.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 10:34 AM

Excuse me not everyone work for big corpoations not all jobs are are non skilled. That is total bullshit to think that that is the only way I worked for a long time ase a picture framer I learned the skill got the job and still have the skill it w9ill never leave me I also learned computer skills had a small business bulding them and I worked in an art supply store there is not one piece of aret material used in the business of producing art that I almost don't know about. I worked in a store both making sandwhiches and baking bread and bagles if Tthose businesses had had unions I would never have gotten in had they been unionized some times we were only two emploies some times a few more but ar times have changes some of those skills have changed and some of those bussiness are no longer there. But I am not going to cry about it change is a constant thing I am not against unions but the are not always needed and unions cannot prevent change from happening no one can. But yet I do have these skills that I will be able to utilize at some point yes all of them, so to think that the union is the way out of poverty and is the only way out than that is putting your head in the sand. There are many ways for peole to pull themselves up from there boots straps
I also have a degree in comunications and might go back to school and major in folk lore. I am not crying that some one or company has done me wrong and that s0me one or group has to show me the way out of here it is in my power.
Kipp
Problem is that there is to much bull shit that is pssing as fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 11:15 AM

Peace:

Something to realize about money and wealth is that a lot of the wealth you see in people's bottom line is not money. It is the valuation of what they have. Say I buy a house for $250,000 and in 10 years it is worth $600,000. $350,000 was not printed up and handed to me. It was not transferred from poor people to me and made them that much poorer.

Likewise with there are companies that grow from two guys in a garage to a multi-billion net worth company. The worth is based on sales, assets (which appreciate with time), the potential for earning money in the future and not entirely on money that passed from the hands of poor people to them.

There are however companies and people that deal directly with poor people, overcharging for goods and services when they have no alternatives. Unscrupulous car dealers, credit companies, Sub-prime lenders, landlords, auto repair shops, insurance companies and even lawyers. Then there are the criminals and drug dealers preying on them too.

Why assume that all wealth was taken from poor people? Why try to teach them this? teach them to know the difference. Teach them how net worth is accumulated.

When they are young and impressionable, what they see and hear are piss poor examples such as rappers with guns, dripping with bling, talking about drugs and abusing women. Cops running wild and stealing on the side. People killing each other is presented as real life. Drug dealers are made out to be sucessful and wealthy.

How can they possibly be sucessful when they are fed this garbage?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 11:31 AM

Poor people do little to make the rich richer. How can they, they have no money, (they are poor, remember). It's mainly the middle classes who do the spending (and the rich, of course), and they can afford to spend. The rich take from everyone EXCEPT the poor. BTW, most assets depreciate with time, not appreciate. It's mainly land that appreciates, almost everything else just wears out. But hey, that's another discussion all together. Just wanted to clarify.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 12:40 PM

AWG,
Even the poor passes some of there money on to others. Being poor does not nessicaraly mean you have no money just not enough to live on. Even if the poor gets food stamps that money is tranfered to someone else same whay with a housing subsidy it is passed on to the landloard. But as I have said being poor does not mean you have no money. I know some poor people that for them it is a nessicarry thing to have a Television and cable Also it is a thing to have a cell phone with a blue tooth attachment So even some of this money is going some else into some one elses pocket.
Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 01:17 PM

Sorry Kipp, I meant that the amount is less, there is a lesser impact on the rich persons bottom line than the middle and upper classes, as they tend to have less disposible income. Everyone who spends money is putting some into someone else's pocket.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 03:36 PM

"Something to realize about money and wealth is that a lot of the wealth you see in people's bottom line is not money. It is the valuation of what they have. Say I buy a house for $250,000 and in 10 years it is worth $600,000. $350,000 was not printed up and handed to me. It was not transferred from poor people to me and made them that much poorer."

True. However, we see that type of inflation in stock markets with speculation as to where markets are going to go. I recognize that there is a 'speculative' dollar out there. That's part of the problem. You COULD if you so wished borrow against the total $600,000, whereas poorer people could only borrow against what they have as cash or kind. Their automobiles for example lose value each year, but real estate tends to rise. I live in a place where house prices have doubled in less than a year and a half. With that, places that rented for $500 have risen to over $1300 (per month). That is the result of greed on the part of landlords, because their amortization was being handled well with $500/month. That is part of the crunch the poor are caught in.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 09:03 PM

Another thing about assets that appreciate in value is that you don't
t have to pay taxes on them until you sell them. That is good becuase usually people do not have the income to pay taxes on the increased value of their assets.

However they are required to pay property taxes on the increased value and that causes some people problems. This hits the landlords too. Utilities and mantenence go up and increases their overall costs so they raise the rent. They go for market value. They have a lot of money invested and if they cannot get the same amount of return on investment from renting than they can for the same amount of money invested somewhere else, it is not worth the hassle.

It is like you could get $20 per hour as an employees so why would you work for $15 per hour just to be a good guy?

Look at the profit of the rental market compared to the drug companies. If you think renting is an easy job, just buy a house or something and rent it out.

The bad landlords are the slumlords that rent crappy housing with roaches etc. They rent cheap so the tenants can't complain because they cannot afford better.

This type of thing takes people's pride away and gives them low self esteem. These problems should be addressed. Although I have seen slums torn down and replaced by government housing which turned into crap in ten years time and had to be boarded up. And I have seen neighborhoods go the other way. Suddenly window flower boxes appear and the area takes an upturn. I think the difference is ownership rather than renting.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 09:23 PM

Poor people have been locked outta home ownership, Dickey...

As fir making money as a slum lord??? Not the best business plan but there are lots of misguided rich folks who just can't help themselves and get in and outta (real quick) that business...

No, my experiance is that it's the average Joe who can buy the rooming house and with a lotta hands on can make a few bucks and put up with the disappointyments that gfo along with the deal... I knew many of these folks when I was a socail worker... I had to... They needed me and I needed them... The most successfull where than hands on guys who owned two or three buildings, did most of their own maintenance, and were wise ehoung to understand that a lotta folks who they rented to were folks who would soon be back in state mental hospitals...

That, unfortaunately, is reality these days...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 11:26 AM

Bobert:

You keep stating these absolute "facts" of yours when you know damned well thet they are not true most of the time. If I show you instances of poor people buying their own homes then you will state some other absoulte, radical fact that is not absolute and ignore the first. It is your class warfare agenda instead of facts.

"Poor people have been locked outta home ownership"

That is incorrect on it's face unless zero poor people own a home. Many poor people own their own home.

Get a life. Drop the victim mentality you are trying to infect others with.

Poor people can and do work their way up the ladder of life and get their own homes. There is no Boss Hogg preventing poor people from owning their own home. If anything there are Boss Hoggs enticing them to buy their own home when they can't actually afford it yet and it would be better to wait. Or they charge a higher interest rate because of poor credit.

What should be shown to poor people is that they can achieve home ownership instead of being told they can't.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 11:38 AM

It all depends the location we are talking about. There is no way a poor person (say earning less than 15-20,000 per year), could ever afford a home in Beverly Hills, but they may be able to in the ghetto (if they could come up with the down payment).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 12:29 PM

In the early 1970s, Baltimore initiated a cutting-edge homesteading program. The city turned over properties that were in municipal ownership to citizens committed to living in the dwelling for three years. The homesteader was given a lease for a nominal rent (usually $1 a year) and a twenty-year, federally financed rehab loan at 3% interest.

In principle, this modern-day initiative was not unlike the Homestead Act of 1862 wherein the government gave willing pioneers public land to develop the great open spaces of the West on the condition that the homesteader remain on the land and cultivate it for five years. Labor in exchange for a place to live and a source of livelihood was a well-accepted bartering system at the time, promoting both the settlement of the frontier and the concept of the self-sufficient entrepreneur.

Baltimore ’s program not only illustrated a fundamentally wise approach to the productive reuse of vacant and abandoned properties that ultimately feeds the regeneration of troubled neighborhoods, it also illustrated the City’s ability to be ahead of the curve in finding solutions to nettlesome urban problems. The burning question today is: Is Baltimore ready to be so innovative again?

On the ground, the answer appears to be yes...."

http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=35§ionID=4&articleID=369

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Spidey Bobe
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 01:53 PM

We saw examples of grinding poverty not 30 minutes drive from Orlando when we visited in 1991, and again around Lake Okechobe off the Florida Turnpike. We wondered how this could be in the "greatest nation in the world", then we reflected on the shits in the government!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 04:26 PM

The folks in government don't have to live in poverty, so it means nothing to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 05:30 PM

What, is so "radical" by making the observation that poor folks don't buy homes... This is purdy much accepted as fact... I'm talking folks who fall under the "poverty line"... Who exactly finances them, Dickey???

No, as per usaul you can find a statistic that shows that actually a mnumber of oppr people own their own homes... This is differebnt than buying their own homes... I mean, just take Mississippi for example... I know of people and have played music with people who are a poor as poor can be who own theor own homes... I mean, and I'd be glad to provide a way for anyone to see a picture to prove it of me playin' music on the front porch that had no electricity... But Ms, Mary, bless her heart, owned her home...

Lots of poor people in the south own their homes and are dirt poor... Dirt friggin poor so, yeah, if I want to twist stats around I can use these folks to paint a much different picure than the one that ***you*** would like to paint...

In most urban areas there are also a small number of poor who own homes, like in the rural south, that have been passed down to them... Problem is that these folks are loosing their homes to taxes and energy costs... There have been several articles about this in the Post over the last few years about the D.C. hosung situation...

I suspect this phenomina is true in most urban areas...

So, if it your position that our poor population has all this access to home buying, Dickey, please enlighten us with your sources... I never had one client in my days a social worker who would have even dreamed of buying a home...

I think this a ludicris argument that cannot be backed up with real evidence...

So remember the game "I Challenge"??? Well, I challenge...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 03:05 AM

Buying a home isn't always the best play. Better to pay cheap rent and take the difference between the rent and the mortgage payment + taxes and invest this amount in the stock market. Guaranteed the guy or gal will be glad they never bought the home to begin with....in 10 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 03:17 AM

I don't know where you live, Dickey, but in Vancouver, you have to be two working professionals to own a home (and even then, the parents usually help with the downpayment). Not even the middle class can own a home, never mind the lower middle class or those who live in poverty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 10:07 AM

AWG: That is good thinking, but it presupposes disposable income. Many people HAVE no disposable income.

We got it all wrong. If people were gonna make sense, every child born would inherit, at birth, $100,000 from government general revenues. A social insurance paid forward. After that, no employment insurance premiums, no social insurance premiums. The child would be allowed to keep the money in secured accounts until the age of 18 (to pick an age). By that time the money would likely have doubled. University or other post-secondary would be ensured. Two generations and Canada would have THE population prepared for damned near anything the world could throw at it. People are always the best investment, IMO. But then I dream lots.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 10:24 AM

Peace, that would be, in theory, a great idea. Probably never convince the government to go along, they would rather collect than give. As far as the point about disposable income, agreed, I was only referring to those poor who were in the position to buy their own home or who already own their own home. Bobert was stating that there are in fact those poor who are in this position. I personally would think it would be virtually impossible for anyone making less than $18,000 to afford to own or hang onto (for those who inherit) a home. It just costs too much per month, heck, property taxes alone can cost a minimum of $250/mth here, let alone some of the larger cities. Plus they could never come up with the down payment without robbing a bank or hitting up a hell of a lot of tourists for loose change.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 12:52 PM

Bobert: "I think this a ludicris argument that cannot be backed up with real evidence"

What, in particular, is the argument? First you say the poor pepole cannot own homes and then you say lots of poor people own their own homes.

Is the argument that "Poor people can and do work their way up the ladder of life and get their own homes." Is untrue?

Are you saying that no poor people ever work their way out of poverty and buy a home?

I think that is a ludicrous argument that cannot be backed up by real evidence.


By Keyonna Summers
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 13, 2006

Thirty-three-year-old single mother Rose remembers the scratchy feel of a food stamp in her palm and the embarrassment she felt as she used it to purchase groceries so that her son wouldn't go hungry.
    The Olney resident said she slipped in and out of the welfare system for years as she struggled to scrape together funds for her college classes and the electricity bills for her two-bedroom Silver Spring apartment on a yearly $9,000 salary.
    "I had a dead-end job, not making enough money for the cost of living, to support myself and my son," said Rose, who asked that her last name not be used. "It was just poverty from check to check."
    But thanks to the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program, a federal welfare-to-housing program offered through the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission, Rose -- like hundreds of other Montgomery County residents -- has within the past year forged a remarkable turnaround.
    She now has a good-paying job as an administrative assistant for an accounting firm, the keys to a three-bedroom town house and a new lease on life...."

http://www.hocmc.org/News/Climbing%20a%20lifeline%20out%20of%20poverty.htm

Now move on to your next "fact" Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 01:18 PM

Union Officials Sought $275,000 from Worker Who Criticized Them

Union boss scorns: “we don’t like your kindâ€쳌

ORANGE COUNTY, CA â€" National Right to Work Foundation attorneys
helped end a three-year long ordeal that included union lies about the seizure of forced dues, an internal union kangaroo court, a California state libel lawsuit, and the threat of a quarter million dollar
retaliatory fine.
Ultimately, Southern California Edison (SCE) employee Randy Boettjer
(pronounced “Betcherâ€쳌) prevailed in his battle against bullying by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 47 union officials. But it was no cakewalk...."

Automotive Union Brass Prosecuted for Bullying Nurses
Ohio nurses endure physical intimidation, surveillance, and stalking by union agents

TOLEDO, OH â€" The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a
formal complaint and agreed to prosecute the United Auto Workers (UAW)
union for a campaign of harassment and intimidation aimed at nurses
seeking an election to vote the union out at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center...."

http://righttowork.org/foundation-action/marapr07.pdf

When Voting Isn’t Private:
The Union Campaign Against Secret Ballot Elections

Facing declining membership, union officials have turned to a highly questionable practice of organizing new members through a process called “card check.â€쳌 With card checks, paid union organizers try to persuade workers to sign cards saying that they favor union representation. This persuasion is documented as frequently including deception, coercion, and harassing visits to workers’ homes...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 06:39 PM

Ahhhhh, don't play stupid, Dickey...

You understand the argumenbt very well... Through out the South there are thousands of miles of back roads where some very poor, mostly black people live on pieces of farms that were given or purchased thru various tennant arrangements to these folks forbearers... I mean, I have spent a lot of time in Mississippi and there are countless thousands of people who fitr this criteria, especially in the Delta...

So for you to suggest, because of faulty stats, that home ownership is a presnt day option for poor people is not only short-sighted but, yeah, ludicris....

This is the stats game that you like to play when it fits your particular value system...

And finding the lone exceptions to the rule is not proof positive of you position either...

Bottom line, poor people can't cureently buy homes and it's been that way for a long. long time...

...but that keep a lot of slum lords fat and happy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 12:35 AM

Bobert: Pleae don't play intelligent.

What is your claim now? Is it or is it not possible for poor people to obtain home ownership?

___yes
___no

Every time I give you an example you say it is not enough. Now you say it is the lone exception. Lone means the only or the single one. If I find another will it be enough or will you say two don't mean anything? I have yet to hear you say anything that means anything.

You are AHHHH, playing games, throwing stink bombs again.

Bobert: "They get their noses up in the air 'bout folks funnin'. Yeah you want to talks about the origins os Scotish folk music fir hours upon end, then that's the joint fir ya. When I first started going over there I'd mess with em' and they'd get all upset and jump up an' down but these days they they ignore me like I'm Casper, 'er something. But I still drop by and mess with 'em jus' fir fun."

Enough, let me go on over there, light a stink bomb and skeee-adddle.


Having fun Bobert?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 01:40 PM

Ever heard of IDAs Bobert? It is another way that your "Boss Hogg" rich people and corporations are trying to help poor people. Not by forking over the money you claim they steal from the poor but by teaching them how to be sucessfull. Quite a differenc from your class warfare techniques so obviously you will have to find fault somehow so wind up your stink bomb pitchin' arm, get your lighter lit and get ready for some real fun.

What are IDAs?

    Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are emerging as one of the most promising tools that enable low-income and low-wealth American families to save, build assets, and enter the financial mainstream. Based on the idea that all Americans should have access, through the tax code or through direct expenditures, to the structures that subsidize homeownership and retirement savings of wealthier families, IDAs encourage savings efforts among the poor by offering them 1:1, 2:1, or more generous matches for their own deposits. IDAs reward the monthly savings of working-poor families who are trying to buy their first home, pay for post-secondary education, or start a small business. These matched savings accounts are similar to 401(k) plans and other matched savings accounts but can serve a broad range of purposes.
    IDA programs are implemented by community-based organizations in partnership with a financial institution that holds the deposits, and funded by public and private sources. Similar to 401(k)s, IDAs make it easier for low-income families to build the financial assets they need to achieve the American Dream. Populations that have benefited from participation in IDA programs include former welfare recipients, youth in disadvantaged urban and rural schools, recent refugees, and the working poor.
    Federal and state governments and/or private sector organizations and individuals can match deposits for low-income families. There is potential for creative program design and partnerships among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, in cooperation with account holders themselves. The savings and financial literacy components of IDAs are attracting the financial community to be involved in IDA programs. Several financial institutions across the U.S., including community banks and credit unions, are currently running IDA programs, and many other financial institutions are funding IDA programs and holding accounts.
    * Low-income families can save
The American Dream Demonstration (ADD), a 14-site IDA program, has proven that low-income families, with proper incentives and support, can and do save for longer-term goals. In ADD, average monthly net deposits per participant were $19.07, with the average participant saving 50% of the monthly savings target and making deposits in 6 of 12 months. Participants accumulated an average of $700 per year including matches. Importantly, deposits increased as the monthly target increased, indicating that low-income families' saving behavior, like that of wealthier individuals, is influenced by the incentives they receive.
    * Financial literacy creates savers and savvy consumers
Key to the success of IDAs is the economic education that participants receive. Information about repairing credit, reducing expenditures, applying for the Earned Income Tax Credit, avoiding predatory lenders, and accessing financial services helps IDA participants to reach savings goals and to integrate themselves into the mainstream economic system. The encouragement and connection to supportive services keep early withdrawals to a minimum and overcome obstacles to saving Banks and credit unions benefit from these new customer relations, and states benefit from decreased presence of check-cashing, pawnshop, and other predatory outlets.
    * Assets change lives
   More than income enhancement, asset accumulation affects individuals' confidence about the future, willingness to defer gratification, avoidance of risky behavior, and investment in community. In families where assets are owned, children do better in school, voting participation increases, and family stability improves. Reliance on public assistance decreases as families use their assets to access higher education and better jobs, reduce their housing costs through ownership, and create their own job opportunities through entrepreneurship.
    * Communities benefit from homeownership, entrepreneurship, and educational attainment
Twenty-eight percent of ADD "graduates" bought a home, 23% started or expanded their own business, and 21 % pursued higher education. The rest used their savings for home repair, job training, or retirement. This represents a substantial investment in low-income communities and a significant stabilizing effect on the local economy. There is evidence from IDA initiatives that poor people, with proper incentives and supports, will save regularly and acquire productive assets. For example, 2,364 low-income families participating in ADD had accumulated $36,481,498 (including matching funds) as of December 2001. Monthly deposits typically ranged from $30-$75 per month. Also, research summarized by the Center for Social Development (CSD) demonstrates many beneficial aspects of assets..."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 06:31 PM

What a joke... I called a friend of mine who is still a social worker dealing with poor afults and he has never heard of the programs that you have made reference to in the above post...

So here we go again with your ***tokenism***... Yeah, you find one person outta the millions of poor people in America who has actually bought a house and hold them up as if they represent ***all*** poor people...

Any Stats 201 professor would give you an "F" for that...

Then you bring up a few bogus associations that no one in the real world who deals with poor people has ever heard of and tout it as proof positive that "Boos Hog" is trying to level the playing field???

You have become, ahhhhh, a joke...

You do not apparently have any connection with the real world...

Is there a door on your house???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 11:47 PM

Laugh alone Bobert but can you please stop messin' with us jus' fir fun long enough to answer one easy question:

Is it or is it not possible for poor people to obtain home ownership?

___yes
___no

You claim you not need any stats but then you demand stats???????? Either you've had too many brownies or not enough.

From the Center for Social Development
George Warren Brown School of Social Work
Washington University of St Louis:

   * Over 500 IDA initiatives exist in communities across the country. Overall, at least 10,000 people are currently saving in IDAs.
    * 30 states included IDAs in their state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) plans (as allowed by the 1996 welfare reform law), which excludes counting IDAs as assets for the purpose of qualifying for benefits.
    * 34 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have passed some form of IDA legislation. Only six states have no known IDA activity.
    * Several national foundations have supported the American Dream Demonstration (ADD), a 4-year, 14-site IDA policy demonstration.
    * IDAs are expected to reach an additional 30,000 to 40,000 working-poor Americans by the year 2003 though the federal Assets for Independence Act of 1998 (AFIA).
    * The Savings for Workings Family Act of 2002 (SWFA), introduced in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, proposed billions in tax credits for financial institutions and private sector investors to match and support IDAs. Although SWFA did not pass in 2002, it may be reintroduced during the 2003 session.
    * The Office of Refugee Resettlement has also established an IDA program for organizations across the country assisting refugee populations.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 12:31 AM

Bobert sure has a way with those stats he claims he don't need.

From: Bobert
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:03 PM

"The US is getting more and more like Haiti with 1% holding all the wealth"

Meanwhile, Haiti's most serious underlying social problem, the huge wealth gap between the impoverished Creole-speaking black majority and the French-speaking minority, 1% of whom own nearly half the country's wealth, remains unaddressed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1202772.stm

To Bobert, nearly half is all.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 01:30 AM

Don't look now Bobert but:

A Woman and Her Community Media Advisory

Who:    Jennifer Thompson
What:    Welfare-to-Work, Individual Development Account, First-time Home Buyer
When:   Closing Date for Purchase of Home - July 18, 2001
            Ms. Thompson Available for Interview - July 19, 2001
Where: City of Northwoods, Missouri - North St. Louis County
Why:    Good news from a Welfare-to-Work program!

Hard Work Pays Off - Nearly three years ago, Jennifer Thompson, 29, a single mother of four children, subsisted on welfare assistance. With the American dream seemingly beyond her reach and a cycle of poverty looming large, Thompson's future looked bleak. Against all odds, Thompson lit a candle rather than curse the darkness, and then burned the candle at both ends.

Ms. Jennifer Thompson with the Annie E. Casey Foundation film crew during recent filming of a welfare-to-work documentary. The Annie E. Casey Foundation funds East-West Gateway's St. Louis Regional Jobs Initiative. In June 1998, Thompson enrolled in classes at the Clayton Business School sponsored by the St. Louis Regional Jobs Initiative-a program of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Missouri Department of Social Services.

After six months cracking the books, she received well-deserved certification as a professional in the secretarial and word-processing field. She landed an entry-level job making $16,644 per year as a Claims Specialist with Seabury and Smith-a third party insurance company located in downtown St. Louis. Thompson put her nose to the grindstone and, within nine months, she had received a substantial increase in earnings.

A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned - Thompson successfully transitioned from welfare to work, but didn't rest on her laurels. She wanted more than check-to-check security, so she sacrificed short-term entertainment for long-term engagement. After paying bills and buying food to feed four children, Thompson socked whatever money remained into an Individual Development Account managed by Gena Gunn of the St. Louis Regional Jobs Initiative, a program of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council.

An Individual Development Account is a unique savings plan for families with limited income designed to encourage asset building; it's the brainchild of Dr. Michael Sherraden of Washington University in St. Louis. The St. Louis Regional Jobs Initiative's IDA program provides a $2 match for every $1saved. Firstar Bank of St. Louis agreed to sponsor Thompson's IDA, while the United Way of Greater St. Louis administered federal funds earmarked for the program and the Missouri Department of Social Services handled the state funds.

With federal and state matches for every dollar deposited by Thompson, she noticed the meager sum in her IDA increasing rapidly. All the while, Gunn coordinated continuing education courses for Thompson, who enrolled in money management and economic literacy classes instructed by volunteers from the National Council of Jewish Women. Before long, Thompson's perspective shifted from subsistence to financial stability, and from financial stability to home ownership.

There's No Place Like Home - In just over two years, Jennifer Thompson blossomed from a single mother on welfare to a working mom with money in the bank. Thanks to the money management courses and the encouragement of her IDA program coordinator, Thompson realized the key to financial security is asset accumulation and home ownership.

Where There's a Will, There's a Way - Through a first-time home buyers program sponsored by Better Family Life - a local community development corporation - and debt counseling provided by Justine Peterson Housing and Reinvestment Corporation, home ownership became less and less a pipe-dream. The money in Thompson's IDA could be used as a down payment. Closing costs could be supplemented. And Thompson's education, steady job and participation in money management classes made her a likely candidate for loan approval.

On Wednesday, July 18, the American dream becomes a reality for Jennifer Thompson. Thanks to Gunn's constant coordination and encouragement and Thompson's dedication, Thompson's path from poverty to property owner ends at the front door of a three bedroom home on a tree-lined street in north St. Louis County.

http://gwbweb.wustl.edu/csd/asset/newsarticles/ewgateway.html

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 11:32 AM

More Dickey "tokenism"... Get real...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 11:46 AM

Bobert: Are you ready to answer yet or would you prefer to make personal attacks?

Is it or is it not possible for poor people to obtain home ownership?

___yes
___no

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 12:05 PM

Rebecca was a 17-year-old mother of twins living in public housing and receiving benefits from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) when C.E.F.S. helped make changes in her life. Family and Community Development Specialist's Norma Daugherty and Rita Ray provided Kuhlman with case management to help her set personal goals. Rebecca improved her life with agency services such as Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, budget counseling, Teen Parenting Program services, and GED classes. In five short years, Rebecca Kuhlman moved from being a welfare recipient to receiving her GED, maintaining full-time employment and in 2001 by reaching her goal of home ownership.

http://www.cefseoc.org/distinct03.htm

Another "one person outta the millions"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 01:38 PM

The fact is, there will always be the rare occasions where a person under the poverty level finds a way to buy their own home. However, most poor people are simply not willing to make the huge effort and sacrifices to see this dream come true, or they simply lack the resources and don't know how to obtain them. Sometimes a person comes along who wants something more and is willing to do whatever it takes to see it happen or may be fortunate enough to make the right connections or meet the right people. I doubt Bobert would be foolish enough to say that 'no poor person could ever afford their own home', but the majority never will.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 02:29 PM

Well, a quick thankee, AWG...

Would love to respond at lenght but I'm gettin' ready for back-to-back gigs this evening and have just a minute here to check in...

I love the $$$ but I hate having to set up twice and do two performances... Wipes me out but...

...beats poverty (LOL)...

Just had to stay on subject... somehow...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 12:26 AM

AWG - Well, you finally got it right.

"or they simply lack the resources."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 01:57 AM

Regarding ways to reduce poverty, Dr. Lakshman Yapa, at Pennsylvania State University, has set forth some interesting ideas and research.

See the links below, especially the first in terms of the discussions on this thread. The second is a link to a page in the middle of several education modules regarding world population and resources. Offers a number of good questions to think about, research, explore.

Rethinking Urban Poverty

Dhttp://www.aag.org/Education/center/cgge-aag%20site/Population/lesson1_page3.html

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 09:37 AM

Very interesting, Janie...

I haven't gotten thru the entire link but, yes, better and more modern urban planning is definately worth a hard look... They once called it "urban renewal" but didn't take it far enough in provided the resources related to employment and retail... It was just a "tear-down-this-slum-and-put-up-cheap-houses-that-don't-look-as-bad"...

But to renew an entire community empowers people to work and have access to nutritious foods, better health care, etc...

And I've long been an advoctae of urban planning as "work-live-play" where folks don't really have to get in cars and commute... This would enhance everyones quality of life and cut way down on our societies consumption of oil... This, in turn, would creat more resources to "renew" urban areas...

Actaully, when you think about it, this is going to happen no matter what because we are spending way too much of our collective wealth commuting...

I'll get back to the article later...

Yet another gig this afternoon but ya' got to strike while the iron i$ hot...

Bobert

P.S. Very glad to see that you have turned the corner, AWG...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 10:38 PM

Assisting low income families in attaining home ownership

The Community Development Corporation of Brownsville (CDCB) is a private, 501(c)(3) non-profit community housing development organization (CHDO) . CDCB has been providing safe, sanitary affordable housing to the citizens of Brownsville, Texas since 1974. CDCB is the largest non profit producer of single family affordable housing for homeownership in the State of Texas.

CDCB is governed by a 13 person, community based Board of Directors that serve on a volunteer basis to determine policy for the Corporation.

CDCB serves the southernmost area of the United States – Cameron County, Texas, which shares its border with Mexico on the south, and the Gulf of Mexico on its east.

CDCB's mission is to assist low income families in attaining home ownership. Through below market financing, quality construction, the use of efficient home designs, and targeted outreach. CDCB is able to provide safe, sanitary, affordable housing for homeownership to families earning as little as $8,000 per year.

http://www.7thcode.com/cdcb/about.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:00 AM

re: home ownership. For some, yes. For many, no, or inconclusive.

http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/homeownership/liho01-12.pdf

http://www.alternet.org/story/53826/?page=1

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 07:51 AM

Okay, not a lot of time but I have now plowed thru the entire article and, well, it still comes down to resources... Yes, cumminty gardens are great... Yes, it's great to have Penn Stae kids living in the neighborhopods helping out but isn't that what VISTA and CAP programs "used" to do???

As for the row houses being more efficient... Yes, they are... In richmond, they torn down an entire community of *brick*row houses in the Fulton neigborhood and put up HUD ranchers which are now looking shabby because they were built with 2X4's and asphalt shingle roofs... The row houses coule have been renovated cheaper than what they did and still be standing 100 years from now...

But nevermiond that... Another point is that in many urban areas the middle class and upper middle class people are moving back into the city into the row-house neighborhoods creating "scarcity" in those areas of the city... Washington, D.C. is a prime example... Adams Morgan is now middle class to rich... There aren't any affordable row houses left... They have been scooped up and now very pricey, like in the million dollar range... Same in areas of Southeast... Same in areas around the DC convention ceter on 6th ST which used to be nuthin' but row houses occupied by poor people...

Nuff for now...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 10:28 AM

From the alternetnet link:

"From 2004 to 2006, President Bush and the Congress cut federal funding for public housing alone by 11%. Over the same period, more than 150,000 rental housing vouchers were cut."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Uncle Boko
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:53 PM

It would be a good jape to jump the border from Texas into Mexico so I could see Irma Cetas again!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 04:46 PM

Yeah, d, at a time when the resources are needed the most the Bush administration has cut social programs just about where ever one looks... Of course, my pet peeve is child care that has now been frozen at 2004 levels at a time when more and more women with children have used upo their 5 year lifetime assistence and having to take crappy paying jobs and desperately need assistence in that area... It's so bad that it ought to be viewed as a human rights violation...

Talk about "family values"??? All ther Bushites do is talk the talk but when it comes to walkin' the walk they write checks like men with no arms...

It's disgusting... It is unChristian... It is punitive... It is short-sighted...

About all it does is insure that the prison/industrial complex will be well funded for many years to come...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 06:36 PM

I kinda wanted to return to my earlier thoughts about the article on Dr. Yapa's program at Penn State...

Like I did say, aren't the things that his students are doing similar to what VISTA and CAP (Community Action Porgram) folks were doing in the late 60's and early 70's???

Well, yeah... Okay, maybe not with a larger world view but this is what we were kinda doing... As a CAP worker I almost lived in the housing project, Hillside Court, where I was assigned... I had some help from VISTA from time to time and we did try to orgainized child care coops so that mother could get away for a variety of reasons including job training...

What I see in Dr. Yapa's program is the university and the parents of these students funding the same types of things that the governemnt once funded...

Now that's okay but it really isn't a major paradigm change...

No, a major paradime change would be for the governemnts as various levels create public/private partnerships with various industries that are willing to locate in areas where poor people live and create decent paying jobs for these folks... That, in MO, would be a paradigm shift...

Face it, Yapa's kids = VISTA + CAP...

Okay, I'll admit that I do think he is on to something in his larger visioon but his larger vision is a ***urban planning*** one and not a roadmap to end poverty... For that to happen, greater resources are going to have to be shifted toward the poor...

Without that happening, Dr. Yapa's kids are fighting a loosing battel...

And I am still very concerned that thye urban poor are being squeezed outta their neigborhoods....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 10:36 PM

I don't disagree with you at all, Bobert. But what he emphasizes, and what is not usually talked about at all, is that efforts to reduce poverty need to be much more broadly defined, and need to extent well beyond programs targeted at low income people. He is advocating a broadly multisystemic approach and has identified how issues of infrastructure may work to increase or decrease the costs of living and working. These are issues that effect everyone, not just poor and low-come families.

He is very wholistic in his thinking, pointing out how deficits in urban infrastructure contribute to creating and maintaining an underclass. He is saying, lets look at unintended consequences. When we are planning infrastructure, economic development, and the like, let us also think about the effects policies and design of systems and services intended to benefit John Q Public may have with respect to helping or hindering people with low incomes. He is also talking about the need to consider sustainability in all public policies and projects. Failure to consider sustainability of economic conditions and already existing communities and neighborhoods in the planning processes of cities and counties fosters conditions that contribute to economic decline and poverty.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 10:46 PM

The following is cut and pasted from the link http://www.aag.org/Education/center/cgge-aag%20site/Population/lesson1_page3.html (found in one of my 6/24 posts if you want it clickified.)

Dr. Lakshman Yapa, a geographer at Pennsylvania State University, offers yet another view. He acknowledges that rapid population growth can present challenges to nations that are still developing, but argues that poverty is not caused by there being too many people in a place. Instead, Yapa argues that poverty mainly results from misguided and destructive land-use policies and practices by the wealthy and powerful. For example, Yapa points out that multinational corporations and wealthy families often control large amounts of land in developing nations, forcing the poor and landless to live in overcrowded situations on marginal lands. To outsiders viewing images of poor and hungry people living in overcrowded conditions, it seems reasonable to blame their condition on out-of-control population growth rates. But Yapa argues that the world has enough resources to meet the basic needs of the poor, and that the rich and powerful countries of the world have created scarcity in developing regions by wastefully consuming huge amounts of resources to support luxurious lifestyles.

Yapa (2000) believes that usage of the term "overpopulation" and "carrying capacity" contributes to a mindset that (a) takes attention away from an examination of how existing land and other resources are used, (b) minimizes the role of resource problems created by high consumption levels of wealthy people, and (c) transforms a segment of the population, usually the poor, into the source" of the problem. He and other like-minded scientists believe that the most effective way to meet the basic needs of the poor would be to implement policies that emphasize traditional forms of production, protect workers, and redistribute wealth and land to the poor. But does this mean that people living in wealthy, developed countries would have to sacrifice? Some scientists think so:

Given the quantity of resources needed, using present technologies, to provide a middle-class lifestyle to millions in the first world, it is clear that a comparable level of resources use and lifestyle cannot extrapolated to all the third world's people (even if we assume that improvements in technology will be made). If we accept that humankind should live in balance with nature's renewable stock of resources, and if we admit that the world's demographic future holds a population of 10 to 15 billion by the year 2050, it is obvious that our ideas about ourselves and our lives need to change.... a radical rethinking of everyone's lifestyle, and a re-visioning of our future, are in order (Porter and Sheppard 1998).

This provides a broader context in which to understand Dr. Yappa's thinking.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 01:03 AM

"Unintended consequences" is a rather familar concept, and one that planners and designers of policies in many fields try to be alert to. Perhaps it would be helpful to also consider 'unintended benefits."

While poverty is certainly an objective reality, it occurs in a much larger social context than is generally acknowledged. High rates of poverty can be viewed as symptomatic of much more diffuse societal dysfunction that affects all, or nearly all, of a society in adverse ways.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 08:40 PM

Well, Janie, looks as if we've worn the folks out...

Hope not...'Cause this discussion have been all over the map but it has also covered a lot of territory... I beleieve that John Edwards would benefit from reading it 'cause I don't thjink there are too many bases that havene't been covered here but...

...yeah... Bottom line it is about resources... Both in ***cause*** and in ***solutions***...

Where we might split hairs on "root causes", they are not all that important in the larger picture of what does a wealthy country do to correct a glaring weakness in it's social fabric... It makes US look as if we are really not this great country afterall... I mean, we can send a man to the moon but can't figure out how to adequately feed on 4 kids outta 5???

Sad commentary...

Good thread... No, great thread... Too bad that it's the so called compassionate conservatives who have a firm hold of both power and the microphone...

Yeah, too bad...

I am not feeling hopefull for our country... Seems that common sense and compassion have been highjacked by greed and more greed...

Yeah, it ain't rocket science on things that need to be done that will hael elleviate poverty... There just isn't the will and that is because our democracy is badly broken and "rednecks" have the power... And they aren't going to give it up without a fight which brings me back to what I said hundreds of posts ago and that is that it's going to take a revolution to get their attention...

(BTW, I have started another thread about just how our democracy has gotten so broken...)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 12:54 AM

Lost in cyberspace. A post (not a long one) I just spent over an hour on. I'm not even gonna try to reconstruct it.

I agree Bobert. and there is no joy in the thought. It is going to take a revolution to bring about some very needed social change. but the costs are going to be high. Not too high for the gains. but no bargain basement sale, either.

Given the quantity of resources needed, using present technologies, to provide a middle-class lifestyle to millions in the first world, it is clear that a comparable level of resources use and lifestyle cannot extrapolated to all the third world's people (even if we assume that improvements in technology will be made). If we accept that humankind should live in balance with nature's renewable stock of resources, and if we admit that the world's demographic future holds a population of 10 to 15 billion by the year 2050, it is obvious that our ideas about ourselves and our lives need to change.... a radical rethinking of everyone's lifestyle, and a re-visioning of our future, are in order (Porter and Sheppard 1998).

This paragraph in particular resonates with me. It begs the question, just how far down the road am I willing to walk the walk in my own life?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 01:10 AM

Hey Bobert: When you and Janie get through whoppin each other on the back for knowing everything there is to know about the terribly complicated or simple to understand problem of poverty, Just answer one last question.

Does the top 1% in Haiti own all the wealth like you said or do they own nearly half like the BBC said?

___ All the wealth

___ Nearly half the wealth.


Thanks for your swift reply. I know you won't dance around and use personal attacks to avoid answering this one. You are too professional for that.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 03:02 AM

petty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 07:38 AM

ditto, d...

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 09:10 AM

Not answering a simple question is petty.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 06:04 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie - PM
Date: 27 May 07 - 12:13 AM

....Still waiting for details of your 'fix' that does not alter the percentages and ratios of distribution of wealth and income that currently exist in this country.

Janie



Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey - PM
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:33 AM

Janie: You can keep on waiting....

"Hoist on his own petard"

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 09:46 PM

Okay, seein' as this thread has traversed the spectrum I'd just like permission to do a little tangent work here myself...

Seems that the corportist/industrialists have put a few bucks into some PR company to come up with the next "buzz" word or phrase to scare off the progressives and it's "class warfare"... Oh, how scarey... Make hundreds of thousands of folks want to gather in a big city and run screaming from the giant bug like in the 50's
horror movies...

Problem is that what these PR folks have done is frame exactly what it comes down to and guess what, righties??? I don't hear the common man using the term at all like they used to use the term "liberal" which was the giant buig of it's day...

The PR campaign just isn't gaining ground like the "liberal" bashing campaign and I think I know why... There are too many folks who think they are getting screwed by the corportist/idustrialists...

So for any folks out there in Mudville who think that we shouldn't be collectively dealing with poverty 'cause we'd be practicin' "class warfare" then fine... Yeah, that is axactly what is going on here...

Progressives can't run from this PR label but embrace it...

Yes, it is going to take "class warfare"...

Get over it and...

... get with it!!!

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 01:41 AM

pet·ty      

1. of little or no importance or consequence: petty grievances.
2. of lesser or secondary importance, merit, etc.; minor: petty considerations.
3. having or showing narrow ideas, interests, etc.: petty minds.
4. mean or ungenerous in small or trifling things: a petty person.
5. showing or caused by meanness of spirit: a petty revenge.
6. of secondary rank, esp. in relation to others of the same class or kind: petty states; a petty tyrant.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 02:19 AM

dianavan,

I hope we meet someday. Have you ever considered coming to one of the Getaways? When I wasted my time with my last post, I was thinking, "Dickeyhead doesn't know what petty means, so I'll just demonstrate it. This post I'm doing right now is petty exemplified."

And then with perfect timing, you post the definitions to make it clear.

Bobert,

FWIW, I agree. More later.

Maybe.

g'night.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 09:27 AM

^ÉÉÉÉÉÉééééééé,,...é;é.ééé...ééééÉéééÉÉÉÉÉÉ

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 09:30 AM

Sorry for the previous post, having a keyboard problem, then accidentally hit enter. Cant use certain keys like question mark, keep getting this....É or è. Any ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 09:45 AM

Sorry folks, got the problem fixed (although I'm not sure how,lol). Anyhow, as I was going to ask, why can't Bobert simply answer Dickie's question. To quote him..."Thanks for your swift reply. I know you won't dance around and use personal attacks to avoid answering this one. You are too professional for that."   And your response... 'petty'. Dianavan's nosey response was posted by what appears to be an eight year old. (people know what petty means, by the way). I think Bobert may be intimidated by Dickie, otherwise just answer the question and move on. Makes for a much more 'grown up' conversation, not so much of a 'schoolyard' dust up. I'm still waiting for someone to respond with 'Na Na Na Na Na'.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 12:11 PM

I think that Dickie has some good point and should not be ignored he does notnot have all the answeres and niether does anyone else on this thread instead of pointing fingers because it does not fit your agenda there are examples all over where there are people and groups helping the poor to achive home owner ship . Here in Jersey where I live Martin House has rehabilated over 50 houses for home ownership it works with banks and corpoations to provide no interest loans. And the work with the people to help bring that about. It only works for some people but it has to be a thing they want

Go ahead ask me more

Kipp

PS there is no need for the combative tone to this thread I would like to make the guess that none of us are children are we?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 06:21 PM

Yo, AWG...

I ain't intimidated by anyone here in Mudburg... Might of fact with the places I've worked in my life I think one would have to be hard pressed that I have ever been intimidated...

The reason I don't answer Dickey's question is because they are stupid questions that have nuthin' to do with this discussion that are posted as nuthin' more than a distraction because Dickey has shown over and over and over in this thread and others that when he is in over his little dickey head that he just resorts to trying to disrupt the discussion... Much like LD kids who can't keep up with the class so they resort to anti-social behavior...

Janie composed a purdy good case study on Dickey a while back here and from my years working with mentally ill people and people with personality disorders I think she nailed him...

Now, AWG, seein' as you think I should lower myself and sacrifice the good work that people have put in this thread let me ask you a Dickey question and just top show you just how stupid this things can get.

Here goes...

So, AWG, do you think it is okay for folks to highhjack threads with meaningless tangental questions?

Yes ____

No _____

See what I mean???

What does this have to do with poverty or the discussion as hand???

Well, nuthin' at all...

That is my point...

Intimidated??? Ha...

Dickey's are like gnats...

All Dickey has ever done here in Mudvile is try to change the conversation away from anything that might be critical of his hero, George Bush...

Maybe you, AWG, would like to explain why he can't stay on topic???

Yes _____

No ______

Maybe you are Dickey???

Yes _____

No ______

Maybe a hen and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half???

Yes _____

No ______

Maybe poor people choose to be born to poor families???

Yes ____

No _____

Maybe poverty is God's fault and we shouldn't mess with it???

Yes ____

No _____

Maybe Dickey isn't Dickey???

Yes ____

No _____

Get it yet, AWG???

Yes ____

No _____

Now, if you and yer buddy are quite finished with yer little juninilistic attempt to block this discussion then can we get back to the topic at hand???

Intimidated, my butt...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 08:37 PM

Okay, I want to talk about My Senator, Jim Webb... Yeah, he used to be a Republican... He was Reagan's Secretary of the Navy... He voted for George Bush on 2000...

But then he started thinking about why it is that our country has not addresed the increasingly vast gap between the rich and the poor and decided that the Republicans weren't ever going to have any interst in dealing with the issue so he ran and was elected as a Democrat this past November...

And this from a conservative and very much "red" state"!!!

Well, he is having a difficult time jump starting the issue of poverty and income gaps within the Democratic Party... As I have mentioned, John Edwards has staked out this issue as the cenetrpiece of his campaign but, as yet, it hasn't taken any traction... I understand that "framing" is a difficult task and when the media is owned by folks who don't wnat this issue to gain traction, it becomes even more difficult for John Edwrads and my Senator Webb but...

...it's not hopeless... When the middle class catches on to the corportist/industrialist's game the tables will trun quickly... Movements are kinda like storms and can catch on real quicklyy in these days of ***tribalization*** where folks seem to be like schools of fish changing direction... I feel it... I hear it in the words of the very Republican people that live in my communtiy... Poeple are sick and tired of being taken advantage of... These are middle class people and I am beginning to see that it's going to take these folks daying, "We ain't takin' no more of yer crap" that will open up the dialogue that is needed to get the war on poverty back on course...

Yeah, the current Democratic Party may not be up to the task right now but they can't possibly be stupid enough not to sieze on the discontent of the middle class and change the conversation... If not, then a viable 3rd party will take up the slack...

I'd love to see that party being the Green Party that I have supported for a long time but I believe it has been trivialized so I am open to a new 3rd party..

No matter, the revolution has begun... This will get dealt with... The corportist/industrialists have history of not getting it until things get very uncomfy for them... That time is coming...

Yes, our country has put off some important discussions... This one we have been having here in this thread is as important as any...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:50 AM

Bobert,
Maybe the people are just tired of being taxed after they have worked hard all their life and as they get older they just have less and less and it is not only because of the big corporations but because they are being taxed for all the social programs that just don't work. And thoes not all but a good amount go thorough this and that program to quit the behavior that got them there in the first place drugs alohol dependency and still go right back the city's are loaded with drugs and drunks who somehow manage to get welfare or SSI or SSD and on top of that they are some of those that are selling drugs. Thing is nothing will change it just keeps getting worse and all the while more and more people become blind
Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 10:24 AM

Bobert, maybe I will let Dickie do your 'questionaire', since he is the one you are most obsessed with. I only want to see you answer his questions since he has the common courtesy and respect to answer yours. I don't really think a question about what % of people own the wealth in Haiti is too far off track, any more than some of the stuff you or Janie or anyone else comes up with from time to time. This is an open discussion about poverty in the USA, but a migration of the discussion to the issue of world poverty is not a far stretch. So now can you please just answer the question instead of going off on one of your 'tangents' you like to accuse others of. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 11:48 AM

Kipp,

31% of the US population lives on less than 200% of the federal poverty level. See http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032006/pov/new01_

The federal poverty level is set so low, that 200% is a more accurate representation of people who live in true poverty, and is the threshhold for eligibility for many, many means tested programs.

12.5 % of our population live below the actual poverty level.

We are a wealthy nation. When these percentages are this high, it can not be rationally argued that societal conditions are not prime contributors, nor can it be argued that societal interventions are inappropriate or unneccessary.

The characteristics of the people in homeless shelters are not representative of the characteristics of most of the population included in either the 100% or 200% of the federal poverty level, and it is a mistake to generalize your observations about the people in homeless shelters to the entire population living in poverty. I'm the majority of people who habitually rely on homeless shelters are severe addicts, mentally ill, or both.

I have never argued, and neither has anyone else on this thread, that individuals are not responsible for the choices they make. I will strongly argue, however, that bad choices is not the primary reason that 31% of our population is poor.

Among developed nations, we are at the bottom in % of income we pay in taxes. we are also at the bottom in social spending.

Rapists, murderers, theives and internet trolls may also act superficially courteous. Good manners and good intent are not the same thing.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 11:50 AM

I have no idea how I managed for that entire post to look like a link. Only this http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032006/pov/new01_was supposed to be clickified.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 12:21 PM

Kipp,

I don't doubt that a very high percentage of people in homeless shelters are there primarily as a consequence of their own bad choices. And as long as we live in a society that values the right of the individual to make many of their own choices, social programs targeted at that population are going to have low success rates.   I don't think that means those social programs should not exist, but expectations regarding what constitutes success should be realistic.

I also don't think homeless shelters should be eliminated by virtue of the fact that many, if not most of their inhabitants, have mostly brought their own hard luck upon themselves.

My position on this is purely value based.

There are places in the world, and there have always been cultures living in environments where basic resources are scarce, and insufficient, or barely sufficient, to meet the needs of the population. There may come a time when the resources of this country are not sufficient to meet the basic needs of our population. when that time comes, it will then be necessary to consider who deserves to eat, and who does not. However, as long as this society has the resources to meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child living in this society, then everyone deserves access to enough food to eat and access to shelter, whether or not that person is an addict, a thief, an antisocial scumbag, or a freeloader.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 12:40 PM

A note here: I'm sure that I'm not the only Mudcatter who is lurking here. Interesting thread. I don't have the expertise or the experience to add to the subject but I would remind Kipp, AWG and Dickey that the title of this thread is Poverty in the USA. Which is a big subject in itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 01:39 PM

The best indicator of poverty is hunger. The most startling fact is the number of children in the U.S. who are hungry.

I'd like to know how AWG, kipp, or Dickie would go about solving this problem.

My guess is that they don't give a damn.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 04:47 PM

A national policy that can be reasonably effective in addressing issues of poverty must accomplish two things.

1. It must provide a broad and inclusive social safety net that guarantees its citizens a minimal acceptable level of resources to meet basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and healthcare.



2. It must support, promote, and sometimes create conditions that provide opportunites and incentives for individuals and local communities to be reasonably self-sufficient. (The Dickey's of the country are blind to the extent to wich they receive government 'welfare'.)

The devil is in the details.

While not mutually exclusive, these are two separate goals, and large, national programs need to give primary importance to one or the other. Programs that do not focus primarily on one of these goals over the other are doomed to be ineffective. Most of our national programs fail to recognize the distinction.

I keep losing long posts to cyberspace so I'm going to break this up.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 06:12 PM

There is quite a bit I could say here about the health system in the USA forcing me to stay poor just so we can be given a government-made gauntlet to run, and exasperating, unbending regulations with fiery hoops to jump through in order to get regular medical care for my wife mainly, and myself but I don't think I will say any more than this.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 07:08 PM

The only comprehensive social safety net program we have in the USA is Social Security.

Social safety net programs need to be primarily federal programs. They should be either federally or Sate administered and predominantly federally supervised. They are most likely to be effective, fair and equitable if they are entirely federally funded. Federality also provides for the most fair and equitable redistribution of income that social safety nets require. Social Security, Medicare, and SSI are the the most comprehensive safety net programs we currently have in the United States. The minimum guaranteed income for the elderly and disabled should be set at a level that insures basic needs for food, clothing and shelter can be adequately met. This requires significant revision in the methods by which the federal poverty level is set, and also will require that levels vary by region.

There should be a comprehensive national health plan that does not include co-pays that guarantees adequate medical care and prescription drug coverage, and that uniformly covers the entire population.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 07:21 PM

Hi Guest,

I hadn't seen your post before I hit the submit button, but how serendipitous that it follows yours. I had deleted a bunch of stuff about both Medicaid and the disability determination process before I posted. It was worth saying, but meant following too many tangents to include it. I suspect I know who you are. I often think of you and the experiences of several other USA mudcatters who are disabled or who have serious health problems and have to rely on Medicaid as I read and post to this thread.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 08:07 PM

Large means-tested programs in particular, are governed by rigidly applied rules and requlations.   They lack flexibility. This means that some people end up taking advantage, and some people fall through the cracks. Given the need to be accountable, and the need to do as much as possible to assure equity and equality, this is a necessary evil of means-tested programs. History has proven that without these rules and requlations, which are closely monitored, too many people get denied services and benefits because of minority characteristics, or because their case worker doesn't like them, or people get services or benefits who are not eligible because of favoritism or political expediency. Big programs paint with a broad brush. Big programs address issues of social welfare on a broad, societal, aggregate scale. They do not have the capacity to deal with the nuances of individual situations.

That is one reason why we need a national health care plan that is comprehensive and all-inclusive. It is also one reason why we also need more locally developed and/or funded policies and programs, and why we need for private charities to be truly privately funded.

We need faith-based initiatives in our local communities, and we need for them to be completely divorced from government funding. That is the only way they will have the flexibility and discretion needed to fill cracks. At the very local level, the small monies available from rector discretionary funds are crucial to heading off personal disasters because a family fallen on hard times can't pay the rent on a storage unit where all their personal items have been moved during a period of homelessness, avoiding evictions and utility cut-offs, and paying the medicaid co-pay for prescription drugs when money has gone instead to replace the water-pump on the old car.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:02 PM

Just a couple thoughts...

First of all, Kipp, you are correct that folks are weary of paying taxes and seeing that things aren't getting better for them... This is true of 95% of wage earners because the share that they get back in services doesn't equal the amount of money taken out of their pay checks...

(Well, Bobert, where is it going???)

Glad you asked... It is going to the upper 5%... Yes, what we have is a so-called trickel down economy but in reality it's trickling up and away from the working class and the poor...

So, yeah, the average guy is purdy p.o.'d these days... Problem is is that he is blaming the wrong folks... It ain't the poor who are bleeding him... It's the rich... But the rich own the media and spend big PR $$$$'s to run all kinds of misinformation that distracts the workling class from the ***truth*** so we still have the sterotype welfare-caddillac lie being told which is a copmplete and total falsehood while the rich pillage and steal whatever they want...

Janie will tell you the same thing... In mu 20 years in various programs I never met one poor person who owned a Cadillac... Not one and I'd dare say that over that time period I dealt with well over a thousand clients....

But we still have the right wing corportist spreading these lies to keep the working class off their backs...

And to GUEST, yes, the health care system is completely broken... So is health insurance... The lesson which is now being learned by millions of working Americans is not to go to the doctor if they need to becuase by doing so the health insurers will raise your rate way beyond treatment... Yer better off just doing home remdies for anytrhing short of cancer or gun shots...

I have learned that lesson myself over the last couple of years... Because I had a sciatic nerve situation which is controlled with stretching my insurnace company wanted to raise my monthly premium by over $1000... I think I'll be joining the 47 million without helath insurance real soon 'cause it was bad enough at $800 a month for two rerlatively healthy people and the $2000 a month is way beyond our means...

But this is a game that"Boss Hog" has complete control of seince their is no Congressional oversight and even if Congress tries to do something we have a president who is perfectly willing to cancle it out with a signing statement so right now the working poor and the working middle class are screwed...

This is why I feel that the next round of the revolution is very near... You can only squeeze folks but so hard and as hard as we have been squeezing the working poor which consists of mostly women and children you can bet that those just above them in terms of income are being equallu squeezed...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:04 PM

Social safety net programs that provide for a minimum level of resources to meet the basic needs for food, clothing and shelter of non-disabled adults, and for families with dependent children when the parent(s) are not disabled are much trickier.   

A comprehensive national health care program would remove one significant basic need from the equation, and simplify the issue to some degree, but it is still very difficult and complex. This is where the rights and responsibilities of the individual and the rights and responsibilites of the group slam into each other like the tectonic plates along the Pacific rim.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:10 PM

2000? If it is, do I get a prize?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:12 PM

You're 60% of the way there. Good luck.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:23 PM

Janie,

(((Big Hug)))...

...fir gettin' the the 1200th post...

BTW, how many of yer clients drive Caddies???

I know...

...LOL...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 10:02 PM

hmmm....*bush*....well then, 1200.

simple pleasures for simple folks.

You are right Bobert. Once in a very, very great while, an article will hit the news that some person majorly scammed the system and made some good money from welfare programs. That occurence is so exceptional as to be not worth considering when policies and programs are developed.

Are there some people who work the system? Yes. Are they still poor? Yes.

Are there many, many people who do not report under-the-table earnings from babysitting, cutting grass, or do not report contributions from family to help buy food, make up a rent payment, pay a water bill, pay the Medicaid co-pays for doctor visits or prescription drugs? Yes. And they had better not report it. If they do, their skinny food stamp, SSI, or TANF benefits will be cut dollar for dollar, and then the electric bill or the next month's rent will not be paid, or the kids will be eating nothing but pancakes made from flour and water and fried in lard for another week, or they will go another two weeks without the medicine for hypertension, or will forego the doctor visit when they get bronchitis only to end up in the hospital with pneumonia a week later.

"Ye who have ears to hear, listen." The socioeconomic policies of this country over the past 25 years have led to an excessive concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. This concentration of wealth not only effects rates and conditions of poverty. The policies that have allowed this concentration of wealth are a significant reason why many moderate income households find they are using credit cards at the grocery store and doctor's office. It is a significant reason why many moderate income households forego family coverage for medical insurance when they work for small to moderately sized companies that offer insurance. It is the reason small businesses and self-employed people can not afford medical insurance or good preventive health care. It is a significant reason why workers are not able to dedicate a sufficient portion of their earnings to the company 401K plan.   

Think big. Think societal. LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE!

And then study some US history and remember the robber barons.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 10:05 PM

**giggle** is bush a freudian slip or not?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 10:29 PM

Thanks for the giggle, Janie.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 11:02 PM

I am so proud of myself for not saying a word.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 11:27 PM

Social conservatisim is (mostly) no longer a viable position in terms of addressing the major social issues in our very large and very diverse society. Why? because there is no turning back the clock. There is no way to put the genie back into the bottle.

Social conservatism works for smaller, relatively homogenous, and cohesive communities and societies in which there does not occur a lot of geographic mobility, adult children live in close proximity to elderly parents, neighbors live in long association with one another and therefore have a sense of connection and community responsibility for one another, a sufficient number of employers have a stake in the well-being of the community as being in their best business interests, etc.

That ain't the reality of the USA today, and it ain't the direction we are headed in, largely as a result of capitalism run riot.

As an aside, I am not opposed to capitalism. I am opposed to capitalism unrestrained by any other values. Capitalism per se is not immoral. It is, however, amoral. When capitalism has ultimate primacy in the philosophy, choices and actions of an individual, corporation or government, many of those decisions and actions will be immoral.

Social conservatism in the USA today looks backwards to conventions, traditions, and social conditions that no longer exist in our society for the most part. Social conservatism is not capable of restraining unbridled capitalism in the current age. In fact, it has been co-opted.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 11:46 PM

Social liberalism does not hold all the answers either, but for the short term, offers greater possibilities and has some ability to restrain the excesses of capitalism.

Bobert, I agree that as a society, actually, as a world population, we are poised on the cusp of something. What that something is, I do not know. I do not think it has yet been determined.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 12:28 AM

The strong element of social conservatism that continues to exist in our citizenry resists public policies and programs that adequately fund daycare in support of working mothers in general, and single working mothers in particular.   Social conservatives view such programs as promoting women in the work force as opposed to women staying home to raise children. Social conservatism does not have the means in which to acknowledge or accept the reality of the past 20+ years that most mothers, single or not, have to work outside of the home because economic conditions require it. (Social conservatives have never acknowledged the economic realities of minority families, where the vast majority of mothers have always had to work outside the home in order for the family to make ends meet.)

Earlier today, when I was looking for census data on poverty, I stumbled across a figure that surprised me. In 1959, the poverty rate was a whopping 22%. My first reaction was that the poverty programs of the 60's and 70's were really more effective than I thought. Perhaps they were. But now it occurs to me to wonder what was the effect on poverty rates of large numbers of women entering the work force.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 08:49 AM

My own thoughts, Janie, is that this medium, the internet, is our microphone... It is the only medium/media that the corportaist/industrialists haven't figured out how to silence... They own and control the public airwaves... They own the newspapers, the magazines... This is how they have brainwashed so many people into thinking that poor people are lazy, cheaters and not of worth... These are "values" that have carefully and skuillfully been **instilled** into the masses thru bombardments of misinformation... They play on people's fears and turn those fears around into mistrust and hatred... This is what the corportae media has done and it has done it well...

But...

... thru the internet the misinformation campaign that "Boss Hog" has unleashed on our population over the last 30 years is slowly loosing it's staying power as more and more people are understanding both our broken economy as well as our broken system of governing...

This is where I find hope...

I also find hope in the 20 somethings that I've met at anti-war rallies... There is a large number of kids who have escaped the mindlessness of "No Child Left Behind" or were just ahead of it's terrible consequences on dumbing down our children's critical thinking and cretive skills... Yeah, these kids understand... They have seen thru "Boss Hog's" PR campaign and his lies...

So, yeah, I feel change in the air...

And I am hopefull...

And lastly, yes, it can't be said enough that this is all about our collective values and how we collectively share with one another...

Reources are ***not*** unlimited and with that fact firmly in focus, a family of four does not need a 10 bedroom house... This is wastefull... The planet cannot sustain this level of obscene consumption even if it is done ny only the upper 5%... There are rich people in certain areas of the country where water is scarce who consume over a million gallons of water a year keeping their landscaping watered just becuase they have the money to do so... That's what I mean about "values"... They shouldn't be able to do that just becasue they can afford to do so...

...and after the coming revolution people won't have a midset that they have a right to consume as much as they ***want***... The entire ide of ***want*** will have a new definition...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:31 AM

No wonder this thread has so many posts, 99% of them are Janie babbling on with pages upon pages of stats, etc that nobody cares about (sorry to burst your bubble, Janie). And Dianavan poking her nose in everyonce in awhile to make some bullshit comment.."...The best indicator of poverty is hunger. The most startling fact is the number of children in the U.S. who are hungry.

I'd like to know how AWG, kipp, or Dickie would go about solving this problem.

My guess is that they don't give a damn..."   Good one Dianavan, how do you know the number of children in the US who are hungry ?? I bet you don't have a clue. And how do you know how Dickie, Kipp or myself feel about hunger amongst children. Dianavan, you are an idiot, plain and simple. I said I wouldn't resort to the name calling, etc that others here are so fond of, but there's no way Im letting this one go.    Oh, and Bobert, you make some pretty big assumptions when you say 5% of taxes go to the rich. How do you know this ? Is this your answer as to why the USA is running such a high deficit ? Have you ever seen a federal budget, or any government budget for that matter ?? Check one out sometime. Have a great day.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: AWG
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:36 AM

Correction, Bobert. To quote myself from the last post..." Oh, and Bobert, you make some pretty big assumptions when you say 5% of taxes go to the rich. How do you know this ?..." I meant that taxes go to the upper 5%, not that 5% of taxes go to the rich. Don't want to mis-quote you, my apologies.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 01:26 PM

No matter, AWG... You seem to have either misquoted and/or misunderstood what I said about the upper 5%... What I siad is thast the planet cannot sustain the consumption levels of the upper 5%...

When I grew up in Norhtern Virgina just about everyone lived in a moderate house... Senators, Congressmen, Generals, Admirals, diplomats, etc... No one *need*ed (or thought they *need*ed...) a 7000 sq. ft. house...

Now you'd be hard pressed to find a majoe city in the US that doesn't have at least one McMansion ghetto with 7000 sq, ft. houses everywhere... This is not only an obsene display of wealth but it is also wastefull of "resources"...

Ending poverty shouldn't be just about redistristribution of reources a discussion about conservation and sharing of what the planet has to offer us collectively...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 06:50 PM

31% of our population have income that is less than 200% of the poverty level, not because our 'poverty' programs are inadequate, (even though they are inadequate, but because of broad socioeconomic conditions. Policies and programs that are targeted directly at reducing poverty, in and of themselves, are necessary but insufficent to substantially reduce poverty. They must be one piece of broader policies and programs that address the social welfare of the population as a whole.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 09:14 PM

Good point, Janie... There are millions of households that are just a pay check away from poverty... I know... I have three employees that I pay well and as much as can for this area which is in the $10.00 to $11.00 range... Techincally, this amount puts them over the poverty line but I know that if they lost a weekas worth of pay they would be up the creek...

There are millions of folks living on margins of poverty... This is the story that the politicans don't want out but it's true... Yeah, the politicans don't keep stats on these folks but if they did when added to the official poverty rates I think even the "Boss Hog" apologists here would be astonished at just how many folks that are really struggling...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:44 PM

Bobert rides again:

Class warfare

In its original meaning, class warfare is a Marxist term referring to the sometimes violent struggle between the ruling class (bourgeoisie) and the working class (proletariat).

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:52 PM

The term "Class Warfare" has been used by Democrats and Republicans alike. Each wants to co-opt the term. Doesn't matter who used it first (unless etymology is yer bag). Matters who's using it now. And why.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 11:30 PM

Janie:

I asked Bobert a simple yes or no question. You did not and you claim there is no fix but demand that I produce one.

I don't feel hoisted at all.

A petard is a bomb like Bobert admittedly likes to light up and throw and you gullible folks get suckered in to believing his left wing fairy tales.

1. of little or no importance or consequence: petty grievances.
2. of lesser or secondary importance, merit, etc.; minor: petty considerations.
3. having or showing narrow ideas, interests, etc.: petty minds.
4. mean or ungenerous in small or trifling things: a petty person.
5. showing or caused by meanness of spirit: a petty revenge.
6. of secondary rank, esp. in relation to others of the same class or kind: petty states; a petty tyrant.

I think it is important when someone who claims that they won't use statistice because they don't need 'em, quotes a statistic that is at least 100% off and refuses to admit it is wrong or support what they said.


It is time for Bobert to act sincere insteal of churlish.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 11:56 PM

Peace:

It seems to me Bobert is trying to say "class warfare" is a new thing being used by "corportist/industrialists" against progressives.

The term originates with Marxists which is the exact opposite of "corportist/industrialists"

Boberts favorite game is blaiming things on a class of people.

Suppose I said a guitar picker murdered someone so they are responsible for murders?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 12:14 AM

Dickey, I have mostly found you to be reasonable (when I try to see things from your point of view. Please undrestand that I find Bobert to be reasonable even when I don't try to see things from his point of view. You two guys gotta find even a small piece of common ground to stand on and talk.

"Relevance to the present day situation

Republicans cry ¡§class warfare¡¨ whenever Democrats suggest measures that are meant to improve the lives of American citizens in general, but which may cut into the profits of the wealthy and powerful benefactors of the Republican Party. They like to pretend that they represent the forces of law and order, and that they will protect us against those of us who wish to institute ¡§class warfare¡¨ and plunge our country into anarchy and terrorism. But in reality they are similar in many ways to the brigands of 14th century France or the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age."

That little snippet is from a Democrat site. So, it is likely biased. But the following statements (observations) from the same site are good observations regardless of whose site they are from:

ƒÞ Passing of a Medicare bill that prohibits government negotiation of prices with the drug companies, thus enriching drug companies at the expense of our senior citizens
ƒÞ Massive tax cuts for the rich
ƒÞ Nominating a Secretary of Labor who is rabidly anti-union
ƒÞ Nominating a Secretary of the Interior who is rabidly anti-environment
ƒÞ No bid contracts for reconstruction in Iraq, and then failure to follow up on gross violations of those contracts
ƒÞ Failure to raise the minimum wage for almost 10 years
ƒÞ Passage of a bankruptcy bill that encourages predatory lending practices
ƒÞ Passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed the consolidation and monopolization of the news media
ƒÞ Failure to take seriously or respond to the worst hurricane to hit our country in several years or decades
ƒÞ Deregulation of the energy industry, which allowed Enron to create an artificial power crises in order to raise energy prices
ƒÞ Voting machines provided by allies of the Republican Party, that count our votes using secret software and produce results that cannot be verified

They are not just good observations (IMO), but they certainly pose some serious questions about Republicans and the Neocon agenda.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 02:08 PM

AWG,
I agree that hunger is the biggest problem and it is a true indication of poverty. But there is a problem with most of the programs tat are addressior think they are addressing the hunger problem. And that is because they are not realy doing there research into the problem and just giving out food and not getting their hands dirty thinking they have done a good deed, they have and yet they have nit, Most of the people tht end up getting the food are not the hungry they are just the most agresive selfish of of people and these people seem ro show up when ever something is given away for free this is a reality that has tobe addressed. A good portion of thewe very folks are in fact the criminal class that delight in beating the system.
I am not against helping the poor provided it is the poor that are being helped. So you see the poor do become victums of a sort kind of by the very people tyhat think they are offering help.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 04:18 PM

I agree with Kipp. Just supporting poor people will not eliminate poverty. It promotes poverty.

Blame it on the rich class. If the rich don't like poor people, why would they want more of them?

Blame it on Corporations. What can a corporation sell to a poor person?

Blame it on the government. The politicians consider helping the poor a vote getter.

Identify the people and corporations that actualy feed on the poor and do something to stop them or educate the people so they can make the right decisions. To cast a blanket condemation on an entire class of people or capitalisim is wrong and will not produce any results.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 04:21 PM

"To cast a blanket condemation on an entire class of people or capitalisim is wrong and will not produce any results."

Then I have just one question left. Why doesn't the USA have a National Health Care Program?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 04:37 PM

Peace:

I could argue every point that you made was biased such as the Republican voting machines.
"Voting machines provided by allies of the Republican Party, that count our votes using secret software and produce results that cannot be verified."

A. How did Democrats gain a majority if Republican voting machines were in use?

B. Are there any voting machine companies who are not allies of the Republicans?

C. Who demanded the voting machines to begin with?

D. Who specified the software?

E. If there is a problem, why not fix it unless you need something to use to dispute the outcome of an election?

Same thing with the electoral college. What are Democrats doing to fix that?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 04:38 PM

OK. You got me on the voting machines. How about the rest?

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 04:45 PM

My apologies. I didn't answer your question. What are the Dems doing about it? If they have the sense that God gave a turnip, they are slipping Diebold lotsa cash.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 05:30 PM

Whereas Dickey would love nuthin' more than to try yet again to make this thtread about anything but poverty it is a thread about poverty... Not voting machines... Not Democrats... And certainly not about his silly juvinilistic yes/no games...

BTW, I belive I was the first here in Mudville to use the yes/no thing but I don't live in yes/no-burg as if it's the only game in town... Right now it has turned Dickey into a one-trick-pony...

BTW, Dickey... When did I, as you state in your above post, ever say I never or don't use stats??? You won't find that in my over 5 ot 6 years here... I have said alot of things about stats but never that I never use them... Some stats are purdy straight forward and hard to manipulate... Those are the ones that I am more pat to use ratehr than the ones that my college stats professor used to throw out as examples of how one goes about proving that 1 is equal to 2...

Now as for Democrats... A part of jump starting the war on poverty is assuming that the Democrats get their funding from similar sources as the Republicans: corporations... This does not bode well for and jump startin' seein' as a resumjed war on poverty is going to involve wrestling resources away from the corporate fat cats...

No, this is most likely going to involve a 3rd party and the time has never been better... Voters voted for Dems in the "06 election less because they had ***confidence*** the Dems would do a better job but more because they had lost ***confidence*** in the Republicans... So for anyone to think that a sweep by the Dems in '08 to a point where the Senate has the votes to shut own a fillibuster will signal a jum,p start on the war on poverty, think again...

Yeah, okay, national "single payer" health insurance will make it's way into serious discussion and that's all well and good but a serious discussion about poverty and inequity ain't gonna happen...

My Senator, Jim Webb, has been trying to get folks to listen to him about this issue but they are ignoring him as if he were talking to them from a radiation pit...

Well, got band rehersal so gotta go... Opening for the Nighthawks this Friday night and gotta tighten up the sound a little...

Later...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 06:51 PM

JANIE, I'm the guest above.

You have hit the nail on the head so many times in this discourse, that, if I was the nail, I'd be all bent out o' shape like some here that cannot hear all the absolute truths you've posted.

Two words I want/need to toss out are Spend down.

With both of our MANY pre-existing med realities, with my sig other not having had enough "quarters in" to be considered for SSDI even though she is thoroughly disabled, even though I COULD earn if I put my mind to it, I cannot earn because it would be added to our already huge "spend down". All that JUST so I can get regular ECTs for her through Medicaid. And the state we are in is the new Mississippi of the north!!!!! No budget agreed on. Month to month emergency spending bills. Gridlock by politicians. No funding for mental health and everything else cut WAY back!---------- And why? Because of this absolutely insane war sucking thousands of billions of dollars away from all that made life in America worthwhile.---Check out Ian Robb's song "They're Takin' It Away"---a real stunner. Not to mention the obscene systematic dismantling of the nations values and rights.

I used to send cash to ACLU & Amnesty Int. regularly. I can't keep doing that now, and I have come to resent the calls and the mailings I get all the damn time. Yes, mam, I know from where you come. And it's appreciated.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 10:30 PM

Peace:

Do you want to go over all that here on the poverty thread?

I think we would better spend the time identifying the real causes of poverty and those that prey on poor people such as unscrupulous (crooked)car dealers.

Bobert:

You said you ain't going to hear a bunch of stats out of me cause I don't need um. Then you throw out a stat that is totally wrong and refuse ot support it ir fess up that it was wrong. A bunker mentality like you accuse Bush of having.

I am not 100% against national health insurance as long as there is private insurance available.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 10:38 PM

Sorry, Dickey. I truly think and archaic political system has allowed the poor to become persona non grata. Them what's got has got. Them what don't--tough.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 11:09 PM

Peace:

That has a certain amount of truth to it because poor people can't afford to donate to political campaigns. They can vote though and that leads the Pols to declare they are going to help them to gain votes.

But I think in the end rich people want to be rich but they don't want poor people to be poor. Maybe some prey on poor people like credit card companies. They charge them more interest and they like to trap people into carrying a balance that they can't pay off. Bank America made a far bigger margin of profit than Exxon but the Boberts of the world and the media (despite the fact that the media is supposed to be under the control of corporations) blame the poor people's plight on Exxon.

Is Being Profitable a Crime?
    Reporters commonly failed to put oil profits in a larger business context. When they cited Exxon Mobil Corp.’s $9.9 billion third-quarter profit, they focused on the raw numbers rather than explaining to viewers that Exxon doesn’t make as much relative to its product as many other industries do. A comparison of profit margins â€" dividing net profits by the amount of revenue the company took in â€" shows that other companies enjoy much higher returns.

    For example, Exxon’s profit margin for its high-earnings quarter (dividing $9.9 billion by revenue of $100 billion) was almost 10 percent. But a look at Fortune’s Global 500 list from July 2005 shows that is not unusual â€" and some companies surpassed that in earlier quarters. Johnson and Johnson showed profits of almost 18 percent in the July report, while Bank of America enjoyed more than 22 percent.

    The media also ignored the largest beneficiary of the oil “windfallâ€쳌: the government. The Tax Foundation’s Scott Hodge and Jonathan Williams noted in an October 26 report that “in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits.â€쳌 In fact, “since 1977, there have been only three years (1980, 1981, and 1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas tax collections.â€쳌

http://www.businessandmedia.org/news/2005/news20051102.asp

Keep in mind that Bank America does not produce a material product but a service.

As soon as people declare bankruptcy to relieve themselves from debt, they get offers from credit card companies because they cannot declare bankruptcy again. I consider them leaches.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 11:12 PM

"But I think in the end rich people want to be rich but they don't want poor people to be poor."

That is well said, Dickey.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 01:12 AM

Making a profit is not a crime. But making a profit no matter the social cost is. It doesn't matter whether rich people want poor people to be poor. What matters is, as a minority class that wields most of the direct power to influence public policies, the rich repeatedly influence public policies in the direction of increasing their own wealth and influence at the expense of the common good, and especially at the expense of the underclass.

The rich person who fails to understand that a portion of his wealth depends on the existence of a substantial class of poor people is practicing elective ignorance.   There is a wealth of knowledge and sound social research to bear this out.

People, including rich people, are responsbile for their choices. They are responsible for understanding the effects of their choices. Like it or not, as members of a society who reap the benefits of living in a society, they are responsible for the effects of their choices on society.

Wealth = power and the ready ability to influence public policies and socioeconomic conditions. Knowledge = power, and the wealthy tend to be well educated and well informed. In addition, there is considerable more cohesiveness among the much smaller class of those with wealth. People with wealth are much more similar to one another than are the individuals who comprise the much, much larger underclass. The upper class is much more able to wield power consciously and cohesively, than any other socioeconomic class.

The conventioanl wisdom is that everyone who works for a corporation benefits when a corporation thrives. Time and again, however, this has proven not to be true. Corporations making good profits will repeatedly make choices to increase profits even more, and enrich themselves in the process, at the expense of the livelihood of the workers who were essential to the creation of the wealth to begin with.

Enron is a prime example. A hand full of upperclass, corporate executives made decisions that cost thousands of workers their current livelihood and their future financial stability in retirement.

There is also power inherent in the sheer numbers of people included in the lower, working and moderate socioeconomic classes. But that power is like lightning. It is wild and chaotic, unorganized unless or until a Union or a Martin Luther King Jr. comes along. At the individual level, much of the power that would otherwise be available for class action is redirected to getting through the day-to-day. As a class, the underclass does not generally have the capacity to operate cohesively, and the individuals of the underclass are less likely to recognize or understand that they are part of a social class.

Being thoughtless, especially when one has power, is no excuse.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 02:04 AM

Hispanics 21.8%      9.4 million
African Americans 24.9%      9.2 million
Whites (non-Hispanic) 8.3%      16.2 million
Asian Americans 11.1%      1.4 million

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 10:41 AM

Folks, It's called USERY---a term that was abolished officially a while ago by one administration or another. USERY was illegal to practice in the USA.

It meant "making an excessive profit!"

That's hard to believe for some here, but for most of my lifetime, it was actually illegal to make an excessive profit!!!!!! (And it should still be illegal!)

POWER is a whole other thing. The way I see it and define it, power, without the codified reality of USERY, under capitalism is, more often than not, the extent to which you can inconvenience others--economically and otherwise!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 12:48 PM

Folks, It's called USERY---a term that was abolished officially a while ago by one administration or another. USERY was illegal to practice in the USA.

Usery is the charging of interest on a loan It was considered a sin to charge interest on a loan The Roman Catholic Church still considers it a sin Part of the Jewish religion the orthodox Jews consider it so when loaning to each other but not to the gentiles. There may be other that think it wrong but we do not live in an oligargy SP
Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 01:03 PM

Its actually called 'usary'.

The Koran and the Bible both forbid it.

That being said, Kipp, it sounds like you think its O.K. to profit from the misery of others.

Seems to me that 'right livelihood' should be a goal for all of us who want a better world.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 04:42 PM

It really isn't about making a profit or not... And i's not whether or not rich people care if there are poor people... These are red herrings...

It's about a corrupt system that allows for the playing field to be tilted distictly toward the rich and the corporations... That is precisely what we ahve in this country... It's a immoral and corrupt imbalance and the governemnt is no long "for the people" but for the rich and for the corporations... Money buys power and power tilts the playing field that benefits the money... The poor have been 100% disenfranchised... They are powerless... Stuck in a game in which rich people decide what crumbs will be doiled out to the poor...

But the rich have gone even further in tilting the playing field toward their porfits and away from the middle class... The puchasing power of the middle class has been in a steady declince since the 80's... Oh sure, the middle class has kept its collective head above water but only by borrowing from the rich... The savings ratio by the midlle class is the lowest since the last 20's...

This is what has gotten "Boss Hog" in trouble... Because of his greed and desire to control as much as he can he has not put into place a system that is bleeding the heck out of the middle class and this is where the seeds of "revolution" are germinating... Hey, I live right in the middle of veryu conswervative Bush/repub country and people around, as uneducated as many are, are very angry with what is going down... They are feeling it in the pocket book and starting to see things thru a different lense... These are died-in-the-wool Repubs who are very p.o.'d...

I've spoken many times about the revolution and I firmly believe that its is in the embryonic stage now and I don't think that there is anyone in either the Republican Party of the Republican Party can do to stop it...

Is it going to be violent??? I don't know... But it is going to be ugly...

But one of the byproducts of the coming revolution is that there is going to be a major paradyme (values) shift and this will get the war on poverty back on track...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 12:01 PM

The rich are not the only people that are greedy class and the amount of wealth you have have nothing to do with greed.
The same goes for the amount of comsumerism if the people did not buy from Walmart then Walmart would not exist.
Most of the trouble that I had when wworking in the corport world was from those directly over me. The corporationdid not ask them to do what they did. They really just did the thing they did to others was what they thought they were doing to protect their jobs. A lot of middle management is incompitamt(sp) anyway.
Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 01:30 PM

Kipp, you miss the point. It is not that rich people are bad and poor people are good. A powerful greedy person can get and keep all the marbles much more effectively than can a weak greedy person.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 10:31 AM

Dianavan I would like to know from where in my post that you could say that I am for or against usery any not all of the Bible forbids it Jeseus in his parable of the talents tell thell man that buried his money he would have been better if he invested it in an bank of some sort.
I am not missing the point it is not only rich grssdy person that is preventing the por from geeting help it is greed in genral it matters not whom is greedy it is the state of the ccountry. Poverty is a much more complex problem than the rich vs. poor argument And the greed that some have does not matter because of class and it does matter because of class The old argument don't work any more thaey really have never worked the more you give the more there are to take that is the real point weather they are poor or not. The real poor are hiden away and most are too proud to admit they are poor.
   Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 02:30 PM

Hey, if one is going to correct someone else's spelling, one should get it right oneself.

The word is 'usury'.

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 04:57 PM

Well, Kipp, I'm hearing a lot of floks saying these days that things are "complex" as if to say that us common folks just shouldn't worry our purdy heads over stuff that we don't know nuthin' about...

And, no, this isn't meant to be critical of what you have said but more a general defense of current policies that claerly aren't working..

Poverty is not all that complex... It's causes are not all that complex... And the solutions are not all that complex...

What is complex is how we get folks to understand just how badly they have been brainwashed into thinking relatively simple things are over our heads...

I am being perfectly serious here...

This is about collective values and in these days and times most people don't have the slighest clue why they believe what they believe because they are working way too hard and living way too fast and they don't have time to deleve into issues so they just hitch their beliefs to bumper sticker length opinions that really aren't based in reality but based on what ad-men and political spinsters want to instill... This really isn't a value sytem but more rote memory coupled with the emotions of partisanship...

But when we strip it all away, what we find are some very ugly motives of greed, money and power by those who hire the ad-men and own the radio talk shows...

No, nuthin' too complex about any of this... Ross Perot ran a very sucessfull 3rd party campaign in '92 and the crux of what he had to say was simple, "We have all the plans, we just need the will..."

Well, we have the plans now... We know, for instance, that if a woman can't afford to pay for child care with what she makes that one of two things will happen: either she'll have to quit working or someone is going to have to pitch in to help with the child care...

This is just one example of just how simple things are... Any component of the war on poverty can be looked at simply... There is no complexity... Just a matter of will... And a matter of putting ad-men tapes out of our heads and allow very simple common logic take over where the ad-men have cluttered our collective thinking...

This ain't rocket surgery...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 05:00 PM

Yes, it is spelled 'usury'.

Kipp - Sorry if I misunderstood when you said, "There may be other that think it wrong but we do not live in an oligargy."

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Barry Finn
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 05:17 PM

'usury'! I grew up in a slum neighborhood, there were many folks who supported their families through criminal activities. My step father was a bookmaker ("bookie"), his best friend & banker was a loanshark, neither were violent & neither used violence as a means in their business, & neither were nearly as deadly as the industry is today, legally, actually both were very hornorable men & reguarded as good men in their community. Ya, you'd have to be there to believe it, I know. The government put both, along with many others out of business by legalizing gambling & the growth of the legal loan industry. The credit & loan industry now charges far more in interest than what was charged back when loaning cash was illegal which I believe over 20% made it usury & illegal.
Anyway, back to poverty.

Yes, companies do need to make profits to continue to stay competive but they don't need to steal from their employees, as in pension funds, by not paying overtime by classifiying many of their workers as management when they're not, by flooding their payrolls with parttime employees so they can skate free without giving benifits.
They also don't need to flood the market with cheap products & crush their competition & manufactures by running what tends to be a monoply that kills both the competition & their employees. The government has corpporations the right to run ramshod over their workers by killing unions, passing laws that advocate watering down workers rights & a host of other agreements that stirp what little the nations employees had fought for since the days of the "Robber Barons", those days are here again! There was a time when the "American Deam" included a retirement with health benifits & a liveable pension when those loyal to the concept gave 30 yrs of their working lives to help make a company strong. They looked forward to spending the rest of their lives relaxing. The combo of big business & goverment has destroyed this dream, this promise, this trust agreement in favor of profits.
There used to be insentives (both their own & goverment) in investing
in their own research & development just as there were incentives for individules & companies to invest in solor power, but here it is 40 yrs later & all is that is missing & we're only not coming back to that. There was a time when companies sold themselves for the benifit of themselves & their workers instead of using bankrupticies & buy outs to strip off the valuables & leave the skeleton & crumbs for the vultures to pick from. The working class as well as the poor have been systematicly stripped of their resources & advantages that were once theirs to use in order to get ahead, that's all gone now. And one wonders why the gap & the trust grows between the rich & poor. Just look for a minute at our present economy. Where's the money going, follow it, it's not going to health, education, social services, housing, food production, enviorment, clean, safe or renewable enegry. It follows the path of least resistence, intro the pockets of big business & it's political machine.

The housing market, sorry I don't have time for that one right now!!

Maybe it'll take a revolution to wake up the sleeping giant. Cause from where I stand not enough people realize that we are their "beasts of burden", their cattle that they feed off of, we are their "bread & butter".

Gotta go

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 10:32 PM

Barry,

Bravo!!

Art
(When I said usury, I referred to the obscene excesses -- in money lending and in profit taking that is today's reality. There is no way to condone practices of that kind.)

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Dickey
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 10:50 PM

The poor have been 100% disenfranchised but you won't hear a lot of stats outta me cause I don't need um.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Kipp
Date: 06 Jul 07 - 12:17 PM

Dianava
Kipp - Sorry if I misunderstood when you said, "There may be other that think it wrong but we do not live in an oligargy."

I don't believe in usury but I probly would not lend any money to just anyone either I would think that I would get paid back, That is unless it was a gift. I think a good place to start is that I would expect from other's what they should expect from me.
Kipp

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 01:59 AM

I'm not sure if this fits into this thread and you have probably read it before but I thought it was worth posting. (oops, I guess you can't post a slide). There is other interesting information on this site.

http://www.bemidjistate.edu/dsiems/powerpoint/freire/sld002.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,diana
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 04:12 AM

Lest you think all is rosy in Vancouver, B.C.

"Two reports released this week show the Campbell government cares more about their political fortunes than they people they're supposed to serve, NDP Leader Carole James says.

The B.C. Progress Board report, which came down Tuesday, showed British Columbia is falling behind the rest of Canada on issues like poverty, crime and other social conditions. This despite a public accounts report Wednesday that showed the province's budget surplus had ballooned to $4.1 billion.

"We have a crisis in homelessness in this province, yet the Finance Minister thinks it's more important to have a big surplus than to actually use the resources to help people," said James.

"More and more British Columbians are falling behind, but the Campbell government talks about budget surpluses as if the bottom line is the only thing that matters."

"The surpluses are a result of high commodity prices and continuing low interest rates. Those conditions won't last forever. We should be doing more now to bridge the divide in our society, because when commodity prices drop again, the problem will get even worse."

The Progress Board report showed that British Columbia ranks ninth among 10 Canadian provinces for social indicators. This province is second worst in the number of people living below the Low Income Cutoff.

The B.C. Progress Report's 2007 Interim Report compares B.C.'s social condition to other provinces based on five categories: low-income cut off, personal property crime, income assistance levels, low birth weight, and long-term unemployment. B.C.'s overall ranking was ninth in Canada, with the second worst poverty and crime rate in the country.

When questioned about the report Wednesday, Finance Minister Carole Taylor admitted she had not read it.

"It's really shameful that the Campbell government has created the conditions in which our social condition is among the worst in Canada," James said.

"What makes it worse is the Finance Minister refuses to read anything that contradicts her cheery rhetoric. This government created the problems and they continue to refuse to make any effort to help the people they've hurt."

At least we have a polician in opposition that speaks the truth. Thats more than I can say about our Finance minister who cares more about her shoes than the people of B.C.

When questioned about the report Wednesday, Finance Minister Carole Taylor admitted she had not read it.

"I really believe in infrastructure spending... I amortize my shoes over 20 years."
- Canada's BC Provincial Finance Minister Carole Taylor explaining why she wore $600 new Gucci shoes when presenting the annual budget.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 04:13 AM

Oops, that was me, Joe. Please don't delete.

Subject: RE: BS: Poverty in the USA
From: Janie
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 11:59 PM

Listen up. Robert Reich and "Supercapitalism;"...or what Bobert's been sayin'.

I also checked out the most recent entries on Reich's blog. Interesting political commentary.

One last thing to highlight. In his interview with Terry Gross, he observes that when he went to Washington (sometime in the '70's) there were approximately 7000 registered lobbyists, compared to more than 40,000 today. Nearly all of those 40+thousand are corporate lobbyists.

Janie