The Roots of Poverty in America ?

[cwes99_03]

Care to show some statistics to back that up? I'd love it if you could find some.

[questor]

this is just a guess. do you have evidence, statistics, or theories to show things to be otherwise?

[lindagarrette]

It's common sense poverty perpetuates itself. Social class pretty much determines who will become or remain wealthy. The few exceptions make for good Horatio Alger stories. No matter how industrious, the citizen of some Sub Saharan country, the chances of emerging from poverty are remote. On the other hand, the prince of an Arab royal family is guaranted fabulous wealth even if he is a dork. It would take a deliberate and massive effort on the part of humanity to break the cycle.

[infamous]

It would take a deliberate and massive effort on the part of humanity to break the cycle.

Very true Linda, we have a few posting here that seem to think there should be a simple answer. If it were so simple, one could surmise that poverty should have already become a thing of the past. I'm still waiting to hear some of those simple solutions..............................................Infy

[questor]

Linda, we are not talking about hereditary monarchies or countries with a caste system, we are talking about the USA where people are free to succeed or fail, based on their own abilities. does education, integrity, good attitude, ambition and hard work mean anything to you ? do you see poor people that have these attributes? do you know what negativism, laziness, lack of education, bad attitude, sloppy work habits mean ? do you see rich people with these traits ?

[cwes99_03]

Hey, have you ever watched nicole ritchie or paris hilton in an interview. Have you ever seen the one (Dateline I believe) interview of a couple of heirs to the blue blood thrones out on the east coast and how these children think they are royalty that don't have to do anything because they are rich? These people have no abilities, but are handed them by the media etc. simply because they have money. So someone designs a line of clothing with their name on it, or coins them a catch phrase and they benefit. So disgusting my head hurts every time I see them, and my ears ache every time their lips move.

[lindagarrette]

Linda, we are not talking about hereditary monarchies or countries with a caste system, we are talking about the USA where people are free to succeed or fail, based on their own abilities. does education, integrity, good attitude, ambition and hard work mean anything to you ? do you see poor people that have these attributes? do you know what negativism, laziness, lack of education, bad attitude, sloppy work habits mean ? do you see rich people with these traits ?

Yes.

[tarak]

Poverty is the gulf between thoughts and action,ideas and implementation and state of mind and state of body.

[otcartsid]

Poverty is the gulf between thoughts and action,ideas and implementation and state of mind and state of body.

wow... there's alot of truth to that!

[cwes99_03]

Poverty is the gulf between thoughts and action,ideas and implementation and state of mind and state of body.

 

Does this mean that all those who chose to be impoverished either have not ability or thoughts that could make them more successful. Do they not know how to be successful?

Your generalization covers a portion of those, just like the generalizations before them. Unfortuneately there is not generalization that can be made when it comes to poverty and why it occurs. There are at least 5 to 50 different causes of poverty, and some of them are at complete odds with one another.

[jettlarue]

a book called freakonomics talks about this. someonsgo to library and read it it explains this good. such as predisposed poverty names (they generally go with people who are poor) but they dont cause the poverty but a person wants to hire someone that will work good and someone who is living in the projects with dirty clothes and is extremely poor people generalize those people as nonworking people. so some white christian 140 pounds named mark who grew up in a subberb compared to a black guy named curtis that weighs 215 pounds and is poor who do you think will be hired whether they are truthful or not the white man will get the job in this instance.

[otcartsid]

Does this mean that all those who chose to be impoverished either have not ability or thoughts that could make them more successful. Do they not know how to be successful?

Your generalization covers a portion of those, just like the generalizations before them. Unfortuneately there is not generalization that can be made when it comes to poverty and why it occurs. There are at least 5 to 50 different causes of poverty, and some of them are at complete odds with one another.

 

I agree that there are many different causes of poverty.

I think this quote implies that a person requires both the state of mind (intelligence, mental stability, ambition, confidence, etc) and the state of body (going out and making things happen, drive, confidence, etc) I think the above quote can be referring to the laziness, lack of ambition, etc phenomena. It can also refer to other states of mind such as fear, anxiety, lack of confidence, etc that hold us back

[otcartsid]

I think people who grow up poor lack the confidence alot of rich people have. People not lucky to be born into a wealthier family are also disadvantaged in that they dont get to see firsthand how to get money to work for them

[questor]

if you're having difficulty understanding the roots of poverty, why not talk face to face with some poor people and draw your own conclusions. this is not a mysterious phenomenon that needs to be argued. the evidence is there before you.

[TheBigDog]

When dealing with economics you cannot use the same rules that apply to physics. There are no laws of thermodynamics in economics. Rich people do things to make themselves rich. It is ingrained in their behavior which is to a large extend a function of their environment. They take actions to make money. And only about 20% of millionaires inherited their fortunes. Most fortunes are made from smart work and smart investment. The path to great wealth is not a steady stream of success, there can be sizable setbacks. The difference between the poor and the rich is the goals they pursue, how intelligently and persistantly they pursue them, and how much they still believe in the dream after failure.

 

Artificially spreading wealth has a heartwarming feel, but it weakens the state of humanity and erodes the future opportunities for those who get the help. Imagine that a specific species of grazing animals in Africa had the stongest members of the heard sacrifice themselves so lions would eat them before the slower and the weaker members of the heard. Within a couple of generations the lions would eat every last one of them because they would become weaker and slower with each generation. At the same time other prey animals would become slower and weaker because the lions would be laying off of them, thus upsetting hunter/prey evolutionary progress. Meanwhile the lions would become more common, but less skilled at hunting because of too many generations of easy eating. Sacrificing the stong for the sake of the weak effects the whole system in the negative. Why is it different for people?

 

Life is a competition, and those who don't want to recognize that are naive. Money is a tool to help you win in that competition. It is not a guarantee of success, but is is a great head start. Just like the animals in Africa - everyone is better off when everyone is competing.

 

Bill

[questor]

webenton, the statements you made are true. why do you think most educators do not understand these ideas?

[Buffy]

My what a tangled web we weave.

 

You realize of course that you are advocating classical Social Darwinism which was originally panned as being un-Christian and was of course a huge influence on the later eugenics and Nazi movements. Is "Christian Charity" out of favor all of a sudden? Or is charity *only* evil when it is provided by the government? If so, why?

 

Many argue that the organism we need to pay attention to in this debate is *not* the individual, but the society. Louis XVI could tell you a bit about the perils of ignoring the poverty of great numbers of people in society. It can be easily argued that with rational limits, charity is *essential* to the health of a social group.

 

We must all hang together or,

Buffy