James, its not that someone says, “I’m making a choice to be poor and homeless”. Its that they don’t make other choices which could prevent it. Certainly there are some poor homeless people who very well could take care of themselves better, or at least who could have in the time leading up to thier circumstances.
They follow their programming and infections.
What makes you think they had a choice?
Can you stop being a kooky, cryptic radical for a moment and discuss a practical issue in practical terms?
For instance, Wendy has a dog. So she’s feeding a dog. That must be part of her budget. So when she has a budget shortfall and can’t get ahead and buy a bus ticket or book an air bnb, it makes sense to say that she’d rather feed and maintain a pet. Whatever it costs to feed the dog for a week multiplied by x number of weeks equals the money she’d need to get closer to being ahead. Right?
Like a guy who smokes cigarettes and complains about how there will be no social security when he’s old. I say shit man, 5 bucks a day, 30 days in a month? Started smoking at 17?? If someone put that much money into the bank and earned no interest at all, the contribution alone would be enough to secure some housing as an adult. So it’s not impossible, and there is a choice.
Everything people do can’t be dismissed as being due to programming.
Bitches smoking 72k in cigarettes, spending 35k on dog food over 40 years and complaining that the government or the illuminati is preventing them from having financial freedom have to answer to that truth.
You make a good pawn.
James, I’m going to insist that you elaborate. And I would appreciate it if you’d step out from around your obvious kool aid drinking, and consider the argument for something you disagree with, without attempting to dismiss it with cryptic nonsense or sweeping generalizations.
Well, Mr R has done as well as I could, here. Wendy, there’s a difference between finding ways to fail and finding ways to succeed. Everyone has their own path.
Yes, yes, they squander their savings.
He’s an unofficial therapy dog who I baby, he deserves it for keeping me alive. You I’d starve and save the money. 
If you consider earning an income in the illegal drug trade a way, I guess criminality doesn’t matter…it’s at any and all costs…this success. I failed to become a criminal, shame on me.
Ummm, I meant on this thread, not in real life.
No, it is not. It is so cheap now that even poor by Indian standards can afford it. Latest 4G VOLTE technology is now all IP based, means calls and sms now go though internet instead of traditional circuit switch based (3G) technology. 4G technology is 3 times faster than 3G and 6 times faster than 2G and it can handle manytimes more data traffic also thus cheap also. US based operators are still not using this. That is why you are paying more for it.
with love,
sanjay
The income of my family, which includes me and my wife but excludes my both children, is roughly 500 USD per month now, out of which we spend 8 USD for internet and phone services.
Secondly, we do not spend 70% of our income on food. That is roughly 15% and that is without any compromise too. But yes, we rarely go to restaurants and cook at home only. Only some street food once in a while.
with love,
sanjay
K: I was homeless for a few months back in the early 1990’s and trust
me, I had no choice of any kind… it just happened that way…
and quite often it does just happen… most Americans are only 3 paychecks
from being homeless and all it would take is two events like, losing a job and
getting hit with a medical bills and that its…it really doesn’t take much more
to become homeless…it is easy to dismiss the poor or homeless if you
haven’t been there…
Kropotkin
For home phone and internet service, we pay almost $80. For cell phones, another $100. Since we live in the countryside where internet service is interrupted, we have to have a landline for emergency purposes and general calls half of the time. It’s ridiculously expensive…someday we’ll get enough signal towers.
Where does the lion’s share of your income go? What kind of healthcare system is available in India? How much can you save or invest each month towards your future?
Internet and phone are relatively cheap today only because they are an integral part of the governance, mostly the surveillance part. The prices go up as the government’s need for them goes down, due to other means to achieve the same goal of population control. The more godlike they become, the less they care about what you think, do, or say (the whole point to being a god - to remove the need to care about anyone else’s concerns).
One question I would ask is, “Why is this a problem?” Not because I don’t think it is, but because this is not a single problem with a simple solution. But just for instance, income inequality is not a problem per se, as there will always be some. It’s a much less dire problem if the populace in general is satisfied with their lot than if they are not. Nor is it too much of a problem if the same forces that bring inequality also bring relative affluence to those at the lower end.
But there is more. There is more to compensation than cash income and this compensation has value. There is value in employer-paid benefits like health insurance, vacation time, childcare and the like. If my wages have stagnated but my and my employer’s health care costs have gone up, then maybe a shift in tax policy alone is not the best solution. Maybe single-payer health care has the best cost/benefit ratio. That is affected by tax policy, to be sure. Taxes would be paying for health care. They do now, in overt and relatively hidden ways.
If the employer cost of health care has risen so fast that it prevents higher wages, then maybe a more efficient system of health care delivery would allow wages to increase. There are people, and I don’t know how many, who change from a higher paying job to a lower paying job because the latter provides better and more affordable health care. That would drive wages down for that person, but perhaps not total employee compensation.
Just taxing passive income more heavily may not be the best way to go for anyone.
That opener was left deliberately - open. I think there is much more than income that I would call disparity. Why do we never discuss the disparity in living conditions? The wealthy live in gated communities next to a golf course while those on the bottom of the economic ladder are lucky to have a shitty apartment in unsafe slums. Why do the children of the wealthy attend private schools with all the amenities while the poor attend schools where a drive by shooting occurs weekly. What sort of society allows lead to be delivered in its drinking water? How in the hell did we ever allow the term “upscale” to become a common reality? Fuck the income issues, their bad enough, but disparity in how we live is the real disparity. Sure, it’s all about the bucks but WTF?
Yeah, tent, I agree. If I had to pick just three items on the consumer side that have the most impact on quality of life, it would be housing, health care and transportation. Everything else is cheap. Health care, well, there are models (like that exotic entity, Medicare) that are already in place.
I could write a book on why there is so much shitty housing, and how a slum begins and grows. And by the time I am done at my present job, I might just. I work in a community of less that 100,000 and we have over 300 vacant houses, representing possibly 1,000 units. In fact, that’s a stat I’ll have to generate. Most of them are held by a few major banks who are managing their loss portfolios - the banks are often in no great hurry to unload them. Now, that’s in a place where this condition has been neglected for years. Government policy can and does change that.
Putting these properties in the hands of owner-occupiers is extremely difficult but this is an area where tax policy could actually do some good.
Good call, tent.
These are the real issues of poverty.
Upto three years back, we were not able to save anything. As our both children were studying engineering so our whole savings used to go for their studies. Then firstly my daughter became IT engineer and got a very good job. One year later my son also became IT graduate and got into a job and their cumulative earning is 5 times more than me and my wife.
So now we have a lot to spend and save. Our regular necessary living expenses are not more than half of what we earn. In the last three years we have bought some new goods for home, which includes one bike and one scooter, a new big fridge, some furniture and furnishings and some new kitchen and other home appliances. Now we roughly save 1/3 of what we earn. Besides that, now our children also send some money to us. Now we can save almost all what we earn. That also goes into savings which are basically bank deposits and equities.
There are some kind of public healthcare available here. For salaried people in formal sectors, either public or private, one can get free treatment in lieu of very nominal contribution. To give you an example, my wife has to contribute 5$ per month to avail this facility. But, it is an issue for who are not working in organized sector. Government has introduced some cheap schemes for those very recently but those are not good enough. Yes, public hospitals are there and very cheap also but not up to the mark.
with love,
sanjay
Poverty or poorness is nevertheless the opposite of wealth or richness.
If people in developed countries have to economically live like people in other countries, they are much poorer than the poorest in their countries.
It would appear that all you’ve done is confirm that income disparity is a global issue. The definition of poor may be a local determination, but the income disparity is always there.
In the USA, the income disparity is 20% in wealth, 80% in poverty and when the baby boomers die, the disparity will grow even greater…10% in wealth and 90% in poverty.