Poverty in America

Since you surveyed them, why then?

That is absolutely true.

That is certainly one of the problems.

People often do not understand this but it is not the earning that makes one rich. Spending slightly less than earning is what actually makes one rich over the time. But, for it one has to be patient. There is no shortcut whatsoever.

The second every important issue is to realize what one’s actual needs are, without getting influenced by the social standards.

Affluence per se is not the problem. One should always seek betterment in all aspects. There is nothing wrong in it. The problem is its twisted definition and then means to get it. Everyone cannot be Mark Zuckerberg. That happens only in the rare of the rarest cases.

There are lot of such things. But, if you mean state policies by policies, given our present system, state cannot do much. The reason for that is that whatever the state would offer, would be monetary help in one way or other. But, the problem is not money in the most of the cases, though may be in some. if we can somehow correct our social system, i think that number of such cases would come down significantly, though some such cases will always remain there.

with love,
sanjay

Not to the extent that it is now in America. That’s why you see a different work ethic in immigrants … they know that they have to suck it up for a while, maybe a long time, to get something.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not proposing that you have to reject wealth at all. In fact, I’m proposing that you can have more by delaying your gratification.

Yes you have a choice now. And people are choosing a superficial temporary high. I don’t know if “our ancestors” would have done the same. But I know that their hard work produced a long term prosperity. IOW, their work ethic “worked”.

Now America is increasingly paralyzed. The government can’t get it’s debt under control. Individuals can’t get their debt under control. Why? Because they can’t take some temporary pain for long term gain. The solution is just to get a higher debt ceiling. Print up some more money. Loosen bank rules so the theoretical “money” is no longer tied to tangible assets.

Take action on climate change? No way. You can’t see any gain, only pain. If you do it right, then climate doesn’t change but you have to “give up” something.

Absolutely true. But, the problem is that now they are considering inheritance as their birth right.
Anything expandable has to dissipate over the time if you keep it spending without adding anything to it.

with love,
sanjay

tent - “Case in point: When does a dead battery in your piece of crap old car mean late to work and losing your job? It happened time after time because there was no societal kings X to help them. Are there any good answers? Possibly, but only when we collectively get past the “Fuck you, I’ve got mine you get yours” mentality.”

excellent example. Many people are one car repair away from economic disaster. The can’t borrow a car from mom and dad and they can’t rent one. And they don’t have the hundred bucks for a new battery. But you can’t give them the hundred and tell them to hang on to it in case they need a car repair. They just won’t.

There’s a program in my state for homeless people. They get $8,000. They can use that for rent or for other expenses. At the end of the year, they get nothing. If they haven’t gotten a job by then, they usually lose their apartment. But the people who do get a job rarely lose their apartments. In my experience, many of those who don’t get a job are either lazy, have lost hope, can’t pass the drug test or have too long a record.

That’s a program with good intentions that rarely actually helps anyone.

What happens with these programs is that the penalty for making bad decisions is to be on those programs, but within the programs (welfare) there are no longer any penalties for wrong choices. Well, there are some, but what happens is the is a safety net under the safety net under another safety net. We need the net, but it’s gotta be a net and not an impermeable floor.

sanjay - “There are lot of such things. But, if you mean state policies by policies, given our present system, state cannot do much. The reason for that is that whatever the state would offer, would be monetary help in one way or other. But, the problem is not money in the most of the cases, though may be in some. if we can somehow correct our social system, i think that number of such cases would come down significantly, though some such cases will always remain there.”

That’s my point also. it’s not just the money. Well stated.

I’m talking about the working poor who struggle to pay their bills and keep up with the cost of living since wages have stagnated or been lowered over the last twenty years. These people do not live frilly lives.

wendy - I didn’t survey them. i rely on information from our local “career center” (unemployment office). Generally, they don’t mind collecting. And the training is contemporaneous with the benefits. They just don’t think ahead.

The current attitude is that it’s better to make money trading stock than in any “honest days work”. “Hard work is for chumps.”

Getting a job is not the problem, being able to afford living expenses and the occasional catastrophe are. The car battery is a perfect example. Perhaps the government should give the companies the emergency funds to help their employees since the companies themselves don’t give a shit about helping their employees through a crisis. The company uses the emergency funds to buy the employee a car battery so they stay employed, but that still doesn’t earn them enough to buy their own fucking battery.

I’m still over here waiting for you to share or is your answer that they just don’t think ahead…whatever that means.

Wendy, I won’t answer for Faust, but I want to address the not thinking ahead. Not only do many of these people not think ahead, they CAN’T think ahead. It is just one problem stacked up with the others. OK. I knew that the fucking battery in the piece of shit car was dying and I needed to get a new battery. BUT… the electric company is going to shut off my power for non-payment the last three months. My daughter (or son) has a severe ear infection and I need to get a prescription that I have no money for. Someone hands me a hundred dollars. Which problem do I solve and which ones do I let go? And this scenario is repeated ad infinitum. There is no thinking ahead. There is only careening from one crisis to another.

Because that’s true. If you eat rice, and go without electricity for a year so that you can get some money in the bank, then your chances of being able to invest go up dramatically. People need to realize that without some income other than what the average person can earn, you wont have more money than the average person. Like when poor people spend their tax return taking the kids on vacation…if you’re poor, you should put that money into a drip plan for the kids, so that maybe they can have money later on. Fuck Disney World.

Someone bought me 1 share of southern company for 5 bucks when I was a kid. I ignored it and left it there for years, until I was about 28 or so. The 5 bucks had turned into 500 or more. Several splits, and years of appreciation. Now think about what would have happened if they had put 5 more dollars each month. But they didn’t. My parents were financially illiterate. But there’s no excuse for that now. Anyone can read the news, anyone can open a brokerage account with no minimum, and anyone can put aside a little cash each month if they work and have some discipline. If you’re drinking coca cola instead of water, and you don’t have any money to save, then you’re drinking your retirement and you’re an idiot.

If they earned a decent wage, they wouldn’t need someone to hand them $100. That’s my issue, them being underpaid from the get go.

Thinking ahead means that you started putting a little money in the bank years ago. Almost no one can honestly say that in the last 10 years they couldn’t have put at least something away. Like I save money and deny myself some things I could otherwise have, and you don’t. Then 10 years later, you want some money, so you ask the government to raise my taxes so that you can have some of what I saved. That’s just immoral.

:laughing:

Less painful to sell plasma every week or so. :laughing:

No they can’t (especially without electricity), but you are smarter than anyone (too bad less scrupulous…there’s that trade-off I guess) and you were coddled with stock which most aren’t. Plus, you wheel and deal…simple folks cannot effectively do that at all or on a scale that truly benefits them.

The only reason that a company is valuable is because it produces something. That requires that people work there and there is so sort of product coming from that work. Stock trading loses sight of that fact … a company becomes valuable simply because people want to buy the stock … it need not produce anything. Only picking up on the financial trends is important. Most financial instruments are now just ways for making money without making product.

The result is a society which is not based in anything tangible and it can collapse at any moment when enough people realize that there is nothing holding up the system. It’s a system of paper profits.

Exactly.

If you can post on ILP, you can read the news.

Coddled with $5 worth of stock? Did you read the post?

So Wendy, people who are able to wheel and deal should have to subsidize people who arent?

Seems like some people want the rewards but they don’t want the risk.