Why do we have poverty in America?

One theory: People are poor because they are lazy and won't take advantage of free resources, schools, public libraries and charities to get out of poverty. Since they won't event start to heop themselves, why should the rest of of us subsidize sloth. Another theory: Capitalism will always have casualities, because some people just can't keep up. That's the price to be paid for a free market economy. There will be losers. How do we keep them quiet and at what cost? Yet another theory: People at the top who have enough (define enough) ought to help those left behind, if for no other reason than to prevent massive social disorder. When X% of the population loses the hope that things will get better, they turn to new ideologies and, possibly, revolution. Can't happen hear. The New Deal was an effort to block the spread of communism. Wild theory: White people have fled cities in order to avoid any contact with Black people. OPEC ministers, many educated in the USA, know this and know that they can keep raising the price of oil, because we will not give up our cars and sprawl is a fact of life.

Since they won't even start to help themselves...

yeah right, I see starving inner city kids everyday - usually waiting in line for their Big Macs and supersized fries and coke at MacDonalds, right before noon - sometimes with the gold chains and 150 dollar sneakers

"But, compared to a lot of developed Western nations, we have some slum conditions in certain areas that rival the most impoverished nations on the earth."

LOL

Tell that to the beggars in Calcutta, India. Isn't it strange so many people trying to get to america, maybe they are all just deluded

Over 1000's of years and sometimes less, geographic variable weather seasonality (e.g a distinct 4 season climate) enhances creativity and intelligence, and its precisely why the great advances in civilizations have nearly all occured in temperate climates (e.g the pilgrims in america) vs equatorial based cultures who often are dis-incentivized to create and produce when food can derive from hunting or to some degree can grow naturally on trees, and shelter requirements (in such a warm climate) are minimal

Nearly every major country in the world has increased poverty rates as it concerns cultures that derive from equatorial regions.

In simple terms, "necessity is the mother of invention, and when you don't heve much necessity, you don't get much inventing, nor do you get a particularly high amount of brainpower"

Why do we have poverty? Some people only make minimum wage. That wage level may be defined as being in poverty in this country. There may be some instances where people are actually hungry but this country has government programs for food stamps and many charities willing to help those in need. I don't think poverty in this country is the same as in other countries. I think many of the people in poverty in this country may not want to work hard every day trying to get ahead and save money. They are ok with handouts from our government or from charities. Do I think the government should give these people money so they can go out and buy steaks and luxury type items with their food stamps? Not if they're doing it as a routine thing. I am aware some people are just hard up or unlucky and are just plain stupid and don't know how to get ahead or have too many kids to take care of. However I get an impression many of the people living in poverty would rather complain about it and go and get a government hand out rather than work and study and get out of poverty through their own hard work. Just my impression. Some are hard up and unlucky, many are just lazy. Maybe it's too easy to steal or get free government handouts. Just look at how many people took advantage of the government handouts after Hurricane Katrina. While many people desparately needed the money, some were out buying jewelry. Weeding out those deserving of assistance and those who need a different kind of assistance with getting training, now that's where our government should be focusing attention in my opinion. Health care costs are skyrocketing in this country and a single pill in the hospital can easily cost 20 dollars when you could have bought 2 or 3 bottles of the stuff outside the hospital. Just bringing an option for consumers to comparison shop hospitals based on costs and items you use might bring some change. Now with health care costs skyrocketing, someone wants the government to pay for it all. Sounds great if you're using the system and don't have to pay for a big hospital bill. Guess what, we will all be paying for those big hospital bills with no end in site. I'm not sure what the solution is. I think we need to start with getting market prices into the hospital care system instead of hospitals charging outrageous prices. Why does every single item in a hospital cost a fortune? I have no idea. If health care was more affordable, universal health coverage would be a lot easier for the country to take without bankrupting everyone. I guess I got off topic. Oh well.

I thought I would add, even though we have poverty in America, 12 million people came here illegally from another country because they thought there was a lot more opportunity here than at home. They are taking jobs working in the fields, picking our food so it doesn't rot on the vine, doing menial jobs I heard that most Americans don't want to or won't do. There is a real concern about having universal health care and suddenly paying for all the illegals (made legal) in our social security system and health care system. I'm actually ok with letting them into our system but it should cost them more to come here illegally than it does to legally come here. If anyone determines the amount, then just set up a payment plan. I don't know if the amount is 5,000, 10,000 or what it is. It needs to deter illegal immigration unless illegals are happy to pay more than they need to. If entering this country takes too long legally, then we need to fix that as well for people who would add to society here. Not that I'm in favor of any more outsourcing of jobs to foreigners either by moving a company overseas or bringing in foreign workers and firing the Americans because the company can save a buck. Perhaps one alternative to a payment plan for illegals is military service. Give them automatic citizenship for them if they are injured and unable to perform their duties anymore if that happened while working for our military. Many illegals think it is ok to do military service in support of our country as well. These are all problems we have but no one is leading the country in any meaningful discussions getting back public input and educating regular Americans about our choices. I for one do not know what the cost is to legally enter this country. If they work here, pay our taxes,and our paying for the social security tax now, they are already supporting this country and doing jobs that others legally in poverty are too lazy to do. Just a little extra 2 cent rant. I feel better now, I don't know about you.

Real simple, in a lot of ways mentioned. GIVE someone a home, or most anything, and the value of it to them is ZERO. Let them work, sweat, and bleed for the same item, and the value becomes infinite, to some degree.

Poverty has been around since the beggining of time. It's also bee evident in every economic style ever tried. The factors are limitless, and while I've never been to calcutta, I have been to some South American slums, and once, a refugee camp. If theres a place worse than those in the United States I would be trully surprised. Still there is no good answer. I can give you 100 reasons that have nothing to do with our economy, and then I can probably get you 100 reasons that respond directly to our economy.

I have only ever found one basic truth regarding wealth (maybe one of the few basic truths at all). Some peoples nature, regardless of race, creed or nationality, will not work or try to improve their station in life regardless.

And for the record, don't listen to Edwards about money. The guy got rich sueing doctors for things that were not their fault at all. Spends the money extremely lavisly, you should see his house, but still talks about he sympathizes with the regular people. Bullshit.

Same reason we have rich people in America.

You can't have a top without a bottom in our society...it's just that simple. The New Deal has been around a long time...it's popular...and it's here to stay. The idea that the poor are poor because they don't care either way is ridiculous. Ah yes, if only we could close the border down to stop those stupid people from the "equitorial regions" from coming...we would be all set then...yea right...

Did you know that between all our current "buddies" around the world (the USA, Canada, the UK, Kuwait, and Iraq) that we currently control a plurality of the oil production capacity in the world and nearly a majority of the oil reserves in the world?

Advocating more "free market" solutions to the health care crisis in this country is like a Medival barber prescribing more intense and longer bleeding sessions for a patient that refuses to get better after they have already been bled...it doesn't work! Our health care system is killing businesses here and it's helping to drive them overseas IMO. Oh yea, and medical malpractice is bullshit...I don't think so...

A lot of legal and illegal immigrants to this country already have family members in the military.

As an aside, I have been amazed at how politically conservative a lot of you guys are on this site. I'm surprised by that because I thought that people that were OK with sex, nudity, stripping, and prostitution would be more liberal-minded. I guess I was wrong...maybe you're all liberatrians? I should start a thread on that sometime.

Poor people tend to come from families with beliefs that perpetuate poverty.

"beliefs that perpetuate poverty."

like a never married woman having 3 kids and having 3 different fathers considering it normal

The problem with Book Guy's question is that an honest and accurate and complete answer requires presenting a response that does not fit the standard politically correct profile acceptable in mainstream america, something that Charles Murray (co-author of THE BELL CURVE) found out a decade back, and most recently a few months back when James Watson (co-developer of the original model of DNA) dared to bring up a controversial subject and was promptly run out of town and nearly entirely out of the academic and scientific community.

The point being: so why bother.

I thought "The Bell Curve" was widely dismissed as full of falsehoods and weak science. Like the Holocaust-deniers -- just hogwash.

But I don't mean to advocate for one type of poverty-fighting program or another. I'm just wondering what we did wrong in the USA, that a place like Denmark or Holland did not do wrong? Open our borders, have a history of agricultural economy based on slavery, indulge in too much of the New Deal? People generally respond here in this thread, that the poor are poor because of "their own fault", but my two examples (Calcutta: people who have BEEN THERE found it to be less impoverished than an American housing project; and, infnat mortality) simply CANNOT be the fault of the victims. Those two situations weren't really addressed. The example of McDonalds' kids doesn't ring true to me, either -- I've seen starving people in America, who try to work hard all day but then have social systems that are just tilted against them. Illiteracy, fer-instance -- you can't really blame an inner-city sixth grader for the fact that, when he studied, he nevertheless didn't get reading skills because his school was an abusive suck-hole.

Me? I don't know stuff about whether another New Deal will work or not. (And yeah, I know about Edwards' home in Georgetown. He was a class-action-lawsuit lawyer first, don't forget.) My question isn't, how to make certain individuals try harder. My question is more along the Jared Diamond lines -- what LONG-TERM CULTURAL influences led to the USA being amenable to a development of a "permanent under-class" (whether or not that class brought it on themselves) whereas other developed nations -- and many un-developed nations -- don't have this type of system in place. If we DO have a group who just have all decided, generation after generation, not to work hard enough, sure, let's blame those jerks for not pulling their wegith; but why do WE get stuck with them and Denmark does NOT?

I'm basically asking, since we in the USA have symptoms that are different from most other developed nations, and from some other un-developed ones, what is the thing that makes us stand out as different from those nations.

Perhaps you're just using Denmark and Holland as examples, but trust me they have poverty, all countries have poverty, some just hide it better than others.

Also, keep in mind, America is a huge country population wise. Look at the other big population countries, out of the top 10 the only ones with relatively solid economies are Japan and America (I refuse to include China). For a country with out population we have a great economy. Holland and Denmark are small old world countries with old world wealth, they don't open their borders so the population remains small. With plenty of resources and a small population the resources stay spread pretty well.

I could go on and on and on... Theres thousands upon thousands of reasons.

"I thought "The Bell Curve" was widely dismissed as full of falsehoods and weak science."

You might want to seriously rethink going to law school if you're really that gullible.

Is there a presidential election coming up? Christ! I just gotta' spend less time in my SC!

We still have poverty in America because poor people keep having kids. And since the only thing these parents know how to do is behavior that characterizes poverty, that's how their kids learn to live.

FONDL - you should see the movie Idiocracy. Pure genius.

So, for most on this thread, it's endemic to a certain sub-set of individuals, and their "home culture," that poverty is inculcated at the mother's (or great-auntie's) knee. I don't get why that doesn't happen in Holland. How come WE got stuck with these lazy sots? In the land of opportunity, you'd think people would stick up and try out some opportunity, wouldn't ya?

Note The Bell Curve (despite the firestorm it created) itself takes a relatively politically correct stance on the issue of ultimate causation - attributing it primarily to cultural factors, and to a large extent avoids asking the obvious question as to why some cultures are different than others.

I was thinking when it comes to the slums of New Orleans (the way it used to be), why work when it was just so much easier to steal? I bet they could strip your car in seconds there. Maybe that's Chicago. I know I've heard about places and watched a video demonstrating those abilities. Park a car along a street and the only thing left to your car after a matter of seconds will be the frame up on some blocks. Maybe they take the blocks away too now, I don't know. These people are superskilled at stealing. Me, I work years through demanding bosses, my own sweat and hard work to get enough money to pay for a car. Then others just come along and if they don't steal from you, they apparently think nothing of putting dents, dings, and scratches in other peoples vehicles. That costs a lot of money to get fixed as well. If it's not fixed, it reduces the value of your car. Some people really do not care. I'm thinking either they had things given to them so it means little or maybe they don't care about other people's property. I have a sister who works but she had little regard for her kids possibly damaging my property. We got into an argument. If you work for things, I don't really understand why she cared so little about damaging others people property. My only reasoning is because she deals with that in her work all the time so she's indifferent to people complaining and their concerns.

Perhaps some people are bitter and/or only concerned about their own well being. They don't give a damn about other people, their property, and anybody else's concerns or problems.

I remember reading some words of wisdom. When a politician says he wants to help you, watch out.

I believe some politicians may have a desire to help others which would help out with their own legacy at the same time. However, they may think of some big solution to a big problem and think one size fits all such as with health care. If you happen to have a size 12 shoe, tough luck because the one size fits all only goes up to 9. For instance Hillary could decide strip clubs are a nuisance to society and try to ban all of them. I noticed the states with liberal politicians have some of the toughest strip club restrictions. Conservative states seem to have looser restrictions. Maybe it's not true but I'm currently thinking it is. Besides I believe in supporting whomever views are closest to mine and has a decent chance of winning. Someone called me tonight and asked. I said I'm undecided.

Maybe I should talk about what views of Hillary and Obama I don't like so it can get more attention. For one thing, they want to restrict gun rights. Hillary wants everyone that has a gun to be required to have a license. We have a right to bear arms in the constition. Apparently she doesn't believe in that because the government is going down the path with licenses to restrict gun ownership. Obama wants some gun restrictions too but I forgot what those were at the moment. Then Hillary wants universal health care for everyone. Now I have health insurance but it doesn't pay anything past a certain percentage. I wouldn't mind having insurance that only had a deductible in case of something really bad happening. Otherwise I'm out thousands of dollars for anything the hospital charges past the percentage or the insurance company says "wasn't fair and reasonable for them to pay". Yeah, they make you pay more. Hospital charges outrageous fees, then your insurance company says "nope, won't pay it, not fair and reasonable". You get stuck. However what I don't want is to pay thousands of dollars into a universal health care system and be super restricted to doctors, medications, and/or left out pretty much but just get stuck with a bill payable to the IRS for universal health care coverage which wasn't any better than what I had before. But now everyone who wasn't working is covered. Yeah, there are suddenly covered by everyone who works for a living since they are too lazy to go and get a job themselves. Oh, since we're going to go bankrupt anyway, lets add 12 million more people. Sounds like a plan to help all of us working folks. Then we can all be in poverty and the government can just announce new poverty levels claiming we aren't. Oh well, enough of my rant.

This is a bit political, but I don't believe getting rid of Sadam Hussein was a mistake. Now it is questionable if the cost was worth it. One trillion or going close and lives lost and injured. I was wondering if it would have been better to let Sadam build up his militaries and develop nuclear weapons. He could have launched strikes at Eastern Europe and taken over the oil fields of the middle east if we weren't going to stop him anyway. Then oil prices would have been 6 or 9 dollars whenever he decide to take action. Recession talk would be replaced by depression talk and whether or not we were going to do anything about it. I guess the majority of people don't see it that way because it didn't happen. They don't even plan ahead enough to balance their own checkbooks. Taking out a major enemy of the US a mistake? Depends if he was counterbalancing another enemy or if he was the greater threat. In case you didn't know it, I do enjoy playing computer war strategy games. I don't think Sadam was as stupid as he was portrayed in the media. I don't think he thought the US was going to do anything and that sanctions would be dropped. Then he could have built up his military with some of the largest oil reserves on the planet. The US economy might have been as his mercy if he controlled oil prices. I'm speculating. Sorry if I offended anyone. I said this was political. Someone did a major underestimation of the cost of the war though. If we're in a prolonged war (not Iraq) but with enemies who want to destroy our economy and way of life, this country needs to defend from all major enemies. The economy needs to be strengthened and the national debt reduced with stronger growth and less government spending. I don't see how putting millions of people into entitlement programs is going to do that like Hillary and Obama want to do. Yet, we have problems.

IMO there are three main causes of poverty: (1) students who voluntarily forgo current income for greater future income, (2) young girls having babies out of wedlock, and (3) drug and alcohol addiction. Our governments have spent trillions of dollars to end poverty without result. Why suc poor results? Because government programs don't address any of these three causes, they only address the resulting symptoms. Which subsidizes and institutionalizes poverty. And when you subsidize anything you get more of it.

I have suggestions for solutions, then:

Better birth-control education and access, to the point that it's "accepted" culturally as the right rather than wrong thing to do, among all social conservatives (white or black) and also among the ghetto-male community (now'days, they tend to think that fathering an unwanted child makes them more rather than less of a man).

End the idiotic pay-for-extra system of welfare that we have now. If you have a second child out of wedlock after getting free money to take care of the first child, you don't get extra money, you just get your child taken away from you and given to a lonely couple in Iowa.

Educate. Everyone has to have ready access to certain basic skill sets: reading, sitting still, hygiene, politeness, appropriate clothing, verbal self-expression, basic arithmetic (heck, you can make a killing on the stock market with only add-subtract-multiply-divide, right?), how to balance a checkbook, find a doctor, read a clock and keep an appointment. Stop educating for "meaningful" things (literature of expanded horizons; Russian novels; art history; calculus; music; acting) and give only practical skills, all morning long. In the afternoons, kids can pick which "electives" to take at whichever school they can get to by (free?) bus ride. Eliminate public colleges that do not teach these items; crack down hard on "old boy networks" that require certain college connections for certain job access.

I think it starts with the young women. If they just gave all those boys blowjobs for any good behavior, rather than for BAD behavior, they'd learn quick. The girls are incredibly astute about manipulation (in a way I still don't understand; and I certainly could never do it) and they're the "custodians of the culture." They teach the boys to be irresponsible, and then raise more generations of boys like them.

I dunno. Just rambling on. Nobody yet has explained why we have problems that Denmark doesn't have (just using Denmark as an example). Sure, other developed Western nations have poverty, but not of this "permanent under class that brings it on itself" variety. What a burden for a government to have to bear, either by trying to solve it or by trying to make the participants solve it, or just by trying to manage it to the point that all the other business can go forward despite it (and preventing armed insurrection in the streets, in the process). Germany's politicians can contribute to its industrial infrastructure because they aren't fighting (as much of) the welfare battles (pro vs. con) that American politicians have to spend all their effort on -- making feasible solutions and stop-gaps, then making those solutions amenable to the certain group of voters that they would otherwise likely offend, and so forth. Or Denmark, or wherever.

We've got this "phenomenon" going on the USA more so than any other nation. Why us?

This is all pretty much waaaay off-topic, but anyways...

I don't think Hillary will be banning strip clubs anytime soon...lol...I should do a blog post on that. The most liberal strip clubs I've ever seen have been in Canada so far...outside of a few in RI anyways.

You don't have a Constitutional right to own a gun...that doesn't mean you shouldn't own a gun though. You have a Constitutional right to be part of a well-regulated militia to defend the USA, period.

A lot of us are already "restricted" now in which doctors and institutions we can go to to get covered health care. Nothing that I've heard in this campaign cycle would change that...for the worse or better. The more people are covered with health care insurance...the less of a cost shift there will be, which drives a lot of the rise in the cost of health care in this country.

Our good buddy Saddam was contained quite well (not that anyone cared about the plight of his people), and though he wanted to get WMDs...he had no way to do it since we (and the rest of the world) had his country by the balls before 2003. The idea that a Middle Eastern country that lives and breathes on oil money would "take out" oil reserves is just silly. Iraq wasn't even a threat to most of its own people before we invaded for no valid reason. All we did by taking out Iraq was build up Iran...whoops! ;)

Book Guy, Denmark doesn't have our problems because they don't have the diverse population that we do. Many other European countries now have the same problems that we do because they've let in tons of immigrants. Their cities now have the same problems that ours do.

Mister Guy, just out of curiousity, what would you have done in response to the mass hysteria that followed the 9/11 attacks on NY and DC, when the whole populace (including liberal Democrats and the liberal media) were screaming for the president to do something. If I recall correctly, when Bush announced his attack on Iraq, the entire Congress, including both Rs and Ds, rose up in cheerful support. It's the height of hyprocrisy for those same people to now say it was the wrong thing to do. Maybe it was, but the time to say so was 6 years ago, not now.

Kill Osama Bin-Laden and wipe out Al-Qaeda in Afganistan, which we didn't do unfortunately...now they've moved over to Pakistan (our supposed buddy that does nothing about them).

Bush lied to Congress and the American people about Iraq...he and the rest of the scum that serve him should be impeached for at least that much. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda. My entire congressional delegation voted against the war in 2002...so did a lot of others in Congress...we were right too...

And how might you have done that, since nobody has been able to find them. There hasn't been an attack on US soil since we invaded Iran and kept Al-Qaeda on the run. I'll bet we don't make it through the next president's term without another attack on US soil, especially if they withdraw our troops from Iraq. That will be interpreted as a sign of weakness throughout the Middle East. And rightly so.

MisterGuy, how many presidents can you name who haven't lied to the public, particularly when solidifying support for a war? Every president has done that. It's part of being a successful politician. Do you honestly think any of the people currently running for president aren't telling us lies all the time? How many presidents can you name who once they assumed office did what they said they were going to do? It's a short list.

It would have been easy in 2001-2002...we could have put more troops into Afganistan...surrounded the Taliban and Al-Qaeda & wiped them out. We had Osama at Tora Bora and we let our Afgan "allies" let him go. The U.S. commanders on the ground wanted more troops, but they didn't get them. I wonder why...hmmmmm...maybe so we could have Osama around to demonize and scare more people in the future?

There wasn't an attack on U.S. before 2001 since back to 1993 I beleive, and we didn't invade anyone in the Middle East as I can recall in those years. Al-Qaeda wasn't in Iraq before we invaded. Saddam and Al-Qaeda were enemies...they hated Saddam because he was too secular.

It's not weakness to acknowledge that your plan in the Middle East isn't working out and then changing it. It's called being smart, and it's what a majority of the American people want. You're buying into Dick Cheney's lies about "they might hit us again" if we don't continue to do what he and the rest of the neo-con dummies want us to do. Cheney's been wrong on every foreign policy decision he's been involved in since GWB stole his way into office.

I agree that all politicians lie...they unfortunately feel it a necessary part of their job...that doesn't make it right. Lying about BJs and lying about things that get us into wars that cost billions and billions of dollars and thousands of people killed is a tad different. I'm happy for you that you're OK with Bushy Boy lying and people dying... ;)

I'm not OK with any of it, I think it's wrong, which is why I favor less government - a lot less. But you mentioned impeachment - there are no grounds for impeachment, no laws have been broken, which are the only grounds for impeachment. The only recent president who broke laws was Clinton, which is why he's the only president to be impeached. His wife will probably be the next one. And your facts are totally wrong, you've been buying into the liberal lies. You don't seem to mind those.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. By any reasonable standard we don't.

AN: OK, I'm not really trying to argue that we do. I took it as "assumed." Let me ask the question differently, since I'm happy to modify.

Why, in America, is there a rather annoying "permanent underclass" of people who seem unable to "help themselves," whereas in many developed democracies, their ratio of people like that, relative to more normal people, is much smaller? What did the USA as a whole do wrong, historically, in a cultural or specific governmental manner, to engender such a divide?

I do think we have SOME poverty -- nothing like Bangladesh, where EVERYONE is poor. But in areas of Memphis, for instance, there are still infant mortalities (you can't blame the infant for having failed to try hard enough!) due to lack of access to basic services. The mothers SHOULD just get on a dang bus and go to Lubbock or Philadelphia, I know. I'm not saying they're totally smart and right to stick around there. But that is a form of poverty, that they're exhibiting. The difference is, that they're a small little segment of our population, only 1% or 2%, whereas Bangladesh is likely 99% like that.

I'm look less for an explanation of poverty, as for an explanation of the USA's differences from other similar nations. We did certain things in our history that led us to a "syndrome" that is now, for better or worse, a major national preoccupation and trouble spot. Every candidate has to deal with "how I'm going to handle poverty." Either hard-core work-fare, no more freebies; or better social aid programs; or greater entrepreneurial ventures; or whatever. But NONE of them will succeed by simply ignoring it, and it would take a genius at double-talk to manage to say "by any reasonable standard we don't have poverty in the USA" and not be scoffed at by most of the electorate. It's something they all are bound to deal with, like it or not, this perception that there's a "problem" to be solved. How did the USA develop this perception, and this difference? Why are Holland and Denmark blissfully relatively much more free from that kind of divide?

"Why, in America, is there a rather annoying "permanent underclass" of people who seem unable to "help themselves," whereas in many developed democracies, their ratio of people like that, relative to more normal people, is much smaller? What did the USA as a whole do wrong, historically, in a cultural or specific governmental manner, to engender such a divide?"

Why do you find this question such a mystery?

I would say 10% of the answer is that the United States is that a bit less socialistic and more capitalistic than these democracies, particularly scandavian and european countries

However the other 90% is obvious.

This is not a complicated question EXCEPT if you somehow have to answer it only in politically correct terms, which by definition requires us to pretend various groups have nearly precise innate GROUP abilities and aptitudes- which in fact is nonsensical, except in the fantasy world of academia

However I don't agree with using the term "annoying" in this context

The welfare populations in the United States in reality is vastly overrrepresented by both african -american and (2nd generation) hispanic groups - way beyond the population percentages. Put the same percentages of these 2 groups in these other demoracies and then judge how large the permanent underclass is

Some DEVELOPED DEMOCRACIES

JAPAN -highly homogeneous

SCANDAVIAN COUNTRIES - highly homogeneous

CANADA - far more homogeneous than United States

EUROPEAN COUNTRIES - typically more homogeneous than america, in recent years, major problems with muslim groups in for example France.

GREAT BRITIAN - more homogeneous than america, with increasing problems

AUSTRALIA - far more homogeneous than america

I think Andrew Jackson was impeached too in the 1800s. There are so many laws that this Bush Cabal has violated that I could go blue in the face from shouting them. How about the laws that said it was illegal to spy (the NSA wiretaps) on Americans without a warrant? Illegal torture, in violation of U.S. and International Law. Revoking Habeas Corpus, secret arrests, etc., etc., etc.

Where have I told a "liberal lie" on this board?

If you haven't gotten the answer to your question about poverty in the USA by now Book Guy...you're never gonna get it here IMO...

"How about the laws that said it was illegal to spy (the NSA wiretaps) on Americans without a warrant? Illegal torture, in violation of U.S. and International Law. Revoking Habeas Corpus, secret arrests, etc., etc., etc."

your knowledge of law is infantile

There was a good show about this on Frontline tonight:

pbs.org

Frontline which presents itself as an objectively based documentarian nearly always engages in far left propaganda, and I don't believe (on the shows I've seen at least)I've ever seen them even make a minimal attempt to present any balance to such matters, for example in regards to the Bush administration. Ironically before I became a lawyer several decades ago, I too was a liberal, but at this point I can easily seperate the bullshit from the reality, something people with little knowledge of the law can find very difficult.

blog,blog,blog,blog,blog,blog,blog,blog,blog,blog LOL

If we took all the money in private hands in the country and divided it up equally among all the adults, how long do you think it would take before the situation returned to something resembling what we have now? That's why there's poverty.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to figure out the connection of strippers to the topic "poverty in america" issue. BookGuy, my answer about 7 posts back I think you will find as pretty much mainstream among objective non-PC commentators. The USA is extremely multi-cultural, and that status confers both benefits and disbenefits - so we by definition carry the welfare load of certain groups that (for whatever reason) have have a nearly intractable need for government assistance. Note "welfare reform" when dealing with the hardcore welfare groups to a large extend has hit a stone wall, instead having cherry picked the easy demograpahic groups and ended up having relitively less sucess with these other groups.

Hey Dave, in the immortal words of probably one of your biggest heros, Sen. Phil Gramm from TX, why don't you get out of the cart and start pushing/pulling like the rest of us, we've all been pulling you along for far too long...post a fucking strip club review!! Have you even been to a strip club?!

MisterGuy - go fuck yourself OK

LOL!!! Will do Dave-o...I haven't done that in a while actually...lol...

Dave9999: so your culprit is, largely, multi-culturalism or a variety of ethnic groups. I agree that (my perennial example) Denmark does not have this condition to the extent that the USA does. But at the same time, immigration was a great boon to America's economic engine, right? (PS -- Canada and Australia are getting rather heterogeneous lately, especially the cities.)

I like the thought experiment, of taking ALL the wealth, equally dividing it, and then seeing how long it would take before the current situation re-created itself. Don't you think (though) that old-boy connections would have something to do with it? I mean, an inner-city kid who might have been a whiz at finance, and would have wanted to give it a go, simply wouldn't know much about amortization because he's not literate because his damn school sucks. Don't you feel like he deserves some kind of "escape clause" in order to provide a level playing field for him? Or at least, not a TOTALLY un-level one, where he can KIND OF get a chance?

I have to admit, I used to be a real conservative. Then a real liberal. Then a real conservative again. Then I learned something about separating out the propaganda from the myths from the common sense, and I just decided I can't decide any more. I'm sick of "the poverty problem." I like Johnathan Edwards because he answers journalist's questions with straightforward claims, rather than blathering something about "hope" and "future" and "glory" and "love" and other generalizations. I'm well aware, however, that he's a multi-millionaire who made his money "off the backs of" those members of class-action law suits whom he represented. It's all very well and good for him to claim he stands up for the little guy against corporate greed (and I do agree with him that corporations are selling our country out, right now), but when he makes oodles of profit in the process, you can't really claim that he's doing the standing-upping out of totally altruistic motives.

What I want, is to live in a place where there just aren't freeloaders any more, and there is no need for candidates for major office to address the issue of poverty. We have little kids who starve IN UTERO, and who die from malnutrition, on the streets of (another example I've already used) Memphis. I dunno, I got plenty, I try to give those kids a little extra (in political theory, if not in real practice). It's not THEIR fault that mommy's a clueless damned crack ho. I would really like for a government debate to be free, utterly, from the question of "helping" the destitute (or aiding them in helping themselves; or cutting off the help because we've given them this much and they haven't done jack shit with it; or figuring out how the economy will help them more than the government ever will; or giving them jobs; or taking their jobs away; or whatever). I find it an intractable, unsolveable problem, it bothers me, I want to move on from it.

As with race relations. I'm so fucking sick of hearing that America has a race problem. No we don't. We have different races, and sometimes certain INDIVIDUAL members of those given races choose to play the race card inappropriately. We don't have a race problem, we have a problem with a bunch of individuals. You can't "change" race, no human is going to change color overnight; therefore, race itself is NOT A PROBLEM that we should be addressing.

In similar vein, I'm fucking sick of hearing about poverty and the needy and economic this and that. I want to hear about Iraq. I want to hear about what the fuck we're going to do with our soldiers in Afghanistan that's going to catch that motherfucker Osama and drag him kicking and squealing across 5,000 miles of burning, jagged, sand and rocks with his damn dialysis machine dangling by its tubes behind him. Then I want to tell Russia to shut the fuck up and get a clue, Putin is a dictator. Send the troops to Moscow! After that, we need to hire all those bastards in Bangalore and Rawalpindi who are doing our companies' telephone customer service and MAKE THEM TALK SENSIBLE ENGLISH.

I got a call from Dell computer. I genuinely could not understand what the shit the dude was saying. "Bis eez Boggoddobboggoff bid Bill Bermuda." Really, I thought he said "Bill Bermuda." He said "Dell Computer."

Grr.

I agree that Putin is bad, but send troops to Moscow? Do you want to start another war...this time with nuclear weapons?

OK guys, here's a connection between stripping and poverty. My ATF comes from a family where nobody works and everybody is an alcoholic or drug addict or both. But the interesting thing is that none of them are poor, not even close. I have no idea how they do it except that they seem to know how to milk all the various government programs. From which I conclude that if anyone is poor in our country it's their own damn fault, there are more than enough government programs to keep them from being poor if they only take the time to pursue them. I think a lot of strippers come from families like my ATF's, so maybe we should be glad there are such families.

FONDL ... that's the group I least respect in the world, the "expert freeloaders."

In High School, most kids learn that, if they don't do the work they're likely to do poorly in the class. Some teachers are push-overs, some teachers require hard work, some teachers have their favorites. The kids learn pretty quick how to work each teacher according to his or her preferences. But then there are always a few who figure out the "tricks," and seem more interested in tricking a teacher than in learning the subject. They put in ten times as much work into cheating on a test with some elaborate mnemonic blackboard game posted on the ceiling; or by signaling with hand-gestures across the room; ten times more work to set these cheat systems up, than they would have had to put in simply to actually learn the material. They get to be experts at "getting rewarded the wrong way."

To me, it is hardly worth it to learn to manage the Welfare office, and deal with case workers, and go wait in line in dusty government agencies. I'd rather just go to an office and get some sick days for it. These free-loaders have some kind of weird expertise at the "wrong" way to get ahead. If they'd just put all that energy and knowledge into becoming welfare-advocacy lawyers, they'd make a mint. Or just a normal job as a social worker. Geez.

And there's always the pride, the arrogance. "Who are THEY (the government) to NOT give me what I DESERVE (want). How can THEY DARE to not give me MY CHECK (that I didn't work for." Etc. Working themselves up into a fervor of disenfranchisement and self-righteous indignation about it, so they can disregard the fact that they don't actually work for the money in the first place.

Did you know, however, that the most likely member of this group is a young white male from Iowa? :)

Send troops to Moscow? OK, that was a bit much.

RE: MG 1-15 post correction: It was ANDREW JOHNSON, not Andrew Jackson that had impeachment hearings held against him in 1868. The votes required to convict him fell ONE Vote short of required 2/3 majority (35-19).

Sorry Minnow...thanx...

Book Guy, I agree with you, it seems like working for a living would be easier than dealing with all the government BS. My point was that there are enough government assistance programs that no one needs to be poor. And also that I bet that a lot of strippers were raised in families of professional freeloaders, which accounts for their attitudes and expectations to some extent.

And in case you were wondering, my ATF isn't like that at all, she doesn't respect freekiaders either. She's a very hard worker. Which is really surprising given her background. It's one of the things that I find fascinating about her.

Woops, meant "freeloaders" not "freekiaders." Although in the cse of my ATF's family, freekaiders might be an apt description for some of them.

The sad part about all this is that it seems to me a lot of government programs are encouraging more expert freeloaders not fewer. Poor people are penalized for working.

Agreed, I think there are basically three or four "poor" groups in America. (I put the word in quotes because there's some contention about whether or not we really have poverty. I agree, it is a contestable proposition. But, just go with it for a minute ...)

First group, the welfare geniuses. They have figured out, according to subtle personal mathematics which they employ daily, that it works out better for them to learn to get government payments of a variety of methods, than it does to have one regular job they have to go to every day. I sympathize with them, in the fact that I'd rather have a variety of experiences than just one; so, in so far as they're "working" for their money, they do get to go to a variety of different offices, have a variety of different people in power over them, have a variety of different times of day to get up, a variety of different types of problems (all of them falling under the "bureaucratic" aegis) to solve. I (of course) don't sympathize with them, in the fact that they aren't actually CONTRIBUTING anything positive to society. They learn to get stuff out of people for the fact of doing nothing. Having done nothing, means they didn't contribute, they just got paid. But then, there are plenty of folks in good cushy office jobs who've slipped through the cracks and figured out something quite similar ... right?

Second, the mentally ill. Really, there are folks who just "don't get it" in their brains somehow -- a chemical imbalance, etc. These are hard to diagnose and fix, and since Reagan limited public access to that type of free government-assisted health care, I'd say most of them are on the streets again. They pose a problem for poverty advocates, because their issues aren't socio-economic, but rather medical.

Third, the "noble disgruntled desperate." Imagine a waitress in a Lexington diner. She gets paid minimum wage, receives no health care coverage, cannot afford to maintain a car. She works 8 to 10 hour shifts to help her kids get school supplies. She must hitch-hike or get a lift from a friend (no possible public transport to get her from the trailer park near the railroad, out to the diner at a highway interchange; the interchange itself is over a mile wide, for example). She wants to do well but cannot because she believes in the value of hard work, so unfortunately ends up volunteering herself to work hard. She probably lacks education and even some major simple life skills -- perhaps cannot drive, or is only semi-literate, or is dyslexic but never diagnosed, or has become addicted to some drug (generally an upper rather than a downer, she started it to maintain energy for more work). These people I sympathize with. I'm sure we all do. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about them in "Nickel and Dimed." There's no actual digging out of debt and poverty, because the work itself fails to pay for the work expenses. I can't blame many out-of-work folks who have a cush set-up living with auntie and watching "Hogan's Heroes" all day, because the next step UP the employment ladder in America is often this disastrous situation which nothing more than a hole digging itself deeper.

Another group, the "poverty culture," is a mish-mash of items one and three (1: welfare queens; 3: desperate but noble). New Orleans was full of that sort, largely thanks to the "country" and "ghetto" cultural areas (where whites feared to tread ...) before the storm. The free-loaders in there (item 1: welfare queens) I have no sympathy for, yet you never really know whether you're dealing with a 1 or a 3 -- each can so rapidly transmogrify into the other, almost overnight, depending on a few random circumstances. Accidental pregnancy, or losing an uninsured car in a wreck (or a flood), or getting evicted from the house they were squatting in (so, having to pay rent, thus losing 90% of their income overnight), etc. The slope is steep and slippery.

I sometimes make the mistake of assuming that ALL poverty-stricken people (aside from the mentally ill; I think they're a different bag) are in the "noble but desperate" camp. But I think a lot of people in America make the opposite mistake, of assuming they're all in the "welfare free-loader" camp. I'm not qualified to identify the real percentages, and of course they're always up for debate. But I'd have to say that of all the Katrina refugees I knew or met personally, 99% were of the good guys. Most had two jobs but still couldn't afford a car. All the poor people I know work a helluvalot harder than I ever have.

Can anyone name a single government program that works as it was intended? How about one that did what was intended and then ended? I do not count the military as a "program".

The invasion of Normandy during WWII was a government program that eventually worked the way it was intended.

Most voting days work as they're intended. Early November, 2000 did not, but that's just one out of thousands.

The guys who pick up my trash twice a week are part of a program that works as it's intended.

The downtown criminal district court has a backlog, but every single case gets tried according to due process, and in no occasion is anyone denied the right to appeal on just grounds. That works as it's intended.

There are interstates from here to Hattiesburg that are well-maintained, of smooth, two-lane asphalt. When there are wrecks, the troopers warn the traffic so that there won't be a pile-up. When there are pot-holes, construction crews organize a way to redirect traffic before repairing; then they repair on a tight schedule. Right alnog how they intended.

Yesterday I got in the mail the notice for renewal of my annual car license-plate sticker ("registration"). The US postal service delivered it just as intended.

Damn, people, we're all depending on government infrastructure ALL THE TIME. This notion that we ought to be left "free" of government intrusion? Where the hell would we be without streets, sewer pipes, police forces? Generally I don't experience much "intrusion" from those people at all. I WANT sewerage service, thank you. And sidewalks to cover it up, rather than just open gutters like in ancient Rome ... bleccchh.