10 Poverty Myths, Busted

reply to post by Xtrozero

Work smarter is the secret to it all

Yepper, and as a species, with this corrupt system, we seem to keep doing things dummer, and dummer.

We have blown through the planets oil reserves in about a century to keep the wheels of commerce going through planned obsolescence, to enrich a few pickles who couldn't get laid without dollar bills hanging out of their pockets apparently.

But no, all the problems of the world are because of poor people.

Interest based banking is the only PROBLEM we have in society.

When they say that the average Canadian is carrying $35,000 in debt, what that really index is the average amount of assets per capita. If ALL the debts were paid back THERE WOULD BE NO MONEY. In fact we would still be on the hook for the interest.

Population grows daily, as should the amount of money - free of interest - that is SPENT, NOT BORROWED into the economy.

This system was designed when the average literacy rate was around 5%. Now that everyone knows how to read it makes NO sense why they would play along. If you have drawn a mortgage (death pledge,) or drawn any sort of lune of credit, then you are complacent and have agree to the slavery your people live in. Don't sacrifice dreams fkr small pleasures.

poet1b
reply to post by Xtrozero

 

Work smarter is the secret to it all

Yepper, and as a species, with this corrupt system, we seem to keep doing things dummer, and dummer.

We have blown through the planets oil reserves in about a century to keep the wheels of commerce going through planned obsolescence, to enrich a few pickles who couldn't get laid without dollar bills hanging out of their pockets apparently.

But no, all the problems of the world are because of poor people.

by dummer and dummer do you mean "more dumb"?

Well why are you dumb enough to keep buying oil? Buy a horse and buggy. Live like the Amish, if you really want to "stick it to the man" just don't buy what the man sells. That includes coal for electricity to run your computer for you to get on the corporate owned internet.

What corporation owns your internet provider service? Really stick it to the man and don't buy his stuff.

MALBOSIA
Interest based banking is the only PROBLEM we have in society.

Thank goodness. I thought it was much more complex.

reply to post by Halfswede


Sure you can argue till your blue in the face about a million points of society. I prefer to keep it simple. Why try and fix a bunch of issues when you can change the overlaying issue above all others that will correct them selves. Prove me wrong.

reply to post by lynxpilot

Firstly, I didn't judge, I just brought up an irony. Nextly, I speak from the experience of not knowing where the next meal was coming from or if I could pay rent. That was while I was going through university to get a degree in a marketable field which was not one I was particularly interested in but was what I needed to be employed. And when I was employed, I was paying back student loans, so I wasn't much better off for several years. And I did without any luxury, because I didn't have the entitlement attitude and didn't feel particularly that I 'deserved' any.

Bitter much?
Wait a minute. So because you made yourself suffer to obtain a job you think that gives you the right to judge Lucinda or others? Am I understanding you correctly?
So did I, no help,& 2 little girls. But that does not give me the right to judge anyone either, especially not knowing their full personal circumstances.

reply to post by WarminIndy


or I meant dumber and dumber, but chose to add in some sarcasm.

I am not seeing how my not participating in the market sticks it to the man.

A better answer is to work towards a social evolution that eliminates these giant ancient corporate vampires.

reply to post by MALBOSIA


I agree it is a big part of the problem, but fixing that problem is much more complicated.

At the very least we need to reinstate laws that restrict the amount of interest that can be charged, and strip down bankrupcy enforcement laws, so that lenders have the kind of risk that makes them more weary when it comes to loaning out money.

Massive debt forgiveness would be a great way to go at this time.

poet1b
reply to post by MALBOSIA

 

I agree it is a big part of the problem, but fixing that problem is much more complicated.

At the very least we need to reinstate laws that restrict the amount of interest that can be charged, and strip down bankrupcy enforcement laws, so that lenders have the kind of risk that makes them more weary when it comes to loaning out money.

Massive debt forgiveness would be a great way to go at this time.

Money lending itself is not the problem. Lending out more than what is in reserves is the problem and the problem of THAT is not even inflation. The problem is how sweet of a deal it is to people who owe nothing to anyone. The out-of-balance profits afford waaay too much influence over any (and potentially ALL) industry effecting mankind.

Any attempt by government to squash it in over 100 years has been met with unlimited funding and even assassination.

If the people you elected had the power to prop up any industry, that would fulfil promises made by experts in fields not clubs, there could actually be some change. Run at a loss.... who cares? What is a share holder? The elected government supplies us with the funding we need for progressive and sustainable ventures. "You can take your stay home and do nothing money and stick it where the sun don't shine. "

Double post


I have been looking for the Canadian governments ledger. A balanced book.

Are the books public? Both sets?

I don't "know" what causes poverty worldwide or even nationwide but I can see what has caused the "poverty" in my own extended family. They all grew up in the same environment, they attended the same schools and had the same opportunities. The very large difference is that some made bad choices, exercised poor judgement and refused to learn from their mistakes. Those who exercised discipline and worked hard are doing well. Those who "purchased" (obtained credit for) $50k vehicles and plasma TVs instead of paying the mortgage aren't doing so well. The one who took a mortgage on an inherited, paid-for home to take a nice Florida vacation isn't doing well because that evil banker who loaned her the money wants her to repay it. Now, somehow, it has become her parents' obligation to repay the banker for that mortgage she took to go on vacation and they are evil and wicked if they can't see that her bad choices were actually the parents' fault. This despite the fact that the parents advised against taking a mortgage to pay for a vacation!
I fully understand that we all do stupid stuff from time to time. I've done stupid-cubed in youth. The difference between me and the generation following mine is that I never expected others to pay for my stupidity.
Then there's the couple who bought the $400k home in 2007 despite seeking advice from their elders and being told that the house wasn't worth anywhere near the asking price. They were advised to wait a year or so, save up some more money during that year and watch what happened when the bubble burst. Instead they went to a 27 year-old banker who assured them that they were getting a great deal because they could deduct the interest from their home loan on their income tax! Yeah, pay a banker $10k in interest to avoid $3k in taxes---sounds like a real deal to me. Then, when the crash came they were $135k upside-down on the house and it was the evil bankers' fault that they didn't listen to the reasonable advice of their elders....after all, they had worked for three years in their chosen profession and they "deserved" a nice home, a home far nicer than their parents ever had because the parents lived frugally, put away money in college funds to put those precious children through school without loans...saved for retirement. And because they have "money put away" they should be obligated to pay for the stupidity of the children they raised.... That generation of my family, a goodly percentage of them at least, have no shame when it comes to attempted robbery of the money their parents worked to earn and save.
I'm simply don't understand it because as young people growing up they were taught that if they wanted something, work was the means to acquire their desires. They all held jobs as teenagers but somehow, once they left the nest, that idea just flew from their empty heads and the idea of taking a second or even third job, like many of us did when times got tough during the Carter years, is totally anathema to them.
I'm all for a hand up when someone hits a rough patch, no matter what the cause but conversations like this one just turn me cold.
Broke person: "Hi, I need $150 to pay my electric bill, can you help me out?"
Me: "Sure, I've got some a lot of outdoor work that needs doing, some mowing and weeding and moving brush piles. Come on by this weekend and I'll pay you $10/hour to help me get it done."
Broke person: "Oh, man, I really need a loan, I can't work this weekend because some of my buddies are heading down to Nashville for a football game."
Me: "Sorry, man, I'm not a bank. I'm a big believer in the axiom, "The borrower is slave to the lender" and I'm not in the business of collecting slaves. Now, do you want to pay your electric bill or see a football game?"
Broke person: "Hey, that's pretty harsh isn't it?"
Me: "Life is. I'll be glad to help you out if I see evidence of you attempting to help yourself but if you insist on going to a football game instead of working for money to pay your electric bill, you'll be sitting in the dark."
But that's just mean ole me, thinking that personal responsibility is important in life.

Daughter2

hammanderr
I love when someone complains that a corporation avoided taxes and insinuates that that's the same as a worthless layabout collecting benefits. Go to a crappy neighborhood and take a look at all the grown men hangin out in the middle of the day, doin nothin. "

It only took three pages for the standard "I drove through a bad neighborhood" comment. Yes, tell me your drive through is proof social services should be cut off.

Perhaps they are hanging out because they are teenagers or maybe they work night shifts? Or maybe it's because people like you only hire your buddies friends and relatives? It's not called discrimination - it's called networking but it works the same way.

Good old boys like you hire your golf/hunting buddies kid for that good entry level position. Then they hire your cousin.

By the way, most of those "worthless" people who collect benefits are children, disabled or elderly.

Corporations just don't try to avoid taxes, they actually get tax credits and manipulate government regulations.

Yes and it only took you three pages to call someone a "good old boy" (code word for bigot). Next you'll be calling the people on this thread that don't agree with you racists. I've got your play book.

Hire relatives? Perhaps. But you're right it doesn't make any sense to hire people that actually show up and want to work. I guess what I should do is drive to a slum or a section 8 neighborhood and try to hire a person who has no desire or drive. I'll make you a deal, you go to the slum in the middle of the day and pick me up some of those young, virile men you think so highly of. Tell them you're looking for some guys to put in a hard days work, let me know how that goes. No doubt they'll be unavailable, probably all working the "night shift."

Oh yes and I love your demonization of people that utilize networking, "discrimination" you called it. Yeah, because the real problem in this country are all these employers hiring all these people.

hammanderr
I guess what I should do is drive to a slum or a section 8 neighborhood and try to hire a person who has no desire or drive.

This is why it's so hard for people to pull themselves out of poverty. Too many people like you have this type of mentality. They get turned down just based on their address and appearance.

Yes, people in slums and in Section 8 housing want to work.

In fact, MOST of them do work 40 hours!

A lot of the responses don't really address the myth, some do.

reply to post by diggindirt


diggindirt

Excellent examples. But it sounds like you and I come from a different generation than most of the posters on here.

I graduated from High School in 1985. The expectation for me since I started Kindergarten was that I was to finish school. I was told that to get into a good college that I had to take tougher classes, so I did. But the expectation was that I had to work hard to achieve something better, because I was born and raised in poverty.

I didn't get to go into the military, but I tried. I was too short for any branch. But my brothers did and they served, even when Clinton's military cuts affected them. But knowing what poverty was, I wasn't going to live in that any more. It was up to me. So I took those hard classes, because we were told that it was better to get a C in the hard classes than get an A in the easy ones. And get this, I graduated very well, even with Dyslexia and severe Dyscalculia. I can't count, by I made sure that I read War and Peace when I was 13 years-old, simply because I was told it was a big and difficult book. But I read it, even with the Dyslexia. It took me three months to get through it and when I was finished, I laid it down with pride because I had accomplished something, myself.

Even with severe Dyscalculia, I still managed to teach my brother something about 2nd grade math. But you want to know what was the best thing I heard from one of my siblings was? I was told by one brother that his interest in Physics was sparked by hearing me attempt to explain to my other brother about math. These two brothers went on to achieve something greater, one retired a few years ago from the Navy as a 2nd Lieutenant. He chose to take the hard road, he became a Medical Examiner in the Navy and worked at Walter Reed and Bethesda. Then he finished 12 years, took four years off for university, went back into the Navy through Officer's Candidate School and used his degree in history from Northwestern University to study law in the Navy, he became a JAG.

The other brother was in the Air Force, became a navigator and then went on to work at NASA and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He got his Physics degree from University of Louisiana. Another brother who went into the Air Force got his degree from Indiana Wesleyan and now works for the State of Indiana Department of Jobs and Family Services as the guy who represents the state in Medicaid hearings.

My youngest sister who was 13 years younger, listened to me tell her stories from whatever books I was reading. That sister today has published two books, was a featured guest on a nationally syndicated radio show about economics, twice. And now this sister is assistant editor of a regional magazine in Hamptons Road, Virginia.

Me, I worked and then was struck down by MS. But the one thing about my siblings and I, we came from the same deep poverty and grew up on welfare because my dad refused to work. And he used the same excuses I hear people say today. But for people to try to tell me that they can't achieve something because the government banks make it hard for them....well let me tell you, that brother who retired a few years ago, when he was in Northwestern and married with a little girl, he worked three jobs and his wife left him because she thought he needed to be home more. He struggled to get through college.

Now in my family are 3 with Master's Degrees, one is married to a man with a Master's Degree and the rest have worked hard for their children. So don't tell me it's the government. My mom once asked my brother when he was a JAG in the Navy just how he managed to accomplish what he did, his answer "I did the jobs no one else wanted to do" and worked his way up.

reply to post by WarminIndy


Thank you for your story, it must be hard to talk about it. I hear what you say. I am a bit older, born in 51, worked from 1968 to 2007. Just when we were thinking about retirement after 40 years of being a nurse aide and my husband poured concrete for 40 years, WHAM-O. My husband was struck with Guillian Barre (similar to MS but comes on acutely). He went from being a 57 yr old laborer to paralyzed and on life support for six weeks.

We lost everything by the time it was over. Home, jobs, insurance, savings, but he did live.

So now we rent and have no material possessions to show for our hard work. Sometimes, I wonder why we were not fishing instead of giving our lives over to hard labor.

poet1b
reply to post by supermouse

 

However, corporate tax avoidance keeps my expenses down. We pay 25 billion pounds less than otherwise for goods and services, thanks to the tireless efforts of the heroic tax accountants in these firms.

Heroic tax accountants? Heroic bean counters?

Do you really think those corporate tax beaks go into lower prices?

OR, to bigger bonuses?

It generally goes to a mixture lower prices and higher wages, depending on the pricing power within the market sector.

So, as well as saving us money it promotes equality. 25 billion less for the overpaid public sector to spend AND more money for the relatively lower-paid private sector.

Are you against greater equality and lower prices for some reason?

supermouse

poet1b
reply to post by supermouse

 

However, corporate tax avoidance keeps my expenses down. We pay 25 billion pounds less than otherwise for goods and services, thanks to the tireless efforts of the heroic tax accountants in these firms.

Heroic tax accountants? Heroic bean counters?

Do you really think those corporate tax beaks go into lower prices?

OR, to bigger bonuses?

It generally goes to a mixture lower prices and higher wages, depending on the pricing power within the market sector.

So, as well as saving us money it promotes equality. 25 billion less for the overpaid public sector to spend AND more money for the relatively lower-paid private sector.

Are you against greater equality and lower prices for some reason?

Can you please show me the Socialist Utopian society that has ever existed? In the Pre-Bolshevik Revolution, Karl Marx hooked everyone by saying "We will ALL be equal", then Russians who bought into that ended up in greater starvation and slavery, but they were all equal. Yes, they equally starved, except for Stalin.

The problem you are forgetting is the condition of the human ego. There was never a Utopia. There never will be. Why? Because for those in power who still want to eat but not plant, someone is going to have to be forced to be the farmer.

Socialism is a pyramid scheme, you know this is true, and yes, everyone at the bottom is equal to each other.

reply to post by WarminIndy


Full socialism will never work, just as full capitalism would never work, although certain collective elements can be implemented well in otherwise capitalistic systems - creating a certain hybrid - socialism for the needs, capitalism for the wants.

Just a few more common ones:
Universal healthcare has proven itself in most advanced nations.
No for-profit education is working very well in Nordic nations, especially Finland.
Strong social systems have proven themselves, eliminating extra worry from life.

Generally speaking, at the current moment, among advanced nations, the amount of different social systems is correlated with having lower debt. All Nordic nations tend to have significantly lower national debt than other advanced nations...

Privatising everything is possibly the worst thing any country could do. At the end, the profit initative leads to profiteering from even the most basic needs and in order to maximise the profit, costs are set according to the demand, rather than going for no-profit way. Setting the prices as low as possible in order to keep in balance, rather than setting the prices so that the profit would maximise.

reply to post by WarminIndy


"Because for those in power who still want to eat but not plant, someone is going to have to be forced to be the farmer."


Most excellent point. Since the bottom already know how to live in a deprived state, they have adapted to not needing non essentials. All we really need is shelter and food. The bottom are always prepared to die, medical care if they get it is a plus. It would be a much better system for the bottom, no matter where they are, to group together and grow their own food. Then one of many low paying jobs could cover shelter. That would be a low stress good life.

Then the top could have the rest to themselves and grow their own food, if they know how. And the top could keep passing the same old money around and around and around and cooking the books with their tax accountants. That sounds sane.