The Real Reason Poverty Exists

a reply to: Puppylove
All that is pretty much provided in the UK already. If one is frugal it can be an easy life on benefits here doing nothing but telling lies to the benefit agencies. I have a couple of mates who do just that, know many folk who do, lazy bastards but hey.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: Edumakated

You and others like you are under the delusion that such places aren't included when poverty is mentioned. We have in this world the resources and workforce necessary to provide basics for everyone while still incentivizing enough people to work to keep this maintained.

And how many wars are you asking us to fight to include all those others places under your utopian regime because their tinpot despots are not submitting quietly.

originally posted by: ladyinwaiting
Our society cannot function smoothly without the working classes. Which means we are going to have to raise the minimum wage to sustain and support families.

Don't worry greedy people. They will still be poor, but they will be able to pay the monthly bills and take the kids for movies and pizza once in a while, and have a car that doesn't break down once a month. They can't do that now.

Kind of irks some of you doesn't it?

RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE

Ummm, you don't get it.

In Econ 101 we learned that there is a floor to wages. If you artificially raise the floor, it does not happen in a vacuum. Everything else goes up with it to compensate.

In effect, $15 becomes the new $7.50 before you know it and pretty soon the burger flippers are striking for $20 an hour.

a reply to: grainofsand

By whom is it provided ? By corporations, they are the ones who produce things, and they love governments and people on benefits because it is a never ending source of demand for their products, thus money and power.

The solutions for getting out of this never ending cycle of manipulation is to give to people the means to produce their own sustainability, by giving to the people access to the same technologies that corporations use. See this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: gosseyn
a reply to: grainofsand

By whom is it provided ? By corporations, they are the ones who produce things, and they love governments and people on benefits because it is a never ending source of demand for their products, thus money and power.

The solutions for getting out of this never ending cycle of manipulation is to give to people the means to produce their own sustainability, by giving to the people access to the same technologies that corporations use. See this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

Ghandi argued that every citizen of India should be self-sufficient, and he doomed India to decades of ignorance and poverty.

In short, as evil as you deem it, specialization of labor allows us the leisure and leeway to make advances in knowledge and actually enjoy life rather then subsist on the margins spending every waking hour of our short, brutal existence attempting to scratch a living in the dirt producing everything we need to survive.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: gosseyn
a reply to: grainofsand

By whom is it provided ? By corporations, they are the ones who produce things, and they love governments and people on benefits because it is a never ending source of demand for their products, thus money and power.

The solutions for getting out of this never ending cycle of manipulation is to give to people the means to produce their own sustainability, by giving to the people access to the same technologies that corporations use. See this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

Ghandi argued that every citizen of India should be self-sufficient, and he doomed India to decades of ignorance and poverty.

In short, as evil as you deem it, specialization of labor allows us the leisure and leeway to make advances in knowledge and actually enjoy life rather then subsist on the margins spending every waking hour of our short, brutal existence attempting to scratch a living in the dirt producing everything we need to survive.

I think we can be specialists and be self-Sufficient.

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

a reply to: amazing

So you can grow your own food, make your own clothing, provide your own shelter, everything you need to survive and still find time to be a professional grade specialist in something?

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: gosseyn
a reply to: grainofsand

By whom is it provided ? By corporations, they are the ones who produce things, and they love governments and people on benefits because it is a never ending source of demand for their products, thus money and power.

The solutions for getting out of this never ending cycle of manipulation is to give to people the means to produce their own sustainability, by giving to the people access to the same technologies that corporations use. See this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

Ghandi argued that every citizen of India should be self-sufficient, and he doomed India to decades of ignorance and poverty.

In short, as evil as you deem it, specialization of labor allows us the leisure and leeway to make advances in knowledge and actually enjoy life rather then subsist on the margins spending every waking hour of our short, brutal existence attempting to scratch a living in the dirt producing everything we need to survive.

What makes you believe we would go back to a 200 years old standard of living ? Explain please. And you can also read this thread to understand what I am talking about www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: ketsuko

I'm saying what we CAN do, and what we SHOULD do. Not that it would be easy to do, and I certainly didn't imply that no one would fight it.

Obviously those greedy with power would fight and refuse to give up even a sliver of it without a knife to their throats. Same song and dance repeated over and over again.

The power hungry amass ridiculous amounts of power stepping on everyone else in the process and making the same mistakes they always do, so drunk with power that they are, they forget to maintain a balance and go too far ultimately resulting in massive death and their summary executions at the hands of the people they considered refuse.

It will happen again, the question simply is when. As for why it will happen? Because the power hungry never seem to learn how to maintain a proper balance. Is really not that hard to do. They can easily live like kings and emperors without their subjects bathing in feces. But one palace simply isn't enough for them, they all need ten palaces and several hundred golden chariots.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: amazing

So you can grow your own food, make your own clothing, provide your own shelter, everything you need to survive and still find time to be a professional grade specialist in something?

Well no, but to a degree. I don't need to be that self sufficient because I can work and get paid, but if something happened and I lost everything and was in extreme poverty, I've got bicycles to get around, I've got books and materials at my house to set up rain collection and plant my own garden, my skill is transferable to work it out of my house, I've got Army and Boy Scout training, I've got solar panels on my house for my own energy etc. I've got a home library to home school my children, my wife and I have tech skills to work at for money, I've got shelter and the means to defend it...I could become self sufficient if I needed to.

I think Gandhi's meaning is more modern though...I can create income with my skills and not rely on the job market or the economy and if it tanks I'm not reliant on government handouts to live. That's what I think he meant.

a reply to: gosseyn
The 'solution' in your link still requires some entity to produce the windmills and solar panels etc, and right now there are no laws prohibiting any entrepreneur from doing so.
So what are the rewards for me working harder than lazy bastards in your utopia?

Do we still have a token of exchange for goods and services? How do people pay me for my services? How do I pay for my materials and tools? Is that from your utopian government as well?

There sure is a lot of people on here buying up the "them evil corporations" line.

This trend is truly disturbing to me.

Business is what built this country. They generally produce something for your money.

This misdirection is used in politics...

"Don't look at your ridiculously high taxes going into our pockets and pet projects, look at the evil corporations."

As they play both sides.

SMALL BUSINESS IS THE PEOPLE'S WEALTH AND POWER.

In Iowa, if the gov needs a little cash for whatever, he will call the news and talk about how unsafe smoking is in a casino. In comes the money. Extortion by threat of laws and regs effecting your business.
PROTECTING business and going to a FAIR higher sales usage tax should be the priority imo.

a reply to: ketsuko

Oh, I get it. You will never get it because you so strongly resent it. As bright as you are, it's like you have a blind spot when it comes to assisting those who need help the most, and yes, I took Econ at a University myself, btw, and obviously things have changed since you and I were both there. Although I teach a couple of classes at a university part time, they have nothing to do with this topic.

We have reached a point, and getting there faster everyday, that a work force needed such as in earlier decades is no longer needed. The U.S. was strong, very strong in manufacturing in previous days. We made everything. Many factory workers, many jobs.

That's not the case anymore, and jobs will become fewer as corporations continue to source their factories to other countries, consequently lessening those jobs for those who do not have specializations and advanced educations.

My opinion is, and remains, that those in the working class, and who are forced to perform menial tasks, should be amply compensated to live above the poverty line.

What's the matter Ket? Are you worried that the Waltons aren't rich enough?

a reply to: ketsuko

Or another way to put it is to make minimum wage $1000 per hour because $40,000 a week would solve everything. Funny how people do backbends to explain why that doesn't work.

Sometimes in their explanation the lightbulb comes on and understand why raising minimum wage isn't the answer. Then and only then can you explain that raising minimum wage is really just a means to increase income taxes to spend on other worthless things like government studies on dating habits of people over 60.

But until that lightbulb comes on, you are talking to a brick wall.

originally posted by: Puppylove
We have the resources to provide, we have the technology to provide, we have the workforce to provide ten times over, the reason we don't is greed plain and simple. This will be my shortest thread post because it's a very simple concept.

As long as we work for needs, big business has all the power, as that need forces we the people to beg at their feet to service them for table scraps. This allows them to use us, and abuse us to their hearts content. It allows them to engage us in unfair, and unequal trade. Where we give more than we receive.

If we work for wants instead of need, however, the situation reverses. It instead empowers we the people, as it forces big business to have to entice us to work for them. It puts on more equal ground in negotiations. Since we don't need to work for them, they can't just walk all over us. As a result, when we work, it will be because it feels like a fair and worthwhile trade. At that point your not working because you have to, but because you want to.

This is why poverty exists, and continues to exist, to foster desperation so that we the people can be taken advantage of in deals counter our best interests, as our very lives are held hostage. It's not a fair contract between most employers and employees, as the root of most employment is coercion.

I think poverty exists because the working middle class that struggles and bends over backwards to maintain the living style, doesn't want more competition. They are having a hard enough time already with humble but nice basic living needs like housing and can barely make their wants, like vacations. I think the wealthy keep the middle class in a purposeful state of fear with so many real life instances of the middle class losing it all and living in poverty, because they don't want or like the competition.

It all comes down to fear and greed and purposefully putting people down.

Historically, people who are purposefully kept down don't forget they were kept that way until they rose up and fought back and said enough is enough. We have generations of this from the beginning of our modern existence and it encompasses all races and cultures with gene memory of abuse. Which is why no one really likes competition and why they cheat with either diseasing or killing off potential competitors. Why poverty is a sore topic full of rationales and excuses for why it exists and why it remains unsolved.

a reply to: ladyinwaiting

Somebody will still have to make stuff for us to live on. Food, clothing, shelter - those things do not make themselves.

I am telling you the truth having lived through an artificial min. wage hike as a former min. wage worker. All the things they tell you will happen? They do. I saw it happen right around me.

1.) All the minimum wage workers received an immediate, unearned, artificial raise
2.) Jobs that might have been created were not in order to help cover that raise
3.) Cost of goods in the economy were also raised to help cover the cost of that raise
4.) Workers who had previously earned raises on their own merit did NOT receive raises to compensate. Their wages were devalued.

In short, after a while, the new minimum wage was just as lean as it ever had been because everything got more expensive and those places that had been seeking to hire opted out because of the new cost of labor. And those who had earned raises on their own merit were back that much closer to being only minimum wage again and having to once again bust our butts to earn our way up.

a reply to: WhiteWingedMonolith

Seriously?

I don't give a flying rats ass if every single poor person out their becomes middle class and has exactly the same things I do.

I'd prefer it actually because then you'd all stop b****ing about how "greedy" I am.

Where I draw the line is when you think the way to achieve this is through taking ever more from me and mine to achieve it because what you don't seem to understand is that you aren't lifting anyone up, you are only tearing people down. I want people lifted up.

Jesus said, "The poor will always be with us."

What has changed, however, is that we are within striking distance of having an amazingly productive system that can be run and managed by a small number of people that can take care of a very large number of people.

But not everybody. The world is in a race between runaway population expansion and the technology necessary to take care of all the people.

So the solution is fairly obvious. Keep the mechanized manufacturing going at a high level, then reduce the number of people (not murder, just don't replace the old people when they die off) to the point where everyone's needs and wants can be satisfied.

a reply to: Ahabstar

The U.S. is going to have to face the fact that if we are to maintain our current lifestyles and infrastructure we are going to HAVE to raise taxes. My good Ahabstar, sir.