Poverty Is A Disease

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

We can treat the disease by employing the final solution. The only solution is to strengthen the strain.

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

That link may say it, but I don't believe it.

Wealth is a state of mind.

According to eastern religions if you get rid of all your desires you will achieve nirvana or satori. The solution to all our social problems is for people to consciously control their desires.

See, I don't know.
I started out very poor. Sometimes I got toast for dinner. But my mom worked her butt off when we were little. Things got slowly better, as I got older.

I fell on a bit of a hard time too, but do to my own stupidity. (got pregnant)
But I also worked my rear off soon after.

I there may be some merit to this, but leading by example: Mom worked hard, which said I should work hard, needs to happen.

And real life sex ed. And FREE Contraceptives available everywhere.

a reply to: dfnj2015

One doesn't need to get religion for that.

Wealth is not determined by how many zeros are in a bank account or by how much stuff one accumulates.

It comes down to self worth.

There's so much more to life.

I think our opportunities for success should be achievable based on a moderate level of hard work. Unfortunately, for most people, who you know is much more important than what you know or the quality of your character.

And even so, there are many successful people who have amazing character along with knowing the right people and tons money backing them. How can anyone starting from poverty ever compete with people of such quality and resources.

Maybe I'm wrong and anyone from any means can create a business plan and bootstrap themselves to a position of competing with Walmart or Home Depot. There's probably lots of opportunities in the sex industry or selling drugs.

Poverty is not a disease. Never heard such bunk in my life.

What does happen is that we've created a culture of "generational poverty" where society increasing subsidizes poverty by making excuses for people's poor decision making and failing social cultures.

To be poor in America means you have public schools, clothing, food, a roof over your head, an Xbox, flat screen TVs, telephones, cable TV, etc. The poorest of Americans live like the upper middle class in most countries. The difference is the culture that traps generations of families in areas with broken down social values, morals, and decision making. There isn't a ghetto in America that is on par with favelas or any of the other third world sh*t holes with true impoverished people.

If poverty were a disease then we would not have situations where poor Asians, West Indians, and others immigrate here and are able to open businesses and within a generation are producing Doctors, etc.

What I will grant is that some areas are so screwed up culturally and morally that the children raised in these areas do suffer from some type of post traumatic stress. But again, this is not genetic or even a disease, but just a natural result of living around a high concentration of life's losers.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

But if you are going to call crap on my thoughts, you need to walk my path first. Or at least something close to it. Otherwise, its pure peanut gallery behavior.

You dont know my path...so you're making an assumption.

My family was on the lower end of the working class...back in communist Yugoslavia.

And you know what...5 of us lived in a room...3x3...for years. Toilet was a joint one for the entire building.

But if you think that such a life defined me forever...then man...we're not of the same kind.

a reply to: dfnj2015

This is a scary part of what the studies show.

I would hope that seeing value in all life would win out over eugenics, but im sure that this would not happen. Hitler was a helluva lesson, and he tamed the eugenics talk as a side effect to his lunacy.

And, in a broader sense...its scary that a species so prone to hating itself is currently working on Strong AI.

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

I am not talking about your personal narrative. Read the article. If you read the article, then tell me how you think the author is incorrect.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Link doesn't work for me. But I found another piece to nail your point with:

The researchers suggest that the stark difference between the US and other countries might be explained by differences in how low socioeconomic status is experienced in the countries. That is, the relatively robust healthcare and social-welfare programs in Western Europe and Australia may buffer some of the negative environmental effects typically associated with poverty.

In US, poverty dampens genetic influence on IQ

And more water on the mills:

Children in the poorest households are three times more likely to have a mental illness than children in the best-off households (Department of Health, 1999b). Poverty and social disadvantage are most strongly associated with deficits in children’s cognitive skills and educational achievements (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997). In the behavioural domain, conduct disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder show links with family poverty, and this is most marked for children in families facing persistent economic stress. The relationship between poverty and childhood disorder appears to be more marked for boys than for girls, and seems to be stronger in childhood than in adolescence. Rates of childhood disorder vary in different neighbourhoods and communities. Early studies in the UK suggested that risks of disorder in inner-city areas were twice those in small towns (Rutter et al, 1975).

Poverty, social inequality and mental health

a reply to: Edumakated

Can you tell me how the author is incorrect?

a reply to: neo96

I agree it is something anyone can overcome if they put the work in. I grew up poor single mom working two jobs with 4 kids. I dropped out of highschool, but through hard work and dedication I have built up a fairly impressive resume and recently landed a job that pays almost 60k a year, with the opportunity to move into a higher position.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
I think our opportunities for success should be achievable based on a moderate level of hard work. Unfortunately, for most people, who you know is much more important than what you know or the quality of your character.

And even so, there are many successful people who have amazing character along with knowing the right people and tons money backing them. How can anyone starting from poverty ever compete with people of such quality and resources.

Maybe I'm wrong and anyone from any means can create a business plan and bootstrap themselves to a position of competing with Walmart or Home Depot. There's probably lots of opportunities in the sex industry or selling drugs.

All those businesses started as small companies... These massive companies don't just come out of no where like the big bang. An entrepreneur creates a business and through hard work, luck, etc they oversee the growth into the large companies.

Anyone can do it, but it isn't easy though and you may risk everything you own. Many people fail spectacularly and some are successful. This is why so many business people can't stand leftist/progressives. All you see is the riches, but you don't see what effort went into creating these companies. This is why so many people were pissed at Obama saying "You didn't build that..."

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I think people are getting confused with the regular Joe that's just lazy and has no will to change, with communities that have been plagued with poverty for the sake of control. For the most part poverty is a social disease that plagues entire communities and generations, especially in the inner cities where the government started the crack epidemic creating generations of crack babies and ignorance.

The cure? What took generations to create will take longer to fix. Good luck.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Edumakated

Can you tell me how the author is incorrect?

The author is attempting to down play his own initiative and effort related to his own success in order to justify the claims of the study. This alone is telling. The author attempts to claim his own success as luck. Oprah Winfrey said it best: "Luck is when preparation and opportunity meet..." Most people aren't prepared and they don't take advantage of opportunities given to them.

There are reams of data you can see that show otherwise. The biggest one is that class mobility in America is still very high. If poverty were so damning, then we wouldn't see the class mobility. The vast majority of people who are poor, don't stay poor. If poverty were a disease, genetic, or otherwise out of our control then you wouldn't see such high class mobility because nothing you did would lift you out of poverty.

Here is Thomas Sowell addressing the class mobility and poverty and more specifically these fake stats and claims used to justify these types of studies.

I say it's our school systems that have failed, since that's where many people start to understand their own talents and could be easily trained further to enter the workforce if companies would see this fact and start initiatives that trained students NOT JUST IN A VOCATIONAL school or PRIVATE school but EVERYWHERE.

We could have 0% unemployment if we would start when it matters to train people for jobs. School even college doesn't always do this, and imo is one of the biggest wasted opportunities I've seen.

From a governmental standpoint, they think it doesn't matter, when they could be gaining MORE tax revenue from BETTER EMPLOYED people who kept their jobs longer because further training and advancement was possible and only needed hard work and skill accessing.

Alabama is allowing prayer in school and even religious Tshirts to be worn, yet we can't even help our students get a fair shot at life via good skills and employment.

Seems like our goals are a bit messed up, there is more focus towards getting kids into sports teams from highschool and college than there is getting them into good paying jobs that are sustainable.

"The only way to get out of poverty is to accumulate HUGE amounts of debt in education and for seed capital for your business."

Quote from the Federal Reserve

a reply to: Edumakated

You can't have a successful business unless you have customers making descent wages. This is why leftist/progressives talk about breaking up monopolies and cartels because of pricing fixing of wages and products.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I don't think the p-hack thing is limited to diet.

How many times have we read headlines that go something like: If you do X you will reduce your risk of Y by 84 %?

The entire medical research is rife with this type of p-hacking. As noted peer-review doesn't include reviewing the original data.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Edumakated

You can't have a successful business unless you have customers making descent wages. This is why leftist/progressives talk about breaking up monopolies and cartels because of pricing fixing of wages and products.

I guess I must be dreaming then when I see the hundreds of thousands of successful businesses in America...

There is something in business called market segmentation. You target your customers. Businesses don't try to be all things to all people. Wal-Mart generally targets price sensitive buyers while Nordstrom does not. If what you claimed were true, then how is Wal-Mart making like $50 billion a year in revenues?

In a free market, not everyone is going to be making decent wages all the time. There will always be people on the lower end of the income scale. The laws of mathematics demands it. Not everyone can be in the top 1% or even top 20%. However, being at the bottom earnings wise does not mean you are trapped there nor does it mean you can't afford basics.