The War on the Poor

[ShivaFan]

In this war on the poor, I sort of noticed when these poor are attacked by those armies coming to wipe them out with nasty looking rifles, how come the soldiers in the army killing the poor are also the poor?

 

[Jake1001]

In this war on the poor, I sort of noticed when these poor are attacked by those armies coming to wipe them out with nasty looking rifles, how come the soldiers in the army killing the poor are also the poor?

Yes, Shiva, you are right, one of the saddest outcomes is when the poor attack the poor. How do you suggest that civilized societies deal with this problem ?

 

[Sleeppy]

I was responding to the OP, which says there is a 'war' on the poor. If there is, rich people need to learn how to fight. And I'm tired of the "I have no opportunity" shtick. Yes, there are incredibly slow people who will never be rich. Charles Darwin described the process. There are also incredibly unlucky people who will never be rich. It happens. For the rest of us, there is an opportunity to get out from under if we apply ourselves.

Good luck making it to the top, Darwin! Who says humans needed to evolve a sense of empathy? As long as you're the crab that makes it!

 

[TurkeyOnRye]

The problem lies in the fundamental process of economic policy-making. Essentially, those who have money have power to design policy because money is the grease that allows the cog wheels of society to rotate. As a general rule, the policies are designed to benefit the designers, and as a consequence, the designers gain yet more power to design policy. Essentially, this dynamic has a snowball effect and provides exponential returns to the designers, often at the expense of marginalized groups who now make up the majority. Often times, the designers are non-distinct entities; corporations, conglomerates, financial institutions, or groups of all of the above. One of the unfortunate consequences of this process is the increasingly distinct segregation of the rich and the poor, to the point that the two groups rarely associate with each other in ordinary life. This deteriorates relations between the the groups and leads to an increase in exclusionary behavior, which further magnifies the problem.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

When there are laws against feeding the poor, and other laws that criminalize the living conditions of the poor, I would say there is a war going on against the poor.

I was responding to the OP, which says there is a 'war' on the poor. If there is, rich people need to learn how to fight. And I'm tired of the "I have no opportunity" shtick. Yes, there are incredibly slow people who will never be rich. Charles Darwin described the process. There are also incredibly unlucky people who will never be rich. It happens. For the rest of us, there is an opportunity to get out from under if we apply ourselves.

Not everyone has the ability to just go. I consider myself fortunate to have nothing here tying me down because there are very few opportunities here. If I had a family, it would not be nearly as easy.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

I must thank all of you for paying for my Social Security. Keep on working and work harder so I can live my wonderful, rich life. LOL !! Just kidding. What I want to talk about is America's war on the poor.
Let me say personally that it sucks. You wonder why their is robbery? You wonder why people sling drugs to your kids? It's because people are poor and they DON'T GIVE A **** !!!
They figure if they must starve, they might as well rob you. And why is this the way it is ? Because you have declared WAR against us to the point that *I* often wonder if you want me to commit suicide. Why shouldn't we ?
Oh, and if you can I would apreciate some video documentation SHOWING America's undeclared war on us. I want to record it so there can be NO QUESTION that you have declared an unspoken, undeclared WAR on us.

1.Historically speaking, how has America carried out its warfare against the poor?
2. Who has benefited in this war against America's poor citizens ?
3. Has this WAR been carried out from America' foundation ?

Se ya.

The economic truth is generally always, that you can get good upward mobility if you have good friends and family, and there is no excuse for running out of love. The love in marriage, and the open communication / sharing with faithful friends, attracts wealth.

 

[Wirey]

Not everyone has the ability to just go. I consider myself fortunate to have nothing here tying me down because there are very few opportunities here. If I had a family, it would not be nearly as easy.

I am completely sick of this excuse. When I lived in Nova Scotia my family was always a paycheque away from poverty. I had an opportunity to get ahead in Alberta, so I took it. With my wife, and three kids, waiting in NS I flew to Alberta and took a job. After I paid for my airline ticket we had less than $200 in the bank. Very few things worth doing are 'easy'. If you're so sure that you'll fail that you give up before you start, you earned it. SW, I like you, but this sounds like something a 15 year old would say. Fortune truly does favour the brave.

 

[Revoltingest]

When there are laws against feeding the poor, and other laws that criminalize the living conditions of the poor, I would say there is a war going on against the poor.

These are things I've railed against too, & I agree it's an attack on the poor.....it's not just refusing to give them largess....it's the active prohibition of others helping them, or their helping themselves. I'll add to this how government will withdraw bennies commensurate (& more so) with their earning money at a job, thereby discouraging them from working.

Bet ya didn't expect to see me swoop'n to support ya, did ya!?
But I agree with Wirey too.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

SW, I like you, but this sounds like something a 15 year old would say.

How so? I am very aware that my situation makes it easy for me to leave, as I have no one else's thoughts to consider. I know many people who, for various reasons, cannot just leave. I also know some people that are just making excuses. But, myself having nothing keeping me here, it is actually an advantage to have living where the opportunities are very limited.

Bet ya didn't expect to see me swoop'n to support ya, did ya!?

Other than communal ownership and private property we don't disagree on much.

 

[TurkeyOnRye]

I am completely sick of this excuse. When I lived in Nova Scotia my family was always a paycheque away from poverty. I had an opportunity to get ahead in Alberta, so I took it. With my wife, and three kids, waiting in NS I flew to Alberta and took a job. After I paid for my airline ticket we had less than $200 in the bank. Very few things worth doing are 'easy'. If you're so sure that you'll fail that you give up before you start, you earned it. SW, I like you, but this sounds like something a 15 year old would say. Fortune truly does favour the brave.

This thread refers to modern day United States, just so you know. I know Canada is more or less a little sister to the US and they're very similar, but inequality is significantly more pronounced here. Probably not much more, but still significantly so. What you seem to be missing is the fact that for those at the top, it's privilege, not hard work, that gets them ahead. Obviously there are plenty of examples of people who were born into poverty who eventually made a good living, despite that shortcoming. But today that's really an exception to the rule. And young people are easily the most affected by this.

The uber rich don't even really work for their money; it's essentially handed to them because its their money that makes them money. Or it's their position of power, or both. I once compared my income to that of a typical unremarkable plutocrat whom I read about in a news article. He wasn't even terribly rich relative to the super rich at the very top, just relatively so. I calculated that it would take 375,000 years for me to earn what he had if I saved 100% of my average income. Money like that can provide a person with a living allowance from the interest it generates alone. Ideally, it shouldn't even be feasible for a single person to control that much currency...yet here we are. The inequality gap is real and has significant consequences. Even the establishment and its associated media is recognizing it and talking about it (albeit not much more than talking about it), which is pretty unreal. What I am saying is that the problem is not that hard work doesn't get you anywhere...but that money, privilege, class, and manipulative behavior does.

 

[Revoltingest]

Other than communal ownership and private property we don't disagree on much.

But when we do disagree, watching that big vein on your forehead pulsate really gets me blood flow'n!

 

[Penumbra]

1.Historically speaking, how has America carried out its warfare against the poor?

-Changing tax brackets and types of tax on various sorts of income to made tax fairly regressive depending on what measure you use. For example, the bottom 50% pay a larger percentage of their wealth in taxes each year than the top 1% do. Top tax rates have decreased substantially compared to where they were decades ago, and tax on investment income is typically lower than what middle class people pay on their earned income.

-Education funding has been terrible, resulting in student loan debt increasing by an order of magnitude and becoming the second largest source of debt in the United States after mortgage debt.

-Inflation-adjusted minimum wage is lower than it used to be, and the comparison is even worse when the specifically higher cost of education is considered, making it harder to escape. Social mobility has measurably decreased.

-There has been opposition to unions, resulting in low union representation.

-Health care costs per capita in the US are the highest in the world and yet statistics like life expectancy and infant mortality are not particularly high. The US healthcare system is more privatized than most other developed countries, meaning a bigger share of the costs go to profits to owners and to marketing expenses as well as duplication of administrative costs.

-Trade agreements have made offshoring more financially possible, which damages especially the working and low-middle classes in the United States.

-The government bails out major corporations but does not bail out citizens during periods of major recession.

-Corporate culture has led to CEO and other executive compensation becoming a larger and large multiple of the average worker.

-The trillions of dollars spent on war have come from taxpayers and have largely gone to defense corporations and other businesses associated with the war effort.

Basically most of the people have been burdened with additional costs of education and healthcare while having their employment opportunities moved offshore, while the upper class has enjoyed tax cuts and bailouts.

2. Who has benefited in this war against America's poor citizens ?

Over the last few decades, wealth has concentrated towards the top 1% compared to the typical wealth distribution throughout most of the 20th century. It's currently at levels not seen since the 1920's. The Walton family, for example, has more wealth than the bottom 30-40% of all Americans combined out of a population of 300+ million people.

3. Has this WAR been carried out from America' foundation ?

Particularly through the mid-20th century, wealth distribution was more balanced and the working and lower-middle classes were financially stronger, more able to achieve a livable wage, finance a household with a single income if desired, and send children to post-secondary schools. The numbers began shifting largely around the year 1980.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

-Changing tax brackets and types of tax on various sorts of income to made tax fairly regressive depending on what measure you use. For example, the bottom 50% pay a larger percentage of their wealth in taxes each year than the top 1% do. Top tax rates have decreased substantially compared to where they were decades ago, and tax on investment income is typically lower than what middle class people pay on their earned income.

-Education funding has been terrible, resulting in student loan debt increasing by an order of magnitude and becoming the second largest source of debt in the United States after mortgage debt.

-Inflation-adjusted minimum wage is lower than it used to be, and the comparison is even worse when the specifically higher cost of education is considered, making it harder to escape. Social mobility has measurably decreased.

-There has been opposition to unions, resulting in low union representation.

-Health care costs per capita in the US are the highest in the world and yet statistics like life expectancy and infant mortality are not particularly high. The US healthcare system is more privatized than most other developed countries, meaning a bigger share of the costs go to profits to owners and to marketing expenses as well as duplication of administrative costs.

-Trade agreements have made offshoring more financially possible, which damages especially the working and low-middle classes in the United States.

-The government bails out major corporations but does not bail out citizens during periods of major recession.

-Corporate culture has led to CEO and other executive compensation becoming a larger and large multiple of the average worker.

-The trillions of dollars spent on war have come from taxpayers and have largely gone to defense corporations and other businesses associated with the war effort.

Basically most of the people have been burdened with additional costs of education and healthcare while having their employment opportunities moved offshore, while the upper class has enjoyed tax cuts and bailouts.


Over the last few decades, wealth has concentrated towards the top 1% compared to the typical wealth distribution throughout most of the 20th century. It's currently at levels not seen since the 1920's. The Walton family, for example, has more wealth than the bottom 30-40% of all Americans combined out of a population of 300+ million people.


Particularly through the mid-20th century, wealth distribution was more balanced and the working and lower-middle classes were financially stronger, more able to achieve a livable wage, finance a household with a single income if desired, and send children to post-secondary schools. The numbers began shifting largely around the year 1980.

Wages got too high in the 70's. That has been the problem up untill now, very high wages of a large section of the population. Leading to unemployment, which leads to very low wages for another section of the population.

 

[Penumbra]

Wages got too high in the 70's. That has been the problem up untill now, very high wages of a large section of the population. Leading to unemployment, which leads to very low wages for another section of the population.

Share of income over time:

And, the US has literally the most income inequality in the world out of any highly developed country, as measured by both the CIA and the World Bank:
List of countries by income equality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wages in the US are not high by global standard of highly developed nations. They're instead very low. Only the top few percentage earn very high incomes and their percentage continues to grow for further concentration of wealth.

 

[metis]

Penumbra, congrats on a fantastic synthesis of what's happening and why, and your post #32 should be a must read for all in this country..

 

[Jake1001]

-Education funding has been terrible, resulting in student loan debt increasing by an order of magnitude and becoming the second largest source of debt in the United States after mortgage debt.

Unfortunately, college costs have become so high, they are beyond reach for many in the middle class.

 

[Jake1001]

Is this classic Lib cause, in the thread title, going to play a role in this election ? Or is everyone just waiting for Trump to shoot himself in the foot again ?