Local Paper Article: "Rich Get Rich, Poor hang on"

[Sean]

I read this little doozy in my local paper, the Buffalo News (buffalo new york). I am disgusted, and it's what fuels me to do something constructive with my life. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm an idealist. Here's why:

[Aequo]

Capitalism at work.

[Paavo]

nothing wrong with being an "idealist"...just that nowadays it's like being a "treehugger"... boy have those dudes on top gotten their propaganda through. -_____-

Nice article btw.

[lefty]

That's tough to stomach, good article.

[Utah]

Last year I broke even with my business and tax-wise and money reported would have me listed in this article, but I still drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited and Land Rover Discovery, have a house, not even close to starving, etc. I only believe a fraction of those that fit income-wise into the poverty section are actually poor and hungry.

[white rice]

Yet poor white males predominantly vote Republican keeping the hope alive that one day, they too will make it rich. It's not a coincidence that Southern white males votes Republican. A small minority owned plantations let alone slaves back then. Yet even poor white farmers supported slavery for the same reason. To keep that ideal, that heritage, alive.

[castille]

Did the article explain why Americans spend so much money on gambling, drinking, buying useless consumer goods, and never saving it?

Did it explain why Asian immigrants to America end up wealthier than the average American, despite having little English skills?

Did it explain why people in America never take their education seriously, or why school is considered a "bad thing"?

Did it explain the countless numbers of people who spend their welfare dollars on beer and drugs?

What about explaining that high wages are the reason Americans are unemployed?


Did it explain why the founder of Walmart used to be a poor grocery clerk? Or that Colonel Sanders, who founded KFC, also lived in welfare?

Oh yeah, how about explaining why 71% of millionaires are self-made ("self made" means they made their own money and never inherited a dime).


And if you really care, why aren't you selling your computer and giving the money to the poor? Do you NEED a computer to live?

[Leopard]

ROFL!!!

all i needed to read was the first few paragraphs, gotta love the comparison:

if 'poor' americans were a nation (then gives a list of states which implies geographic size)

on the other hand,

if the forbes top 400 people (limiting the population to 400), then they would fit into a ballroom - well, duh, the bottom 400 poorest people would also fit into a ballroom (could probably fit in a few more too because they might tend to be skinnier...j/k LOL)

somehow this equation is valid?

and yet, the ordinairy reader assumes the following: There are exponentially more poor people than rich people in america... nice lefty spin going there.

Also nice how folks (both left and right) get to pick their own definitions for what is 'poor' or 'rich' thereby creating whatever statistics they desire to support their position...

don't you love the inherent class warfare propogated here? set the roosters against each other and they won't notice the fox sneaking into the hen house...

come on - we are not ignorant serfs anymore, use that brain - economics is not some mystical science which is too (1) boring, (2) abstract, (3) complicated for ordinairy people like you and I to understand. There are axioms! If you increase the money supply then you WILL deflate the value of the currency. If you institute a minimum wage then you WILL increase unemployment. If you institute a tariff then you WILL inflate the price of the domestic product (wealth redistribution from every citizen TO the few who happen to be in said protected industry). Private companies can do anyhthing that government does: at a profit, AND, for over 1/3 less cost. These are 1 + 1 = 2 basic economics... they have been held up under fire for over 70 years now and still have not been refuted. yet.... people still refuse to believe that the earth is round, that the sun is not the center of the universe, and that the government is not currently in some super-secret high level negotiations with aliens....

how scary is that?

the truth is out there (look to the economics),
michael

[sean327]

I watched a report on this very thing on my local news last week. The report stated there were more people below the poverty line now than ever before. The reporter interviewed a man waiting in a church food bank line, he told her that he was hurting because he needed to go to the food bank twice a month to survive, she then asked him if he was homeless, he said no he owns his home, has gas, electric and digital cable, you know all the basics.
Most of the people she talked to that day also stated they had cable and internet services.
What the hell is that? If I was standing in a food bank line it would be because I have exahsted all means of providing food for me and my amily. That means I would cancel my cable, sell my TV,computer, cancel the internet. These clowns choose to stand in a line at the food bank. It's called living beyond your means. These poverty surveys are a crock. They reflect the lazy, while keeping the real poor in the shadows.

[Sean]

Your statements are very bold, and I have a feeling they are based on bias, and very poor observations. You can't say that most people that go to food banks are just living beyond their means (i.e. digital cable, etc) based one a few people interviewed. It's not a proper way collect stats.

[SeanWah]

To be sure, "poor" today is not what it was 100 years ago. Today's poor enjoy things like car ownership, home ownership/rental, cable TV, electricity, water, enough to buy food, etc.

We were never a rich family by any means (even before my parents split, our average income yearly was about $60,000 before taxes), but we always managed to get buy with two cars, a nice house in suburban Maryland, cable, and bountiful Christmas'.

This is not to say poverty's not a problem, merely that it's not the problem it's often made out to be. This reminds me of how a friend of mine who is a college admissions counselor told me that at least 75% of the people requesting financial aid had wealthy parents who never set aside a dime for their education, and complain that the government doesn't do enough.

[white rice]

Those we consider poor make less than one third of what your parents make, SeanWah. I don't think forcing the single parents to have two jobs just to enforce the ideal of "working hard" is a great investment to their children or our society's future.

[james?]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (castille,)
Did the article explain why Americans spend so much money on gambling, drinking, buying useless consumer goods, and never saving it?

Did it explain why Asian immigrants to America end up wealthier than the average American, despite having little English skills?

Did it explain why people in America never take their education seriously, or why school is considered a "bad thing"?

Did it explain the countless numbers of people who spend their welfare dollars on beer and drugs?

What about explaining that high wages are the reason Americans are unemployed?


Did it explain why the founder of Walmart used to be a poor grocery clerk? Or that Colonel Sanders, who founded KFC, also lived in welfare?

Oh yeah, how about explaining why 71% of millionaires are self-made ("self made" means they made their own money and never inherited a dime).


And if you really care, why aren't you selling your computer and giving the money to the poor? Do you NEED a computer to live?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

Fucking amazing. Great post.

[Autolykos]

I find it interesting how the point of this article is basically to get people to support the author's position on wage rates, namely, to raise the minimum wage. However, doing so would not only make it harder to find jobs for those whom we would claim to be helping, but it would also shift the labor market even more skewedly in favor of skilled labor, again leaving those (relatively) unskilled workers -- the very supposed beneficiaries of minimum-wage raising -- behind in the dust, so to speak.