Being Poor is NOT a virtue!

The more valid question is, why do liberals hate the poor. Housing projects, welfare, food stamps, utility subsidies, and on and on...they have failed massively. Perhaps the greatest modern day assault on the poor is to not admit that these programs only make the problem worse.

With 40 million Americans now on food stamps, getting hundreds of dollars a month increase in their income just to buy food, you think that people could afford to eat healthier. But along comes McDonalds and other fast food restaurants that now accept EBT cards. That means that instant gratification eating habits are now being subsidized by taxpayers. It comes back time and time again to the personal choices people are making.

 

There are many reasons that so many people are poverty stricken.

First and foremost is the fact that half the population is below average intelligence. To expect that someone with an IQ of 80 could succeed in school or actually get a job paying more than minimum wage is totally unrealistic.

If you're stupid and can only look to a future of washing dishes or mopping floors for minimum wage, life can be pretty bleak. Living in a society so caught up in consumerism and flash that is totally unattainable to you, sometimes the only avenue of escape is putting yourself in an altered state.

The meme that anyone and everyone can succeed in America is patently false. Some from all economic classes may succeed but even more may fail.

 

While I agree that alcohol abuse causes many problems for poor people, most of them just feel a need to escape the grim reality of their lives with a little self-medication. And what makes it unaffordable for them to do so safely with a doobie at the end of the workday? PROHIBITION AND CRIMINAL PENALTIES IMPOSED BY GOVERNMENT.

18% of the population -- more than 50M people -- are more than one standard deviation below the mean in cognitive ability. They just don't have the intellectual horsepower to figure out the financial ramifications of abusing credit, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. They don't understand how the world of money works, and never will. It is also easy to talk them out of their money via advertising, sales pitches, etc., and there's no shortage of sharp operators eager to do it. I've known people in this category, and I sometimes wonder how they get their shoes tied in the morning.

And in addition to those who are congenitally intellectually challenged, there are tens of millions more who have emotional problems, mental health issues (in many cases low-grade and undiagnosed), age-related declines in mental function, etc. that prevent them from thinking clearly and acting responsibly. Millions of these people really need full-time care, but as a society we have decided we can't afford to provide it, so instead we blame them for not being able to cut it in modern civilization, and consequently falling into poverty and destitution.

 

Poverty is a mindset. Only those mired in this mindset experience poverty, regardless of income level.

Not the least bit true.

Less intelligent people who have a good work ethic can succeed astoundingly in America. They don't have to settle for minimum wage jobs. They can drive trucks or become merchant marines and earn a nice living. If they are frugal with their earnings, they can even retire as millionaires. The people who usually have to settle for minimum wage jobs are:

1. Kids because they're just getting started in life.
2. Foreigners, because they refuse to learn our language
3. Felons, because they screwed up.
4. Old people because they never saved for their own retirement and social security is not enough.

But people who work hard, regardless of their intelligence level, can fare nicely. So you're wrong.

Only false in the Leftisphere. Come over here and see the difference.

 

There's nothing in atheism about being poor or rich. Fail.

 

The rest of us of us get natural highs from exercise, dancing, bowling, golf, etc etc. No I don't buy that excuse.

Nobody is forced to break the law. This isn't an excuse either, it's shifting the blame.

Even people who are rich can lack discipline and squander money away liberally. A lack of discipline is not determined by intelligence or income level. So no, that excuse doesn't fly either.

In the olden days family used to take care of each other, before the enslaught of government programs that usurped the proper role of the family and of charity.

You're missing the point. The OP is not directed at hardships beyond our controlling, but of those things in life we can control. Now most of your argument is based on the premise that our personal choices are really beyond our control, and they aren't. Even stupid people can be wise and that's a fact.

 

Agreed. Current government programs are generally not helping, they are making things worse. The main exception is the EITC, which has clearly succeeded in getting people into the workforce. Of course, rightards want to do away with it, to "make them pay their fair share."

It would be more accurate to say the cheapest eating is not healthy.

Canned vegetables and especially fish are not cheap. But with a little brains and initiative you can find places that are disposing of good-quality, healthy food at very low prices. It may be close-dated, or have packaging errors, etc., but it is perfectly OK to eat. They just can't sell it retail.

True. But if you are homeless, you don't have a fridge or a stove, and you are not going to be doing any cooking. Having a freezer helps a lot, too.

 

No, such claims are just stupid garbage designed to divert attention from the institutional causes of poverty.

No, that is just another silly claim from you.

Fact.

Name one who has, other than a pro athlete or entertainer, which very few people have the natural gifts to succeed at.

Both jobs take training. How do you afford it, and live while you are getting it?

LOL! Only if they climb onto the escalator by buying land and pocketing its publicly created value.

More garbage without supporting evidence.

 

yep, and this is where welfare reform would help..

this is a personal example, but it gives a window into the experience...my mother worked as a waitress, we lived in government housing, her rent was a set amount of her salary...she worked hard (one time working an entire shift with a broken arm NOT in a cast...after it was put in a cast she still worked, never missed a shift) and got promoted, the government immediately raised her rent, effectively eating up all the raise. So she was working longer hours, having more responsibility but had the same amount take home. And there were those in the housing that laughed at her for it.

I can see where people get so discouraged they give up, looking around in that situation, going off to work while the neighbors relaxed at home watching tv all day...my mother had some self respect and kept fighting..it's the reason my siblings and I are not on welfare ourselves.

remember also that if you live in government housing, you are not allowed to have saving accounts so you can't save up the money to move out or start your own business.

 

that is a great idea, and there are programs that do that.

 

if you are making 40k and calling yourself poor, you HAVE that mindset, sorry to break it to you.

 

If it weren't for poor people, rich people wouldn't be rich at all. It takes the poor, for their to be a rich class.

 

Good thread. It's amazing how in my proffession parents are dressed to the 9's and have the latest smart phones and drive nice cars yet have the balls to apply for Medicaid and WIC.

Time to make breeding illegal without a license and/or cut off entitlements and see what living in Somalia is like.

 

Pathetic comment at best. The rich get their money voluntarily. The rich don't force YOU to hand over your money to them. The government on the other hand takes your money and gives it to the unmotivated irresponsible poor.

 

And they don't. So now your biological nature is acceptable, and theirs isn't??

Who gives a $#!+ what you buy? You aren't the decider who says which ways of pursuing happiness are acceptable and which aren't.

Garbage. They have been forcibly deprived of their preferred options, and as a result have been forced into inferior, more costly options.

But they still have lots left. The poor don't. Duh.

It's not an "excuse," and it flies just fine. Your personal opinion -- ill-informed and ill-considered as it is -- that it doesn't fly counts for squat.

Those were the good old days?? When whole families were often impoverished by the physical or mental illness of one member, whereon the unfortunate were abandoned to their own devices? No, dumpling, THAT is what doesn't fly in a civilized modern society.

No, YOU are.

For many people, yes, they are.

No, it isn't. It's a brainless rightard talking point with zero (0) basis in fact.

 

We should tell many of the liberals in this thread, who claimed that there is no relationship between intelligence and wealth.

Most of the people who you are discussing (below average intelligence) do not work for minimum wage. Many - even most - may have started there, but that is not where they stay.

It is not totally unattainable to anyone. That is simply a manifestation of your projected limits on them. You've assumed. Anyone can save and invest over time.

This last statement is directly contradictory, and self-defeating. Anyone and everyone can succeed. Such a statement is mutually exclusive from saying that they will succeed.

 

Eating healthy food costs more money in U.S.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/04/us-food-costs-idUSTRE7734L620110804

and an interesting sidenote...one of the best sources of potassium and a staple for poor people for centurys, the potato can not be bought with food stamps.

there are other considerations...what is available in your area, what means you have to store that food and what transport you have.

for example, if you live in a tiny closet of a duplex and have no car, there is no public transportation readily available...what do you eat? there is no room to store food for long periods of time, you have only a tiny refrigerator, and the only store in walking distance for an elderly person is the convenience store on the corner. You eat canned goods and whatever the convenience store has. You call the local senior center or ask a friend to take you to the store every week and buy what you can eat in or store in your fridge...(this complex is in Gilmer Texas)

it isn't easy and some do but I can understand why a lot of seniors don't eat balanced meals...

 

exactly..and MORE it eats up money that could do more good for people that really NEED it like seniors or the mentally and physically handicapped

AND they use their discretionary money to buy Iphones, satelite TV and video games.

 

That is interesting and I didn't know that. Andrew Wilkow has been pointing out the inflationary effects of food stamps on the price of food for everybody. I'm wondering if potatoes are even more susceptible than other foods to price inflation.

 

The poor would love to be rich, I believe. People indeed do get rich upon the backs of the poor, and that's gone on forever.

 

I never knew posting on a forum inside of a dream can actually exist. Wake up and stop being silly. Your claim is not true. Get out into the world and get an education...understand how the economy ACTUALLY works.

 

Really? Name me one instance in which Steve Jobs forced somebody to buy one of his iPads using a credit card? You have a poverty mindset. You will be a victim all your life because that's how you think. You see a fat man standing next to a thin man and assume the fat man must have deprived the thin man to get the way he is. Your world view determines your fortunes in life and your particular world view will insulate your pathetic life from success for as long as you live.

Live with that.

 

Generally speaking, if 'the rich' become so on the backs of the poor, it's because the poor hoisted them up there, and did so voluntarily.

 

Care to cite some examples?

I didn't know the rich forced the poor to have children they can't afford. OMG! How do the rich do that?!?!?! Must be some form of mind control.......

 

Or they simply didn't have the balls to kill the rip-off artist that is trying to become rich, and then pledge to own companies jointly that way no one can tyrannically rule the economy via capitalist tyranny.