For Rich Fetuses Only, Though

[The Grand Nudger]

Most of this isn;t aimed directly at a response to you Camus, bear with me. 

/rantmode engaged.

Whether we offer anecdotes that have always served the end of perpetuating misapprehensions of poverty in spite of a literal mountain of data to the contrary is definitely under our control.  That we don't intend for them to be so is irrelevant.   In effect, we hand Those People™ the weapon and then feel appalled at what they do with it.  There's the tendency to suspect that poverty is indicative of some deficiency in a person...even in those of us who know better.  That their deficiency explains their poverty, rather than their poverty explaining said deficiency.   

We wonder, for example, why the hungry would buy lobster with their food stamps.  As though eating water cockroach should be solely reserved for the rich.  Why don't they subsist on the gruel we mandated and half-provide..we ask ourselves.  It seems like a baffling decision until we realize that those people are going to be hungry regardless of what they eat today...and the only difference between choosing the cornmeal and the lobster is that in the case of the latter, at least they had lobster last night.  A taste of the life that they have correctly realized will be beyond them..in all likelihood, no matter how good their decisions are.  

The case of alcohol (and any other number of drugs) runs along the same lines.  They're already broke before they get paid..and before they spend a dime.  They will be broke whether they pay all their bills or not - there is no legitimate or practical expectation that they'll be able to save their money.  They couldn't afford a car (or repairs for a car) for the price of a bottle of gin..but at least with the gin they get to self medicate.  They're as broke as they were yesterday and and broke as they will be tomorrow.  Their car was fucked up yesterday and will be tomorrow,  They're bills were unpaid yesterday and will be tomorrow.  The only difference from their perspective...is that they don't have to think about it for an hour or two. 

The suggestion is always that the poor should suffer suffer suffer, until they suffer no more - not always in the normative sense, but at least in the sense that this is the way to succeed.  This suggestion presents itself even in your nuanced appraisal of your family members.  It's strange that this doesn't seem to work regardless of whether or not they suffer suffer suffer, most of them will die where they began or only moderately improved in station (and still poor).   It's been going on for so long that we've invented whole genres like the nobility of poverty (or suffering)...and that's in addition to the religions of the world that peddle release from poverty through death and elevation.  

Bringing it back round into the meandering circles I love so much..perhaps it;s time we accept..and I mean thoroughly and fundamentally accept, that these problems we see in people aren't the cause of their poverty...people without those problems are still poor..but..rather, that these problems are effects of their poverty.  That the problem doesn't lie with the people who are poor...but with the way we've organized our society so that it foists poverty upon people, and the ease with which we can comfortable shuffle that away as "bad choices" is and has always been one of the main avenues of perpetuating both poverty, and the myth of poverty.....as well as the myth of our relative success. 

Now, I've never been poor..at least not in the way that the truly poor are poor..but I've had a taste.  I've had a car repo'd..I've missed my rent, I've been on food stamps with two jobs and four kids going hungry.  I've skipped meals.  I didn't decide my way into that, and I didn't decide my way out.  I'd love to say that I worked my way out, but that would be a lie.  I moved halfway across the country, four times in two years..chasing opportunity.   verywhere I went I met people poorer and harder working than myself. I stayed poor.  I stayed poor until the market went back up.  For most, the market never goes back up, they don't have anything to sell..like I did.  The wife helped out alot with handling that.  She -was- born poor.  Her family had been lifelong renters.  Her dad a hard ass worker...both parents college educated.  They'll die in an RV. She knew about being poor, lol.  Still, it stressed and tested us both and our relationship.  

That little taste, just a couple of years that seemed like one long shitty day left an impression.  I'm more careful about what I say and think about poorer people as a result of it. It's difficult for me to contain my ire when people callously and thoughtlessly dismiss poverty, even a portion of poverty, along counterfactual lines that do nothing other than serve as the fundamental justification for societal organization that churns out poverty just as surely as it churns out green left handed widgets. We have alot of problems that we legitimately can't solve. Poverty isn't one of them. We choose not to. We choose to blame the poor for their condition. That's the nature of choice and poverty.

/rant

Sooooooo.....whose got dick jokes?

[Autumnlicious]

I always hate it when we talk about the poor and some jackoffs blather about the terminally lazy.

Why? Because those chucklefucks make it seem like 95% of the poor are those "always makes bad choices, never works, etc, etc".

What use is statistics when you can make a lazy anecdote about one person as the whole model of why we should limit welfare or why we should revile the poor. The children of the poor still starve. The cycle of poverty continues. But hey! As long as I tell the story of my useless, good-for-nothing cousin I can keep my own masturbatory sense of position in the world, even though it contributed nothing towards a solution, ideology or methodology.

Really - what did it accomplish other than solidify what someone already wanted to hear: "The poor don't deserve help because there are eternally poor people by their own hand"?

It's despicable. Socially acceptable but despicable nonetheless.

[Court Jester]

Depends on the situation really.

If they are busting their ass and honestly doing everything that they can, I feel bad for them. But if they keep at it, they will get to a better situation. It's not always quick and/or easy, but it will happen.  

If they are physically and/or mentally disabled and they don't have the means to "Do Better"; that is a legitimate reason for social welfare systems that SHOULD pay way the hell more than they currently do. I would support higher taxes to improve that situation with few questions and no arguments if the government mandated it and didn't skim cash off the top for other things.

If they aren't willing to take the needed steps for self improvement and just expect to make $30 an hour flipping burgers at McDonalds (if they are willing to work at all), or they make $30,000 a year and get ejected from their $300,000 house because they made a really bad personal life decision with their finances; I'm not going to be bothered by that at all. Really sucks if they have kids, but it's not my place or responsibility, nor should it be.

Being a grown up ain't easy and it does require a bit of effort to be successful at it. This is just within the United States though. Many people in other countries are screwed regardless of what they do.

A few weeks ago I was reading editorials by the Farmers Alliance from the 1880s. It was talking about what it called the "success myth." It bashing the idea that as long as you work really hard, you will succeed and be happy. They didn't only not believe it, they were angered by it. They couldn't believe that people who never experienced being part of the working poor would tell them things about their own class, things that they found contradictory to their own experiences. People say the exact same stuff today, on both sides. I admit it's a great talking point. And it's MUCH truer than it was back then, let me tell you. The rise of industrial capitalism was a pretty bad time to be a worker. 

I gotta say, I'm a bit leery getting into a discussion with you. I know from an experience one of ours that you're intellectually dishonest: I proved you wrong about something regarding fiscal responsibility in Red/Blue states and you sort of nonchalantly said, "Wasn't surprised I was wrong" like you're just used to throwing out truth and lies mixed together. 

"If people bust their ass and work really hard, they will get to a better situation" is an assertion, no? Well let's go ahead and test it like we would any other! Lucky for us I don't have to load up STATA, the Pew Research Center did it for us: Moving On Up: Why Do Some Americans Leave the Bottom of the Economic Ladder, but Not Others?

There's the bottom quartile, the 2nd quartile, then the middle quartile. We see that 43% born into the bottom quartile of the income ladder never made it out. For the ones that did, the study underlines key important factors: race, human capital/college attainment, and coming from a two-earned household; whites were 2 more times likely to leave the bottom than blacks, college grads were 5.3 times more likely to leave the bottom (and 2.5 times more likely to reach the middle quartile), and those who came from dual-earner families were 3.4 times more likely to leave the bottom (and 2.8 times more likely to reach the middle). The study also highlights how important financial capital is; those that moved up had 6 times higher median liquid savings, 8 times higher median wealth, and 21 times higher median home equity. This study uses data from 1968 to 2009. 

So, not that surprising I guess. People born into families with more money, even when "more money" is very relative to where they are on the income ladder, they're going to do well. The more you start off with, the better you are. So ability to go to college, ability to have less debt, having two parents that work full time and maximize their value...not a real shock they're able to save, I guess. Not so much news. And that's why I started the post with the anecdote I did. It told me what people have known since the 1880s, CJ; when you're born poor, I mean really poor...your situation is pretty fucking bleak. Your assertion seems to fail, since it implies that anybody regardless of what they're born into, should be able to make it out if they do things right. It's almost dystopian really. Just keep telling them to "work hard, work hard, you'll get here someday!"until they die. Economy has to run, I guess.

You're atheist, CJ, you know well and good that you, me, and that 43% of people who never made it out of the bottom quartile all have one life. Imagine that being your one chance at life... a vain attempt at the American Dream, working insane hours at an insanely low paying job to live rent to rent until you die. Such is life. We don't need to relentlessly vilify (or patronize) the poor anymore, brah. That is soo 80s!

I will say; that’s one of the few intelligently put together posts I’ve seen on here.

I’d consider myself rather intelligent, but I don’t claim to have every answer in every situation. I can speak largely from my own experience when it comes to a hand full of situations. I’m positive that not every individual born into poverty that tries to make it out ever will make it out. I am, however; positive that those in the United State that take the right steps and push hard enough, absolutely will take at least one step up to the next quartile of society. And more if they take it upon themselves to keep pushing forward.

I grew up in a military family. There aren’t a lot of them that are really well off financially. I’ve served in the Marines, I’ve been homeless, and I’ve taken whore baths in bathroom sinks after work because that was my only option. I didn’t sit back and whine, I worked to do better.

I did get a little help though. For about eight weeks I was doing everything that I could to save every penny that I could. I would do to a Farm and Fleet store every afternoon before going to work the night shift because they had free popcorn and air conditioning. The store manager saw me one day and asked if I was okay. Her and her husband owned a few apartments and she set me up at a reduced price. After several months, I paid her back the difference from what she charged me and what the normal rent was and she bumped it up to full price. I would have gotten to that point sooner or later, but she did help me get there faster.

I’ve since grown past that, I’ve earned a really good education, and I’ve married a 5’ 2” 98 pound bombshell of a woman that’s given me two great sons and helped me open my own, what is now not considered a so small business.

From my own experience; If I hadn’t worked through the hard times, if I hadn’t stayed positive, if I hadn’t taken some debt for a better education, if I hadn’t made it a personal comfort to pay the unrequested debts, if I wasn’t willing to work 10-12 hour shifts while doing to school 4-6 hours, if I didn’t have the balls to pick up and move 300 miles for a much better job offer, etc., etc., I would still be sleeping in my truck. Assuming I was lucky enough to have a truck.

To speak to every point from the Pew Charitable Trust would still leave many gaps. No one can speak to the psychological issues or the true environments to each subject studied. I guess any of them could settle of a reason why they can't improve. Maybe it’s my own mental structure, or my own positive spin that I can put on any situation, or how I find more humor than negativity in pain (my own or other’s), but I am just not absolutely and 100% convinced that they couldn’t do it if they gave it enough effort.

I honestly couldn’t imagine looking anyone in the eye and telling them their situation is too bleak for them to accept or expect anything less than success.

[Autumnlicious]

That's the rub - there's nothing you can do to "make" someone believe in themselves or never give up.

No amount of threatening to take away what little they have left, drug testing under penalty of incarceration, etc will do that.

The will to change is cultivated from within.

We don't help the poor because we cynically expect all of them to escape poverty by the fire of their own minds. We reduce the barriers to escape poverty (and its state of mind) in hopes that some of those people will escape it.

The poor will always be with us. Doesn't mean we have to allow predatory practices, ridiculous fees and employers underpaying because they know their labor isn't going to fight back.

[Court Jester]

Doesn't mean we have to allow predatory practices, ridiculous fees and employers underpaying because they know their labor isn't going to fight back.

I would debate the predatory practices... to an extent. It does happen. I can't argue that. I've worked in places that didn't pay even close to a wage that I felt was adequate for the job being done. From a business stand point though, the companies that do that have some very low margins and their profit's aren't high. Manufacturing companies anyway. And with those business structures comes high turn over, higher than average injury rates, and higher than average quality issues. All of which takes an even deeper cut into the opportunities for profit and growth.
The choice to stay with an employer like that is a personal choice. BS of the company's side, but they probably aren't far from being outsourced to China or Mexico if that is how they are operating.

[Edwardo Piet]

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/the-rep...r-fetuses/

The Republican tax plan would allow a saving account for fetuses

Poor fetuses are expected to die from lack of medical care before they are 10 and after reaching 10 the republicunts expect the fucking cops to gun them down.  In any case, poor people can't have savings accounts because they don't have any fucking money.... which is just the way the republicunts want it.

Republicans expect cops to gun down 10 year old fetuses?

[Abaddon_ire]

Doesn't mean we have to allow predatory practices, ridiculous fees and employers underpaying because they know their labor isn't going to fight back.

I would debate the predatory practices... to an extent. It does happen. I can't argue that. I've worked in places that didn't pay even close to a wage that I felt was adequate for the job being done. From a business stand point though, the companies that do that have some very low margins and their profit's aren't high. Manufacturing companies anyway. And with those business structures comes high turn over, higher than average injury rates, and higher than average quality issues. All of which takes an even deeper cut into the opportunities for profit and growth.
The choice to stay with an employer like that is a personal choice. BS of the company's side, but they probably aren't far from being outsourced to China or Mexico if that is how they are operating.

Ah. You don't understand the way the poverty trap works. How naive.

[Amarok]

I would debate the predatory practices... to an extent. It does happen. I can't argue that. I've worked in places that didn't pay even close to a wage that I felt was adequate for the job being done. From a business stand point though, the companies that do that have some very low margins and their profit's aren't high. Manufacturing companies anyway. And with those business structures comes high turn over, higher than average injury rates, and higher than average quality issues. All of which takes an even deeper cut into the opportunities for profit and growth.
The choice to stay with an employer like that is a personal choice. BS of the company's side, but they probably aren't far from being outsourced to China or Mexico if that is how they are operating.

Ah. You don't understand the way the poverty trap works. How naive.

You could write libraries worth of stuff Assclown does not seem to know . But acts like he does .

[Abaddon_ire]

Ah. You don't understand the way the poverty trap works. How naive.

You could write libraries worth of stuff Assclown does not seem to know . But acts like he does .

What the hey, I might as well have a go.

As we sit, I own my home outright, I have no debt, I don't even have a credit card, I am self employed and I am really, really comfy in my life.

Sounds nice? Sure.

However, once upon a long ago, I was actually homeless for an entire fucking year. I will apologise out front because there will be much swearing ahead. Also, regulations may vary depending upon your locale

So it was an odd new experience to me. The first lesson. To get welfare, you require a permanent address of residence. I am fucking homeless at the time. How the fuck would I have one of those? No problem, my sister allowed me to use hers and to hot bunk when possible bless her, so I got to sleep in a bed or a couch when possible, take a shower when needed and otherwise couch surf with friends. Guess what. Most homeless folks do not have that facility. I am fortunate in my friends and family. One might rationally think "Surely one could get a place in a shelter/Hostel/other" But no, those do not count as a permanent residence. I was lucky enough to have the safety ne of friends and family who were willing to flat out lie. Most of the homeless do not have that so they are flat out fucked from the start. 

So moving on. You can work your way out of it. What a load of bollocks. What exactly is a homeless person to do when it comes to applying for a job? They can't print a CV/Resume to send to anyone, they can't go on the internet to search for jobs, they can't call anyone because they have no phone, they can't even travel for an interview because even public transport is financially out of reach when your home is the next convenient doorway. One is fucked whichever way one turns. You do not have a nicely pressed suit in a wardrobe you do not have to wear to an interview that you cannot possibly reach for a job you cannot get. Because you are homeless and you are fucked.


Think about it realistically from an employers perspective. Say, for example, you are offering a menial job. A lowly dishwasher perhaps. 50 applicants turn up, 49 of whom are all shiny and spotless and one who has a random piece of chewing gum stuck to the coat he/she clearly slept in last night. Or possibly for the last month. Which candidate will be immediately chucked out?

And that is the nature of the poverty trap. It happens that I was fortunate enough to have that family and friends network to fall back on as a foundation for rebuilding my life. But it was a deeply humbling experience to discover how truly fucked the homeless are at every turn at first hand as a fellow traveller.

[Court Jester]

You could write libraries worth of stuff Assclown does not seem to know . But acts like he does .

What the hey, I might as well have a go.

As we sit, I own my home outright, I have no debt, I don't even have a credit card, I am self employed and I am really, really comfy in my life.

Sounds nice? Sure.

However, once upon a long ago, I was actually homeless for an entire fucking year. I will apologise out front because there will be much swearing ahead. Also, regulations may vary depending upon your locale

So it was an odd new experience to me. The first lesson. To get welfare, you require a permanent address of residence. I am fucking homeless at the time. How the fuck would I have one of those? No problem, my sister allowed me to use hers and to hot bunk when possible bless her, so I got to sleep in a bed or a couch when possible, take a shower when needed and otherwise couch surf with friends. Guess what. Most homeless folks do not have that facility. I am fortunate in my friends and family. One might rationally think "Surely one could get a place in a shelter/Hostel/other" But no, those do not count as a permanent residence. I was lucky enough to have the safety ne of friends and family who were willing to flat out lie. Most of the homeless do not have that so they are flat out fucked from the start. 

So moving on. You can work your way out of it. What a load of bollocks. What exactly is a homeless person to do when it comes to applying for a job? They can't print a CV/Resume to send to anyone, they can't go on the internet to search for jobs, they can'tcall anyone because they have no phone, they can't even travel for an interview because even public transport is financially out of reach when your home is the next convenient doorway. One is fucked whichever way one turns. You do not have a nicely pressed suit in a wardrobe you do not have to wear to an interview that you cannot possibly reach for a job you cannot get. Because you are homeless and you are fucked.


Think about it realistically from an employers perspective. Say, for example, you are offering a menial job. A lowly dishwasher perhaps. 50 applicants turn up, 49 of whom are all shiny and spotless and one who has a random piece of chewing gum stuck to the coat he/she clearly slept in last night. Or possibly for the last month. Which candidate will be immediately chucked out?

And that is the nature of the poverty trap. It happens that I was fortunate enough to have that family and friends network to fall back on as a foundation for rebuilding my life. But it was a deeply humbling experience to discover how truly fucked the homeless are at every turn at first hand as a fellow traveller.

That's a lot of can nots in there. Pretty negative outlook