So what's the best way to tackle poverty?

[Telly Savalas]

It's always been an issue in this country, but due to the severe recession it's especially bad now.

What should our Federal, State, and Local governments be doing to address this problem?

What should we as private citizens do?

There's a lot of smart and creative folks here. Let's hear some ideas!

[virgogal]

1. It's been an issue since man first crawled out of the ooze.

It will never end,but the poor today are better off than they were a century ago.

[bobbolink]

2. Dead is dead.

:wtf:

[seeviewonder]

8. Keynes advocated taking money from the wealthy

in order to redistribute it to the less fortunate with government intervention. He had a good reason to stand behind this proposal due to the sound reasoning that the poor would more likely "use" the money instead of storing it and letting it devalue itself. In other words, redistributing money from the wealthy to the poor makes economic sense because the poor would actually buy products they need since they do not have anything in the first place. According to Keynes, savings were a bad thing since the money was not helping the economy in any way. So, if the government were to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, one could reasonably argue that we would be out of this nasty recession fairly soon. And that, my friends, is Keynesian economics (i.e. the type of economics that works).

[N7255Q]

21. How would it "work", exactly? Does it require every person to be 100% equally wealthy?

I guess the IRS could oversee and force compliance...
:eyes:

[seeviewonder]

53. Good question...

I think it is possible if the IRS and Congress work to eliminate tax loopholes (especially for corporations) and to simplify the tax code overall. FDR used these principles along with a substantial barrage of work programs and that fact got us out of the Great Depression. Also, companies such as UBS who help the rich to hide their assets should be investigated and reviewed by compliance more often and at random. If you want to take a look at a great example of this, look at the most recent annual report of Goldman Sachs and also of Wal-Mart. If you calculate the tax rates that the two large companies pay based on the information in the reports you will notice a large discrepancy. Goldman Sachs had a substantial amount of income as did Wal-Mart. For FY2008, Wal-Mart paid $7.145 billions in taxes, which was approximately 34.2% of the net income before taxes. As for Goldman, they paid $14.0 million in taxes, which is approximately 0.06% of their net income before taxes!!! Tell me if something here seems a little fishy or not...

[Telly Savalas]

5. The same thing can be said of disease.

Call me a wild eyed idealist, but I kind of like the fact that doctors and medical researchers are still combating disease even though they can never hope to eradicate it and sick people are better off than they were a century ago.

[bobbolink]

85. Ok, you're a wild-eyed idealist. I like that in a person. ^_^ If I'm reading you right,

that means you advocate continuting to do all we can to combat poverty.

Is that right?

Cuz if that is what you're saying, you certainly are in a small minority! :(

[lob1]

3. The pubs are addressing poverty by making it more accessible to us all.

[rwheeler31]

4. Know your neighbors, we do not do this in the US.

[MercutioATC]

6. Poverty is like crime or illness. We will never completely eliminate it.

It's also important to remember that we have a responsibility to provide the opportunity for prosperity...not prosperity itself.

That said, I believe that the best way to "tackle poverty" is to provide opportunity in the form of decent (not necessarily first-rate) programs such as education and access to health care. Given a basic safety net and opportunity, I believe that most people will provide their own prosperity.

[lexanman]

61. I agree we will never eliminate it.

Poverty has many causes. Some are external and some internal. Substance abuse and the related crime have driven many people into poverty, and that is by their own doing. Although treatment needs to be much more widespread than it is, people who want to continue to use will start the cycle of poverty all over.

The opportunity for properity is not there however for many people, due to continued discrimination, hate and greed. These are the worst aspects of human nature, so those external forces will never go away either. We certainly don't have first rate programs dedicated to education and access to health care, so you have no worries there. The problem is the safety net is falling apart and has been for a long time, which makes people unable to grasp up and reach for that rope of prosperity.

[JVS]

7. Take from the rich

[imdjh]

13. tiresome

[rwheeler31]

9. Get together and help.

[Carl Skan]

10. Three step plan.

1 - Early Education.
2 - More Education.
3 - More Education.

BTW, I once heard a statistic that at any given time approximately 10% of the nation will be in the bottom 10% of wage earners.

[rwheeler31]

16. You are so correct, teach women world wide .

That is a dream, but at least teach kids.

[Telly Savalas]

19. It doesn't take a doctorate to clean a toilet, fix a pot hole, or pick up the trash.

Yet somebody has to perform functions like this or our society breaks down. It's nearly impossible to make ends meet on the wages from a lot of these jobs. Are we to adopt a Social Darwinist posture and throw people under the bus if they get stuck doing the necessary tasks? Or are we going to try to see to it that the bottom 10% can lead lives of relative comfort and dignity?

(sorry for the multiple edits, but I'm having serious problems with the English language this evening)

[Carl Skan]

23. It does take education for somebody...

...who earns in the bottom 10% of wager earners to manage their money in such a manner that they can have the comfort and dignity they deserve. Whether that means sex ed, home economics, or just plain old money management skills, there are certain skills that aren't being taught properly. Those types of skills are tremendously more important to the lower level of the economic ladder than the standardized test b.s. being forced down their throats.

If you are implying that we can somehow live in a utopia where there is no poverty, we'll have to agree to live in different realities.

[Telly Savalas]

27. I despise utopian thinking.

But I think we're bullshitting ourselves if we think poverty is at an acceptably low level and that nothing more can or should be done. I find it weird that "we can't completely eliminate it" is such a common argument in this thread, when nobody seems to be arguing the contrary.

However, I wholeheartedly agree with you that more emphasis should be placed on the life skills you list above, especially personal finance. That's something that'd make a difference.

[XemaSab]

69. You hire a plumber lately?

Those dudes make BANK. They make more than most people with doctorates I know, and the same goes for the road crews and the trash men.

It's the people working 20 hours a week at Wal Mart that I'm more concerned about. :(

[imdjh]

11. Large scale public works projects and related changes to welfare benefits.

There is a lot of work which can be done out there. Part of the problem is that benefits often are too close to potential earnings, and work triggers loss of some benefits which are essential. So cash benefits if any should be eliminated (for those capable of working) and non-cash benefits should be offset by earnings, but not to the point at which there is no reward for working.

The Republicans and some Democrats have, defensibly as part of their fiduciary role, been so concerned about welfare abuse, that to tell them that a person is capable of working is to validate their belief that said person shouldn't have been on public assistance in the first place. This is a dysfunctional perspective. No, a person on welfare or a person on welfare+workfare shouldn't be better off than one who is busting ass to make it without benefits. However, there has to be a way to get people back to work in a way that doesn't require them to move backward. In many cases, the self reliant person ought to be able to get some assistance they are not currently getting.

Obviously, single payer would go a long way in this process. But it's not the only solution.

Workfare doesn't all have to be about highways and ditch digging either. Programs can be set up to improve existing communities, the quality of life in the same neighborhood in which welfare recipients reside. Stop worrying about whether the slum lord is going to benefit from a neighborhood fix-up, it's not like business owners don't benefit from other public works projects. People who clean up a neighborhood, who paint over stupid shit written on walls, who mow grass and fix fences, and tow old cars, and remove junk, and grade alleys, and take down illegal signs, and do all sorts of things which are routinely done in better neighborhoods, start to take pride in their neighborhood, start to take an ownership interest in that neighborhood, and start to stop putting up with criminal and destructive behaviors in their neighborhoods. It doesn't matter if it's a ghetto in Birmingham or a trailer park in Orlando, if I just clean up this street, I'm likely to want to see it stay that way.

And of course, we also have a lot of roads and reservoirs and bridges and stuff that needs to be spiffed up or rebuilt. And dare I propose an ag employment model with housing and human rehabilitation integrated to the program?

The point isn't to eliminate being poor, there will always be poor people. As the brother of the author of Angela's Ashes said today, being poor is not the same as abject poverty. We have very little in the way of abject poverty in this country. The goal perhaps, should be to restore real pride and real self-respect in the poor.

[varelse]

12. As private citizens, we need to reject the idea

that poverty results from the shortcomings and failings of the poor. We need to accept that poverty is built into our economic and social system, and that the responsibility for eliminating poverty belongs to all of us. Instead of advising others to "climb out" of poverty, leaving the less deserving people to rot in it, we should recognize the responsibility we all share to change the system which produces (and in fact, requires) it.

The first step toward eliminating poverty is to refuse to accept it as an inevitable element of modern life. From that point, it then becomes logical to choose, support, and vote for elected leaders with the same values.

[Carl Skan]

14. Would you vote for a politician who...

...drops the poverty levels from 11.3% to 5.7% in his first term?

[imdjh]

18. blame, fault, and responsibility

I think that most people do not know the difference, the functional difference between the meanings of these words. The only one that matters, is responsibility. It is your responsibility that you are poor, Sounds harsh, but it isn't. If being poor is your responsibility (not fault, not blame) then the only person who has the most interest in helping you has the job of helping you: you. Get rid of all the negative shit in your brain (blame, fault) and grab responsibility and run with it. Responsibility is a tool, blame and fault are wastes of time.

One thing I have noticed, is that most people who own successful small businesses are the children of people who owned successful small businesses. Successful doesn't mean wealth, it means self sufficiency and self determination. But who can show you the way out if your parents didn't know it, and no one you know knows it? How can you get on the ball?

The wrong people are working with the poor by and large. Everybody can't be a social worker, so how would a social worker know the way out? They don't . They know how to get a government job, and if that's what you want, then ask one how to do it. I myself have been on unemployment twice, and the "instructions" I got from them on how to get going weren't what I would call quality guidance. Why would I expect it to be. Oddly, for all the "Get out there and fill out applications." advice, and even referrals they gave me, they didn't tell me how to get a job with the unemployment office. Why? It's not a bad job. But it takes time to get a government job, more time than most people have if they are on the verge of homelessness (which thankfully I wasn't).

We have people who don't know how to make change. When was the last time a McDonald's employee or a grocery cashier handed you your change properly? They don't anymore, because they don't know how. We have people who don't know how to work. We have people who have no idea how to start a business or get out there and chase down some hard earned cash. They might have ideas, but they don't know shit about planning or goals.

I'd like to see a huge upsurge in the mentoring programs like the Service Corps of Retired Businessmen.

There is no shortage of people out there trying to make it. I see their cars, with stupid products and services advertised on the side of the car, or outright scams that these people have bought into. They need advice, clearly.

[Juche]

34. I always get my change back properly

However we do need more free or low cost community education programs.

[imdjh]

38. I can't tell you the last time I was handed my change properly.

They always hand me the paper money first with the change on top or then put the change on top. The proper way to hand mixed coin and paper to someone is to put the coin in his hand first, and then put the paper money on top with your finger in the middle until he closes his hand.

[Juche]

40. I agree

Also I like it when people shout 'frizzle frazzle, its 6pm' when I ask them the time. I haven't been told the right time in years.

[imdjh]

42. lol, no respect for the proper way, another problem

[Juche]

44. Why is it the proper way?

Who made that distinction that the method you prefer is proper and everyone else's method is flawed, and why should I prefer your method over the method most cashiers use? I personally have never minded the way cashiers give me my change back.

[imdjh]

47. Because the coin doesn't spill, but also because of the even older and mostly forgotten tradition

of counting back the change.

Your total was $6.25 and you gave me a ten. I put 75¢ in your hand saying, "...and seven, " then I count the three ones in front of you "eight, nine, and ten" and I put them in your hand. Then I say, "Thank you." and take the ten off the register ledge and put it in the drawer.

[TahitiNut]

59. Once upon a time, that was fundamental to being trusted to handle cash in any retail.

It amazes me that folks are so dumbed-down they don't know this.

[Juche]

37. I don't agree

Some people are poor because they make bad decisions. Some middle class people make bad decisions too. I have known families with incomes slightly over 100k a year who have declared bankruptcy because of bad decisions. So bad decisions are not part and parcel of the poor (George W Bush is a great example of a rich person who makes bad decisions), and it is not fair to criticize the poor when they make bad decisions, but to give a free pass to the middle class and wealthy for the same behavior. But bad decision making plays a role in all of humanities problems on some level.

We do need to reject the idea that poverty come 'solely' from the shortcomings and failings of the poor, or that only the poor can make bad decisions with money. However some poor people are poor because they make bad decisions or have made them (again, tons of middle class people make bad decisions too). However once they agree to start reforming, we should be willing to work with them to help them.

Issues like racial tension, single motherhood and mental illness (poor people tend to be non-whites, single mothers or have problems with mental illness) contribute to poverty and are not the fault of the poor. That doesn't mean all poor people make great decisions all the time.


Out of curiosity how is poverty built into our economic and social system? I am asking seriously, because I am not sure. I do agree that racial tensions are built into our social system, and racial tensions play a huge role in poverty (blacks and latinos have poverty rates 2-3x higher than whites). George Carlin once said poor people exist 'to scare the hell out of the middle class'. I don't personally think there is any great conspiracy to keep people poor in the US though.

[varelse]

45. Wages are kept stagnant while immense wealth accumulates

and concentrates in the hands of a very few. It's not just regressive changes to our federal government's tax structure and social spending policy that has exacerbated this inequality - deregulation of our financial industry (oh, and the resulting taxpayer bailout of the big players in said industry) has accelerated the growth of the gap between the very rich, and the rest of us.

The global economy and infrastructure has allowed our corporations to seek the lowest possible cost for all labor (including many jobs which require a formal, college education), and since most members of any economy are in the working class (think about this - how many lawyers, venture capitalists, investment bankers, stockbrokers, loan sharks, etc. can a society support? Someone has to grow the food, fix the cars, take care of the kids, and such menial tasks), this has had the effect of bringing poverty "home" to the US, fuelling an ever increasing upward trend of homelessness, underemployment, and lack of access to adequate, affordable health care and education.

[Juche]

48. I agree with most of it.

I disagree that poverty has been brought home though, it has always been here. No idea if homelessness is a bigger trend than 30 years ago, I'd need to see data of that. And the reason healthcare and education are unaffordable is they go up in price about 7-10% a year while wages and inflation go up about 3% a year.

The war on poverty which LBJ fought actually worked. Poverty rates dropped from 22% to about 13% and have hovered in the low teens ever since. So poverty can be fought.



But your other points are good, and the Center for American Progress and their anti-poverty initiatives which are designed to cut poverty in half within 10 years address many of your concerns. They include unionization, higher minimum wages, tax cuts and subsidies for the poor, etc.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_report.html

[tech3149]

52. Juche, your profile doesn't give much info but I'll take on some points

I've lived up and down the East coast and much of that was in the low rent neighborhoods. When you have to live there you can expect to pay 30 or 50% more for every bit of food you put in your mouth. You don't have a grocery store within walking distance. You go to the local bodega or spend 2 hours on the bus. The other choice is to hit the fast food joint around the corner.

I've been on the other side too. Household income over $250K, ran up debt on the CC's over $60K. Dug a hole I should have never gotten into, not my choice but sometimes we don't pick our partners wisely.

Carlin may have been right to some extent but I think that the conspiracy may be more likely than you think. For myself, being "poor" isn't so bad. I grow my own food, fix my own stuff, and help the neighbors take care of things.
Having more money might be nice but it's not worth the effort.

That's just my perspective not worth anything more than it cost to read.

[Speck Tater]

15. We need to get at least 80% of the people in the top 50% of income.

Oh wait, ... I think there's something wrong with my math.

[Telly Savalas]

20. Or perhaps we should make sure the bottom 5% of income

is sufficient to provide adequate food, shelter, health care, and other necessities.

[rwheeler31]

28. Women and children know how to try to

survive.

[Speck Tater]

57. I agree. Everyone should be assured of at least the basic necessities. nt

[G_j]

17. some good stuff here:

http://www.stwr.org/

Share The World's Resources


Share The World's Resources advocates for governments to secure basic human needs by sharing essential resources, such as water, energy and staple food. We aim to promote greater international cooperation to facilitate a more equitable distribution of these vital goods and services.

As a non-governmental organisation with recommended consultative status at the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, we publish reports on key global issues and provide information on how and why economic sharing can end poverty and promote international peace and security. We intend to communicate these reports to policy makers, NGOs and campaigners, and to unite the global justice movement under a universal call for sharing.

Our website presents a broad mix of the latest information, news and videos on a range of global justice issues, including globalisation, the financial crisis and climate change.

STWR is a politically unaffiliated, not-for-profit organisation founded in 2003, funded entirely through private donations.

[varelse]

49. Thank you for the link to a new resource

This essay looks interesting:

Is there life after democracy?

The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximising profit? Is it possible to reverse this process? Can something that has mutated go back to being what it used to be?

What we need today, for the sake of the survival of this planet, is long-term vision. Can governments whose very survival depends on immediate, extractive, short-term gain provide this? Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race?

[warren pease]

22. Eliminate the stigma that goes with it, rebuild self-esteem, create WPA/NRA-class programs...

.. and not just the ditch digging kind, but the ones FDR's administration created to get writers writing, artists painting and sculpting, actors acting and so forth. In other words, support creativity rather than simply create a new generation of draft animals for the corporate fuckos to exploit, ala the prison-industrial complex.

Saint Raygun was a genius at making it fashionable to hate the poor. And I know it's damn near impossible to climb out of the poverty hole if you actually internalize all that crap and degenerate into self-loathing.

Huge sums of money are required so jack the marginal tax rate on unearned income (how the rich make their money) to the moon. Penalize the shit out of them every time they even think about closing a perfectly good US manufacturing plant or factory and moving the jobs overseas.

Pass the employee free choice act and jack union membership up into the 80+ percent range by organizing office workers as well as blue-collar building trades workers.

Put union-busting law firms out of business using RICO statutes.

Go to proportional representation, make federal money available to dozens of political parties, break the stranglehold the Republicrats have on national politics and make all presidents endure a weekly grilling just like the British PM must undergo in Parliament -- all on live TV with no voice-overs or pundit interpretation for those of us too stupid to figure out what was just said.

Break up corporate media yesterday using existing monopoly-busting legislation like the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Take back the money Wall St. stole from the treasury, forcibly if necessary, and reallocate it to create more good-paying jobs. Then arrest, try and convict the thieving bastards who conspired to clean out the US treasury. And quickly, before they can flee the country to their various island homes located in tax- and extradition-free banana republics throughout the Caribbean.

Admit the minimum wage is a fucking joke. Pass "living wage" legislation locally, statewide and at the federal level. Abolish "right to work" laws. Reverse "privatization" wherever it rears its ugly head.

Get out of the war business and use the money to promote "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" among the least of us.

End the phony drug war and the even phonier war on (some) terrorists and use the money as above.

Go to single-payer, universal access health care, with complete portability so that people can leave their jobs, go back to school, learn new trades, decide to work in a field more in tune with their value systems, and so forth -- all without the goddamn corporate world using their current hammer of "no job; no medical insurance," thus creating wage slaves for life.

Fire every single member of congress and the administration who's taken more money from corporations than from unions and/or progressive issue advocacy groups over the course of their political careers.

Impeach the wingnuts on the Supreme Court -- federalist society pollutants all -- and purge their corporatist kindred spirits now befouling federal benches all across the country.

Bring Cheeeney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Yoo, Addington, Tenet, Bolton (the pair) and a couple dozen more of the worst of the worst up on charges of treason and send them to the scaffold -- after a series of fair and very public trials, of course.

The latter won't help the poor get out of poverty, but it'll make a whole lot of people -- here and around the world -- feel awfully good for a few days.

Btw, none of this can possibly happen, or work politically, unless the country abandons the current bribocratic kleptocracy model and goes with public financing of campaigns. Absent their obscene influence peddling and $100K a plate fund-raising soirees, the swine pretending to comprise a congress may actually find it within themselves to occasionally remember who they're supposed to represent.

Arrest the entire Bush International Crime Cartel and hold them indefinitely without charges, bail, access to lawyers or even a lousy phone call.

Damn... that was fun. And that's maybe 2 percent of the steps an enlightened country might take to improve the lives of its citizens. Unfortunately, the US is not that kind of place.


sf

[raccoon]

78. Great post! nt

[ipaint]

24. Guaranteed minimum income, affordable shelter, affordable access to food

and universal or single payer health care. All this for everyone. Really level the laying field with the addition of free continuing education. No more readily available wage slaves in unlimited numbers desperately working to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.
Of course it will require a rather large tax hike on wealth especially the unearned variety and a hefty cut in the defense budget for starters. They can afford it.

The poor and lower classed have no money in a pay to live society. They aren't the problem the rich are. The question should be how do we solve the problem of the rich, the wealth hoarders?

[varelse]

30. The question should be how do we solve the problem of the wealth hoarders

the two are intimately linked. It's so much easier to focus on the problems of the poor than it is to question the rights of the super-rich, because one group has the means to vigorously defend itself, and the other is seen as solely responsible for its condition.

[ipaint]

33. Funny how that "personal responsibility" meme works...

I love bageant.

[varelse]

36. We (Americans) seem to have largely lost the sense of civic responsibility

There is a very libertarian flavor to discourse even in this relatively progressive forum. It's not a DU trend, it's a national tendency imo.

[ipaint]

39. I agree.

It really gets right wing when people have to make a choice between the best for themselves and the best for the community.
It's to my personal advantage that this scam health reform is passed but I cannot get passed the fact that by accepting something that guarantees future generations will suffer as I have just isn't the right thing to do. And that by accepting what is best for me I am required to declare millions of people not worthy of care, exactly as has been done to me.
How large a part of my humanity must I cut out and discard to accomplish that?

[varelse]

46. Some of us are so jaded we no longer feel even phantom pain

from that amputation. Sad, but true.

[burning rain]

50. Wealth tax.

Take a page from the French.

[varelse]

51. Got to pass the law though and

good luck getting our representatives to vote against their own re-election campaign dollars. *sigh*

[XemaSab]

71. I agree with income, shelter, food, and health care, and I would add education

The part that I don't agree with is that it would require a large tax hike on the wealthy, or at least a larger share of the income of the wealthy.

I think we're at the stage in this country where we should expand community gardens, expand habitat for humanity (and similar programs), expand volunteerism in the schools, rebuild the unions, and get a national health care system!

There is enough land here for all of us. There is enough wealth here for all of us. We have gotten away from the land and from physical labor, and it's time to go back.

[Odin2005]

25. We must teach out kids that the poor are not poor because of "poor character" and "laziness".

Once the myth that the poor are all lazy welfare queens is gotten rid of then the public will to tackle poverty will emerge.

Tackling poverty itself is easy. A guaranteed living wage, universal healthcare, a good educational system, strong unions, and fair trade.

[ecstatic]

26. I say equal access to a good education

is major. We also need a better, more diverse curriculum. Sure, kids need to learn to read, write, and add--but they also need courses that will teach them how to apply what they've learned.

[Initech]

29. I think we should use George Carlin's idea and build low-cost housing on golf courses.

[Juche]

31. Depends on the causes

Isn't a good deal of poverty based on women having children too young and a culture that discriminates against latinos and blacks? I thought non-whites and single mothers who had children in their teen years made up the bulk of the poor. If so then you need to do something to address their concerns. However I have no idea what. The elderly used to be the biggest (from what I rememer) group in the US that was in poverty, then social security and medicare changed that. Now they have fairly low rates of poverty.

I guess subsidized daycare, affirmative action, helping people go to college part time, job training, a higher minimum wage, stronger unions, second chances for people with criminal records, etc. would be needed to address poverty.

Looking it up the CAP (a progressive think tank) has some good recommendations.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_report.html

[timeforpeace]

32. End the wars, using the money to feed and house the poor, and give them health insurance. It's all

about choices now, we can't do everything anymore.

[tech3149]

35. Many good answers to your post

I think the best address the sense of community. If we can get back to the point that we know our neighbors and understand that we're all in this mess together, we might have a chance to survive. I would never let a neighbor go without if I could do something to stop it. I expect most here would feel the same.

The other side of the problem should deal with providing a livable income for an honest days work. For me, the best bet is to sustain local economies. If I go to the local market or hardware store I know that most of the money I spend is feeding my neighbors. If I go to a big box chain store, most of that dollar I spend will get sent off to corporate headquarters and do nothing for the people I have to see every day.

[bemildred]

41. Give more money to people that don't have enough?

Just a guess. It's pretty much a government sort of job, that's the sort of thing governments are for.

[Skittles]

43. JOBS

[Naturyl]

75. "JOBS" do nothing for the disabled poor

Or the millions of non-working poor in general, who are often the very worst-off.

[TexasObserver]

54. Redistributing some of the wealth from the richest to the poorest.

People at the bottom can never catch their breath, can never get a chance to play catch up.

[Hydra]

55. Poverty could end tomorrow

The fact is, it works too well. It scares the hell out of the workers who can afford to eat and pay rent. Makes them more productive and willing to get paid less and take more crap from their employer.

Our system is based on the BS concept that everyone needs to work 40 hours. We can't even sell everything we produce, so we make sure it breaks quickly or a better shiny comes along to tempt us. We need to break that cycle and only produce what we need and let people tend to their kids or their hobbies.

The system we choose is supposed to HELP us, not kill most of us. Yet, it does.

[Naturyl]

76. +100

[Hydra]

83. T/Y :D

[Kid Dynamite]

80. Average work week is now around 33 hours Hydra

whats that telling you? Somehow I'm not thinking it means our chains are getting lighter..

[Hydra]

82. Are people getting paid more to work less?

Your point is well taken, but I'm addressing the propaganda point that every man and woman in America should be working 40 hours.

Regarding what you said, IMO people are getting starved out...but if we were being responsible and efficient(and paying people correctly), I suspect most of us could work 20 hours a week and still get everything we need done.

[Kid Dynamite]

84. How do "we" pay people correctly?

I don't have access to payroll decisions for any companies..do you?

[Hydra]

86. How would you prefer to do it?

Minimum wage, basic standard of living, setting up a program of work credits with a basic living allowance, setting up programs to provide for basic needs like housing...

Lots of ways to do it, lots of people to object to it.

[Kid Dynamite]

87. I am questioning the premise

[troubledamerican]

56. Bank robbery.

It helps if you own the bank, as we have seen.

[sutz12]

58. Start revoking some corporate charters...

Any corporation should have a clause in its charter to promote the general good and provide jobs IN THIS COUNTRY. Otherwise, shut them the fuck down.

[SmileyRose]

60. Dumping the poor all in one place doesn't help matters.

When they built Centennial Park and the new baseball stadium in Atlanta they tore down some of the worst crime ridden poverty stricken hell holes in Atlanta - quit with the "projects" and shifted them over to section 8. The goal was the spread the poor amongst the middle class for more opportunities and more ease of access to decent food, education and jobs.

It didn't work that way. Instead nearly all of those people ended up in the northern part of Clayton County - which has deteriorated beyond belief. Apartment owners love section 8 because it's guaranteed pay rather than fighting for the rent check every month. So since north Clayton had gobs of affordable apartments - whammo. Now whole swaths of north Clayton have been turned into one section 8 complex after another. The crime and despair and loss of opportunity of the poor with it.

[TheKentuckian]

62. Abundant energy, education, access to healthcare, universal internet access (no access no jobs),

and restoring/creating a social contract that says that if you do your thing that you will have at minimum the resources to maintain a home, care for a family, and retire with dignity.

In any event, when one or two percent control 50%+ of the wealth it makes a person think it is more than possible to make a much greater dent in the amount of people living in poverty and/or barely hanging on.

[LeftyMom]

63. Housing costs.

That's what's killing the working poor. For that matter, most programs to help the poor are based on old calculations from before housing costs exploded, and do not reflect current realities, even with the real estate downturn (which hasn't trickled down to renters yet in most markets, and may not.)

[raccoon]

79. And of course medical costs, too. Even the cost of a filling or tooth extraction,

or eye exam, have gone through the stratosphere, if you're poor.

[leftstreet]

64. Guillotines n/t

[KakistocracyHater]

65. create jobs that pay a middle-class wage for that area, customize jobs

to each area-like architecture, food, fashion, scientific analysis(of lakes when near lakes, of streams near streams, of the air everywhere). Out of nothing is where you create jobs, somewhat like Amazon.com (I doubt if they are related to Amazon & Dry Goods/catalog).

Energy head just said on Daily Show that if we change our streets & roofs to white it is the equivalent of taking 1,000,000,000 cars off the streets for 11 years. Is that true? Simply by changing over to Roman Concrete (like I've mentioned it here before) not only would it not need resurfacing(equivalent to asphalt) but it would reduce warming by not absorbing solar heat! 'New Roadways'(or to that effect, I'm crap with names) just played on TCM today a 1939 news reel demonstrated that scientists THEN were harnessing SOLAR HEAT to create a steam engine that then generated electricity enough for 1 refrigerator in 1939!

[eridani]

66. Single payer healrh care. Wealth tax. Investing in new green collar jobs

Reversing deindustrialization. Making union organizing easier.

[KillCapitalism]

67. Full employment to start with.

Anyone in America who wants a full-time job should be able to find one in a short period of time.

High & long-term unemployment are what's pushing the poverty rate up.

Wages need to be a lot higher also.

[omega minimo]

68. DON'T INTENTIONALLY DISMANTLE THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET LIKE REAGANISM DID

:evilfrown:


what a stupid fuckin question

[LAGC]

70. Get Rid of Social Security, Disability, and Unemployment Insurance

And just adopt this universal model instead:

http://www.usbig.net/

[SoCalDem]

72. Rich people hoard money, others hoard food

Until we can share freely, we are all doomed in the end.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article576184.ece

From The Times
October 8, 2005
Hoarding junk? No I'm just doing my bit for evolution
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent
Recommend?

IF YOUR home is cluttered because you cannot bring yourself to throw anything away, do not worry. This attachment to the things we own is fundamental to our survival, according to a team of economists.

The observation that the things we own are more valuable to us than to other people simply because they are ours is widely acknowledged by economists, who call it the “endowment effect”. This holds that people demand more money to give up an object than they are willing to spend to acquire it, and explains why most of us would not swap our favourite sweater, for example, with something of equal value.

Economists are interested in and puzzled by the endowment theory because it goes against classical economic theory of people behaving entirely rationally where money is concerned. Now, three economics professors think that they have found a Darwinian explanation for why it exists. According to Steffen Huck, of University College London, Georg Kirchsteiger, of the University Libre de Bruxelles, and Jorg Oechssler, of the University of Heidelberg, our emo- tional attachment to our possessions is “hard-wired” into our brains to help us to survive.

snip

Professor Huck and his colleagues also devised mathematical equations to demonstrate that the downside of having too much of whatever it is you own, be it corn, meat or mugs, is always less significant than the considerable upside of being able to secure a good deal in any bargaining operation.

“From an evolutionary viewpoint, if you can get more of something that’s good for you, such as food, you will be healthier and better off and have more children,” Professor Huck said. In a hunter-gatherer environment, where people have to swap meat against, say, berries to get a balanced diet, it is advantageous to like the food to which one has immediate access more than what might be reasonable from a purely nutritional view. This is because a preference for the food we already have strengthens our resolve when we are bargaining for other goods, enabling us, on average, to make better deals.

snip

So next time your partner nags you to clear out the attic, tell them you cannot help it — it is merely Mother Nature at work and you are busy ensuring the survival of the species.

[harmonicon]

73. you've got to be kidding, right?

1. universal, "free" (tax funded, no out of pocket costs), healthcare for all
2. a minimum wage that is a living wage

sorted.

[Naturyl]

74. Gauranteed Minimum Income

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3817932

[melm00se]

77. step one

define poverty.

Right now it's relative definition.

step two:

Do you measure as a percentage of population or by raw numbers:

if you look at this graph:



the percentage of the population in poverty is significantly lower now than it was in 1959 (down 44%)

but the raw number of people in poverty is down only 7.5%.

One shows a significant improvement but the other shows that there is a lot to do. which is correct?

Step 3: population distribution and economic model.

with any population, overtime the distribution will reflect this curve:



so unless there is constant adjustment, the left hand side of the curve will yo-yo in and out of poverty as the economics of the system as the available "wealth" (another relative term) and the pricing inherent in a supply/demand economic model take hold. Which then brings up these concerns:

- what happens when artificial pressure is applied on the left side of the curve (or for that matter on the right side of the curve)?

- can the system adapt quickly enough and appropriately to avoid creating larger economic issues?

- at what point do you remove the artificial supports at either end of the population distribution curve?

- is the risk of the system "popping" (like a zit) outweighed by the potential benefits?

these are an interesting questions that have a lot of primary, secondary or tertiary effects and because of these wide ranging implications will it require a "disaster" of epic proportions to overcome the political and social intertia to redistribute the wealth in any sort of long term solution?

Historically, the feudal system only really went away to be replaced by a nascent (modern) capitalist model in the 14th century when a series of catastrophic events:

- Climate change (the end of the Medieval "warm" period and the advent of the "little" ice age) which brought about the Great Famine across most of Northwest and Western Europe and with that came low levels of widespread disease (compared to what came, which we will see shortly)
- Population pressures - the above issue coupled with a population boom from the end of the Dark Ages (and it's environmental limits on population) created a situation where there were more people than available food resources
- The Black Death - the spread of Bubonic Plague from the east and it's indiscriminate pattern of death was the final blow.

created an environment where the value and mobility of labor increased dramatically which, in turn, caused the flow of wealth to reverse. Instead of wealth flowing from the peasants to the aristocracy, it reversed and the wealth accumulated by the aristocracy (mainly land wealth but other kinds as well) flowed down to the laboring class.

(but I digress)

[raccoon]

81. Remember the "official" poverty figures are way on the low side,

because of the way poverty is defined by the US government.


In 2009, poverty for a family of 4 outside AK is $22,050. To me, that seems ridiculously low, even if the family lives in a relatively low cost area.

[LWolf]

88. Here are some critical pieces:

universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care
universal public education pre-school through trade school or university
job training for all who want it
superb public transportation across the nation

heavy investment in public works programs that will rebuild infrastructure, provide employment, ensure that ALL neighborhoods in the nation are safe, clean, healthy, and have a variety of cultural resources and programs available.

[maryf]

89. Housing for all...

Stop spending money on the military occupations, start spending it at home building decent housing for all...decent housing I say, not unhealthy housing...

[Ani Yun Wiya]

90. The matter of poverty has simple solutions.

Just a couple of questions before getting into a lengthy explanation.


What kind of poverty ? (poverty of the mind or heart, poverty of spirit or economic poverty ?)
What intensity of poverty ? (like darfur, mumbai, gaza, or skid row/welfare in the usa ?)

edited for typo.