Posted on 08/06/2012 5:55:15 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Can you really be poor if you own a flat-screen TV ... or two? Depends on whom you ask.
With income inequality at the center of the national political debate this year, it should be no surprise that conservatives and liberals are coming down on opposite sides of the tracks.
Conservatives point to spending patterns, saying consumption is a better indicator of living standards than income. Using that metric, the nation's poor are living better than they have been in decades, enjoying many of the amenities that the middle class have.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
The things controlled by the free market(TV, cells, DVD) are getting cheaper.
The things with gov’t involvement (education, heath care costs) are much more expensive and getting worse.
Go figure.
It still costs the same as feeding someone for several months. Maybe it's not luxury, but it sure ain't poverty.
I don't have a spare $500 laying around to be wasted on a flat screen tv. Our "new" tv is one of those older ones with the big backside that was given to us when someone with a larger wallet than me bought a flat screen. Anything above the utility bill and groceries is considered a luxury item here. Last luxury expenditure I made was for some flip flops on sale about 3-4 years ago. I'd be rich if I were getting government freebies like half the populace I'm supporting.
There is some reality show on cable about a pawn shop in Detroit. These allegedly destitute people are lined up halfway to Ann Arbor trying to pawn their flat screen TV’s. The guy has so many of them in inventory you wonder how he could squeeze in one more.
Just ONE of hunfreds and hundreds of examples on google, and it likely barely touches the surface.
EBT Card Scam Shut Down In Lynn
December 13, 2011
“It was pretty straight-forward,” says Giles. “You need cash, come down here and trade your food stamps for cash.”
During a yearlong investigation, undercover police say they discovered a scheme where stores not only bought EBT cards at half price, but also hooked up card sellers with crack cocaine dealers.
According to prosecutors, some of the stores did over half a million dollars in EBT fraud during the last 18 months alone.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/12/13/ebt-card-scam-shut-down-in-lynn/
I guarantee you when I was growing up in the fifties with my other five siblings, we were far more materially poorer than today’s poor. But we didn’t think we were poor. In fact, I wouldn’t trade the conditions under which I grew up with any of today’s superrich, materially wealthy kids with their own room and every electronic gizmo their parents shower on them. We had a great place to grow up, because we had a great neighborhood with a lot of kids, empty fields close by, and hills to climb. All a kid (or at least a boy like me) needed was a bike, a baseball glove, and an imagination. We had a lot of fun with just a few material things.
The “War on Poverty” has been won.
Poverty - living on less than ~$7.25/hr - is illegal for most practical purposes. Between minimum wage and prolific welfare, law gives one no viable option of living on less.
There are no poor here. A 20th-percentile income, yes, there will always be bottom-quintile occupants by definition; poor, no, they are legally obligated to accept handouts.
The problem is those who waged the “War on Poverty” won’t declare victory. Instead, they double down (er, up) the definition of “poor” and demand a new campaign be waged on behalf of ever more who don’t need it.
With income inequality at the center of the national political debate this year
“Income inequality” - A line of thinking straight out of the Communist Manifesto.Since when does income have to be equal? I thought grown ups understood that life is not necessarily fair.
You may be on to something. Using inflation calculator I priced my first new car, a 1773 fully equipped 4 dr Maverick. Using the calculator the cost of that car would buy me a fully equipped 4dr Focus. A much better car with far more bells and whistles.Competition and technology seem to kee prices stable. Food prices might be lower if we were allowed to drill for fossil fuels here and not burn our corn for gasoline. Lower fuel prices would mean lower utility and food bills, not to mention transportation. As far as health care, why does no one question why competition exists in cosmetic and lasik surgery and veterinary medicine? Because they’re covered neither by govt or most insurance. Govt interference is an obstacle to a higher standard of living for the poor.
Oh NOES! I DON’T HAVE A FLAT-SCREEN TV! I IS POOOOOOOOOR!
Well then some of us are ‘poor’ by choice in that regard.
My old GE 20 inch CRT (tube) TV works perfectly fine with my $29.00 Dish Satellite service per month. Maybe I should reverse my debt-free status and then borrow big $$ to buy a 52 inch flat screen, with premium all channels/movies access.
Then I can watch way more TV and a lot less time on FR. So what if the IQ drops 20 points afterwards—at least I would be richly poor as the new status symbol.
Absolutely, flat screens can be manufactured and are therfore sold much cheaper than CRT’s. Also, LCD screens are nuch cheaper to produce than plasma.
Remember back in the 1980-90’s when a Sony 27” CRT tv cost $650. Now you can buy a 42” plasma for $499 and a 32” for $249. Of course, these flat screens will not last as long.
I still have a Mitsubishi 13” color tv I bought in 1985. It sill has a great picture. I paid $300 for it. I also bought a 4 head stereo VCR for $400 at the time.
In most cases, “poor” is a state of mind having nothing to do with material resources.
Which is why the Left’s “War on Wealth” will fail. They won the “War on Poverty”, but only by forcing the poor to accept handouts, missing the point of makes poor “poor”. Take everything away from the rich, and they will be rich again because they live the true essence of rich. Give everything to the poor, and they will still be poor because they live poor. Equalize all wealth possession, and soon society will stratify to exactly what it is now.
If I were emperor, All companys that sell such things as cell phone service, cable/satalite TV service and such, would not be able to sell to people on public assistance. This would be one of the biggest motivators to NOT be on public assistance.
The problem with “income inequality” isn’t the truism “life isn’t fair”, it’s that inequality is not proof of unfairness.
Some people just can’t deal with the idea that others leveraged the same opportunities into orders of magnitude more wealth - such people think that inequality is proof of theft and demand restitution, which is absurd as they cannot articulate what was stolen.
Give two people a pound of dry corn. They have equal wealth. One eats the corn, leaving no wealth - he is now “poor”. The other plants the corn, multiplying his wealth - he is now “rich”. There is nothing “not fair” here, just consequences of choices. The Left, alas, tells the first that the second, being “rich”, somehow “owes” the first - if only out of “fairness”. Persuasive, but false.
This neglects a major point: the poor are often poor because they make awful decisions in a whole wide range of things.
Take an adult who is poor, and one who is “self-made” middle class, and look at just their economic decisions. Often why they are the way they are is really obvious.
Give them both $1000. Often the poor person will say: “Hot dog, I’m rich. I’m gonna buy me some drugs, some lottery tickets, and get me a big screen teevee on layaway!”
The middle class person will see $1000 more realistically, first checking if it will foul up their taxes or get them in trouble for some reason, but they are less impressed by the amount, as it is more marginal to them. Then they think in terms of practicalities and “opportunity costs”. “My car is due for maintenance, and this might offset *part* of that; but I also need a new printer for my business.”
But this is just money. For the poor, the bad decisions just keep on coming, guaranteeing they and their family will remain poor.
“I want to get a tattoo on my face! All the 7th graders have them! And my baby daddy will think it is hot when he out of prison!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.