Posted on 12/26/2013 6:46:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
On Thanksgiving eve, a Nicholas Kristof editorial instructed us on how to think about poverty in The New York Times. The main reason there is poverty, he tells us, is bad luck.
We don’t choose our parents, after all. Or the household or neighborhood we are born into. Here are a few of his observations, with my emphasis added:
“As Warren Buffett puts it, our life outcomes often depend on the ‘ovarian lottery.‘
[T]he difference between being surrounded by a loving family or being homeless on the street is determined not just by our own level of virtue or self-discipline, but also by an inextricable mix of luck, biography, brain chemistry and genetics.
[S]uccess in life is a reflection not only of enterprise and willpower, but also of random chance and early upbringing.”
So what’s the solution to this problem? It is apparently very simple: All we need is love. (Kristof’s column is actually titled “Where Is the Love?”) And just in case you are not motivated in that way, Kristof draws on the work of Harvard professor John Rawls to give a rational philosophical reason to spend more on welfare programs.
But before getting into that let’s pause for a moment. Is being born really a matter of luck? Doesn’t that take willful activity on the part of two parents? And is the inability of parents to support their children really a matter of luck? Or is it the result of bad habits and undisciplined behavior?
Let’s grant that some people do have bad luck. But bad luck usually strikes randomly. Absent hurricanes and tornados, we don’t expect misfortune to befall entire neighborhoods ― to say nothing of entire cities.
Kristof’s particular focus is on Food Stamps, given the debate in Congress over whether to cut spending on the program. So let’s concede that misfortune can cause some people to be hungry.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Bad luck and poor choices. But mainly poor choices.
And it is actually possible for the latter to live the happier life.
Bad luck, a failure to learn from past mistakes, not having the integrity to own up to those mistakes, and generally doing stupid crap to being with...
Yeah... I’d say there’s more than just one variable at play here and no... Love alone ain’t gonna fix it.
Well, I suppose losing lottery tickets, of which 99.99% are losing tickets can be considered bad luck.
But hey, the losers are supporting our schools since that is what ALL states with lotteries used to convince their citizens that the money would be used to fund.
Yes, and sometimes it's others's poor choices as well (see Detroit).
Poverty is the culmination of a series of poor choices,
by those in poverty now and their parents.
Bingo! Doing the same stupid sh!t over and over again pretty well guarantees you will end up broke.
As far as bad luck, that's what family is for - to tide you over when you get a streak of bad luck. Of course, "progressives" and their enlightened policies have seriously damaged the family as we know it.
This sounds like an argument against the American Dream where anyone can rise up form poverty to become rich or the president. You can’t make it so give up seems to be the message to me. It could also be a message to an migration bill that the illegals need our help, which will turn int their staying poor.
Sure there is bad luck. But that is not what causes the ghetto poverty in the US. It is caused by sin.
>> Love alone ain’t gonna fix it.
Of course not; according to the St. Nicholas (Kristoff) School of Thought, the fix also calls for buckets full of tax dollars redistributed by an all-powerful, all-knowing federal government.
Ah, the old “Do we have free will?” question. Liberals always seem to come down on the side of “No.”
Abject poverty in undeveloped countries usual results from tyranny among leaders and religion (islam).
There is usually a steady flow of charity but such is stolen and resold for cash by the leaders in said country.
Liberal logic. “If things are bad, use government to make them worse so you feel better about how things were...”
Bad choices and a lack of education. Poor schools combined with in many Black schools a disdain for learning leaves the “graduates” or drop outs without the basic skills needed to hold even menial jobs. Case in point Rachel, the 20 year old high school senior testifying at the Trayvon Martin trial. Being on the government dole also virtually assures poverty. For example the poorest county in the US is Shannon county, SD, the Pine Ridge Indian reservation, where every person is a ward of the government getting cash government allotments, free medical care, free education including college, mostly free government housing and food stamps.
I think America’s corporations have moved far, far too much American businesses to China.
America is sloping down, rapidly.
All of us, will be hurt, unless American businesses return.
Bring back US jobs. Build up America once again.
Upbringing matters - and that is a function of culture.
So everybody stop hiding behind diversity and crying racism and get off yer duff and straighten out your act.
The Kristoff line of thinking seems to lead more to the Sanger/PP line of thinking, or perhaps the forced sterilization of the poor.
Poverty, like wealth, is passed down from one generation to the next. But not because of circumstances.
The actual inheritance is not of physical wealth, or lack of it, it is in the attitude of just what wealth IS, and the care and nurturing of what is, at best, a fragile and uncertain art, preservation of capital.
Simply handing an unsophisticated and relatively ignorant individual a pile of cash is a recipe for making the value of that pile of cash evaporate, providing no lasting economic value. Oh, a few people right around the unfortunate inheritor of all this supposed wealth may do very well economically, but unless they, in turn, apply this new-found wealth to serious growth, then the cash flow continues to disappear down a bottomless pit. My own father, in his pithy way, called this “p*ssing it all away”.
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