Posted on 12/05/2018 9:05:41 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I grew up poor in the 30s and 40s.
I can still hear my mother saying,”If there’s food on the house and heat in the pipes you have nothing to complain about” (We lived in MA)
.
This. A significant amount of “poor” is mindset and behavior that is informed by attitude. Not that bad things don’t happen to good people, but part of the reason we keep hearing about people who win the lottery and end up broke 2 years later is because they didn’t lose the “poor” mindset and behavior once they weren’t poor. Add to that an inability to differentiate between need and want or to delay gratification, and there you have it.
If you were a politician, you’d hire a bunch of goons to do the actual stealing ...
“Its well-known that social problems increase to occupy the total number of social workers available to deal with them.”
opportunity
decisions
responsibility
and
bad luck.
Nothing like a fire, a hurricaine, a flood, a health problem to take one’s treasure.
...government policies help make or keep people poor.
~~~
I once had a fairly lengthy conversation with a guy who hadn’t worked in years. It started out due to an on-the-job injury, but progressed into a state of depression (my judgement, not his), malaise, and anger at the world. He had a lot of blame for others, but little blame to spare for himself.
=He should have got disability benefits. =His job should have been protected. =He should have got better medical care so he could have got back to work sooner. =He should get skilled job/career training provided or paid for so he can do something that doesn’t involve physical labor (because he is perpetually hurt now). =Etc. and So-on...
I think may know the mindset. You’ve probably met someone like him.
But to make a long story not-so-long, I asked him why he didn’t at least get a burger-flipping job, at least as a stop-gap to pay a few bills, and to prove that you are employable. I told him, if I had to, and my whole world were coming apart, no job would be beneath me. If no one would hire me (inconceivable, but just as a hypothetical), I’d go out to my garage and start working on crafts, furniture, trinkets, or anything I could peddle on the streets or online. You’re problem, I said, is motivation. You have just enough safety net to help keep a roof over your head, and you blame the world for not giving you a bigger boost up, but you’re blame is poorly aimed.
He told me, “I can’t get any job for less than $10/hr. If I do, I will still lose my benefits, but I wont be able to afford to replace them myself. Not even close.”
Well, I was stumped. I questioned, and listened, and asked for numbers, and thought, but I had no grande schemes to suggest. It was his fault for never getting a marketable skill, but I wasn’t going to be so blunt. I only suggested that he needed to buck up for a while, and find a job for low pay but on-the-job training.
What kind of system gives people the equivalent of $10+/hour in benefits for doing nothing?
What kind of system penalizes people for contributing to society, markets, or employers?
I understand that $8/hr jobs were not intended to sustain people and families. They are generally meant for students, part timers, and entry level unskilled help. But when government hurts people who work, well, just WT actual F
Why Are People Poor?
Only when democrats have power can’t rewrite history.
You can’t even have an intelligent conversation on the topic unless you define “poor” with some specificity.
“Poor” can mean a lot of very different things. Letting every person read their own meaning into it is a recipe for confusion.
How about DNA, positive home environment or lack of during childhood, and the ability to make good life choices versus bad ones?
"...nearly 1.5 million young African-American men have been rendered largely unmarriageable because of their involvement with the criminal-justice system. This has inevitably led to an increase in childbearing outside marriage."
How the he11 can that "inevitability" be reached?
Incarceration is not a cause of pregnancy.
I worked with a guy whose father was like your friend. Dad was in his late forties. Got laid off. Instead of looking for another job, he crawled into bed, indulged in a huge pity party, ended up living in the son’s basement for years, because he “felt unwanted professionally” Wasn’t out looking for work. Just sitting in the basement, watching TV, and having his son and son’s family support him. Started calling himself “retired” at not even 50 years old and with zero assets.
This author uses the same generalizations that many thousands of other authors have used over the decades.
They make for good academic papers, but they provide very little in alleviating the problem.
I thought I did the right things....got an education(no college,tho),served in the military,got married,tried a few jobs before settling on a skilled trade which I applied about 40 years+ to. I’m not poor in the classical sense of the word, but I didn’t exactly find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Got no pension; only Soc. Sec. Part of the problem was that the technology changed; not putting me out of a job, but changing it in such a way that I could not compete in it on a fair basis.
Great point about the lottery. That is absolute proof that it’s not the lack of money that makes people poor, it’s behavior in many cases.
In a society such as ours, it could not sustain itself if we didn’t have poor people. Everybody can’t be rich for capitalism to succeed.No one will dig a ditch, serve food or do other menial tasks for low wages unless that is all they are qualified for.
Lack of ambition is laziness
You can be a hard worker, yet still lack the ambition to improve your lot in life.
Democrats!
bmp
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