Posted on 12/05/2018 9:05:41 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Good analogy. It is similar to the NFL, NBA players, actors and musicians who literally make millions in a few years and end up bankrupt a few years later. Occasionally, you hear how these people were taken advantage of by their money manager(AKA Bernie Madoff). However, most of the time is spending like you are Ni$$er Rich.
In *any* economic system, there will be poor people. That is the very nature of economics. Whether it is capitalism, socialism, or some other -ism, economics is, almost by definition, competitive. There will be winners (rich), and losers (poor).
My grandparents lived in a retirement community. Many, if not most, of the people they chummed around with were rich...some of them very seriously rich.
You'd never know it.
The only tell was the number of men who drove Cadillacs, including my Grandfather. He said, "I always wanted one, growing up, now I can have one." Otherwise, nada. Like you, they brought lunches out and wore hand-me-downs (the "thrift store" in town was *the* place to shop!), KMart and WalMart were the stores, instead of Aldi and Costco, but the concept was the same, and so on.
Having two parents that have high expectations of you is, imho, the most important aspect to being successful. In some cultures this isn’t even valued and the poverty is rampant. It has become a generational problem that only now seems to be turning.
I’ve literally heard a parent say to a child that wishes to attend university, “what? you think you’re better than we are?” - demolishing their aspirations.
The odds of doctor parents having a doctor child is very high. You can argue genetics is at play but I’ll argue they also have high expectations from day one and do all they can to nurture it. Likewise, when you’re in a very poor area, the people have absolutely zero idea of how to improve things - perpetuated by a government giving them enough to continue living in poverty.
Here is a classic example in this other Freerepublic thread just posted:
Ex-Patriot player Browner sentenced in attempted murder case
fox61.com ^ | Posted 5:33 PM, December 4, 2018, | Staff
POMONA, Calif. — Prosecutors say former NFL cornerback Brandon Browner has been sentenced to eight years in prison for trying to kill his ex-girlfriend after breaking into her Southern California home.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office says Browner was sentenced Tuesday after pleading no contest to attempted murder as part of a deal with prosecutors. The 34-year-old also pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of cruelty to a child.
The judge ordered Browner to stay away from the victim and her two children for 10 years.
Browner, who won Super Bowls with the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, was arrested in July.
Investigators said Browner broke into the apartment, chased and dragged the woman and then tried to smother her in a carpe
EG. You can take the man out of the Hood, but you can take the Hood out of the man.
Unfortunately, this guy dances all around "the root cause" but I don't blame him as nobody wants to talk about it.
Although it is not simplistic, it is fundamental. Society in general, and certain segments of society in particular have rejected immutable truth and morality.
As this author points out, we have poured gobs and gobs of money into education with the same result. Children with intact families generally perform far better than children in broken homes and with one parent. Not always, of course, but in statistically significant ways.
Housing. Again, the government has spent trillions of dollars to develop "affordable housing" to the same result over and over. Disjointed and broken families living in these places do not care for the property and it almost always degenerates into complete criminal anthropologic mess.
The criminal justice system. Again, empirical statistics repeatedly prove that teens without a father are far more likely to encounter the criminal justice system than those from homes with an engaged father.
Again, the author talks in circles here and never hits the bull's-eye. But nobody wants to talk about the family structure or morality for fear of offending people or out of fear of some racial reprisal. Well, just how many lives have to be completely shattered before we are able to overcome fear of offense and reprisal?
Education can only do so much about this no matter how much money is poured into it. It is immune to social engineering like affirmative action. Good family upbringing helps, but the old proverb remains sadly true: you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
for later
Probably because they spend their money on the National Review and Weakly Standard.
It sounds cruel, but you just can’t fix stupid. You especially can’t fix it by funding it.
I have a relative (through adoption) who is lower IQ. He means well, but doesn’t understand the consequences of multiple small unnecessary expenditures. His wife is even worse-she is incredibly wasteful and neither grasps the concept of thrift or living within their means.
Both spent their late teens to mid twenties in group homes and that compounded the problem. Because the group homes get a large portion of their funding for “activities”, they go out on trips almost daily. When my relative once wanted to just stay home he was moved up a level-a punishment that struck deep fear in the residents as two levels means sitting for 30 minutes with your elbows on the table, no movement allowed. Now on their own they go to various events and activities almost every night; it became their normal. They don’t consider the expense of extra gas, admission fees, etc. as wasted money.
For the most part, too many children.(1)
But also stupidity(2), ignorance(3), and sloth(4).
10
10
10
10___
40% = probably not middle class folks in this life......
BASTARDY = another LARGE %age.......
There is no shortcut to success or wealth. It takes hard work, perseverance and the right choices.
In America, everybody, including poor people, have the chance to get ahead. America is about equal opportunity, not equal results.
Some folks make something of that and others resign themselves to their existing lot in life because they see the work it takes to get ahead and they give up.
Wrong choice.
“war on poverty”
Think Ol’LBJ turned this into “whore in poverty” with the GREAT SOCIETY !!!
I agree with your comments. Particularly, as you mentioned, “generation by generation”. There are some situations that render people “poor” for myriad reasons, but turning it around for the next generation can be achievable.
In the public school system ...once you fall behind your fate is all but sealed.
They either just pass you and move you on.
Or,they put you in a separate class room where you look at pictures of birds and try to identify which one is different from the other 3 pictures of birds.
Meanwhile your fellow students are learning how to read and write and do fractions and do division.
By the time you graduate from you are prepared to work at a Walmart gathering shopping carts in the parking lot.
Which is fine. But you can hardly raise a family on that kind of income.
A few escape and self educate.
The possibility of escape seems greater in the age of computers.
Yes, that is true. And I think the “grievance mongers” tend to be those with less-than-honorable motives, who have identified that they can profit, somehow, by keeping some people from seeing and understanding that they CAN improve their lot in life.
Path choices: (1) live life as a victim, and feeling entitled to “help” of all types from any source - or - (2) live life as being responsible for one’s own efforts and results, even if incremental, building on prior experiences to move forward. Too much of society, the MSM, and school systems promote #1. JMHO
They’re poor because they subscribe to victim mentality and have no ambition for anything better.
Anyone can dig themselves out of poverty, but it can’t be done overnight. It takes work.
And there’s no such thing as luck. You make your own luck.
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.