Poverty in the USA — why?

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Alicekinnian
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Poverty in the USA — why?

Unread post by Alicekinnian »

I am not sure exactly how to posit it without being offensive, but hear me out.

So, I spent a little bit of time with the kids today looking over YouTube; I was trying to explain to them the importance of learning math and science - the main purpose, as I see it, is poverty prevention - in the hopes that they will be further motivated to learn what I myself have no natural inclination to learn, and what I only learned myself as a means of poverty prevention. I thought a lot about the trauma that that inflicted on me as a child, and I was somehow trying to spare the children from experiencing that trauma, but they don't seem to get that they have to learn what may be boring in some aspects, to succeed in academia and hopefully life.

But as I thought about the trauma, and remembering the "loosh" theory that some people hold - I thought, am I just operating in an unnecessarily negative frame of mind? What would be the "worst-case" failure mode here? I thought a lot about how the purpose of 9/11 was to introduce fear and intimidation as a propulsion for war. I then thought about how poverty is probably used in much the same fashion, to keep people in line / working their corporate slave job, as far as those still exist. But then I thought, just as in 9/11 where the victims didn't really exist - could it be that poverty is also being faked, or is that too hopeful a thought?

The documentary I saw was curiously run by ABC via YouTube. It went over the life of a fast food worker single Mom, a construction worker in Seattle, whose family lived in tents, and an African American musician who dropped from fame. The entire documentary seemed to basically describe these people's lives as a miserable living you know what - as they lived out of hotel rooms, tents, and homeless shelters. One managed to get a state subsidized apartment in the end.

Maybe it wasn't the best thing to watch in my attempt to "chill out" from my academic expectations for the kids, and my own anxieties, but it got me thinking - could these entire lives be staged, and could all the homeless tents in Seattle be purposefully put there just for the sole purpose of terrorizing the rest of us into corporate compliance by the implication that we'd otherwise wind up in the streets? Or is this something simple enough that it doesn't require any faking.

I guess I remember the Truman show. But I suppose it would be a stretch for this to be the case as there are unfortunately children out there with no shoes.

If the swaths of people in tents are truly poor in a sinking economy, then I suppose there is a secondary question of - even real people really suffering - could it be that their situation was "engineered" so to speak - forcing them into a visible poverty for the purposes of instigating a revolution, or, if not a revolution, an extreme fear in the people "just above" this kind of poverty - but not quite in abject poverty?

I feel like for the past 20 years all I've seen in terms of US economic news is more and more people becoming poorer and poorer, with no end in sight. I've started to wonder if someone benefits directly not just from stealing wages from poor people but, by their very existence, for some purpose.

I do not mean at all to be callous to the plight of poor people in writing this; on the contrary, I rather sympathize with them and wonder myself if we will ever experience such poverty directly. But I am also noticing that I am having a fear based reaction rather than one based in positive improvement so, that makes me wonder if I am being manipulated.

Thoughts?
aa5
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Re: Poverty in the USA — why?

Unread post by aa5 »

One aspect is like everything our public housing agencies and the state agencies like city governments are businesses. They want more revenues, more employees, more job security, raises, more power, fancier offices, etc. Aka the people who work for these agencies are the same as people who work everywhere else.

To get more money they have to convince politicians and taxpayers that their agency needs more funding each year. Which is tough to do, considering that health care, military, universities, police, firemen, etc.. are also arguing why they instead need that additional funding.

If we did the sane thing and built essentially vast playgrounds with relevant support systems and public sector employees say 50 miles outside of the city in the woods, for the inevitable % of the population who has mental disabilities and finds themselves constantly homeless.. then it would help those people imo.. but it would be 'out of sight, out of mind' for the general population.

If instead there is thousands of homeless in our very city centers, if every time you go out, you see homeless, it is constantly a reminder of why the public housing agency needs more funding. Now I'm not against more funding for public housing, what I am arguing is that its in the interests of the public housing agency to never completely solve the issue. Its sort of like when militaries actually achieve peace, the next thing is they get large budget cutbacks. Whereas constant war is constant budget increases.
HonestlyNow
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Re: Poverty in the USA — why?

Unread post by HonestlyNow »

*
The homeless populations are very real. If you haven't had the experience to witness them, ask around. I can bet if you went to any run down "trailer park" in your area, that you could find a person there who would point you to where the local homeless campsites exist.


Why does poverty exist? Because poverty mindsets exist. One cannot live above the level of their own thinking. To be able to see opportunity for wealth creation; to be able to motivate the self to create a vision, organize one's thinking, control one's attention, and ultimately take appropriate action; and to be able to feel the worthiness of receiving the abundance this world actually has to offer—all these begin in the mind.
nonhocapito
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Re: Poverty in the USA — why?

Unread post by nonhocapito »

Interesting ideas Alicekinnan. I would say that there is a pretty strong agenda, especially now, to portray the world and the U.S. in particular as a wretched place were misery abounds (except all the people who appear to want to be there, to seemingly add more misery to the misery already present, for some strange reason). I don't think this is a reliable image of reality. If you listen to economists and theorists of the free market, the ones who are not co-opted by the left or enrolled in (((Academia))), they will tell you that there are way less poor people today than in the past. Visibly so. They will also tell you that the rich got richer,true, but essentially because the pie got bigger, and a bigger pie means less poor people.

Of course inequality exists, it's a sad, tragic condition of life and, to a certain extent, the last scrap of the brutality of nature, which pervades everything and which, no, we cannot do without. Nonetheless, at least we live in a world that tries or manifests the intention to provide equal of opportunities to everyone. Well, sure, it's not really "equality" if one person goes to the best schools and the other can only scrape by at public schools and community colleges. Still, when it comes to becoming an entrepreneur or a creator of things, we do really have equal opportunities (as long as one doesn't want to excel in (((controlled))) cultural environments), and it's a marvel how well such system works.

Another interesting point, and I believe Thomas Sowell made it very clearly already in the early sixties, is that, like aa5 is saying, agencies and governmental institutions work at always growing and absorbing more resources, with the sole intent of perpetuating themselves. I cannot think of any solution to this, however, that isn't through more and more free market. Any other remedy seems to only mean more and more government and more bureaucratic apparatus feeding on the public.

I also agree with HonestlyNow that poverty is sometimes a cultural mindset before being an economic condition. I would postulate that the self-implosion and wretchedness of cultural and educational institutions in the US and around the world is what has caused this, considerably more than the allegedly disadvantageous economic backgrounds we face.

Still, as we look at society today, there is one thing I think we should nevertheless learn from the left: the "atomization" of the public is a terrible thing, and one that certainly favors the pigs in charge and all those who take advantage of it. It's high time for people to get more involved with each other and, especially in cities, be less isolated or indifferent to each other's destinies. This cannot be only done through "charity work", which basically never addresses the root of problems but only patches the symptoms, but also with forms of reciprocal education and enlightenment, in terms of understanding our reciprocal value as workers, as parents, as students. This doesn't need to be in the direction of miserable socialist ideas, but in the direction of helping each other to grow as responsible, supportive citizens. Homeless people are a good example of that, because they are the product of deep forms of isolation that only the proactive good spirits and intentions of everyone else can cure.
sykkelmannen
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Re: Poverty in the USA — why?

Unread post by sykkelmannen »

It is said that Diogenes lived in a barrel.

My thought is that the very idea of homelessness is being used against the people to scare the shit out of them. As George Carlin put it, 'Keep up showing up at those jobs!':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdH38k0iUgI

If you ever pick up the guts to experience homelessness (which should be called houselessness really) you might find it one of the most enlightening experiences you've ever had. I had the best time of my life being a 'houseless' hobo exploring the world on a zero budget for well over a year. I have learned to appreciate simple things and gained a deep sense of safety and self-confidence. Life is but our choices.
aa5
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Re: Poverty in the USA — why?

Unread post by aa5 »

On the aspect of government agencies seeking growth/to perpetuate themselves.

I believe the answer is in governance/leadership. We have a very odd system in the West where the leaders are politicians who only are in power for a short time, and their revolving door of appointees. And often those appointees have no experience in their appointed position. Eg.. someone with no experience in healthcare becoming the minister of health for 10 months. It creates a vacuum of leadership.

In that vacuum, the management of the organizations takes over.. the same things happens at big corporations with leadership/governance issues.

A reason why judges are taking over legislative and in some cases even executive control, is that judges are permanent appointees. In the vacuum of leadership, where crises build, somebody has to step in. So it is judges who are stepping in. They don't answer to the electorate, and they don't go away at the next election. Aka, they are still there 10 years from now to enforce accountability on the management.
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