Category: Poverty

Poverty Creeps

The political slogans of the day are all about how well the country is doing….how well the workers are doing….and that a better future is on the horizon…..

The news does not bear out the “good news” that all the Right politicos want you to believe….how shall I say that so there is NO confusing?

They are LYING!

The U.S. poverty rate in 2016 was between 12.7 and 14.0 percent. But the poverty threshold is based on an outmoded formula from the 1960s. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the threshold should be THREE TIMES HIGHER today. And it could be even higher if the true nature of poverty is considered.

There is poverty in the diminishing quality of life for Americans who are unable to pay for medical treatment during years of declining health, and instead turn to life-threatening opioid painkillers, readily available in a nation with less than 5 percent of the world’s population and 30 percent of the world’s opioid consumption. Poverty is the lack of community support in a winner-take-all society; the stress of overwhelming debt; the steady decline of jobs that pay enough to support a family; the inability to afford a move to a desired neighborhood; the deadening impact of inequality on physical and mental well-being. The United Nations describes America as a nation near the bottom of the developed world in safety net support and economic mobility, with the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world, the world’s highest incarceration rate, and the highest obesity levels. Low-income Americans are often surrounded by food deserts, with insufficient access to clean water and sanitation, and with the pollutionlevels of third-world countries. The poorest among us are even susceptible — unbelievably — to rare tropical diseases and once-eradicated scourges like hookworm.

http://theantimedia.com/half-of-americans-poverty/

This should be unacceptable to the Right….but as usual they cannot see past the rhetoric of their leaders…..leaders that owe their souls as well as their politics to the people with the deep pockets….for lobbying, not for worker wages.

This article is just an FYI……sad that it occurs in the greatest country on the planet…..and contrary to popular Right wing beliefs….these people are not lazy or slackers or any other insult they want to throw…..they are Americans.  Period!

https://southerlymag.org/2018/07/05/the-rural-souths-invisible-public-health-crisis/

Markets do not make the economy strong….it makes those crooks running corporations wealthy….not the people.

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3-D Printing

Hopefully my Sunday will be better than my Saturday…..for my time in the garden was cut short by monsoon rains all afternoon and into the evening…..

Homelessness is a big problem for many of our cities and towns and local governments have treated it like the plague…..they have made sleep illegal, made so benches could not be used for naps and put in spikes in places that would be good for napping….in other words a problem with these “bums” as so many like to call them….

While doing my reading I came across an article that I found very interesting……and it involves 3-D printing……

Food, water, and shelter are basic human needs, but 1.2 billion people in the world live without adequate housing, according to a report by the World Resources Institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. Today at SXSW, an Austin-based startup will unveil its approach to combat that deficiency by using low-cost 3D printing as a potential solution.

ICON has developed a method for printing a single-story 650-square-foot house out of cement in only 12 to 24 hours, a fraction of the time it takes for new construction. If all goes according to plan, a community made up of about 100 homes will be constructed for residents in El Salvador next year. The company has partnered with New Story, a nonprofit that is vested in international housing solutions. “We have been building homes for communities in Haiti, El Salvador, and Bolivia,” Alexandria Lafci, co-founder of New Story, tells The Verge.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17101856/3d-printed-housing-icon-shelter-housing-crisis

A fascinating way to use 3-D printing and it would provide a much needed service to the community…..

Please let me have your thoughts on this…..

Why Do Some Americans Stay Poor

There is one aspect of American society that confuses many people especially those in other countries…..American poverty.

Many sociologists, economist and other social scientists have tried to explain this situation….few succeed.  This blogger tried to answer the question of Why Poverty 10 years ago….as I said….tried.

https://lobotero.com/2008/09/29/why-is-poverty-a-dirty-word/

It is a nagging question.  There are many myths to go with the question….the biggest of these is the answer that these poor people are freeloaders that do not want to work and all they do is take from the taxpayer.

It is a simple explanation that fits the narrative from the Reagan conserv years.  It was a myth then and it remains a myth today.  So why do some Americans stay poor?

In his State of the Union address, President Trump said “there has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.” But the new 2018 Prosperity Now Scorecard and its accompanying report says that isn’t so for low-income Americans.

“The system is, by just about all measures, stacked against those with low incomes and low wealth for the benefit of the wealthiest,” says the report from the nonpartisan but left-leaning Prosperity Now nonprofit, which provides research and recommendations regarding Americans with limited incomes.

One example: low-income people are ineligible for federal programs such as SNAP (food stamps) and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) if they amass “even modest savings,” the report noted. Prosperity Now calls policies like this “a roadblock on the path to saving.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-real-reason-many-americans-stay-poor-2018-02-13

There is a considerable controversy about poverty and its relationship within inequality. From one point of view, any society with inequality is bound to have poverty. In other words, poverty is more likely to occur in a society which accepts inequality. Sociologists who adopt a relative definition of poverty accept that for the eradication of poverty, it is necessary to first abolish all inequality in income.

Now we know that the abolition of inequality in this country is never going to occur under this governmental standard.  Not too damn many Americans are poor because they want to be so…the system is the problem and a system change is not very damn likely.  Ergo the poor will remain poor and the wealthy will just continue to be exploitative and wealthier.

Closing Thought–08Feb18

After many decades of social activism there is one problem that could have been eliminated but there was never any seriousness to do so…..poverty.

And the poverty that irks me the most is child poverty……and the fact that it still exist is indefensible…..

The Trump administration’s proposals on the annual budget, the efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and restructuring of the tax system all point to a sad and even tragic conclusion. The poor will be poorer, dilapidated towns will continue to crumble, and crime will rise; but worst of all, our underprivileged children will be weaker, suffering from a lack of medical care and malnutrition with little or no prospect for better and brighter tomorrows.

The state of poverty in the United States, particularly among children, is abhorrent and scandalous, putting America, the richest and most powerful country in the world, in a shameful light. Successive American administrations are guilty of outrageous negligence toward poor children and have inflicted incalculable damage to millions who continue to suffer, causing a tremendous loss of human resources and productivity to the country.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/child-poverty-in-america-is-indefensible_us_59f21fabe4b06acda25f485c

I wish that I could have help end child poverty but all my hard work did little……sad to say that all everyone’s hard work has done little to eliminate the scourge of poverty.

Bye now…..until tomorrow……be safe, be well…..chuq

Closing Thought–11Dec17

Debilitating poverty……open sewage……poor education…..sounds like most Third World nations, right?

Maybe so but in this case it is some of the stuff a UN investigator on poverty found in rural Alabama……yes, right here in the US of A……

A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world.

“I think it’s very uncommon in the First World. This is not a sight that one normally sees. I’d have to say that I haven’t seen this,” Philip Alston, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told Connor Sheets of AL.com earlier this week as they toured a community in Butler County where raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits.

The tour through Alabama’s rural communities is part of a two-week investigation by the U.N. on poverty and human rights abuses in the United States. So far, U.N. investigators have visited cities and towns in California and Alabama, and will soon travel to Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/raw-sewage-hookworm-and-civil-rights-un-official-shocked-at-poverty-in-rural-alabama/

This in the “greatest” country in the world…….how pathetic is this?

That is it for me for today…..same time tomorrow….same blog…..be well….be safe……chuq

America’s First Black President

I remember when that was said about Bill Clinton….and today it sounds as moronic as it did back in the late 20th century.

I never understood why so many Black people think so highly of Clinton (that would be Bill not Hill)…..of all Americans he screwed them far more than any of the others.

His determination to make his Wall Street donors happy he helped remove Glass-Steagall which lead to the crash in 2008…but the on that I think was his worse path was for welfare reform….

This is a piece from 1997…..

I HATE welfare. To be more precise, I hate the welfare system we had until last August, when Bill Clinton signed a historic bill ending “welfare as we know it.” It was a system that contributed to chronic dependency among large numbers of people who would be the first to say they would rather have a job than collect a welfare check every month—and its benefits were never enough to lift people out of poverty. In April of 1967 I helped Robert Kennedy with a speech in which he called the welfare system bankrupt and said it was hated universally, by payers and recipients alike. Criticism of welfare for not helping people to become self-supporting is nothing new.

Source: The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done – The Atlantic

To this day he is still held in high regards by Blacks and I still cannot see it.  He did nothing to make the poor less so….he did grease the palms of his high price donors at the expense of the nation’s poor.

He will never be high on my list of presidents.

Hillary Has a Plan For Poverty

I have had my fill of gossip in this election…..this is a reoccurring phenom in every election since Jefferson….it is getting sickening.

Instead of mentioning her plan for poverty on the campaign trail she issued an op-ed in NYTimes…….

Hillary Clinton penned an op-ed in today’s New York Times outlining her anti-poverty plan. She often talks about issues related to poverty, but this may be the first time in the general election that she has put forth a plan to address it. (she has been running for a year or more and it is important now…why?)

Clinton writes:

The best way to help families lift themselves out of poverty is to make it easier to find good-paying jobs. As president, one of my top priorities will be increasing economic growth that’s strong, fair and lasting. I will work with Democrats and Republicans to make a historic investment in good-paying jobs — jobs in infrastructure and manufacturing, technology and innovation, small businesses and clean energy. And we need to make sure that hard work is rewarded by raising the minimum wage and finally guaranteeing equal pay for women. (what part of this is a plan?  Sounds like the same platitudes we always hear)

Source: Clinton’s anti-poverty plan – AEI | Poverty Studies Blog » AEIdeas

The American Enterprise Institute…..whose main concern is the maximizing of corporate profits…..

These are the same promises we always hear at election time…..where is the plan to actually get this done?

But to be fair…here is a link to the original report……

Source: Full-Report.pdf

It is a lengthy report and if you read it then tell me where the promise can be fulfilled.

All this is just a re-hash of the bullshit from the DLC in the 1990’s……her plan will benefit no one but corporate interests…..

Please DO NOT be fooled by the bullshit passed off as a “plan”.

But speaking of a job…..let’s say Clinton wins the election and you would like a job in the White House….what must you do?

If you’re wondering how to get a job in a Hillary Clinton White House, start by reading campaign chairman John Podesta’s hacked emails.

From a billionaire plugging a federal official for a cabinet appointment to Podesta himself plugging the daughter of a friend for an internship, the trove of Podesta’s correspondence posted by WikiLeaks is a portrait of Washington insiderism, showing powerful people turning into supplicants using connections and flattery.

In other words…DREAM ON!
I am out….gone to start my weekend…..hope all have a wonderful weekend….