Some Thoughts on the Poor

[Dan Moadus]

I tell them to seek charity; from their family, their friends, and their church. Not from the government. Of course we have trained people to go to the government first.

[irishbobcat]

and for the poor who do not have "vices" and are stuck between a rock and a hard place...you tell them what?

[Dan Moadus]

An excellent diagnoses of the problem by Rick, and an excellent example of it by "Why? Town". 
Here is an article by a doctor who also sees the problem:

During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.


While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture" a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.

Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD

[Why?Town]

Maximize a poor man's gains today and he will be poor again tomorrow,

TEACH a poor man how to maximize his gains and he will be poor no longer.

Here's an true story,

I worked with a guy that may not have had a HS diploma, definately no college. He earned about 150% of minimum wage. In his early 20s he married a woman in her 30s that still only had a minimum wage job. The had a child right away. They lived in rental houses around the city. Drove beat up cars with nice wheels and stereos. Cars is plural because most only lasted a few months. Needed a stove so went ot Rent a Center and paid, for just one week, what a used stove in the Vindicator would have cost. Then paid it again the next week. This story goes on and on, I'll skip most of it and go straight to what really disgusted me.

The first Monday of February, whatevery year it was, he came to work bragging about his new stereo getting installed in his $500 van that day. It was " the best of this and theh best of that", got a great deal only $1100! Paid for it with his tax refund, spent whatever it cost to do the H&R Block rapid refund. 5%?, 10%?, more maybe, I don't remember. Now fast forward to October the same year. This guy needs to desperately use my office phone (during work hours, no less) to call HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program) about getting help with his gas payment. or it will be shut off today. I told him I didn't think they could shut off his gas right away. He said they were going to becasue he was behind on his bill. I asked how far behind do you have to be to have it shut off. His answer? I'm not sure but I haven't paid it since March. That's one month after blowing over $1100 on rapid refund and a stereo, For a van that he no longer had by this point in time (October).

There is absolutely no way this guy will ever learn to make better choices as long as people are bailing him out, why should he? He's not paying for it.

[irishbobcat]

Regarding the poor, we should maximize their gains, minimize their pains.....

[Youngstownshrimp]

So you are saying that the poor in America are in a form of slavery perpetuated by the welfare and entitlement state?

[Rick Rowlands]

Most liberals would have you believe that being "poor" is a permanent condition.  Once you contract it, you are inflicted with it and the only medicine is government money, which only treats the symptoms but does not cure the disease.  Conservatives think that being poor is a curable disease, and with a "liberal" application of hard work, education and intelligence can be completely eradicated. 

The truth is, most Americans at one time or another have been poor.  Your income is always lower when you are young and just entering the workforce, but as your skills increase and you gain experience, wages rise and you are no longer poor.  But your spot in the poor farm is replaced by the net generation who is starting out with low wage jobs.  Thus it is impossible to ever completely eliminate the poor.

Many of the poor who have trouble rising to the next level are having trouble because of their own bad decisions.  Either they are not taking the steps needed to improve their lot in life, or they have made bad decisions such as having children, hooking up with the wrong people, becoming addicted to drugs or wasting time vegetating instead of finding ways of increasing their service to society.  A wise philosopher once said that Americans at the beginning of adulthood are the most free people on earth.  They have any and all possibilities before them, but many will make decisions that will greatly limit their ability to be successful.  If a young adult decided not to leave their hometown then a wide swath of opportunities has been mowed down.  If that person decided to get married and have children at a young age then even more opportunities disappear.  Next thing you know all of the opportunities are gone and all that is left is despair and a meager existence provided by the government.

The true tragedy is that many young adults have never been told that they are the greatest obstacle in the path toward success, and that by making wise decisions can knock down many of those obstacles.  Instead they are taught that they can never expect to rise to a level of greatness, that they are being held down by "the man", or that because they are female ,a minority  or not from a wealthy family that they should expect to live a life of mediocrity.  They are being lied to, and entire generations never live up to their full potential because they were never fully informed about how they can achieve that potential.   This of course assumes that these young adults have reasoning ability by the time they are in tenth grade, which given the state of affairs in pubic education these days, is no longer a given.