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The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

nytimes.com

91–100 of 238 posts

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually one side will have to win out and then things will get very interesting. Well things are pretty violent already, with the deadly class war the police is fighting against the population (~1k in 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo... ) plus the countless arrests, macing, tasering and other violent actions of police against peaceful demonstrators, plus all the violence committ…

Could we not exaggerate? It doesn't help the discussion. plus all the violence committed by Nazis (e.g. the Heather Heyer murder and the other actions counted as right-wing domestic terrorism) "all of the violence", you listed one death. One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. You also act like there isn't such a thing as left-wing domestic te…

> One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one.

It is a systematic problem. 150 incidents between 1993 and 2017, an average of 6 terrorist incidents a year or once every two months. 255 people died, 603 people were injured. Source: https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/dark-constan...

Note: this is just the violence that got counted as terrorist violence, not your ordinary Nazi running around and slapping PoC.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#92
post #69
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'In the long run we're all dead' - John Maynard Keynes

"You shouldn't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive." - Van Wilder

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#93
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I readily critize our grotesque engorged bureaucracy, but getting food stamps isn't difficult, as exibited by the 40+ million people who take advantage of them, and by personal anecdotal evidence.

I think it depends on where you are and how used to using bureaucracy you are. I know people who really struggled to wend their way through the bureaucracy that protects food stamps in order to get them.

It's also self-selecting: if you're good at navigating bureaucracy, you most likely won't be homeless.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't had decades of sustained mass immigration of low-skilled workers.

What a bogus , Switzerland has 40% foreigners which have immigrated , 30% of those have nowadays a citizenship and passport , read Swiss history before posting such crap!!!

The raw numbers aren't the issue. Switzerland hasn't had decades of sustained mass-immigration of low-skilled workers. The flow of immigrants to Switzerland is nothing like that into the United State.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#95

According to the World Bank, 769 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2013; they are the world’s very poorest. Of these, 3.2 million live in the United States, and 3.3 million in other high-income countries (most in Italy, Japan and Spain). I tried to track down this factoid. First I went to the world bank: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=U... which does show 1% for the US. In t…

If the consumption comes from a market, then sure. But during the Depression, millions of rural Americans lived on $0 for years. Kitchen garden, a cow, a pig, some chickens and there you are.

So point is, maybe dollars aren't tracking what we think they're tracking?

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#96
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact remains that everyone starts with nothing. The parent questions why some are able to flourish, while others continue with nothing indefinitely.

The "fact" that everyone starts with nothing is obviously false. Even ignoring opportunity, the fetal health is highly dependent on the environment.

Given that we're talking about wealth – something that you measure on a balance sheet – is fetal health something that should be included? My experience with accounting says no, but I'm not a professional accountant. Perhaps you have misunderstood this discussion?

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't had decades of sustained mass immigration of low-skilled workers.

You don't know much about Germany eh?

Yes I do. Up until recently they had about 50,000 illegal year.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we not exaggerate? It doesn't help the discussion. plus all the violence committed by Nazis (e.g. the Heather Heyer murder and the other actions counted as right-wing domestic terrorism) "all of the violence", you listed one death. One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. You also act like there isn't such a thing as left-wing domestic te…

> One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. It is a systematic problem. 150 incidents between 1993 and 2017, an average of 6 terrorist incidents a year or once every two months. 255 people died, 603 people were injured. Source: https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/dark-constan... Note: this is just the violence that got counted as ter…

It is a problem, but not the way you are exaggerating it to be. You act as if there is a nazi army ready to march on the nation, but that's not happening. We do have pockets of bigots and racists and god knows what else, but they don't have huge bases of support unless we act like they do. Nazis want to feel important, they want people to get riled up and fight them. That's what the actual nazis did.

ordinary Nazi running around and slapping PoC

There are a lot of bigots and racists doing thaT, but unless we're being really loose with the term nazi, we don't actually have that many nazis running around.

Their worst acts were in the mid 1990s (OKC). Hell, in 1999 in Jasper, some racists lynched a man. 1999! Those people have always been around, they always will be around. There's always going to be some number of incidents. That does not mean they have real power nor should people act like they do.

This is a decent read:

https://www.npr.org/2017/06/16/533255619/fact-check-is-left-...

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#99
> Beyond that, many Americans, especially whites with no more than a high school education, have seen worsening health: As my research with my wife, the Princeton economist Anne Case, has demonstrated, for this group life expectancy is falling; mortality rates from drugs, alcohol and suicide are rising

Yet in 2018, most diversity initiatives still focus on race regardless of socio-economic background.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#100

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that the U.S. immigration policy (or lack thereof) bears a signification part of the blame here. Why in the face of globalization (and now increased automation) the U.S. continues to have an effectively open-door policy to low-skill workers makes no sense at all. As a U.S. citizen, I'd like to see a return to the temporary moratorium that existed until the mid 1960s (say 10 to 15 yea…

It's funny. Years ago I wanted to move to the US, but I hadn't a chance. I have a degree and masters and years work but beyond getting an American company to sponsor me, no joy. I've moved on now. But I have a friend (again degree and masters) who enters for the Green Card lottery every year, he has no chance. I keep hearing yanks saying that immigration is a problem and I'm wondering why it's so hard for us!
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