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

nytimes.com

211–220 of 238 posts

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

#211
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give me your tired, your poor, > Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, > The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. > Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me I think it would be hypocritical at best, given America's history and current position to take such a stance. Surely the right thing to do is not to be scared of the immigration bogeyman and take some concrete steps towards the future, rather than…

That's from a poem tacked onto the Statue of Liberty in 1903, not U.S. law or policy. People quote that as if it's from the preamble to the constitution or something... Mass immigration made sense when the U.S. was a manufacturing colossus, no longer. Immigration should be targeted and far lower than it is now.

Well it was also written specifically for the statue of liberty, and was 'tacked on' to it, not even 20 years after it was dedicated for a reason. Because that's literally what the statue represents.

It's kind of sad to see a nation built by, from and for poor immigrants completely forget their origins.

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

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity is a completely different subject from poverty. They're both subjects worth addressing. Poor black people in the deep south and poor white people in the deep south still live different experiences even if they're both having a hard time. Rich african americans get treated differently from rich white people. This isn't a contest. We need to fix everything.

> Rich african americans get treated differently from rich white people. I am neither a rich white male nor a rich black African American. Can you please elaborate on how they are treated differently?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_contr...

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

#214
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am for immigration, it's just the pseudo indentured servitude that is H1B that I have a problem with. As to factory outsourcing, I think it's overall a net gain for humanity. Long term there is a finite number of countries and barring societal collapse eventually they will all end up 'developed'. It simply exposes other problems in the US like our horrible social safety net and endemic corruption. So, a small ~2-5%…

What does it even mean any more to be "for immigration"! At what point do you feel the USA will have enough immigrants? It's already a nation of immigrants!

> At what point do you feel the USA will have enough immigrants?

What does "enough immigrants" even mean?

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

#215
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berkeley has a tent community dead in the middle of downtown on some government property. Berkeley's homeless problem is really front-and-center. The otherwise nice parks in the area are pretty unusable.

I'm sorry, I have zero sympathy to people from Berkeley complaining. Considering the amount of money that Berkeley citizens collectively have and the progressive positions that they hold I am baffled why they do not add an addition $X thousand per year tax to everyone who makes more than a federal poverty level there to make sure that all out of luck homeless people have a real roof over their head, warm meals and me…

It's a mix yeah? Berkeley as a whole has a poverty rate 6% higher than the national average. .6% higher than Oakland.

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

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For two generations political protests were virtually 100% violence-free Two generations? So 60 years? Political protests were virtually 100% violence free? [1][2][3] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Conve...

Well, two of those weren't political and one was literally two generations ago...

The second was definitely political, as he was one of the main organizers of the black panther party. The third occurred less than 60 years ago, or less than two generations.

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

#217
post #19

So what do Switzerland, Germany and Iceland better than the rest of the developed nations?

Cultural homogeneity and qualities of values. People will not like hearing it until the day that someone could say "I told you so" once it is way too late, but here it is.

You will be able to trace the decline in Germany in particular as a kind of longitudinal study of what has long and thoroughly been established by science as the inherent conflict that comes from "diversity". You will be able to clearly track as the German culture and characteristics that made it "better than the rest of developed nations" decline as it is polluted with values and people that aren't just individually of objectively less advantageous quality, but the pollution aspect itself compounds those effects.

Essentially all research into the matter clearly shows that increased "diversity", combination of components of various incompatible and contradictory characteristics, means a fracturing and decline of social cohesion and focused interests in terms of human relations. It will be no exception with Germany, just the same way that you can trace how Poland and other eastern European countries that have not committed to cultural self-genocide and ethnic self-harm will not develop all the very problems that are already emerging and will only increase. This is not even a matter of just a European thing, it's a universal reality of human nature, when you combine substances, especially certain ones that trigger certain reactions, you will get those very predictable reactions; regardless of whether it's "diversification" of different people anywhere on the whole planet, just like if I force you to take in and support the livelihood of a drug addict, you will have some violent reaction to that. It's not really rocket science, yet for some reason the idiom, can't see the forest for all the trees, aptly and thoroughly applies.

Just like oil and water in and of themselves have certain desirable characteristics and are useful in and of themselves for different purposes, when you combine them you don't just pollute the water with oil and therefore make it useless, most, if not all people totally miss that in such a case you have thereby also polluted the oil with water and have made both substances unusable for their respective purposes. Additionally, the pollution aspect as also thereby accrued massive costs ... through a simple act of foolishness ... of separating and making the substances again valuable and of desirable and advantageous quality again that can be used for any number of relevant applications.

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

#218
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's from a poem tacked onto the Statue of Liberty in 1903, not U.S. law or policy. People quote that as if it's from the preamble to the constitution or something... Mass immigration made sense when the U.S. was a manufacturing colossus, no longer. Immigration should be targeted and far lower than it is now.

Well it was also written specifically for the statue of liberty, and was 'tacked on' to it, not even 20 years after it was dedicated for a reason. Because that's literally what the statue represents. It's kind of sad to see a nation built by, from and for poor immigrants completely forget their origins.

People haven't forgotten their origins at all; in fact most people are probably too overly proud of them.

But times also change. What may have made sense in 1903 may be detrimental to the descendants of those immigrants today. I believe we should have a sharp but temporary reduction in most immigration today to see if it benefits the lowest wage earners in the U.S. It's an easy policy to reverse if it doesn't.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I have zero sympathy to people from Berkeley complaining. Considering the amount of money that Berkeley citizens collectively have and the progressive positions that they hold I am baffled why they do not add an addition $X thousand per year tax to everyone who makes more than a federal poverty level there to make sure that all out of luck homeless people have a real roof over their head, warm meals and me…

It's a mix yeah? Berkeley as a whole has a poverty rate 6% higher than the national average. .6% higher than Oakland.

2015 fiscal berkeley operating budget was 293 million.

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/2015/05_M...

2017 homeless number is about 1000:

http://www.dailycal.org/2017/05/29/berkeleys-homeless-popula...

If every one of them is provided a $3k/mo apartment, it would increase the budget by 36 million.

Berkeley population is estimated at 121k

http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/berkeley-ca-popul...

20% of berkeley population lives below powerty level. So lets say it is 100k that are left.

36M/100k is what? $360 per person? There, I just solved Berkeley homeless problem at a price of less than 5 bottles of Napa Valley Cab per person who screamed at the sky in the city of Berkeley the day Trump became President Elect.

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, two of those weren't political and one was literally two generations ago...

The second was definitely political, as he was one of the main organizers of the black panther party. The third occurred less than 60 years ago, or less than two generations.

Well, my mom was in high school in '68 and I'm old enough to be the father of the kids rioting in the streets so we can call that two generations methinks.
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