201–210 of 632 posts
> Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not. But not having 3 kids when you cannot afford having them might be. That is the issue nobody likes to address. For driving a car you have to have driving license, for owning a gun you have to have some kind of permit, to made new human being you can just go ahead. No matter if you can raise it. Would she be better of not having them? Might be,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a reason you couldn't simply have taken out a student loan?
I absolutely could've. My college offered student loans to me as a means of paying for my education but if I had $0 to my name upon hitting 18, my life would've been radically different. As I mentioned in another comment a lot of that money went towards helping my family with FAFSA supplementing my school costs. I was effectively responsible for supporting my entire family and given my other health/mental issues at t…
I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…
The biggest problem is role models. If your family or friends live a certain way then you tend to copy them unless you're able to think differently or have someone to advise you thru your early years.
Not only that, getting out of poverty is a long-term process that requires hard work in the right areas. But even hard work is not enough. I can do very hard work all my life at a minimum wage job and never get ahead.
At a very basic level getting out seems very simple. All people need to do is to study to get a good job and work hard. But in reality, that's not enough. You need the support system and the right mindset to get you out. Many people can do it but as we see over and over many people can't.
I think the throwing jobs and money at the problem is not enough. I think what would work is to consult young families and young kids that are at risk on what they need to do to get ahead. This needs to be done not once but for years and on a regular basis. It would be similar to a regular check up the way we visit the doctor or dentist.
America is a country of huge wealth. Wealthy in natural resources, capital equipment, labor ... fucking everything. And yet we have such terrible poverty. When I read stories about poor people in America, always there is lurking just below the surface the key element of scarcity. Not food. Not transportation. Not clothing. Not even, surprisingly, health care. The missing factor in all these broken lives is the simple…
Terrible poverty? Well much less poverty than in about 95 percent of the planet so everything is relative. Now, the market cannot solve a problem that is linked to human nature. Humans like living in dense areas rather than on the top of mountains, so space will be more and more expansive as density increase. Nothing unusual. Density also brings more jobs and more commerce so this is a cycle that goes with it. This b…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If there are only 19 bones for every 20 dogs, then it doesn't matter how good a bone hunter they all are there will always be one dog disappointed and the other 19 will be grateful for the bone no matter how thin and weedy it is. Or, if the dogs are intelligent, they could split those 19 bones to 20 pieces...
That wouldn't make them intelligent at all. This idea that there should always be fairness and equality in existence is very naive.
America is a country of huge wealth. Wealthy in natural resources, capital equipment, labor ... fucking everything. And yet we have such terrible poverty. When I read stories about poor people in America, always there is lurking just below the surface the key element of scarcity. Not food. Not transportation. Not clothing. Not even, surprisingly, health care. The missing factor in all these broken lives is the simple…
Terrible poverty? Well much less poverty than in about 95 percent of the planet so everything is relative. Now, the market cannot solve a problem that is linked to human nature. Humans like living in dense areas rather than on the top of mountains, so space will be more and more expansive as density increase. Nothing unusual. Density also brings more jobs and more commerce so this is a cycle that goes with it. This b…
Then there are things like medical expenses, debt, family members in need of support.
I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…
The biggest problem is role models. If your family or friends live a certain way then you tend to copy them unless you're able to think differently or have someone to advise you thru your early years.
Not only that, getting out of poverty is a long-term process that requires hard work in the right areas. But even hard work is not enough. I can do very hard work all my life at a minimum wage job and never get ahead.
At a very basic level getting out seems very simple. All people need to do is to study to get a good job and work hard. But in reality, that's not enough. You need the support system and the right mindset to get you out. Many people can do it but as we see over and over many people can't.
I think that throwing jobs and money at the problem is not the solution. What will work is to consult young families and young kids that are at risk on what they need to do to get ahead plus the support system that will help. This needs to be done not once but for years and on a regular basis. It would be similar to a regular check up the way we visit the doctor or dentist and get advice on what to do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The illegals are all picking strawberries for below minimum wage so we don't have the bear the true costs of our food. Remove them and there would be serious repercussions for those at the lower strata of society.
So you’re saying those illegals are basically slaves? Wouldn’t the ethical thing to prevent illegal immigration into the country knowing that these people may be abused?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If there are only 19 bones for every 20 dogs, then it doesn't matter how good a bone hunter they all are there will always be one dog disappointed and the other 19 will be grateful for the bone no matter how thin and weedy it is. Or, if the dogs are intelligent, they could split those 19 bones to 20 pieces...
That wouldn't make them intelligent at all. This idea that there should always be fairness and equality in existence is very naive.