The poor don't have it so bad.

Where was this said?

 

It must be easy to sit behind a screen and chastise people you don't know about these matters.

One of the great things a forum like this delivers is a degree of anonymity but it can be one of the hurdles to overcome.

You don't know me. You don't know pretty well anyone else at a level that warrants your ability to make this kind of an accusation. You don't know what we each, individually do for those who are less advantaged than us. You insinuate and openly castigate those who call out the despicable accusation that the poor are at fault for being poor. Yet you don't know us.

You don't know what we do on a personal level. You can disagree with our points, you can question our sources...but you have no room to suggest that we aren't doing what we can to address the issue of poverty.

You don't know and you can't know. You have no grounds for your pitiless accusations and no warrant for your argument that we are hypocrites.

Perhaps you would do well to hold back in accusing people on this board about being hypocrites without any kind of ground for that accusation. You don't know what anyone does to address this problem.

 

I thinking , without polarizing everyone, that we all want the same thing here....To take care of the genuinely destitute & poor by every means possible without enabling them to being long term drains on the taxpayer. Because we are encountering so much bad economic news within the last year it is a frighting thing to see higher unemployment & rising every day. People who were once productive are now relying on government assistance.....so what do we do. well I don't have all the answers but I would try to force the government to invest some of that leftover tarp money into "Works Programs" like they did in the 30's & 40's. This countries infrastructure is way behind both Europe & China & we should do whatever it takes to make the USA cutting edge. That will be a start to getting Americans working again.

Another idea, banks are just not lending money to small business (Main St) companies so it's near impossible to expand & hire workers without bank loans. I would really like to see Americans working together to petition the government to prod banks to get out of they're hold it tight mode. Statistically, the primary employer has always been independent small business & they desperately need our support.

So rather than being contentious with one another, should not the Christian community be leading the charge to making our country the dominant superpower on the world stage again. Id even like to see a very solid economics guy with strong Christian values come on the political platform & help this inept Obama administration see the forest thru the trees. I'm thinking a George Schultz who was Dean of Economics at Chicago University becoming Secretary of State during the Regan years. Where are guys like that....certainly not Geitner (sic) or Larry (I bankrupted Harvard) Sumner!

Id love to hear your thoughts & suggestions.

 

Opportunities are made, not magically gifted, in MOST cases. I am deaf. I had no choice in the matter. But that has not prevented me from becoming or doing anything in my life- except hear without artificial means. Many are poor not by choice, but if they have character, they will learn that being "poor" is not necessarily the worst lot in life, and that being "poor" is not the fault of the rich or the government. Just as I learned that becoming deaf at the age of six is not the worst thing that could happen to me, the worst thing that could have happened to me would have been growing up thinking the world OWED me a living because I was deaf. Thank God I had parents who had the wisdom to teach me that the only thing holding me back was myself.

Many, MANY "poor" people have risen from the drecks of their misfortunes and have become prosperous contributors to the betterment of society. And I daresay very few of them did it while at home bemoaning the fact they they were "poor" and ruminating upon whose fault it is.

 

:applause:

 

Candidly, I think vagabondage is the best life to live. If the Lord sent me back and gave second chances I WOULD LOVE TO BE A TRAMP. Now thats living. Tramps end up in the same place we do but they have a heck of a lot of fun and freedom on the way.:thumbsup:

 

Good grief...how do you people get this from my statements?

 

Just wow.

So, real-life example:

A fella comes to us for help. He is an able-bodied fella. He lives at home. Eats mom's food. She's finally had enough and is kicking him out. He doesn't want to work...but he wants assistance (yes, he was offered a chance to earn some help).

We're supposed to give him a hug and tell him, "it's OK, there, there..."

Come on. Ya'll use your brains for a second.

Nowhere did I say everyone deserved tough love. You've completely ignored the first part of my statement.

There's either a comprehension issue, or an agenda.

 

Originally Posted by Earth, Wind & Fire View Post
I thinking , without polarizing everyone, that we all want the same thing here....To take care of the genuinely destitute & poor by every means possible without enabling them to being long term drains on the taxpayer. Because we are encountering so much bad economic news within the last year it is a frighting thing to see higher unemployment & rising every day. People who were once productive are now relying on government assistance.....so what do we do. well I don't have all the answers but I would try to force the government to invest some of that leftover tarp money into "Works Programs" like they did in the 30's & 40's. This countries infrastructure is way behind both Europe & China & we should do whatever it takes to make the USA cutting edge. That will be a start to getting Americans working again.

Another idea, banks are just not lending money to small business (Main St) companies so it's near impossible to expand & hire workers without bank loans. I would really like to see Americans working together to petition the government to prod banks to get out of they're hold it tight mode. Statistically, the primary employer has always been independent small business & they desperately need our support.

So rather than being contentious with one another, should not the Christian community be leading the charge to making our country the dominant superpower on the world stage again. Id even like to see a very solid economics guy with strong Christian values come on the political platform & help this inept Obama administration see the forest thru the trees. I'm thinking a George Schultz who was Dean of Economics at Chicago University becoming Secretary of State during the Regan years. Where are guys like that....certainly not Geitner (sic) or Larry (I bankrupted Harvard) Sumner!
Id love to hear your thoughts & suggestions.

Now this I can agree with. It's the better than thou preaching pointing out that anyone who even suggests the need for personal accountability and points out the reality that there are a lot of folks who milk the system, are somehow uncaring for the poor that is unfair and yes, hypocritical.

 

Yes & nobody likes this economy Sag .... but in my youth, thru no fault of my own, I have been desperately desperately poor so I tend to go into the attack mode whenever I hear anyone (particularly Christian Ministers) talking what I perceive as trash about the poor without providing suggestions about how to address the situation. As my mother would say...."If you don't have anything good or constructive to say, than..... well you get the idea.

Blessings

 

Actually, Sometimes they are.

I did guess that by your avatar name.

First of all very true second of all I'm glad you didn't let it hold you back. And also thank God, this country provides a lot of assistance to the deaf. Remember I lived in many countries throughout the world so I know how well the deaf are supported here by comparison. However, not all issues are alleviated are they and there are very many things for which you had to take the iniciative. To say the deaf are as good as gold in this country wouldn't be fair now would it?

Very true

Yes the first part is correct and the secon part is only partly correct. For instance business owners back in the 50's look for slow steady growth and provided incentives for employees to spend their life wiht the country utilizing their expertise. However, in our new world order of quick prophits for simple share adjustments and selling out your employees for quick prophits. Do cause a lot of problems. Let me give you an example of EDS. It is customary for this company to have people work for them for years however, managers keep close taps on years of service. If a successful employee is close to retirement where the company has an obligation to support pension funds and health care benefits they will fire the employee to avoid the extra cost. What does this leave the employee with? having to get a new job at an older age where its difficult to pick up where you left off. Also I can show you the developement and decline of Hershey foods inc. Though still more responsible than many they also have abandon its owner's vision. They outsourced to Mexico and unemployement picked up in the states as they closed their factories. Not all mind you but eventually we'll see.

Yes this is a good distinction.

I'm glad for you as well.

Yes and amen.

Actually, I'm certain they bemoaned the fact that they were poor but that didn't prevent them from taking steps to make a better life. However, as the gap of the wealthy widens and the middle class disapears we must consider how different from what we are use to will happen in this country and will we in short have a sort of fuedal system. And if so can then the rich and powerbrokers be blamed for poverty?

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2010/07/24/2010-07-24_a_rich_look_at_us_poverty.html

Far cry from the ridiculously generalized portrayals of the poor we have been seeing here!

Excerpt:

At one time, that swath of America had a thriving economy built on mining and manufacturing. Now mining is curtailed and manufacturing almost gone, leaving a crippled service economy with fewer resources.

Perhaps the main thing going for this area today, "Dateline" suggests, is human resilience.

Grim as the stories and situations are, with little apparent relief in sight, Curry's subjects soldier on. They find a way to feed the kids. They keep looking for jobs after a hundred rejections.
Everyone here wants to work, Curry pointedly notes. No one's looking to relax on government handouts, and there isn't a welfare Cadillac in sight.

The only Cadillac here doesn't even run. It's used as a clothes closet for a family that lives in a camper/trailer so small the dining table has to be folded over at night into a bed for the 12-year-old.

 

No one said there were not actually "poor" people in this country.

There are.

What most of us categorically reject is liberalism's and the government's definition of "poverty". It's a complete joke.

Another point was the condition of our "poor" relative to the poor in most other parts of the world. It's much much better. Your article doesn't change that fact at all. The people referred to in the story are receiving assistance and they are eating.

 

Too bad ignorance isn't a crime.

 

Who are the poor? A 2004 study of the subject by the Heritage Foundation included this description:

 

despite statistical analysis there are poor people in the United States who have nothing. Also note that as the middle class shrinks there is an increasing poor population. I knew a man who couldn't obtain a job and had to poach to stay alive. Unfortunately, this is becoming more common.