The luxury of poverty

[Gob]

For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter.

For example, the Poverty Pulse poll taken by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development asked the general public: “How would you describe being poor in the U.S.?” The overwhelming majority of responses focused on homelessness, hunger or not being able to eat properly, and not being able to meet basic needs. That perception is bolstered by news stories about poverty that routinely feature homelessness and hunger.

Yet if poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, relatively few of the more than 30 million people identified as being “in poverty” by the Census Bureau could be characterized as poor. While material hardship definitely exists in the United States, it is restricted in scope and severity. The average poor person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines.

As scholar James Q. Wilson has stated, “The poorest Americans today live a better life than all but the richest persons a hundred years ago.” In 2005, the typical household defined as poor by the government had a car and air conditioning. For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children, especially boys, in the home, the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or a PlayStation.[4] In the kitchen, the household had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.

The home of the typical poor family was not overcrowded and was in good repair. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. The typical poor American family was also able to obtain medical care when needed. By its own report, the typical family was not hungry and had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.

http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... is-poverty

[dales]

Channeling AGD?

doh, I meant D/M

[Sean]

Only two TVs?

Oh the depravity!

[BoSoxGal]

I wonder how this 'data' was compiled?

I'll concede that the poor in America are still better off than 4/5 of the global population, but - that description above bears no resemblance to the homes I've visited of truly poor folks in Anacostia, DC, and in rural Maine.

I most certainly agree that the poor today are far better off than the poor 100 years ago. Is that a bad thing?

[Sue U]

It is only by convincing the poor that they are not poor that the rich are able to keep their wealth (and their heads). The poor today may be somewhat "better off" (really, not so much) than 100 years ago (after all, most now have indoor plumbing!), but how much more better off are the rich?

The rich should be thanking their lucky stars that the poor have TVs to anesthetize their minds and distract them from the causes of their poverty.

[Liberty1]

The rich should be thanking their lucky stars that the poor have TVs to anesthetize their minds and distract them from the causes of their poverty.

Oh stop your pseudo marxism

In the real world, most people making more than $250,000 (now defined as the-rich ) a year got that way through a combination of hard work and smarts. Most of them work harder than the poor -- that's why they aren't poor. And if they don't have to work hard now, it's because they spent years working and saving, and now have investments that alleviate the need to work. Owners of small businesses work like slaves, especially if they actually want to make any money. Much of the "working class" I've worked with don't work nealy as hard as my friends that own sucessful businesses. The marxist idea that the lower classes are hard-working and the wealthy are not is mostly backwards. It's painful for people to hear and admit that they are where they are because of their own failings and poor decisions, and that the wealthy are rich because they were smarter.

Just because someone has more than someone else, does not mean they took someone elses share, it means they created their own. Wealth is created, not taken.

[dales]

Precisely.

That would explain the wealth gap between those at the bottom and those on the top.

[Sue U]

In the real world, most people making more than $250,000 (now defined as the-rich ) a year got that way through a combination of hard work and smarts. Most of them work harder than the poor -- that's why they aren't poor. And if they don't have to work hard now, it's because they spent years working and saving, and now have investments that alleviate the need to work. Owners of small businesses work like slaves, especially if they actually want to make any money. Much of the "working class" I've worked with don't work nealy as hard as my friends that own sucessful businesses. The marxist idea that the lower classes are hard-working and the wealthy are not is mostly backwards. It's painful for people to hear and admit that they are where they are because of their own failings and poor decisions, and that the wealthy are rich because they were smarter.

Just because someone has more than someone else, does not mean they took someone elses share, it means they created their own. Wealth is created, not taken.

Not that the facts would ever deter you from your fantasy beliefs, but you might try learning at least a little bit about income/wealth distribution, who the truly wealthy are and where that money came from.

The top 1/2 of 1 percent control a wildly disproportionate share of wealth in the US, with both wealth and income super-concentrated in the top 0.1%: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesameri ... ealth.html. The "rich" making 250k a year are not even close; the difference between the bottom and top halves of the top 1% is a giant income/wealth gap all by itself.

Moreover, more than half of those whose wealth is measured in the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars started out by inheriting or being gifted with substantial family fortunes. http://www.faireconomy.org/press_room/1 ... forbes_400

Even if it were true that "the wealthy are rich because they were smarter" (and it's demonstrably not), that has nothing to do with what their obligation to the rest of society should be or how much economic disproportionality the society is willing to tolerate. Those are strictly political decisions.

[Liberty1]

The top 1/2 of 1 percent control a wildly disproportionate share of wealth in the US, with both wealth and income super-concentrated in the top 0.1%: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesameri ... ealth.html. The "rich" making 250k a year are not even close; the difference between the bottom and top halves of the top 1% is a giant income/wealth gap all by itself.

Why do you care how much someone else has.

[Lord Jim]

Oh stop your pseudo marxism

What gives you the impression there's anything "pseudo" about it?

[Liberty1]

What gives you the impression there's anything "pseudo" about it?

Well I was trying to be somewhat polite, but in retrospect it was probably an insult.

[Sue U]

Why do you care how much someone else has.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Or are you merely trying some kind of (lame) diversion?

For one thing, it tells us what poverty is, which was pretty much the point of the OP. (They're not poor, they have TVs!)

For another, wealth is not created out of nothing. Who has what, how they got it and where it came from are fundamental to understanding economics and social organization.

For a third, it is necessary to formulating almost every public policy choice in government, and especially in terms of tax policy.

ETA:

For a fourth very realpolitik consideration, it tells us where power, both politcal and economic, is concentrated.

[Sue U]

Oh stop your pseudo marxism

What gives you the impression there's anything "pseudo" about it?

I wouldn't call myself a Marxist, but he did make some good points.

ETA: (Do I need a smiley here?)

[Liberty1]

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Or are you merely trying some kind of (lame) diversion?

Not being obtuse at all, I do not understand this new found hatred of the wealthy in the US.

For one thing, it tells us what poverty is, which was pretty much the point of the OP. (They're not poor, they have TVs!)

There will always be poverty, because poverty is just a definition of the lowest quintile in income for example. If every person in the US had a standard of living 10 times higher than they have now, there would still be people defined as impoverished.

For another, wealth is not created out of nothing. Who has what, how they got it and where it came from are fundamental to understanding economics and social organization

No, it's created out of skills and hard work, whether it's building a house, curing a disease, or designing a thrust vector control system for a rocket.

For a third, it is necessary to formulating almost every public policy choice in government, and especially in terms of tax policy.

A statement of one of the biggest issues in our coutry today. The left talks all about shared sacrifice, but the lowest 49% pay no income tax.


As of 2007, of course this was before the disaster now in the WH so granted things are probably worse now.

[Sue U]

Not being obtuse at all, I do not understand this new found hatred of the wealthy in the US.

Where is this "hatred" you talk about? Or is it just that anyone who disagrees with your blind worship of the rich must somehow "hate" them?

There will always be poverty, because poverty is just a definition of the lowest quintile in income for example. If every person in the US had a standard of living 10 times higher than they have now, there would still be people defined as impoverished.

And your point is.... what? That some people will always have less than others? So what? What does that have to do with anything? If you have a refrigerator, a stove and a TV, does that mean that by definition you can't be in poverty? Does that mean that poverty has ceased to exist? Or is it an excuse to avoid any responsibility for the poor? Or is it just the I-got-mine-so-fuck-everyone-else attitude that permeates certain quarters these days?

For another, wealth is not created out of nothing. Who has what, how they got it and where it came from are fundamental to understanding economics and social organization

No, it's created out of skills and hard work, whether it's building a house, curing a disease, or designing a thrust vector control system for a rocket.

So I take $1 million and dump it into an equity fund making 8%. What "skills and hard work" have I employed to make this $80k gain?

The left talks all about shared sacrifice, but the lowest 49% pay no income tax.

A stupid and specious claim. Do you really think income tax is the whole story? The lowest 49% in fact bears the gretaest overall tax burden as a percentage of income -- including payroll taxes, sales taxes, and other state and local taxes and fees. You know who also paid no income taxes? GE.

As of 2007, of course this was before the disaster now in the WH so granted things are probably worse now.

What is it that you think these graphs show? How do they in any way support whatever argument you think you are making?

[Sean]

So I take $1 million and dump it into an equity fund making 8%. What "skills and hard work" have I employed to make this $80k gain?

Depends on how you got the $1m in the first place...

[Sue U]

Like most of the genuinely wealthy, I inherited it.

[Liberty1]

Where is this "hatred" you talk about?

I think you demonstrated a very good example yourself.

So I take $1 million and dump it into an equity fund making 8%. What "skills and hard work" have I employed to make this $80k gain?

FYI an equity fund puts that $1 million AT RISK and provides CAPITAL used in this capitalist economy to creat jobs and MAKE MONEY.

And your point is.... what? That some people will always have less than others? So what? What does that have to do with anything? If you have a refrigerator, a stove and a TV, does that mean that by definition you can't be in poverty? Does that mean that poverty has ceased to exist? Or is it an excuse to avoid any responsibility for the poor? Or is it just the I-got-mine-so-fuck-everyone-else attitude that permeates certain quarters these days?

And your point is what, that this isn't your socialist bring everyone down to the least common denominator, everyone has equal misery, socialist utopia?

A stupid and specious claim. Do you really think income tax is the whole story? The lowest 49% in fact bears the gretaest overall tax burden as a percentage of income -- including payroll taxes, sales taxes, and other state and local taxes and fees. You know who also paid no income taxes? GE.

No it's not the whole story. The whole story is that to be fair, everyone should pay exactly the same rate.

And GE, they're just following the law. Loop holes are just laws that some people don't like. Don't like it, change them.

Corporate taxes should be at 0% anyway, corporations pay no taxes, they just pass them on the their consumers.

What is it that you think these graphs show? How do they in any way support whatever argument you think you are making?

Exactly what they do. That poor in the US are the envy of the vast majority of other people in the world.

[Gob]

The Sydney diabetes map reveals a clear doughnut pattern with dark, congealed patches around the west and exurban fringes (Mt Druitt, Wollongong, Toongabbie) and pale bits in the old centre (north shore, city, Coogee). It's the direct inverse of how a rickets or tuberculosis map would have looked a century ago.

It's not just fat. Maps of obesity, heart disease, renal failure, smoking, TV-watching and hypertension - diabesity, if you'll excuse the coinage - would show similar patterns.

It's not even just that 61 per cent of us (and 66 per cent of Americans) are overweight or obese, nor that we're now seeing heart disease in under-10s, nor that fat is lowering our life expectancy for the first time in centuries. What's interesting is that this stuff is class-related. Diabesity is a poverty indicator.

But poverty isn't what it was, for where rickets and TB were diseases of deprivation, diabetes is a disease of excess. Poverty now means excess. Not excess money or work, necessarily, but excess food, fat and leisure. Excess indulgence of appetite.

Contrast with sub-Saharan Africa, whose current crisis reminds us that, for real savannah-dwelling primates, poverty still means less, not more. For the real poor, want still means unmet need; malnutrition, starvation, death.

Yet there are similarities - specifically, that in both cases, while externalities play their part, lifestyle also figures, and this implies choice.

Why? Because, just as poor Africans still, wrongly, see their great herds as wealth not threat, so (relatively) poor Australians, despite decades of education campaigns, still see conspicuous consumption - of land, leisure, energy, alcohol, food - as a norm, not a mortal danger.

This is what no one will say: diabetes may be dreadful but it is, largely, a choice. It's a matter of will. The coming question for us, equivalent in its way to the throwing of cash at African famines, is this: for how long are we happy to fund the expensive treatment of people whose diabesity reflects their refusal to stop overconsuming.

A patient with coronary artery disease leaves hospital fitted with maybe five drug-coated stents costing tens of thousands each. That's more than $100,000 just for the hardware.

Admittedly, we're unlikely to go the Japanese way and legislate acceptable waistlines. Admittedly, too, wealthy postcodes are full of people who overconsume, then consume more (carbon) to do penance on the treadmill desk.

But like it or not, the time is nigh when we'll have to choose, not just who needs treatment, but who deserves it. Our health system will force behavioural change. You think the carbon tax is big. You ain't seen nothing.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-a ... z1SgY8MhqI

[Long Run]

One important factor that is not measured in describing America's poor is safety. Many poor people live in high crime areas. That is one area where the middle-upper middle class of 100 years ago had it better. Thus, while a poor person today has a better house, better food and possessions than a typical middle class person of 100 years ago, their ability to enjoy it may be impeded by violent crime. There may well be other factors impacting poor communities that we just don't see in our daily lives.

On the other hand, while there has been an increasing rate of the rich getting richer, this is more a matter of the shift to the information economy than anything else. It also relates to the dramatic shift in the corporate world from high salaries to the potential of mega stock option compensation (unintended consequence of the D's $1 million cap on corporate salaries?).

In addition, I doubt the validity of Sue's data that 1/2 of the super rich inherited their money (data analyzed by "fair economy.org" might not be the most objective, and the analysis is 15 years old at this point). Eyeing the actual list: http://www.forbes.com/wealth/forbes-400/list you see that in the top 20, they are all self-made billionaires, except the Wal-Mart Waltons and Ann Cox Chambers, and it appears most of the inheritors are involved in continuing management of the family business.

Even if a substantial percentage of super wealthy do inherit their wealth, this just means their parents or grandparents did a fabulous job at creating wealth and wanted to give it to their offspring. Why should society take more than a reasonable amount of that wealth? (Of course, we argue about what is reasonable, but I fail to see the logic of arguing that someone who makes their fortune can enjoy during their life but does not have the right to give it to their children -- and talk about your unintended consequences).