David Incorporated Esq.
Member
Modern capitalism in America is being abused to the point of non-recognizance. With proper regulation and fairer distribution of wages it's not all that bad, but unfortunately America has neither.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
10 Poverty Myths, Busted
- Thread starter Vanillalite
- Start date
- Status
Modern capitalism in America is being abused to the point of non-recognizance. With proper regulation and fairer distribution of wages it's not all that bad, but unfortunately America has neither.
zero shift
Banned
So this means that 60% of people who have kids that are on food stamps have a job? As in Nearly half of them don't work? How is that going against the stereotype.
thesoapster
Member
I find this one interesting. Of those 1.1 million, I do wonder how many have bachelor's degrees in STEM fields vs. liberal arts...
You mean like...gasp....social democracies?
OrangeJulius
Member
But the end game of capitalism is the majority of wealth being distributed to the upper echelons of the chain. Capitalism in it's truest sense can't be regulated or it isn't true capitalism, it's socialism.
Not everyone is capable of doing STEM. Should they live in poverty if they can't? This idea that STEM is the only thing you should be able to go to college for is going to have damaging long term effects on society.
#livingthehighlife
Did he steal that fridge? He looks like a thug.
Public university works pretty well where I live. Worked better in the 80's when it was free to the students, but it still works better than the ridiculous US system. Education costs are provided by a loan that all students who qualify for a place at a school are eligible for, which is paid back by the student after their earnings reach a certain threshold. The repayments are taken out automatically at the same time as any income tax. The loan is indexed but has a very minimal interest rate.
OrangeJulius
Member
While I agree with this post, this is the road we are on. As technology improves and work becomes more and more automated, we will need fewer and fewer people to pick up trash, scrub toilets, prepare food, etc.
We are on that path and it's only a matter of time before the tech catches up and people are no longer needed for doing all but the most complex tasks.
Well sure, of course. The only reason why regulations got passed is because shit like communism was looking so tempting after capitalism failed at the time of the Great Depression. Without regulations and safeguards, the pain lasted for a really long time. Removing controls, safeguards, and regulations will simply make those "bust cycles" extremely costly to the working class that will simply leave them struggling when the wages don't bounce back and the jobs don't return.
The automation of most jobs that we will see very soon will kinda kill the idea of capitalism being a good idea for a society soon enough anyway. If the unemployment rate starts to get over 10% to something like 20% or more, we either let people starve to death or do something drastic. A smaller government that isn't taxing the people who have made it to the top won't have the power to help when the shit hits the fan.
Let them eat cake while working for chump change, if they can even find a job that isn't being performed by a robot. Sounds glorious.
thesoapster
Member
I didn't say it was the only route or that those that didn't take it deserve poverty. That's a hell of a conclusion. However there is no question that the U.S. has a deficiency of STEM graduates.
#livingthehighlife
Look at that shit. They have mustard, syrup, AND ranch dressing in there. What kind of uppity, high-class people flaunt that sort of wealth for all to see? Actual poor people would be lucky just to have a single, half-open honey mustard packet from McDonald's that they found in the parking lot.
All you said was essentially, "I wonder how many poorz were dumb enough to get a degree outside of STEM". Not sure what other conclusion I'm supposed to draw. At least that's how I read your sentence because words in text form are hard to grasp the writer's intent.
The lacking primary and secondary education quality is why the U.S. Lacks in STEM graduates. People getting to college level lack basic knowledge that students in other nations have in spades.
I thought the fact that the household has a refrigerator at all means they're not "really" poor.
If it's real maple syrup and not that corn syrup shit, you actually do have to keep it in the fridge. But yeah, that corn syrup the picture shows doesn't need it.
And the mustard is French's!
I'm offended they didn't save 30 cents by using the store brand.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I bet they even eat seafood. Can you believe it?
It ain't so bad
What do you say to people who argue that America's best days are behind us?
Bil Gates: That's almost laughable. The only definition by which America's best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis. That is, in 1946, when we made up about six percent of humanity, but we dominated everything. But America's way better today than it's ever been. Say you're a woman in America, would you go back 50 years? Say you're gay in America, would you go back 50 years? Say you're sick in America, do you want to go back 50 years? I mean, who are we kidding?
...
Our modern lifestyle is not a political creation. Before 1700, everybody was poor as hell. Life was short and brutish. It wasn't because we didn't have good politicians; we had some really good politicians. But then we started inventing – electricity, steam engines, microprocessors, understanding genetics and medicine and things like that. Yes, stability and education are important – I'm not taking anything away from that – but innovation is the real driver of progress.
What do you say to people who argue that America's best days are behind us?
Bil Gates: That's almost laughable. The only definition by which America's best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis. That is, in 1946, when we made up about six percent of humanity, but we dominated everything. But America's way better today than it's ever been. Say you're a woman in America, would you go back 50 years? Say you're gay in America, would you go back 50 years? Say you're sick in America, do you want to go back 50 years? I mean, who are we kidding?
...
Our modern lifestyle is not a political creation. Before 1700, everybody was poor as hell. Life was short and brutish. It wasn't because we didn't have good politicians; we had some really good politicians. But then we started inventing – electricity, steam engines, microprocessors, understanding genetics and medicine and things like that. Yes, stability and education are important – I'm not taking anything away from that – but innovation is the real driver of progress.
OrangeJulius
Member
While Gates isn't entirely wrong here, what does he know of what it's like to be a gay person, or a woman or sick in America? He is a billionaire white male. The most privileged class in the world. He has no experience with any of the groups he just described.
Gay people and women still receive discrimination, maybe less so, and no so out in the open, but they still do. Ask any gay man kissing his partner in public if he get's as many dirty looks now as he did 10 or more years ago. Ask a women and man who interviewed for the same job if they were offered the same pay. Odds are the woman was offered less. Sick people still can't get quality care without having ridiculous income or insurance to offset the insane costs of American health care.
Things are better maybe, but pretty darn far from great.
Gates is simply the wrong guy to quote here.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlIXn0r0AY8
I assume you're joking. if not, please accept my sincerest apologies as this is terribly tasteless
Nah, not joking. But it was normal for us, and probably quite a few people in Britain in the '70s
Pretty much things ARE better, but no reason to get complacent. We should always strive for more. I don't think anyone should disagree.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
well, shit. Sorry you had to grow up in such harsh conditions.. Hope the video wasn't offensive..
Say you are working class, would you want to go back 50 years? Me? Possibly. Gay rights is a big issue for me, but not everything is better. A lot is, but many things are actually worse too.
zero shift
Banned
No replies?
Sorry you grew up in those conditions. Still, should a British man who was raised in the 30s brag about how good you've had it compared to them? Why bring up comparisons of life nearly half a century ago? Poverty in that form is relative.
OrangeJulius
Member
I do agree, don't get me wrong. I just think how much better things are can be subjective depending on the persons own experiences. To a middle aged billionaire white male, who is one of the most powerful people in the world and has been for decades, I don't think he is the best person to go to for anecdotal claims on how much America has improved.
CornBurrito
Member
Stem means nothing. You can't do shit with a bio or chem bachelors degree these days.
because I thought it was interesting. The definition of poverty is a relative thing. Not having an indoor toilet was inconvenient but natural for us, I didn't know any different. And yet these days it is seen as almost unbelievable.
and as for nearly half a century ago - this was late 70s, so 35 years. That's one generation.
blitz64
Member
"6. Go to college, get out of poverty.
In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.
"
1.1 million is a small number of the 300+ million population. That's like .3%
One can also say 1.1 million bachelor degree people make $300,000.
In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.
"
1.1 million is a small number of the 300+ million population. That's like .3%
One can also say 1.1 million bachelor degree people make $300,000.
What did you used to do with those degrees? Bio and Chem?
CornBurrito
Member
60 is more than 40.
CornBurrito
Member
My aunt was able to work for the Red Cross without a degree. Today she has to reject workers with bachelors degrees in biology for being "under qualified"
OrangeJulius
Member
This is how you know things are bad, when you have younger people whose minds are completely blown that you used to be able to get jobs with 4 year science and math degrees that didn't involve being an elementary school teacher. Although, heck, even school teachers are nearing the point where you need a masters to even teach 5th grade English.
Lol. Gotta complete that residency/fellowship if you want to flip burgers at McDonalds!
zero shift
Banned
Are you trying to suggest that poverty isn't that big of a deal? Again go back another 35 years you may find some residents who don't even have a toilet.
40 is still a lot. Also how does it define work? As in how many hours?
Also going to the site it linked it seems inconsistent with that data:
There seems to be a lot of contradictions here. I have to be interpreting this incorrectly.
no, of course not. Jesus I was just making a comment about how different the definitions are these days, and that you don't need to go that far back to find even basics missing from 'advanced' nations.
Things have changed a lot in a short space of time in many areas. I wasn't trying to make any grand comment about anything.
For starters, we should be on that shift. If we are really to rely on the status quo, just looking at history, the status quo has been founded on ignorance. Our situation with money assumes the idea that time is money. Time is time, and money is nothing more than a concept, though we have cognitively botched that by assuming it to be objective in what it is. Because the majority of people think something doesn't make it good or reasonable, and I feel your position is one of the majority, of the status quo. Just because the majority think very ignorantly doesn't make that ignorance wisdom.
I will agree it is a pipe dream. Like I said, we are perpetually surrounded by ignorance, especially with money, that the idea that money being removed will never happen. It should, for it gets rid of the real cancer of our modern world, but too many people are invested into it, too many people bought into the illusion that it is concrete, no different than oxygen. It is a social construct and nothing more. A solution, a middle ground, would be to present the concept of a universal baseline income, but that too will be fought against with ignorance, just like our fucking crater of health care in this cesspit of a country. But it is a reasonable middle ground; too many people cannot accept a more natural state of reality that all of the earth's resources objectively belong to all of the earth's inhabitants for we think entirely with our man-made constructs. Knowing this, you can sell that a basic living for all should be a reality. The fact poverty exists on any level should absolutely offend any motherfucker with even an iota of compassion, for there really is no sincere, honest reason it exists in 2014. It exists because of a psychological hang up on the concept of wealth and what one must do to attain it and literally nothing else. Keeping on that road will lead to disaster. Automation of technology and an increasing population will only make that tumor grow much, much faster.
The key for worthwhile work is to make it work the individual would want to do for what it is, what they give into it, not what they get from doing it. Our entire culture, by emphasizing currency and saying it is a have to have, is all about what you get from what you do. This is why people do things they hate, the concept of the rat race, loathing what you do, lusting to get away from it, and dreading its return. This is what happens when you do things for money, and if you do anything for money, and that being the first and central reason, you are absolutely absurd. You have failed to grasp basic realities on what time is, and that is the real currency in life. No need to chase nonsense, though our way of life in that regard is very nonsensical particularly in this way.
I am not making the argument that we live as hermits, but I am arguing that the basic foundation for why we work is fundamentally flawed, for many do whatever to make money, even if it is something that they don't give a shit about. People waste their time, their lives, doing things they dread in the hope that they will have time elsewhere to do what they really want. This is a foolish way of living, but this is what many people have been conned into doing; to live lives being taken apart by vultures over a concept that many people buy because we claim it's worth something. If my rejection of that absurd premise for living means I simply live a shorter life, then so be it. I would not live any other way.
Empower people, and give them the resources to prosper on a basic fundamental level, and every single one of us can live worthwhile lives. It shouldn't have to be a game of haves and have nots, we can do much better than that. For fucks sake, we can go to MARS, how the fuck can we say that with amazement when we honestly let so many people here on earth, our home, suffer so significantly? We should be ashamed of ourselves.
entremet
Member
It's pretty easy to counter your assumption.
The structural unemployment that occurred after the financial crisis of 08 lead to loss of many jobs, but it specifically hit blue collar jobs the most. Poverty and lack of educational attainment goes hand in hand. So there are much less jobs available for those with only a HS diploma or less.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/b...-jobs-market-even-through-recession.html?_r=0
Additionally, umemployment rates for recent grads is also very high. So do you think those 40 percent are lazy or maybe some of that percentage are people that can't find jobs?
zero shift
Banned
I found the explanation for the inconsistencies. The 60% figure if for 2011 while the rest of the figures is from 2004. Mother Jones quoted the 2011 figure as 2004.
And yes finding employment is hard right now. Its rough out there.
Sorry about the accusation.
This is undeniably false.
In 2011, we spent $78B on the SNAP program alone (source: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/04-19-SNAP.pdf). With total spending of $3.6T in 2011 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_federal_budget), that's 2.2% of the federal budget.
So, if we consider food stamps to be the only welfare program (which is an unbelievable stretch), the number presented by mother jones is barely 1/5 of the size of the actual number.
Mother Jones' own site cites a study in a different article that shows that we spend roughly $1.8B per year on welfare programs (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/how-much-do-we-spend-nonworking-poor). Taking out social security and medicare, which I would rather not debate even though they technically are wealth transfers, we are talking about roughly $700B, which would be about 20% of the federal budget.
tl;dr = mother jones says mother jones is wrong by more than a a factor of 10, possibly a factor of 100 depending on how you define a welfare program. Good mythbusting.
CyclopsRock
Member
That's very true. In different countries there are different issues - in the UK the maximum prices are stuck at a relatively small number, but low-interest loans available with great terms to literally anyone who wants to go, but we have the problem wherein almost all degrees cost exactly the same amount to do. Due to the maximum fees, some degrees which cost more to do - like ones with specialist equipment, lab time etc - end up being effectively subsidised by the much cheaper ones, like History and basically most humanities subjects which can be taught en-masse from a book. So you end up with a load of degrees that all take the same time to complete (with a few exceptions), cost the same but which have vastly different earning potential and demand for both places and graduates.
Depends. Who is "we"?
onadesertedisland
Member
I guess you could stretch that military spending is corporate welfare as well. Or that infrastructure spending is welfare for shipping companies.
Social Security and Medicare are not welfare programs.
We are living in a post-scarcity world for a lot of things. We are fast approaching the day when almost everything we need to live is mostly or fully automated.
How does the traditional economic model cope with that?
You can't have our society exist as-is with a structural unemployment rate +50%...
Whether or not social security and medicare are not welfare programs, the article is wrong by an absurd degree with respect to the "0.47%" number. The SNAP program alone is almost 5 times that percentage. Once you start adding medicaid, unemployment insurance, earned income tax credit, SSI, etc. it just gets worse and worse in terms of the author's credibility on this particular claim.
Dispelling myths with more myths doesn't help anybody.
- Status