<p>The vast majority of poor people are poor because they are dumb/lazy etc.</p>
<p>When people don't agree I wonder if they have actually every been around a lot of poor people and around a lot to better off people to compare the difference.</p>
<p>Because I have, and I think that most poor people are poor because of stupid decisions and laziness. Being dumb and lazy might not be their own fault but that's irrelevent.</p>
<p>Capitalism isn't perfect, but it seems to work better than anything else. At least in capitalism it's possible to move up</p>
<p>Wow how ignorant are you people? Ever heard of projects and slums? Do you not think those exist in the states? There are children who don't get support like we do. They don't get the opportunity to come on here and post 10 times a day</p>
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like you know.
brainwashing rules. keep it up, guys!
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</p>
<p>Actually iloveagoodbrew and fides do know a lot. They aren't brainwashing, just bringing much needed fiscally conservative voices onto the forum.</p>
<p>It's not like the rich STEAL from anyone. They EARN the money that they make. It is their money and they should wish to put it wherever they wish. It's good to give some of that money back to the poor, but what right does anyone else have to force them to do so? Cut the ridiculously high taxes on the rich and you'll find that they will donate more. They will donate more to FUNCTIONAL charities, rather than the inefficient government-run programs.</p>
<p>When you say they're "dumb", well yes, they're almost certainly not as well educated as that upper 1%. They probably can't converse with you about classical philosophy or modern art movements, or even do long division as well as you, but being undereducated and is a function of coming from a poor backround where they don't get a fair shot at accruing the knowledge that often leads to wealth. Yes, there are examples to the contrary, but generally you can't expect a kid growing up in the projects, surrounded by the most destitute elements of society to compete with a kid who's biggest concern isn't figuring out where his next meal is coming from, but rather when his next piano lesson is. And the idea that you can accumulate money guilt free (even when done legally) is debatable. Almost every rich kid has rich parents who have connections to other rich people, and they can pave the way for a successful career for those kids. Its not a matter of intelligence, skill, hard word, but being born to the right people. It seems that upper 1% is content to just strip everyone else of their dignity rather than recognize the divide as a real societal issue. THAT strikes me as lazy.</p>
<p>"Wow how ignorant are you people? Ever heard of projects and slums? Do you not think those exist in the states? There are children who don't get support like we do. They don't get the opportunity to come on here and post 10 times a day"</p>
<p>I have been in many different projects and slums and interacted with many different people living in them. for 4 and half years I had a service job where I made housecalls to people homes. I have been everywhere from the worst projects to multimillion dollar houses.</p>
<p>I will say it again. There is a reoccuring theme with the people in the projects. They are lazy, and I mean extremely lazy. They can't take responsibility for themselves. Everything is someone elses fault. They make terrible financial decisions, High definition Tv's do not belong in projects.</p>
<p>This is 95% of them. There are some who are just flat out down on their luck, they have medical problems, or just some bad stuff happened that wasn't necasarily their fault. Some are just not very bright but are decent people. Those of course are in the minorty by far. I always kinda felt sorry that the good honest but unintelligent or sick people had to live in a such a ****hole surrounded by scumbags, I met some people in the projects that seemed genuinly honest and decent. Again that's under 1% though.</p>
<p>Most people in the projects are not struggling to find food. Kid's whose parents won't buy them food maybe, but the adults don't have a hard time finding food trust me.</p>
<p>By the way I was in Chicago so I've been to tons of housing projects, everything from cabrini green, roberttaylor homes, ickies, most of them. And in the same day I'd be in a highrise penthouse sweet that cost 20 million. I saw a lot of interesting things at that job.</p>
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they don't get a fair shot at accruing the knowledge that often leads to wealth.
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Really? I've always thought that high school edication in this country, as well as many others, is free. I guess i was wrong.
You have to realize that there is a lot of people who made their wealth, who started out from almost nothing compared to what they have now. Bill Gates would be the best example.
All that carping about lack of opportunity is total bull shiт. Opportunity exists everywhere, but hardly anybody is diligent enough to grab it. The ones that are make millions.</p>
<p>I agree with DIMA, how does the lack of opportunity explain how people from foreign countries who have it ten times worse than the well off poor people in America can come in and in a single generation build a fortune become very successful. They had a hell of a lot less opportunity than the poorest in America ever had.</p>
<p>Poverty is a relative concept. In other words, poverty exists only if your COMPARE it to wealth. If you compare America's poor with the poor of other countries such as China, Indian, Russia, Mexico, etc. you will see that America's poor are wealthy. I remember a Pakistani saying that one of his friends want to move to a country where the poor people are fat. American has a lot of fat poor people with TV, phones, refrigerators, cars, social services, free health care, etc.</p>
<p>If you don't like your level of wealth, it is up to you to change it. The only people we have an obligation to take care of are disabled people who cannot take care of themselves.</p>
<p>"well off poor people"</p>
<p>hahaha, a walking contradiction.</p>
<p>i know what you're trying to say, but it doesn't sound right.</p>
<p>do you really think all high schools are equal and that the support system surrounding a kid in the slums is equal to that surrounding a kid with a tennis court in his backyard? We're talking about comparing that 1% to the "have-nots" and trying to see if their oppurtunities to be succesful (measured in materialistic terms of course) are equal. How you could come to the conclusion they are the same is beyond me. I know people who come out of college (full tuition of course paid for by their wealthy parents) and waltzed right into a job with Morgan Stanley, and it's soley due to connections and family affluence. Factors that go to work for you or against you even before you step into the world. How can you really say its a truely level playing field?</p>
<p>"do you really think all high schools are equal and that the support system surrounding a kid in the slums is equal to that surrounding a kid with a tennis court in his backyard? We're talking about comparing that 1% to the "have-nots" and trying to see if their oppurtunities to be succesful (measured in materialistic terms of course) are equal. How you could come to the conclusion they are the same is beyond me."</p>
<p>I'm curious, I don't remember anybody suggesting they are the same, but I'm not going to go re read looking for it.</p>
<p>Of course rich kids have an advantage or a head start over poor people. But that's no excuse for a poor person to be to lazy to try. If it's twice as hard for a poor person, then they have to put in twice as much effort, that's life it's not fair. The decision not to make an effort because they are starting behind is a decisions that backs up my saying that they are lazy and it's their own fault.</p>
<p>Do you think the schools the poor people in third world countries and the poor people in America have are equal? Of course their not, often they are much much worse in the foreign countries, yet those people at a much higher rate can come over here and blow past the Americans in terms of success. So don't try to blame their schools and enviroment. It's a definite disadvantage, but they still have a world of opportunities if they weren't to lazy to go after them.</p>
<p>If a kid is hardworking and willing to prosper, he will go to a public high school, try very hard to get good grades, take hard courses, in about 10th grade he will get a part-time job to pay for additional books and test fees (SAT, AP). He will get into state university on a full ride scholarship, finish it, get a decent job at an Intel/Transmeta/Motorola factory (supposing he majored in engineering) and work his way up. Eventually he will either become a big boss and make millions, or open his own company and make millions.
The key word in this story is HARDWORKING. Consider it while you're reading every sentence.</p>
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How can you really say its a truely level playing field?
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Of course not. But no one promised anyone else a rose garden. I think it is terrible that Shaq is 7 feet tall and coordinated but I am not tall enough to play in the NBA. There is no level playing field when it comes to my unfulfilled desire to play in the NBA. (A destiny for which I was born, I might add). Instead of focusing on the NBA, I have decided to take whatever skills I have and use my determinaiton to succeed as best I can. That alone puts me well ahead of all the people who drop out of free high school as well as those who decide to have children while they are also children as well as those who become addicted to illegal drugs and alcohol.</p>
<p>Really? I've always thought that high school edication in this country, as well as many others, is free. I guess i was wrong...
...All that carping about lack of opportunity is total bull shiт. Opportunity exists everywhere, but hardly anybody is diligent enough to grab it. The ones that are make millions.</p>
<p>That's what I was referring to. Kinda of seems to suggest doors are flung open for everyone, which just isn't true. Also the comment about Bill Gates coming up from nothing? That's laughable. I knew I had heard something about his youth somewhere, so I goggled it and came up with this: "Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His family was wealthy; his father was a prominent lawyer, his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate Bank and The United Way, and his maternal grandfather, J. W. Maxwell, was a national bank president." Sounds real disadvantaged to me. He also went to a private high school which cost 5,000 a year to attend, which I'm sure helped him get into Harvard, and although he dropped out, that whole path of schooling and having access to just about any knowledge he and his family sought surely helped his business career. I'd also bet anything that family connections helped him get his foot in the door of the business world, or provided him with capital, or and number of advantages available to the rich only.</p>
<p>LOL@people saying poor people are lazy. Listen folks, unless you actually grew up in a poor neighbourhood, shut the hell up. There's something to be said about dual income families barely making the rent every month while the trust fund Tommies of the world have their parents set them up with nice cozy office jobs, pay for their private school and university. </p>
<p>More often than not, poor families work damn hard and do an amazing job of budgeting to make ends meet, I should know, I grew up in one of the worst neighbourhoods in the Toronto where the crime rate was 200% the national average (at the time). While the middle class and above were telling us how lazy we were (during the early 90's recession no less) they were cutting funding for public education, the great equalizer and sending their kids to private school from the huge tax breaks they got. In the neighbourhood of Forest Hill (old money neighbourhood), for the longest time, the city of Toronto would spend $50,000 a year so garbage men could go up to these people's doorsteps and pick their garbage as opposed to having these lazy douchbags have their butlers carry it to the curb.</p>
<p>Don't tell me poor people are lazy until you've actually spent time in a public school in a poor neighbourhood where there isn't even enough funding for textbooks and teachers have to spend their own money to supply their kids. Don't tell me poor people are lazy until you've seen kids have to drop out of high school in order to help their parents with the rent/mortgage. Back in high school I knew a guy who was 20 and hadn't graduated yet. Know why? Not because he was smoking weed or getting girls pregnant, but he and his two other brothers had to drop out of high school for a year and work full time to help make ends meet for their parents, one of whom was disabled and the other was laid off. </p>
<p>And don't give me that individualistic crap about hard work being the only thing you need to get by. While you kids whine about how horrible poor people are in your air conditioned offices which you're only working at because of your awesome connections from your parents, the vast majority of the poor have no great connections. They settle with getting jobs at McDonalds and such. </p>
<p>Consider that the high school I went to was so badly funded, they didn't have enough textbooks to give to the kids. Combined with the rising cost of post-secondary education what is a smart kid with no funds to do? Get full ride scholarships that are generally only given to athletes and geniuses? Is it any wonder that more people in my high school ended up having to get full time jobs to make ends meet after graduating then dropping $10K/+ year to get an education?</p>
<p>In Canada, it's estimated that 40% of people born in to poverty (this is actually the highest in the Western world, even higher then the Scandanavian countries which have much better funding for social programs) will get out of it by the time they retire. That means 60% will not. Why do you think that is? Sheer laziness? Don't be so condescending, folks from lower income families don't have to work twice as hard just to make it to post-secondary, they have to work twice as hard just to make ends meet.</p>
<p>as someone whose parents are in the top 1%, i completely agree with ICrisis, GoldShadow, and Micklerobe...</p>
<p>Put a hell of a lot better than anything I said. Nice post.</p>
<p>And before anyone here accuses me of romanticizing poverty or accusing rich folks of being sheltered, believe me I'm not. I had the benefit of growing up on both sides of the fence (my family was the part of that 40%) okay? I know some of my childhood friends who went to jail, who dropped out, who now work full time and spend their money mostly on weed and alcohol. I know girls who are 26 and on their third baby without a high school diploma. They are just as sheltered as the average suburbanite snot nosed princess who thinks Wal-Mart sells walls and dropping $300+ on a Friday night is normal.</p>
<p>Don't go about judging an entire group of people when your only exposure to them is the stats you read in a John Stossel book. There are more reasons to the poor being where they are beyond being lazy and stupid. If you think it's easy trying to balance a budget without the $1000 a month you get from your parents lets see you balance mine.</p>
<p>$480/month rent
$400/month for food (I'm being generous here, I don't make anywhere near that amount of money to afford $400/month food from my part time job)
$5000/yr tuition (again, I'm being generous, this is low compared to what American schools charge)
$1000/yr textbooks.
Place your own figure here for toiletries, clothes and recreation just for fun.</p>
<p>Now calculate how many hours a week I have to work at a summer job which pays me $15/hr. How many hours a week I have to work partime during the school year when my pay drops to $11.50 and take into accout I'm getting $2500 in student aid via grants and I have savings of 17K, all from my own money through working partime since the age of 14, fulltime for a period of two years 17-19 (school partime).</p>