StrangeSox

I sort of forgot he was found guilty of anything.

They've become brazenly anti-environment at this point.

Urge to root...rising

Why is it that "those people" have to sacrifice everything to a grinding, miserable existence just to get out of that life while being judged and condemned by those in higher social classes if they do anything other than work constantly? Why should they have to live an existence devoid of joy while I can live one of relative luxury with minimal effort simply thanks to my birth? Poverty is a social issue, not an individual issue. The fact that it is not literally impossible to escape poverty, merely exceedingly difficult with little or no margin for error, is not exactly a strong defense of the current system. That not all poor people are literally starving to death is not a reason to put poor into scare quotes or decide that they don't really need medical coverage. The cost of a few of these luxury goods (luxury being defined as anything above subsistence living, in this case) that provide some entertainment at very low costs for an entire family are completely incomparable to healthcare or education costs. The report does not specify premium cable or high-speed internet. It doesn't specify smartphones with expensive data packages. It doesn't specify HDTV's or PS3's or iPods. It gives some catch-all categories for modern cheap consumer electronics and a few services, many of which can be had for very cheap costs and provide high entertainment/$ value for an entire family, and yet a significant number of poor people still cannot afford these things. The Heritage study does not support the idea that many poor people are spending hundreds of dollars a month on cable and internet and phones. What it does support is that electronics are pretty cheap these days, so cheap that many poor people can afford them. That is as far as you can really take these conclusions. Arguments that blame the poor for being poor because of laziness or bad morals are ignorant of the realities of poverty at best.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 09:18 AM) The real blindspot in those surveys is actually that they're somewhat correct in a sense...one can get things like a refrigerator, cell phone, even a fairly high-end TV for fairly cheap these days. Having satellite service doesn't bankrupt low income people any more. The real issue is not the things that have gotten cheap enough to be affordable, the real issue now is the things that have become so expensive as to be unaffordable to people in the lower income levels...things like health care, transportation, food, housing, energy/heat, and education. That's the real scandal in these reports...the niceities actually have become cheap enough that you can have them without having to make very big sacrifices...but the staples, the things you actually need to build a stable life...those are the things out of reach. Giving up your HDTV and your cell phone doesn't pay for a year of health insurance or a year of college for your kid. Giving up your X Box doesn't pay for gasoline or the surgery you need. Well, right, the focus on possession of a few material goods that are relatively cheap in our society and possessed by some in poverty as evidence that the poor aren't really poor exposes a deep ignorance of what poverty actually is or what it means. edit: Read this to understand why trying to downplay the plight of poverty in this country is pretty insulting to tens of millions of Americans who struggle to get by every day.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 09:17 AM) You mean the thing that started the discussion and quickly turned to right wing ripping? Yeah. The post you responded to had nothing to do with Victory's claim.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 09:15 AM) Counter-counter point. Those numbers don't add up to anywhere near 1 in 2, or whatever the garbage number was at the beginning. Good thing we weren't talking about that but about Heritage's dumb study, then.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 08:59 AM) Here's my problem with your take - it seemed to me by reading the summary of that report, that the point wasn't to say that no one in this country is poor, but instead to point out that what we perceive as "poor" isn't really poor so much as in a really s***ty spot. Is that a big enough difference to make a whole report and cause a cable news cycle to waste time on it? Eh, probably not. But I think when people think "poor" and "destitute" they think of the late 1920's-1930's when people ate a can of beans because that was literally all they could afford to eat (and often times that's how the media reports homelessness and poverty while relating that idea to the 30-40 million supposedly in that dire situation). The "poor" of today's society is a million times better than that kind of poor (or even the poor when compared to other areas of the world today). THAT is the point. Regardless of what kind of TV you have, or what kind of gaming console you have, those ARE luxury goods for the "poor" in the world. Edit: Here's the abstract btw: Counter-point: inner-city ghettos, Appalachia, rural Ozarks. And anyway yeah, nobody doesn't understand that poverty is at least somewhat relative. That completely misses the point. It's the huge blindspot in these types of surveys. Putting poor in scare quotes is an attempt to denigrate the actual difficulties that the poor face in an attempt to defend wealth privilege.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 09:02 AM) I agree with this. However, I'd also agree with what kap is getting at - which is that for some significant % of people that are poor or low income, part of the reason they are there and not finding a way out is going to be their own choices. Note I said PART, by the way, and for SOME people. There are people who are low-income that buy a lot of stupid things. This also ties back to one of my favorite causes - financial education and the lack thereof. Anyway, really, you are both right on this one. You can argue as to how many poor or relatively poor people have what % of situational fault their own, and how many of them make things worse by making stupid purchases, and no one really will have numbers to provide. But it isn't as simple or noble as you make it, nor is it as simple or completely self-driven as kap makes it. I don't think kap and I were disagreeing, really.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 08:46 PM) I saw the report and I agree that it is one of the biggest pieces of s*** to come out of the Heritage Foundation in quite some time. But I'm sure Hannity is slobbering all over this "news" like it's the biggest study to rock America since Reagan, right? Excuse me while I barf. Well, since they published the same garbage last year or a few years ago. It's a pretty regular report for them. But this study didn't specify HDTV's or smartphones. Just "television," which could be a $100 set from Walmart, or maybe a $50 Goodwill pickup. A "gaming console" could be a Nintendo 64. It just said "cellphone," which could be a cheap pay-as-you-go thing. The poor have the audacity to own cars (old beaters to get to their jobs that are probably 20+ miles away from their homes and for which there's no public transportation available). The reporting on this study by idiots like Hannity, though, will feature lots of images of fancy 60" LED TV's, PS3's, iPhones, etc. to drive that deceptive slight-of-hand home. Being poor is about a lot more than not having the latest electronics, and having some relatively cheap entertainment devices to distract you from your otherwise grinding existence doesn't make you suddenly not poor. That's where the fundamental problem of these studies lies: focusing on a few material trinkets that do not actually reflect what poverty is or isn't.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 03:19 PM) Because they know he's the nominee, and so does everyone else. That's true, but I'm sure Obama would much rather have run against Cain or Perry or Bachmann. On paper Huntsman presents a stronger challenge than Romney, but I don't see any of the other candidates really offering a strong shot at Obama. Which is why I doubt that Romney is who Obama prefers out of this crop.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 02:21 PM) The "part of it" IS the problem, not refrigerators, ceiling fans, and stoves. Having some relatively cheap electronics doesn't mean you're not poor. It also didn't specify Xboxes and HDTV's, but "more than one TV" and "gaming console" of unspecified age. But the Heritage report included plenty of basic appliances in their "look, they're not really poor!" annual report.

Cover? Customer base?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 01:14 PM) I thought it was luxury goods like premium cable, multiple HDTV's, xbox's, etc? That was part of it. It also included such luxury goods as refrigerators, ceiling fans and stoves. The gall of the poor, having appliances to store and cook food! Bah, if only they worked harder, they wouldn't be so poor!

Wow, that's a decent amount of coke.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 11:34 AM) Why bother posting? Seems in your world, either you have to delude yourself into believing something manifestly false (as stated in the very article you cited), or else that means you think poor people have it great. Most sane people are in between. You will trigger some real, actual discussion if you don't twist the words of other posters, and defend it by outright lying about the words from a published article. iawtp, btw.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 11:10 AM) Oh come on, when have you ever seen me post anything even remotely like that? Sorry, that wasn't a shot at you, but someone else did post Heritage's annual "the 'poor' have cooking appliances, I guess they're not so poor!" earlier this year. It was a shot at that.

Besides, they have microwaves and ceiling fans, so they're not really poor anyway.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 10:23 AM) but just think what happens if a GOP president takes office. Probably nothing different become Obama hasn't changed much if anything on this front? His original reason for vetoing it wasn't that it gave the Executive far too much power, but that it constrained it.

This bill is horrible, but they made it slightly-less-horrible-enough to avoid Obummer's veto.

Yeah things pointing out the absurdity of what seems like every "fiscal conservative" GOP candidates' tax plans seem fair game for this thread but feel free to move it.

This unintentionally hilarious Forbes piece, entitled "If I were a poor black kid" (imaginary subtitle: views on poverty from privileged upper class whites) is pretty mind-numbing. there have been some good responses, though: If I were a rich white guy Letter from a poor black kid: Baratunde Thurston responds to Forbes' Gene Marks Of course the best is this 1997 Onion article that does an amazing job of lampooning the whole thing 14 years before it was even written.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 09:27 PM) I'm guessing everyone agrees. To be honest, I think most girls look better a little chunky. Mean Girls Lohan was at her peak.

You also had an idea to explain m2m! I'm noticing a pattern.