1st World conditions are for the wealthy: welcome back to the 19th Century!

[Adrusek81]

After reading this report from the US National Poverty Centre, I couldn't help but to be both fascinated and horrified by the statistics presented. While roughly 52% of us citizens live just above or below the poverty line ($17 per day per individual), 12% of US citizens are in deep poverty ($8.50 per day), and 4.33% of households (1.65 million families) in the US are categorized as subsisting in extreme poverty - with every member only having $2 a day to live on. Which means that, in total, 3.5 million American children are living in conditions only equal to the most degraded and deprived areas in India and Africa.

It is also true that it is calculated that, by 2030, 80% of Americans will find themselves unemployed and having to rely on government assistance for relatively long periods of their lives, all of them having to share only 7% of the country's total wealth. Estimates have not been given as to how much the uppermost stratum of society will have, but as of 2013, the richest 1% have the 47% of all the wealth in the US.

Unfortunately, the Neoliberal model of Capitalism so fanatically promoted (or rather, imposed through economic and military interventionism) by the US over the last 80 years, have slowly crept its way into the ideologies of the political chaste of most developed countries. In Europe, the monetarist model espoused by Angela Merkel has wrecked havoc in the vulnerable Mediterranean economies, and its proving to have disastrous effects in the countries ruled by her coetaneous plutocracy-worshiping technocrats (make no mistake, the UK is closer to an Irish debacle than many want to think, or are willing to admit).

So, my fellow brothers and sisters, I welcome you all back to the Dickensian Epoch! I hope we will all become friends when we find each other slaving away in workhouses... If we are lucky. As Malthus said, starvation, disease and catastrophe naturally correct economic wrongs.

 

[njcollegekid]

i was very hesitant to believe this, as it not something i have seen and ive been to lots of areas of the US. and i could not find that stat in the article. where did you get it?

and 80% in poverty in 20 years? how do they know? economics predictions are always highly variable and very inaccurate. but this just seems like socialist propaganda.

i have family in the Mediterranean. i know a lot of people there. im related to several villages (everyone in those coastal villages is related). 90% are ignorant, lazy, and self-entitled, looking for ways to get money for no work. surprise surprise a countries economy cant survive like that. nobodies fault but their own. i even had one bitch tell me how are americans on welfare supposed to survive (she was on welfare her whole life). my response was that they were supposed to get jobs, not stay on welfare. she said it was inhumane, and that germans do much better at it, and germans live much better anyway. i asked her have you ever been to germany? no. have you ever been to the us? no. so shut up, bitch.

and you are twisting the nature of the malthusian argument. the malthusian arguement is that all problems have roots in overpopulation. economic wrongs are just symptoms.
if 80% of americans end up living in poverty, the malthusian conclusion is that 80% of americans need to die, as that is how much above the carrying capacity we are.

 

[Adrusek81]

i was very hesitant to believe this, as it not something i have seen and ive been to lots of areas of the US. and i could not find that stat in the article. where did you get it?

and 80% in poverty in 20 years? how do they know? economics predictions are always highly variable and very inaccurate. but this just seems like socialist propaganda.

i have family in the Mediterranean. i know a lot of people there. im related to several villages (everyone in those coastal villages is related). 90% are ignorant, lazy, and self-entitled, looking for ways to get money for no work. surprise surprise a countries economy cant survive like that. nobodies fault but their own. i even had one bitch tell me how are americans on welfare supposed to survive (she was on welfare her whole life). my response was that they were supposed to get jobs, not stay on welfare. she said it was inhumane, and that germans do much better at it, and germans live much better anyway. i asked her have you ever been to germany? no. have you ever been to the us? no. so shut up, bitch.

and you are twisting the nature of the malthusian argument. the malthusian arguement is that all problems have roots in overpopulation. economic wrongs are just symptoms.
if 80% of americans end up living in poverty, the malthusian conclusion is that 80% of americans need to die, as that is how much above the carrying capacity we are.

I wonder exactly where your family is from. In most Southern provinces in the Mediterranean, poverty is endemic and people rely on government assistance because there aren't any jobs, and the old do not have the means to relocate. However, there have always been strong migratory currents from the South to the North both in Italy and Spain, and to Attica and Central Macedonia in Greece. You cannot blame destitution on laziness and ignorance and no, trying to measure the human impact that misery has on a large population contingent isn't socialist propaganda, but a valid estimate based on economic trends across the last 300 or so years.

It would also be important to highlight the fact that you seem to be criticizing the implementation of effective social welfare systems, not taking into account that the funds utilized for corporate welfare are, in average, three times the amount used to assist the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. Not to mention that governments directly funnel additional capital into enterprises through public contracts and, indirectly, through tax deductions. Why is it that the proponents of liberal economics never criticize these protectionist and economically unsound measures? In addition, corruption, the deliberate tampering with each country's finances and deregulation have had more to do with the economic collapse that we are witnessing than the "lazy, ignorant and self-entitled" people who do not have the means to escape abject poverty and require state support, while the wealthiest members of society avoid paying their due tax because that might force them to leave and cease con continue the inexistwnt "trickle down effect" that both Reagan and Thatcher so loudly liked to extol.

The Malthusian argument hasn't been twisted, because it has very strong class implications and that's why he directly linked it to Adam Smith's principles: he didn't consider the wealthy and privileged to be above carrying capacity, even if the amount of resources they consumed were far above environmental sustainability. And I am not sorry to say, mate, that if you think that 80% of people just have to die to suit economic dogma, you have a problem.

 

[njcollegekid]

estimating that 80% of americans will be impoverished (meaning unable to meet basic daily needs) within 20 years, is propaganda. propaganda can be true, btw, but i highly doubt this will come to pass. and there are so SO many variables, these kinds of predictions rarely have any accuracy.

then who should i blame it on?
this is how i see it:
if they look for work, and cannot get work, it is because they are of lesser value to those that were hired. why else would the employer hire the other? if every employer finds them to be of no value to him or her, then they are from an object view, without value: worthless.
the whole way selection works is that some members of a population of organisms will always fail to thrive.
now they are dependent on government support. but why do other support them? some may choose to for ethical reasons. others for potential that may be lost. but why is that support mandated? what does a somebody deemed without value by society have to contribute to society? its cruel, but if you cant do anything for me, why should i do something for you?
the very wealthy avoid paying taxes because they are powerful. so why wouldnt they - in their position, i would.

the way i see it, a lot is being done to support those who as far as i can tell, dont really do anything. now in a world of infinite resources, id say give em as much as they like. but this is a world where the law of conservation of matter and energy applies. there is only so much to go around. the more somebody else gets, the less i can have. and i dont see why i should want to give up 'stuff' for somebody i havent met, dont know, and dont care about, without anything in return.

the malthusian argument is that population growth is geometric while carrying capacity increase (due to technology) is arithmetic. and that the two are converging and bound to intersect. it is ecological observation. not sociological.

actually 100% of people have to die. the declaration of independence lies when it says that all men have the right to life. we are mortal beings. we will all inevitably die, so how can we have the right to life? you want to live another day, then fight for it tooth and nail. cuz every scrap you get, means somebody else wont get it, so if you arent willing to step over people, youre just gonna get crushed.

 

[medic1]

^You are the most cold-hearted member that i have ever known .

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

not worry
show pics a modern citays ans lot a folk suckin there thumbs

thankyou

 

[rareboy]

^You are the most cold-hearted member that i have ever known .

Not cold hearted. Just ignorant. And young. And probably sociopathic. And probably someone who has had a lifetime at mommy's tit and sucking daddy's left nut as they have poured endless amounts of cash into their project. And someone who obviously feels pretty damned confident that someday they will be one of the rich who don't pay taxes, instead of some loser from a nj college who isn't needed by the international masters that he so admires..

Guess who read Ayn Rand?

 

[bankside]

Wasn't it Hobbes who pointed it out?

The reason for people with money to happily pay their taxes is so that they don't have to be surrounded by a mob of uneducated, unpleasant, sickly, scrabbling, desperate peasants.

 

[evanrick]

there have been big setbacks for America as a country, but parts of it will do better than others. Conservatives in America have the most to gain from a socialist America as they account for the vast majority of poor do-nothings in this country.

 

[Beachguyj]

, in total, 3.5 million American children are living in conditions only equal to the most degraded and deprived areas in India and Africa.

The poorest in America are living like Kings compared to the poor in India or Africa. They have clean water and many programs to help them as well as places to go such as charities and churches for food or possible shelter.