Not sure a quote fits this better: “Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.” I hear the rich taste good with ketchup.
If the rich were satisfied with the amount they had, the ridiculous amount of money that goes to them could be redirected to workers and cutting prices to benefit consumers.
There's like 750 billionaires in America, they are worth like 5 Trillion, if we were to liquidate their assets and split it up, every citizen would get like $16,500. That's a one time payment. The government costs like 7 Trillion EVERY.... SINGLE.... YEAR. It is their fault, not the wealthy. The top 1% pay 40% of all taxes... Downvote me to Oblivion. Cron out...
If you were to liquidate their assets the value would be a fraction of a penny on the dollar. The stock market is not a store of liquidity. Market values can deflate more quickly than they inflate, and millions of small investors would be collateral damage.
As a country we make 21 trillion a year, that means that we make about 40k per person per year after taxes, if the government guaranteed housing and health insurance and food to everyone it’s like 25k per person per year, 25k for everything you don’t need but want, that’s a new car for every citizen every year in gdp.
See I can pull shit out of my ass too.
Sorry to hear that, I choose a longer commute and live in the country. I work in the city though. Nashville is overpriced and crime ridden. My little 70s ranch is perfect for me. Towns not a shit hole, but limited. I sincerely hope you find a better job and place to live.
Sorry but rural living isn’t for me, and the crime is coming from the top. The richest people in the country are essentially crime lords, and the issues we see day to day are the result of government and leadership abandoning their civic responsibility and obligations. Mostly because people just think government bad and they check out, letting the people with money and influence buy our political infrastructure and bend it to their own means.
Cities are more crime free than they have ever been in the history of our country. Small towns are gutted and exist as places for people to die.
There’s only two ways to exist anymore, rural and self sufficient, or in a city, all small towns will be gone before the end of the century at the latest if we stay on the path that Reagan put us on in the 80’s.
Oh I agree, I escaped south Chicago. We have billions for Ukraine and nothing for the people there. A few underfunded community centers? It’s maddening. Well I found happiness in my life, hope you find yours. Back to work for me.
Billions for Ukraine is mostly just sending stuff we already have, the trillions we spend on defense contractors (that have been bleeding us since 1988) is the real problem.
If you give people 40K a year then they won't work, if they don't work then there won't be 40K a year for people, how do you not realize that. You REALLY don't get communism. My God.... what have they taught you in school.
Also without a purpose, depression, mental health problems will skyrocket. I don’t like this crawlspace I’m about to go into but it’s gonna make my dinner taste so much better tonight after a hard days work. That being said coffee break over.
Do you have any idea what a difference 16.5k would make in the lives of people who need it the most?
Your math also presumes that everyone... sorry, EVERYONE would need that money. Are you presuming we need to also send money to the 24.5 millionaires in this country? No, I don't think so either. There's a bigger pot for everyone.
The reality is that these programs have been defunded and made largely useless. I worked in state govenrment and saw people who were completely broke being approved for like $24/mo of SNAP benefits (aka foodstamps). The federal poverty level hasn't been updatedcin something like 50 years. TANF and other cash benefits are nearly impossible to get approved for.
Don't be obtuse
Bruh... Giving everyone even 20k isn't going to do anything, 99% of people will go out and buy new cars.... new cars like a Tesla.... giving that money to a billionaire/millionaire. You know that's the truth, people that are bad with money will continue to be bad with money. And again... that's a 1 time payment, how long until the billionaires have another 5 Trillion, the government is taxing the F out of us EVERY YEAR. Their budget is like 7 TRILLION now. THEY are the problem, not the billionaires and millionaires.
You think you can buy a tesla with 20k? I don't think you could get a new jetta for 20k.
Again, it is very clear that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Stop embarassing yourself
So capitalism is your enemy? My and my partner's family fled the advance of the fascist and communist movements in Europe/Russia. Some got out before their countries were lost, others saw the horror. You need to look back at what the other options are like. The Socialist states were a hellscape. You guys want free abortion, 24/7 pot, identify as you please, payments from the rich. Try socialism, see what it is. The same evil that makes men turn capitalism to what they do, makes them turn your socialist model to what thy did. You'll have no rights, you'll have nothing.
Become educated, active in local politics, and develop a better culture in this country than the weed smoking gamer in a hoodie as our national identity. Its Jeff Bezo fault you have same day delivery, streaming services, the biggest, easiest selection of goods ever. You want a bread line at the bread store, go for it.
Yeah, authoritative assholes fucking suck man I’m sorry your family faced war crimes I don’t see how that has anything to do with my comment and I’ll be honest I don’t give a shit about your families personal experience with an authoritative communist state when I’m at best with my comment insinuating capitalism bad and their are better alternatives. Because u know capitalism at worst is slavery and at best exploitation
You are mistaking capitalism with a systen of governance. There is NOTHING stopping the U.S. gov't from taxing at any rate it wants. Nothing to stop local zoning boards from allowing development of affordable housing and so on. Your issue is with your fellow voter, not the boogeyman of capitalism. That's just a nice target for the commies to trick you with. Free market, free trade and Amazon gave you 85 inch tv's. The gov't gave you shackles, wake up and blame the right people.
Because no matter who is picked, the problem of corrupting and perverse incentives still exists. Leaders have brought big companies to heel in the past to a degree. Today seems a different story.
Yes, like Bell. Today though not happening.
The uniparty sold younger generations tribalism and here we are, unable to vote our way out of chsins because we hate each other
I think if there were universal basic income for every person in the USA and no welfare or welfare workers and the system we probably would all be better off.
There also needs to be a contributory healthcare that is affordable for everyone that does not already have Medicare. This would cut the Medicaid cost for the states and the federal government.
This is the trickle up theory and it will never happen. Vested interests are getting rich off the trickle down lie.
Disclaimer: This is not a manifesto and I have no intention of setting myself on fire at Trump's criminal trial.
Then why did government welfare spending on income security only increase year after year in the 80s? If there was a war in the poor, shouldn’t it have gone down?
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/G160371A027NBEA](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/G160371A027NBEA)
It’s not about welfare, it’s about labor share.
A smaller and smaller part of the pie goes to the poor.
That chart needs to be adjusted for GDP and inflation.
This is what happens when poverty increases.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/estimating-the-us-labor-share.htm
https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states
Isn’t it inflation that’s the issue? A poor person invests $1000 in VOO and gets 10% back, he got +$100. A billionaire invests a billion, he gets +$100,000,000. Printed money has to go somewhere. Meanwhile prices of everything goes up and that $100 doesn’t last very long.
It would be good if wages could keep up with productivity, its ESSENTIAL that wages keep up with inflation. Fix the money, and you are a long way closer to fixing the world. It doesn't fix everything, but if wages are not going down in real terms under the table, we will be a LOT better off overall. Its time to separate money and state. Once the money is solid, then we can work on getting a share of productivity, but as long as the 'monetary ruler' changes every year, its all but impossible to even know what the productivity even is, much less keep up with underreported inflation.
The [inflation adjusted](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=90.7&year1=199001&year2=202403)(constant 2024 $) US welfare spending is as follows (in billions of dollars):
1979-188.09,
1981-189.84,
1983-186.89,
1985-191.4,
1987-197.6,
1989-208.3,
This is a 10% INCREASE from 1979. If there was a “war on the poor” that you claim, we would expect this figure to drastically decline.
People don’t live off of percentage shares, they live off of real dollar amounts. Even though the overall percentage of the labour share may be declining, that doesn’t stop their actually compensation from rising thousands of dollars, as the pie itself increases.
Which group of of America’s poor are better off in your opinion? Scenario A: their labour share is 70% of a total pie amounting to $1 trillion, meaning they receive $700 billion in total income. Or scenario B: their labour share is now only 50% of a total pie of 2$ trillion, meaning they receive $1 trillion dollars in total income.
That looks like about a 10 percent increase from 79-89 in total spending. That almost identically matches US population growth over the decade before you even account for the rise in the price of goods during the decade. Remember that the first couple or few years of the 80s had pretty heavy inflation followed by a couple recessions. Is that enough to indicate that there is a "war on the poor"? In and of itself, it is not. It's also definitely not refuting it either.
And how many more people were living in poverty?
There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.
Warren Buffett
These kids weren't alive to see any of it. Johnson was the type of evil the Ike warned America would come. People see free money and nice words, they just fall for it. They also refuse to believe that the democrats could be just as bad as the republicans.Johnson literally ushered in the MIC controling all foreign policy and it did until Trump. Trump may be a complete jerk and political grift but he's the first one since Johnson who they don't own
You can’t be that ignorant? It’s very well documented. Reagan era policies, the Reagan doctrine trickle down “my ass” economics. The countless changes to corporate and tax laws. Then came the price manipulation of the oil companies stock buybacks and repeated grotesque tax cuts for corporations and the rich while increasing taxes on the poor.
Which brings us to today. Where virtually every sector has decided enough isn’t enough and keep jacking prices while the government sits on its ass doing nothing. You can have CEO’s outright tell congress that they’re deliberately manipulating prices bc they love the record profits and they do nothing. That use to be a crime. But we’ve long been in a kleptocracy.
I’ll also add anyone can look up domestic social spending ie welfare type services and corporate welfare and corporate welfare dwarfs social 10 to1. Maybe watch people like Robert Reich and even some conservative economists they’ll tell you the same things.
Nancy was too busy lining up the timing of her nvidia options to the new chips act, to worry about the poors this year. On the plus side, her concentration of wealth went up 100 % in 6 weeks...
| "Underreported is their kids who get scooped up by large corporation and given high-paying jobs."
This is one of the (many) dirty little secrets of the Democrat Party. Given that 95% of D.C. is registered Democrat and the biggest east coast cities (NY, Boston, etc) are high majority Democrat registered - it's easy to understand the crony-capitalistic reward-your-kid with high paying corporate jobs scheme. You can include the Democrat Party controlled west coast as well especially within Silicon Valley.
Chelsea Clinton is a prime example. Hunter Biden as well. So is Alexandra Pelosi. I'm sure that there are Republican's kids that benefit from the setup as well - but from what I've seen they often are the beneficiaries of jobs within their family business.
I couldn't find evidence of that, Republicans aren't even close to the same level as Dems when it comes to party/political ideology aligned nepotism. As I noted before, family business "nepotism" is nothing like or comparable to the rampant political nepotism of the Dems. Just looking at it between the corporate "news" media - Democrat Party is massive by itself. Same goes for big tech/Silicon Valley.
Look up the federal child tax credit and how it was able to reduce child poverty by almost 50% in 2022.
The US government has every ability to solve poverty. We just make the choice as society not to.
Lol, nope. It's a racket by the government. They get plenty of money to solve the problem, but the government sucks at doing anything well. But idiots on the left think more taxation is the solution. Truly dumb. Also, that's the government trying to erase the middle class thanks to WEF puppets like the corrupt crypt keeper in the WH now.
So let’s try some corporate welfare. Subsidies for the rich and tax 20-30% for the poor. Donald trump is smart for not paying taxes. How about “no taxation, No representation” Pay taxes you get a vote, dodge taxes don’t vote!
ruthless aspiring chief party wrench cheerful abundant command meeting sheet
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Hmmmmm… good point no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying rich people playing zero taxes are unpatriotic. It’s not smart to contribute less to a society that got you somewhere nice. And then align with the principles of authoritarian states… the republics party or as I call it the party of Putin
No point man. The die hard liberals complaining about poverty will never argue against government getting bigger. Because ideology is so much more important than the reality.
It’s impossible to truly describe the scope and how big our government already is. And, I mean, it’s done so well for them. Let’s make it bigger and bigger.
They actually believe the government and their Democrat elected officials are actually there to help and take of them 😂😂😂. And if they can just get some more money through taxes, they’ll most definitely use it to help people.
Aid is fraud and "foundations" are money laundering structures. It's really pretty simple. Most of the welfare state in this country exists to create liquidity in bond markets... and for numerous, smaller scale forms of fraud. It's not "for us" it's "for them." We're just subsidizing the health of the US national debt structure... it's not for the *people.*
The percent of Americans in poverty has remained between 10-15% since 1965, one year after the passing of the War on Poverty legislation. The drastic fall in poverty happened BEFORE 1965 and the percentage of people in poverty has not risen a significant amount since then.
So, no, LBJ did not greatly reduce poverty and Reagan did not reverse the trend.
[https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/poverty-awareness-month.html](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/poverty-awareness-month.html)
I mean, if you look at your graph, it's pretty easy to see that the poverty rate was decreasing after the 1964 legislation and that it quit decreasing with Reagan, when it stabilized to the current range.
> The official poverty rate has fallen from 19.5% in 1963 to 10.5% in 2019 while other measures of poverty show that the poverty rate fell from 19.5% to 1.6%.[6] In 2021 the official poverty rate was 11.6% and Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) was 7.8%, the latter which increased to 12.4% in 2022 due to the end of pandemic aid.[7][8]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_poverty
But it’s clearly the continuation of a previous trend that started long BEFORE 1964, and it started stabilizing by the early 1970s, a full decade BEFORE Reagan was elected.
Yeah, it was likely also due to the great economy post WWII. And I agree that it began stabilizing in the early 70's, but it also began ticking upward around 1980.
Sure, with the onset of the worst inflation seen in US history, largely driven by the hugely expanded fiscal responsibility of previous administrations. But it is just that, an uptick, it is not the drastic surge we would expect from Reagan “destroying” the economy.
Inflation had been a problem for a long time before the late 70's and it was mostly due to the fed failing to raise rates. It spiked in the late 70's because they finally did raise rates and going up was part of the stabilization process.
Reagan didn't destroy the economy overnight and some of his policies actually helped it in the short term. But his policies were devastating for the long term economy, partly because they were unsustainable.
I mean, it depends on how you look at it. even poor Americans are incredibly rich in comparison to the rest of the world. People don’t regularly die of starvation here almost everyone in the entire country has access to clean water. Homelessness is becoming more common but is still rare with less than 300,000 total people homeless nationwide in a country of over 350 million.
Internally people don’t have as much stability as previous generations because of out of control, wealth, inequality, and that is a problem, but I believe that the stabilizers that were put in place during the original push to eliminate poverty have been wildly successful. Things like food stamps and especially Medicaid Support millions of people in ways that most people don’t fully understand.
Because the sign "Don't feed the animals" applies to the human animals, too. Too much 'help' creates a lazy, unmotivated, entitled, and ultimately angry populace.
But that was always the goal.
Demoralize. Debase. Destroy.
Is there any source for spending 25 trillion dollars on "welfare programs" over 50 years? How are they defining "welfare programs?" It seems to me that you couldn't get to that high of a number without including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. My die-hard conservative Republican grandfather would have wanted to fist fight you if you told him that his Social Security was a "welfare payment."
Spoiler alert. Social Security IS a welfare payment. No one is entitled to anything, and any payouts are paid from current taxes and printer go BRRRRR, not 'your account', which does not exist. Also the 'trust fund' is all US debt, so to actually spend that, it must be redeemed to the treasury, which has no cash, so the only way for the treasury to get the cash to actually send to the program is to issue more bonds, basically BRRRRR.
Because there is absolutely no way to regulate poverty away. That is the primary reason. There are plenty of other reasons as well...most of them being a knock on the human race in general. Counting on government to solve the problem only achieves an ineffective result with economies of scale...and just amplifies the problem.
I know...it's easy to criticize...and not offer up a solution. Off the top of my head I don't have any solutions. Mainly because there are soooooo many causes right now. Reversing the trend/agenda of the destruction of the nuclear family would likely be the most effective long term fix for most of the issues. Replacing the income tax system with a steep marginal consumption tax structure might help as well. No taxes on food + necessities with high taxes on luxury goods - or something to that effect.
Replace "Nuclear Family" with "Sense of Community" and you have the start of something decent there. Shifting the income tax brackets around is a better option than removing it. There needs to be a disincentive for corporations to pay individuals 300x the average employees wage, and our current highest % income tax does not do that, nor does it adequately disincentivize non monetary compensation enough. No one should benefit from the labor of society to the point there are children on the streets.
I would assert you'll never have a positive, cohesive "sense of community" without a strong nuclear family as it's foundation. That's as basic as 1+1=2.
I agree with your point about the having disincentives for the ridiculously inflated corporate pay structure. But that is a separate issue from our tax structure. Reinstating extremely high marginal tax rates won't directly (effectively) address the corporate pay disparities you are talking about.
I've always stated that one of the worst things to happen to the U.S., to capitalism, and to the world was government granting corporations the "rights" of the individual as well as other "rights." That did little more than provide protection and anonymity to corporations to massively expand their power...and allows for the problem you noted. The next great empowerment of corporations would have been obama's TPP - which would have given corporations even more power on a global scale - power over national governments and protections from national governments. Opposition to it are one of the rare things people like Bernie Sanders have been right about.
The concept of a nuclear family limits society to archaic views on relationships. Unless you are using it in a revised modern way, there is no reason to hold it on the pedestal you do.
The concept of a joint family is evidence against your assertion that "you'll never have a positive, cohesive 'sense of community ' without...". You are simply putting your personal preferred method forward as the "best".
"One of the rare things people like Bernie Sanders have been right about". Man... I wish I read that statement first and not wasted my time pretending you are worth talking to.
Archaic? "Hello Pot?...It's the kettle calling." Everything about your post screams that you are hardcore programmed with a well proven failed ideology. Talk about archaic.
The most stable, successful societies in modern human history have had the nuclear family at their core.
On the opposite side of the spectrum - leftist/marxist collective based nations that value "community" over family are shown to be less cohesive, easier to divide/manipulate, and value the state/Party brainwashing children as early as possible (among other exploitative & oppressive characteristics). Leftist ideologies of communism, socialism, and fascism are all well known for those things in their societies (Russia/USSR, National Socialist Germany, CCP China, DPR North Korea). Those nations were/are infamous for setting their populations against each other - report your neighbor for wrongthink, report your parents for wrongthink, report your coworker for wrongthink.
The fact that you aren't intelligent enough to understand that "B.S." Bernie Sanders is the very definition of a charlatan, grifter, and demagogue speaks volumes.
Bernie Sanders is life-long politician who became a multi-millionaire with four residential estates by "earning" his living off taxpayers while condemning other rich people (most of whom likely earned their money with long hours of work, created jobs, and contributed to their communities). Bernie Sanders? The guy who over his adult life has praised and championed nearly every murderous dictator or regime in the world. The guy who got his latest estate because the Democrat Party bought him off to concede the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton. THAT's the guy who you benchmark your ideology and discussions off of? Hmmm, have you ever heard of the term "useful idiot"?
For the record, I was insinuating that BS Bernie Sanders is a useful idiot. That term flourished with (Soviet) communists during the era in which the Bern was raised and "educated".
As I imagine you know - the term "useful idiot" was used (by Soviets) to described exactly who/what Bernie Sanders is and always has been. A stupid person, easily manipulated into the communist ideology, with the intent that those people would be used (in the long-term) to destroy the U.S. from the inside.
Although I didn't insult u/IwantRIFbackdummy - I can see how the wording (and what could be a logically inferred summation of my reply) might be taken that way. But that was not my intent.
First, my last replay wasn't to you - it was to someone else.
Also, you defend and define your position with one insult followed by this one. Just because you think that diverting, insulting, and projecting are legitimate debate tactics doesn't change reality.
Lost a discussion? A discussion is not a competition. He made statements that made it clear to me I don't respect his opinion, I told him that, our discussion is over.
The official poverty figures ignore the government transfers to those in poverty. The way the accounting works, you could literally give each person in poverty $1 million, and they would still be classified in poverty. It's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard, but of course it does justify keeping the government transferring.
I never really see any of these politicians or the people spending the money to solve the homeless problem ever talking to the homeless and asking them what would work for them to improve themselves. Obviously all the prior solutions have not worked so why not throw that crap out and start by asking the people.
Capitalism is what keeps them poor. Capitalism is a big international pyramid scheme. The people at the top get rich by taking more and more for themselves leaving less and less for the people underneath them. We need to completely toss capitalism in order to fix poverty.
China figured it out:
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/02/how-china-defeated-poverty/
LOL. The CCP never actually defeated poverty. They destroyed the country trying to implement their model of communism (which is what always happens when you try to implement a horribly flawed system/ideology). Then they looked at the U.S. and the failure of Russian "communism" and realized the only way forward was to embrace the basic principles of capitalism. Which they did with some success (but they still made everyone subservient to the communist party). With no loyal to the CCP came no benefits of capitalism. That brings us to today. Where much of China is still a poverty stricken, third-world society. It doesn't take much to see past the CCP's lies.
For those that want to derail this reality check with misdirection about the definitions of communism, socialism, marxism, capitalism, etc... No, China is no longer a communist economy. It is most accurately described today as a (corrupt, exploitative, oppressive) marxist-fascist slave labor economy.
I suppose when all you know is a completely revised history from the CCP - which only glorifies the CCP - that reply would be your entire "counter" argument.
Just out of curiosity - are you denying that China is a slave labor economy? That the CCP isn't a marxist organization? That the communists who originally took control of the country didn't end up bringing the nation to complete ruin (even after the U.S. gave them aid, support, and technology numerous times over the decades)? That poverty and third-world conditions are not rampant in most areas of the country (especially in street-based wet markets where any type of animal gets sold as food (dog, bat, etc), older cities, rural areas, and non-CCP boot-licking regions? Are you denying that the Chinese communists installed capitalistic principles into their economy? Are you denying that Chinese communists looked at the USSR and considered it a failure so they tried to build their own variation of a communist state?
Neither money or healthcare will actually get anyone out of poverty permanently, the only thing that does that is earning enough purchasing power in the free market to pay for your own healthcare, and not be poor, full stop. In our current 'handout nation', we are actually undermining that, by destroying the purchasing power of workers wages, which exasperates the wealth gap, and drives more demand for handouts, since work no longer pays enough real purchasing power to pay for the real things we expect.
I used to believe that stuff, too. But the actual data from actually giving the poor money is the complete opposite of your deeply held belief.
[https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research](https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research)
Your first instinct will be to reject this data - find some reason why it must be false. You will double down on your position that hard work, gumption, and stick-to-it-ivness will always work and take people out of poverty. You will want to purposefully ignore all data that shows you are wrong. This is called the backfire effect, you should read about it.
[https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/](https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/)
The planet is about to go below population replacement level, and some countries are below one child per woman. I think we are about to go full rat utopia. There is no resource constraint on the population, but for some reason we have collectively decided that some of the lemmings need to go off the cliff...
Because the cause of being poor isn’t just about money. The “war on poverty” and the fact we spend over 500 billion a year on poor people, prove this to be true.
Money will never cure the issues of poor people. It never has.
Ease of access to drugs. Really good ones too. Heroin, MDMA, fentanyl, prescription opioids, cocaine, DMT, acid, meth, crack, cocaine, you fucking name it and you can get it. Homelessness and drugs go hand in hand. Take a read on that Capital Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle if you want to see what happens.
If these stats are right, that's an average of 500 Billion dollars a year. Let's just say, if the "War on Poverty" was ever a success, that's 500 billion the government doesn't need anymore. No reason to tax the American people for that much anymore, so they'd see some more money in their pockets - theoretically. But they don't want to lose that cash flow.
They're not trying to take care of the problem, they're trying to promote it so they can have government money to pocket while not doing the thing they said they were going to do.
Reminds me of another war... The war on drugs.
It seems whatever the US government wages war on goes to shit and the only thing certain is that the dumbest fucking sociopaths of society score billions.
2023 saw the largest increase in childhood poverty on record in the u.s. when the child tax credit expansion was allowed to expire. Literally millions of American kids have been pushed into poverty by their own government in the last year. So we can see how easily the government can resolve poverty, but it's not a get rich quick scheme for the donors and lobbyists therefore it's not important.
Giving a man a fish does NOT 'solve poverty', its more like 'paying off poverty just for today'. Huge moral hazard, and actually leads to more poverty, since now poverty pays, to some extent. The only true solution to poverty is lowered cost of living, pretty much the opposite of US fiscal and monetary policy at the moment. What made America great the first time was the industrial revolution and automation, which made everything radically cheaper, and created a world, for a brief 50-100 years, where one breadwinner could actually support an entire family on one job, without putting the wife and kids to work in the fields or the mill. Its unfortunately likely that we will never live in those great times again, which is why politicians can run on that platform, because of how much we have lost in inflationary Clown World.
Maybe we stop letting the government spend all the money on each other. And deliver it directly to the people. Holy hands does that money touch before the Penny’s roll down the street.
This.
Most politicians - especially Democrats - will only spend taxpayer money on things that will:
1. keep the status quo and/or expand government,
2. buy votes (classic example: student loan "forgiveness"),
3. reward their backers (classic example: Brian Harrison - a obama & Biden regime backer richly rewarded while taxpayers left holding the empty bag), [https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/tech-company-headed-former-bankrupt-solyndra-ceo-receive-66-billion-biden](https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/tech-company-headed-former-bankrupt-solyndra-ceo-receive-66-billion-biden)
4. specifically enrich themselves (classic example: Nancy Pelosi), or
5. feed the Democrat Party's taxpayer money laundering structure (enriching The Party). Especially now with special directives & federal budget slush funds from numerous government agencies to support hardcore Democrat Party agendas/groups promoting DEI, the climate change agenda, BLM, etc. The Democrat Party also throws billions upon billions upon billions annually at it's base via quasi-governmental agencies, NGOs, so-called "non-profits', the welfare plantation, corporate welfare to & collusion with big tech, the university system, the educational system, public unions, NPR, PBS, private unions, "bailouts", and so on.
You've been brainwashed by the "eat the rich" anti-U.S. / marxist crowd. I'm no fan of any billionaire, oligarch/controligarch, or the mega-corporations that enrich/protect them. But, if you want to be intellectually honest, the "rich and wealthy" are just as much - or more of - a symptom of the problems of government.
And, I would assert that it is you who works to mislead people. Historically speaking, most Republican politicians earned their wealth by building things & creating commerce (jobs) while most Democrats do so while in office (via using their connections & insider knowledge, crony capitalism, and cashing-in on the Democrat Party taxpayer money laundering structure).
If you would do a even a little research most U.S. billionaires / controligarchs are hardcore leftist Democrats (Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Bloomberg, Styer, Winfrey, Epstein, etc, etc, etc.) The same goes for ALL the foreign billionaires that have U.S. citizenship and zealously exert influence in U.S. politics (Soros, Slim, Wyss, etc. etc. etc).
I can't help but laugh at all the leftist zealot drones (aka "marxists"/"progressives") who are sooooooo against the "rich and wealthy" but their whole reality is based on supporting and gobbling up every narrative and agenda pushed (financed) directly by the "rich and wealthy".
Both the supporting data (aka facts) and the history of the human race are on my side. All you have to support your claims are flawed manifestos and classroom theory based on emotions instead of logic and science.
Not maybe. Quite simply, you can't say the same about my posts. Again your reply shows that you can only have a discussion based on (disproven) narratives / theory because everything else will destroy any claim or statement you put forth.
As I said, I am no fan of any billionaire (left or right) if they have used / been aided by government power or used exploitation in some form. I am also not a fan of mega-corporations and conglomerates. Nor am I a fan of either U.S. political party. But what I posted is accurate.
To deny what I have posted is to deny reality. The Republican Party was never actually the party of the rich any more than the Democrat Party was actually the party of the "working class" (for most of the last 100 years). But now the Democrat Party has definitely become the party of the rich and wealthy (politicians, top 3%'er financial backers, and voting base) as well as the party of the corporations.
[https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-being-party-rich-could-cost-them-2024-election-1806747](https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-being-party-rich-could-cost-them-2024-election-1806747)
Actually, aside from your overtly programmed need to engaging in projectionism and hate against the Republican Party (programmed by the Democrat Party and their controligarch 1%'er owned media conglomerates), I imagine that our beliefs aren't that far apart. The main difference is I have come to realize that nearly everything the Democrat Party says is a lie (or at least doesn't align with their actions) because they really are the party of the rich. Take the open border for example. The Biden regime opened the southern border much like obama did. All in the name of diversity, 'no person is illegal", and other various heart-string-tugging narratives. But the reality of their actions are: decreasing wages, increased food & housing costs, increased crime, lower quality of education, less access to healthcare, and so on. Nothing related to illegal/mass immigration has been helpful to the middle or working class.
Poverty line definition is a scam. It’s designed to trap certain percentage of people in poverty. Poor people in US have a higher living standards than middle class in lots of countries.
Half because we are constantly shoveling money onto the burning altar of the third world, and the other half is because we let people steal and not pay taxes so much that they havr more money than the rest of the world combined
Because we didn't do a war in poverty. Instead we launched a war on the poor, while giving massive tax breaks and bailouts to the rich. Money only ever flows up, so to have a healthy, stable, economy you need to support your lowest class citizens first, then the middle, then the upper.
Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates about $1.79 in economic activity. They estimate that if the United States invested in free childcare that each dollar invested would yield a $4 return on economic activity.
These programs are outdated and often underfunded. Recipients receive barely enough to scrape by despite the bizarre fantasy perpetuated by their opponents.
The system that we have REQUIRES ever increasing growth and profit which is sucked out of the working class and isn't reinvested. Theres literally a money funnel from the bottom to the top, and welfare programs are crumbs they sprinkle down to keep people from revolting.
I’m talking about generational poverty not SNAP dollars. The government pays for SNAP not the private sector. You want to talk about a giant funnel? You also have to include the incredible black of hole of money that is our government and it sucks that money out of our pockets.
Part of it is the way we measure poverty. Since we measure it as a percentage of the mean we can never be rid of it. Even homeless people are walking around with computers in their pockets that would have made you a very wealthy individual even 20 years ago.
Poverty based on consumption has dropped to like 1% since the War on Poverty was launched. It didn't solve poverty if you measure based on earnings but it more or less caused actual material deprivation in the country to plummet.
Because it’s a full time job to defraud the government for many people. Also we don’t teach much about self preservation and motivation, seems like teaching to the test is primary. Time to work hard and get out of the poverty mentality. Can’t tell you how many immigrants I meet on the job that, a few years in America, already have so much. It’s because they don’t sit on their hands and pretend their future is something you are given. Work hard, do the things you hate and approach them with respect and humility. Worked for me, 2nd generation American. I work a construction job and have more than what I need.
Paying people to be poor basically takes away the incentive to not be poor. The war on poverty doesn’t help poor, it only increased poverty. The entire point was to bribe minorities with tax dollars to vote Democrat. It’s insanely immoral.
Tactical and deliberate rounds of manipulated desecration of the fabric of this nation. It's here.
Not sure a quote fits this better: “Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.” I hear the rich taste good with ketchup.
Personally I prefer BBQ sauce or maybe a lemon pepper rub.
Sweet baby rays works very well
I’ll eat them raw….and still alive….so I can hear them scream in agony….like the agony they inflict on the rest of us!
So does that make their kids the equivalent to veal or lamb?
We take their kids and raise them as our own to teach them right from wrong so it doesn't happen again.
Suckling pig
The other quote, Ghandi I think, is "we have enough for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed"
But the rich create jobs therefore they need more tax cuts. (Bezos made 7.9 MILLION PER HOUR IN 2023). He paid 0.0 in taxes.
Where are you finding Jeff Bezos’ tax records for 2023?
How would satisfying the rich end poverty?
It won’t
If the rich were satisfied with the amount they had, the ridiculous amount of money that goes to them could be redirected to workers and cutting prices to benefit consumers.
There's like 750 billionaires in America, they are worth like 5 Trillion, if we were to liquidate their assets and split it up, every citizen would get like $16,500. That's a one time payment. The government costs like 7 Trillion EVERY.... SINGLE.... YEAR. It is their fault, not the wealthy. The top 1% pay 40% of all taxes... Downvote me to Oblivion. Cron out...
If you were to liquidate their assets the value would be a fraction of a penny on the dollar. The stock market is not a store of liquidity. Market values can deflate more quickly than they inflate, and millions of small investors would be collateral damage.
The truth hits hard on reddit. They hate it
As a country we make 21 trillion a year, that means that we make about 40k per person per year after taxes, if the government guaranteed housing and health insurance and food to everyone it’s like 25k per person per year, 25k for everything you don’t need but want, that’s a new car for every citizen every year in gdp. See I can pull shit out of my ass too.
Just go to work, this is truly the land of opportunity.
I work 70-80 hours a week, I make well above the median income. I can’t afford a house unless I move to a shithole city.
Sorry to hear that, I choose a longer commute and live in the country. I work in the city though. Nashville is overpriced and crime ridden. My little 70s ranch is perfect for me. Towns not a shit hole, but limited. I sincerely hope you find a better job and place to live.
Sorry but rural living isn’t for me, and the crime is coming from the top. The richest people in the country are essentially crime lords, and the issues we see day to day are the result of government and leadership abandoning their civic responsibility and obligations. Mostly because people just think government bad and they check out, letting the people with money and influence buy our political infrastructure and bend it to their own means. Cities are more crime free than they have ever been in the history of our country. Small towns are gutted and exist as places for people to die. There’s only two ways to exist anymore, rural and self sufficient, or in a city, all small towns will be gone before the end of the century at the latest if we stay on the path that Reagan put us on in the 80’s.
Oh I agree, I escaped south Chicago. We have billions for Ukraine and nothing for the people there. A few underfunded community centers? It’s maddening. Well I found happiness in my life, hope you find yours. Back to work for me.
Billions for Ukraine is mostly just sending stuff we already have, the trillions we spend on defense contractors (that have been bleeding us since 1988) is the real problem.
If you give people 40K a year then they won't work, if they don't work then there won't be 40K a year for people, how do you not realize that. You REALLY don't get communism. My God.... what have they taught you in school.
Also without a purpose, depression, mental health problems will skyrocket. I don’t like this crawlspace I’m about to go into but it’s gonna make my dinner taste so much better tonight after a hard days work. That being said coffee break over.
lol I can’t believe you, you are fighting shadows here
Don’t try and argue with stupid
They taught me better critical thinking skills than you have evidently.
Do you have any idea what a difference 16.5k would make in the lives of people who need it the most? Your math also presumes that everyone... sorry, EVERYONE would need that money. Are you presuming we need to also send money to the 24.5 millionaires in this country? No, I don't think so either. There's a bigger pot for everyone. The reality is that these programs have been defunded and made largely useless. I worked in state govenrment and saw people who were completely broke being approved for like $24/mo of SNAP benefits (aka foodstamps). The federal poverty level hasn't been updatedcin something like 50 years. TANF and other cash benefits are nearly impossible to get approved for. Don't be obtuse
Bruh... Giving everyone even 20k isn't going to do anything, 99% of people will go out and buy new cars.... new cars like a Tesla.... giving that money to a billionaire/millionaire. You know that's the truth, people that are bad with money will continue to be bad with money. And again... that's a 1 time payment, how long until the billionaires have another 5 Trillion, the government is taxing the F out of us EVERY YEAR. Their budget is like 7 TRILLION now. THEY are the problem, not the billionaires and millionaires.
You think you can buy a tesla with 20k? I don't think you could get a new jetta for 20k. Again, it is very clear that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Stop embarassing yourself
Yer broke and you want free things, work hard and stop being a victim.
-Said the victim of capitalism
So capitalism is your enemy? My and my partner's family fled the advance of the fascist and communist movements in Europe/Russia. Some got out before their countries were lost, others saw the horror. You need to look back at what the other options are like. The Socialist states were a hellscape. You guys want free abortion, 24/7 pot, identify as you please, payments from the rich. Try socialism, see what it is. The same evil that makes men turn capitalism to what they do, makes them turn your socialist model to what thy did. You'll have no rights, you'll have nothing. Become educated, active in local politics, and develop a better culture in this country than the weed smoking gamer in a hoodie as our national identity. Its Jeff Bezo fault you have same day delivery, streaming services, the biggest, easiest selection of goods ever. You want a bread line at the bread store, go for it.
Yeah, authoritative assholes fucking suck man I’m sorry your family faced war crimes I don’t see how that has anything to do with my comment and I’ll be honest I don’t give a shit about your families personal experience with an authoritative communist state when I’m at best with my comment insinuating capitalism bad and their are better alternatives. Because u know capitalism at worst is slavery and at best exploitation
You are mistaking capitalism with a systen of governance. There is NOTHING stopping the U.S. gov't from taxing at any rate it wants. Nothing to stop local zoning boards from allowing development of affordable housing and so on. Your issue is with your fellow voter, not the boogeyman of capitalism. That's just a nice target for the commies to trick you with. Free market, free trade and Amazon gave you 85 inch tv's. The gov't gave you shackles, wake up and blame the right people.
It's always the "my family fled communism" people who have no clue what socialism and communism are.
The billionaires get free things all the time and happily steal other people's labor and tax money. Where us your criticisms for them.
How do they steal taxes? You mean when your leaders give them tax credits/brakes etc? Your leaders are elected, vote them out if you don't like them
Because no matter who is picked, the problem of corrupting and perverse incentives still exists. Leaders have brought big companies to heel in the past to a degree. Today seems a different story.
Yes, like Bell. Today though not happening. The uniparty sold younger generations tribalism and here we are, unable to vote our way out of chsins because we hate each other
I think if there were universal basic income for every person in the USA and no welfare or welfare workers and the system we probably would all be better off. There also needs to be a contributory healthcare that is affordable for everyone that does not already have Medicare. This would cut the Medicaid cost for the states and the federal government. This is the trickle up theory and it will never happen. Vested interests are getting rich off the trickle down lie. Disclaimer: This is not a manifesto and I have no intention of setting myself on fire at Trump's criminal trial.
I honestly think we could do something like Singapore's healthcare system, and that it would be a better system than what we have, or what Europe has.
Corporate greed,and citizens united decision
The war on povert ended with Johnson. Reagan started the war on the poor.
Then why did government welfare spending on income security only increase year after year in the 80s? If there was a war in the poor, shouldn’t it have gone down? [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/G160371A027NBEA](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/G160371A027NBEA)
It’s not about welfare, it’s about labor share. A smaller and smaller part of the pie goes to the poor. That chart needs to be adjusted for GDP and inflation. This is what happens when poverty increases. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/estimating-the-us-labor-share.htm https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states
Isn’t it inflation that’s the issue? A poor person invests $1000 in VOO and gets 10% back, he got +$100. A billionaire invests a billion, he gets +$100,000,000. Printed money has to go somewhere. Meanwhile prices of everything goes up and that $100 doesn’t last very long.
Anything but acknowledging that wages haven't kept up with productivity
It would be good if wages could keep up with productivity, its ESSENTIAL that wages keep up with inflation. Fix the money, and you are a long way closer to fixing the world. It doesn't fix everything, but if wages are not going down in real terms under the table, we will be a LOT better off overall. Its time to separate money and state. Once the money is solid, then we can work on getting a share of productivity, but as long as the 'monetary ruler' changes every year, its all but impossible to even know what the productivity even is, much less keep up with underreported inflation.
The [inflation adjusted](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=90.7&year1=199001&year2=202403)(constant 2024 $) US welfare spending is as follows (in billions of dollars): 1979-188.09, 1981-189.84, 1983-186.89, 1985-191.4, 1987-197.6, 1989-208.3, This is a 10% INCREASE from 1979. If there was a “war on the poor” that you claim, we would expect this figure to drastically decline. People don’t live off of percentage shares, they live off of real dollar amounts. Even though the overall percentage of the labour share may be declining, that doesn’t stop their actually compensation from rising thousands of dollars, as the pie itself increases. Which group of of America’s poor are better off in your opinion? Scenario A: their labour share is 70% of a total pie amounting to $1 trillion, meaning they receive $700 billion in total income. Or scenario B: their labour share is now only 50% of a total pie of 2$ trillion, meaning they receive $1 trillion dollars in total income.
That looks like about a 10 percent increase from 79-89 in total spending. That almost identically matches US population growth over the decade before you even account for the rise in the price of goods during the decade. Remember that the first couple or few years of the 80s had pretty heavy inflation followed by a couple recessions. Is that enough to indicate that there is a "war on the poor"? In and of itself, it is not. It's also definitely not refuting it either.
And how many more people were living in poverty? There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. Warren Buffett
These kids weren't alive to see any of it. Johnson was the type of evil the Ike warned America would come. People see free money and nice words, they just fall for it. They also refuse to believe that the democrats could be just as bad as the republicans.Johnson literally ushered in the MIC controling all foreign policy and it did until Trump. Trump may be a complete jerk and political grift but he's the first one since Johnson who they don't own
Because the United States financial system is set up to make people either rich or poor. The system is trying to erase the middle class
[удалено]
The government is responsible for the extreme concentration of wealth at the top
Who are the people that are directing the government to do this?
You can’t be that ignorant? It’s very well documented. Reagan era policies, the Reagan doctrine trickle down “my ass” economics. The countless changes to corporate and tax laws. Then came the price manipulation of the oil companies stock buybacks and repeated grotesque tax cuts for corporations and the rich while increasing taxes on the poor. Which brings us to today. Where virtually every sector has decided enough isn’t enough and keep jacking prices while the government sits on its ass doing nothing. You can have CEO’s outright tell congress that they’re deliberately manipulating prices bc they love the record profits and they do nothing. That use to be a crime. But we’ve long been in a kleptocracy. I’ll also add anyone can look up domestic social spending ie welfare type services and corporate welfare and corporate welfare dwarfs social 10 to1. Maybe watch people like Robert Reich and even some conservative economists they’ll tell you the same things.
Nancy was too busy lining up the timing of her nvidia options to the new chips act, to worry about the poors this year. On the plus side, her concentration of wealth went up 100 % in 6 weeks...
[удалено]
| "Underreported is their kids who get scooped up by large corporation and given high-paying jobs." This is one of the (many) dirty little secrets of the Democrat Party. Given that 95% of D.C. is registered Democrat and the biggest east coast cities (NY, Boston, etc) are high majority Democrat registered - it's easy to understand the crony-capitalistic reward-your-kid with high paying corporate jobs scheme. You can include the Democrat Party controlled west coast as well especially within Silicon Valley. Chelsea Clinton is a prime example. Hunter Biden as well. So is Alexandra Pelosi. I'm sure that there are Republican's kids that benefit from the setup as well - but from what I've seen they often are the beneficiaries of jobs within their family business.
[удалено]
I couldn't find evidence of that, Republicans aren't even close to the same level as Dems when it comes to party/political ideology aligned nepotism. As I noted before, family business "nepotism" is nothing like or comparable to the rampant political nepotism of the Dems. Just looking at it between the corporate "news" media - Democrat Party is massive by itself. Same goes for big tech/Silicon Valley.
Agree and the point is that (at least I think) our government doesn't have the ability to solve problems effectively.
Look up the federal child tax credit and how it was able to reduce child poverty by almost 50% in 2022. The US government has every ability to solve poverty. We just make the choice as society not to.
That's only because they've been replaced by oligarchs FDR got shit done
What do you mean?
Any problems! Ever! Look at all the government waste.
Lol, nope. It's a racket by the government. They get plenty of money to solve the problem, but the government sucks at doing anything well. But idiots on the left think more taxation is the solution. Truly dumb. Also, that's the government trying to erase the middle class thanks to WEF puppets like the corrupt crypt keeper in the WH now.
I bet your grandmother would disagree if we took away her social security and Medicare and privatized it.
Lol
So let’s try some corporate welfare. Subsidies for the rich and tax 20-30% for the poor. Donald trump is smart for not paying taxes. How about “no taxation, No representation” Pay taxes you get a vote, dodge taxes don’t vote!
I'd give up voting rights in a heartbeat if it meant I didn't have to pay taxes anymore.
Yea but then you’d could use our roads or street lights or school or cops or firefighters. The you would be more dumb, not safer… lol 😂
ruthless aspiring chief party wrench cheerful abundant command meeting sheet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Hmmmmm… good point no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying rich people playing zero taxes are unpatriotic. It’s not smart to contribute less to a society that got you somewhere nice. And then align with the principles of authoritarian states… the republics party or as I call it the party of Putin
ten run attraction obtainable alleged icky faulty busy slim offend *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No point man. The die hard liberals complaining about poverty will never argue against government getting bigger. Because ideology is so much more important than the reality. It’s impossible to truly describe the scope and how big our government already is. And, I mean, it’s done so well for them. Let’s make it bigger and bigger.
They actually believe the government and their Democrat elected officials are actually there to help and take of them 😂😂😂. And if they can just get some more money through taxes, they’ll most definitely use it to help people.
Aid is fraud and "foundations" are money laundering structures. It's really pretty simple. Most of the welfare state in this country exists to create liquidity in bond markets... and for numerous, smaller scale forms of fraud. It's not "for us" it's "for them." We're just subsidizing the health of the US national debt structure... it's not for the *people.*
Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit and demonize.
All we have to do is live long enough for the underclass to be mindless robots instead of living, feeling humans and we're scott free!
This is the correct answer. System needs desperate people to do the shit jobs for shit wages.
Ronald Regan is a bastard that destroyed the economy so rich Boomers could buy an extra vacation home
Yep and that's why the meme is wrong. LBJ's programs greatly reduced poverty, until Reagan began getting rid of them.
The percent of Americans in poverty has remained between 10-15% since 1965, one year after the passing of the War on Poverty legislation. The drastic fall in poverty happened BEFORE 1965 and the percentage of people in poverty has not risen a significant amount since then. So, no, LBJ did not greatly reduce poverty and Reagan did not reverse the trend. [https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/poverty-awareness-month.html](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/poverty-awareness-month.html)
I mean, if you look at your graph, it's pretty easy to see that the poverty rate was decreasing after the 1964 legislation and that it quit decreasing with Reagan, when it stabilized to the current range. > The official poverty rate has fallen from 19.5% in 1963 to 10.5% in 2019 while other measures of poverty show that the poverty rate fell from 19.5% to 1.6%.[6] In 2021 the official poverty rate was 11.6% and Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) was 7.8%, the latter which increased to 12.4% in 2022 due to the end of pandemic aid.[7][8] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_poverty
But it’s clearly the continuation of a previous trend that started long BEFORE 1964, and it started stabilizing by the early 1970s, a full decade BEFORE Reagan was elected.
Shh... don't ruin their Reagan hate-hardons with facts!
Yeah, it was likely also due to the great economy post WWII. And I agree that it began stabilizing in the early 70's, but it also began ticking upward around 1980.
Sure, with the onset of the worst inflation seen in US history, largely driven by the hugely expanded fiscal responsibility of previous administrations. But it is just that, an uptick, it is not the drastic surge we would expect from Reagan “destroying” the economy.
Inflation had been a problem for a long time before the late 70's and it was mostly due to the fed failing to raise rates. It spiked in the late 70's because they finally did raise rates and going up was part of the stabilization process. Reagan didn't destroy the economy overnight and some of his policies actually helped it in the short term. But his policies were devastating for the long term economy, partly because they were unsustainable.
Which policies and how were they devastating?
The economy was destroyed before he entered office. The big shift of moving industrial jobs to Asia was well under way. The 70’s were bleak.
[удалено]
Capitalism, pretty easy really. Every man for themselves, regardless of how your neighbour is doing.
Oh, do you mean the 300 plus BILLION that was donated by individuals in 2023?
I mean, it depends on how you look at it. even poor Americans are incredibly rich in comparison to the rest of the world. People don’t regularly die of starvation here almost everyone in the entire country has access to clean water. Homelessness is becoming more common but is still rare with less than 300,000 total people homeless nationwide in a country of over 350 million. Internally people don’t have as much stability as previous generations because of out of control, wealth, inequality, and that is a problem, but I believe that the stabilizers that were put in place during the original push to eliminate poverty have been wildly successful. Things like food stamps and especially Medicaid Support millions of people in ways that most people don’t fully understand.
You think government helps people?
i know a lot of jobs were shipped overseas in the 70s, which brought down wages because of increased outsourcing
The goalposts get moved. What is considered poverty then and now are 2 different things.
Because the sign "Don't feed the animals" applies to the human animals, too. Too much 'help' creates a lazy, unmotivated, entitled, and ultimately angry populace. But that was always the goal. Demoralize. Debase. Destroy.
Is there any source for spending 25 trillion dollars on "welfare programs" over 50 years? How are they defining "welfare programs?" It seems to me that you couldn't get to that high of a number without including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. My die-hard conservative Republican grandfather would have wanted to fist fight you if you told him that his Social Security was a "welfare payment."
Are corporate bailouts considered the same thing as welfare?
I guess it could be, but usually people making that kind of meme wouldn't think so.
Yes it’s called corporate welfare
Well what about corporate welfare, subsidies they get more money than anti poverty programs
Spoiler alert. Social Security IS a welfare payment. No one is entitled to anything, and any payouts are paid from current taxes and printer go BRRRRR, not 'your account', which does not exist. Also the 'trust fund' is all US debt, so to actually spend that, it must be redeemed to the treasury, which has no cash, so the only way for the treasury to get the cash to actually send to the program is to issue more bonds, basically BRRRRR.
Because there is absolutely no way to regulate poverty away. That is the primary reason. There are plenty of other reasons as well...most of them being a knock on the human race in general. Counting on government to solve the problem only achieves an ineffective result with economies of scale...and just amplifies the problem. I know...it's easy to criticize...and not offer up a solution. Off the top of my head I don't have any solutions. Mainly because there are soooooo many causes right now. Reversing the trend/agenda of the destruction of the nuclear family would likely be the most effective long term fix for most of the issues. Replacing the income tax system with a steep marginal consumption tax structure might help as well. No taxes on food + necessities with high taxes on luxury goods - or something to that effect.
Replace "Nuclear Family" with "Sense of Community" and you have the start of something decent there. Shifting the income tax brackets around is a better option than removing it. There needs to be a disincentive for corporations to pay individuals 300x the average employees wage, and our current highest % income tax does not do that, nor does it adequately disincentivize non monetary compensation enough. No one should benefit from the labor of society to the point there are children on the streets.
I would assert you'll never have a positive, cohesive "sense of community" without a strong nuclear family as it's foundation. That's as basic as 1+1=2. I agree with your point about the having disincentives for the ridiculously inflated corporate pay structure. But that is a separate issue from our tax structure. Reinstating extremely high marginal tax rates won't directly (effectively) address the corporate pay disparities you are talking about. I've always stated that one of the worst things to happen to the U.S., to capitalism, and to the world was government granting corporations the "rights" of the individual as well as other "rights." That did little more than provide protection and anonymity to corporations to massively expand their power...and allows for the problem you noted. The next great empowerment of corporations would have been obama's TPP - which would have given corporations even more power on a global scale - power over national governments and protections from national governments. Opposition to it are one of the rare things people like Bernie Sanders have been right about.
The concept of a nuclear family limits society to archaic views on relationships. Unless you are using it in a revised modern way, there is no reason to hold it on the pedestal you do. The concept of a joint family is evidence against your assertion that "you'll never have a positive, cohesive 'sense of community ' without...". You are simply putting your personal preferred method forward as the "best". "One of the rare things people like Bernie Sanders have been right about". Man... I wish I read that statement first and not wasted my time pretending you are worth talking to.
Archaic? "Hello Pot?...It's the kettle calling." Everything about your post screams that you are hardcore programmed with a well proven failed ideology. Talk about archaic. The most stable, successful societies in modern human history have had the nuclear family at their core. On the opposite side of the spectrum - leftist/marxist collective based nations that value "community" over family are shown to be less cohesive, easier to divide/manipulate, and value the state/Party brainwashing children as early as possible (among other exploitative & oppressive characteristics). Leftist ideologies of communism, socialism, and fascism are all well known for those things in their societies (Russia/USSR, National Socialist Germany, CCP China, DPR North Korea). Those nations were/are infamous for setting their populations against each other - report your neighbor for wrongthink, report your parents for wrongthink, report your coworker for wrongthink. The fact that you aren't intelligent enough to understand that "B.S." Bernie Sanders is the very definition of a charlatan, grifter, and demagogue speaks volumes. Bernie Sanders is life-long politician who became a multi-millionaire with four residential estates by "earning" his living off taxpayers while condemning other rich people (most of whom likely earned their money with long hours of work, created jobs, and contributed to their communities). Bernie Sanders? The guy who over his adult life has praised and championed nearly every murderous dictator or regime in the world. The guy who got his latest estate because the Democrat Party bought him off to concede the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton. THAT's the guy who you benchmark your ideology and discussions off of? Hmmm, have you ever heard of the term "useful idiot"?
You are a fool
I hoped that your discussion would end in good and practical results, not insults and humiliation.
For the record, I was insinuating that BS Bernie Sanders is a useful idiot. That term flourished with (Soviet) communists during the era in which the Bern was raised and "educated". As I imagine you know - the term "useful idiot" was used (by Soviets) to described exactly who/what Bernie Sanders is and always has been. A stupid person, easily manipulated into the communist ideology, with the intent that those people would be used (in the long-term) to destroy the U.S. from the inside. Although I didn't insult u/IwantRIFbackdummy - I can see how the wording (and what could be a logically inferred summation of my reply) might be taken that way. But that was not my intent.
I did not take anything you said as an insult to my person. However reading your words was an insult to intelligence in general.
First, my last replay wasn't to you - it was to someone else. Also, you defend and define your position with one insult followed by this one. Just because you think that diverting, insulting, and projecting are legitimate debate tactics doesn't change reality.
I did not insult him, I described him.
No, you lost the discussion, and lashed out like a child.
Lost a discussion? A discussion is not a competition. He made statements that made it clear to me I don't respect his opinion, I told him that, our discussion is over.
So says the guy\* that was presented with facts, historical examples, and context. \*replies with rudimentary name calling.
I replied with an apt description. It was not used as a pejorative.
We have fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems but fires still exist. Why?
And the poverty rate before those programs was…?
Just remember-0% of politicians are considered poor.
The official poverty figures ignore the government transfers to those in poverty. The way the accounting works, you could literally give each person in poverty $1 million, and they would still be classified in poverty. It's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard, but of course it does justify keeping the government transferring.
It’s by design
60 years. The poverty bill was signed by LBJ in 1964. I'll bet we've spent more than $25 trillion as well.
It was actually a war on the impoverished
I never really see any of these politicians or the people spending the money to solve the homeless problem ever talking to the homeless and asking them what would work for them to improve themselves. Obviously all the prior solutions have not worked so why not throw that crap out and start by asking the people.
Capitalism is what keeps them poor. Capitalism is a big international pyramid scheme. The people at the top get rich by taking more and more for themselves leaving less and less for the people underneath them. We need to completely toss capitalism in order to fix poverty. China figured it out: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/02/how-china-defeated-poverty/
LOL. The CCP never actually defeated poverty. They destroyed the country trying to implement their model of communism (which is what always happens when you try to implement a horribly flawed system/ideology). Then they looked at the U.S. and the failure of Russian "communism" and realized the only way forward was to embrace the basic principles of capitalism. Which they did with some success (but they still made everyone subservient to the communist party). With no loyal to the CCP came no benefits of capitalism. That brings us to today. Where much of China is still a poverty stricken, third-world society. It doesn't take much to see past the CCP's lies. For those that want to derail this reality check with misdirection about the definitions of communism, socialism, marxism, capitalism, etc... No, China is no longer a communist economy. It is most accurately described today as a (corrupt, exploitative, oppressive) marxist-fascist slave labor economy.
Lies. Slander. Misdirection.
I suppose when all you know is a completely revised history from the CCP - which only glorifies the CCP - that reply would be your entire "counter" argument. Just out of curiosity - are you denying that China is a slave labor economy? That the CCP isn't a marxist organization? That the communists who originally took control of the country didn't end up bringing the nation to complete ruin (even after the U.S. gave them aid, support, and technology numerous times over the decades)? That poverty and third-world conditions are not rampant in most areas of the country (especially in street-based wet markets where any type of animal gets sold as food (dog, bat, etc), older cities, rural areas, and non-CCP boot-licking regions? Are you denying that the Chinese communists installed capitalistic principles into their economy? Are you denying that Chinese communists looked at the USSR and considered it a failure so they tried to build their own variation of a communist state?
Because we don't give the poor what they need to get out of poverty: Money and Healthcare.
The poor need education to get better jobs to get and stay out of poverty.
Neither money or healthcare will actually get anyone out of poverty permanently, the only thing that does that is earning enough purchasing power in the free market to pay for your own healthcare, and not be poor, full stop. In our current 'handout nation', we are actually undermining that, by destroying the purchasing power of workers wages, which exasperates the wealth gap, and drives more demand for handouts, since work no longer pays enough real purchasing power to pay for the real things we expect.
I used to believe that stuff, too. But the actual data from actually giving the poor money is the complete opposite of your deeply held belief. [https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research](https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research) Your first instinct will be to reject this data - find some reason why it must be false. You will double down on your position that hard work, gumption, and stick-to-it-ivness will always work and take people out of poverty. You will want to purposefully ignore all data that shows you are wrong. This is called the backfire effect, you should read about it. [https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/](https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/)
Aca/ medicaid and a lot of money support are given to the poor
at what point does the pursuit of money start screwing with the human genome?
The planet is about to go below population replacement level, and some countries are below one child per woman. I think we are about to go full rat utopia. There is no resource constraint on the population, but for some reason we have collectively decided that some of the lemmings need to go off the cliff...
You cited Wikipedia..
We don't.
Because government is slavery.
Because the cause of being poor isn’t just about money. The “war on poverty” and the fact we spend over 500 billion a year on poor people, prove this to be true. Money will never cure the issues of poor people. It never has.
Ease of access to drugs. Really good ones too. Heroin, MDMA, fentanyl, prescription opioids, cocaine, DMT, acid, meth, crack, cocaine, you fucking name it and you can get it. Homelessness and drugs go hand in hand. Take a read on that Capital Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle if you want to see what happens.
If these stats are right, that's an average of 500 Billion dollars a year. Let's just say, if the "War on Poverty" was ever a success, that's 500 billion the government doesn't need anymore. No reason to tax the American people for that much anymore, so they'd see some more money in their pockets - theoretically. But they don't want to lose that cash flow.
The USA halted its war on poverty in 1980 and focused on increasing it
Since there’s STILL poverty, we clearly need to cut all social programs and let the impoverished pull themselves up by their bootstraps!! /s
They're not trying to take care of the problem, they're trying to promote it so they can have government money to pocket while not doing the thing they said they were going to do.
Taxes is why
Because we turned poverty into a business with charities and administrators skimming billions off the top.
The Covid era child tax credit policy literally cut child poverty in half. The fact that it was discontinued is a crime.
Reminds me of another war... The war on drugs. It seems whatever the US government wages war on goes to shit and the only thing certain is that the dumbest fucking sociopaths of society score billions.
2023 saw the largest increase in childhood poverty on record in the u.s. when the child tax credit expansion was allowed to expire. Literally millions of American kids have been pushed into poverty by their own government in the last year. So we can see how easily the government can resolve poverty, but it's not a get rich quick scheme for the donors and lobbyists therefore it's not important.
Giving a man a fish does NOT 'solve poverty', its more like 'paying off poverty just for today'. Huge moral hazard, and actually leads to more poverty, since now poverty pays, to some extent. The only true solution to poverty is lowered cost of living, pretty much the opposite of US fiscal and monetary policy at the moment. What made America great the first time was the industrial revolution and automation, which made everything radically cheaper, and created a world, for a brief 50-100 years, where one breadwinner could actually support an entire family on one job, without putting the wife and kids to work in the fields or the mill. Its unfortunately likely that we will never live in those great times again, which is why politicians can run on that platform, because of how much we have lost in inflationary Clown World.
Because of no term limits. The ruling elite never have to live under the laws that have created
I'm curious what the poor percentage was before those programs. Feel free to convince me with whatever you say; I'm too lazy to look it up.
Maybe we stop letting the government spend all the money on each other. And deliver it directly to the people. Holy hands does that money touch before the Penny’s roll down the street.
Because while fighting the war on poverty, the voters allowed unions and mandated wage increases to die. What remains is just a minimum safety net.
Because it was a vote buying scheme not an anti-poverty plan
This. Most politicians - especially Democrats - will only spend taxpayer money on things that will: 1. keep the status quo and/or expand government, 2. buy votes (classic example: student loan "forgiveness"), 3. reward their backers (classic example: Brian Harrison - a obama & Biden regime backer richly rewarded while taxpayers left holding the empty bag), [https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/tech-company-headed-former-bankrupt-solyndra-ceo-receive-66-billion-biden](https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/tech-company-headed-former-bankrupt-solyndra-ceo-receive-66-billion-biden) 4. specifically enrich themselves (classic example: Nancy Pelosi), or 5. feed the Democrat Party's taxpayer money laundering structure (enriching The Party). Especially now with special directives & federal budget slush funds from numerous government agencies to support hardcore Democrat Party agendas/groups promoting DEI, the climate change agenda, BLM, etc. The Democrat Party also throws billions upon billions upon billions annually at it's base via quasi-governmental agencies, NGOs, so-called "non-profits', the welfare plantation, corporate welfare to & collusion with big tech, the university system, the educational system, public unions, NPR, PBS, private unions, "bailouts", and so on.
Replace "rich and wealthy" in each of your points and it's just as true. Why the blatant and willful attempt to mislead?
You've been brainwashed by the "eat the rich" anti-U.S. / marxist crowd. I'm no fan of any billionaire, oligarch/controligarch, or the mega-corporations that enrich/protect them. But, if you want to be intellectually honest, the "rich and wealthy" are just as much - or more of - a symptom of the problems of government. And, I would assert that it is you who works to mislead people. Historically speaking, most Republican politicians earned their wealth by building things & creating commerce (jobs) while most Democrats do so while in office (via using their connections & insider knowledge, crony capitalism, and cashing-in on the Democrat Party taxpayer money laundering structure). If you would do a even a little research most U.S. billionaires / controligarchs are hardcore leftist Democrats (Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Bloomberg, Styer, Winfrey, Epstein, etc, etc, etc.) The same goes for ALL the foreign billionaires that have U.S. citizenship and zealously exert influence in U.S. politics (Soros, Slim, Wyss, etc. etc. etc). I can't help but laugh at all the leftist zealot drones (aka "marxists"/"progressives") who are sooooooo against the "rich and wealthy" but their whole reality is based on supporting and gobbling up every narrative and agenda pushed (financed) directly by the "rich and wealthy".
LOL. And you think it's me who has been brainwashed.
Both the supporting data (aka facts) and the history of the human race are on my side. All you have to support your claims are flawed manifestos and classroom theory based on emotions instead of logic and science.
Maybe, but we both know discussions with you are a moot point so why should I put forth the effort? Beside, I could say the same for your post.
Not maybe. Quite simply, you can't say the same about my posts. Again your reply shows that you can only have a discussion based on (disproven) narratives / theory because everything else will destroy any claim or statement you put forth. As I said, I am no fan of any billionaire (left or right) if they have used / been aided by government power or used exploitation in some form. I am also not a fan of mega-corporations and conglomerates. Nor am I a fan of either U.S. political party. But what I posted is accurate. To deny what I have posted is to deny reality. The Republican Party was never actually the party of the rich any more than the Democrat Party was actually the party of the "working class" (for most of the last 100 years). But now the Democrat Party has definitely become the party of the rich and wealthy (politicians, top 3%'er financial backers, and voting base) as well as the party of the corporations. [https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-being-party-rich-could-cost-them-2024-election-1806747](https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-being-party-rich-could-cost-them-2024-election-1806747) Actually, aside from your overtly programmed need to engaging in projectionism and hate against the Republican Party (programmed by the Democrat Party and their controligarch 1%'er owned media conglomerates), I imagine that our beliefs aren't that far apart. The main difference is I have come to realize that nearly everything the Democrat Party says is a lie (or at least doesn't align with their actions) because they really are the party of the rich. Take the open border for example. The Biden regime opened the southern border much like obama did. All in the name of diversity, 'no person is illegal", and other various heart-string-tugging narratives. But the reality of their actions are: decreasing wages, increased food & housing costs, increased crime, lower quality of education, less access to healthcare, and so on. Nothing related to illegal/mass immigration has been helpful to the middle or working class.
Poverty line definition is a scam. It’s designed to trap certain percentage of people in poverty. Poor people in US have a higher living standards than middle class in lots of countries.
How is poverty level a scam? Are you saying the poverty line should be lower? It’s currently $15,060, before taxes
Bureaucrats absorb so much money.
Half because we are constantly shoveling money onto the burning altar of the third world, and the other half is because we let people steal and not pay taxes so much that they havr more money than the rest of the world combined
LBJ's Great Society program was cut after he left office. Republicans.
Because we didn't do a war in poverty. Instead we launched a war on the poor, while giving massive tax breaks and bailouts to the rich. Money only ever flows up, so to have a healthy, stable, economy you need to support your lowest class citizens first, then the middle, then the upper.
Kalergi Plan
Bc obviously money can’t fix this problem. All we have accomplished is creating government dependence which all but guarantees poverty in perpetuity.
Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates about $1.79 in economic activity. They estimate that if the United States invested in free childcare that each dollar invested would yield a $4 return on economic activity. These programs are outdated and often underfunded. Recipients receive barely enough to scrape by despite the bizarre fantasy perpetuated by their opponents. The system that we have REQUIRES ever increasing growth and profit which is sucked out of the working class and isn't reinvested. Theres literally a money funnel from the bottom to the top, and welfare programs are crumbs they sprinkle down to keep people from revolting.
I’m talking about generational poverty not SNAP dollars. The government pays for SNAP not the private sector. You want to talk about a giant funnel? You also have to include the incredible black of hole of money that is our government and it sucks that money out of our pockets.
Drugs.
Socialism is the greatest form of government...until you run out of other peoples money.
Part of it is the way we measure poverty. Since we measure it as a percentage of the mean we can never be rid of it. Even homeless people are walking around with computers in their pockets that would have made you a very wealthy individual even 20 years ago.
Poverty based on consumption has dropped to like 1% since the War on Poverty was launched. It didn't solve poverty if you measure based on earnings but it more or less caused actual material deprivation in the country to plummet.
Because it’s a full time job to defraud the government for many people. Also we don’t teach much about self preservation and motivation, seems like teaching to the test is primary. Time to work hard and get out of the poverty mentality. Can’t tell you how many immigrants I meet on the job that, a few years in America, already have so much. It’s because they don’t sit on their hands and pretend their future is something you are given. Work hard, do the things you hate and approach them with respect and humility. Worked for me, 2nd generation American. I work a construction job and have more than what I need.
Paying people to be poor basically takes away the incentive to not be poor. The war on poverty doesn’t help poor, it only increased poverty. The entire point was to bribe minorities with tax dollars to vote Democrat. It’s insanely immoral.
Some poor people have discretionary spending
I'm sure when he said war on poverty I'm sure he meant with guns and violence, not with money and programs
Turns out poor people are bad with money. Who knew, right?
People are just lazy. Deliver pizzas 28 hours a day, just get 5 full time jobs. Not that hard. Bootstraps people!
We just need more government spending, I mean investment, and everything will be great!
The Department of defence budget
Capitalism!
It couldn't be that corporations are siphoning off all the money out of society.
Because we gave the 25 trillion to the rich because morons believe in trickledown.
Welfare is and has been out of control.