A perfect example of why some of us say poverty is self-inflicted

[RavenSky]

Funny how this was not quoted by Loren:

We’re aware that we are not “having kids”, we’re “breeding”. We have kids for much the same reasons that I imagine rich people do. Urge to propagate and all. Nobody likes poor people procreating, but they judge abortion even harder.

And here is what he did quote with the very next few sentences that he didn't:

It’s just that there aren’t many other options for a lot of people. In fact, the Urban Institute found that half of Americans will experience poverty at some point before they’re 65. Most will come out of it after a relatively short time, 75% in four years. But that still leaves 25% who don’t get out quickly, and the study also found that the longer you stay in poverty, the less likely it becomes that you will ever get out. Most people who live near the bottom go through cycles of being in poverty and just above it – sometimes they’re just OK and sometimes they’re underwater. It depends on the year, the job, how healthy you are.What I can say for sure is that downward mobility is like quicksand. Once it grabs you, it keeps constraining your options until it’s got you completely. I slid to the bottom through a mix of my own decisions and some seriously bad luck. I think that’s true of most people.

While it can seem like upward mobility is blocked by a lead ceiling, the layer between lower-middle class and poor is horrifyingly porous from above. A lot of us live in that spongy divide.

I got here in a pretty average way: I left home at 16 for college, promptly behaved as well as you’d expect a teenager to, and was estranged from my family for over a decade. I quit college when it became clear that I was taking out loans to no good effect; I wasn’t ready for it yet. I chased a career simply because it was the first opportunity available rather than because it was sensible. I also had medical bills. I had bouts of unemployment, I had a drunken driver total my car. I had everything I owned destroyed in a flood.

Rather changes the point of view, doesn't it?

So when financially comfortable people with health insurance and paid sick leave and all kinds of other benefits that pad their wallets and make their lives easier and healthier think that the poor are poor because somehow we lack the get up and go to change our circumstances… well, I’m not sure my reaction is printable.

Why does Lauren think this article supports his position?

 

[bilby]

Funny how this was not quoted by Loren:



And here is what he did quote with the very next few sentences that he didn't:

It’s just that there aren’t many other options for a lot of people. In fact, the Urban Institute found that half of Americans will experience poverty at some point before they’re 65. Most will come out of it after a relatively short time, 75% in four years. But that still leaves 25% who don’t get out quickly, and the study also found that the longer you stay in poverty, the less likely it becomes that you will ever get out. Most people who live near the bottom go through cycles of being in poverty and just above it – sometimes they’re just OK and sometimes they’re underwater. It depends on the year, the job, how healthy you are.What I can say for sure is that downward mobility is like quicksand. Once it grabs you, it keeps constraining your options until it’s got you completely. I slid to the bottom through a mix of my own decisions and some seriously bad luck. I think that’s true of most people.

While it can seem like upward mobility is blocked by a lead ceiling, the layer between lower-middle class and poor is horrifyingly porous from above. A lot of us live in that spongy divide.

I got here in a pretty average way: I left home at 16 for college, promptly behaved as well as you’d expect a teenager to, and was estranged from my family for over a decade. I quit college when it became clear that I was taking out loans to no good effect; I wasn’t ready for it yet. I chased a career simply because it was the first opportunity available rather than because it was sensible. I also had medical bills. I had bouts of unemployment, I had a drunken driver total my car. I had everything I owned destroyed in a flood.

Rather changes the point of view, doesn't it?

So when financially comfortable people with health insurance and paid sick leave and all kinds of other benefits that pad their wallets and make their lives easier and healthier think that the poor are poor because somehow we lack the get up and go to change our circumstances… well, I’m not sure my reaction is printable.

Why does Lauren think this article supports his position?

Because he is a master of the art of cherry-picking.

Reality is complex and messy. Any fair discussion of any topic will contain a sentence or two that seem to imply the opposite conclusion from the one the discussion, taken as a whole, supports.

If you are able to seize those sentences, and use them as a rationalisation for disregarding everything else, then you can pretty much cling to any discredited position you want - without ever having to consider whether or not you might be wrong.

 

[ksen]

You seem to be hunting for an excuse to abandon humanitarian thinking, Loren. You have already abandoned it when it comes to Palestinians, and Australian indigenous peoples...why not just add the poor to the "I don't give a shit" list? Admittedly poor people are a nuisance, but the nuisance can be the result of malnutrition, exposure to the elements, and psychological abuse that attend being poor.

You have it backwards. You're the one that's abandoning them.

It's very unlikely you can solve a problem until you identify it's true cause. Providing the easy out of blaming the system ensures the people who are trapped won't see that the problem is internal and thus there's almost no chance they'll get out.

Well, the true cause of poverty is not having enough cash. So giving cash to those in poverty is the best solution.

Step #1 in solving an ongoing self-inflicted problem is to recognize that it's self-inflicted.

You are assuming your conclusion...again.

 

[Derec]

Well, the true cause of poverty is not having enough cash. So giving cash to those in poverty is the best dolution.

Was this intentional? As in dole + solution?

I had the very same reaction as Loren when reading that article. Plenty of excuses and justifications for patterns of behavior she realizes are self-destructive.

 

[ksen]

Well, the true cause of poverty is not having enough cash. So giving cash to those in poverty is the best dolution.

Was this intentional? As in dole + solution?

Nah, it was my phone keyboard and my fumble fingers.

 

[laughing dog]

What I'm saying is that what determines if you remain there is the person.

I normally distinguish the two cases: Lack of money: Poor. The attitudes that trap you: Poverty. The former is quite curable. The latter is very hard to cure.

I think everyone here understands the difference between fact and opinion but you. The article you cited does not support your claim about poverty traps.

 

[Under the Rose]

I work in corporate retail grocery and the article really struck a chord with me because what she says is quite true about many employers.

Full-time positions are limited in these venues and at negotiations we are constantly striving to gain additional full-time positions, with benefits. Part-time positions do not come with benefits and they don't offer you consistent hours from week to week, they don't want you working for a competitor and after cutting your hours for weeks, they expect you to bail right in full time while the manager takes a couple of weeks of vacation.

Try taking that to the bank and getting a car loan or a mortgage.

I've been working grocery for nine years, the first union job I ever held. At first, I was royally pissed about handing over 2 1/2 hours per month of my wages for 'the privilege to work' but I have seen the union intercede on behalf of it's employees in enough situations that now I have nothing but respect for the hard work done by the collective bargaining process.

Yes, there are some very fine companies out there that treat their people well and have no need for organized labor, and I tip my hat to them. As for those who are in a race to the bottom with what they want to pay their employees, I hope you get what you deserve...all your employees stolen by a more worthy competitor.

I'm not saying that all of the impoverished are because of corporate policies but I do see the prevailing corporate culture as greatly contributing to the problem.

 

[BH]

What are some examples of people who have done great things to help their fellow man and did not worry about getting rich doing it?

And if these people can have such an attitude why can't all the supposed skilled and important people?

 

[TV and credit cards]

I normally distinguish the two cases: Lack of money: Poor. The attitudes that trap you: Poverty. The former is quite curable. The latter is very hard to cure.

You read all the horrible comments about the employer's practices in the article. Perhaps, just perhaps, changing these practices may go a ways in changing the attitudes. Okay, 75% fought their way out regardless. Is it not a fair assumption that if the employers treated their employees with a little dignity and respect, we might whittle that 25% down a bit?
I've done this. It works. Treat people fairly in their jobs. You may not be able to pay them more or give them all the hours they want but if they believe you are making a sincere effort and just treating them like they are the same human being you are, that what is standing in front of you looking in your eyes is exactly what you are, you will have their respect and this will improve their attitude, and this attitude does not cease when their shift is over, it carries over. And maybe they won't be so inclined to want to forget that part of their life with beer and weed.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.

Sounds to me like she is saying that poor people and rich people are basically the same. It's just that rich people have enough money to cushion them from their *bad* decisions.

While not realizing that they're not making anything like as many bad decisions in the first place.

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Your subject line should be: Some of us say poverty is self-inflicted.

No reason to bring the article into it at all.

Look it over more carefully--so much of that is her rationalizing her bad decisions.

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Why does Lauren think this article supports his position?

Because you are taking her rationalizations as proper.

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Well, the true cause of poverty is not having enough cash. So giving cash to those in poverty is the best solution.

Except a major lottery win or the like isn't enough to keep people out of poverty.

 

[RavenSky]

Sounds to me like she is saying that poor people and rich people are basically the same. It's just that rich people have enough money to cushion them from their *bad* decisions.

While not realizing that they're not making anything like as many bad decisions in the first place.

Says who? Do you have some peer-reviewed research with links to the original source that show rich people make fewer bad decisions? If so, produce it. If not, your opinion is dismissed as baseless.

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Your subject line should be: Some of us say poverty is self-inflicted.

No reason to bring the article into it at all.

Look it over more carefully--so much of that is her rationalizing her bad decisions.

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Why does Lauren think this article supports his position?

Because you are taking her rationalizations as proper.

Wrong.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

It doth appear that the perfect example was not so perfect.

 

[Emily Lake]

I haven't read this, and I may not. It may not be worth my time.

Does it draw a distinction between bad decisions and bad outcomes of good decisions?

 

[PyramidHead]

People in poverty make bad decisions because that's what people do when they become hopeless. Blaming them for it is just like blaming people who do irrational things because they were abused as a child. Obviously, their attitudes aren't helping their situation, but the fact that money alone won't solve the problem means society has to take MORE action, not less.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

People in poverty make bad decisions because that's what people do when they become hopeless. Blaming them for it is just like blaming people who do irrational things because they were abused as a child. Obviously, their attitudes aren't helping their situation, but the fact that money alone won't solve the problem means society has to take MORE action, not less.

You make your choices from the options presented. Poverty provides poor options.

DUH!

 

[Keith&Co.]

Your subject line should be: Some of us say poverty is self-inflicted.

No reason to bring the article into it at all.

Look it over more carefully--so much of that is her rationalizing her bad decisions.

Doesn't matter if it is or if it isn't. What i'm saying is that you're not using the article to draw a conclusion or demonstrate an example. You're just quote-mining.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Look it over more carefully--so much of that is her rationalizing her bad decisions.

Doesn't matter if it is or if it isn't. What i'm saying is that you're not using the article to draw a conclusion or demonstrate an example. You're just quote-mining.

 

[arkirk]

People in poverty make bad decisions because that's what people do when they become hopeless. Blaming them for it is just like blaming people who do irrational things because they were abused as a child. Obviously, their attitudes aren't helping their situation, but the fact that money alone won't solve the problem means society has to take MORE action, not less.

It is easy to say what "society" should do but with the rugged individualism cult in charge, it has no educated consensus to draw upon. Society is so fractured, it cannot any longer be thought of as a whole (just a collection of self absorbed sociopaths) , though it must find a way to come together on a massive plethora of issues or become more miserable and possibly perish. In the midst of this pack of ravenous profit seekers some have come to have less and less. Mainly, they are in that condition because they are not good at ravenous behavior. They don't jump in line in front of others and engage sometimes in charity to a fault. There become fewer and fewer opportunities for these people as their brains are not equipped to allow them to operate this way....too much Sesame Street, ya know!

It is not self inflicted to not seek personal gain at great expense to others. It is decency. We have damned little of that today on our mainstream media....just reports on who made money today...and who all these lower class people ought to enlist in the military to kill. We are a society that is driven by ambition, religious myth, and taking from nature, not common sense and cooperation.

Along comes a survey that just concludes...they afflicted themselves by having faith in humans being able to cooperate and value each other. It's enough to drive someone to drink or worse.

 

[Unbeatable]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/21/linda-tirado-poverty-hand-to-mouth-extract


Read through it, see how much of it she admits is self-inflicted.

And note:

It’s just that there aren’t many other options for a lot of people. In fact, the Urban Institute found that half of Americans will experience poverty at some point before they’re 65. Most will come out of it after a relatively short time, 75% in four years. But that still leaves 25% who don’t get out quickly, and the study also found that the longer you stay in poverty, the less likely it becomes that you will ever get out.

In other words, most people climb out. It's not the trap you guys claim it is. It only traps you if you let it trap you.

Wow. That this is what you got out of the article is... interesting.

I don't understand your point of view. <snip>

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I'm still trying to figure out why the poverty numbers don't just drop 75% after 4 years.

Unless poverty exists due to forces outside the control of the people living in poverty, thus when one person rise up, another falls in and the poverty rates fluctuate not based on individual effort, but over all economic health.