Reuters:
Poverty in the United States is spreading from rural and inner-city areas to the suburbs, according a study, a situation that can worsen as the economy confronts what may be a protracted recession.
The study by the Federal Reserve's Community Affairs department and the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program found that poverty levels in the world's richest nation were on the rise.
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Poverty? Puhlease! Just because you have to switch from filet mignon to t-bone does not make you poor. Just because you bought some gigantic house to rattle around in even if you couldn't afford it does not make you poor. Just because your 401K is down 20 or 30 percent does not make you poor. This whole so-called economic downturn is just so much hype and exaggeration. I'm beginning to think there is no downturn; that the rich just wanted to get richer and so engineered a swindle--and it seems to be working.
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like whisper
While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs
Don't you know
You better run...
Oh I said you better
Run
run
run...
- Tracy Chapman
Don't get depressed. Think about possible solutions.
Watch Video of John Edwards discussing what can be done:
http://www
http://www
This country is screwed up on so many levels. I have never been to a country that prides itself on how many possessions it has. It's a vicious circle that will eventually destroy your environment by consuming your natural resources, pollute it by emitting waste and consume your land by leveling trees for concrete and destroying 40% of your own countries waterways because you have polluted them. All for big business. Why does the states take pride in destroying itself in continue living in this unsustainable situation? Most o the houses that are in foreclosure are 2nd and 3rd houses.
Worlds richest nation? Try again. Richest 1%, richest upper class. The rest of us are either poor or owe a hundred years of debt
So true. While, thankfully, I am not poor, I am barely making ends meet.. I live paycheck to paycheck. I'm one of those lower middle class who make "too much" be be eligible for many entitlements, but earn too little to not have to constantly worry. Any expense that is not a "regular one", eg, if my car breaks down, has to be charged. And, when my husband died my daughter did get her SS check--a Godsend. But--while it used to continue if the child was in college now it stops at 18. Who knows what financial aid will be available for college?. She is now 17 and I am looking at getting a second job. I look in the grocery cart and end up putting 1/3 of the stuff back. I really am scared. I try to fall asleep at night, but thoughts of how I will make ends meet keep me up. Everything is going up--food, maintenance (rent), electric, telephone bill, cable bill (I'm considering getting rid of my basic cable), HEALTH CARE COSTS. This year there will be a Christmas tree--with nothing under it. I told my daughter it will be a meager Christmas, and I do know it's about the spirit of the season--but I did used to enjoy surprising her with something special. I try not to feel sorry for myself--I know there are others much worse off. I ramble, but my point is--I'm scared.
me too
Maybe now that "rich" America is getting the same employment shock that the rest of us have felt for years but have been powerless without their vote to help us ... will understand the need for free Nationalized Health Care, Nationalized Work Programs where fair and equal wages for equal work - not your AGE, your RACE, your CREDIT HISTORY, your Living Arrangements, or your lack of any DISABILITY at all - doesn't prevent you from being hired, retained as an employee, or promoted.
That old joke from the 1970's about how Nixon united everybody by making us all poor will now be applied to Bush. Tricky Dick thanks you Smirking Monkey Boy.
In our case the pride and the fall will be synchronous.
How can the purportedly 'healthy' components resist being sucked down by the vortex?
And we will all go down together.
Dickens could empathize.
I know this is totally off topic, but it is SO important to read, and should be a headline story. I am not ashamed to write that it brought tears to my eyes.
http://www
Write your Congress critters and ask then to make a law dictating that regular workers receive the same perks and incentives as executives. The economy will be all the better for it. And more people may actually enjoy going to work everyday, too.
Thanks for the link. There could have been thousands of stories like this, if it hadn't been for so many good jobs being shipped somewhere else
This is the way america used to be with thousands of family owned factories that took care of their employees. Then came the mergers, mergers and mergers to finally we have corporations ' Too big to fail.' I hope when fuel goes back up, and it will, we will see more little factories open back up making 'things' that do not need to be shipped thousands of miles. China is already closing 100 thousand factories. Once we take the burden of healthcare cost off the back of the small business man and families we could see some daylight.
This is what happens when you have an administration that manipulates statistics to try hide the true level of unemployment, blames the housing crisis on poor people, and says $4 a gallon oil is merely the result of "supply and demand" rather than the loophole the oilman in the white house let his buddys in Enron write America's energy policy.
Of course, it's all the falt of poor people who took out loans that they couldn't pay back ($700 Billion worth of them) after Barack Obama and ACORN twisted the arms of the poor defenseless Wall Street financial giants to give out the loans for nothing.
-Does that sound about right, republicans?
Don't worry, folks. Poverty will not spread to the areas where the Wall St crooks who invented the CMO scam that has wrecked America live. No, they will do just fine. If you do not believe me, just ask Paulson, or Bernanke, or Fuld or Rubin.
The government can print all the money it wants ad infinitum and wiil not erase the economic indicators predicting a financial calamity of galactic proportions. Public and private debt are out of sight, home foreclosures, trade imbalances, endless war bankupting the treasury, budget deficits, declining wages, layoffs, outsourcing, energy costs thru the roof, credit markets and banking insolvent, infrastructure in disrepair, state governments reducing spending, revenue losses mounting, loss of manufacturing base and jobs, inflation/
I was stationed in Germany during the Cold War, my landlord had served in the Germany Navy (he and his brother were on the Prinz Eugen- the cruiser that went out with the Bismarck, but survived) during WWII. He told me that after the War, a wheelbarrow full of German money was worthless and would buy the same one loaf of bread that one American 5 cent nickel would do...but the German government continued to print it anyway... I'd really hate to see NATO having to post troops at OUR ports trying to help us "get by" while our National Leaders ignore the problems of the People to serve the needs of Big Industry at our expense... whatever happened to credit card reform? What ever happened to Ross Perot for that matter...
Hannity's America.
Finally, Republican, trickle-down economics has reached those who repeatedly vote for Republican, trickle-down economics.
That's been the game all along! In fact it is a war, a war that has been fought since the beginning of Man's social existence, between the "haves", the "have nots", and everyone else in the middle. The point that must be understood, and always remembered, is that this extant conflict, as it is expressed today, does not exist, per se, out of a lack of resources, but out of mere ignorance, and vanity of purpose at the highest level of the worldwide social order! For what?! It's for the greatest human addiction the world has ever known-to weild power over others, which is much more easily accomplished than weilding power over oneSelf!
If we want to change the status quo, we must first realize that substantive change starts within! This is the most important thing that Barack Obama has said, but it is the lest talked about, because we tend to focus on those things that are expediently "practical", which are rooted in fact, but not in truth!
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First Posted: 11-28-08 03:29 PM | Updated: 12-29-08 05:12 AM