Mommy, why are poor people poor?Follow

Maybe you could get someone there to forward your mail. If it's an interesting magazine they may not mind, assuming you let them read it too of course.

Of course there are. You even provided one yourself:



If the market forces I'm talking about did not exist, unemployment would be at over 90% right now due to all the automation we've done over the last century. Clearly, despite massive implementation of automation on our industrial processes, we still manage to find a way to employe most of the people who are looking for work.

You're looking at immediate short term events and missing the larger long term trend that I'm talking about.

You tried to pass off $70k as "slightly less" than $110k for half a page until it finally sunk in that the comparison was so wrong that even you couldn't spin it. Which is a funny accusation, considering the whole thing started with your inability to read a pretty simple chart. Not that anyone is going to be surprised with your revisionist history.

The larger trend you are talking about is not evidenced anywhere in our society though. You cherry pick number one a time and act as if they alone mean something or represent something that does not exist. Just because unemployment is not 90% doesn't mean that present day employment is covering costs associated with life. Simply looking at the stark rise in poverty, looking at the decline of the SIZE of the middle class, and the vacuum of money from the bottom earners to the top earner can tell you that employment is not providing the income required to sustain an average life style. Let alone a minimal lifestyle, as seen by the rampant sub standard of living people have based on wealth.

When some one asks Mommy, are are poor people poor?

The answer is because As of today jobs available do not pay enough to match standard of living.

You keep bringing up the old days, like it is some indicator of how our society has changed. It certainly has become much more robust, and you can pretty much get anything you could ever want. Is that truly a positive, here are just some basic numbers to reflect on in regards to personal wealth, and sustainability in the system.

In 1950, a gallon of gasoline cost about 27 cents.
In 2012, a gallon of gasoline costs $3.69.
In 1950, you could buy a first-class stamp for just 3 cents.
In 2012, a first-class stamp will cost you 45 cents.
In 1950, more than 80 percent of all men were employed.
In 2012, less than 65 percent of all men are employed.
In 1950, the average duration of unemployment was about 12 weeks.
In 2012, the average duration of unemployment is about 40 weeks.
In 1950, the average family spent about 22% of its income on housing.
In 2012, the average family spends about 43% of its income on housing.

All of these factors play on ones ability to afford life. Frankly in the US there is a serious problem. When the Average rate at a Burger Hut (since you like hitting that employment sector) brings in about 15K a year. Meanwhile all the eggheads in the US consider the minimal amount a person can reliably live is @ nearly double that near 27K year. Minimum hourly wages in the US on average are nearly 50% of what they should be in order to sustain a minimalist life style, This means bills paid, this mean house paid, food, clothes, and travel WITHOUT Government assistance.

Poverty exists solely because it is designed to exist. If everyone had money than how could we differentiate those who "work hard" for the dredges of society who are free loading along. I am sure the some 300K Fast Food worker who agreed to strike an march on Washington to force minimums of 15$ in that industry are dredges, It certainly can't be because they in fact don't make enough money to afford the basic needs of life. More over it is even more impressive that these fast food workers are taking up the same torch from the 60's when thousands of Americans marched on Washington demanding an increase to 2$ minimum wage. Even more impressive is that the actual value of that 15$ people seek, is the same value as the 2$ people sought 50 years ago.

Your problem is you don't know how to quantify facts, and numbers into an articulate argument. You have bounced and grasped on to several different issues in an attempt to point out the system is fine the system is fine. Which is what we call living in a fantasy land.

Back to your fast food worker analogy Mcdonalds makes 20 cents profit on every dollar it sells after taxes and pay. For an average 5 dollar meal this means McD's makes the company 1$. If McD's were to give all their employees 15$ an hour it would cost the company 8 Billion more a year, Which would eat into their 8.9B of recorded profits last year. It doesn't take a degree in mathematics to see the disparity between McD's corporate earnings and that of the employees. Even if McD's decided to pay everyone 15$, the company would still bring in 900M profit based on last years numbers. Not only that but that is a further 8B being put directly into the economy, not being held to rain gracious bonuses on CEO's COO's and dividends to stock holders. Even if it wasn't a direct raise and a profit sharing program they still have the financial capacity to increase the amount earned by their employees each year, without taking a trip to the red in the year end books. This also all happens without increasing the prices of the product.

Meanwhile the average american is left with less than 1$ earned per our they work. In comparison this would be like McDonalds paying you 20 cents to eat their food. Cost of living has increased some 23% over the last decade alone, wages have increased barely 10% across the board. Again a degree in math is not required to see how this is an unsustainable approach to health economy.

It gets better though, despite jobs in our economy disappearing outright due to automation, despite the large inequality in wealth distribution, and despite the rapid deterioration of the base Dollar value, at the end of the day the entire US market slows down, the entire system becomes a welfare system. Your government can not even fund itself with its own money anymore, it depends on other nations buying its money in order to simply facilitate the nation, the most Ironic thing of all is that the single largest bailouts in history didn't go to the 50% of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed, it didn't go to the some 27% of Americans who depend on Government subsidy to just get by. It went to the very people who gambled the profits of corporations and citizens down the drain.

Not only do you have all time record profits, and all time record % of population dependent on some form of Government assistance, you have the entire system being weighed down by a colossal amount of debt. It is rotting the entirety of the system. Could you imagine how many folks would not have to use government assistance if pay scaling was done based on profits and not an arbitrary valuation of a position. Could you imagine how much less money the government would need to spend if even half of the 50% of the nation who require some assistance were able to support themselves through their employment. Could you imagine the growth of industry and profits if everyone in the US had more money spend.

But ya its great that Corporate America is making twice the GDP of the US right now, up from near parity just over a decade ago, Its great that your financial system didn't collapse, despite the entire population of your nation shouldering the largest held debt in the history of the planet.

If you want to cherry pick some good numbers, go take a peak at Cost of living vs Average wages. That is about the most accurate depiction of "Why People are Poor" just because an unemployment rate isn't 90% doesn't mean the 79% of people who are employed are all making enough money for a standard of living. Average cost of living in the US is currently around 13.76/hr at full time hours. Nearly double the mean minimum wage in the US.

Its not hard math Gbaji.

Capitalism is dying because it is designed to die, once the money leaves the majority it degrades. It is a system that is designed to move money to as few hands as possible. In the case of the US what you have is Corporate Fascism taking root. The Corporate buying power of the US is now greater than the buying power of the Government that oversees it, and the people who build it.

But its ok in some years time we will be having Wealth Equality arguments all over the Western world, much like we had Social Equality marches back in the 30's 40's and in the 50's and 60's in the US. Corporations will no longer be able to horde the money and lord over the people, Profit sharing will become a new standard in enterprise, and it will be because of one thing and one thing only....People are poor because they don't make enough money working. Thats it. Simple as math gets.



Moreover for a system that boasts fairness and equality based on effort and work ethic, It is a hard system to sell when the VAST majority of the people who are in the 50% of unemployed/underemployed, are minorities whose parents and grandparents were still fighting for equal rights, while White America was basking in the peak of Capitalism and the American dream. Pretty hard to call a system fair when roughly 3/4 of the population was given a big hand up because their skin color wasn't black or brown.

Edited, Oct 24th 2013 7:10pm by rdmcandie

Right, so 90% of restaurant operators. There's a reason restaurants open and close at alarming rates. Because it's no where near as simple or easy as you're making it out to be. It's slim margins with little room for error.

Did you know the typical restaurant location goes through 5 variations before it's finally successful? And that's not because someone finally did the right thing with it, it's because after buying the location and equipment at $0.50 on the $1.00 5 times, your overhead costs are finally down to a point where you can make a profit.

Whatever makes you feel better.

In 1950 the median income for males was $2,570. Today it's over $30k. To put it in perspective, the 1950 income when adjusted for inflation is equivalent to about $17k in today's money. Put another way, the median income is roughly double today in real purchasing power, compared to what it was in 1950.

My point is just tossing out a list of statistics doesn't really tell us the whole story.




That is such a meaningless statement. Designed by whom? For what purpose? Seriously?




That's funny coming from someone who just rattled off a list of facts and then failed to make any sort point with them.



Fantasy land is selectively highlighting single statistics while ignoring the larger whole. You're trying to blame "poverty" on something which has existed all along, while failing to explain why it isn't so much worse than it really is. I mean, if we were to take you at your word, we should all be starving to death. Yet, amazingly, people manage to find work. And they manage to feed their families. And lots of people manage to make good lives for themselves, despite all these terrible economic forces at work.

There's a point at which one ought to maybe look at that and conclude that it's not as absolute as you're making it out to be. There must be some forces that prevent disaster from occurring, because disaster has not yet occurred. Shocking, I know.




It's not the math that's hard. It's knowing how to apply it to the world around us. I'll give you a hint: 100% of the people are not average.




I always get a kick out of people who think that evil capitalists are "hording" money. That's just funny on so many levels. And it shows just how completely you don't understand economics (much less capitalism, or monetary theory).




No system is perfect. So instead of contrasting the system you don't like with perfection, why not compare it with a proposed alternative?

Nothing wrong with it but with how many times I had to tell inters not to throw those items away or even other cooks and these people went to school or worked in a kitchen before. That is something that people that have never worked in a restaurant might not know and will higher low skilled cooks as their leads and come up with menus on their own and not watch waste and more whole product would go into things that scraps would be more then enough for. The shrimp stock exp is about how some would buy shrimp base(stock in a can) which cost more then making your own stock from shells that you already have and payed for.

What I was trying to get at is with how many people say they dreamed of owning a restaurant are ones that might own a successful business that is not food service and think they can run a restaurant end up as the bulk of the 90% of them that fail. The rest are moderately successful/chef managers that have more pride then skill.

I'm not saying waitstaff get paid $14 hour but should be more then then what they get now or at the minimum the tip should be part of the bill like at most if not all the major resorts and not left up to the customer and only the manager can change it if the service was unacceptable. In the kitchen at a decent place pay is between 10 to 15 a hour for good cooks. Anything less then that and you get what you pay.

God you are special aren't you. Do you even know what this discussion is about. Again you are targeting one aspect of a very large thing and using it to support your position, and it doesn't even do that. The average income in the US is under 30K/yr. sh*t 75% of your population makes under 50KYr. 52% of your population makes less than 27K /yr. 35% of your population makes less than 18K/yr. 10% of your population makes less than 10,000 per year.

35% of Americans are earning essentially the same dollar value they did in 1950. Which had you read further instead of cherry picking points you pretend to understand, would understand is just short of the required Income to live WITHOUT Government assistance.

50% of your population does not have enough money to keep up with Cost of Living increases. Do you understand what that means. Probably not so let me explain. It means half your country can not afford the current cost to live in the United States of America. Thankfully there are government programs that help people "keep" more of their money to spend on extra things. But certainly it must be alarming to you the outrageous acceleration in Government Dependency...

Costs have gone up, Money has stayed the same. Worse, American money is also now weaker around the Globe meaning Average Americans are not only losing value at home, but they have less purchasing power globally than they did a decade ago. Not only does this affect Americans ability to travel abroad. But it makes the cost to bring anything into the country more...Which in turn makes the cost of everything to the people go up.

You have a very special gift in ignoring facts and data, even more special is your complete disregard for looking at things as a whole. Its a wonder you are even literate enough to have a discussion...all though at times even that is questionable. The fact you can sit here and deny easily deciphered information is beyond me. The fact you can sit here and continually just toss out random guesses is equally absurd.

But hey the system is fine, 50% of the population is unable to support itself without Government assistance. I suppose thats why Government Social Spending rose drastically throughout the 00's. I suppose its why the US spends more on any program than anyone else in the entire world for middle of the pack results, I suppose its why your nation is 17 Trillion in debt, after all the system wasn't broken, it wasn't as if entire savings for Americans were wiped out or anything, and why not bail out the guys who caused the problem, Its only the tax payers who now shoulder the burden, and now have to live with a sputtering economy that is spinning all 4 tires while driving downhill blindfolded.

Corporations made more in profits last year than they paid employees, and the US made as GDP. The US is now ranked 14th in Global GDP/Capita down from #1 a spot it held for over 50 years. But yea the system is healthy there isn't anything wrong, its all relative to what you do!, McD's employees make 7 an hour because thats all McD's can afford to pay them.

Go do some homework buddy, All this information is available via your Census Records. Check into it all, Economics isn't one element, it encompasses about 10 different indicators, that all have an impact on the economy, A healthy nation does not have half its population hovering near Poverty, a healthy nation doesn't have Corporate incomes that are nearly twice as much as GDP. If you think your nation is healthy and normal economically...you are @#%^ing mental.



Why so we can sit here and read how little you know about Socialism?

(..and no I didn't read the rest of your drivel because if you can't grasp basic @#%^ing math, and decipher information from basic @#%^ing income tables, you are a unable to understand the discussion....Much like Health Care, and Taxes, and well pretty much everything you seem to think you know.)



Edited, Oct 24th 2013 11:39pm by rdmcandie

That's not how you use an apostrophe, you illiterate FUCK.

I'll tell you something that goes in the trash that a magnet won't find. You know what it is? It's you. BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE YOU ******* BELONG.

Also, because you're not strongly magnetic.

It is the cheap way to do it, because many(if not most) places will simply order in a stock because stock isn't that expensive to order in and it saves time.


So restaurants would be more efficient if they weren't run by people who knew nothing about running restaurants? You know what the problem is there? Restaurants are run by people who don't know how to run restaurants. Want to know soemthing else? **** would taste better if it wasn't ****.


Edited, Oct 25th 2013 6:42am by Uglysasquatch