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Poor people are poor because they make stupid choices. I’m not talking one bad choice that makes them poor forever as much as repeated asinine decisions. I’m sure there is a poor person somewhere that just has terrible luck but I have yet to ever see an article on that person or meet them.
On the same hand a lot of those asinine decisions come in their youth due to low future time orientation. They are unlucky in the sense that they didn’t choose to be born dumber than other people. The ‘bad choice’ tends to be to play away the growing season like the allegorical grasshopper and then reap the harvest of their lack of foresight which is hard to blame the young and stupid for. The rub is that lots of people that aren’t poor aren’t any different either, and are buoyed up by some form of ‘inheritance’. It’s probably more accurate to say that the poor are often people who have made bad choices through successive generations.
There are a lot of ‘luck’ circumstances too like geography and family distribution. Despite what you might think it is worse to be poor in a lot of blue states even with their more generous welfare systems. It’s better to be working poor (which are in reality the majority of the underclass in America) in rural Virginia than it is in on either side of the Potomac. In DC, Maryland or NoVa you’ll pay higher taxes, live far below the average QoL and be ineligible for that generous welfare. A lot of people will relocate if they have distant family or friends in green pastures to help them out, which is the ultimate source of non-poverty for many; having people that aren’t totally fucking broke in their immediate network to help out if the youthful poor decision maker proves himself among the ‘deserving poor’ as an adult.
For a lot of people that isn’t an option and they are essentially stuck at the low-end of the “middle class” tax target which is now not actually ‘middle class’ at all. They can’t save to relocate because they are being soaked to pay transfers to their equally or less poor darker skinned neighbors, and they don’t work in fields that are likely to offer relocation packages (because they are predominantly non-skilled).
Chuck has written about non-affluent New Yorkers refusing to drop out of the rat race clearly not meant for them. That’s near the top of the status totem pole. Near the bottom their are tons of people stuck in their little Hillbilly NYC that can’t drop out of the rat race without becoming completely destitute. Those New Yorkers that complain that the rent is too damn high are all people that have the safety net of living in Syracuse or Buffalo, which is less true of those that are currently living in Syracuse or Buffalo, and so forth down that totem pole.
That cycle of poverty article in teh LA Times reminded me of this article from the NY Times in 2006. There are a lot of juicy thrown in details with just about every person they interview. There’s a liberal blidners approach to this article, but at least it talks about the tough condition with true stats. Skates over the crime, impulsive behavior, poor decision making, and countless dumb moves like the lady in the LA Times article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/national/20blackmen.html
I’m willing to bet all of the socioeconomic numbers are far worse now. My favorite line is “I’ve had a lot of charges but only a few convictions”.
From the linked article in item #5:
“Again questioned whether this could infringe upon First Amendment rights, Murray explained: ‘The First Amendment applies to United States citizens. If it’s an anonymous poster and it’s the World Wide Web, how do we know this protects a person’s First Amendment rights, because how do we even know they’re an American citizen? I’m saying that kind of tongue-in-cheek, but if they’re anonymous, we have absolutely no idea who they are. How can we protect an anonymous person?’”
Mr Murray does not understand the First Amendment. It does not “apply” to United States citizens. It applies to the government of the United States, as in “Congress shall make no law…”
Mr Murray asks “How can we protect an anonymous person?” The anonymous person need not be protected. The speech is protected. The fact that the speech is coming from someone who wishes to remain anonymous is irrelevant.
It never ceases to amaze me how the left (particularly women on the left) have so little sense of cause and effect, in large part due to their refusal (often angry, indignant refusal) to acknowledge that incentives drive behavior.
Fact of the matter is most poor people are poor because of lack of impulse control and long term planning. I have an acquaintance who receives disability money, and I recently learned that over the last few months pretty much all of his discretionary income (hundreds-thousands of dollars) has gone towards online gambling. This is a guy with above average IQ as well.
(Though I tend to suspect that getting his entire existence paid for by government check has also contributed to the notion that he doesn’t need to learn how to budget his money.)
“it’s unclear if we see near-naked people as human beings or if we really do view them as mere objects.”
A lamp is an object. A post is an object. A woman is a sexual BEING. Ads like the ones mentioned are not “objectifying” women; they’re SEXUALIZING them (or simply exploiting the sexuality of them and the audience). I can’t believe that feminism is still getting away with using that term objectify. Objects don’t elicit emotional and physiological responses the way that other people do (especially sexy people).
So basically, the hypothesis is that people can recognize an object, like a hammer, if it’s inverted. People (apparently) are better at recognizing women inverted better than men. Therefore people view sexually clad women as objects. hmmmmmm…. right….. Social Science takes another great leap (off the cliff of lunacy).
I have to laugh at the “minority” tag.
“,,,Lionel Sosa, a veteran Latino GOP strategist who has helped advise candidates since 1980. “Latinos should no longer be considered minorities. In many crucial electoral states, this ‘former minority’ is fast becoming the deciding vote.”
Hispanics and liberals get it.
White people don’t.
Do the latter even deserve to live?
Hispanics made up 16% of the American population in the 2008 census but only 7.4% of the voters in 2008.
The importance of Hispanic voters is endlessly exaggerated by the MSM.
That’s because 1) may Hispanics are illegal aliens and not citizens eligible to vote; 2) it’s a young shifted population with many too young to vote; and 3) Hispanics tend to have relatively low levels of civic participation including voting.
On current trends Hispanics will be a major factor in twenty years, but we shouldn’t just to conclusions about current trends. In recent years the average Hispanic birth rate has declined considerably to an estimated 2.5 TFR from 3.0 ten years ago. There’s said to be currently no net illegal or legal immigration of Hispanics, many of whom have been returning home to Mexico or their central American countries.
The best policy of the GOP would be to continue to resist amnesty and measures such as the DREAM act which would both encourage get another ramp up in immigration, and in fact to step up both direct deportation and encourage self deportation by denying benefits to illegal immigrants.
We need to stop replacing this countries population with a new one that will vote yet more social transfer payments, higher taxes for the (white) affluent and middle classes to fund those transfers, and yet more debt to make up the shortfalls.