Author Michael Z Williamson on Poverty in the US
Author Michael Z Williamson is not a good man to upset, and not just because he runs a website called sharp pointy things that sells all sorts of… sharp pointy things, like knives and a sword I want to buy as soon as I make a lot of money. (What? Stop shuddering at the idea of me and a sword. It’s pretty. And sharp.)
Turns out it’s also a bad idea to get Mike upset because his mind, it seems, is also a sharp and pointy thing.
Some less cautious people have lately gotten Mike riled up by going on about poverty and about the income gap. This was a bad idea. In his website, called Speaker to Morons, Mike cuts their arguments to ribbons.
Some choice bits:
And I’m not even going to dignify the lefticle wank of “income gap” with a response, except to note it’s pretty much Godwin’s Law for economics. If you bring it up, you’ve admitted you have no argument.
………………………
As an immigrant, I get REALLY ticked off at Americans whining about “poverty” that involves cell phones, microwaves, AC and cars.
………………………..
I remember growing up middle class in the UK. My father had a motorcycle, and eventually a car, while he alternated electrical work and school. My mother waited tables evenings. We had a “flat” with no heat, and a transistor radio. Lunch for me was usually a boiled egg or a slice of bread with jam. In 1969 we got a black and white TV so we could watch the moon landing. Since my father was an electrical engineer, he re-programmed the set and we got FOUR channels, though BBC1 and -2 usually showed the same thing.
Eventually we moved to a real house (well, a duplex), with plumbing. We were lucky.
Go read the whole thing at Michael’s blog.
Hey, I only have 2 cars and 1 HDTV… where is mine?
My husband and I have one old car, and no HDTVs at all.
I’ve lived without heat, in a climate where you REALLY, REALLY need heat. That IS being poor.
What bothers me is the number of people who qualify for all sorts of assistance on the basis of their not being (legally) employed, but who are making far more money “off the books” than I am capable of making legally.
Grrrr…
Oh, and by the way, I have 30 years of IT experience. I have kept my skills up to date. But thanks to the Obamaconomy, or rather Obamunism, for over a year I have been working part time in retail sales. That is the ONLY job I have been offered in over three years, and I accepted it immediately. And yes, I am a good salesperson, just as I was good at IT, but I am not earning enough to get by.
Underemployment is a national tragedy.
I feel you. I’m (formerly) an IT Project Manager with DHS, TSA (2003-2007) and Johns Manville (2007-2008), and have been unemployed since June 2008. At 55, I’ve given up ever finding a job in the field I’ve worked in since 1977.
I hope to work “under the table” until I’m old enough to draw whatever is left in my Social Security account. I plan to never pay federal taxes again.
Y’all need to come on down to Texas. I get calls from two recruiters I know nearly every single week asking if I know anything with XYZ skillset (Linux/Unix admins, Wintel admins, Project managers, network engineers, and on and on.)
As always, MadMike ftw.
Now, of course, is when I remember the picture of Michelle 0bama serving food at a “homeless” shelter for people with brand new cell phones.
I must properly mock that in a book at some point.
I used to run a Homeless shelter…happy to fill in the sordid details for you.
Oh, my crazy sister, who’s managed to get by for about a decade now without ever having a job for more than 3 months, is constantly on the food stamp program and what not, would SELL her food stamp card (it’s called a STAR card here and looks like a regular VISA card), then get her food at the food pantry, and then take that cash and buy cigarettes, beer and minutes for her cell phone. Then she’d call and cry to my father that she needed help paying rent/buying the kids shoes/clothes/whatever.
Actually, I shouldn’t have put all that in past tense. She still does this crap.
Yeah, that’s part of the ‘Homeless shuffle’ to a ‘T.’ Selling off one’s prescription drugs is big too; some even go work the system to get prescriptions for that sole reason.
The rest of the world would love to live in our idea of poverty. I have worked in India, Africa, Asia, South America and Europe. I am not going to list all the countries because I simply do not want to type that much. I have seen real poverty up close and personal. I have seen the dead picked up daily from the streets of Mumbia (Bombay) and it is tragic. Instead of trying to raise the rest of the world to our standard of living the liberals policies keep these countries in perpetual poverty. The latest liberal scam to keep these people destitue is AGW but do not worry even as the shine is coming off this particular apple the libs have found another way, just keep spending until the entire world monetary system collapses and that way everybody can suffer equally.
Great article! One lasting impression from visiting a country in the Horn of Africa was watching the men on the pier fight each other over the garbage from our ship as we pulled out. It really drove home how fortunate and blessed we are in this great country. Same with watching the workers building Dubai. They were basically slave labor. The so called “poor” in this country have no earthly idea how good they have it, but they wine because they don’t have the latest or greatest. Get off the dole, get off your butt, and get to work!
Are foreigners (aliens) counted in this poverty number?
I grew up in the west of Ireland.
Recently I was at B&N and came across a coffee table picture book called something like “Ireland Past”. The first picture in the book, from around 1880, showed people at the bog loading turf on a donkey cart, so it could be hauled home for heating and cooking. You could have seen the same picture in 1970.
Growing up on a farm, we had better access to food than Speaker to Morons. Still, most people shared toilet facilities with the farm animals. There was one phone in the village. There was one television in the village, and people would crowd around it on Friday nights to watch the RTE movie of the week. School was a three miles away, and there was no school bus.
Etc., etc. I don’t want to get into the “uphills both ways through the snow” mode, but any American with any get up and go can have an incredibly rich life.
Their were no hills on my 19 mile walk to school every morning in 40 below wind chills however I did have to build fences all the way.
Also the biggest health issue for the ‘poor’ in the US is obesity.
Hard to be truly poor like say, those in Africa, and be obese.
been close to real poor myself. (maxed my last credit card buying food) and managed to dig out of that hole. Been close as a kid (family of 6 fed on $5000 for that year, but the car and house were paid for, family lent the money for taxes). The bicycles I had in my teens, were made from that which others tossed away. The city dump was my parts store. We lived in the sticks though, so food was traipsing about. Everything is in season when it’s hunt or go hungry.
I live within the outskirts of Pennsylvanian Duetch (German) country and I see many Mennonites and Amish as I motor around my county. Indeed, I learned that I have to watch for the occasional (compared to cars) horse and buggy. They live a relatively simple lifestyle by choice and it is why I see plausible a story I heard of Mennonites paying in cash for farmland.
Would you consider such poor even though they may have very modest incomes with no television sets, no cell phones, etc.? I think those who make such choices are of a small sample of our population, but the decision-making process of acquiring material means needs to be considered. Also, my grandfather made a pretty good living, but he was very reluctant to spend money. If one had looked at his house and his furnishings you would think he was slightly below middle class – but that was not the case, he chose to live that way.
I have always thought of myself as well off, but my father told me when I was an adult that it was always quite possible for us as a family to live at a higher lifestyle, but he and mom chose not to. My jaw just about dropped that he would consider the family lifestyle we had to be relatively modest. I still think I was well-off – no illusions about that – but, I’ve learned that it’s about what you are comparing to when one is trying define wealth, lifestyle or poverty.
Our collective willingness to live beyond our means has lead to massive government borrowing that in itself will destroy our ability to fulfill the promises we have made to Social Security recipients, etc.
The best answer to this is to face economic reality: 1) there are only so many jelly beans in the jar; 2) it is morally wrong to plan on living at the expense of others; 3) there is only so much in taxes that we can pay before it destroys our ability to save, invest and innovate; 4) people should pay their own expenses in full; 5) we must have a conversation about who is ‘indigent’ and deserves our help and who is not and therefore must carry their own weight; 6) we cannot allow indigency to become a lifestyle.
Any time I hear a person talking about the “income gap” as something to be “remedied,” I peg him or her immediately as a socialist. Why? The entire income gap proposition is based on a Marxist construct — i.e., that the “owners” perpetually enrich themselves at the expense of the “workers.”
They still talk about the better off as “fortunate.” These, of course, are the same people who decry intellectual property as “capitalist bull@#$.” Translation: They are incapable of creative thought or innovation, so those of us who are not being faaaaaiiiirrrr!
Envy may be the nastiest emotion there is. As soon as I hear it thrown around in politics, I know I’m hearing a lowlife.
There is a reason that the Ten Commandments end with a stern warning not to covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. Envy tears at the fabric of society.
oh, shameless plug, since I got quoted here: I have a new book out.
http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Michael-Z-Williamson/dp/1439134626/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290635320&sr=1-4
That was a link to someone who has a new book out.
I stood endlessly in line at the supermarket as some woman with an infant and a 3 year old broke her order up into 4 orders and paid with a mix of WIC checks, food stamps, a bank check and cash. Took her 15 minutes to check out.
All the while she’s texting away on her cell phone to someone.
She’s got money for a cell phone — but no money to feed her baby. Right.
Man, I know of someone who went into the shelter, got hired somewhere shortly after, and his first monetary transaction was…
…a five-hundred dollar watch. Not get out of living there off of someone else’s dime. It was the Bling. I got’s free food, lodging, and a check. Let’s live large.
Those spinner rims that were all the rage among urban “poor” a few years ago are up to $2000 each, plus the tires. So figure $12,000 on bling for the car, plus any accessories, plus a grand on a stereo system.
Now, that’s probably not typical for “poor.” But it shouldn’t even be a question. Drive up in one of those, have all your benefits rescinded.
The Feds are giving away those phones with minutes all over the country. You don’t even have to ask for them if you’re qualified. My older brother who’s disabled from gunshot wounds when being robbed and my 86 year old mother are on their second each and never asked. “Production for use.”