By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
Remember Mitt Romney's infamous "poor" comment? If not, here it is again:
"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich; they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95% of Americans who right now are struggling."
Well, it got me thinking: Romney was actually being honest about Americans in general. We don't - none of us - spend much time thinking about the very poor.
But we should, because we have a real problem in this area, an economic, political and moral problem.
By Romney's calculations, if 95% of Americans fall in the middle class, then there must be less than 5% of Americans who qualify as poor.
Well, no.
The number from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of the world's developed economies, is actually 17.3%.
And how do we compare with other rich countries?
We rank 31st of the 34 countries that make up the OECD in terms of the percentage of our population that qualifies as poor. Of the 34 member states, only Mexico, Chile and Israel are worse off than we are. The UK (at 11%), Germany (8.9%) and France (7.2%) are all much lower. The OECD average is 11%.
In case you're wondering how the OECD defines poverty, it calculates the number as the percentage of people who earn less than half of the country's median wage. It's an easy way to compare data across countries.
In the video above, look at the chart that shows the percentage of children in poverty. At 20.6%, we again come off far worse than other rich countries.
Japan, Australia, the UK, Germany and France all have much better numbers.
Romney spoke about how he would fix the safety net for poor people "if it needs repair.”
Let me suggest one place to fix things: end child poverty.
Whatever the causes of poverty, when children grow up in desperate circumstances - circumstances that they had no role in creating - studies show that they will be more likely to drop out of high school, be unemployed, use drugs, have children out of wedlock and get ill.
In other words, they will be unproductive members of society and cost taxpayers huge amounts of money over the course of their lives.
We know that we have an education problem with the poor. Seventy-seven percent of our kids who entered high school graduated. Compare that with other rich countries: 90% in Switzerland, 91% in the UK, 93% in Finland and 97% in Germany. Studies show that dropouts are twice as likely to slip into poverty than high school graduates.
Children in extreme poverty do badly even when they are smart. A recent U.S. study tracked a group of eighth-graders in 1988. It found that students who did very well on a standardized test but were poor were less likely to get through college than their peers who tested poorly but were well-off.
Look at health care. A key indicator of the level of health in a country is its infant mortality rate; that's when a child dies within the first year of life. Let's compare again. We're at about six deaths for every 1,000 live births.
Again, the UK, Australia, Germany, France and Japan all fare much better. Japan's rate is less than half ours. This is simply because many mothers don't have access to prenatal care. Malnutrition and poor childhood health care set in motion a lifetime of poor health - and huge costs to the system.
On indicator after indicator, the U.S. compares badly with other rich nations on not only how impoverished it is but on the facilities and opportunities it is giving the poor. That's why social mobility has stalled in America. Compared with other rich countries, poor Americans are more likely to stay poor. More than 40% of American men whose fathers had earnings in the bottom fifth end up in the same bracket. Britain, Denmark, Finland and Norway all perform much better.
The sad part is, these statistics are reversible. Compare child poverty rates in America and the UK. You'll see that the UK's rates were halved within a decade from the mid-1990s. The U.S. has actually risen since then.
There's no secret sauce. Tony Blair's Labour government simply made reducing child poverty a priority through various programs.
So, Romney: Yes, the media took your comments out of context. But you do need to be concerned about the very poor. We all do.
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There will always be poor pathetically struggling.
Heck, under Obama's watch, poverty in the US has more than doubled.
Happened under Jimmy Carter, too.
So if you really want to help the poor, vote for Romney.
Give 'em jobs - here in Amerika.
Yes Yes Yessss – You are absolutely right. As soon as a democrat becomes a president, the poverty magically pops up. And as soon as a repoblican takes the helm, all powerty is removed totally. So all poor should naturally vote for a republican president.
No, on the contrary, the GOP is not interested to spend tax-payers money on the poor.
In order to address child poverty, one has to address the family patterns and labour market conditions for parents. In Europe the governments deliver a child benefit package to families with children under 18. In most communities child care amenities are well organised. Furthermore financial aid is offered to lone parents and families of low income. Yes family polices are important in many small countries in Europe, which see low birth-rates and aging population.
Romney was right in what he said. There is a safety net. Its called "welfare".
Tell your nonsense to William Jefferson Clinton, during whose administration more than 23 MILLION jobs were created.
I completely disagree with you because Republicans tend to strip away essential services to the poor when they're in office, and they are also not fiscally responsible (google Harvard study of fiscal responsibility for Republicans and Democrats). So by the time the country gets sick of how the Republicans are acting in office and a Democrat is elected, the Democrat has a HUGE mess to clean up from the previous Republican that was there and so it seems to those who don't look at the details that the negative change in poverty level and our deficit is from the Democrat in office and that is NOT true. It takes the time they are in office for the changes Republicans make to effect the negative change in poverty level and deficit, but it always happens and can be traced right back to their policy and benefits changes.
I'm not saying Democrats are perfect by any means, but they ARE the lesser of two evils. If there were a Republican candidate I agreed with, I would vote for them, but as it stands, the US politics makes the Republican candidates too extreme to even consider. I AM the poor this article is talking about, and I know exactly who to vote for thank you very much.
LOL, you republicans don't know what you talk about! since Bush Admistration, economy was declining rapidly, therefore created more poor people also created rich people be richer! because of stupid taxes! time to oppress all the filthy wealthy people! Power to equal and teamwork as ANTS!
Let's see those facts, KEK.
Lou – The safety net is an old car. Many familiess are living in cars now. And many school systems are sending school buses to homeless shelters to pickup kids. That's the greedy Republican way.
Welfare in the US does not exist as it did after 1995. That year, welfare was abolished and TANF (Temporary Aid for Needy Families) was implemented. It is not welfare and requires folks to get a job and get off after a very short period of time. But Republitards don't know anything about welfare policy or social policy in this country because they're too busy giving birth at 16 and pretending they're doing something right by voting Republican, when most Republicans can't wait to get rid of these backcountry inbreds.
KEK, I think your critics here miss the irony in your tone. That poverty rates would magically soar or disappear depending on who is in office can only speak to the politics, not any actual measure of suffering. For you to write that and actually mean it, would mean you believe in magic. Maybe you should state your true meaning at the end, parenthetically, just so no-one is fooled.
where are you getting your statistics?
Seriously? Was I the only one who picked up on KEK's sarcasm?
This was some clear cut use of sarcasm. I don't get what all of you are buzzing about.
Wow the GOP vermin not worried about the poor is that news? The only thing that the vermin want is more wars and more tax breaks for the rich. like tKEK pointed out the poor only mater when a democrat is in the white house and currently we have a republican policy democrat in the white house. Never forget it was the GOP vermin that sponsered the bill to export our good paying jobs so tyhat the rich can benefit immensely. Now the country is in the midst of a depression thanks to the unfunded wars by the GOP hero GW Bush. Oh I forgot that by the faux news dictate we are not supposed to talk about Bush lol GOP = Grand old pathetic party
Since 1933, poverty has increased during Republican administrations and decreased during Democratic ones. At the same time, the stock market indices have gained less during Republican administrations and more during Democratic. Please look it up.
How about you Zakaria ,, how about giving some of your 100,000 a year salary to the poor around you also...
Dont judge others when you cant give to the poor either,,, hypocrisy....
I guess only a little bunch of people knows what irony is.
What is "powerty?"
LOL! I was fortunately able to see your sarcasm. Unfortunately, many of our country's esteemed voters did not. Of course poverty doesn't go away depending on whom the president is.
As if poverty rose because Obama took office. When we voted for Pres. Obama, the stock market was in the middle of the worst plunge in 80 years. It's no surprise that when companies lost a lot of money, they fired people. AND, people's savings were reduced, and seniors living on interest income lost a lot of money.
Yes, "Lou" - welfare. I'd love to cash in on that dream... the $153 a month that provides per person in a poor household here in Michigan (on average) is a great deal! Especially because I can get it for a whopping 48 months. Damn, I know I could be comfortable on that! I could vacation to the Caymens and see Mitten's money! Or I could open a tax sheltered account with a hedge fund... like Mittens! At the end of my four years, if I didn't spend a dime, I'd have a whole $7,400... minus bank fees... over four years....
What is wrong with you.
Your are wrong. When a democrat gets into office, it is after a republican president who has already reversed things for the worse. So the bad numbers show-up under the democratic president who fixes things while in office. Than a republican becomes president and reaps the benefits of the democratic president's work. Vote for the Democrat!
What in the world are you smoking!
KEK: I am glad to see you are finally getting a grasp of reality here. Go GOP
In Europe? You mean the Europe that is going broke due to all of their social programs? The Europe that even the nearly broke US needs to help in bailing out? That Europe?
Just because the GOP sweeps it under the carpet doesn't meen its gone
Be ashamed America, be very ashamed.
I'm from the UK and have just watched a BBC production tonight called "Poor America" (screened 13th Feb) and realise that you all fool yourselves as a nation into telling the rest of the world you have the greatest riches on earth, yet you have stolen wealth. Stolen from the poor and needy.
Wake up, you are achieving supposed wealth at the cost of your fellow citizens, including young kids sleeping under tents outside your biggest centres of populace and going hungry before school meals are served.
Get real and realise that if you cancel an atomic aircraft carrier or 3 it may just allow some of your citizens to not worry about the cost of a $20k operation on a hernia against annual and individuals earnings of only $5k (he's incapacitated by his condition) and the consequence of not having the operation is death, but he walked away from the hospital in fear of how to proceed with a life saving procedure.
When will you all wake up collectively and realise that you are where the UK was 50 or 60 years ago when the British Empire starting crumbling and our denial set in. You can no longer afford the veneer of wealth at the cost of your fellow citizens.
If you had to invoke tomorrow just half the social standards achieved in Europe today you'd be broke as a collective. The rich get more so and the poor just go homeless, have poor health and then die. Problem solved.
The program also took time to compare the infrastructure of Detroit's rotting and derelict buildings to that of Beirut; in fact the latter was considered in better condition.
I suggest you read Charles Dickens because that's what this story sounds like, a sad tale from 150 years ago in Victorian Britain, the country and conditions he wrote of is akin to what you are sinking into as a nation. Learn the realities of what Western Europe had to face after the war years and you may all still stand a chance.
Shame on you all again!!!!
Er, this is a joke, right?
The poverty rate was 17.9 %, ie. even worse under Reagan in the 80's. So much for your argument.
The reason this article makes no sense is because by the definition of the OECD, poverty is different for every country. So while the US ranks 31 / 34 all that shows is that the relative disparity of poor v. rich in the united states is 31st biggest. It does not show that the US poor are worse off in absolute income or lifestyle , and in all likelyhood, they are better off than the poor in any of those other countries
For example, I would rather be in the bottom 1% and earn $30,000 than be the median earner in a separate country and earn $20,000. The only type of person who could logically disagree with this is someone who bases their self worth off of what everyone else has rather than their own wellbeing and opportunity.
I agree, cant wait till strapping your dog to the top of a car is legit!
I like it... but what does it mean?
Oh, got it. Please learn to use the "Reply" link to avoid non sequiturs
Well, anyway.. as for Romney, his brainless inconsequential views will soon fall by the wayside. Obama has a lock on the next election unless he really steps on it or the Republicans come up with a candidate who makes sense to someone besides himself.
Wow Wastrel so Mitt is brainless. He sure has done a lot for being brainless. He's very rich , has been a governor, has a great family, is running for president. Not bad for a brainless person.
You need to read the piece again. Reading comprehension is not one of your strong points it seems.
Oh, yes....please watch the DVD "Inside Job". Here you will see that Jimmy Carter wasn't to blame...but who was. It remains to be seen if President Obama will address this issue, but I can assure you Mitt Romney will not, as he is part of the problem.
Judging by the CEOs I've had personal experience with, It's hard to imagine one actually caring about their underlings. Not the they were especially bad people, it's just that they seemed more preoccupied with doing their job, which many times meant sending jobs to China. Surely they knew this "activity" was eliminating their fellow American's jobs (and at one smaller company, the man at the helm personally knew many of his underlings). But they unswerving kept up until the company had to be sold. But maybe Romney's different. Maybe he actually cares and is not in it for whatever????????
AmemriKa? Very Freudian.
So everyone prospered under Bush? What rock were you under during his reign? He took over a nation that was in the black and quickly brought us down and down some more. How soon you forget or at least try. GWB got us into two wars and bankrupted our nation. Nice try.
amen
Yea and now they will try to back door his brother Jed at the convention. We have to remember he stole the election for his brother. Just more of the same steel from the middle class to make the rich even richer.
A lot of these posters were in grade school on 9-11. Cheney was the only president they ever knew, and anything before that is World War One, which they think was fought by President Reagan and Bruce Lee. Ignore them or laugh; there's no third choice.
It may take ten to twenty years, however President George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst President ever to hold office. At least in our life time.
@blood whatever your name is: Sweeping generalizations only lead to trouble. Somebody who has been out of grade school for so long should know that. Just because you don't like what younger people have to say doesn't mean your opinion is any more correct. There are many intelligent people who were in grade school during 9-11, just as there are many who were out of college during 9-11. "Ignore them or laugh", he says. Can you imagine how far this practice would get us? Very positive and helpful. Thank you.
Republican policies brought on the poverty situation. They filibuster or block everything the President tries to do. Romney doesn't even care if his dog gets sick on the roof of his car.
So inheriting a bad economy doesn't count for something. If you were half as intelligent as you pretend to be you would know that those numbers have a delay on them in which they reflect at least 1-2 years in the past. Even then the economy and poverty can be tracked down to the last ~10 years or so. Leaving this squarely on the shoulders of GW bush and congress members of that era.
Partisanship is getting this country know were because of partisan "zealots" like yourself. Get a life man. People like yourself constantly think that Obama could magically fix things. In truth the damage was done over many years(8+ former mistakes of the past like Nixon's drug policies) and this means that it will take many years to fix. Mostly we have been ignoring the problems with this country while spouting about national pride; If you really love your country you will step aside and see how bad it has become. We are no longer the best country in the world. we have be surpassed by countries like France who actually take care of their people. A wise man once said "you can tell the state of a country by how well they take care of their less fortunate". This holds true today.
Bob: you are wasting your time. Not all republicans are stupid, but the ones who hate Obama so much they froth at the mouth pretty much are. No amount of logic or factual information can possibly convince them that Obama is anything other than a socialist communist muslim whose goal is to destroy capitalist christian America.
During the Bush era, I knew some liberals who were a bit like that - but the current crop of anti-president crazies are even worse at reasoning skills, in my estimation.
You are talking to people who are blinded by hatred. All they see is a black president.
I think GPS is the most relevant program on CNN and brings a much needed worldly perspective so missing in US media.
One questions when giving comparisons of US standings to other nations why not try to use Canadian comparisons also? Certainly they hold values equal to that of Finland and Norway.
....yes...I wish Fareed wouldn't be such a shill for the Obama administration – he's a smart guy and should be giving the public a better rounded view on the issues...
Yeah, too bad reality has such a liberal bias.
Just curious: Where or have found evidence to support your claim that Romney is going to create jobs? From where do you draw this conclusion? Is it just a gut thing? Please state your facts.
well, there is lots of evidence that obama doesn't know how to create jobs- next?
Play word games all you want..everyone knows the GOp would rather stomp the poor out of existence than do anything to support them..............blah...blah...blah
any proof, or did saying that lie just make you feel better?
You are wrong Alan the repub's don't want to stomp out the poor they want them to grow and expand. Need soldiers to fight their wars and janitors to clean their buildings.
"any proof," The Bush/Cheney administration? How much proof do you need?
"So if you really want to help the poor get poorer yet, vote for Romney.
Give 'em jobs – here in Amerika working for Romney at less than minimum maybe shining shoes."
When Obama took office, we were headed into an economic depression that could have rivaled the great depression. The bleeding has stopped, and we still need to recover. Put any Republican in office, and they will likely prevent any recovery from occurring, except for the very wealthy.
The wealthy never rally had a problem. Put any Republican in and we will see a depression. The Republican right's obsession with budget reduction is a redux of Herbert Hoover. It didn't work then and it won't work now.
Americans have short memories and expect instant answers and results. The fact the poverty has increased so dramatically is not due to the Obama policies but it is due to the Bush and Cheney destruction of this nations future. Making false statements does not make the facts different. Obama was handed the worst economic disaster in our nations history by the corrupt Bush Cheney wall street thuggery and mafia. The most corrupt war profiteering industry starting preemptive wars regardless of the cost in lives and treasure. It will take years if not decades to fix the GOP mess of the century.
Don't be a fool or an agenda pusher. The reason poverty has skyrocketed under Obama is because the economy tanked. The policies of the previous decade (or more) combined to cause this particular disaster, which started before Obama even took office.
Yeah, Obama was forced to watch, along with the rest of us, what happens when the previous administration runs our economy into a wall.
gostuffyourselveretard
I like the stated Republican viewpoint. Create jobs. Of course, what they're doing is giving money to the rich instead of spurring job growth, but the stated idea, more jobs is a great one. More jobs means more people will have opportunity to work.
Be nice if the world was an Ivory Tower.
The sad reality is that there's a lot of parents out there who fail, for one reason or another. Without a strong safety net to care for the children of those failures, the next generation will grow up to be failures, and the next, and the next... Churches / organized religion could fill the gap, and in many times does – and leaves many by the wayside.
That's one thing some die hard republicans don't seem to get – I agree with personal responsibility, and if someone can't get their sh!@# together it's on their head. And taking that to their extreme just means we have more sh!@#$@! to deal with tomorrow.Society helping to take responsibility of those failures means I have fewer people trying (for example) to break into my house tomorrow.
My program is simple: turn lead into gold and give it to the poor. I don't know how it will work yet, but it's going to work.
Yes u are right it is the parent's fault; too many brokrn homes, single parents, absent fathers. BUT that is not an issue or problem the government can change or fix unless the kids are removed and given to a better family. But that would be racist or totalitarian. It is a cultural problem that needs to change from within; government and the rest of us who are responsible people have no role in that process
1. The economic problems that America was having during the Carter Administration were not caused by Carter policies nor could they have been prevented by any action that Carter might have taken.
2. GW Bush destroyed this economy, as you well know. This recession started during the last year of his term and it has been prolonged by the obstruction of Republicans in Congress.
As to that, unemployment under Carter was much lower than it was under Reagan. The problem was inflation, which didn't even hit until 1978-1979.
"The problem was inflation, which didn't even hit until 1978-1979." Kids today think OPEC is a myth like Zeus or Thor, that never happened. It's easier to just blame Carter.
Voting for Mitt Romney and all the jobs come back and all the poverty just magically goes away too? Knowing Romney's track record, he'll downsize the government, sell off half of it to the Chinese and then bag the profit in an offshore account so not even the banking system gets to work with it. Mitt, a true American hero, if by American you mean Chinese, and by hero, you mean nationalist. Don't vote for a Chinese Nationalist, just hit the twit
In Amerika, you're saying.... Buahahaha!!!!!!!! One of the high school drop outs, I presume? Driving a dilapidated car with a proud sticker about AmeriKan Dream? Voting for Repukes who care so much about you that they have no clue how many poor the country has? Seriously? Your dearest papa Bush started the job downfall, we're just watching the afterschocks. I don't want to even see how many "jobs" Romney would create. Probably as much as Repuke full Congress, huh?
Dana, you must have majored in English upon HS Graduation ?
I always like to see the right/Republican standard answer about giving the poor jobs not assistance. You all make it seem like the poor want to lay around waiting for the check to come. How about Congress spending money to create jobs? Oh that's right, Congress doesn't create jobs, well right noe nobody seems to be.
Those darn lazy poor people . . . if it wasn't for the Democrats they'd all be washing our cars and working as maids like they are supposed to. Did you see THE HELP? We're supposed to have servants! Why are they getting lives of their own instead of being subjugated? I bet it's those unions.
Give them poor jobs, where? Oh yea as janitors..They will remain poor..As Janitors they will depend on the government for other essentials..What is the going rate per year for a janitor? For one they should not be abled to just drop out of high school, that just creates a vicious cycle..There should be some on the job training..many of them don't have the degrees necessary for any of the tech openings, Ronald Reagan outsourced many hundred of thousands automotive labor jobs in the 80s that hurt the then up and coming poor..He also allowed drugs to be sold directly in the black communities to fund a secret contra war..Ronald Reagan destroyed the black community. The black community had extremely high unemployemnt thus compounded by the crack epidemic. Nancy Reagan had to audacity to come up her montra"Just say No" to Drugs when her husband was cutting back dor deals with drug cartels..Blacks were sacrificial lambs under Reagan..
Zakaria.... not only
Romney...
How about you Zakaria ,, how about giving some of your 100,000 a year salary to the poor around you also...
Dont judge others when you cant give to the poor either,,, hypocrisy....
The definition of poverty quoted above is absurd; this is not a relaiyive state to others income but an absolute condition: poor is not having food or shelter. Having a car big screen TV or private school education are not considerations. And as to the tired old argument of infant mortality, the only reason the U.S. infant mortality is high is that we deliver many more premies than other countries, many of which do not make it and count against our statistics. Other nations do not mark these as infant deaths. Get your facts straight Zakariah!
Spell America Amerika? Seems german or something. The poor numbers only rise because when Democrats are in charge they actually publish the real numbers. Like the Two wars Bush started the GOP has this habit of corrupting the details that the administration reports they have messed with our COL index by removing the cost of gasoline on the average family from it. Gas is expensive but the GOP don't care they do not want to show that the big publically subisidized oil companies cost Americans too much. They also don't want to show the real numbers for poor when they are in control, not to mention almost every economic policy since Ronald Reagan coming from the GOP has been regressive and unfairly targets the poor and worse the middle class. The bottom line is the GOP is bad for America and it is bad for the American people. Obama is the only thing in between a neo-nazi Facist (GOP created) State and true capitalism. Obama has supported the free market since day one and anyone who says different is out of touch with reality and the definition of American style free market.
Nut job
You must either be a rich republican, or a poor idiot voting for republicans. There is no other explanation. The very people who scam you dry are those you choose to elect in office to only take more out of your pocket and pay corporate thugs, funds obscure wars, shoot people around the world, and god knows what else...So, please, come next election, if you are dumber than I (which you clearly are), again, please, DO NOT vote.
All you republicans are funny. Y'all try to act like George Bush never existed and that all of the bad numbers are President Obama's fault. These bad numbers are the aftermath of the Bush era and you know it. Now things are reversing for the better because of the work that President Obama has put in. Every time you republicans refer to a past President, you go straight to Ronald Reagan. Listening to republican rhetoric, you wouldn't even know that Bush's ever existed.
Word – we'll said
KB- Actually they are right Bush was never the President. Dick Chenny was the President.
Do you make up all your facts, or are you sometimes forced to confront reality? Show me some hard numbers to backup your claims and I will take you seriously. The problem is that such numbers don't exist. I'm not going to argue that creating jobs is a bad thing, but I do questions Republican credentials in that regard, and especially Mitt Romneys. When he was governor, Massachusetts had nearly the worst job creation record in the country.
WHy you rail against a man that has nothing directly to do with the situation right now is beyond me.
Obama is the problem at hand and his lack of concern for all Americans. Obama is all about artificially raising energy prices to the point where Americans can not afford to live decently. The prices will continue to be raised until the poorer amongst us rally behind his push for "Clean" energy. The man knows nothing but class warfare and will continue to depress the less fortunate just to further his agenda.
Vote for Romney and make Romney rich! He will take shots on all risk and will not care about margin errors as he will put your money and life on the table. Hahaha! Republicans should be deported to the lunar colony of Gingrich.
Yeah, well, under Obamas watch things have been tough, because of the REPUBLICAN INDUCED RECESSION! HELLO, MCFLY! Overall though, in the last 60 years, the rank and file population has done better under democratic administrations and worse under Repbuclian administrations–fact. http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Democracy-Political-Economy-Gilded/dp/0691136637 Under Hoover, republicans had control of both houses of congress and the white house–and their policies let the the GREAT DEPRESSION. When did republicans get full control again?? Not until, you guessed it! George W. Bush. And then it was "deja vue all over again." http://currencythoughts.com/2008/08/19/how-the-us-economy-performed-under-democrat-and-republican-presidents/
Wow, what an imbecile. More than doubled??? The poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3 percent. Today it is 15.1 percent.
They took er jobs!! LOL
you have to laugh when people lie to support a position they would like to believe. You expect us to believe Obama caused a doubling of the poverty level after the last administration destroyed our surplus and started two useless wars and allowed the bankers to rake in billions of dollars knowing the economy was going to collapse and that is Obama's fault? the seed was planted by the conservative agenda in America and a bunch of religious hooligans at the helm...
You're being sarcastic here, right?
As a respectful, regular visitor, it just takes some time to look around and look at the trends to imagine what the future will hold. At a minot=r view, this really just supports my view.
There are so many many ways the govt helps the poor in the US, it is difficult to believe these statistics. After school programs abound, school breatfast and lunch programs that abound....Social Service agencies and churches and on and on. I worked with the poor in geriactrices and it was so apparent that they unreported cash other than govt. dole outs from their children, etc. They had TV, telephone, free medical care , cell phones, two bedroom appartments paid for by tax dollars etc etc etc . I do not bemoan this, but get real. Who in the world are they counting?
America is the richest country in the world but it has 3rd world levels of poverty. It is down there with Mexico. The rest of the developed world give their people a leg up. America kicks them in the teeth.
Most people think the reason is that religion dominates America but has been squeezed out in the rest of the modern developed world. The religious need poor people. It needs them because they are the people who go to church. While religion dominates in places like the USA and Mexico there will always be poverty and huge inequality.
You got it bass ackwards, Roop.... the Democrats need more poor people so they can convince them that the reason they're poor is because someone else (who worked hard) got rich. So they vote dumb, dependent, Democrat.
Once the cycle starts, it's hard to stop. And if you don't believe that, just look at LA, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami - or any of Amerika's inner cities that are dominated by violence, economic malaise - and liberal Democrat politics.
You are suffering from a serious case of denial.
If that were true, then why do all of the other industrialized countries that are doing better in all these categories use a liberal form of government and a mixed economy? They help their people and they have less poverty, their kids are better educated, and they live healthier lives.
Nothing like looking at evidence to form an opinion, rather than just re-stating mindless rhetoric. The country is in shambles because of what the GOP has done. Look at the evidence.
And European poverty numbers are low because of all the republicans they've been electing? Sharp thinking!
Okay, like the other replies to your comment... Please explain why all the countries that do much better than us have far less conservative government than ours??? Why do countries with a more social healthcare system have fewer child-parents, abortions, infant death rates etc... ?
frisk80: We can have that as soon as ALL working people are ready to pay 60-80% taxes on their income. Not just taxing 48% of the people.
No, dot, the republicans are the ones who need the poor. They are mostly uneducated and easy to manipulate into voting against their own best interests! They also will work for less money and, therefore, mean more profits for their 'slave-masters'. Now, quit trying to fool the uneducated with your lies.
Sorry, dot, frisk80 is right. Europe, with their socialist government and national healthcare, is owning us! Maybe we should respect our forefathers, who CAME FROM EUROPE, instead of insulting their decendants, who are also our relatives! Let's try to learn from a more successful society, despite what Faux tells you. Open your eyes!
.....and T, the Europeans do NOT pay a 60-80% tax rate, despite what talk radio and Faux says. Open your eyes and get your own facts, don't rely on fox-liars for them.
me, you're right they aren't taxed as high as I stated, but I got that impression talking to people I worked with in Europe. These are the 2010 rates (most recent I could find). UK:50%; Switzerland:22-42%; Norway:40%; France:40%; Israel:44%; Sweden:58%; Denmark:51.5%; Netherlands:52%; Spain:43%. No one from Europe complained that 50% of the population did not pay taxes. So, I guess if everyone in the US was willing to pay these kind of percentages, the US could have social programs similar to Europe. No amount of money will help the education issue, you have to want to learn – the education is there for the taking. In Europe, it is a given that you will graduate from at least high school. It is encouraged from the time children are born. There is not the violence in those schools either. In any scenario, the poor and uneducated need to want to improve (not saying they don't but just throwing money at a problem does not solve it).
Actually, it's you that has it backwards. Just look at the demographics in the South. The poorest, least educated states are located here and they/we overwhelmingly vote Republican.
T: there is more to Europe than high tax rates. In exchange for giving up LARGE percentages of their earnings, most Europeans enjoy excellent health care coverage, excellent school systems, retraining programs, social programs for the poor (so they can afford to live in something other than a car), and a host of other "safety net" programs - for the poor AND for the middle class. In England, for example, college is free for those who get accepted - and those who don't get free coverage at a technical school or other training program.
They all pay their taxes, and few complain because they live with a government that actually works to take care of them. The poor and middle class can pay outrageous tax rates because the government supports them a lot. The rich can pay outrageous tax rates because, well, they're rich. And they like their countries, so they generally don't move somewhere were it is cheaper to live.
Kind of like how the republicans want to keep people poor in the white boonies by convincing them they're only poor because a bunch of minorities are stealing their jobs and gays are wrecking their families... not because they're dumb and inbred.
Yes all these European countries and Canada as well pay more taxes, but they have a higher quality of life, higher standard of education and health. The average person in these countries pay more taxes but they live better, so what is the issue?
It is a myth perpetuated by the GOP to uneducated americans (which they have created by cutting education and health spending) that higher taxer lower your "freedom" and quality of life. Wouldn't freedom from poverty be a great idea? Wouldn't America be better if all our kids could read, and we could all get sick without being afraid of losing our savings or home?
America's large cities are a mess because: 1) after WWII, we allowed the railroads to atrophy; 2) we built an interstate highway system that facilitated growth of the suburbs and exurbs; and 3) the economic upper levels of our big cities fled to the suburbs for perceived increased privacy and to distance themselves from blacks. The result was a decline in the livability of our cities. Compare U.S. cities to European cities, where people actually live.
Actually a serious case of Republicanism.
You have it right; America has forgotten the most important things about Christianity. Instead they have adapted Darwinian policies that abandon the sick and poor to their own devices.
what is odd is that it is the christian right that is doing the abandoning of the poor, not the darwinians. they are the ones trying to give them a leg up.
Darwin didn't say anything about how to treat the poor.
People love taking that 'Survival of the Fittest' idea outside the context it was used and assign meanings it shouldn't have.
"Darwinian policies" You mean digging up their fossilized remains thousands of years later and comparing minute differences in the bones? Theorizing about their likely food sources? Maybe we can prove their ancestors were wealthier?
The Good Samaritan would be ridiculed as a chump by today's Christian Republicans. Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose.
No political party is concerned about the poor except when the topic just like religion is to their personal benefit just like spouse, kissing babies its nothing but talking points to gain voter attention and get in to their good graces look how Christian this nation is when it violates on of the most basics laws of the
Bible Thous Shall Not Kill yet they have been putting their citzens eternal souls on the line by committing mortal sins it makes one wonder if any truly believe in the Bible I do and they will be judged in the afterlife. Everyone's souls is eternal the governments is temporaily. I believe the government is cost shifting the burden to everyone in the United States to the Insurance Companies who in turn will pass on the cost in the way to every United States consumer in the way of higher premiums since everyone is going to be required to have healthcare insurance in 2014. Another though what about GAP Coverage Policies to cover what is going to be required under the law, do everyone who has insurance have the necessary coverage required or know what is going to be required under the law or is it going to keep being one surpise after another. I know will qualify for coverage provided since I am disabled and among those poor or is it the government intent to eliminate us poor, disabled, and elderl. So send me the lethal dosage pill instead of a disability check you really think its bloody fun not being able to do something for a living or drive somewhere instead of having to depend on for it. I actually get just barely enough for somewhere to stay since I am homeless, for me to see a doctor, buy medicine I need to survive, and buy something to eat. Try it and pray for it to end everyday..
You Republicans need to remember this guy, except for Grace you can be him.
You Democrats need to remeber the same thing too.
Statistics. Who is calculating them? Is the OECD or the US reporting the statistics on the poor. The infant mortality rate is calculated differently depending on which country your in. That's why the US has a high infant mortality rate as opposed to other developed countries. It counts certain premature babies as live births while other countries do not. I am wondering about the other statistics Fareed is throwing out there now. What qualifies as poor. Does it vary country to country or is it a standard set by the OECD.
It's the OECD who uses "equivilised disposable income" for their determinations. It's ridicuouls. 70% of statistics are made up! Numbers don't lie, but liars use numbers.
"70% of statistics are made up." Where did you get that statistic?
You don't need statistics to see that there are less very poor people in Europe–just go there and look around.
People who claim statistics are made up only do so when the number disagrees with their emotion-based opinions. When the number support their opinions, the same people advertise the number everywhere they can.
86% of all statistics on the internet are made up. I pulled those figures out of my Hugh Jass.
The figure is the number of people whose income is less than 47 percent of the median wage. In this country, the median wage is $26,364, according to Reuters. "The median paycheck — half made more, half less — fell again in 2010, down 1.2 percent to $26,364. That works out to $507 a week, the lowest level, after adjusting for inflation, since 1999." Forty-seven percent of that number is $10,981. So, 17 percent of Americans earn less than $10,981 a year, which is about 20 percent of Mitt Romney's daily income.
How can a median of $26,000 be acceptable? Forget halving it!
Jason....are you stupid??? It said 6 deaths for 1000 live births. How CAN that be different? 1+1=2, just in case you wondered.
He's not stupid. In EC countries, any birth before 27 weeks is not included in the reported stats for infant mortality. They consider births earlier than 27 weeks not to be "viable." Alternatively, in the US, any birth at any point after conception is included in most US infant mortality rates. This tends to increase the infant mortality rate in the US relative to EC countries.
For example, in the US, if a child is born at 22 weeks and subsequently dies, the US considers that as an infant death reported in that 6 in 1000. In any EC country, it would not be counted as an infant death.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1615029/?page=1
Scott,
That's a good point. Consistency between how these births/deaths are reported in various countries would help. But I found this sentence in the Discussion section of the article you referenced interesting:
"Such bias was suggested by Lee et al. when they found that the poor ranking of the United States was mainly explained by a high rate of very-low-birthweight babies." Now, why do we have such a high rate of VLBW babies? I would argue that that also points to issues with our health care system, i.e. poor pre-natal care.
Either way I would argue we do not have "the best health care system in the world" as many like to claim. If we did our stats should put us in the top performers on mortality statistics and the like. if you look at Table 2 in the article, even after only looking at live births/fetal deaths for 28 weeks gestation or more, to correct for variations in reporting, we still only score better than Hungary.
Most of your questions were answered in the article itself. Reading is fundamental.
There is a standard, 50% of average income or less.
Reblogged this on mindpurged and commented:
Fareed Zakaria is on point with this one! Fact check people...not opinion. America is not taking care of its poor. It is too busy being rich.
“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor” — Voltaire
Sorry sport, I've been poor in America. I'm now doing very well due to the opportunities offered by American capitalism. Too bad it's on the decline. Btw, I got back on my feet without the "help" of the government.
'Too bad it's on the decline.'
Not true. So, you should be pleased.
Good for you, Alaric. Thank God all the rest of the poor have the same luck as you, are just as smart as you, live in the same place with exactly the same opportunities as you, are the same race as you, speak the same language as you, are just as healthy as you, had the same parents as you. So now that we've taken our one-person sample of the U.S. population of poor, problem solved.
Like I have stated, you cannot dispute FACTS. The statistics speak for themselves. You my friend, are the fortunate (a benefactor-whether you believe you did it on your own or with "help") minority. And would you also be among those who get on their feet whilst knocking others off of theirs and leaving children shoeless? I hope not. But I appreciate your pov.
Alaric, you are probably 14 and a liar, so quit making stuff up!
Sorry, Alaric, but your post is so wrong I had to point this out: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?_r=1&hp. I know it's the New York Times, and people of a particular cult mentality won't read it on the grounds that it's liberal elitism - the truth often is - but it does say what you can read in the URL, and it says it a lot.
Congratulations to you, Alaric, you beat the odds. As stated in the article, the likelihood of upward mobility is actually better in most Western European nations than in the US.
Another case of the kettle calling the pot black. Liberals normally refer to Republicans as haters, yet when anyone disagrees with a liberal they are called a liar (see above) and delusional. Only your opion counts, only you can be right – above you have a person who states they lifted themselves out of poverty and you ridicule them and call them a liar. Such hypocrites – you are as bad as the Republicans you hate.
Sure you didn't, just like Craig T. Nelson who was on food stamps and never got any help from the government.
Alaric: you were probably, single, with no kids. Imagine the single mom faced with your poverty... she can't do what you did, work like you did, stay where you did, etc. - all because her husband left her and the kids.
I don't have to imagine - I know people in that situation. There is not enough money or time to get the education necessary to get a better job, so they work two or three jobs at minimum wage. They live where they can, because their income is not sufficient to get into an apartment. They don't go to the doctor or dentist, even for their kids, because they literally cannot afford it. Every day is a struggle to stay afloat, and it takes a toll on them and their kids.
"Another case of the kettle calling the pot black. Liberals normally refer to Republicans as haters, yet when anyone disagrees with a liberal they are called a liar (see above) and delusional. Only your opion counts, only you can be right – above you have a person who states they lifted themselves out of poverty and you ridicule them and call them a liar. Such hypocrites – you are as bad as the Republicans you hate."
Right, because EVERY liberal is exactly the same. God, no wonder people hate you. Not only gullible but hateful; you are certainly no advertisement for your own point of view. Maybe you are just a sock puppet for 'Alaric.'
EB
If the US can't take care of it's poor why are we importing millions of poor people into the country?
Excellent point!
We're turning a semi-blind eye to illegal immigration because a lot of illegal immigrants work jobs for cheap. Business isn't so keen to complain about cheap labor as mush as taxes or regulations.
Short answer: we aren't. Most "illegal immigrants" have overstayed their greencards, not swam the river, and they plan to go hime as soon as the job ends. You are being angered by conservatives who want you to think it's a huge problem, bigger than Bush ruining us looking for WMDs.
It is interesting to note that Census Bureaus stats of 2010 indicate that approximately 75% of those in poverty are white; however, the majority of the photographs accompanying Fareed's discussion on poverty were black women and children. This continues to focus poverty as a black issue and not an American issue.
That would be because the problem is far more endemic in the black community. As a percentage of their respective populations, you'll find that blacks and hispanics are more likely to live in poverty, and far more likely to live in extreme poverty.
What do we do about it? I haven't a clue.
It's a statistics thing. 88% of the people in the U.S. are caucasian, so they should be 88% of the poverty level group if poverty was independent of race or ethnic group. But they aren't and the question is why are caucasian people less likely to live in poverty? The liberal perspective is that being white confers some privileges that are denied to people of color, limiting their chances of breaking out of poverty. The conservative perspective is that being white confers no such privilege and that everyone has an equal chance to succeed. So, liberals tend to promote social programs to overcome poverty among minorities, and conservatives tend to consider social programs as enabling dependency. I think Zakaria is trying to make the point that some social programs (specifically health care for children) actually make people more able to escape dependency, which would break the cycle of multi-generational poverty.
Thank you for a reasonable visioned post!
I worry about Communists like Fareed. I worry about how much of my money they want to take.
That's funny. Fareed is one of the few level headed thinkers that gets to write his oppinions. It sure beats the 'oppinions' of the political party affiliated guys that pass as 'news' on most stations. Learn how to think, and then come back and start reading Fareed. In the mean time you can spout stupid slogans so we all can understand how much of an idiot you are.
Only one P in opinions.
Wow! Imbeciles CAN write! Too bad what you do put down is nucking futs.
Ha....good one!
Bert. Really? Fareed Zakaria is about as level headed and politically unbiased as any commentator anywhere. He basically is a one man truth squad. He is equally willing to call out liberals as he is to call out conservatives. Most commentators stand on soap boxes. Zakaria stands on data bases.
Yeah databases that confirm his point of view. He is far from unbiased but I do find his opinions interesting.
Fareed correctly states that doing what we are doing costs tax payers lots of $ in terms of health care and such. Most folks don't want to go after longer term investments, though.
Bert, Fareed's stuff is for humans not Neanderthals!!
"Bert BigDongle" Yeah, right. Do you really believe in "communists," Gramps?
It sounded to me like Mitt was speaking RELATIVELY.
If Fareed was running for president, who would he be most concerned about? Likely the same group Mitt is: the middle class. I would bet he would never place the VERY poor at the top of list of concerns. He would never win.
Why is CNN censoring my comments? I did not violate the guidelines.
Probably words inside other words. Never as sume you've found them all.
Romney's worse enemy is his own mouth. For whatever reason, we have millions of good folks on food stamps and other govt assistance. In today's economy a family grossing less than $30,000 is considered poor. There are uncounted thousands who have given up trying to find a job – all good people. Either Obama's people or the Super PAC have been recording everything he (and Gingrich and Santorium) say and write. In Romney's case, if he gets nominated, his own mouth will crucify him. There are many more folks than there are rich folks and they all vote.
Keep in mind the fact that most comments are taken out of context and twisted, remember to listen to the entire response. Mitt has always cared about the poor, actions speak louder than words anyway.
Mitt has dedicated years of his life and supported his children in service to the poor domestically and internationally. He knows the best thing you can do is eliminate the root cause of poverty which in many cases is addiction and abuse. Children with one or no involved parent, alcohol, recreational drugs, tobacco and other damaging expensive habits. Poor choices and lack of opportunity is what plagues the poor Romney knows this and cares it and will continue take actions personally and as a leader to reduce poverty and improve their opportunities.
"""Mitt has always cared about the poor, actions speak louder than words anyway. Mitt has dedicated years of his life and supported his children in service to the poor domestically and internationally."""
Which Mitt was this? I don't remember this one. How many Mitts ARE there, anyhow?
"Mitt has dedicated years of his life and supported his children in service to the poor domestically and internationally. "
What BS.
This is so disingenuous! What qualifies as poor in the US would be well off in other countries! To say we rank near the bottom is such BS. Fareed should know better than to think the readers are THAT easily lied to.
Oh, I see. That would mean that there really ARE no poor in the US?
'In case you're wondering how the OECD defines poverty, it calculates the number as the percentage of people who earn less than half of the country's median wage. It's an easy way to compare data across countries."
Leave this person alone. He has never ventured more than 10 feet from his own front door...or acknowledged his his brain.
Not saying there aren't poor people in the US, there are plenty. The point is an American working full-time at minimum wage ($10/hr) earns $20,800/yr. Using the OECD figures (2007 sorry couldn't find newer ones). The median incomes for France and Israel less than a US citizen earning minimum wage. Germans and Fins make $441 and $75 more per year. So in the US a person is poor working for minimum wage in these other Countries it is less or equal to the median income, not considered poor by OECD.
The anti Obama rants on these pages amaze me and confuse me. A man who inherited a real mess has done an amazing job in getting things on the right track and yet he continually labled, by some, as being a communist, a Muslim, a despot and the reason for America's problems. That kind of ill informed, ignorant and bigotted rant is an embarrassment to read and incomprehensible to any sane and lucid reader. No wonder it is so difficult to make things better in America today with people who think that way.
As an immigrant over 30 years ago, from a third world, corrupt and backward country, the sadness I feel to know how many utter fools there are in this country is now a constant in my life.. You're right, it is downright embarrassing to witness ignorance and racist rants that have filled so many Americans since Mr. Obama's election.
Well-said. It's truly amazing...and disheartening.
The figurehead always receives the blame regardless of how complex the issues are, how far back they stretch, or how many thumbs were in the pie. It's the broken record for the ages.
Well said Lone, now if all of you would apply this same prinicpal to Bush.
George Harrison, just because you are a blind Obama kool-sid drinker does not mean you are informed, smart, or not a bigot. I don't care for the way Obama has lead the Country in the last 3 years. HIs record does not impress me, that does not make me ignorant, uninformed, or a bigot. You have your opinion of Obama and I have mine.
Well, yes. Basically, it does make you ignorant. By all measures, the country is doing better than it was 3 years ago. And Obama has achieved this despite the most obstructive, recalcitrant Congress since the Civil War. And that Congress has been rewarded with the lowest approval ratings IN U.S. HISTORY! Conversely, the Republican Party has contributed nothing but fear-mongering, anger and paranoia. The degree of hatred for Obama, especially from the southern states, is reminiscent of a sad era in American history. And comments like yours contribute to that sadness. Kool Aid? Really? Is that all you've got? Stop relying on FOX News and Rush Limbaugh for all of your "facts".
And so the very thing you think characterizes liberals, and the anger produced by being called names, causes you to do the same in the hope that you'll change hearts and minds? Do what you expect others to do. If you want respect, show some.
JRJ fear mongering really. I don't agree with you about Obama, if I got all of my information from sources you say, why would I be responding to the liberal CNN piece. Maybe you expand your horizon and listen to more than CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, but you can't because you only believe in your opinion. I don't hate Obama, in my opion he has not done what he promised and if you think he has and he gets a pass from most news agencies on everything. I'm sure he has helped you a lot – looking for that $20K probably. My opinion wouldn't change even if I got the $20K but it would be nice.
You are right.. I've never seen in my life a people so racist and ignorant. Too bad. should we have a duty to help who is in command of the country independent of the party. I love this country I love I'll help in every way, no matter what party is.
A lot of the racism and hatred comes from economic unrest. During the Bush years, the rich got very rich but those of us in the middle class slowly got poorer. Under Obama, a lot of people suddenly got a lot poorer.
We've lived the last decade and a half with a large proportion of the country struggling, or at least stagnating. Bad economic times make for meaner people and nastier comments. If the economy were to ever rebound for most people (not just one sector or class), the level of racism and other nasty comments would diminish dramatically.
In the last year, I've become convinced that no one actually believes in god. The "religious" are always the first to lie and scheme for power. This latest "war on god" stuff about birth control convinces me that the tax exemption for religion is a bad idea.
There is quite a bit you don't know about Mitt Romney: He has dedicated years of his life and supported his children in service to the poor domestically and internationally. He knows the best thing you can do is eliminate the root cause of poverty which in many cases is addiction and abuse. Children with one or no involved parent, alcohol, recreational drugs, tobacco and other damaging expensive habits. Poor choices and lack of opportunity is what plagues the poor Romney knows this and cares about it.
Parents need to also ensure their children pay attention in high school – get involved and invest in their future, don't just be spectators.
There really isn't much the government should do but provide effective schools and allow businesses to operate and thrive. It might require that families move for education and opportunity just like their ancestors did.
The government should also ensure that the money we contribute in taxes and fees is not wasted! Income redistribution just brings everyone down and waste is waste, Romney will reduce both.
Does allowing business to operate mean allow them to steal and demean the value of labor? To spoil our air, land and water? The take from society 10x more than they provide?
Give it a rest, where would we be without industry. We aren't competative now because of the high wages we pay and all of the restrictions put on business. If you don't believe it go out and get a job. Check out the regulations and how good projects such as XL pipeline are stopped by environmental whiners. My degree is in Environmetal Health and I cherish the environment but I'm not anti-business. I read (Houston Chronicle) about the many thousands of pipeline in Nebraska – these are pipelines that are 20 or 30 years old and haven't had major leaks. Yet a new pipeline with today technology is a major concern about rupturing leaking. It could be double walled so in the remote possibility that a leak would occur in the next 30 years it would be contained in the annulus and the owner of the pipeline would know about the leak in seconds.
Sure, safety measures COULD be implemented. And regulators COULD insure compliance. And drilling in the Gulf could NEVER jeopardize the Gulf ecosystem. Oh wait....... So we COULD ship Canadian crude to a Gulf off-shore loading facility. Has anybody mentioned that the US was a net EXPORTER of oil last year?
If I need to know these things about Mitt Romney, then Mitt needs to reframe himself for all Americans to see instead of letting the Republican base and the media do it for him. I try to keep an open mind but between the media, his own emphasis on being a business man and a conservative (spends way too much time trying to convince conservatives he's conservative), and his bad sound bites I can't make heads or tales of him. Newt is Newt. Santorum is Santorum. Paul is Paul. I have no idea who Romney is.
"""There is quite a bit you don't know about Mitt Romney: He has dedicated years of his life and supported his children in service to the poor domestically and internationally."""
Which Mitt was this? I don't remember this particular Mitt.
Such BS. You suckups kill me.
"The anti Obama rants on these pages amaze me and confuse me. A man who inherited a real mess has done an amazing job in getting things on the right track and yet he continually labled, by some, as being a communist, a Muslim, a despot and the reason for America's problems."
Because, for whatever effort he has made to make this country stronger, he has advanced a long list of liberal policies that will only hurt this nation. He has attempted to make birth control, on someone else's dime, a national right – even as our country continues to suffer from a low and falling birth rate. He has proposed to severely cut out military, weakening our capabilities abroad to respond to threats. He has waged a war on those who have worked and invested their way to the top.
====
The liberals won't like it, but Romney was right. It isn't the "very poor" who have suffered in this recession, its the middle class. The "very poor" are those who receive welfare on a generation basis, who often don't work, who have little in the way of valued assets, etc. These are not the people most hurt by what has happened in our economy in the last five years.
While there are most certainly poor people in this country, to use the standard of poverty that Fareed talks about is insane. Earning half the median wage? A better measure would be this: does everyone in this country have the ability to receive the food, shelter, and basic medical care that they need to survive? The answer is, by and large, yes. And where the answer isn't yes, that falls under where Romney wants to fix the safety net. But the safety net also needs "fixed" in the sense that we have to cut down on the number of people who voluntarily rely on others to earn their living for them.
Fareed is right to talk about child poverty, but wrong to suggest we can fix it strictly through assistance programs. If you want to end child poverty, go back to the time when children grew up in a household with two parents, a mother and a father. But of course, that would require us to promote traditional values....and the liberals don't want us doing that.
That is a ridiculous and unfair characterization of liberals. I'm a liberal. I've been married to the same person for 35 years. All my liberal friends have been married to the same person for about the same length of time. We all have kids. They're doing fine. On either side of me live families who are very conservative. They've been married to the same people for a long time too. They have kids. Their kids are doing fine. We will all go to the voting booth in November, mark our ballots differently, come home, chat in front of one or another's house, borrow each other's tools, wave to each other when we leave for work the next day, and etc. We're so much more alike than people like you want to believe. You represent what's worst in our country right now – the mindless hatred and desire to stir up anger for the joy of it that too many people indulge in. Show some respect and you'll get some. Characterize people by broad generalizations and stereotypical negative views, and they'll respond to you with contempt.
Great so the poor are not poor enough for you. In a country as rich as the US being in the bottom 50% puts you at a very bad disadvantage. There is no basis to allow 90% of the wealth to reside in less than 1% of the population.
What Fareed Zakaria failed to mention here – and its a perfect context – is the huge bill we pay for all those poor children who end up victimizing our citizens through crime, filling our emergency rooms from drug overdose and gang violence, and spend most of their lives unproductively in jail. We are by far the world's greatest jailers...hate welfare? Check the price of keeping a young man locked up in a prison for a year; it's about the same as a year in an Ivy League university. Where's the conservative outrage – queue the crickets. How many of these lost souls could we have saved if we invested just a portion of that prison money to get them when they are children out of poverty and provided family skills training and support to their parent(s)? How much would we save future generations of Americans – not just in tax money, but in lowered crime and drug rates and recouped contributions to society, if we just broke the cycle of poverty for this generation? But no, lets argue over birth control and taxing the rich...
I agree, it is entirely a$$ backwards but a candidate couldn't get elected or a news organization sell ratings if they ran on social change at that level. Too much to chew, to educate, to create empathy in the average voter, too many dollars out of pocket for those that make money off of prisons and related industries, etc.
Well-said.
You touched on something that reminded me of some bumper stickers I used to see on autos every now and then about twenty years ago. It read "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
I have one of those bumper stickers. Guess that tells you how old my car is
.
I have another too. It says : Ignore good teachers and they'll go away.
""If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."" I was behind one yesterday.
Thank you.
I consider myself a fiscal conservative.
But I am accused of being socially liberal.
It's not that, it's that your statement above sums it up: "they will be unproductive members of society and cost taxpayers huge amounts of money over the course of their lives."
I want to save taxpayer dollars. One of the most effective ways to SAVE taxpayer dollars and REDUCE the DEFICIT, is to INVEST, not spend in our country and our people. Tax money spent on Pre-school and early childhood programs that are not baby-sitting but actually provide life skills and dreams for the future will be investments, returning many many times their face value. It is a long term investment. Forget about short-term gratification. Over the long term it can reasonably be expected to outperform the stock markets.
That's not liberal. That's just smart conservative policy.
You make a lot of sense sir, too bad we do not see this opinion in evidence at CPAC.
I was taught and grew up believing we were all americans and we were all in this together. Reading all these posts makes me wonder if that was ever the truth.
We're still here. You get the extremists here of both conservatives and liberals. But the group I would characterize as "loyal" (neither hard right or hard left) tend to not comment on the stupid remarks. They save what they have to say until they see a comment that is worth responding to. Don't despair. The loyalists will keep America going, simply because there are more of us. Look at your neighbors. Are they not good people who vote differently but live similarly? Most of us have the same values, love our families, work hard, and live in relative harmony. These comment boards bring out the people who don't dare say to anyone's face the things they can say here with anonymity.
Fareed, I watch GPS each Sunday and always learn a lot. Thanks for your excellent program. However, today's piece on poverty used the wrong metric in the analysis of poverty levels in the US vs. other countries. The focus on the percentage of people below the poverty threshold across countries misses the important point that poverty thresholds vary widely from one country to the next. A poor person in the US using our high standard has much more income than middle income and even wealthy persons in many other countries. Your analysis should have used a common denominator approach in order to be a valid comparison across countries.
'In case you're wondering how the OECD defines poverty, it calculates the number as the percentage of people who earn less than half of the country's median wage. It's an easy way to compare data across countries."
There are other graphs I've seen by other organizations that, while not exactly the same numbers, the conclusions drawn are the same as are the proportions.
As strange as it sounds it does cost more to be poor in the US. Do you feel US poor are not poor enough?
I think Mitt Romney's response to this would be that he does care about the very poor, but that he has a very different way of addressing the issue that Zakaria or Obama. Yes, it's the old 'trickle-down' theory of economics. Cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations to increase job creation and 'raise all boats'. Of course, Romney ignores the very obvious fact that over the last ten years, the wealth of the nation has become concentrated in the smallest percentage of the population in this country's history and that, despite the lowest practical tax rates since World War II, companies are not hiring and, more importantly, wages are not going up. Wealth is begetting more wealth, but it's not trickling down to anyone but the heirs of gigantic estates.
All you have to do is look at the way Mitt Romney has handled his own acquisition of wealth over the last 25 years to understand why his ideas are bankrupt. He feeds off the misery of the middle class and, rather than being paid a salary, he is paid in stocks. Those stocks are deposited for him in offshore accounts. Because he lives off the dividends that those "investments" produce ($57,000/day), never cashing out the principle stocks, his income was NEVER taxed. Instead, he pays the low capital gains rate of 15%. He also gives his sons "carried interest" gifts which are valued at more than $100 million each, without ever paying ANY gift tax. This is the kind of gaming the system which indicates a disdain for the impact of tax avoidance on the country. Tens of thousands of other mega-wealthy people like Mitt Romney are doing the exact same thing.
so, vote to chnage the tax laws- don't blame romney for laws he had nothing to do with- ask buffet to pay his tax bill
Romey and his like bought and paid for these tax laws. Votes do not change tax laws, lobbists do! I do blame Romey and his like.
Income is income, full tax rates (including FICA) for all income.
America is about the status quo, which has a very good chance to maintain a very good standard of living in the US; however, if the child is from a broken family whatever the instance maybe, this child can never get ahead and will just repeat the same cycle as their parents. I think it has do more with the ethnic diversity of the US and the different problems this brings when different ethnicities are trying to compete with each other for economic prowess. Having lived in less developed countries it’s much better to be a poor person in the US than a poor person in a developing country where the struggles is daily just to be able to feed the family.
The other developed countries place a different value on standard of living, the US and its phobia with socialism places more emphasis on material gains and personal consumption.
I think the dilemma we have in America is that we have a large segment of people here willing to live off the government. Frankly, its possible to live off government subsidies as well or better than one would at a minimum wage job. Before I get 20 vicious replies, I'm in no way bashing the poor and especially the children. They need much more help . No child should live in hunger here. My point is that why, despite the billions of dollars that we pour into poverty programs, does this still exist? I don't think that simply pouring more money in is the answer. I think our programs need some serious overhauling. Those who are unable to help themselves need and deserve help. Those who simply prefer to live at the expense of others should be removed from the programs. Its a topic that everyone sees but its just politically incorrect to point it out. The money is there, but it's going to many of the wrong people.
If your premise is correct then raise the wages. What's wrong with more people making more money and heaven fobid the corporations make lower profits.
Wikipedia: "In probability theory and statistics, median is described as the numerical value separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half." Surely this means that exactly half the people earn less than the median wage in every country?
Oops, "less than half of the median wage." I guess Fareed is right as usual.
This is just patheitc. Romney mispokes and the left wants to once again to try paint anyone on the right as a money grubbing pig that hates the poor. Just pathetic. Have noticed that everyone once to come to America and not those 30 countries "ahead of us" on that meaningless list? Nealry half of the countries don't pay ANY federal taxes. There are more social programs than you can count to assist them. If you are sick you are not turned out into the street. At every turn is someone else that busted their you-know-what to get ahead in life and some politician is figuring out a way to get their gain in life and get into someone else's hand. I cannot stand when people whine about their lot in life. I work a full time job, then I run a side business in the evenings and on the weekend. I don't want anyone carrying my water.
Sorry, meant nearly half the country (our country) don't pay any federal taxes. I have no idea why I look at cnn, it gets me so riled I can't type.
The old "50% pay no taxes" talking point is a misrepresentation. Please visit The Tax Policy Center's website. There you will find a PDF doc which should clear this up for you.
Then I guess we are just imagining the 35,000,000 homeless in the US. Good thing, I thought they were real people and we would have to worry abut them.
I notice that you like to make up your stats. You increase the number of homeless by a factor of ten. What other things are you making up?
"One approximation of the annual number of homeless in America is from a study by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which estimates between 2.3 and 3.5 million people experience homelessness."
Actually, there's a difference between being poor and having no money.
For years we have given trillions of dollars in aid to other countries, but we can't wipe out poverty and hunger right here at home? How much did we give Pakistan over the last decades, when the country was in fact harboring the most wanted man in the world? We can wipe out poverty and hunger here at home. We just haven't decided to do it yet. And I'm a conservative Republican.
YOUR POLITICAL PARTY WILL NOT LET YOU FIX ANYTHING THAT HELPS THE POOR IF YOU TRY THEY WILL DROP YOU LIKE A HOT POTATO!!!!
He has already gone senile. good thing he didn't become president, he could have accidentally given Iran nuclear secrets. Alzheimer Disease is a serious thing, Support Obama Care
It`s the very rich who have shipped jobs to mainly China who make very bad quality products.NAFTA should never have been signed by the United States or any country.It was bad Idea.Big companies got rich while people lost their jobs due to layoff because they were replaced by foreign workers who worked for so much less is actually slave labor.Politicians on both side are guilty of letting this still happen.That is what needs changed and Mitt Romney and his inside people will do everything in their power to keep NAFTA alive,because they profit from it.Forget Mitt Romney !
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عودة المجرم الارهابي المدعو ( ابو علي البصري ) المستشار الامني لنوري المالكي
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بعد هروبه بطائره خاصه وبدون تاشيره الى خارج العراق بعد افتضاح عملية هروب الارهابيين من تنظيم القاعده المرتبطه باستخبارات الحرس الثوري وعددهم ( 12 ) ارهابي معتقلين في سجون القصور الرئاسيه في البصره حيث اشرف على عملية هروبهم الى ايران باشر المجرم ابو علي البصري في مهامه كمستشار امني لنوري المالكي بعد عودته السريه مع تكليفه بمهام جديده هي الاشراف على الخلايا الخاصه لحزب الدعوه وهي مليشيات مسلحه مقرها الرئيسي في محافظة بابل والجدير بالذكر ان ابو علي البصري تم تعينه مديرا للامن والمعلومات في مكتب المالكي بناءا على توصيه من قاسم سليماني كون المذكور عمل في جهاز السافاك سابقا وعمل فتره طويله في جهاز استخبارات الحرس وبعد تعينه كلف حصرا بالاشراف على عمليات التعذيب للسجناء من اهالي نينوى وديالى وضباط الجيش العراقي السابق والبعثيين المعتقلين في السجون السريه التابعه للمالكي وكان هذا المجرم يمارس التعذيب بحق السجناء حتى الموت وترمى جثثهم خارج حدود مجافظة بغداد .
الخبر الثاني :
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المرافق الشخصي لابراهيم اشيقر الباكستاني وحقيبة ( Emergency bag )
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وردتنا معلومات من مصدر مقرب من مرافق ابراهيم اشيقر الملقب ( الجعفري ) مفادها ما يلي :
سئل المصدر مرافق " الجعفري" عن سر حمل هذه الحقيبه عند مرافقته للجعفري في كل تنقلاته اجابه بما يلي :
1- الحقيبه تحتوي على مبلغ قدره ( 200 ) الف دولار .
2- اقلام ذهب .
3- ساعات يدويه ثمينه .
4- مستمسكات شخصيه خاصه بالجعفري ( منها عدة جوازات سفر ) .
وتبين للمصدر من خلال الاستفسار من مرافق الجعفري ان حمل هذه الحقيبه تحسبا من وقوع امر طارئ وبدورنا نفسر هذا الامر الطاري ( تحسبا للشلعه السريعه )
هؤلاء هم قادة العراق " الجديد " الحراميه ولا نستغرب ما يفكرون به لانهم اشباه رجال جعل منهم المحتل " رجال" .
بعد هروبه بطائره خاصه وبدون تاشيره الى خارج العراق بعد افتضاح عملية هروب الارهابيين من تنظيم القاعده المرتبطه باستخبارات الحرس الثوري وعددهم ( 212 ) ارهابي معتقلين في سجون القصور الرئاسيه في البصره حيث اشرف على عملية هروبهم الى ايران باشر المجرم ابو علي البصري في مهامه كمستشار امني لنوري المالكي
(13) بعد عودته السريه مع تكليفه بمهام جديده هي الاشراف على الخلايا الخاصه لحزب الدعوه وهي مليشيات مسلحه مقرها الرئيسي في محافظة بابل والجدير بالذكر ان ابو علي البصري تم تعينه مديرا للامن والمعلومات في مكتب المالكي بناءا على توصيه من قاسم سليماني كون المذكور عمل في جهاز السافاك سابقا وعمل فتره طويله في جهاز (ارات الحرس وبعد تعينه كلف حصرا بالاشراف على عمليات التعذيب للسجناء من اهالي نينوى وديالى وضباط الجيش العراقي السابق والبعثيينالمعتقلينفالسجونالسريه التابعه )للمالكي وكان هذا المجرم يمارس التعذيب بحق السجناء حتى الموت وترمى جثثهم خارج حدود مجافظة بغداد929) .
(19)الخبر الثاني :
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المرافق الشخصي لابراهيم اشيقر الباكستاني وحقيبة ( Emergency bag )
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وردتنا معلومات من مصدر مقرب من مرافق ابراهيم اشيقر الملقب ( الجعفري ) مفادها ما يلي :
سئل المصدر مرافق " الجعفري" عن سر حمل هذه الحقيبه عند مرافقته للجعفري في كل تنقلاته اجابه بما يلي :هؤلاء هم قادة العراق " الجديد " الحراميه ولا نستغرب ما يفكرون به لانهم اشباه رجال جعل منهم المحتل " رجال" .الحقيبه تحتوي على مبلغ قدره ( 200 ) الف دولار .
1- السريه التابعه للمالكي وكان هذا المجرم يمارس التعذيب بحق السجناء حتى الموت وترمى جثثهم خارج حدود مجافظة بغدا
2- .هذه الحقيبه تحسبا من وقوع امر طارئ وبدورنا نفسر هذا الامر الطاري ( تحسبا للشلعه السريعه )
3- ساعات يدويه ثمينه .
4- مستمسكات شخصيه خاصه بالجعفري ( منها عدة جوازات سفر ) .
وتبين للمصدر من خلال الاستفسار من مرافق الجعفري ان حمل
I'm no fan of what's happening in Syria right now - I think it is terrible - but you do realize this article is not about Syria at all, right?
asking conservatives to care about the poor is like asking liberals to care about defense
Yoda, There are many philanthropists who are conservative. I would like to point to one that is very well known: Jon Huntsman and his son Jon Huntsman Jr. There are also liberals who are very supportive of the military. Watch the PBS program "Carrier". On it you will be introduced to U.S. Navy personnel who say things about the war in Iraq that you'd think came right out of a Democratic Strategy Handbook, right before they get into their F-18s. We've got to stop stereotyping each other as all good or all bad.
Most of those other countries mentioned have a strong safety net for the poor. They have decided as a nation that everyone will have food, shelter, and healthcare. We don't have that in the US. If things get any worse, crime will spike and many people will die.
The issue isn't if the poor should be helped, it's how they should be helped. Social programs that simply provide basics just leads to an endless cycle of giving with no real improvement. Teaching, educating and providing opportunity is the way to improve this situation. The American Indian tribes are a great example. we've been providing land, housing, food & money for generations and yet the poverty level among this demographic remains the same.
People in America are poor because it is the best place to be...You get free medical care, free food (food stamps)..and section 8 lodging...and you do not have to work..and have whoopi all day and night and breed more ugly poor people. It is the middle class he has to worry about ..not the poor.
You just made it abundantly clear that you don't know what you are talking about.
Get back to us after you have tried some of those great benefits. Being poor in America is a soul killing experience. I have been Rich, Poor and in between and I can assure you that getting help from the American safety net is as horrible as something can be.
Under your premise, why should we worry about the middle class? If they fail, they will become the poor you think are living the good life and they will have no more worries. Right? In actuality, the reason we all should worry about both the middle class & the poor is that being poor in not the cake walk you like to pretend it is. Substandard housing (if you can afford housing), inadequate healthcare access, poor quality cheap foods, and a large part of the population calling you "lazy", "leech", and "drain on society" isn't a cushy life no matter how you try to spin it. It is what we fear will become of our teetering middle class if the current polarization of income & net worth continues in the US.
Keep in mind that all the nations Fareed mentions as doing well are those that we defend with our massive defense spending! If you get national defense for close to nothing you can turn a lot of time, attention, $$ to your education and health systems. Those nations should defend themselves more than they are, pay their own way more. It is time we turned our attention to those causes, education, technology, health, free enterprise, opportunity to make our next generation great!!
Romney has attractive business credentials. However he demonstrates an apathy for the problem of income inequality and poverty. If Romney was elected President and the US economy went into another recession, chaos and revolt would strike the US. Obama is the safer bet, a president who can lead the US in good or bad times with a mind to applying stimulus and aid where needed.
anyone voting for any of these republican candidates like the mitster will make the chasm between the haves and the have nots(the poor, the "middle" class) greater than it even is today. their unspoken plans for the poor is "keep 'em dumb". remember sarah's "joe six-pack". she wasn;t addressing the rich in this country.
lets hear about republican plans for improving education and how to get poor kids to stay in school.
one more thing. if we look at russia before the 1917 revolution, many of the same conditions existed then in russia exist today in the US. the poor with no food. the poor with no representation. the russian monarchy with no ear to the crys of their people. again, the haves and the have-nots.
The mean-spirited comments about the poor seem to support the theory that conservatives love the foetus but hate the child. The idea that being poor makes you someone to be scorned is not one that Jesus would espouse. I think I know whom he would take a whip to, though.
The latest figures I could find were 2007, so these could be dated. This is just to give you some idea of what the article is talking about, just information. These are the median incomes. US:$31,111; France:$19,615; Canada:$25,363; Israel:$14,055; Finland:$20,875; Switzerland;$26,844; Germany:$21,241; UK:$25,168; Chile:$7,851; Mexico:$4,689. Give some perspective to illegal immigrants also.
America a Christian nation? Not. Once it was "Let them eat cake." Now in the US it's "Let them eat mac-n-cheese." It should be the United Shame of America.
Don't like it move to an atheist nation. Your problem is solved.
LOL!!! Right out of the same bucket as "America: Love it or leave it" and "America: right or wrong"...very sophisticated response.
Yeah! Move to Australia
Our conservatives are to the left of your liberals and our leadership debates and all about childish nonsense like what church you go to and whether you think Jesus would approve of taxing the uber rich.
Honestly, I read articles like this and feel so lucky never to have been born in the Plutocratic States of America.
Oh, Fareed; mittens isn't going to listen to a brown person.
Just cause you're not in the 17% poverty level, doesn't mean you're not struggling economically, Zakaria.
There will always be people who need help and we need to help them. There will always be lazy mooches and we need to weed them out and help them get a job. There will always be crookes who want to take from and wictimize others and we need to find and stop them, no matter who they are. There will always be racists, bigots, greedy, and haters. All the above are in all areas of our society but they are in the minority. Maybe we should all just take a good look at ourselves and make an honest appraisal about which group we fit in.
So, your reaction to a bunch of statistics that put quality of life in the USA at the bottom of the class when compared with other developed nations is "hey, such is life"?
No wonder your country is such a mess...
Yeah I'd be worried about the middle class also if I were Romney, he probably fired half of them and shut down the companies where they were working.
Have to get wages up. Have to get a single payer public option for health care. U.S. businesses are at an extreme disadvantage because every other country has universl health care.
Hmmm. Interesting point. I don't think I've ever heard that link made. Can you expand on it?
Most of the faces in the photos on the segment on poverty were BLACK. Why does the media mostly make urban black people the face of poverty? What about all those poor whites in rural America? Until the media stops making blacks the face of poverty in America, there will never be a serious effort to find real long term solutions. Once blacks are portrayed as the face of poverty, there will never be the political will by the larger society to do anything about.
The so call drug war wasn't taken serious until it started to affect the larger white community.
Your point is a serious one, and needs to be addressed. But perhaps it is easier for us white folks to believe that poverty is, after all, only a non-white disease...
Since when did Mitt Romney give two craps about this country's poor people? Never!!! In fact, he wants to further cut social programs in order to increase both military spending and foreign aid. It appears that all these foreign dictators mean more to Romney than this country's poor people as long as they side with the right-wing thugs in Washington!!!
Please give examples, when you make these statements. I could make the same crap up about you. When you make unverified statements why not say it is your opinion, don't state it like a fact (that you don't have). Just another liberal hater.
C'mom Fareed – you didn't press SOROS on what he really paid in taxes!! – He gave you a slippery answer SO he slipped through your hands – shame on you!!
Where are the relevance monitors when you need them?...
All you posters are angry little sniveling as$holes. Both sides. You are nothing. Your words mean nothing. No one cares. Even my comment means nothing. Go outside and live. Get off your keyboard and go out and do something about it rather than whine here. I'm headed out to make change happen. See ya! Defeat Obama.
Mr. Zakaria
Romney's remark was not taken out of context . It is called a freudian slip! You always bend over to be fair, and is perhaps the way it should be.Should Romney win the presidency , the poor will be even poorer and the rich richer. The Bush tax cuts
will be extended and Obama care , well you know ;at the stroke of a pen.Willard Romney is simply not suited to be president.
The lies and flip flops are becoming legendary.
And you know it was a Freudian slip because you're a mind reader? You do know that Romney gives 17% of his income to charity right. How much do you give? Obama? Biden? Kerry? Zakaria? It may be interesting to note that republicans give far more money to charity than democrats. They also donate more time and give more blood. So democrats may talk a good talk when it comes to helping others but republicans are far more likely to walk the walk.
Reading the above comments brings to mind the saying " we have met the enemy and they is us "
Being concerned with the middle class and fixing it by making it easier to be in the middle class, fixes the poor naturally by allowing them to move up, into the now easier to be in middle class. Being concerned about the poor is nothing more than printing more food stamps, which doesn't fix the poor.
Race
Better worry about the poor. There is no way your gated community will protect you as crime grows from some
who hit dead ends. They will affect your children and family. The desperate will scam you, rob you, drug infest the rest
of a community and a simple trip to the grocery store will have everyone looking over their shoulder. It affects everyone, Mitt.
To those repugs who complain that their tax money is being taken away from them and being given to those on welfare, and they really hate that, and this being the main reason they are repugs, remember that the welfare checks continue regardless of who is in power, the welfare roll does not suddenly disappear when the repugs enter the white house and reappears when the dems are in power. If you are going to rebut my statement by saying the welfare roll is hire under the dems, you may be right, because the repugs are doing everything possible to make the middle class disappear, making us all poor, heading to the welfare rolls, while at the same time enriching themselves and their friends.
"To hell with those little moochers, I don't want my hard earned tax dollars buying their crack-cocaine and 18" rims. If they didn't want to be poor, maybe they shouldn't have been born poor! Ever think of that!?" -Conservative Activist
We are importing poverty on a massive scale from mexico, Cntral America and other third world country. Better worry about that because it is overwhelming us.
Mr. Zakaria:
Your comments in general are good. We do need to worry more about the poor. However, Romney has donated millions to the poor over his lifetime. He has helped the poor far more in his lifetime than most could ever dream of doing. His comments were taken out of context... not just for this one quote, but out of the context of his life as well.
Jason in Hawaii
Looking for verification of the "millions" donated by Romney to the poor...
Donating to his church is not giving to the poor. His High church spent millions in PAC funds to promote bigotry in Calfornia by supporting prop 8.
FZ: What an outstanding show today! We were transfixed. Outstanding journalism when you can get all sides of the issues from your interviewees. Facts, insight, experienced observation, disagreement, qualified opinion, common sense, wow.... what more can an inquiring mind ask of a news show?
Thank you many times over.
I would be interested to hear a conservative response to this article. This is certainly not my area of expertise and I would love to know what the other side of this is. In all sincerity it seems like this information all points to the fact that we, having the most, seem be doing some of the least for our most vulnerable, so what's the argument against it. There has to be some.
Here are only some of the "answers" given by the clever analysts here:
(1) the poor are "moochers" who are addicted and make bad decisions.
(2) the poor are overwhelming us by moving here from countries south of the border
(3) the poor are a fiction created by suspect statistics
(4) the poor would disappear if only "we" could weed out those previously mentioned "moochers" and have the remaining families move to better schools
(5) the poor will magically be upgraded to middle class status once Romney is elected, because R. "understands" poverty
(6) I've got mine, so if you don't have yours, you don't deserve it...
Life expectancy is also the lowest, in facft in ragards to infant mortality and life expectancy we are equal to Cuba AAnd the World Health Organizations agrees that Cuba and the USA are about equal. I guess the Republicans love socialized medicine too.
I agree it was stupid for Romney to say that, but this Zakaria guy I don't like him. I don't know why he is just ugly and has a weird voice, and he should not be on TV.
Your racist instincts are back on. Is it the substance that bothers you or is it your personal hatred towards the person of certain race that bothers you? look in the mirror and your conscience. That's if you have one.
@ Dear June, you do not like the show because you might suffer from an Attention Deficiency Syndrome. It is not the Jerry Springer Show – this is where people try to explain and listen and learn. You should try it. After a while, it is fun!
And I'll bet you don't know what a xenophobe is either.
Well, June, you picked the right person to complain about, what with the ugliness and weirdness of your own commentary...
They sent my Tax Return back! In response to the question: "List all dependents" I replied – "12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads; 42 million unemployable people on food stamps, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico ; and 535 fools in the U.S. House and Senate."
Apparently, this was NOT an acceptable answer.
You left out more than half of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The IRS is picky about that.
Yes Mitt, but remember what your father taught you: but be carefull of their horns.
Dear Mr. Zakaria, you’re very thoughtful, quiet, respectful way of doing your wonderful show is always a pleasure to watch!
A large part of the American public has very little knowledge of what other countries are all about, what the people are like and what their accomplishments are. It is telling that Americans are very “proud”, God is on their side, the greatest country on earth, the strongest, the richest…it goes on and on. What is so sad, this type of thinking has clouded their view of reality. As you describe, the US is behind in many fields and if others get better America sees it as a threat, not giving credit where credit is due. Not being happy to see the result of people working hard, societies coming up with great solutions, also loving their country – not by saying so but by work on a community of inclusion and joint effort for all. The US had a great advantage over many other countries in having gigantic resources in all fields. The American people hang themselves by the lack of education, envy, stupidity (watch the GOP/TP) and greed (profit) over what the country really needs.
What Americans never figured is that the country is robbed by a few of their own. Capitalism has its good points – but it has turned into a cancer that is starting to cover not only the US but the whole world. What has been lacking for many years is a feeling of real fairness, real concern for others at home and abroad. American Capitalism has always taken much more than it has ever given. It costs a lot of lives as it has destroyed the inner values (and I am not talking of “religion”!)of a great country where money has become the only measurement of right or wrong. America has in the end become one-dimensional and empty!
Mitt is NOT WORRIED about the poor but he is worried about the POOR RICH. They rich are afraid they will get a little bit poorer if they have to pay their fair share. Mitt is not worried about himself as he is filthy rich and he not worried about the very poor of our nation. He is worried about the 5% of the top richest of our nation. Romney is a looney and out of touch from reality.
Concern for the poor will not save this country from its economic plight. We need a president with a genuine commitment to stopping the criminal actions of congress and Wall Street.
The citizens of this country (or any other) will not tolerate a president who is powerful enough to accomplish singlehandedly what you propose. Going after "others" always sounds so simple, until one realizes that without at least some of those "others", nothing gets accomplished...
SHAME on Fareed, you omit the MAJOR FACT that according to our own CDC, 71% of poor families with children are NOT MARRIED! How does that compare with other countries? Marriage drops the odds of being poor by 80%–so conservatives like Romney KNOW we need to give tax in entives for marriage, fatherhood and abstinence direcdtives!
ALso, ALL poor women qualify for Medicaid/Access if they are pregnant–why was that not said?
Unfortunately a great number of people think of poor people as lazy and unwilling to work. The fact is, we're not all lazy, and a lot of us WANT to work.....I can think of nothing better. But, alas, we don't put any money in the pockets of candidates so we're sort of on the back burner again. I'll die happy if at some point all people are equal, but something tells me that won't be happening any time soon.
You would think the conservatives who is supposed to be the religious one & the only one who is going to be saved, knows a thing or two about this...
"At the end we will be judged not by how many diplomas we have received, or how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat', I was naked and you clothed me.", "I was homeless and you took me in." Mother Theresa
Much is expected to those who have more...
Ah yes, Mother Teresa, the infamous socialist; just as Rick Santorum...
Or better still, just "ask" him...
Rick Santorum a socialist? HUH??????????????? Did someone change the definition of "Socialist" when I wasn't looking?? ROFLMAFO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You would think the conservatives who is supposed to be the religious one & the only one who is going to be saved, knows a thing or two about this...
"At the end we will be judged not by how many diplomas we have received, or how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat', I was naked and you clothed me.", "I was homeless and you took me in." Mother Theresa
Well said.... The problems will never be solved by the politicians. Not be a Democrat... nor a Republican. Vote for who you want, but at the end of the day the solutions lie with people.
What are we the people, willing to do to be part of the solution? What actions are we willing to do to help those in our own communities?
We can pass the buck to government.... and then blame them when they don't measure up.... because they never will. Or, we can go volunteer.... get involved.... and give of ourselves to those we can help and serve.
Zakaria like many others throws out statistics at us as if they are absolutes. They are not. For example
"We know that we have an education problem with the poor. Seventy-seven percent of our kids who entered high school graduated. Compare that with other rich countries: 90% in Switzerland, 91% in the UK, 93% in Finland and 97% in Germany. Studies show that dropouts are twice as likely to slip into poverty than high school graduates."
The key words here are "entered high school". In most countries not all students go to high school. You have to qualify and if you don't it is off to a trade or tech school. He is also misleading on what Romney meant. After all Romney gives 17% of his earnings to charity to help others. What does Zakaria give? Obama?
'After all Romney gives 17% of his earnings to charity to help others."
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The only statistics I like are the ones that confirm my existing presumptions; no changes of mind allowed...
While I agree that we should worry about the poor, and I also agree that we should worry about income inequality, relative poverty (what the OECD apparently uses) is not the correct metric to use when you want to focus on poverty. It may make for a convenient number to compare across coutries, but it is highly misleading.
In terms of relative poverty, East Timor and Adghanistan are going to look better, not because they have fewer poor, but because they have lower income inequality. Their median income *is* poor.
Unforunately, even by our own national threshold of absolute poverty, our poverty rate is still around 13%, so we don't get off the hook.
Lets see....THE POOR get welfare, food stamps, FREE housing, FREE medical, FREE dental.
Yes worry more about the working class that pays for all the FREE STUFF the poor receive.
Food stamps don't pay for everything and not that many really qualify for free housing. If the poor qualify for so much free medical and dental care, why do we see such long queues when free clinics are occasionally offered? This idea that the poor are so well taken care of is a misnomer that people like to think of so that they don't feel so guilty! Have you ever thought how difficult it must be to keep a job and still make it around to find shelter, medical care, and food? Once can spend all day on a bus traveling around to various places to receive care, food, and shelter, and the buses aren't free!
I LOVE it when journalists MAKE UP stories that don't exist......finish his SENTENCE Zacharia.............."because enough safety nets are in place for them" Zacharia?? How MUCH are we supposed to help those (some not all) who refuse to help themselves!!
The U.S. is no longer home to the American Dream. The social mobility most Americans cling to as an article of faith is a myth. Rich Americans are becoming a permanent aristocracy and it is harder than ever for children of disadvantaged families to break out of relative poverty and ascend the economic ladder. If you are looking for the American Dream, look to Denmark or Austria or Norway or Finland. http://www.panderingpoliticians.com/2011/11/death-of-american-dream.html
No one is listening, because it a political point of honor that all non-U. S successes must be the result of repugnant "socialism"...
Romney us right.
Again I say, Zakaria, why did you come here!?! You are continually critical of this Country and very forthcoming with what you think is wrong and which direction we should all go. "Be more like Europe" seems to be your constant battle cry. But have you earned that right? In my opinion, absolutely not. I would prefer that you either commentate from afar or just say "Thank you" for the rights and prosperity afforded you by 250 years of individual liberty and capitalism fought for and preserved by generations of American families.
Well said! Covering your eyes and ears and shouting "la la la la la" is always the best tactic when confronting uncomfortable statistics...
What Mitt said was that there are many programs for the poor but being poor is certainly not fun. However his primary focus in his campaign is that the middle class is struggling right now. Parents don't see their kids having better lives than they have. Folks don't see economic opportunity and the ability to follow the American Dream. He wants to restore upward mobility for the vast majority of the middle class. I would argue he is correct in saying if we don't save the middle class, then everything else will fall apart anyway. That is who pays the taxes and keeps society moving.
We do have a problem with poor children but just spending more borrowed government money is not a great solution. Not all but many of the poor children today are growing up in single parent homes with little in the way of encouragement for them to study and do well in education. I would suggest that if you could limit child bearing to responsible two parent families that will help their children with the school work – things would be much better. However I know of no way that is in anyway legal to restrict child bearing to responsible adults only. But maybe we could in someway encourage more single parents to put their children up for adoption? Maybe pay parents to put up their child for adoption? I know this is a wild idea but you see Gingrich's idea to provide school cleaning jobs to kids so they can learn responsibility and job skills. Sweden basically takes the children out of the house for most of the day and has the government raise the kids from an early age. We need something different to try to prevent children from being raised in dysfunctional families. (And yes there are many middle class and rich dysfunctional families also – they should not have kids either).
Great idea, Fred! I encourage you to go public, just as soon as you contact the various candidates and let them know how eager you are to endorse the one who agrees with you...
Maybe we should enact China's strict family planning laws....and only permit each family to have one child.
Zakaria...he has already explained what he said so quit trying to be a stupid commie huh...go back to India...we don't think anything of you here other than a waste of flesh and the people back in India don't think of you anymore than a pound of cow dung...
Now that's the way to show how accepting Americans can be of naturalized citizens! Zakaria is an American citizen. Try not to show the rest of the world how ignorant some Americans are.
Always good to hear from a cow dung expert...
Going into 2008, John McCain had the worst voting record when those votes concerned the well being of children. (see Children's Defense Fund) I suspect Romney is probably not the child hater McCain is, but he hasn't voted in the Senate either.
Don't forget we voted for Obama.... and often he did not even show up to vote.
A very large part of the problems outlined in this article are due to the fact that the nations where poverty is much less all have universal health care. About the only thing Romeny has ever done right in politics is the one thing he now denies every doing. You may as well vote for every child left behind, as to vote for any Republican. As my sister says, she sure wouldn't want the current crop of malfeasant misfits running for dog catcher in her town. After all, she cares about her dogs.
It is Ironic that one of the most Christian of policies that Romney enacted as Gov is now the policy that he runs the most from...
Jesus Cared About the Poor – and preached specifically about helping the poor.
To be a Christian one must follow the teachings of Jesus.
So if you do not help the poor as Jesus taught, then sorry, but you are not a Christian no matter how many times you attend church, no matter how many times you pray, no matter how many Crosses you own, no matter how many images of the Virgin Mary you see in toast, you just ain't a Christian...
There will always be jigs that would rather smoke crack than go to school, it's their thing
Such a clever remark...
Well, the Conservatives are always telling us how the poor are poor because they want to be...not because of they have no opportunity to lift themselves up, no, that couldn't be the reason. Besides the Reichwingers follow the hate, bigotry, racism, war and death Jesus, you know, they darkside Jesus.
Hate, bigotry, racism, war.... Unfortunately those are not confined to a political party, a specific ethnic group, or how much one has in their bank account. For every "right winger" you loath.... there is a "left winger" with the same character defects.
You are correct about those 'traits" having no boundaries. I do however question, seriously question your one-to-one ratio. That, in my experience, is not the case.
I find the late Harry Reasoner's approach quite reasonable where he said "get to know someone before you tack on a label."
I normally really enjoy zakaria's articles even if i don't agree with them, they are well thought out and very relevant.
However, the basis of discussion here where poverty is arbitrarily set at half the median income is meaningless. Zakaria, make a better effort next time.
I hated what Romney said, i thought it glazed over a growing problem, but you lose the discussion here because your baseline was poorly selected...shame on you for discounting such a fundamental issue, I'd hate to have you leading this issue cause Romney would shred you to bits, not because he was right, but because you have done such a poor job of preparing your argument.
Apparently Romney was really upset at his headquarters last night because the news was covering the death of Whitney Houston instead of his big night. When someone said it was a tragic news he snapped "That's what happens when those people get a little money!' At least one person caught the remark on a cameraphone because a scuffled ensued. Can't wait to the video on TMZ unless Romney buys it for a few million. That's like what, a days interest to him?
Anyone with a working TV who smokes and eats at McDonalds is not poor by any international standard. Let's have less of these phony comparisons Fareed although I understand they may advance your political agenda.
There will always be some who have less BY DEFINITION or else how would anyone be rich or middle class by comparison?
We are so good at criticizing each other.... Victims vs. Villains... depending what isle of politics you stand on. Each plays that game really well... Its always the other guys fault. Blah Blah Blah..... doesn't it make you nauseous?
Politics... Politicians.... are not going to solve the problems this nation faces. These articles... don't solve anything. (Most can be disproved by fact checking.) You can sit on your thumbs and complain.... or roll your sleeves up and go do something that actually helps your own communities.
People are the solution. People that get in there and help get it done. Political party affiliation not required. Just a bit of selflessness and humanity.... That is the only solution. If your actions are don't lend to the solution.... then you are part of the problem.
It is not clear what POVERTY really means using the metric quoted in the program. The metric obviously relates to the relative distribution of income within a country and no doubt is easy to compare across countries; but does it mean the people below that line are "poor". Does income include all sources of income such as food stamps, welfare, medicare, undisclosed income etc? What matters is surely absolute poverty and given the choice I'd rather be "poor" in America than most countries of the world.
Reblogged this on Outspoken and commented:
Not just Mitt Romney, but all the rest of them, too.
" In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of"
Confucius
It's called the Ultimatum Game. The first player proposes a split of some gift of money. The other player chooses whether to accept the proposed split or reject it. If the offer is rejected neither player gets anything. The game is played only once and anonymously so expectation of reciprocity is not a factor. Logically, the second player should accept any non-zero offer. In actual experiments people tend to reject offers less than about 20%.
Versions of the Ultimatum Game designed for experiments with non-human primates show similar results. When one primate sees another consistently rewarded with more food or a more favored food for the same effort or less they eventually reject their lesser gift or even throw it at the experimenter. An innate sense of fairness, of justice is apparently a primate birthright, an evolved trait going back millions of years.
Republicans who ignore today's Gilded Age income divergence are ignoring something more visceral than self-interest or even greed. At some point the non-rich will decide that the split is too unfair and reject it, possibly violently. This isn't just an issue of political philosophy or even logic. It's biological fact. Republicans ignore it at their peril.
More: http://www.panderingpoliticians.com/2011/11/ultimatum.html
In a time of economic crisis, it's noteworthy to see this blog overflowing with comments on the poor.
Is their some deeper emotion at work here–besides fear?
Almost 45% of ALL of Americans are poor or very poor, and Romney really doesn't care about them, or the middleclass. Every Republican tax plan would raise taxes for all but the wealthy & corporations. Time to raise taxes on those that can afford it the most & educate & put to work the rest of the country that accounts for 70% of GDP. Hoover, Reagan, & Bush all changed America for the worst. Time to to bring back a government that will reverse their Gaming of the system for the wealthy!!!
The best way to stop poverty is to stop the poor breeding. If you do this you eliminate future generations of useless citizens. Cruel but true.
So poor = useless; never thought of it that way before...
All of these differences depend to the social/economic structure of society, which seriously required to be corrected. Not like Mitt to be neglected. So it doesn't mean that you (Romney) need nothing in ur life, because the wealth u have collected, actually obtained from the hard work of other people including poors. But now u don't care about those human being. So in this case nobody care about you too. You don't have the capability to be president of this great nation. Your brain and mind is limited only to ur wealth, no matter how did you get it. wrong way or .......???. So please be realistic. Keep in mind that you can not make fool the knwledgeable people of America.
Romney gives 17% of his earnings to charity to help others. What does Zakaria give? Obama? You? Biden? Kerry?
Exclude contributions to one's religious organization as a "charity"; how much went to feed the starving masses or cure disease? BTW, the one million given to the Mormon organization, and the one million to others, do not add up to 17%.
Dear Fred,
Excellent analysis. It is really based on reliable current statistics and scientific information. Your effort to reveal the rality is really admirable. Wish you the best.
Fred... ? I did not know Fareed has taken to owning and running a 7-11 ?
OK CNN, why would you say Israel is below poverty, when clearly they are doing well, they even give free homes to JEWISH settlers to live on Palestinian territories, did you know that? OHHH.... you meant Palestinians are Poor, totally different, yeah so the West bank and Gaza they live on a very low income because they are very limited to outside sources, they also do not export things because that would be considered as Israeli property. THEY ARE CAGED IN BY WALLS like the former Berlin walls, they aren't even allowed to travel freely in their own territorial lands. The only way they can make money is, to migrate and that is the Israeli plan to make life so impossible to leave their homes, that is if they haven't taken it away from them forcefully. This is occupation, I wish people can see through different lens, to see distress of oppression. Anyways poverty is everywhere but when I heard the poverty graph I just don't want people to be confused or misleading, like on FOX when they put those FAKE commercials to aid Israel and the US does so much funding already in the BILLIONS. Anyways LIFE isn't ever fare. wish the world economy gets better, we spent so much on war , we have to start rising for better things in our future it is never too late.
I agree 100% with what anther said. But what about dealing with poverty world wide, which is a global responsibility. Rather than leading alliances to fight what we label as dictatorship in other countries, shouldn't we build a real alliances among nations to fight poverty every where, and work on eliminating poverty and unjust that proved to be the main cause for violence, conflicts, corruption, and lasting dictatorships in so many countries. Were do we stand on the UN Milelenume goals?? Have they become things from the past with the present global economic crises? We think global on environment .. let us think global on poverty too... that is the real battle for democracies !!!
You can see that type of candidate that wants to President,who doesn't know the percentage of poor people in his own country!!! Yes,vote for him and all shall be well!!!
Let me guess Romney earned his millions for investments in businesses that pay low income jobs? Seriously the question has to be why there are so many people poor in the US? The answer is pretty simple, they become exploitet at the labor market. See 17,3% in poverty is much higher than the unemployment rate which means that although many Americans are working they stay poor, because their wages are too low.
If we then would look at the ethical background of Americans in poverty, we all would notice that especially none-whites not to say especially afro-americans are over proportional poor. So there is more or less still a race discrimination in the labor market.
In other words it seems that politic does not want to talk about poor people, because the majority of the poor Americans is black or generally none-white.
And if we look then in the world with the giant starving mass of 1 Billion people regarding WHO reports, then we also notice that majority of the poorest people is none-white and it seems that western world just do not want to create aid.
Ignoring the poor means to let them die. Imagine the US could create millions of new jobs just to produce food to supply the starving people in the world, wood to build houses and furniture, medical devices and medical drugs, consumer electronics and goods etc.
But instead US politics decided to produce nothing, to let Americans better stay unemployed and to let the poor in the world just die. Isn´t this irony? Must be intentionally or not?
Romney has yet to play his strongest suit, promising to share with the masses access to financial gimmicks that enable one to transfer assets to progeny tax free, and bloat tax deferred IRA account beyond all limits. Once we all have the keys to his financial success, the national debt issue will be moot, since no one need pay. Our grandchildren will have the inherited assets to hire the most clever of tax accountants, and as individuals incorporate, they will be exempt from taxation as promised by the GOP.
Can't figure why the GOP laments our grandchildren, when they have the plans to unburden them.
Sounds cold but the poor get what they deserve. They vote against their own best interest and make bad financial decisions repeatedly. No sympathy here.
Romney is a liar! He meant what he originally said, he doesn't care about the poor, period! As Governor of MA he decided that to balance our budget the easiest thing would be to pull the rug from under the poorest and most defenseless of our state. He decided to halt all coverage of prosthesis, eye wear and dental for those on MassHealth. Since Masshealth is the state health coverage for the disabled and poor he basically was saying... eh you are poor, sorry you lost your leg but you are just going to have to hobble around now, and if you one of the states mentally disabled then I guess you really don't need to see, or have your teeth taken care of. That is Romney's legacy... going after the disabled and poor because well... they don't count really. Several disability rights groups fought back and made him reverse this but it just goes to show that this multi millionaire wants to be president for one reason, ... money and power. If you think he cares about your middle class behind you are fooling yourself.
Q: Why do the poor have so little money?
A: So the wealthy can become even wealthier.
At least there is acknowledgement by the author that Romney is 100% in touch with the majority of Americans in that no does truly care about the poor. People will come on here spouting about whose fault it is or whose responsibility it is, but the VAST majority want nothing to do with the poor. When was the last time you volunteered? How much have you donated to support an initiative? When was the last time you pushed to allow a homeless shelter established in your neighborhood?
False idealism is nothing when you personally aren't willing to truly involve yourself.
Personally, I think that there is growing population of people living in poverty and it has nothing to do with who is in office. The government as a whole has basically made it acceptable to fail at everything – with no sense of self responsibility or accountability. From failing in school, to failing to find a sustainable career, to irresponsibly having children – people increasingly feel it is the governments role to take care of those that can't/won't take care of themselves. Add to that a complacency as far as ILLEGAL immigration and you have a whole additional increasing population that adds to the poverty levels – yet feel no remorse for the burden they are to society.
Until you can look in the mirror and say that you yourself are doing something to help the poor – no one should criticize Romney for speaking the truth...whether its politically correct or not
never forget that this zakaria guy is an obama advisor....so now he is in campaign mode knocking the repubs..... no surprise that cnn is supporting obama (again) ... not enough hope and change yet????
I accidentally watched a few minutes of Fox news while in a restaurant yesterday and there was Sarah Palin flapping her gums. I was immediatedly reminded of what a repulsive oaf she is and how glad I am that she burned all her little teabagger buddies.
I saw that too....why oh why is she back in the news? Did Russia move closer to her home or something?
Mitt will fake that he cares about them just long enough to swindle a vote out of the stupid ones. Then he'll pull a 180 and go right on screwing them into the ground at every chance he gets.
Just wondering how much longer the MSM and writers for CNN are going to twist Romney's statement to fit their political agenda. Everyone else knows what he meant; at least those with a brain cell. If middle income America and small business is doing better then the poor will do better as well because there will be more jobs. More jobs for the poor is not what the intellectual leftist elite really want.
There is not statute of limitations on lies told to further a liberal cause.
Fareed -
I love your articles and look forward to them all the time. This one is a little more deceptive than most. I think it was the frame of reference you had when writing. "Very" poor versus poor. Half of the median income is not "very" poor, simply poor and – part of the middle class that Romney is concerned about. (At least according to his percentages...
)
You only reference very poor once or so at the beginning and once or so at the end. The whole rest of the article is addressing simply the poor. I have come to expect a little better writing than this misleading article. Perhaps politics is a more biasing subject than most – that it gets us to leave good principles and look at our world a little less objectively.
I hope it was your frame of mind at the time. Often we get something stuck in our head and it takes a new day to look at it objectively again. I still remain a fan of your journalism. It usually is dead on.
Very good points by this astute journalist. The U.S. is a horrible place to be "poor." We won't even buy the very poor a house – we only give free cell phones, food, healthcare, daycare, etc. I would much rather be a poor person in another country because they know how to take care of the poor much better. People who can't interpret Romney's words are idiots. He doesn't care about the very poor at this point in time because programs are set up for them to be taken care of.
You don't know the meaning of the word poor if you think being poor in America is bad.
Zakaria is ABSOLUTELY right. Of course, we all know how well "fixing" things for the poor would go under a repub president and repub congress! That proposal would be dead on arrival with them.
Life for the poor is really going well under Obama, right?
Correct. Life for people who are lazy and shiftless is never easy unless they get a handout at our expense.
Unions call it a pension.
Reblogged this on SaltyPoliticalMusings.
zakaria is a pig and should not be taken seriously...the tax rate of those countries is so crazy that is why they are rioting in the streets...I can't believe how many stupid people there are in the US....socialism does not work...survival of the fittest!
Zakaria.... not only
Romney...
How about you Zakaria ,, how about giving some of your 100,000 a year salary to the poor around you also...
Dont judge others when you cant give to the poor either,,, hypocrisy....
Fareed, no mention of the 60 bucks that Mitt HIMSELF took out of his pocket and gave to the poor black lady 3 weeks ago? Or does that FACT just totally blow your argument out of the water?
Correct Mike,
Zakaria is good at putting down others for not giving, but he himself cant spare a dime for the poor.
Hes to busy putting the 1000 dollar make up on each day....an HYPOCRITE!!
Yeah...and that $60 Mitt gave to the poor black lady will likely find a way onto his taxes as a campaign expense and counted as cheap PR that would have cost him a lot more on TV. Nothing is random in his action to give that $60. It was calculated as PR.
Its nice to see some well thought out opinions on both sides of the poverty issue BUT anyone who read more than a dozen lines of this article was wasting their time.
"In case you're wondering how the OECD defines poverty, it calculates the number as the percentage of people who earn less than half of the country's median wage."
Sooo, by this definition, the country were everyone has nothing has no poverty???
It's an easy way to compare MEANINGLESS data across countries
(this does not make anyone's opinion less valid, just eliminates the authors credibility)
The Dow just reached a 4 year high. The Nasdaq just reached an 11 year high.
Obama is the Democrats Reagan.
"The Dow just reached a 4 year high"
Not really an accurate measure of the state of our economy. It just means more of Obama' s buddies like George Soros and Warren Buffet have gotten richer.
Mr. Zakaria, speaking of George Soros, why didn't you push him on why he isn't out there in the forefront helping Greece. I mean he is such a fan of that model of a society, yet he stands idle on the sidelines. You also didn't ask him why he feels just in pooring so much money into American politics.
We have a social safety net in America and have had since th1930's. LBJ went overborad with his Great Society programs.Fed needs to get out of the business of providing this. Give states block grants and let them handle this task.
These numbers also lie. The government constantly adjusts the income amounts to decided who is 'poor'. Most of the so-called poor in America have at least one car, a cell phone, a computer, and many are home owners as opposed to renters. So while they may qualify as living below the poverly line, I wouldn't consider them 'poor'. When Romney states that 5% or less of Americans are 'poor', he is referring to those that are truly poor and have immediate access to existing welfare, food stamp, housing assistance, and other programs as a safety net.
If you really want to help the 'poor', stop taking so much in taxes such that it takes two working parents to to have one net income left to support their family with. Stop destroying jobs with so many regulations. Stop forcing banks to make loans to people who can't afford them and then become trapped (housing mess). Stop confiscating so much land (government owns about 30% of all land mass in the US today). Stop keeping gas prices so high with court-order-violating restrictions on drilling permits and other domestic production. In short – government get the h*ll out of the way and let the economy and freedom flourish instead of smothering them out.
"In case you're wondering how the OECD defines poverty, it calculates the number as the percentage of people who earn less than half of the country's median wage. It's an easy way to compare data across countries."
That, of course, is an absurd definition.
By that criterion, a "poor" citizen of Kuwait would live as comfortably as an upper-middle-class American or a filthy-rich Ethiopian. It's a criterion designed to make wealthy counties look bad.
If you want to measure poverty, measure the odds of starving to death in the next six months. Measure something absolute, not something relative. My wealth is a microscopic fraction of Bill Gates' wealth. Does that make me "poor?" Of course not.
Fareed,
I still think that poverty is a local problem, and state governments need to be the ones to address it. There are too many middlemen in between Washington and the poor for federal dollars to serve poor children effectively. Federal school lunch WAS a great idea, until the feds starting using those dollars as a stranglehold on how schools function. Today, bureaucracy in schools is staggering, and is a huge reason why qualified, inspired teachers are not going into the classroom – the paperwork just chokes out interest in helping kids.
Food pantries do a decent job when they are stocked. Unfortunately, along with the recession has come a reduction in donations. If the feds just gave food to existing organizations, rather than setting up new ones, those local organizations can effectively use those dollars, since there are few administrative costs to go along with it.
The two working parent or single parent households are also societal issues that deserve attention. I'm not sure what the government can do about it though – limit the number of hours people can work in a week? Households where the parents are rarely home are a major driver of crime, low school performance, and eventual substance abuse. But again, these are problems that localities need to address. And the localities that DO address it should get attention, so that other places can see the quality of life improvements possible.
HUD, AG, INT – these departments' programs are notoriously inefficient and corrupt. Local officials know FAR better how to improve things. Let them.
What you wrote is excellent. It's too bad that Mitt and all of the other candidates (both parties) probably won't read it. Arrogance won't allow them to read anything written by the populace that makes total sense. if they did, we wouldn't be in the predicament we're in.
Fareed,
How are the poor better served? Giving them a handout or setting the conditions so they suceed on their own? You cant do both. I know you may want to be able to in your liberal utopia, but you cant. So which do you do?
obama fits the classical definition of a demagogue, it goes all the way back to aristotle. people employed the same tactics in the athenian democracy. that's why our founders intended for only landowners/homeowners to be able to vote, otherwise its mob rule and they rob the country of all its wealthy citizens. after that happens things typically degrade into tyranny as there are no checks and balances against the government itself. its happened more than once in ancient greece
Mittens will never be President, Obama 2012
Mr. Zakaria,
Please be careful about citing infant mortality statistic in comparing relative national health. These stats are self reported. To my knowlege the U.S. is one of the few nations which report all live births as "births." Many nations that have lower reported infant mortality stats do not record an individual as a live birth until they've reached a certain age milestone (such as several weeks or month) thereby creating an enormous selection bias and skewing the statistics all over the place.
While Fareed makes some good points, his premise of deciding who is and who isn't "poor" is flawed. Under OECD's definition, "poor" being less than half of the countries median income, then the standard of "poor" in the United States is still richer than the median income of several other "rich countries."
It's because of these ridiculous "safety nets" that we have such high numbers.
Lazy people who want to do nothing but collect their government checks every month and contribute nothing back to this country except more bills for the taxpayer.
I love when this discussion comes up and some idiot implies that every poor person in this country is lazy. You don't need a PhD in Economics to realize how wrong that is. All you have to do is look back a few years, when the economy was booming. What was the unemployment rate then? about 5%. That means at least 95% of Americans WANT to work and will work if you give them a job. (Nobody had a gun to their head back then, forcing them to work.) That's better than almost any country in the world. Yet somehow today we have roughly 9% unemployment. Does that mean that the number of lazy people in this country doubled in the last few years? Or does that just mean that there are almost no jobs to be had? And if 95% of Americans are willing to work, why are almost 1 in 5 Americans poor by international standards? Obviously it's not laziness. These people are working and still can't make ends meet.
Fareed has all the statistics so carefully laid out in his Mitt Romney hit piece, when its his guy Barrack Hussien Obama who is presiding over this poor country as Fareed maintains. What does Mitt Romney have to do with today's statistics on poor in America; aren't they owned by President Obama for the last four years? The facts don't reflect on Romney, quite the opposite, they reflect on the hope and change guy President Barrack Hussien Obama.
There's a HUGE difference betweent the truly poor and the parasites. Unfortunately, there are far too many parasites living off those of us who work and the far-left liberal nutjobs are more than willing to buy their votes with OUR money. We need to expose the parasites and cut off ALL govt subsidies from these leeches.
He should be "very" concerned about the "very poor". In fact how do you even objectively define poor from very poor? That's a very subjective and ignorant statement on his part. I think it is safe to say, that the middle-class population has shrunk and many middle-class families continue to fall under poverty lines. Just take a look at escalating violence in some parts of the country such as PA or Newark and many countless others. Violence is on the rise even in places where there usually was very little of it. This is because those areas are becoming increasingly poor and people are desperate. If he can't see the correlation in any of this, he definitely doesn't deserve being president, nevertheless, even hold some other function in congress.
Nancy isn't the current President responsible for the Sate of the Union. Put the blame where it belongs not on the people who are running against him. Violence in America is a Democrat thing just watch the wall Street occupiers.
You cite the problem we are all aware of, criticize the candidate, and offer no solution.
"This is because those areas are becoming increasingly poor and people are desperate."
Really, while I believe this people are much less fortunate for whatever reasons, does this justify violence?
What are they so desperate for, to commit these crimes of violence?
Please cite an example of anyone commiting a violent crime while attempting to obtain food.
Obama will solve everything....he just needs another 4 years
The % of people falling into middle class or poor or even rich for that matter is a living measure and doesn't just stay there for 4 years of a president's term. Thus it doesn't matter what class one belongs to, the President needs to be demonstrate actionable concern for all sections of society. For example the rich may be willing to inject money to fuel the economy as in jobs and growth and so great incentive packages for hiring may be something to consider. The middle class maybe needing a break on certain regulations that were a burden to them as well as unfair and so needs some ratification as well. The porr probably got there because of someone else' fault as in bankruptcy filing or a disaster that was natural and unfortunate.
Targeting one class of Americans alone doesn't solve the problem but only alienates the president. On the other hand by bringing people together at the same table, it is possible for viable solutions addressing all sections of society.
SN
We are all just cannon fodder for Obama's amusement.
Another liberal telling us who to vote for and what to think.
And if you don't vote, they will be happy to cast your ballot for you !
I'm not disputing that there are a lot of poor people in the US; however, the OECD formula is really just measures income inequality rather than poverty. A figure based on purchasing parity would be more meaningful.
If we want to reduce the number of poor we need to stop letting people have babies they can not afford. A high school dropout who can't even get a job at McDonalds shouldn't be allowed to have multiple children so she can live off of welfare or even pass on her genes. That's not fair to her children and not fair to society who has to pay for her.
With the population growth how it is we will eventually have to start restricting who can and cannot have a baby.
Why does my tax dollar have to go towards the poor? So that I can join them? Let the Rich and Corporations end child poverty. They all certainly make enough money to take care of it.
Take Mitt Romney and put him in a sack with all the other GOP presidential hopefuls. Then put Sarah Palin in that sack just for good measure. Then beat the sack with a large piece of wood. You'll get the right one everytime.
The GOP see this report and thinks, "... damn have to work harder." they won't settle for anything higher then 35.
Hey Zakaria, quit campaigning for Obama and try acting like an objective CNN correspondent (is that an oxymoron?) The poor employ no one except government workers. Help the middle class and those who EMPLOY people (that's not the poor) and the poor will stand a chance and not be poor anymore. Remember Abraham Lincoln's quote " The poor will not be lifted by dragging down the rich"
And how many people on this list donate more than 10% of their income to charity? Romney does. To claim he doesn't care about the poor is a stupid statement. He puts HIS money where his mouth is. And his full statement was – if there holes in the safety net, he'll fix it. Maybe knee-jerk liberals should get an education and actually read his entire statement (all -three sentences) He probably (naively) thinks that everyone gives to the poor, because he was brought up to help others. Let's square his actions against liberals like joe biden. I spent more on gas last month than he gave to charity. Here's the tagline for Joe: So stingy, he can't even spare gas money for the poor. Perhaps, Fareed, you should do a BS story on that.
Corrected Abraham Lincoln quote "You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong"
The OECD's method of calculating the percentage number for the poor is NOT a good way to compare across countries. America's median wage is $31k, the 2nd highest in the world. Thus our poor may not be as poor as these other countries. You have to use a metric that compares their relative standards of living. Our poor, as OECD defines it, can make as much as $15k/year. France's poor can make up to $10k/year. The cost of living in France is 18% higher.
You have (conveniently?) left out the fact that French people enjoy benefits Americans do not: a retirement with pension; high quality, affordable health care; excellent public transportation. Everybody in France has this added value in their lives, whereas few Americans can claim even one.
Dear Fareed Dhiarrea,
You must be dumber than you look in that photo at the top. Who do you think has increased the number of poor people in America? Why it's your old buddy and fellow liberal, Barack Obama. It would be nice to blame Mitt Romney but it would not be true. Apparently the truth doesn't get in the way of your opinion very often.
Thank you for the article with some facts. We all need to be concerned. It could be anyone of us.
Gosh, for such short article, there sure are a lot of comments. I guess I fall on the side of the author. Why do we not lift out our very poor with better educations and better medical treatment? It has been proven (not in this country, but in others) that if you better care for them, then they better care for the next generation, instead of recreating another generation of extremely poor. Yes, there will always be a small class of very poor, and those who chose to be that way, but wouldn't it just sound financial planning to help them now, so they can help themselves and the next generation so we don't have to keep doing it? Great Britian and Germany have already learned that lesson. Why can't we?
Don't elect a super rich like Romney or Trump! The absolut prioirity of the rich once in power is to position and make more money with no end! The only priority is financial dominance! Most rich do not care for anyone, Some rich care a little bit, Very few rich actually give. Even Jesus sais that it is easier to pass a rich thru a needles hole than to enter in the kingdom of God. It is proven; A salvation army bell ringer makes more money at Walmart than Nordstrom! Romoney? Did I spell that correct?
What about if you were rich? Would you then give to the poor? Jesus was right that it's difficult for the rich to be like Him. Romney is not the rich man to pick on in this respect. Look up his charitable contributions, it's over 10%. What does Biden contribute to the poor?
Thank you, Mr. Zakaria. I always enjoy reading your material.
M. Ray Arvand
I am disappointed. You know that Mitt cares about every American. You did not find anything to discuss? What a sham
Mitt is so much out of touch with the reality of this country, he thinks only 5% is poor and we all know with this economy a lot more Americans falls into that catagory and any US president needs to be very concenred about it. Just thinking a safety net would take care of them is not good. There must be policies to deal with them. America should be scared to have a President that thinks like Mitt. He is lives in a different reality.
Very eye-openning article – Thank you Fareed! Anybody know what article he was citing? Wanted to go look at the info for myself. Thanks!
As much as Romney and other conservatives would like to imagine that the poor don't matter, the fact remains that each poor American still has one vote, same as one rich American. Only there are a lot more poor Americans than rich ones. Not too bright, that comment about not being concerned about the very poor.
100% of people are the heart of america. It doesnt matter who is poor or rich. It sounds like a fame game to me. where is equality now a days i hate classification! WE ARE ALL EQUAL I DONT TRUST HIM!!
Many of those that are considered "poor" abuse the system and like the handouts. I see it daily. Kids that brag about their parents monthly checks and free food. If they really wanted to get out of the system, they'd pay attention in school and get an education to get them out of it.
America will always have more poor people than other smaller Western nations. We invite them. They risk their lives to get here. We must at least have a reputation in other nations for getting something somewhat right - despite the far right and far left.
Good article. Good comments.
There are other reasons to help the poor. Our own self interest. My analysis may need the help of an economist, but from what I see welfare to the poor has at least two important functions.
The first function of providing money to the poor is that it is investment in our future. The immediate effects may not be so obvious, but if the poor are made outcasts they can easily be made to feel better about more rigid Marxists philosophies. Even a little capital may help them improve their lives. Oh, yes, there are some risks that many will become addicted to the welfare, but I see no data which shows that all become addicted. The poor that I have seen pull themselves out of the ghettos. The class of poor is a fungible class. The poor move in and out of it, just as, I am told, the rich at the top 1% is also a fungible class with people moving in and out of it.
Second, money circulates constantly. The poor presumably spend their money at the K-Mart. (As you evaluate the money trail, please keep in mind that we are speaking of billions of dollars in circulation here.) The K-Mart managers take a part and spend their money at the accountant. The accountant spends a part of it at the Mercedes dealer. The Mercedes dealer takes his share and spends it at the hotel in Miami. The hotel in Miami spends it on the attorney. The attorney invests a part of it in Bain Capital. Bain invests a part of it in China. Of course, even that comes back to the US because China must spend its dollars somewhere. All of it finally comes back to the taxpayer who will keep that money in circulation ad infinitum.
I don't like Zakaria 'cos he keeps saying that the US of A is not the absolute best in the world. And he keeps throwing statistics and numbers and facts. I don't like all of those. I like to live in the belief that the US of A is the absolute best in everything irrespective of any numbers or study or anything – then I can continue living my blissful and decadent lifestyle without a care in the world (while I wait for Jesus to come back).
Reminds me of Ostrich buring their heads into sand
I really doubt any of Romney's rivals such as Gingrich, or Santorum care about the poor either. A vote for Santorum is a vote for the "most corrupt" senator of 2006. Yes, it is true, that is what the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have said.
. . . ZAKI never stops whining ... if you go back and read his archived columns, it's all the same whining ...
. . . wa,wa,wa,wa,wa...
Romney said he wants to create jobs but based on his history in Bain Capital? He fired hundred of thousands of people. That's what he likes the most! Firing people.
Romney said he wants to build America but based on his investment in Cayman Islands? He believes in investing in foreign land.
Romney said he can relate to American people but he pays 14% tax while we pay 30% tax. Do the math: who is paying for that 16% tax credit? the poor!!!
Romney said he is for middle class but not poor American since he does not care with poor American. I think he lives on his world.
Romney.. Romney.. We dont need you! You just like Whitman. Your money can't buy my vote!
You are not for poor people like me. Just like you said I just made $300k and that's not a lot!!
Whatttt?? I never seen 10k in my whole life!! And you said 300k is not a lot? It's just a joke!
The automatic, drop-kick reaction is that poverty can be solved by giving money away. Financial experts like Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, Clark Howard, and psychologists like Phil McGraw all agree that poverty is not fixed by giving more MONEY away.
There are always people who find a way to survive and make money, even though they really don't have any more skills or education than YOU do. Take my daughter: She is a professional in high tech. On the side, she has two E-Bay businesses, does survery shopping for pay, sells dresses and items she makes herself on embroidery, sewing machines, gives lessons, tutors for cash and is the best bargain hunter I know. Even though it is not necessary, she also practice couponing.
You could drop her off penniless in any US city tomorrow and within a week she would have some kind of a job, a steady income and a place to live, even OUTSIDE her profession.
Giving money away is not the answer. Personal survival is a mindset. There are women raising 3 kids who have a pet grooming business in their basement and practice extreme couponing. Some of them have so much excess food and dry-goods that they have to give it away to charity because they don't have the room.
sanjosemike
This is a test
I am a researcher in causal statistics and causal inference. My job is to look at statistics and research results and tell the unvarnished truth about what they say. It seems that the job of journalists, Fareed as a paragon, is to adopt a point of view, then look for facts and statistics which can be interpreted or misinterpreted (it seems to make no difference) to justify and support their a priori conclusion.
A fair reading of Fareed's piece leads to the conclusion that it is propaganda designed to influence as opposed to a presentation of information and analysis designed to inform. Fareed, was there anything you saw that might contradict the conclusion that you are trying to lead your audience to? If there was, you neglected to mention it. In my experience, research results seldom line up so nicely and neatly, all leading in the same direction and toward the same conclusion.
(continued in next post)
Taking just one example: Fareed stated, "Whatever the causes of poverty, when children grow up in desperate circumstances... studies show that they will be more likely to drop out of high school, be unemployed, use drugs, have children out of wedlock and get ill." This seems like a statement that poverty causes these things, but technically it is not.
Researchers are almost never able to inferred such causal connections and, if you read carefully, you should be able to see that Fareed has scrupulously avoided the overt claim that these associations are causal. The importance of this distinction is that, if poverty caused elevated levels of drug use or unemployment, these could be remedied or at least benefited by supplying money to the family. On the other hand, if the connections are only associative (i.e., correlative), making the family more wealthy would likely have little effect on the outcomes.
(Continued)
Researchers are almost never able to inferred such causal connections and, if you read carefully, you should be able to see that Fareed has scrupulously avoided the overt claim that these associations are causal. The importance of this distinction is that, if poverty caused elevated levels of drug use or unemployment, these could be remedied or at least benefited by supplying money to the family. On the other hand, if the connections are only associative (i.e., correlative), making the family more wealthy would likely have little effect on the outcomes.
But what is Fareed's point here? He doesn't really state his conclusions. Rather, he artfully leaves it to listeners to jump to the unsupported and unproven conclusions that youthful poverty causes increased high school dropout rates, unemployment, drug use, having children out of wedlock, and illness later in life. Fareed did not lie to you directly and tell you that poverty has been shown by researchers to cause all of these ills. It appears that he simply led you to the edge and allowed you to jump, i.e., allowed your mind, which is by evolution predisposed to draw causal connections, to do the dirty work and lie to itself.
(Continued)
Is Fareed so intellectually challenged that he doesn't know that he is doing this or is he so smart that he knows exactly what he is doing and is artfully guiding his audience to accept a set of causal connections that no researcher has proven or inferred? I'm not really sure, but his presentation is crafted beautifully to present only true facts, while leading his listeners to draw invalid causal inferences. Nevertheless the erroneous causal inferences fit perfectly into the argument and conclusions that he wants to lead you through and to.
In getting a deeper understanding of the issues involved here, it is important to know that 30-year-old research on identical twins raised apart has shown that the most important determinant (i.e., cause) of future human behavior is the person's genes; the second most important influence is the peer group he/she associates and identifies with; and the third most important causative factor in future human behavior is the parenting that the child receives. It is an interesting question how poverty would fit into these research findings, but one thing is sure. Fareed has made no real effort to analyze or sort out these complicated factors and their interactions, nor to understand or communicate real and/or meaningful policy implications.
Nevertheless, it is possible to do a first cut analysis of these factors and determine something about Fareed's presentation and its validity. Poverty is the only possible causal variable mentioned, therefore it must be the cause, mustn't it? Never mind that in a child's life thousands of possible causal variables are encountered. Taking a genetic tack, because genes have been proven to be far and away the most important determinant of behavioral variables and also because there effects are more easily explained, maybe a child's parents possess genes that confer intelligence, but also genes that lead to laziness and lack of motivation. If the negative genes trumped the positive genes, those parents would likely be poor. Their children would likely inherit some genes for intelligence and some genes for diminished motivation, distractibility, proneness to addiction, etc. This could easily result in the offspring perpetuating the cycle of poverty, but because of the negative effect of these genes on his/her personality and choices, not because poverty itself caused his/her return to poverty.
To be sure there is a correlation, an association, between poverty and these outcomes, but this association is what in the business we call a spurious correlation, meaning no direct causation between poverty and the outcomes. So changing the childhood condition from poverty to affluence would likely not affect later tendencies toward dropping out, toward unemployment, toward drug use, etc.
Causal statistics and causal inference is still largely in the future for social sciences research, but, when these techniques do see widespread application, the causal connections among all of these and vastly more variables will be established. Then policymakers can utilize the then available large amount of causal information to design interventions which will improve the outcomes which Fareed speaks to, in addition to many others - a consummation devoutly to be wished.
This may sound odd, but I have come to the conclusion, as a result of this analysis and discussion, that there are far too many journalists in the journalism profession and far too few scientists. As a result, I hear with offer my services to CNN as an analyst to counter half-baked propaganda, passing itself off as meaningful commentary and analysis. As an additional inducement, I would note that I don't particularly need money and I am not all Caucasian; I am part Indian, Chickasaw and Cherokee. In today's environment of affirmative action and ethnic diversity (balance?), that should count for something, not to mention that when I open my mouth usually (but not always) something insightful and meaningful comes out, an all too unusual occurrence in 24/7 journalism.
This article makes many assumptions (insert something witty here like "figures don't lie but liars figure") but I'm just going to focus on two.
1) That the solution to poverty is more government and more government programs.
We've tried this before with the "Great Society." How did that work out for us? All these government programs do whether they are welfare, medicare, housing assistance, etc is take money from some people and give to others in an unsustainable way. We end up with individuals that don't work, medical costs that balloon due to subsidizing overuse of medical resources, and people owning homes that they can't afford. As more and more people get on these programs we have to take more and more from less and less people (the rich).
I have no problem with giving the poor a helping hand, but I will not subsidize their standard of living. There is a difference between helping somebody down on their luck and supporting them for the rest of their lives... please keep this distinction in mind.
2) That this solution is what many European countries have in place and look how swimmingly things are going there!
How those government programs in Greece working? OK a cheap shot but valid. Most of Europe has suffered through years of high un-employment but they had better equality OF OUTCOME. This system lasted because the global economy was great and there were enough productive people to carry everybody. That is obviously not the case now. We are seeing a retraction of government services that is only getting worse. I would also caution those readers that believe Europe is some paradise that has our high standard of living but for every single citizen. I actually have been to Europe and can testify this is not the case even in some western European countries.
Conclusion:
I argue that poverty can not be solved by government programs due to their sustainability. There has been and always be poorer people. Just as there will always be better looking people (models) compared to others (you know who you are). It is not equality of outcome we should worry about but the ability to move up (or down) economically through our abilities. The best way to achieve this is increase the ability to produce wealth something the US and the rest of the "West" have outlawed through our brilliant labor and environmental policies.
I agree with your post EvilCon. When the government gets involved it tends to create dependency in individuals and families, and that does not help the the individual, family, community, or nation. I think it is important to help those in true need of assistance, I'm not against that. I am against helping those who don't need it. My husband and I live below the poverty line, but we choose not to receive government assistance. We still live very comfortably. There are times when I wish we had more, but I know all in good time we can, as long as we plan and save. (We both graduated from college a year ago and know things will get better in time).
Growing up I had seven siblings, and things were not always easy. We had good times and hard times. But my parents also decided to not live dependently on the government. We had food, and shelter, and when we saved we could go on fun family trips or do things we enjoyed. There was a family we knew that lived around us that did receive government assistance. They lived in a very nice house, and would go on vacation to Hawaii for weeks at a time. That doesn't seem right to me and that is what I do not agree with.
As for Europe, I lived there for a couple years and I can also say that the average standard of living there does not compare with America's average standard of living. As for the high school drop out statistic, that is not completely accurate because in Germany you take a test before you go to high school. If you pass then you do get to go to a normal high school, if you don't well then not only do you not get to go to a normal high school you also can never go to college, you can't even apply to college and are stuck doing some technical job. In America everyone is allowed to go to high school, and apply and go to college.
Although America has lots of problems, I still think it is a great country, with great opportunities. You just have to work for them.
'peers to me that your campaign to re-elect Obama is in full swing. CNN sure hates Romney.
returned to the states in 1989 to find companies laying off hundreds of people (under Reagan) - got temp jobs because many companies had laid off employees. now, after bush put us into two wars (one totally unnecessary), lowered taxes and put the cost of these wars on a credit card with no way of paying for them, we now have a democrat in office who is expected to reverse the economy created by a republican - get a grip folks! YOU CANNOT LOWER TAXES AND STILL EXPECT TO PAY FOR TWO WARS PLUS KEEP THE ECONOMY GOING AT AN EVEN PACE. americans tend to want the cure to take overnight when it took so much time to get us into this mess. you would think i am a democrat, but i am not - much more independent - but, in this case, you need to look at the reason why the us economy is where it is. now you have a republican congress who, from the getgo has said they will do anything to make obama a one term president - is that the american way!?!?!? perhaps it has become that.
I just came across globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com and I want to say: "What a beautiful picture!" I will surely contact you if we need a professional photographer.
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