Friday, September 08, 2006

Root

2005 census data shows that one in eight Americans lives in poverty. For children under 6 years old, that number rises to one in five.

I’m inclined to agree with Steve Earle who said, “There's more than enough here to take care of everybody. Any reason someone offers you for why people can't get a job or can't get enough to eat or can't get medical attention is bullshit. There's no other explanation than greed.”

Anyone else care to take a stab at explaining how or why the richest, most powerful nation on Earth accepts and justifies such high poverty levels?
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2 comments:

shirley said...

I don't know who to blame either. But what really gets to me is seeing jars or cans in stores with a picture of someone begging for money to pay for an organ transplant because their insurance coverage is insufficient. These people were born here and obviously work or have a working spouse or parent.

Then I see a news story about someone being flown in from a foreign country along with all of their immediate family and receive free medical care while their family is given lodging and food, etc. all free of charge.

It's the working poor who are getting the shaft or "falling between the cracks" as they like to say.

3:13 PM
Debbie H. said...

That's a tough question. For me it brings up way more questions than answers. For example:

What exactly is the definition of poverty? Has that definition changed? Or has it been exactly the same since it began to be measured? And if the definition is constantly changing, then how do you make comparisons with the past?

If the number of children in poverty is rising, what does that mean? Is the rise in single parenthood causing that number to rise? How does greed play into that?

Is poverty ever a result of the choices made? If we took everyone's money and then divided it evenly among each person, would it stay that way? Or would things eventually change as people made voluntary transations, some making wiser (or luckier) choices than others, ending up with a disparity again? And if this would always happen, then what do you do, select a set number of years to "recalibrate" everything and divide the wealth up again?

What does Earle mean when he blames it all on greed? Who's greed? Is he blaming the "rich?"

When someone does make a bad choice, say messing his/her life up with drugs and then suffers the consequences of finding it hard to get a job, etc. is greed the problem?

12:46 AM

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