Being Poor

[Sandman]

[PoS]

[Mathurin]

[Spider]

[Spider]

[godisnotreal]

Conservatives seem to believe that poverty is the fault of poor people. This is based on the assumption that America is the "land of opportunity" - that anybody can grow up in absolute poverty and through self-determination and hard work, become a millionaire. While this is a nice vision, it simply isn't true. American is not the land of opportunity. Social mobility is now lower in American than in many other industrialized nations, including Canada and many European nations. So you can't blame all poor people for being poor, just like you can't give credit to all rich people for being rich. The system is rigged. Mitt Romney isn't rich because he was "self-determined." He's rich because his parents were rich. And similarly, most poor people are poor because their parents were poor. Of course there are anecdotes of people going from rags to riches. But you can find anecdotes about almost anything. The truth is, our society and government gives rich people so many advantages over poor people, that the concept of America as the "land of opportunity" is no longer alive.

[Homer]

Slightly off topic, but low & medium incomes in America have been stagnating or falling for the past 30 years and there doesn't seem to be much chance of that changing any time soon. So, for the past 1/3 of a century, only the rich have been getting richer. How long can society's wealth continue to accumulate in the hands of the top few before the rest of us decide we've had enough?

[Mathurin]

[Homer]

[Mathurin]