The hurricane has forced images of struggling poor people into the comfortable living rooms of middle- and upper-class Americans who have, as Eagle columnist Mark McCormick pointed out, been able to avoid seeing or even thinking about the effects of poverty.
A lot of people seem to think that poverty can be easily escaped and that poor people remain poor because they refuse to take the steps to lift themselves up. Usually the people saying that have never experienced abject poverty. A couple of books that shed light on the realities of poverty and why it is so difficult to escape are: “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich and “Savage Inequalities” by Jonathan Kozol.
It remains to be seen whether this tragedy will spur policy changes that reduce the number of poor people in this country, but continued talk of tax cuts for the wealthy and the elimination of the estate tax don’t provide much hope.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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63 Comments
Actually, racial realities have been forced into our living rooms! The myths of “diversity is strength” and “all races are equal” have been forever laid to rest. The events in New Somalia after Katrina have been a leftists nightmare!
And a fascist’s dream.
What famous talk show host lived off of welfare for two years?
Rush “I’m On Drugs” Limbaugh.
Now that he makes a quarter BILLION dollars a year who does he condemn?
Welfare recipients, of course . . .
Ian–how’s living with a wasting brain disease working out for you?
I’ll bet Ian even thinks blacks of 100 years ago strung themselves up for lynching. It just COULDN’T have had anything to do with pervasive racial prejudice. Nah, that’s just silly.
Of course another view of poverty and its causes is this book by Charles Murray or several by Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams. Sowell and Williams, being black by the way. Of course Melissa is unfamiliar with these authors being, well, conservative and all :-)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465042333/104-8755970-5819114?v=glance
Mental “poverty” (a lack of facts, simplification of an otherwise complex issue, or just plain lunacy) coupled with a complete lack of empathy sure makes just not having a job or money seem pretty good. Ian, there’s an old saying…a closed mouth gathers no feet.
Good one, Brian. Here’s another one for Ian:
An empty skull gathers no gray matter.
Hey Brian,Mark Twain said that everybody is ignorant, only in different areas. Maybe that should be paraphrased to “Everybody is impoverished, only in different ways.” Hey, if the shoe fits, you didn’t buy it from this administration!
Jed,
That’s a good point. Well put. I guess realizing that you’re an ignorant SOB is where the value lies.
BTW Ian…I was brought up in a city called Lawrence in Massachusetts. During my childhood, the place was just overrun with Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc. who were brought in by the local farmers to use as cheap labor. Well, it goes without saying that they just destroyed the city. Some were caught using their cabinet space as chicken coops and some even dug holes in the floors to have a cooking “hearth”. Since that time, I’ve always thought that beaners and spics were kind worthless trash. Hey, your last name is Santiago, isn’t it?
Hehehe, Brian.
I tried that tack too with Ian.
Didn’t work. He apparently is unaware that “Santiago” is a Hispanic name.
Brian, Galahad,Ian claims to be of pure WHITE Spanish descent. Guess he never heard about the Moors of Spain!
Which is it, libs? For or against the war? For or against tax increases? You people give schizophrenia a bad name! Disagree with my party’s positions, but at least we have a position!
Six days after ABC’s Diane Sawyer pressed President Bush about raising taxes, her colleague, Charles Gibson, also exploited the hurricane disaster to raise the subject of a tax hike with Senator Hillary Clinton. Following his Wednesday interview on Good Morning America with Clinton, Gibson related how “just before we went on the air” he “asked her given the fact that it’s going to cost so much for recovery and with what we’re spending in Iraq whether we’re not going to have to raise taxes.” Gibson fretted: “You can’t get a politician to say definitively we’re going to have to raise taxes.
Hillary, profile in courage.
Sorry Charlie, know that whole no tax increase thing hurts :-)
Hillary, Jimmy? That’s all you got? Hillary sucks.
Well, she doesn’t suck as much as Bush sucks, because Bush sucks BLUE FLIPPING WHALE, but she’s no friend of mine.
We need to
1. get out of Iraq immediately. You don’t make a mistake better by continuing to do it.
2. raise taxes on the rich back to pre-Bush levels and then some and lower taxes on everyone making less than 100 grand a year.
3. “windfall profit taxes” should immediately be levied on oil companies. If they’re going to make record profits, then they can help pay for the military control of the Middle East that allows them to make those profits.
That’s how this liberal sees it. Hillary can shove it; she and her husband don’t speak for me and they never have.
Bill Clinton is why Al Gore is serving his second term right now and we have the WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER. running our great land.
Hey Brian,
I was actually born and grew up in Brookline Massachusets and I too think that non-White latinos are the scum of the earth. However, I am a 6ft3 inch White Cuban-American with sandy brown hair,light blue eyes and an IQ of 157! Nobody has ever mistaken me for a short, stupid beaner or a nappy haired, urine colored dominican/puerto-rican halfbreed!
And a .5″ long penis. Can’t forget that, Ian! Or, at least, your wife can’t.
Actually poverty in American is perpetuated by liberal and leftist policies that are fashioned by the Democrats in the political system.
It is no coinencidence that the most poverty striken areas have been and are controlled by corrupt liberal politicans. New Orleans, Detroit, Memphis, D.C., you name it.
The liberals need to drop the Communisit Manifesto and look towards more productive policies that can reverse the growing poverty in these cities.
I am going to ignore the previous idiotic comments and move back to the topic!
Irregardless of the nasty politics going on, I believe one good thing has come out of this tragedy. This is the most poor black people have been truly represented on American television. Sure there are a few that are bad seeds, but just a few, compared to many of the good people I have seen. Most of the people I have seen have been full of love for their children and their families. They have helped strangers and have helped each other survive. How many contributing to this blog would help a stranger out in need when you are also in need?Instead of dismissing them as “those people”, those of us with our eyes and hearts open realize that we are all alike in many ways.
I agree with you janabanana. With the exception of the first sentence of course. ;)
CF,
You monkey loving leftists seem consumed with thoughts of dicks and assholes. In a perfect world all racemixers would contract aids and remove themselves from the gene pool! ROTFLMAO
Hey this blog is working out great.
Ian,
An IQ of 157, eh? Well, you’ve certainly shown how adept you are at hiding it.
And, of course, it remains the case that you crave dark-skinned cocks in your mouth and ass. How else to explain your fixation with those you purport to hate but can’t stop talking about?
Methinks thou doth protest too much, Ian.
Hehehe, CF–It’s the old coffee spew . . . you got me, dude.
But really, have mercy on the poor guy. Just because he wants Cuba to return to a corrupt dictatorship run by the Mafia is no reason reveal his barely conceled sexual fantasies.
As for Joe, where is the poorest county in the United States–Detroit, New Orleans, Oakland?
No, it’s in Nebraska and it votes Republican every damn election.
You might actually want to do some investigating (I won’t dignify it with the term “research,” that’s what real scholars do) before you blithely repeat what you heard on Rush . . .
Just learn to use “google” and type in some key terms before you humiliate yourself by spreading right-wing disinformation.
BTW, Joe, have you ever actually read “The Communist Manifesto”?
Because if you had, you’d know that Marx basically said that power belongs to whoever is numerically superior.
If you develop a society that has more poor people than rich, the poor have every right to use their superior numbers to seize the wealth of the rich.
Is that what you see happening in American cities, in the past, now or ever?
No?
Then you can cool it with the communist talk, can’t you?
Galahad. I actually do have a copy of the Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx also said that Communisim was an aspiration, the goal is socalism.
He did not predict Communisim taken place for a long time, if not centuries.
Yes! The poor seize the wealth of the rich in America. Because America is a socialist nation. 50% of Americans pay no taxes, or are actually tax revenue reciepents, the largest employer in this country is government, tax dollars go to the poor and middle class along with infrusture. The Rich, get very little, if not, any benefit from tax revenue.
You might say government gave the rich tax cuts. No! The government doesn’t GIVE the rich anything. All it did was take less from them. But you leftist say they don’t deserve it. Since when do people make the choice of what somebody needs and deserve? To me! That is communisim, class envy, and dangerous and repressive thinking on your part. The masses DO take from the rich!
Joe,Or another way to think about it might be that the rich, who have benefited the most from our system, owe back the most. They are paying their fair share so to speak. There was a time paying one’s fair share, doing one’s part, was not such an awful thing or horrible burden.
A major cause for poverty is that a great many Americans have too many scruples. I grant ya this… a selfish mean bastard will have absoltely no problem at all getting rich in this country.Someone less mean and nasty but willing to do the bidding without question of that mean nasty upper crust is gonna do ok too.
But for me and most people, we just want to get by, live our lives and help others as much as we can. You see this in New Orleans, where folks “loot” food and baby supplies and then distribute them to those who need them.
I liked the poster who outed fat mouth Rush for a welfare recipient. This exeplifies the rights role in poverty. They make no apologies for any societal help they get offered (Ronald Reagan collected his social security) They “rise above” by figuring out how to lie to and exploit others in their situation, and they sit on high and pronounce the very folk who made them “lazy”
The ironic thing is that by its very pursuit of greed, the right is stirring the storm it most fears. This started with Reagan and has accelerated since…..gaining breakneck speed under bush.
Word to the right? The next pics of folks stuck on roof tops might be of you and yours. It won’t be water brought by a natural storm that surrounds you and swallows your possesions. It may well be mobs of people whose anger and desperation you make stronger every day. Thing is there won’t be any helicopters coming to rescue you……..Whether you believe it or not, that scares me. It ought also to give you pause.
I’m an optimitic person and I believe in the potential in people, also I feel that we must always help the poor and do what we can do do a fair share, if not, unselfish share.
But can somebody define what greed is?
There will always be a rich and poor. Middle Class people struggle and work very hard. But not all of us will be rich, it is a struggle and hard work just be to middle class, and being poor is a hole that is hard to climb out.
But attacking rich people I do not think is the answer. I think we need to look at what has worked in the past to help many people out of poverty and what has not or furture people into poverty. I do not think it is about the Donkey and the Elephant on this one. We have to look at the policies and mind-set that helps people and those that don’t.
I think going more towards the socalist end of the specturm does not work, and capitalism does work to help people. China for instance has placed more than 250 million people out of poverty by adopting aggressive capitalism. But with it, also comes problems too. It’s not perfect, but it is better than leftist ideals.
That is why I condemn the left. It is not that I think you guys care or not intelligent. I believe you guys have the right heart, but just the wrong ideals and policies to help poor people.
Joe,Fair enough. Thank you for a thoughtful post.I also believe in the potential of people and the one thing I think that the Rebpub’s have right is that welfare takes away more from people than it delivers. But people also sometimes, at least, need help. This latter crux of positions is what keeps this blog and others going.Thanks again for your efforts.
JR,
You seem to forget that most of us on the right are gun owners and NRA supporters.
I am not afraid of an angry mob surrounding my place. I pitty those who would actually try to storm my house!
Has anyone else heard the rumours about the 17th street levees being blown before the storm hit to protect the historic district in lieu of the 9th ward?It is an interesting fact that the majority of the wealthy white neighborhoods are barely damaged?
I think it is more logical that the more expensive homes were initially built on higher land. They knew what they were doing even two hundred years ago.
Nathan, holed up in your house with a bunch of guns may seem a glorious way to go out, but wouldn’t it be better to persue policies that didn’t get us into that situation in the first place? People join the ranks of the poor for a variety of reasons, witness Boeing employees over the past few years.Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems the numbers of poor are rising a lot faster than the rich.
I’d hate to see this country plunged into chaos and civil war, but JR’s hypothisis has crossed my mind before. It’s probably not a healthy situation to have a large majority of the country become “have nots”. While I think armed insurection is unlikely, I wouldn’t classify it as an impossibility. The French Revolution is a case in point of what happens when all the wealth is concentrated in a small portion of society.
BTW, There are armed Liberals, too (myself included). And mobs seem to find ways to get guns.
See, Joe, that’s exactly what I’m talking about–”50% of Americans pay no taxes, or are actually tax revenue reciepents, the largest employer in this country is government, tax dollars go to the poor and middle class along with infrusture. The Rich, get very little, if not, any benefit from tax revenue.”
You heard that on Rush, didn’t you.
That’s why it’s not true. He hardly ever says anything that IS true.
Everybody who buys anything in this country pays taxes–it’s called “sales tax.” It’s a small percentage of total tax for people like Rush–that’s why they act like it’s not a tax. But it’s a whopper for poor people.
The gov’t also levies property taxes on houses. The poor have to live somewhere too, and even if they rent, they still have to pay property tax indirectly through their rent.
As for the idea that the rich get less in taxes back, that would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. You’re saying that Dick Cheney’s stock options in Haliburton don’t benefit from the company hitting its all time high stock price thanks to massive gov’t contracts? You’re saying that huge agri-business doesn’t benefit from gov’t subsidies, that UPS doesn’t benefit from taxpayer funded roads, and engineering firms don’t benefit from taxpayer funded college education.
Ridiculous . . .
Here’s another fact you won’t hear on Rush: conservative (or red) states like Kansas receive more money FROM the federal gov’t than they pay in through taxes.
Liberal (blue) states like New York and Michigan, that have the largest share of urban poor that conservatives love to blame for everything, actually pay more TO the federal gov’t than they get back in benefits or grants.
This means if you live in Kansas like Joe and me, you are forcing urban and coastal states to finance you.
What we have in this country is not welfare for the poor–we have welfare for conservatives.
Nathan–you don’t have a decent job, but by golly, you’ve got all the GUNS you want.
That’s American conservativism in a nutshell . . .
Why are there lots of stories of people who have climbed out of poverty, but none of successful people who fell into poverty and can’t find their way out?
poverty is a behaviorial disease.
The problem with our welfare system is that it does not make the poor admit that their way of life doesn’t work. It just says here, here is some money and a vision card now go and make no changes to your life whatsoever and expect your life to change. It dosen’t force them to look in the mirror and say to themselves “you know, life is kicking my tail, my plans don’t work, so im going to start to listen to people who have this thing figured out. I am going to do the things that make that guy over there successful”.
The only thing that makes you diffrent than you are today is the books you read and the people you hang around with.
Changing those two things doesn’t cost hardly a thing but can drastically alter your course in life.
Welfare shouldnt’ be a handout for the poor. It should be a hand up for everyone. Education shouldn’t be only for the people who can afford it.Don’t tell me student loans and Pell grants are the answer, because they just aren’t enough to go around.
Galahad”Nathan–you don’t have a decent job, but by golly, you’ve got all the GUNS you want.
That’s American conservativism in a nutshell . . .”What??? I thought conservatives were all rich white guys. If they’re not all rich white guys, then who the heck has all the money?I’m heading back to the past and chew on some vegetarians.
dr…when welfare started to deny recipients their benefits if they went to college, it sealed their fate. I am at WSU and we work really hard trying to keep single mothers in school, but they are denied resources. In your freshman, sophomore years financial aid is limited. They have to work and try to go to school and take care of children on their own. Eventually they have to drop out and go back to a crappy job that may pay $7 if they are lucky. They are denied the opportunity to better themselves.Guess what! They can’t survive on $7 an hour…so they are supplemented with food stamps. It is a perpetual cycle they just can’t get out of.With all of your wisdom, I am sure you can come up with a solution.
The fact that too many men are happy to impregnate women and then take no responsibility for the results seems to be one of the main causes of the cycle of poverty.
There will never be enough welfare money, no matter how it is apportioned, until this problem is solved.
Ah Nathan returns. Some bloggers may not know that nathan is…….or…uh was……or might be a marine.Given nathans past on these blogs, I’m not terribly worried about him on a roof top with a gun. Most likely nathan would shoot himself in the foot and fall off the roof. The angry mob below would tend to nathan. Someone would find his cell phone. Picking it up they would hear the voice of Rush Limbaugh saying “Nathan on the roof top! Glad you called sir!. My screener says you need help. Nathan……Nathan? are you there?”I mentioned in my last post a growing storm. Bad thing is that storm is gonna dwarf any Hurricane. Just as bush and his minions ignored a storm of nature, they now pour fuel on the storm in society.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and at the call of various Republican congressmen, the bush administration has waived the Davis-Bacon act. This act demands that contractors pay construction workers a wage fair to market forces and wages in the area. This is not unique. Presidents Clinton and Bush 1 also did this. The difference now is that the waiver of the act is open ended. The result of this is that the very folks who have lost everything will only find jobs rebuilding what they have lost… at the discretion and chosen paid wage of wealthy contractors. Kind of like the old share cropper thing.
The really amazing thing about all of this is it is not hidden or subtle. It is right out there for anyone to see. bush and his crowd are basically saying “look this is who you are, this is what you are, and this is all you are ever gonna be. Do as you are told and shut up about it. You r life and livelihood is after all at our pleasure.”
I don’t think it’s gonna sell. So nathan lay in the ammo and get Rush on the phone.
An intersting thought for all you pompous bush-bashing boys: I have a college education and have been employed continuously since I was 16 years old. I currently hold two jobs to support my family. Is my poverty a behavior problem? Everytime I get a little bit of money it goes to pay my bills, so I have electricity and water to take care of my children. Is that a behavior choice?
Think before you talk. Not everyone chooses to be poor.
And another thing, dr… you can’t just stay on vision cards forever. Recipients are only on the program for a limited amount of time. It’s not a handout. You should check your facts before you open your mouth and look like a dumbass. You have no clue what it’s like to be poor. God forbid that you ever lose your wealth and have to pay rent ($500 a month, in a cheap place), gas ($3.00 a gallon), bills ($400 a month), and groceries on minimum wage. With the economy the way it is, you’ll be lucky to find a $7/hr job at Walmart. And don’t expect to be lucky enough to get 40 hours a week… hell no! Then they might have to pay you benefits!!! And if you get sick… well, tough luck, because Walmart or whomever employs you won’t give you health benefits, so you’ll either have to suffer on your own or go sit down at Wesley Clinic with the rest of the poor people. Maybe while you’re there someone will give you a shot to cure your behavioral disease, because god knows you asked to be poor and have people like yourself, dr, spit on you and treat you like trash.
If you would open your eyes, you would see that it is a lot easier for someone from a wealthy family to be successful than it is for someone from a poor home. Simply seeing someone who is “successful” and emulating them will not guarantee your own sucess. It is so typical of the bourgeois to automatically assume that poor people are lazy.
When you make vague generalizations like you did, dr, you simply look stupid.
well said janabanana.
I was one of the single mothers who had help to get off the welfare role. It wasn’t easy because the system itself is set up against people who want to work, but need a hand.
The largest help I received was childcare so I could go to school. I paid with student loans that were very difficult to pay back with the $7 p/hour job.
How I became on the welfare roll to begin? I like so many other young ladies fell for the stupid line we feed our girl children. Your place is in the home taking care of the children while your husband works. When we divorced, I was left with no job skills, two children to care for, and no child support from their father.
An addition to my post.
I did receive food stamps which were necessary to survive, but the monetary allotment wasn’t enough to pay my rent and utilities. Forget about owning a car or keeping insurance on that car.
The ‘free’ health care isn’t anything like the health care I recieve now that I have private insurance. Again and again I was humiliated and dehumanized by the doctors who treated me. Some of the doctors were good people, but many resented my status.
People who think those on welfare are for a free ride, just haven’t educated themselves.
Interesting exchange, ladies. I’m an un-attached guy, and I run into exactly what you’re talking about…a lot. From my own experience, I believe women and more so, women with children, make up far too large a percentage of the working poor. Sum1, The issue of un-collected child support really bothers me, and I’ve heard some really heartless things about that. All things considered, I would think the courts would be tearing guys apart on that one. Sure, I know a couple of guys who’s ex is using support to tear them apart. I know far more women who like you, recieve little or no support. I also know it’s like pulling teeth to get the court to do anything about it. In this country, you get the best justice money can buy. If you can’t afford a lawyer, seems like you’re out of luck.Being a one wage earner houshold doesn’t help matters, either. I can vouch for that from my own experience. I’m well paid, and it’s still tough to make it sometimes. It amazes me how a woman with kids makes it on $7 an hour. It means abject poverty.
Something really sucks in our society when women and their children are forced to live like this. We object to welfare moms? Imagine how much welfare we could save if we could get men to support their children.
I could never get child support from my husband because he could never keep a job. The reason I finally decided to divorce him was that I could support 3 as easier than 4.At the same time my brother paid more than half his income for child support. He works for Walmart and living on only have a paycheck is almost impossible.
simple math.A forty hour week for someone on minimum wage bring home is about $200 per week. Averages to around $800 per month.The basic monthly bills could be about.housing = $400,electricity/gas = $50.Child care 1 child = $200(remember many on welfare are single mothers with no one to baby sit for them)$800-$400-$50-$200=$150That leave $150 for groceries, phone, clothes.If you’re lucky enough to have a car, that money would go to gas/insurance.Forget health insurance, not an option.Don’t tell me that they are too lazy to help themselves. Many people work 2 jobs to pay their bills.The opportunity isn’t there. And it won’t be. The companies that need the minimum wage set of people to keep their businesses making profits dont’ want it to happen.
“Why are there lots of stories of people who have climbed out of poverty, but none of successful people who fell into poverty and can’t find their way out?
“poverty is a behaviorial disease.”
Heh, wrong, Doc. There are plenty of people who were rich and are now poor. Joe Frasier is pushing a broom in a broken-down gym somewhere. Jimmy Carter, unlike Dick Cheney, put all his assests in a blind trust when he became president, and four years later his life savings was shot. Donald Trump was once completely bankrupted after earning 100’s of millions (and having a father who made millions in real estate).
The reason you never hear about the financial failures is the same reason Bush went to war over WMD’s–it runs counter to the right-wing mythos.
Yes, there are a lot of opportunities in this country. But there aren’t as many opportunities as there are poor people, and their behavior has nothing to do with that.
It’s a direct result of public policy and how the gov’t chooses to direct its resources.
Clarence Darrow gave a really interesting speech years ago. Australia was founded by criminals. These were people who had broken English laws and were outcast from society.
So they sent them to Australia, where there was plenty of land to farm and raise livestock on.
And guess what, these poor and lazy criminals became just as hard-working as their well off former neighbors, once they had a real opportunity . . .
Of course those Australians were White and that made all the difference. The filthy negro is too stupid and wicked to ever rise above crime and/or welfare sponging!
Ian–you should really go have some blood work done.
Your DNA will reveal that you are mixed-race, like everybody else.
I myself look whiter than Ron Howard (Opie Cunningham), but have some American Indian heritage.
You really need to get counselling for your intense race hatred. Life is too short to hate 90 percent of the people in the world that you perceive as unlike you.
If you don’t get help at Charter, get help somewhere . . .
A blood test is not required, I can trace all of my family back to Spain for near 800 years. Trust me, there is no mud in my families gene pool!
Nope Ian.You got all the mud right there! Whoever your ancestors were, they didn’t deserve you, but unfortunately, they’re all you’ve got. Someday maybe you’ll get all the mud, or whatever that is, out from between your ears and quit hating people just because their ancestors weren’t as lily-white as you think yours were, but until then, please get back under your rock. We really don’t need you!
Ian–800 years = about 30 generations. Each generation doubles the number of ancestors from the preceeding generations. This means that you had 1,073,741,824 ancestors if you go back 30 generations.
Unfortunately for your theory, you could not possibly know all of your 1 billion plus ancestors from 800 years to today.
It also means that if you go back far enough, we’re all related.
As for the Spanish ancestory that you’re so proud of, who do you think the Moors intermarried with while they ruled Spain for centuries?
Too bad, Ian, modern science is not on your side.
When you condemn “minorities,” you condemn yourself.
Ok, Ill say it again. If life isn’t working according to your plan, then start listening to people who are winning. Quit insisting that you do it your way. It’s clear your way isn’t working.
Plain and simple….Question do you know someone who is doing well? Im not talkin making 1.5 million a year. do you know someone who makes say 60k a year and can provide for thier family?
Yes?
What keeps you from being them? How often to you listen to and consistently implement thier advice?
Way out?…..Surround yourself with winners not losers. Just do what they do. train how they train.
You dont just decide to run a marathon one day, you set a goal and you train long and hard for it. never taking your eye off the prize. You do nothing that does not help contribute to the goal.
Think about that…..What have you done today to contribute to the goal. what will you do tomorrow?
DR, you don’t have a clue what’s it’s like to be poor in this country, do you?
If poverty is just a matter of “choices,” why is it that our poverty rate is twice as high as other industrialized countries.
They make better choices? Yeah, like how they run their government . . .
What keeps me from being them? The fact that I have to work for everything instead of having it handed to me on a plate. I surround myself with people of the highest caliber; my husband’s cousin is the vice president of Ferrari in Europe. Unfortunatly, surrounding yourself with winners instead of losers, doesn’t do you a bit of good when the electric company is shutting you off.
You say “Quit insisting that you do it your way. It’s clear your way isn’t working.” What would you have me do? I’m working two jobs, which comes to about 15-17 hours a day that I’m working. If I were to take your advice, that means I should quit my jobs huh? Go back to school and have no income? That doesn’t solve the problem. Stop assuming all poor people are alike. All that does is make you look ignorant.
Everybody is stupid but me. I’m good because I said so. You can all bend down and kiss my backside. Everyone who disagrees with me is a dirtbag.
First off we started talking about the jobless, and now all the “working poor” have jumped in but the answer is still the same
You keep talking like nobody has ever climbed out of poverty. What ever your situation is, someone has been there and did what it takes. Find them, listen to them.
Get a job at a hotel, as a night clerk, they often allow you to do homework on your shift. You put your kids to bed with family or friends house when you leave for work. You get off work just in time to get them off to school. You go and get your education at the same time your kids do. dinner with the kids right after school get some sleep from about.Thats one plan, will you try it…noHere is another….When did you fill out a FAFSA form? you should be completing one every year. its free and tells you how much money the taxpayers will give you to get an education. you will soon see that if you take income from second job – childcare that the FREE money will exceed the amount.
Now dont go and get some worthless education. there are plenty of people who just decided to do something with out looking at what the market demands. Nursing is in very high demand and is pretty easy to get your foot in the door.
Like I said if you dont like your life CHANGE it. Do you want to BE something? Get around the people who are. The people around us set the bar of expectations. They did in high school and they do for the rest of our lives. Ever heard of the phrase “keeping up with the jones”….The community we keep shapes the way we act. Lance would not be a world class athlete unless he trained with other world class athletes, who pushed him to go beyond himself
Tom Landry said: “my job is to get these young men to do what they don’t want to do, So that they can be everything they want to be”….think about that….
To be a winner, train with a winner. Maybe you find out that you are not a winner……but at least then, if you are honest, You won’t be under the false notion that it wasn’t earned, that something is not fair.
I agree with you dr, success has a lot to do with attitude AND choices. The biggest cause of poverty in this country (documented) is becoming a parent before the age of 25.If more young women would hold off on having a family until AFTER they get an education and/or a marketable job skill, there would be less poverty. I’m not judging anyone, I’ve been there myself and I know what it’s like to try and juggle a job, a family, and school.But one thing I always believed is that there is no Prince Charming out there to take care of me and that if I wasn’t financially self sufficent, then I was really vulnerable and that scared the hell out of me. My fear gave me the strength and tenacity to get through school and develop a career so I could take care of my kids on my own if I had to. Children are the biggest group living in poverty, and that’s because many of them are born to single, young, and uneducated mothers. We really need to focus on convincing young women that if they believe in themselves, they can achieve anything and that being educated and financially independant BEFORE they become a mom is the key to being happy and successful.
Sorry Damoon but your connection to hank tends to discredit you here.
And why is that, JR? People’s opinions are only valid if they agree with you? It’s too bad that you tend to make assumptions about people when you don’t even have any idea what and who you’re talking about. It seems to me all you want to do is put others down.