According to this piece of nonsense, only Turkey and Mexico have higher poverty rates than the United States.
The poorest 10 percent of Americans have an income of $5,800 per year, compared to the OECD average of $7,000.The press eats this stuff up and never points out that, besides cash, we taxpayers shovel over huge amounts of our money to these unfortunates, like Food Stamps,Earned Income Credits, Welfare, Medicaid,Aid for Dependant Children, job training and Section 8 Housing (and a million more programs, I'm sure)
How needy are these folks? Well,
112,275,000 households in this country have cable television. According to census data, there were 100,480,000 households in 2000. Even accounting for some growth in households, that's just about a cable subscription for every household in America. Now it's possible that a family scraping by on $5,800 per year is willing to fork-over $720 per year ($60 X 12, or 12% of its annual budget) for television, but that leaves only $5,080 for food, housing, clothing and transportation: giving each of those 25% of the remaining money, that's $24 a week ($1,270 / 52) for what, four people? $6 weekly to feed, clothe and house a child ? I don't believe that's the case. It probably is in Turkey - what do I know? But this report, with it's oh-so-precise-sounding statistics, is nothing but filler for national television news. Fortunately, when the Annoited one is elected, all economic news will be presented in glowing, cheerful terms and we won't be bothered with this kind of garbage. So two more weeks.
One parting thought: Transfer payments - money ripped from earners and "redistributed" to non-workers, has increased from $39 billion in 1965 to $1 trillion today, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Now I remember when, as a budding young liberal of 12, LBJ announced the beginning of the War on Poverty; a new day was dawning! Peace (and plenty) in our time! I wish the critics of our efforts in Iraq who are so disappointed in the results generated by spending $1 trillion in current dollars would apply the same standard to Johnson's war. According to this article, it's been a complete bust. I wonder why?
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7 comments:
Don't forget, in that $5,080 you must deduct for Xbox, wii and games.
I love it when you call Obama the Annoited one!
Greenwich Diva
Yes, but Claudette, and I know this will astonish and disappoint you, I'm being ironic.
wanna come to an Obama celebration party with me on Election day? I know you are dying to hear all the wonderful praises we give him. You know deep down you think Obama is the best candidate for the job and I really think (even though you will never admit to it) you are going to vote for Obama
Greenwich Diva
Remember what Ronald Reagan said: "We fought a war on poverty and poverty won."
Forget the war on poverty, as it is old news. Think about spending $1 trillion in this country to, say, fix the air traffic control system, fix the power grids, and fix the bridges. Got to think it is a better ROI than installing democracy at the point of a gun in Iraq, which means putting the Shiites in charge, as they are the majority. Hey, wait a second. Don't the Shiites run Iran, our enemy. Oops! Can you get me a McCain button, Chris?
I'll forget the war on poverty if we can declare it won and stop wasting money on it. Then we can rebuild our infrastructure. Deal?
I'll look for McCain buttons. Soon as I find Republican headquarters - they must have one in this, of all towns, no?
Republican headquarters on Post Road in CosCob - in that little strip mall just north of Dunkin Donuts.
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