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yogibooboo · M
All take a good read. Just one reference for you but there are numerous others. This one captures many things succinctly. It is from a United nations (UN) Report with data from the OECD (not written by some private bank).
The immense wealth and expertise of the United States stands in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live.
•About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty.
•It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States.
•Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent.
•It has the world’s highest incarceration rate
•It has one of the lowest levels of voter registrations in among OECD countries
•It has the highest obesity levels in the developed world.
•The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries. The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality.
•The consequences of neglecting poverty and promoting inequality are clear. The United States has one of the highest poverty and inequality levels among the OECD countries, and the Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks it 18th out of 21 wealthy countries in terms of labour markets, poverty rates, safety nets, wealth inequality and economic mobility.
•But in 2018 the United States had over 25 per cent of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. There is thus a dramatic contrast between the immense wealth of the few and the squalor and deprivation in which vast numbers of Americans exist.
•For almost five decades the overall policy response has been neglectful at best, but the recent policies pursued by the Trump administration over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship.
Trump’s policies:
(a) provide unprecedentedly high tax breaks and financial windfalls to the very wealthy and the largest corporations;
(b) pay for these partly by reducing welfare benefits for the poor;
(c) undertake a radical programme of financial, environmental, health and safety deregulation that eliminates protections mainly benefiting the middle classes and the poor;
(d) seek to add over 20 million poor and middle class persons to the ranks of those without health insurance;
(e) restrict eligibility for many welfare benefits while increasing the obstacles required to be overcome by those eligible;
(f) dramatically increase spending on defence, while rejecting requested improvements in key veterans’ benefits;
(g) do not provide adequate additional funding to address an opioid crisis that is decimating parts of the country; and
(h) make no effort to tackle the structural racism that keeps a large percentage of non-Whites in poverty and near poverty.
The immense wealth and expertise of the United States stands in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live.
•About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty.
•It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States.
•Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent.
•It has the world’s highest incarceration rate
•It has one of the lowest levels of voter registrations in among OECD countries
•It has the highest obesity levels in the developed world.
•The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries. The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality.
•The consequences of neglecting poverty and promoting inequality are clear. The United States has one of the highest poverty and inequality levels among the OECD countries, and the Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks it 18th out of 21 wealthy countries in terms of labour markets, poverty rates, safety nets, wealth inequality and economic mobility.
•But in 2018 the United States had over 25 per cent of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. There is thus a dramatic contrast between the immense wealth of the few and the squalor and deprivation in which vast numbers of Americans exist.
•For almost five decades the overall policy response has been neglectful at best, but the recent policies pursued by the Trump administration over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship.
Trump’s policies:
(a) provide unprecedentedly high tax breaks and financial windfalls to the very wealthy and the largest corporations;
(b) pay for these partly by reducing welfare benefits for the poor;
(c) undertake a radical programme of financial, environmental, health and safety deregulation that eliminates protections mainly benefiting the middle classes and the poor;
(d) seek to add over 20 million poor and middle class persons to the ranks of those without health insurance;
(e) restrict eligibility for many welfare benefits while increasing the obstacles required to be overcome by those eligible;
(f) dramatically increase spending on defence, while rejecting requested improvements in key veterans’ benefits;
(g) do not provide adequate additional funding to address an opioid crisis that is decimating parts of the country; and
(h) make no effort to tackle the structural racism that keeps a large percentage of non-Whites in poverty and near poverty.
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hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@yogibooboo So you assume that is the problem but again you provide no solutions. w
4meAndyou · F
@yogibooboo Well, I am sure bloated federal government and the Nanny state will fix all that. NOT.
yogibooboo · M
@4meAndyou Not this government lol
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@yogibooboo So your solution is?????
PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M
@hippyjoe1955 Take what Trump is doing and do the complete opposite and you at least will be heading in the right direction.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow So you would like to reduce employment for the unemployed and underemployed and increase the reliance of food stamps. Sounds like a real solution you got going there. Maybe your TDS is acting up again.
4meAndyou · F
@yogibooboo What makes you think the American people want to have their diet and their food regulated by some stupid democrat socialist bureaucrats who have MORE than demonstrated their extreme stupidity? Are any of [b]them[/b] doctors?
Will we, in your perfect totalitarian world with shitty medicare for all crap healthcare in which DOCTORS refuse to participate, suddenly find that a nurse practitioner is legally in charge of our grocery purchases?
Did you know the poverty and disease figures you cite are amped up HUGELY by California and Oregon, which are socialist democrat states?
Did you know that infant mortality rates are also affected by those two states?
Did you know that some countries FORCE their people to vote? Turkey, Belgium, Australia, North Korea, Congo, and MOST of South America.
This is still The United States of America, even though that pisses you off because you long for the days of Lenin.
NONE of you are intelligent enough to be MY adult babysitters. Not ONE of you.
Not one of you understands economics. You want a gigantic welfare nation where people can sit on their rear ends, and suck off the government tit and not lift their fat fingers. I used to work in a homeless shelter, and I have seen users who actually PLAN to get pregnant in a timed fashion so they can sit on their fat fannies at home and just collect welfare. Not bright enough to factor that into their global socialist figures, are they?
And if ANY of you tries to remove the freedoms for which millions of Americans have fought and died, we will definitely have a HUGE say about that...and you won't like it.
And maybe if the socialist twits who are fighting tooth and nail to let the drug dealers out of jail and fighting so hard to allow the cartels and their gangs to have and maintain footholds in EVERY major city in the United States had even ONE brain cell, they would be able to understand that our opioid crisis has already been addressed in the only way it can be addressed...by attempting to control the gangs, attempting to control the doctors who legally prescribe, attempting to use the FBI to round up the dealers using cameras and drones...SO much is being done now that was never done before but the real shit for brains types are so blinded by TDS that they are just begging....Please...PLEASE let me never learn what is really being done.
And your structural racism...OMgosh...I feel nauseated just speaking to you.
That's it for me. Don't even bother responding. Because 👅
Will we, in your perfect totalitarian world with shitty medicare for all crap healthcare in which DOCTORS refuse to participate, suddenly find that a nurse practitioner is legally in charge of our grocery purchases?
Did you know the poverty and disease figures you cite are amped up HUGELY by California and Oregon, which are socialist democrat states?
Did you know that infant mortality rates are also affected by those two states?
Did you know that some countries FORCE their people to vote? Turkey, Belgium, Australia, North Korea, Congo, and MOST of South America.
This is still The United States of America, even though that pisses you off because you long for the days of Lenin.
NONE of you are intelligent enough to be MY adult babysitters. Not ONE of you.
Not one of you understands economics. You want a gigantic welfare nation where people can sit on their rear ends, and suck off the government tit and not lift their fat fingers. I used to work in a homeless shelter, and I have seen users who actually PLAN to get pregnant in a timed fashion so they can sit on their fat fannies at home and just collect welfare. Not bright enough to factor that into their global socialist figures, are they?
And if ANY of you tries to remove the freedoms for which millions of Americans have fought and died, we will definitely have a HUGE say about that...and you won't like it.
And maybe if the socialist twits who are fighting tooth and nail to let the drug dealers out of jail and fighting so hard to allow the cartels and their gangs to have and maintain footholds in EVERY major city in the United States had even ONE brain cell, they would be able to understand that our opioid crisis has already been addressed in the only way it can be addressed...by attempting to control the gangs, attempting to control the doctors who legally prescribe, attempting to use the FBI to round up the dealers using cameras and drones...SO much is being done now that was never done before but the real shit for brains types are so blinded by TDS that they are just begging....Please...PLEASE let me never learn what is really being done.
And your structural racism...OMgosh...I feel nauseated just speaking to you.
That's it for me. Don't even bother responding. Because 👅
whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M
@yogibooboo These are all classic signs of an empire in decline. Luckily enough it will not be followed by the Dark Ages this time. China is outgaming America economically, Industrually and soon, militarily. And the wont take any crap from Rednexks or the religious right, when the time comes.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@whowasthatmaskedman China is nowhere near outperforming the US and with its population about to go into steep decline it won't be a power for long. It will soon join Russian in the scrap heap of history.
yogibooboo · M
@whowasthatmaskedman Indeed!
whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M
@hippyjoe1955 As usual Joe. BS statements with nothing to back it. American business, services and taxation are all geared to making the rich richer at the expense of the poor. It is crawling with crime and corruption within business and what profits there are, are paper ones. Each man woman and child already carries an international debt close to $70,000 US and its jumped into a higher gear under Trump. The military is ageing and the new "weapons" are too slow and too expensive. Internationally, the nation has pi$$ed off all the wrong people and is becoming a Pariah. And all they can to is wrap themselves in a flag , salute and pray. How is that working for ya??🤔
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@whowasthatmaskedman Yawn. And how do the rich get richer without making all the other american richer at the same time? It simply can't be done without government interference like you keep advocating for. Go to any centralized economy and see what happens. The ultra rich get rich and EVERYONE else gets poorer. You do need a few lessons in economics and economies.
Kwek00 · 41-45, M
@4meAndyou
[quote]Did you know that some countries FORCE their people to vote? Turkey, Belgium, Australia, North Korea, Congo, and MOST of South America.[/quote]
That's actually not true. The Belgium part that is. Our country demands it's citizens to go to the voting booth. You don't have to vote. No one is forced to vote.
It's also really disastrous for a country to ask people to show up when their parliament is voted into place. Since well, the people that will seat over there will make descisions that influence everyones life if they vote or not. We always vote in the weekends btw, it ussually on a sunday. So most people are at home. And you can go over there and check in and get out from 8 AM till 13 PM. So you can get loaded on saturday evening.
Did I totally miss something? Or are you the first one here that brought up structural racism?
[quote]Did you know that some countries FORCE their people to vote? Turkey, Belgium, Australia, North Korea, Congo, and MOST of South America.[/quote]
That's actually not true. The Belgium part that is. Our country demands it's citizens to go to the voting booth. You don't have to vote. No one is forced to vote.
It's also really disastrous for a country to ask people to show up when their parliament is voted into place. Since well, the people that will seat over there will make descisions that influence everyones life if they vote or not. We always vote in the weekends btw, it ussually on a sunday. So most people are at home. And you can go over there and check in and get out from 8 AM till 13 PM. So you can get loaded on saturday evening.
Did I totally miss something? Or are you the first one here that brought up structural racism?
yogibooboo · M
@Kwek00 Thank you. Nice information
Kwek00 · 41-45, M
@yogibooboo yeah, the country asks you to show up tough. And you run the risk to get a fine. However, in the last decade I don't think annyone got fined. There are always people that don't show up. And there is a bunch of people that show up and don't vote. The seats are just divided according to the number of votes cast on the parties that get at least 5% of the votes. All the rest of the votes are discarded.
whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M
@hippyjoe1955 Every farm subsidy, every tax break, every tariff on imports. Every piece of industry support to keep a factory open IS government intereference. As is allowing drilling and mining on reserves, as is foreign "military" aid. It is YOU Hippy who dont know your economics. The USA is becoming an economic "Panda" . So specialized that it cant survive in the wild and needs support to prevent extinction.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@whowasthatmaskedman Do you think I am approving of any of those????? However tariffs are justified when the other nation is paying slave wages.
PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M
@hippyjoe1955 Nope but that is what Trump's policies are guaranteed to do.
Kwek00 · 41-45, M
@hippyjoe1955 What according to you are slave wages?
Because from all that I read up on what you have been supporting, it's apperently way more important to have a job then to be able to live. And now apperently you are against countries where people get jobs by those that invest because their wage is to low?
Because from all that I read up on what you have been supporting, it's apperently way more important to have a job then to be able to live. And now apperently you are against countries where people get jobs by those that invest because their wage is to low?
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow And the demoncraps are at variance where? Seriously you do need to take a look at the world for a change. Maybe some time on a subsistence farm would help clear your mind and make you realize your thinking is screwed up.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Kwek00 You don't know? How about forced labour? Maybe sweatshops?
Kwek00 · 41-45, M
@hippyjoe1955 Yeah, lets look at the world Joe, lets do a comparisson of the world. Lets use the US and how it's managed and how it works for the american people. And then lets look at the world. Like Europe? Let's look how shit works there and how people are better off in a lot of ways.
Kwek00 · 41-45, M
@hippyjoe1955 You think that someone flipping burgers making waffles 10 hours a day and barely can find a roof over his/her head that is affordable, can't pay for his/her medical healthcare, has difficulties getting the kid to school... that these people are not sweating there pants off?
whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M
@hippyjoe1955 Take a good look at the prison employment programs and the private industries now using them. Then come back at me with "Slave labour" arguments. America had the option to compete, modernize, automate. update designs and provide support in the market as a competitive advantage. Instead they chose to offshore jobs and processes. Now 20% of all US cars are made in China. You expected the Chinese to be satisfied with that? They used it as a lever to win World War three as an economic war, which America already lost. And every time they take a shortcut and get caught, like Boeing, they lose another industry. Right now, Airbus are laughing.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Kwek00 I grew up on a subsistence farm. I know how the economy works. You produce something of value and you sell it to someone who is willing to pay what you need to get. You on the other hand seem to think the economy is a government function. You need a life lesson.
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