Poverty in the USA Just How Bad?????

[jaredwb]

Jared,

You don't even have a clue about the people I "defend". Stick to your Fox News specials on "welfare moms" and "illegal immigrants". Thanks.

Actually, I do. You wrote about them in all your previous posts and make excuses for them because they were born in the projects or on the West side v East side.

Ok, you're right...I don't know ALL of the people you "defend" and of course there are exceptions to the entitled citizens previously mentioned, but excuses are just that, excuses.

And there we go again...damn Fox News.

 

[SaraSara]

What an idiotic post. So children don't make mistakes Sara? Do you honestly want to sit there and believe that all teenagers have good judgment? Uh no. The only difference between these children and their wealthy counterparts is that they don't have the means to hire a lawyer that can make all that "nastiness" go away.

Choice? Huh? Do you think the parents sit there all day have Mai Thais and watching "Sex in the City"? Maybe some do, many don't. Many are single women (with little education) working to make ends meet so they can put food on the table. They're doing the best they can. Even in the best circumstances a household with a mother and a father is nothing compared to the power of influence gangs hold on impressionable young men. Wow you really have no clue. Please stick to your expertise on Argentina because you clearly haven't seen much of anything in the US when it comes to poverty. This is obviously something I'm very passionate about.

But please don't feel bad, most Americans don't have a clue either. They chant "those people feel entitled" over and over again to make themselves feel better about the blatant disregard of a particular segment of the population even though the closet they've gotten to these neighborhoods are through sensationalized Hollywood movies. On the bright side at least your pro-immigration.

What a pity - I thought we were about to have an interesting exchange of ideas and experiences, and you had to go and stick that "What an idiotic post" in there and ruin it. You get quite virulent about this subject - that chip on your shoulder must be the size of a railroad tie.

Perhaps you don't know that teenagers don't end up doing time in juvenile halls because of childish "mistakes" - they are sent there when they commit some kind of crime. Such as breaking into people's homes, running drugs, stealing cars, holding up Seven Elevens, knifing each other, etc. - just the kind of silly mistakes all children make.

The law require parents to provide for their children until they reach the age of eighteen - thats include "projects" parents. So, why should my taxes pay to board their "children" when they get caught making one of those little "mistakes"? Their own parents should pay for their Juvenile hall stays.

I have trouble with those who absolve "disadvantaged" people of all responsibility for their own lives. Don't you realize how demeaning and crippling that can be? You are in effect telling them: "You are disadvantaged and helpless; a victim of the system unable to improve your life. Everything must be provided to you by those wiser and richer than you are".

That leads to the "Massa" mentality: blaming your problems on some external factor. Things like your color, your sex, your age, your height, your race, your stuttering, your sexual preferences. The list is endless, and always someone else's fault. Since it is someone else's doing, you are helpless and can do nothing about it. That kind of thinking cripples people and takes away any hope of improvement.

Frankly, I have more faith in what people can accomplish.

Do you think there were no gangs in DC? Do you think the people I translated for didn't face the same problems as those in "the projects"? They were just as worried about gangs, and about drugs, and in many cases there was domestic violence, and there were many single mothers, but they couldn't afford to sit down and whine. They believed they were ENTITLED to nothing - no government help, and no handouts - so they relied on themselves and their kin. And somehow they managed to muddle through.

They were very resourceful: when their children were in danger of being recruited by gangs, they scrimped and saved to ship them back to their native villages to stay with relatives, and get them out of trouble. But perhaps people in "the projects" don't have relatives elsewhere.

There is a reason why immigrants who don't even speak English do so much better than people in "the projects" - but since you believe I have no clue it is better to save my breath. So, I'll let you puzzle that out by yourself. Have a nice day...!

 

[redrum]

There were no US citizens in those households - not for the first couple of years, at least. The lawyers knew, and had me tell our clients, that they were entitled to a few things. The problem was that they were so scared of anything having to do with the GOVERNMENT that they didn't really believe us, and thus their lives were that much more difficult.

These people came from hill villages in Colombia and Guatemala, and they were the poorest of the poor - never had a proper diet, never even had running water. Many were were toothless at age forty.

They were so ignorant they could not even fill a form, and so trusting that they would sign anything we put before them. I took great pains trying to teach them to NEVER SIGN ANYTHING THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND, but it was uphill work. They were used to doing as they were told, and would sign where they were told. So they signed predatory rental agreements, and car loans at insane interest rates pushed by the dealers who sold them wrecks that self-destructed before the ink on the loan was dry, etcetera.

As to my making ethnic/racial generalizations, from what you say the projects in LA are full of people who came from Mexico, just as many of our clients did, so we are talking about the same people. Perhaps it depends on what kind of town they came from - people from small towns often have stronger family ties, and that helps hold them together in tough times..

Well, I'm sorry but I have to say it again: if such poor, ignorant people can make it in the US, anyone can. That may sound simplistic to you, but the unvarnished truth is often simple.

Anyway, I'm glad we have both cooled off and are having an interesting discussion instead of attacking each other.

Have you ever worked with Native Americans? I once spent four months driving and camping around the Four Corners area, and up and down the Rockies, and was appalled by the abject poverty I saw at the reservations. Even Window Rock was dismal.

sara i see you going back and forth with LAtoBa but you gave me no response to my last post in this thread. i have to say i'm feeling a bit neglected.

 

[pikto99]

"

Many of our clients were illegal aliens who did not even speak English, but still managed to find and hold jobs. Initially they were preyed upon by their employers, but after a couple of years they found their footing, brought their families over, moved out of crumbling rental apartments (NOT SUBSIDIZED), bought modest homes and sent their children to school and to community colleges. Often, two or three families pooled their resources to buy a home, then gradually moved out as they got better paying jobs.

"

What a Grand BS, Dear.
Footing? I am living in close proximity with those, almost 10 years, while you visiting the US on occasion. Our prospective are different, as one pretty Ana once said.
Those fellows do live in packs, so "subsidized" communities are rejecting such dormitories.
They are working for cash and there is NO WAY for them to save-up ANYTHING.
All they do is work and sleep. Well, eat sometimes too. There no growing out opportunists who's tremendous entrepreneurial behavior is so strong to pick him (her) self up from the mud.
Look at prices of autos and machinery, supplies, gas and the rest. And look at white American second or third generation landscapers, for pity sake. They are the BOSSES. I am living close to one and our kids are hanging together.

Its no wonder why those poor creatures landscaping - they are no fit for surrounding communities.
As someone stated here: no education, no English, no opportunity to go anywhere. Bc you'll have to have TIME to do some study. So stop bullshitting about those who "bought modest homes". I know how they are buying. Just bc "Smoel&Pusseldo" hacking American taxpayers money through real estate schemes. First to allow illegals to get into mortgages, then flatten them with lovely APR scheme, then "foreclose" them and go on to the next "modest" illegal or poor idiot who still have no clue in what is going on.

What savings?
You're just telling us some stories that people like you (so-called "rich" helpers to illegal jumpers) come up to cover this idiocracy.

... as they got better paying jobs.

HOW???
Poors have no way to get out of poverty without external findings. Even if you'll work your respectfully "rich" arse off, there will be not enough bc poors will never make into that "moderate" paying class in fist place. So they go illegal, work for cash, living in "4-families-in-one" shithole, sending "cuts" back home to starving relatives...
But of course, Sara used to meet those brave ones who were "dreaming" of getting into "supplies" business. Meaning supplies of more illegals to implowed landscaping market?
And while cutting bushes and grass for $13/day from 7-to-7 and asquiring "education" loans (that another well known organization will make available for them for some strange reason) they stepping deeper and deeper into their credit mud. So sooner or later its all will produce bright and straightforward reflection on their "credit history" via your long-line relatives creation: FICO scores. Then some "shmoozel" a.k.a. loan processor/officer will be able to screw and forge the loan application based on "their" ITD ratio. So shmoozel will use all his/her creativeness to basically lie to lenders in order to move the loan and collect his %%% (silver coins?)

So, 2-3 years later, our "prospective opportunists" will start receiving scary notes on their mortgage due to increase in APR scheme that they were "not clearly understood", credit cards, car payments, even electric bills.
So, then house will get sheriff deputy's "lock change" and auctioned for $100 to another "brave" "investment" company who ready to play another bullshit scheme by buying "bad" investments in prosperous believes to raise some "intrinsic value" of the properties and Return money On Investment. Bla-bla-bla...
But our "prospects" are back to 4-family-in-one" shithole living and 1 out of 10, 000 lucky Latino business "owner" will hire them to cut grass again.
At the same time, working communities pulling burden of "helping" to "poor".

Is this is the same kind of opportunity u're talking about, Dear?

the immigrants I worked with had strong family values, and that gave them and their children the edge.

The edge? Yeah, I've got one "dormitory" of those right in the next building. Their relatives come via Lexus RS330 or Mers but whining sonsabitches still fight each other at night and bitching around, all their freaking "santabarbara" already reported to the point of f...ing kicking them out decision.
Once a week either pals or his females loosing some crap at parking lot. Never bothered to pick-up.
And their "truly" working on themselves... Their stupid piece of shit cars are all jammed up here and there. And they were end-up in decent community (????). Holy Shit. I suppose one of those "Saranian" advocates gave them "helping hand" to forge their residence history.

"... The problem was that they were so scared of anything having to do with the GOVERNMENT that they didn't really believe us, and thus their lives were that much more difficult.

These people came from hill villages in Colombia and Guatemala, and they were the poorest of the poor - never had a proper diet, never even had running water. Many were were toothless at age forty.

They were so ignorant they could not even fill a form, and so trusting that they would sign anything we put before them."

Holy Crap, what a load of genetic enhancement we have now. Thank you, Sara for ur "hard work".

"Did you get me, sweetheart" (c)?

 

[bigbadwolf]

In my view, the post below is totally wrong - nothing but a sob story. In the US, no one willing to work needs to starve. At least not when I left, three years ago.

A new category of people -- the "working poor" -- has burgeoned over the last 20 or 25 years. If not starving, they are often going hungry. The number of food banks has increased as has the amount of food they distribute yet they are under great stress as the number of people using them continues to inexorably move upwards. Their clients include not just the involuntarily unemployed but those on part-time jobs (since full-time ones don't exist) or those in low-paying jobs. Many of these people were recently middle-class -- even upper-middle-class. In one of his books, Moore -- while waiting at an airport -- was amazed to find that a pilot was using the food banks himself (since in increasingly non-unionised USA, pilots are often starting at $12,000 or $14,000 a year).

The USA is a country of downward social mobility, where the middle class itself is being sucked downwards. The notion that immigrants who can't speak English and have few (if any) skills can move upwards is risible, a Horatio Alger myth.