Oh, my bad. I thought you meant to be humorous, and I read that other people were laughing at your comment.
i was using sarcasm to make a point. i agree that we have a real problem that we have to solve. my problem is with the knee-jerk reaction...the idea that: 1. the president can solve all our problems; 2. if he doesn't he must be evil; 3. i blame bush.. that is so asinine to me. we have economic cycles in this country...we have downturns. those things happen no matter who is president. and to pretend they don't...and to write an article laying the problem of hunger squarely on the feet of the president...is just flat out ridiculous.
Well, I agree with your three points above, but I don't agree with this last sentiment. You can trace poverty data back to Carter and take it forward through trickle-down (sic) economics, through to the present day, and the trend lines changes abruptly when the whitehouse changes hands, and it always follows a certain party correlation. Coincidence? These switches are independent of other economic indicators, as best as I can tell. It could really be coicidence -- I'll grant that. But I don't like the odds.
i don't think that when the whitehouse changes hands, the economy just magically changes too. economic and fiscal policy play out in real results to real people over the course of years. but that's beside the point...the point is, the knee-jerk reaction...as in an article like this one....is just silly. and people read this stuff and find it substantive. i'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence, but come on. problems that have been with us for a long time can't be laid at the feet of ONE current leader.
He's not talking about the economy as a whole, just the poverty data. Hey B-Bob, you got some evidence to back this up?
Seriously, I'll try to dig it up this afternoon. Have to go teach two hours of nuclear decay and nuclear interactions now, then work on a new boring research paper. I'll post something later today.
Wow... You never know which threads are likely to blow up. (actually -- pretty much any thread is fair game for a good old Bush/Clinton bashing ) I was going to reply to RM95's "I don’t see the problem" response by noting that in a series of articles educating us on election issues, it might just be a wee bit relevant to point out which causes (NAFTA, Welfare Reform) were inherited by Bush Jr. and which were his doing. I then reread the article -- and surprise -- it did credit Clinton with dismantling the social safety net. Sadly, it danced around a bit noting it worked well under Clinton and that the effects were mitigated by "Clinton-era social reforms" but didn't really delve into what those reforms were, and how they've been eliminated. The "bush's america" angle certainly did bias the article. It is a slanted article, certainly -- the implication is that Bush has plunged america into poverty. There may be some truth to that, but it’s not borne out by the rest of the article. It is a poorly written piece. The gist -- that poverty and hunger are a problem, even in an affluent America -- is valid. And they did recognize some of the recent causes, properly identifying the Pres in charge at the time -- but on first read, it does appear to pin too much of the blame on Junior. There is sooooooo much to dislike and criticize about Bush, i don't see the need to dish him on the more marginal calls.
Blaming Bush for modern-day poverty is fairly ridiculous. Blaming him for creating conditions that can make it even more widespread, and even more difficult to escape from, is an accurate appraisal. One doesn't understand how much one dollar is worth until one is working 50 hours a week for minimum wage (and it is almost impossible to get even THAT job without at least a phone number. Sometimes you can get away with giving them the number for the payphone outside your efficiency), with increasingly expensive bills to pay, a family to feed (or even just oneself)... ...and no hope of escape. If you're born poor, you're screwed. Tuition for college is rising at 16 times the rate of inflation. Oh, but scholarships, free tuition, right? Ask yourself - if you were in that situation, would you be smart enough, and able enough, to get into college with a full scholarship based solely on your academic performance in high school while simultaneously holding down a job, handing over your bi-weekly paycheck to mom to buy your beans and bread? Most people, whether comfortable or suffering, aren't. Add to that daunting task of ignoring all the environmental factors that are telling you there's no hope, no chance, no escape - not with words, but with living, breathing, human examples, and you've seen them every single day since the day you were born, and they don't seem that much different from you. Yes, people can escape though, if they're exceptional. Exceptional in a literal sense - the EXCEPTION. If it's fair to punish people for being unexceptional - where do you fit in? Are you exceptional? Everyone believes they are - but really? Are you? Are you THAT exceptional? Maybe you could just get yourself arrested. Smash a window at the Circle K and grab stuff or something. The cool part is that, if you DON'T get arrested, you get away with some free beer. But, if you do get arrested - what about mom and your little brother? Who's going to look out for them? You're surrounded by people whose every waking thought must be centered on only immediate needs. There is no planning ahead, which is just as well, because there is nothing ahead anyway. And as you grow up here, your thoughts are gradually wittled down, from imagination and games and blissful forgetfulness, to nothing but "How much more money do I need to pay my electric bill? I don't have that much. Where can I get it? What can I do to get fifteen dollars before tomorrow, the date given on the bill for 'cancellation of service'?" (One learns to hate bureacratic euphemisms like that: Cancellation of Service. The real world translation of "Cancellation of Service" is "Give us your last penny, or we'll make you suffer.") If you were in this situation, and you had to answer this question, how would you answer it? You've probably already "donated" plasma at every center in town at least once this week. One of these days they're going to figure out that you don't wait the mandatory 3 days between "donations", that you avoid that restriction by going to different plasma clinics. Maybe you'd break into someone's car and steal their CDs and then see if you could sell them at a pawn shop. Maybe you'd scrape together 99 cents so you could get a jumbo can of Milwaukee's Best and try desperately to not think about waking up to the sound of the electric company pulling the switch and driving away. Of course, there are excellent federal and state programs, some private programs, to provide for you. You can get a nice meal just by standing in line for a half hour or so. Maybe even sneak something out for your little brother. Of course, there is a limited amount available, people who are bigger and meaner than you keep cutting in line, and you're worried that any minute the door ahead will close, and the last 17 people in line (you're number 5) will disperse and shuffle off, a half-hour angrier, with a stomach that feels like a dish rag being wrung dry. And every night you can hear your mother, laying down to sleep on the threadbare living room couch (her bed), quietly talking to herself and sniffling. At least once a week, ever since you can remember, you're heard her whispering anxiously to herself late at night, "What am I going to do?" over and over and over again. At some point, you stop getting angry about things like this. You become resigned. Maybe the world has finally convinced you that it's been right all along - you really aren't worth the trouble. Move on. And, you're in an environment that is so consistently demeaning and consistently hopeless, at some points it's hard to do anything at all. Except to do anything you can to forget where you are and who you are - drugs, beer, sex. Add that to the fact that, simply to pay for the base necessities of life, one has to forego everything that isn't an absolute necessity for survival. A loaf of bread, a can of beans, a glass of tap water - once a day, and that's all you can afford. Unless you don't mind skipping dinner tomorrow. Of course, there is an advantage to living like this -- you never really know how good a can of Pepsi from the laundromat vending machine can taste until it's a forbidden luxury - when you know that the 60 cent can of Pepsi means you are not going to have your 60 cent can of beans. It's all well and good to point out that it's possible to survive at the poverty level. It's also possible to survive in a concentration camp, in a federal prison, in a POW bamboo cage in Vietnam, living under a freeway overpass and eating from garbage cans, begging for pennies from people who would rather not acknowledge that you exist. Yes, survival is possible even in poverty. In fact, it's even likely. But would you want to? If you haven't been there, you don't know.
This information can be flawed though b-bob because of the bias in the CPI (Consumer Price Index) which measures inflation and also notes what is the poverty line and the amounts to be in the poverty area. The CPI accounts for not only changes in inflation but also for a gain in the standard of living. So essentially even if there are more people living below the 'poverty-line' today, a much smaller percentage of people could be living in an inferior living situation. The fact is that in a capitalist society there will always be levels of society and there will always be a small number that are at the bottom. The irony of a 1st world nation is that very few are actually 'hungry'. Maybe they are not able to make the preferences they desire, but obesity is more common in the lowest income areas and under the poverty line than it is in the top 15% earners in the nation. In small villages in Central America, Africa and Asia, when you are portly, it is a sign of wealth, versus in the US it has become a sign of poverty and lack of education. I'm not disputing that people are 'poorer' in general since 2000. A declining market will do that, but its simply a smaller part of a business cycle. Huge gains based on productivity were the basis of the 'jobless' recovery, but soon, because of the lack of technology spending in recent times, corporations will use profits to hire and jobs will and have already begun to return at a rapid level. To be quite frank, there must always be someone below everyone on the totem pole of a capitalist society. That is what drives individuals to push ahead and to strive.
Are you sure those stats are correct? Look at this link: http://www.plu.edu/~poverty/stats/home.html Poverty increased in the early 80's, but decresed from 1983- 1989. Then it went up slightly from 1989-1993, then down again throughout the 90's.
Mr. C, like I said, I'll do some research later, when I have more time. I'll peruse your link too. FDK, excellent points. I mostly agree with your points, but the question at hand is: do we want to, in general, alleviate some of the suffering at the lowest socio-economic levels, or do we want to let the ranks of the humiliated and miserable grow? I mean this separate from political parties, as a general question. it seems to me that Capitalism, left to its own devices completely, would certainly make this sad group grow as a demographic %. RM95, a highly excited nucleus has four primary options. It can give off an alpha particle (essentially a little helium nucleus) and decrease its overall mass. It can give off a beta particle (essentially just an electron) and thereby change its percentage of protons versus neutrons. Third, it can just give off electromagnetic radiation to calm itself (gamma rays). Finally, in extreme circumstances, it can split into two vastly smaller parts. This is nuclear fission; it liberates great quantities of energy and crucially it also liberates further neutrons which can then initiate fission in other nuclei. This last bit can lead to a sustainable chain reaction if you have enough unstable nuclei sitting around.
Okay, who needs lunch when stats beckon? FD Khan was right on the money with the CPI comment. Let's use data from the feds. I've found poverty tables from the US Census Bureau, with "poverty levels" defined in a method calibrated to CPI by the Department ofHealth and Human Services. The trends are interesting and not as cut and dried as I'd stated earlier. The reports I had read had, I now believe, been more biased toward certain outcomes. Follow those links for your own details. The amount of data is bewildering, but I think I've boiled a few things down. Let me summarize some points, re: presidents, as follows. * In Clinton's first year, 1993, 15.1% of the population lived below the adjusted poverty line. This declined steadily to 11.3% in 2000, his last year in office. * In 2001, the adjusted rate was 11.7%. In 2002, the adjusted rate was 12.1%. So that supports what I had said. However, it's much more tricky during the Reagan/Bush years. * Reagan's first year in office, 1981, saw 14% of the US population living below the poverty line. This fluctuated during his 8 years, but in 1989, Bush I's year in office, 13% were below the line. So that's a slight improvement during the Reagan years, though it's not a 4% cut like the 90's saw. * Bush I started with the 13%, and it was obviously 15.1% by the time Clinton has his first year in office. That did of course coincide with the recession. * Finally (and I know I'm out of order here), Carter's term saw the percentage *climb* which completely contradicts something I posted earlier. His first year in office saw 11.8%, and that climbed to 14% for Reagan's first year. Interesting. I was right about the trends of the last 15 years, but I was wrong about trends prior to that period. The correlation is not very strong over the long view.
Max; there are, I think, two seperate issues here, and some people who only want to look at one side are ignoring the other... There is the question of whether or not Bush is wholly responsible for this, whether it originated with him, and whether it is unique to his Presidency. Clearly the actual answer is 'no'. That is what you and some others are focusing on. But there is also the question of whether there is an actual problem, whether it is increasing, whether the person currently in charge is effectively addressing the issue, and further whether the person in charge is adding to the problem. I think that there is a lot of evidence to support these questions all being answered in the less than positive light for Bush. To focus on the other aspects, which is, while worthy of debate for debates' sake, a means of avoiding addressing fundamental issues which some may not want to recognize. Clealry there is a problem. I think we can all agree on that. Clearly the problem is growing. I see Bush as playing a minor role in this, but it being more about the increasing economic polarization in America which began long before Bush. However, I see little if any evidence that Bush is doing much of anything, either in genus form or in retrospective analysis, to resolve this issue. And finally...while I am not one to assume that if we didn't spend 15 billion on a satellite, it would automatically translate into food in the mouths of the poor, when we have a concurrence of three events; a huge swing in the defecit/government spending, hundreds of billions being spent on a war which is, I think, easily defined as questionable, but at any rate certainly less germane to most Americans than domestic issues, and a rise in poverty, I think you can certainly make a pretty sound argument for Bush policies and priorities contributing to the crisis. I am seeing an increasing trend in more middle of the road conservatives to adopt a baby with the bathwater approach to Bush criticism; as there is some which is either extreme, partisan, or poorly phrased, it seems to be the ( convenient, whether consciously or not) response to sort of dismiss criticisms of Bush policies en masse, with a few allusions to some trouble spots...and that only serves to avoid the serious, major issues which are confronting us. And finally...much of the more recent Bush apologists have premised their quasi-defense of him on an assumption; that the extreme has to be dismissed...So if people are suggesting that, I don;t know...Iraq was about oil...or that Bush is a shill for big business, or whatever...the assumption from the get go with some people is that that kind of thing is right out. Now while that might be a more comfortable way of looking at things...if it's easier to think that the government may be capable of mistakes, but certainly aren't bad guys...that doesn't make it accurate. That's the kind of desire to maintain a fiction about the character of our leaders that had over 3/4ths of Americans refusing to believe even many of the less damning aspects of the Watergate allegations/investigations until the whole thing was almost over. Had you then proposed, as is now commonly acknowledged, that Nixon was pretty much clinically paranoid, obsessed with revenge so much that he daily updated his " Enemy" list with an eye towards retribution, that the White House was responsible for many ongoing illegal methods of destroying the credibility of political opponents, and using nationa intelligence resources to do so, had in fact destroyed past opponents simply because they thought them more likely to pose a threat in the election, etc...well, with the kind of starting position for credibility that many seem to assume is a given, we're back to pre-Watergate. The fact is that politicians, like most people are a mix of good, bad, and in-between people. The fact is that politics tends to emphasize and reward people who prioritize power acquisition over social responsibility, and moral compromise over moral integrity. Not that there aren't plenty of both to start off with, but those who emphasize responsibility and integrity usually don't go far, get chewed up and spit out, or have to seek alternative routes, which aren't nearly as successfull. And the last fact is that the history of political power in responsive government systems shows that the norm is NOT to have a series of broad based groups of divergent thinkers at the top, but in fact a series of pushes through the ranks by people bonded over one-sided views usually coming from the extremes. As such, the likelyhood that we will, every now and then, get a group in charge who share priorities of self-interested, end justifies means, etc. thinkers is not only something to be seen as impossible, but virtually inevitable over long enough time samples. Most contemporary sociologists, that I have seen debate the subject, agree that we are in a time of ever increasing polarization, that America is increasingly becoming a country in two camps, along a few issues in general, but with pretty clearly defined lines of demarkation. Why would it be surprising that those at the top are reflective of this? And if they are, why are some people making all kinds of assumptions about the kind of exteme behaviour we can rule out as inconceivable without even bothering to examine the arguments supporting them? I'm not actually advocating any of the more extrme ones, but I am concerned about the ceiling for corruption, dishonesty,etc. that some people are assuming exists which is contrary to what we actually know about poltical leaders.
