David G and individual

Only the poor are ever punished for being greedy. With the exception of an isolated scapegoat or two to appease the gods of justice, the rich will not only remain immune from retribution for their greed, they will continue to be amply rewarded for it.

Killarney,
Yes, that's how it has been & still is for time being but as there are more & more poor there will be some kind of revolution before long. Governments really need to wake up & stop fleecing us. The enterpreneureal rich will always be better off than most but where I think the crap will hit the fan is within the public service. That lot is taking most of our money for nothing in return & that's what people are starting to realise more & more.

Off with their heads!

Can I pull the lever?

Articles like this, & the posts that follow them always make me sick. At no stage do these people tell us what the hell they are talking about.

What is this Poor they talk about. Is it my next door neighbor, living on the single pension? Is it the couple down the road, also on the pension?

Is it me, living on a bit more, but not much more than the pension. If not, who are these poor.

Is it some dole bludger, who has chosen to avoid real work, & is poor in spirit, but considerable overpaid for their lack of effort.

Surely it can't be aborigines, living rent free, with lots of extras above the dole.

If they like to actually say something that is not just a socialist bitch, I might even consider their opinions. Currently they are worthless.

Hasbeen,
I am of the view that any people whose income does not afford them to save are poor. I agree with you that there are far too many who never performed sufficiently to even deserve the dole or a pension but there are also far too many who are given far too much for doing as little as the aforementioned. Our society's dilemma is the massive inequality in which taxpayer funded monies are distributed with utter impunity due to lack of accountability.
I have blokes who are on 38 grand a year & keeping the essential services going whilst the bureaucrats make dreadfully costly mistakes, causing disruption of services etc. get 200 grand a year plus allowances & various other benefits plus costing a fortune on needless frequent travel & squander hundreds of thousands on just as incomptent consultants.
The bureaucrats will retire on 6o grand a year pensions whilst the blokes who did all the work will get about 15 grand. So, in my opinion those on 15 grand are our poor.

individual

'any people whose income does not afford them to save are poor'

That's a pretty good definition as far as I'm concerned. You could also extend that to: '.... whose income does not allow them to adequately function within their own society'.

So someone whose income cannot afford to pay for a comfortable level of health care, education, transport, housing, clothing, food and recreational activity is poor.

CORRECTION: A bit late, but for what it's worth ... in my first comment above, the words 'statistical correlations between wealth and money' should have read: 'statistical correlations between wealth and happiness'.