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The Forum > Article Comments > Child poverty in America is indefensible > Comments

Child poverty in America is indefensible : Comments

By Alon Ben-Meir, published 1/11/2017

According to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development rankings of child income poverty rates, the United States disgracefully falls in between Mexico and Lithuania.

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All pain of others is ignored…the selfish society!
Posted by diver dan, Wednesday, 1 November 2017 9:42:17 AM
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Unfettered capitalism and trickle down theory at it's very finest!

Want to change it, wherever we find it?

Then as simple as building a few, walk away safe thorium reactors! The using the world's cleanest, safest, cheapest carbon free energy. Power new space age desalination!

And because it's relatively simple! Able to be progressively funded out of existing aid budgets!? Which will eventually be able to be partially unchained from that simple task. To do other more important things!

Deliver reliable affordable potable water then enough food and fibre forever! As drought proofed agriculture!

Which will reverse the current drought created exodus and with that, improve the standard of living both north and south of any border!

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish even allegorically and you feed him and his family forever.

The only danger and forever lurking waiting for yet another chance at delivering a killer blow? Is the pernicious, parasitical paradigm, privatise the profits and socialise the losses. And mostly responsible for all this social injustice and starving millions!

By all means lets give the entrepreneurs free reign! Just not the kitchen sink, the refrigerator and stove, (energy and capital) as part of a bargain for beggars!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 1 November 2017 2:25:43 PM
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And yet they continue to make more children :-(

Will this ever stop?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 1 November 2017 6:34:27 PM
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If corrupt US politicians care more about their stock portfolios in the health and insurance sectors what exactly do you want me to do about it?
Posted by Armchair Critic, Wednesday, 1 November 2017 7:16:49 PM
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When the most powerful "leader" in the west, owns three companies he hasn't contributed a red cent of his own money too, but rather, owns them courtesy of the taxpayer?

And where the richest man in America, the Oracle from Omaha, only pays half the personal tax, as a percentage of his income, than his Secretary? One begins to understand where the problem lies?

Or when the basic wage is still only seven dollars an hour? And maybe less for many migrant farm workers, while the taxpayer pours annual billions into the farm bill! You start to understand the nature of the problem!

But particularly when you contrast it with the unprecedented period of post war prosperity, brought about by Keynesian economics and massive forced stimulus spending, still peculating up through the real economy!

And not likely to improve anytime soon, with the current economic paradigm in play. Even as we face quite massive technological change and massive job losses accruing to Automation!

So when all the jobs have been automated genius? And virtually all the "labour market" living on charity or their wits? Who is going to pay the tax bill to fund the services and the infrastructure repairs/restoration/renovation/roll out? Father Christmas?

Or should we just wait until the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be the headlight of the thundering steaming express, destination permanent economic ruin!? As we speed ever faster in ever tightening downward spiral makes us all disappear down some cosmic fundamental?

We was going round the bend doing a million miles an hour, when the chain on my bicycle broke. I was scrapped all over, by the rocks and the gravel and ruptured to death by a spoke.

What a wonderful party! More tea? Hallelujah and pass the biscuits. Ah said biscuits son, not dried cow pats!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 2 November 2017 8:39:07 AM
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Hey Alan,
I'm still convinced that my 'Socialist Base Level Jobs' idea I came up with a year or so back is the only idea that can change the path of western society.
It might be a big call, but I don't see any other answers.
If we have Capitalist Education (Private Schools) with a Socialist Base Level (Public Schools) and;
If we have Capitalist Healthcare (Private Hospitals) with a Socialist Base Level (Public Hospitals)
Then it stands to reason we need Capitalist Jobs (What we have now) with a Socialist Base Level (Socialst Level Jobs).

My idea is 'Double Dole Payment' for anyone who wants to work full time - essentially doing things that save the government money, or be more efficient.
And so we create hundreds of thousands of jobs, all across the country on national infrastructure and incorporating low cost training.
And we remove the 'I can't get a job' excuse, and 'create a culture of employment within the ranks of the unemployed'.

With jobs, the aim is to 'make use of the 5% pool of unemployed workers that capitalism requires to prevent wage growth'.
We administer these jobs in a modern way - through the use of a 'myGov' App - 'Log-In, Select a shift, Confirm, Go to Work'.
The existing system has 'Working Credits'.
I want to include 'Training Credits', where you earn rewards points which can be spent towards training for new skills.

And I want to update the normal standard resume, to a 'digital resume', where the 'App' you log into knows your skills; and offers you different 'job shifts' based on these skills.
With so many jobs, there will be plenty of opportunities to save on the cost of training, which can also be streamlined through 'Apps'.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 2 November 2017 9:36:35 AM
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[Cont.]
Now if the cost of infrastructure doubles every 10years, then we'll save in the long run making an effort to build national infrastructures now rather than wait.
It keeps people useful, and learning new skills, no matter what automation occurs this safeguards human usefulness.
And it stops people - from falling down a downward spiral in their lives, when they can't find work.

This way, we'll build a Straight Road National highway from Darwin to Perth going through every Capital City, including HSR and Road; Power, Water (connecting dams, Internet, Oil and Gas (The Aussie Silk Road) and we'll build those Thorium Power Stations; Solar Farms, and a Superport in Darwin and prepare for the Asian Century like we already should have. Then we'll build an inland route.

And all these Socialist Jobs, will help to Provide Capitalist Jobs and business opportunities (including Co-Ops)

And this is why I support Medicare, because I believe our system of government should be refined, not cannabalised.
And why I think the whole Capitalism V's Socialism thing is stupid.
There's a better way, we need to refine it.

BTW, US spends $250 million a day on wars...
That's why they have no money to educate the kids, because they're a war economy.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 2 November 2017 9:39:25 AM
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Lies, damned lies and statistics.

There is relative poverty and absolute poverty.

The poor in the US are poor relative to the rich in the US. But they aren't absolutely poor. Indeed using the articles statistics, which I don't think are right but whatever, this poor family of four are richer than 60% of the world's population. And if you took into account things like food vouchers and other welfare, they be richer (relative to the world) than that again.

The way poverty is calculated means there will always, ALWAYS, be poor in the US and elsewhere irrespective of how wealthy those poor are.

But this is just a way for the anti-US crowd to whine some more.

Hilariously the author is also upset that the US is building a fence. One wonders why, if things are so bad in the US for the poor, so many people want to sneak in. Don't the fools know how bad it'll be for them once they get to experience US 'poverty' (sarc off).
Posted by mhaze, Thursday, 2 November 2017 12:29:12 PM
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mhaze

More Mexicans are actually leaving the US than entering it. Between 2000 and 2014, on rounded figures, 870,000 Mexicans entered the US, whereas 1 million Mexicans returned to Mexico from the US. (Pew Research)

By way of comparison, between 1995 and 2000, 2.9 million Mexicans entered the US, due mainly to the economic devastation caused by NAFTA - especially in rural areas. So, not only are more Mexicans leaving the US than entering it, the number of Mexicans wanting to go to the US at all has dramatically dropped. That seems to say a lot more about the US in recent decades than about Mexico.

In regard to poverty figures, that 'family of four' may earn more actual money than 60% of the world's population, but that doesn't make them 'richer'. A lot depends on the relative cost of living, especially housing, healthcare and education.
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 2 November 2017 3:47:57 PM
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Killarney,

The comparisons between countries is done using Purchasing power parity (PPP) such that the sort of issues you raise about 'cost of living' doesn't apply. It remains a fact that the poor in the US are better off than more than half the planet and better off than the middle and even upper-middle classes in many other nations. Which is why the US remains the destination of choice for those best described as economic refugees.

The official figure show that the trade of people between Mexico and the US is roughly equal. But even those compiling the numbers recognise that the calculation is problematic since so many people enter illegally.

But that's only half the issue. The illegal movement of people across the US southern boarder is much more than just Mexican nationals but includes aspirants from a range of other central and southern American nations. Hence the wall.
Posted by mhaze, Saturday, 4 November 2017 5:52:40 AM
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