The poverty level has gone down in the US and all over the world.
Today, you can’t tell a rich person from a poor one in many cases. IPhone, sneakers, clean clothes, roof over their head and enough to eat. And let’s not forget access to the world’s information.
Only self-destructive behaviors can stand in the way of such a life.
Sure, the rich have more expensive cars and bigger houses, but these bigger and better things don’t make the difference between human suffering and early death.
Our system of pursuing your own self-interest by helping others get what they want (in a free market), called capitalism, is one that is working quite nicely for all of us. Some benefit from the rewards of doing this well, and we all benefit from the higher and higher standard of living we can have at such a cheaper and cheaper price (less and less of our labors to purchase things).
Businesses compete with each other, and all of us consumers win.
Let’s not mess it up with other ideas that are proven to fail over and over again.
Thanks for speaking the truth!
Right on Larry! It’s amazing how many people ignore the documented failures of alternative governing. Capitalism has by far lifted more folks out of poverty and helped more average men and women achieve greater success than any other system ever conceived…
I am grateful for free markets and capitalism! The other systems fail every time they are tried. They work until they run out of other people’s money! To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher.
I have been at the bottom of the field and worked my way up to business owner. One of the things I heard the most from the bottom was all of the grumbling about all of the “rich” people who had so much more money than them and yet didn’t seem to work as hard for it. I for one am extremely thankful for “rich” people who have more money than me and want to buy what I have to offer. It’s what gives me the opportunity to rise to the next level and eventually their level. They should teach these principles of capitalism in school and then maybe we would have people who learned how working hard and doing good work can pick them up to “rich” status.
Well said! It is working, let’s not mess it up…
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FACT: Poverty thresholds are produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, and are calculated for people whose poverty status can be determined. By definition, this does not include the homeless population, nor does it include people living in prisons, nursing homes, or college dorms. Moreover, child poverty in the US has actually *increased* in the past two decades.
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Homeless individuals often own iPhones, it is true! It’s the only way they can at least try to find work, to stay in touch with loved ones. A cell phone in 2022 is not a luxury, as this post implies.
Sneakers? Dogwhistle much?
And then there’s the “enough to eat” myth. People who work 40+ hours a week but are not paid a living wage do NOT have enough to eat, and must rely on SNAP (food stamps) to feed themselves and their family. The large corporations who “compete” to sell made-in-China goods for lower and lower prices (as lauded elsewhere in this post) do not pay a living wage to their millions of minimum-wage employees. And the US taxpayer picks up the rest via SNAP.
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Translation: if you’re poor, it’s your own fault.
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FACT: the rich can afford healthcare insurance, which is increasingly out-of-reach for many Americans. Moreover, the policies, with increasing frequency, have such high deductibles and co-pays, they effectively make seeing a doctor unaffordable. It’s called “underinsurance”. And it’s responsible for people’s cancer getting to advanced and incurable stages (among other illnesses) before the individual finally seeks care, thus the rich DO have something that makes the difference, that keeps “suffering and early death” at bay, compared to their less-wealthy counterparts.
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This is warmed-over Ayn Rand nonsense. Rand, by the way, needed to rely on Social Security and Medicare in her old age, but insisted on using a different name to claim the the services, as she realized she was hypocritically doing the very thing she’d once sneered at others for doing.)
<> If every company paid a living wage, and corporations did not outsource their labor to countries where starvation wages and sweatshops were legal, we *would* all win. Not how it works in the US, however. If you buy American, hire American, build American, and pay a living wage to your employees, you will be unable to compete and will be crushed by multinationals who pay starvation wages and/or outsource their jobs and factories. In the US, we may have free trade; we do not have *fair* trade. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, in other words.
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FACT: Social Democracies like Norway, Denmark, and Finland have far higher standards of living for ALL citizens and regularly rank in the top 3 for happiness and longevity. Their infant mortality rates are far lower than that of the US. In countries where college education and trade school are either free or affordable, and citizens are better educated, earning potential rises accordingly. The US is the only “developed” nation that does not have universal healthcare. We are the only country where getting sick can cost you your life savings–over 500K Americans declare medical bankruptcy every year. It is estimated that over 50K Americans die needlessly, too, because they could not afford to see a doctor.
But feel free to insist that Magical Capitalism is the best and only way. “The American Dream”–it’s called that because you have to be asleep to believe it. — George Carlin.