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Where Do The Rich And Poor Live?
From counties with a 50%-plus poverty rate to counties with over 20% of household incomes over $200,000, the United States is increasingly becoming a divided union. But all the time American Idol is on, and the iPad is still running, Aldous Huxley's vision of a 'numb' society (as opposed to an Orwellian 1984 'imposed' utopia) seems more and more realistic.
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Can't wait until the next hurricane blows through and they want the rest of us to pay to rebuild their beach...
let alone the 3 feet of sand to be removed from the second floor time-shares
Is the concentration of wealth in Northwest Wyoming year-round, or only during the Fed conference?
Bison are very prosperous.
They just don't flash their pearls, Dahlinck.
lol. Jack-Hole.
Overpriced... Thx to the power of joobux...
~~~
Notice the DENVER area as well... Where the jew sellout 'Windsor Family' will find it's solace when they eventually get tossed out on their ass...
Ironic that most of the anti-government people hail from the poor ass areas of the country where my money goes.
Your money goes to northern VA, duh.
You realize that the graphs are in %, right?
It's not ironic that most of the pro-establishment States also have most of the Feds fiat. Lets see the map after the financial collapse.
Wrong, you idiot. No state is 100% republican or democrat. Look at who those impoverished areas voted for. South Texas was for Obama. Most of the big cities in the south are for obama. Then you have people who are jsut fine living in the rural areas of the south, living off the land and bartering. That isn't reported as income, so they're counted as poor.
The funny thing is you left-wing retards keep complaining about your taxes going to fund welfare, yet you keep voting for idiots like pelosi, obama, and other clowns who keep raising your taxes and dishing out more welfare.
I never really liked Poverticans.
Yes, but I do like the image used for your icon.
Cynthia Myers, good choice.
This map is half bullshit, as the coarse granularity of using county-wide data completely hides HUGE pockets of poverty, such as in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago and certain parts of New York City, none of which can be seen here as they are blended and averaged-out with more affluent areas within the same counties.
yes, and the high poverty areas also happen to be high obesity areas. Go figure
They're POAR because they eat MOAR?
Don't pick on fatties....they are contributing to the economy: They eat fast food (creating jobs), buy larger-sized clothes (creating more jobs), and need to go to the doctor more (again, creating more jobs). Then, when they're too fucking fat to move around, they go on disability (creating still MOAR jobs). Fat people benefit the economy!
Since we live in an economy 70%-driven by consumer spending, and 70% of Americans are obese, is it therefore possible to say that "Fat people account for the bulk of consumer spending in the economy?"
MOAR FATTIES! </sarc>
PS> Maybe the Bernank will find a way to print cheeseburgers.....
How can this be? Moochelle says the po keyyyyids are starving to deaf due to the evil republicans' sequester that her hubby king obama signed into law
High poverty areas, especially in inner cities, tend to be devoid of certain businesses, most noticeably grocery stores. So residents procure "food," e.g. chips, donuts, ice cream and beer, from the racks at the corner gas station or Quick-E-Mart; I've patronized a few of these establishments and have yet to see an organic food section in any of them. Fast food is the only other alternative the poor have. As a result, and not surprisingly, obesity skyrockets. It is becoming harder and harder for someone who is poor to make it out of their demographic, and into the middle class. One of the reasons is that poor people often "look like they are poor." This creates a bad impression with future employers, landlords, bank managers, et al. As a result they become stuck in their social milieu and many simply give up on the idea that there is any hope of getting out. Thus the cycle perpetuates. Which itself is not really true, not anymore. Today's America is marked by the rapid destruction of the middle class. We are becoming a bipolar society with the very wealthy at the top, and a range of lower middle class to poverty at the bottom.
Why wouldn't grocery stores want to be in high density urban areas? That's a question that needs to be answered.
Ah it's not that big of a mystery. High crime, high shoplifting, low sales volume. Not rocket science.
Gotta watch this, Second Rule (everyone else, too, for that matter). Ron Finley. Guerilla gardner. Just great:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central...
Exactly.
These maps would have you believe that South Chicago and Gary, Indiana are better off than Iowa.
Sweet Jesus.
What?! So if I live in a tent next door to Lloyd Blankfein, I don't get wealthier by osmosis?
No, but you might wake up as a pod person one of these days.
I would be careful.
You must be Occupying Goldman Sachs!
There were maps released a couple years ago by the census bureau that show the ethnicities that live in this big cities.. blacks, hispanics, white people, etc. Some of it would make you think apartheid exists in those cities in America.. that's a typical reason why there poverty (and one which Barry Choomwagon harps on to keep racial division/class warfare alive)
I'm having a hard time seeing Baltimore and DC in there.
Fully ensconsced in the MIC contractor & otherwise, 'Entitlement' complex [Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Grumman, etc.]... Not to mention Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Edgewood Arsenal, Ft. Meade [NSA], & Andrews... Plus ~ NIH, Walter Reed, FNMA, SSA, & about anything else... you know... CRUCIAL... That ever did or could exist [which is to say ~ adds considerably to the DEBT owed to a private banking franchise]... & most ~ administrated &/or coordinated by [insert 'mathematically abberational statistical anomality' reply here]...
~~~
I know, I know... Whocoodanode?
Every rich area needs a poor area nearby to supply house maids, gardeners, and shoe shiners.
and politicians.
+1 There's something weird about the wealth map. One of the biggest concentrations of wealth is in the NW quadrant of Wyoming. Forgive the ignorance if I'm wrong, but if memory serves that's Yellowstone Park isn't it? Are Yogi bear and Booboo earning 200k + a year along with Bambi and Thumper?
Jackson Hole...........Thats where the banksters meet to determine the fate of the world
Jackson Hole - playground of very rich and famous. Their income is off the charts. It is located just south of the Yellowstone NP. No housing projects there - just ranches and big log houses. You can spot billionaires and Hollywood actors.
Thank you both for making sense to a Brit. One can only hope the super volcano under Yellowstone spews out onto the whole lot of them next time they meet up at Jackson Hole to decide our fate.
the area also houses Dick Chaineee & Co., known to have profited handsomely through his Halliburton War Assistance in Iraq. . .
I think Jackson Browne and Dan Fogelburg (sp?) both lived thereabouts.
You are welcome.
I hope for neutron bomb style of eruption that takes banksta to the outer space and leaves the beautiful nature intact. There is a reason for the super rich infesting that area - the views of the Teton mountains and the Snake river are just unbelievably beautiful. If you are visitng the Yellowstone NP make sure you take ride south to the Grand Teton NP and Jackson Hole.
The last time I was there I met Brits at the gas station (2006). Their national soccer team just lost to Portugal in World Cup Quarter-finals - didn't want to discuss soccer but couldn't stop talking about the beauty of the area.
Well, they are all celebrities.
I'd like to see more granularity. In these formats/areas: zipcode, race, sex, education (further broken out with which degrees/certifications), and in actual numbers shown in one of those sweet looking icon charts that put complex numbers into easy to see examples (such as the who has what part of the Cyprus debt from couple of weeks ago). For the last, I imagine it would be interesting to know who has what exact number at the poverty line and "rich" line with cost of living factored in by zip code.
However, that might show some uncomfortable details to the internet masturbating to "Conservatives are on the dole" meme today. It also might/will show certified mechanics, electricians and pipe fitters w/o degrees making more than liberal arts majors...
$200k in household income is high? Shit.
I deem thee "RICH" bitch - bend over, it's only "fair"
You're a rich rotten criminal who stomped on and robbed a poor brown person according to the leftists.
Washington DC is the biggest con. It used to be minimal in overall wealth until the 1960s when big government blew up. Now it's soaked with cash from the Feds and lobbyists.
...and the gay population.
They transformed many of the worst areas in DC into showcase neighborhoods.
No matter what you think of them, they are a brave population. The areas they moved into were hell holes in the 80's.
I refer to Richard Florida and his case for the gays...errr, "creative class"...transforming cities. Problem is, someone has called bullshit on that cabal...Enrico Moretti. Pretty convincing case by Mr. Moretti that gays can move and transform all they want, but they don't move economies one iota.
That said, in order for the gays to move into and transform these places, they don't run around displacing drug dealers and heroin shacks (because ewww, heroin is gross and stuff), they overwhelmingly tend to displace a minority family or individuals in poverty further from the cities, further from the jobs, or even some regular old white folk in lower earnings brackets. And while the last ones out of the hood may see some decent appreciation, the gay gentrifiers I know aren't stupid about buying into those markets. And they feel just a passing tinge of guilt for getting an unreal price to the detriment of their seller.
I encourage everyone to displace the poor in the name of cultural rehabilitation. If you do it groups, you can make use federal money, make a fat profit AND feel like a "brave" frontier capitalist at the end of the day. Kudos to the gays, right? Savin the 'hood...one real estate deal at a time.
Appreciate the Moretti tip. Didn't realize there was scholarly work in this arena. Obviously,I have a bit of research to do on this topic.
I was going on my "on the ground" observations of being involved in the restoration of abandonded heroin and crack houses in the 80's and 90's throughout the inner city. I do feel sorry for the prostitutes that were displaced.
The first ones in had some balls, the ones that followed took a risk that paid off. The sellers got more for their shacks than they would have if the gays hadn't taken the risk.
Yes, but,
No kids means... junior doesn't go to school in a combat zone. It's a major difference.
Some people are house poor by choice. Not always a bad choice.
Well if you don't have a graph that shows indebted states you'd think CA's liberalism is a great way to go. That is not so. I costs a lot to party for decades. Now that BitCoin has gone up so much I'm glad I took a 15 year vacation and then bought BitCoins.
I'm telling ya there is no need to work. Ever. That is the greatest thing I've learned in life.
I've lived with those people that work and was one of them early on. Had them as partners. They go around like crazy people, get divorced, crash cars, get put on psychotropic drugs, drink, have strokes, and on and on. A lot of them even watc TV.
Joseph Campbell's saying of Follow Your Bliss hit me early on. I gave up a $100,000+ a year systems integration job and had the time of my life. Now I'm studying the great accomplisments in literature and in the unfolding of the human psyche. Also jogging.
So what does it mean to be human? BitCoin just recently made a huge number of open source people a lot of fucking money. They did the right thing, although mostly out of necessity as programmers--they couldn't help themselves. They provided for the development of the Internet, the genome project and BitCoin.
This is what happens to people that do what is intrinsic to their personalities.
In the case of those that strive after moneyand power...those that are driven by uncontrolled greed well they are the cause of horrendous damage to themselves and the entire freaking planet. As humans they wage war against God to put it in philosophical terms. For God is a concept they never took the time to understand. They run from death rather than learning and coming to terms with their mortality.
What a load of old shit.
Not enough people care about God anymore.
plenty of people mouthing the God-words, but very few of them living the God-principles. . .
Which god?
God usually has a way of fixing that, and it's not pleasant.
I'm kinda of reminded of the tech craze before 2000.
Is your name McAfee?
There's a bigger North / South divide in the USA than there is in Europe.
Boy you pussies just suck it up huh?
100+miles to the nearest shaded county. The local towns have built special buildings to distribute food every week. The parking lots on food day are busy, it's a social event. Folks get cheese, bread, milk and exchange tips and gossip. The aisles of the local Walmarts can be scary.
That yellow plastic stuff that Americans eat is not cheese.
It's pasteurized process cheese product: the breakfast, lunch, and dinner of champions.
I've seen it, and it looks vile. I can't tell where the packaging ends and the edible bit starts.
It's all the same stuff, so just throw in the plastic wrapper, too, sometimes the cardboard box if you're feeling the need for some fiber.
In fact, in the future, government rations will consist solely of a box of Velveeta and instructions to melt the cheese and plastic and use it as a dip for the cardboard.
Hobo nachos.
I thought that was what they were already doing?
Melting down old yoghurt pots and painting them yellow.
That yellow plastic stuff that Americans eat is not cheese
It is if your on Welfare.
Gotsta luv me some gubmint cheese!
I'm pretty sure the entire red blob in mississippi is moving to northeast arkansas...
The truth will set you free.
(If only it were that easy.)
Where do Rich People and Poor People live?
Rich People : Fantasy Land, Land of Hopes and Dreams.
Poor People : Reality.
well if this is supposed to be a "Brave New World" Huxley "Utopia"...where is my "soma" ???
Somewhere back in the 1990's.
Cheaper from Canada, eh?
Soma is the tv
A zip-code map would be much more interesting. You are rarely more than a short walk from an angry mob.
Try this - http://www.city-data.com/
Captain Willard
And unfortunately, an angry mob is rarely more than a short walk from you...
especially if you live in a big city.
Notice the cancer of DC.
The green map looks like a Jew map
Are you saying Jewish people are green?
Maybe a little around the gills.
Ben doesn't look well, lately. Have you noticed. Like his liver is yearning to be free.
Or maybe he's pregnant by an alien....
Paging our artist in residence;)
Please someone tell the poor fools that the recovery is firmly on track !!
The only thing that will make 50% of Americans happy is 100% of Americans poor.
Rather vivid how Washington DC is sucking money into itself from the rest of the country.
Its not sucking it. It is the source. Money streaming out of its blow hole and filtering back down into the pockets of its supporting cast.
We can respectfully disagree on congresses various orifices and there input exit functions.
I live in a dark green area and I have to say I am glad that there are all of these smug BMW/Mercedes/Ferrari/Range Rover/etc - driving diptards marking themselves as clear targets for when the have-nots go after the haves. While they are pulling Muffy Soccer Mom out of the front of her Porsche or home-invasioning her while Tripp is at work and relieving her of her wallet, jewelry, and perhaps life, I will be safe in my rusted out shitcan-mobile and just-far-enough-from-the-poor-side apt.
So you spend your days fantasising over violence against young women from your unabomber style bolt-hole in the woods?
I'll be back in a second whilst I check that you are definitely on "the list".
If you have a nice car, just drive it like you stole it!
Oh, they already do, and since I know many of them get their money from Wall Street, I guess it's kind of like they already have.
And, other commenter dork, I named my woodsy bolt-hole "Fort Schadenfreude" - it's a cold dark place indeed, but luckily I have my hate to keep me warm at night.
Hate is too much work, try apathy, it's what's for dinner.
MMMMmmmmmm. Yes please.
Another asshole with silver coins, canned food and a pistol who thinks life will be so great after society fails. Don't hate people who have succeeded. Try harder to succeed and don't just dream of some horrifying future where you will finally be a "big man".
Nope nope nope and nope. I just don't make a target of myself with flashy living. Thanks for playing, grab a gift bag on your way out.
Yeah, fuck you too.
I don't live in a dark green area, just a no-color middle of the road one. But it's shitheads like you that got my wife a good guard dog and some 12-ga training.
Rich or poor, you mess with my lady, and I'll find you and make you wish you were "only" dead. Take it to heart. I'm a po' boy by the standards of this site, but I can still give you a drone enema if you're deserving.
The Poverty rate or a map of Indian Reservations in the U.S.?
They are their own sovereign nation. It's their problem, right? They got their casinos and we got Wall Street. Its working out for everyone!
Sovereign nation, the 'american' way. They are so sovereign that they can weave their foreign trade/military alliances. Which can be expected from sovereign nations.
The day Indians can lease their land for a foreign military base to install... Quite some money to take from that.
But, hey, 'americanism' is as 'american' does. So those sovereign nations will stay sovereign as sovereign 'americans' want sovereign to be.
.
I have to agree with AnAnonymous on this one. They're about as sovereign as Tibet.
We need a federal-federal income tax. Where all federal workers pay and aditional income tax on top of the regular one because they are parasites.
NO just pay them in food stamps and section eight vouchers.
just dont make it worth their while leaving their jobs and taking benefits..60,000 average salary plus pension benefits..tax rate of 60% to get it to 24,000 ought to cover it..now you might hear a lot of squealing from the police, the fire service and teachers as well as the civil servants..their average is alittle higher
Police and fire are local so excluded. Military should be excluded as well. Lobbyist and lawyers should be doubly taxed as well.
If you combine these results with fema blast and fallout models, you might find some interesting overlaps.
Government stats and private interest group stats are flawed and fraud in every way. It is the age old problem: how to steal money from the many for the few.
Income and poverty is best judged by the state of your own community, and bank balance.
This is why the 10th Amendment and the sovereignty of states was considered to be very important...and it is most hated by statists, socialists, communists, fascists, nazis and zionists.
A neighbor is more important than a number.
hmmm..whats going on in denver and colaroado springs (middle of colorado) oh..and aspen..i see..they must have asked the quesion in the ski season.
salt lake city in the north east of utah..delta airlines pay well?
and
i guess they pay the rangers and firefighters a bunch in yellowstone in the northwest of wyoming, else the tourists have loads of money!
NW Wyoming is Jackson Hole, one of the top five most expensive places to live.
Denver....research Cherry Hills Village and it's inhabitants. (A real estate agent I know was doing open houses in this neighborhood and told me of a man that literally walked into one of the homes and wrote a check for $11 million on the spot)
Colorado Springs is industry stuff and military stuff, hence money.
Aspen is the top of the top, you know $48.5 million dollar houses and such. From 2011 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870377570457616255329792826...
(In that article notice all the professions of the resident home owners in Aspen. As well as Cherry Hills Village Denver)
when SHTF this is the last place I want to be.
God Bless the Child- Blood, Sweat and Tears(5:55)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04rClGsbWp4
Amen, brother sister. God bless the Child.
The lyrics and instrumentals fuse white, black latino, and the spiritualism, heart felt hope of this country, made by our own.
Made by our own, defended by our own. Too much abused by cynics and scammers, new and old.
One quadrillion $ of unregulated otc derivatives ensures the bankruptcy of the world. Made in Wall St and Washington, London, Brussels and other global capitals.
We will have our own, long after they kill each other.
It would be interesting to see these numbers/colors/shading adjusted for cost of living.
Well, the Gini coefficient is a better overall indicator. But social science aside, how many pixels does it take to demonstrate that rampant, bloodthirsty corruption is destroying the country before our eyes???
Nary a mention in the State of the Union. Gay marriage, show trials of guns, drone invasions......anything but the real truth.
There are no other issues. Corruption, or democracy. That is the only issue left. And for many here it's already over. I choose to continue to struggle.
Agreed. No surrender. We must hang together or we most certainly will hang apart.
PS
I prefer the Republic. Democracy is extremist, and only works until politicians figure out how to bribe people to steal other people's money. Confidence tricksters always seek to dupe the many for their private profit.
Let me print money at will,
and give me a representative democracy,
and I will own the entire political spectrum within 40 years.
Rothschild did that :-)
And that's why the Rothschilds support Globalism.
Oh yeah, I am with you there. My fantasy is to start a New National Party using the 1956 Democratic and Republican platforms as a basis....sort of a Venn diagram adding in new issues and overlapping the two parties' positions on those that were around then (guns and butter).
But today it would cost $100-250 million to mount a national party. On the other hand, there seems to be no peaceful alternative.
We will do as we ever did, as Americans. Defend our own in our own communities.
American troops were the only ones to refuse to hand their jewish comrades to the Nazis.
Zionism is bad for jews, and everyone else.
Yet zionists globalists and international financiers use the USA, insist on dual passports to Israel, send jobs abroad, and underestimate the will of ordinary Americans to defend the Constitution, for our community.
About three years ago we went past the acceptable Gini number. The violence should have started back then but why didn't it? The only thing I can figure is the TV, computers and the guaranteed food stamps.
I'm telling you, and this is just from where I live, if the guaranteed food stops, and I would give it 24 hours not three days, much violence will take place.
When the parasite crowd has to go without food for 24 hours it will get crazy.
I don't like the map. 200,000$ in New York is not that much in comparison to let's say 200,000$ in Montana. What about a self-sufficient farmer with a 15,000$ income: is he poor ?
Agreed Jim,
The money is small potatoes. This is a failure of democracy and rule of law.
A coup by a small, cynical, powerful group seemed silly in my youth, but all the checks and balances have failed. Every level of government is compliant. No one in power is really leaning against this shit. Much less trying to stop it.
I still think they will choke on their own brew, because they are so arrogant and stupid, but what comes next?
That is the reason to fight the beast.
The founding rule of law, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights is being whittled away by the international financiers, paying off politicians to schmooze the majority into debt slavery.
That is the way of socialism, communism, zionism, and the nightmare now facing their last enemy: the USA.
Money is nothing when all around you are dead. George Soros knows this.
Imagine the trauma of a child when he is forced to accompany a looter, and his soul dies, and all he thinks about is money to survive; never be poor. Bad men made me do it.
That is the psychosis of the post WWII zionists who came to the USA, and have no sense of community. They never knew it.
We have something to protect in the USA, something we of many hands made. Our Constitution protects us.
How can a piece of paper protect us?
Never did. Never will. Paper money is fraud. And the 'sage of Omaha' thinks only jews fleeing nazis buy gold. Hateful fool on the inside track of politics, he is.
Oh, hang on, you might be referring to the rule of law, the Constitution, the only thing that defends you against the marauding hordes of international financiers.
All paper is not equal. Some paper is made by blood, brains, and everlasting love of community.
I don't know about these things... you have to realize that there is so much gaming of poverty programs that the statistics are unreliable. If a county thinks they can get more money by showing need... A lot of these agencies are good at coaching applications for benefits. Just saying...
you have to account for the fact that the counties where t. boone pickens and ted turner live, that the income per capita is distorted vs other averages
I'm pretty sure one of those green specks in the middle of nowhere, TX, is Mr. Pickins.
It's relative, and I really feel for the impoverished. But I can tell you that $200K where I live in NY suburbia makes you a lower-mid, hardly "rich". Why is it when we talk about "the rich" and its income, we never index cost of living??
Good thing we keep importing all those folks from the third world so that they can show the rest of us how to live as peasants as the S continues THTF.
Sorry, thus comment waas a response to 'darteous' below ... I have no idea why it posted below your comment...
That's something I rail on about on occasion. Year-to-year income is nothing compared to fortunes collected over decades or centuries, yet you never hear statistics about that.
Where do the rich and poor live? I want addresses!
Funniest comment on this thread ;-)
Thanks to ZeroHedge I now know where I shall rampage, pillage and loot when the SHTF. A veritable Zagat guide to pigs who will go up against the wall!
@ ATM, et al:
I don't know about kleptocrats or po folk like me, but the Bernank lives in Skillman, NJ
http://www.celebrityhousepictures.com/ben-bernanke.php
NJ, the poor man's Greenwich. The problem with Bernanke is that he was told his degree would get him more, and it didn't, so now he liebors on, ad nauseum. He's a believer, not a deceiver. Fool.
If poverty were measured by any real standard, you'd certainly see a lot more red.
There is only one true color: red white and blue, the Constitution. For you. For me. For anyone who comes to live and defend the principles of the USA. Everything else is foreign.
That's three colors dude.
Yawn. Yet another article that conflates income with wealth.
If I'm living in a $3M house in Silicon Valley and living on Social Security, I don't have much income, and I am wealthy.
If I mortgage my house to open a restaurant, lose my A$$ for two years before making $200K in year 3, I am not "rich".
The problem with these statistics by government and private interest groups is that they do not live in the economy occupied by most people.
Statistics today serve the age old problem: how to steal money from most to pay the few: the money managers, socialists, communists, zionists, and their un-Federal no-Reserve Board, a private corporation that serves the old monarchies of Britain and Europe, and the Vatican.
Americans have been conned.
Unless you have physical metals outside of the system, you likely have no financial wealth whatsoever. It's all a managed show.
What good is a dollar if the country itself falls apart?
Disagree.
While diversifying into metals is good, equities and real estate will also hold their value in periods of high inflation.
Unless they are taxed out from under you by an increasingly desperate and rapacious government willing to go to any length whatsoever to maintain a corrupt and failing status-quo power structure.
@ StarTedStackin':
Disagree.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012...
Don't forget tools and art.
And guns and ammo. Gee, pretty soon I'll be a Renaissance Man. I think I'd prefer the Enlightenment.
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
An observation about silly charts like these:
I live in the NYC area and my wife and I have a HH income which puts us in the top 10% of the US. Sadly, this barely allows us to be middle class. Why? Home prices here are absurdly high, commuting costs are absurdly high, food and clothing costs are absurdly high, and so on.
If I moved 1 hour west, my commuting costs would rise, and I would spend 4 hours a day commuting to work. However, I'd save a ridiculous amount on property taxes, home mortgage, and food. I'd also have to put up with public schools which are substandard (though maybe I could afford to send my kids to private school).
Neither of these charts say anything to me, in particular. I don't believe the poverty rate is properly calibrated or calculated. Poverty is a funny thing. I work at a soup kitchen and the kids have Nikes, iPods/phones, and the moms all have their Gucci. I'm not saying they necessarily bought any of this, nor am I saying they stole it. It's possible some of it was picked up at discount centers, or yardsales, or clothing drops. My point is that the value system of the poor is completely out of whack. They are poor not because of where they live or what they do - but because of what they value.
Presidents like Obama enable this because they believe the problem is lack of money, and by 'reallocating' wealth they can make things 'better'. They are sadly mistaken and only encourage these people to spend what little they have on other worthless crap that seems to imply wealth, but doesn't. And after buying all this, they expect more money because they are still 'poor'.
I too do volunteer work at food pantries/shelters - consider the "Gucci" you see is knock-off fakes, or one of the other possibilities you listed. . . people falling through the net often spend much time trying to appear as if they're not hurting, girls do each other's hair/nails, guys might live in a nice leather jacket, score some label'd footwear from a friendly volunteer, etc.
the kids are more keen eyed, so when they wear a label, they usually go for the real thing. . . sadly.
Interesting comment INSPECTOR BIRD. But your image here tends to slight individuals trapped in the crowds of poor....those individuals are held down and damaged by their peer groups, noisy classrooms, abusive bullies, drugs, alcohol etc.." You say " They are poor not because of where they live or what they do - but because of what they value."..The individual who might otherwise do well is injured by what the OTHERS around him value...or don't value. I think you would agree with that.
They are poor not because of where they live or what they do - but because of what they value.
__________________
Absolutely. How could it be otherwise in an 'american' world, considering what 'americanism' is about.
All that consumption by poor serves one goal: bettering the 'american' middle class welfare.
Obama, as your typical 'american' president, has only be reallocated wealth to serve We The People aka the 'american' middle class.
.
This story of Obama reminds me of the Troma movie "Bankers' Monster in the Closet". Never seen it?
"the rich" live in counties that make them not so rich.