Scot Dutchy wrote:42's great claim that there are no poor in America (from the report):
Some politicians and political appointees with whom I spoke were completely sold on the narrative of such scammers sitting on comfortable sofas, watching color TVs, while surfing on their smart phones, all paid for by welfare. I wonder how many of these politicians have ever visited poor areas, let alone spoken to those who dwell there. There are anecdotes aplenty, but evidence is nowhere to be seen.
This reverses what evidence and anecdote mean. The "evidence" is the statistical data reported by the government agencies I cited and quoted. The "anecdote" is what's referenced here in the quote about a politician visiting a poor area.
Scot Dutchy wrote:
How many in poverty (from the report):
In order to define and quantify poverty in America, the Census Bureau uses ‘poverty thresholds’ or Official Poverty Measures (OPM), updated each year. In September 2017, more than one in every eight Americans were living in poverty (40 million, equal to 12.7% of the population). And almost half of those (18.5 million) were living in deep poverty, with reported family income below one-half of the poverty threshold.
There is no poverty.
Once again, when poverty is defined as "the bottom 12.7%" or "people making less than $X per year" then, of course, there is poverty. But, the question of how do the bottom 12.7% live is a different one. I've tried to explain this several times, and you're either not getting it, or intentionally avoiding it. Just like how in the Netherlands the bottom 12.7% of the population, or the people making less than 33,000 Euros per year, or whatever, live pretty fucking good, and hardly would be considered "poor" by the standards of the "rest of the world," the same is true in the US. By world standards, there are no significant numbers of poor in the Netherlands, and the same is true of the US. But, if you measure it by comparing the incomes or wealth of the rich and poor in the Netherlands without reference to living standards, there are plenty of people living in "poverty" there too.
There must, be, right? Because you give so many people that guaranteed $1200 or whatever per month. If they weren't "poor" they wouldn't need that subsidy, isn't that true? And, a lot of those folks are working paying jobs, aren't they? So, wouldn't the Netherlands then be subject to the same criticism as the US in not requiring private employers to pay a "living wage" so the government wouldn't have to shell out all that welfare money?
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar