[lit-ideas] Re: [lit-id] The Poverty of Heritage
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 21:24:13 -0700
Lawrence wrote:
You’ve lost track of the fact that I quoted certain items from the
Heritage report and that various people including you took issue with
what I quoted. I never said anything about the cost of housing in
Europe. I only quoted the report which referred to size. That is the
issue. If you want to have a different discussion, about cost, then I
shan’t join because I haven’t run across anything on that.
You want to discuss housing and relative poverty but don't want to
discuss the cost of housing?
I would have expected you, as someone who has, surely, analyzed the
costs of and budgets for various programs in the aircraft/defense
industry, to try to see whether you can come up with any ideas for how
someone might survive on (the revised figure of) $780 a month.
Rector's failure to look behind the bare data ('a car,' 'two cars')
serves his ideological purpose, which is to deny that there is genuine
poverty in the US. His smoke-and-mirrors trick of comparing some highly
theoretical poor person here with some underdescribed person in Europe
is surely a way of preventing needless worry about the poor here. ('See,
these are the facts. The Census Bureau says so. Don't blame me.') His
implicit criterion of poverty-in-name-only is material possession.
I mean, surely, somebody in an air-conditioned apartment in Phoenix, is
better off than somebody without air-conditioning in London? Who
provides such things (landlords? home owners?) doesn't even interest
him. But most jurisdictions have rules about what must be provided to
tenants (whether an apartment is furnished or unfurnished), which would
account for the presence of so many of the luxuries in the flats of the
renting poor.
As for Rector's claims about the availability of health care (he doesn't
get around to the cost of prescription or non-prescription drugs), the
silence of any further explanation on this point says a great deal. It
hardly matters that the Census doesn't tell either; he's interpreting
the information for us.
It would be nice to have some response to the question of how it is
possible for anyone in the US to acquire, maintain, and (even) replace
the things the poor are, most of them, said to have, on $748 a month.
Let alone eat. Don't think, but look.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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