[lit-ideas] Re: [lit-id] The Poverty of Heritage

  • From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 04:11:03 -0700 (PDT)

A brief comment: poverty is to a great extent a
relative and even subjective state of affairs. A
person in China who makes 100 US & a month, or a
couple that makes 200 US & a month, might not
necessarily consider themselves poor since with
Chinese low cost of living this is probably enough to
cover their basic needs and most of the people around
them would be in the same situtation. Also, while
there is no doubt a lot of poverty in China,
homelessness is relatively rare and few people are
hungry nowadays. (Health care might be more of a
problem, though.)

O.K.



--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> You're describing a discussion other than the one I
> was in.  I quoted
> certain things in response to what I perceived as
> misconceptions about the
> American poor.  Your challenge was directed at me,
> but it wasn't directed at
> anything I said.  
> 
>  
> 
> Why should I analyze the census figures?  I've known
> about them for a long
> time.  Certain things said earlier today suggested
> to me that some people on
> Lit-Ideas weren't familiar with them.  
> 
>  
> 
> As to being able to live on $750 a month, I have two
> sisters that are doing
> it.  They sort of dropped out, hippy like years ago
> and so never managed to
> put much into Social security.  But they are getting
> a pittance from SS and
> making due.  One sister lives in a small apartment
> in a town outside of
> Denver.  The other lives in a trailer out in the
> California desert.  And
> they have most of the things mentioned, drivable
> cars, color TVs, etc;
> although I don't think either of them has a cell
> phone.  They both have
> medicare for all their medical problems and they
> have a goodly number of
> them.  I sent the sister in Colorado some money once
> and she wrote me saying
> it was a bit embarrassing to receive it.  She said
> she was managing well
> enough.  
> 
>  
> 
> Both sisters know they are as they are because of
> choices they made in the
> past.  Neither is bitter.  Neither is blaming the
> government for their
> poverty.
> 
>  
> 
> Lawrence
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Robert Paul
> Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 9:24 PM
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: [lit-id] The Poverty of
> Heritage
> 
>  
> 
> 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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