Bums Need Medical Care

When talking about homeless people, many people do not realize that most homeless people are not bums. Most homeless people have jobs or are actively seeking employment. They are generally families made up of a single mother and her children.

However, there are bums. And the problem with them is very different than with other poor people. Homeless bums are generally men who have given up. Some of them are guys whose wives left them and who are hopeless and sick of paying alimony. Some of these homeless bums are people who have acquired a mental disease such as schizophrenia. However, they are almost all mentally ill. Depression counts as a mental illness.

We need to find ways to get mental treatment for these bums. For most, treatment will allow them to go back to living a somewhat normal life, thus making them productive members of society. For a few, they may need to spend a prolonged period of time in an insane asylum. However, for their sake and for the sake of everyone else, we need to get these bums off the streets and into treatment.

It is utterly foolish to let insane people roam the streets as bums. And I doubt that any bums are sane in that almost no sane person would choose to live as a bum. And a person is only a bum if they choose to be one.

I think we all realize that society will be a safer and happier place if bums are not left on the streets.

Would you rather have bums forced into treatment or left as vagrants on the streets? Post your answers to that question and your comments on this post in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. All viewpoints are welcome.

Short-Term Education

An important part of helping people avoid or escape poverty is short-term education. People may not have enough money to go to school for a long time, and they need the education to make more money. It’s a catch 22.

http://www.sbcleveland.com/ is the website of a private college in Cleveland that offers short-term training programs. Sanford-Brown College also has 15 total campuses in 9 states.

Not everyone has the time or money to go to school. But it can be a very powerful tool in achieving financial stability.

Defining Poverty

I think those of us who work for poverty alleviation would benefit from trying harder to define poverty.

Common misconceptions about poverty hinder the social movement to eradicate poverty. I think we can often trace the misconceptions to a misunderstanding of what the word poverty means in the socioeconomic context.

I think finding a accurate and complete definition of poverty requires a group of people. So I hope you help us try to define poverty in the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

Let me try to offer my own definition of poverty. I define poverty as a lack of access to a basic standard of living which includes basic “needs” such as food, clothes, shelter and healthcare.

Additionally, I want to point out that a person needs to make enough money to pay not only their current living expenses, but also past and future expenses. On average, people probably can only work about half their life–generally from their mid-20s to retirement. So we cannot measure a person’s yearly salary against the cost-of-living for a year to measure poverty. In a year, a person needs to earn about double a year’s worth of living expenses.

Also, we need to make subtractions from a person’s salary to come up with a “net salary” which we can use to judge their true economic standing. We need to subtract unemployment insurance, education costs, transportation, and any other job-related expenses. In other words, a person must accept certain costs in order to do a job and earn an income, so we must subtract the costs from the income to find the person’s net salary. And we must use the net salary to find out if the person can truly afford the cost-of-living.

The United States government admits that nearly 40 million of its citizens live in poverty. But I think we would find an even higher number if we used a more accurate measure of poverty based on a more accurate definition of poverty.

How can we fix a problem without understanding it correctly?

President Bush Mentions Poverty

I watched the State of the Union address earlier tonight.

First and foremost, Bush talked about his tax cuts and urged Congress not to let his “tax relief” expire. But, as I pointed out in my last post, his unfair tax cuts mean the working class has to pay more in taxes. Basically, changing the tax code does not change how much the taxpayers have to pay. Spending determines how much the taxpayers have to pay. And Bush has increased spending, while decreasing the amount that the rich have to pay of it.

Anyway, I don’t agree with everything Bush said in his address, but he did make a lot of agreeable statements. Of course, most politicians make a lot of good talk; they just never actually do much to solve problems.

Bush did mention the healthcare problem in the United States, AIDS, and global poverty.

Unfortunately, he still supports the expensive war in Iraq, which will end up costing trillions of dollars. Those trillions of dollars could have gone towards ending poverty and towards actually protecting the United States.

Bob Edgar Stresses Poverty

I just read an interesting interview with Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause.

For the sake of remaining bipartisan, he does not take positions on presidents. But he does make some good points about issues. Internationally, he wants the next U.S. president to focus on ending secret prisons, torture and pre-emptive war. Domestically, he stressed the importance of healthcare and poverty.

Referring to the current presidency of George Bush, Edgar pointed out that over the last eight years we have seen a focus on giving tax cuts to the rich, while little attention has gone the way of the poor. I find that point especially important considering the aforementioned international policies. The Bush administration has given tax cuts to the rich while increasing spending and turning a surplus into a deficit.

By increasing spending, the administration has increased the amount that taxpayers will have to pay in taxes. By giving tax cuts to the rich, the administration has made it so the working class and the poor will have to pay a higher proportion of the spending than before, which especially hurts since the Bush administration has increased spending.

I guess people think of tax cuts and think that means they will pay less. But obviously that is not correct. The tax rate simply determines the rate at which the taxpayers pay the money that the government spends. How much the government spends determines how much the taxpayers pay in total. And giving tax cuts to the rich changes the proportions of who pays, making it so that the non-rich have to pay a higher proportion than they did prior to the tax cuts.

Simply put, the government shifts the tax burden to the less privileged by giving tax cuts to the rich. Then the government increases the overall tax burden by increasing spending. That combination has a terrible effect on the working class, which has a horrible effect on the poor.

Working class people cycle in and out of poverty. In a ten-year-period, the poverty rate reaches about 40%. The working class needs tax cuts, not the rich. The working class cannot afford needless wars costing trillions of dollars.

The unfair economic burden put on the working class causes poverty in the United States.

Unfortunately, I doubt any new president will change much. The rich have enough money to influence government and who can get elected. For example, the oil companies and the military industry have both donated billions of dollars to both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The major corporations literally own the media and fund the campaigns of the “front-running” politicians from both parties.

I do not think we can rely on politicians to use their political power to save the working class or to alleviate poverty. Positive change and the alleviation of poverty depends on the general public not the politicians. I fully believe that only non-governmental solutions will work to end poverty and help the working class.

What do you think about the relationship between tax cuts, poverty, and the working class? Post your thoughts about it in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and all viewpoints are welcome.

Bill Gates Suggests Creative Capitalism To Alleviate Poverty

At the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates said that we need to revise capitalism so that it also serves poor people, which he calls creative capitalism.

I usually avoid suggesting “capitalism” as a way to alleviate poverty, because so many people have such different interpretations of what the word means, and because “capitalism” usually seems to include a monopolization of natural resources which contributes to poverty and limits freedom. Nonetheless, I generally agree with Bill Gates’ sentiment.

At one point, Bill Gates said, “If we’re going to find a sustainable way to help those who can’t pay, we have to use self-interest and caring – capitalism and philanthropy – to direct attention to people who have been left behind.”

I agree.

Practically speaking, we cannot realistically expect people to do anything that harms themselves, even if for the so-called greater good. We have to find ways to alleviate poverty through mutually beneficial arrangements. We need not only try to help certain people or just the poorest among us. Instead, we need to find ways to build a better world for as many people as possible. People will agree to mutually beneficial arrangements, but they will oppose proposals that would cause them harm.

For example, consider micro-credit. It has helped millions of women escape poverty with loans of only $50 or so, and the bankers and lenders have profited from it. It works because it benefits everyone involved.

Simply put, we need to find win-win solutions for the problem of poverty. Bill gates can call it creative capitalism; you can call it whatever you want, but we need to do it no matter what we call it.

What do you think of what Bill Gates calls creative capitalism? Post your answers to that question and your comments on this post in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. The forums are completely free to use, and all viewpoints are welcome.