A personal favor…

Any sane person would prefer to live in a world without poverty than a world with poverty. We prefer to live by each other’s happiness, not each other’s pain. Of course, this makes it odd that poverty continues. What can you do to fight poverty? Most importantly, talk about it!

We cannot solve a problem without talking about it. We need to get on the same page, so we can work together to put an end to these problems affecting our world. We can share ideas, and have enlightening discussions about these serious issues. You can discuss hunger, poverty, and other serious social issues at the Hunger & Poverty Forums. It’s completely free! I don’t want your money; I want your mind.

You can find the forums at the following URL:

http://millionsofmouths.com/forums/

We not only talk about hunger and poverty, we also address other related topics, such as education, healthcare, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, humanitarianism, and politics.

I’m really not trying to sell you anything. I just want this as a personal favor. Join the Hunger and Poverty Forums and share your thoughts with the other members and with me. We’re all in this together!

I look forward to discussing these important topics with you.

Thanks,
Scott

Measuring Poverty in America

Douglas J. Besharov recently wrote about measuring poverty in America. I include an excerpt:

Each year, the Census Bureau reports on the nation’s poverty rate, based on the number of people with incomes below the official poverty line, adjusted annually for inflation. In 2005, the poverty line, which varies by family size, was $15,577 for a family of three, and $19,971 for a family of four. By this measure, in 2005, about 12.6 percent of the population, or about 37 million people, were reported as poor, including 17.6 percent of children and 10.1 percent of the elderly. That’s essentially the same as the 1968 rate of 12.8 percent–which is a big reason why people think so little progress has been made against poverty.

While a 12.6% poverty rate seems bad enough, it drastically underrates the problem. Honestly, what kind of family of four could live off less than $5,000 each? You could barely afford shelter for that much, let alone food, clothes, healthcare, education, transportation, and everything else required to survive self-sufficiently in America.

The poverty line has so many problems. For one, it only considers people’s immediate needs. If a person makes enough this year to pay for a years worth of expenses, then the government does not count them as poor. However, a person can only work for about half their life. The person also has to pay for any debt accrued while growing up and going to school. Additionally, a person has to pay for their retirement. Among so many other unincluded factors, we have to include student loans and retirement costs in the cost of living when determining the poverty line.

Additionally, the poverty rate doesn’t appear to include needs such as healthcare. For example, the government says that only 35.9 million people in the United States live in poverty, even though 41 million people do not have health coverage.

If a child does not get quality healthcare and quality education, then let’s consider that child poor and recognize that that child does not have the same odds of success as a privileged child–which is not only unfair in and of itself, but also leads to more non-meritocratic inequality.

Jolie & Aniston Fight Poverty Together

Despite any differences they may have had personally, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston and both join in their support of OmniPeace; an organization devoted to ending extreme poverty by 2025.

In June, David Arquette and Courtney Cox hosted the launch of the OmniPeace shirt. OmniPeace recieves 50% of the profits from the shirt’s sales. Other celebrities have supported this, including Common, Sienna Miller, Kevin Constner, Shawn Wayans, and Naomi Campbell.

I like to see celebrities use their fame to raise awareness about serious social problems such as poverty.

No Single-Payer Healthcare

Let’s not waste our time with an any more of a verbose introduction than this sentence. As of 2004, 41.6 million United States people below the age of 65 do not have health insurance. As of 2004, 9.2% of United States children do not have health insurance.

As a result of those appalling statistics, many people now call for federalizing healthcare into a government-run, government-funded, “single-payer healthcare” system.

I want to see the day where nobody, especially children, lives without healthcare coverage. I also firmly believe the current healthcare situation in the United States needs repair and significant changes. However, I do not want to see the government takeover the healthcare system. I believe that would make matters even worse.

I do not have healthcare insurance, so do not mistake my opinion as biased. Additionally, I do not pay taxes, so the inevitable tax hike would not even hurt me directly. I have a more objective opposition to government-run healthcare: As I already said, I believe that it would make matters even worse.

Rich people control the government. The government acts not on the behalf of poor people and the uninsured, but rather on behalf of the few rich people. The more power the government has, the more power those rich people have. They will use that power to continue to oppress the rest of us, not to take care of us. The money–taken from taxpayers–will go to Halliburton and Big Oil not to our medical bills. It will pay for some lazy, unproductive rich guy’s yacht, not some broke kid’s kidney transplant.

Beyond that, government-run social services never work well. Do you really want to hand control of healthcare over to the same people responsible for public schools and the DMV? If the government takes over healthcare, the best we could possibly get is an under-funded, mismanaged, corrupt bureaucracy.

The only thing the government does well is screw over the working class on behalf of the rich.

Instead of giving the government more control, I suggest we start taking back power from the government. Let’s stop paying taxes, and let’s stop letting the federal reserve rob us through the inflation of government-controlled paper money. Instead of wasting our efforts appealing to the plutocratic government, let’s create non-governmental organizations controlled by us that meet our needs. We can work-together in our local communities to use our resources to solve our problems. For example, we can create our own local non-profit health insurance companies, owned and run by the members of our community. Additionally, we can create our own local community-based hospitals to combat over-inflated medical costs.

If we have so much power to persuade the government, then let’s use that power to solve our problems without the plutocratic government.

If you want to discuss this with me, please join my Hunger & Poverty Forums, which you can do for free. All opinions and viewpoints welcome!

3 Million Homeless People Every Year

Terry Cline, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Washington, had the following to say about homelessness:

“Each year some 2 to 3 million individuals experience a night of homelessness, and approximately 800,000 people are homeless in the United States on any given night.”

“By raising awareness about effective homelessness prevention and intervention programs, this special issue can help local organizations make informed decisions about the approaches that will work best in their communities.”

We have more abandoned houses than we do homeless families. Still, the rates of homeless families continue to rise. The world has enough resources to house everyone, as well as feed and clothe them.

I believe we can effectively eliminate homelessness by providing homeless people with either education, job training, or job placement services, depending on each individual’s current skill level. Additionally, we need to make sure these people have ample access to food, clothes, shelter, and healthcare, while they get job training and placement services. We cannot reasonably expect a person to effectively work on their job skills while homeless, hungry, and sick.

If we offer these services as loans, then we essentially can eliminate homelessness at no financial cost to us. Additionally, not offering unconditionally free services to poor people will undermine voluntary paupers and create a sense of self-responsibility in the would-be homeless people.

Major Media Ignores Poverty

I think we all realize that the major media ignores serious social issues such as poverty. Major media prefers to report about trivial aspects of Paris Hilton’s life than to report about poverty. They rarely even mention simple statistics, such as the fact that 18,000 children die every day from hunger.

I see two major reasons for the major media’s underreporting of poverty.

Firstly, only a few major corporations own all the major media outlets. In other words, extremely rich people control the media, and rich people do not want social change. They want society like this because this society makes them rich. Thus, they do not report about serious social issues such as poverty. Instead, they report the type of drivel that will keep the masses pacified. Instead of reporting about day-to-day social problems, they report incidental events.

However, major media works off of ratings. The report what people watch. Most viewers seem to prefer to lazily watch the inconsequential stories such as those about celebrities, rather than focus on serious social issues that require progressive action.

We can make the media report on serious social issues by turning off the stories about Paris Hilton and turning on the stories about starving children. We can boycott stations that do not report about the important facts and issues which hurt the masses daily.

To strengthen my point, I want statistics. If you have any, post them in the following thread: Statistics Regarding Media Coverage

Thanks!