On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff wrote:

The poor in 1900 did not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. What is your point? Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. There will
always be people that make less than others.

Dan



Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik

On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff wrote:

The poor in 1900 did not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. What is your point? Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. There will
always be people that make less than others.

Dan



Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

That's pretty much what he's saying; he can't be saying anything else.

As Dan said above, if you define the poor as the bottom X percent of
income, whatever percentage "X" is, then there will always be poor
people. They might have everything Hawke-Ptooey thinks they "need", but
he'll still say they're poor and, more to the point, "doing badly."
Yes, if the poor are defined as those at or below the X percentage level
of income, then they'll still be poor...but they won't be doing badly.

On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff wrote:

The poor in 1900 did not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. What is your point? Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. There will
always be people that make less than others.

Dan



Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik


Let me make it clear. A woman lives down the road from me in a 15'
trailer in which she has a TV, microwave, hot water, shower, toilet,
refrigerator, and heat. She may also have an old computer. she also has
an old truck. By my standards she is poor. she has hardly any money and
can't afford hardly anything beyond the absolute basics. I consider that
poor even though she has modern conveniences. But most of them came
built into the trailer. I don't know what you would call someone with
this little in life, well off? I call it having virtually nothing.

Hawke

On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:55 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff wrote:

The poor in 1900 did not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. What is your point? Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. There will
always be people that make less than others.

Dan



Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik


Let me make it clear. A woman lives down the road from me in a 15'
trailer in which she has a TV, microwave, hot water, shower, toilet,
refrigerator, and heat. She may also have an old computer. she also has
an old truck. By my standards she is poor. she has hardly any money and
can't afford hardly anything beyond the absolute basics. I consider that
poor even though she has modern conveniences. But most of them came
built into the trailer. I don't know what you would call someone with
this little in life, well off? I call it having virtually nothing.

Hawke

But apparently she has enough money to but a TV, microwave and
computer. In other words, whether or not you consider her poor she did
in fact have disposable income.

All you are really saying is that she is poorer then you. Does that
mean that anyone with less money then you is poor?


Cheers

John B.

On Feb 8, 10:08*pm, wrote:
On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:55 -0800, Hawke





wrote:
On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
*wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff * wrote:

The poor in 1900 did *not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. *The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. *What is your point? *Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. *The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. *So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. *If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. *There will
always be people that make less than others.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dan

Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik

Let me make it clear. A woman lives down the road from me in a 15'
trailer in which she has a TV, microwave, hot water, shower, toilet,
refrigerator, and heat. She may also have an old computer. she also has
an old truck. By my standards she is poor. she has hardly any money and
can't afford hardly anything beyond the absolute basics. I consider that
poor even though she has modern conveniences. But most of them came
built into the trailer. I don't know what you would call someone with
this little in life, well off? I call it having virtually nothing.

Hawke

But apparently she has enough money to but a TV, microwave and
computer. In other words, whether or not you consider her poor she did
in fact have disposable income.

All you are really saying is that she is poorer then you. Does that
mean that anyone with less money then you is poor?

Cheers

John B.

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey. And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:
On Feb 8, 10:08 pm, wrote:
On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:55 -0800, Hawke





wrote:
On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff wrote:

The poor in 1900 did not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. What is your point? Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. There will
always be people that make less than others.

Dan

Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik

Let me make it clear. A woman lives down the road from me in a 15'
trailer in which she has a TV, microwave, hot water, shower, toilet,
refrigerator, and heat. She may also have an old computer. she also has
an old truck. By my standards she is poor. she has hardly any money and
can't afford hardly anything beyond the absolute basics. I consider that
poor even though she has modern conveniences. But most of them came
built into the trailer. I don't know what you would call someone with
this little in life, well off? I call it having virtually nothing.

Hawke

But apparently she has enough money to but a TV, microwave and
computer. In other words, whether or not you consider her poor she did
in fact have disposable income.

All you are really saying is that she is poorer then you. Does that
mean that anyone with less money then you is poor?

Cheers

John B.

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

No one said there are no poor people. What has been said, factually, is
that the poor are not as materially poor in absolute terms as they once
were. Most poor people today live materially better lives than middle
class people did 100 years ago.

Poverty does not equal homelessness; homelessness has little or nothing
to do with poverty. Homeless people aren't homeless because they're
poor; they're homeless because they have mental defects and/or substance
abuse problems. The vast majority of poor people who have neither of
those problems are not homeless. The homeless are highly atypical of
poor people, let alone of the rest of us.

On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 20:07:06 -0800 (PST), rangerssuck
wrote:

On Feb 8, 10:08*pm, wrote:
On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:55 -0800, Hawke





wrote:
On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
*wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff * wrote:

The poor in 1900 did *not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. *The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. *What is your point? *Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. *The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. *So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. *If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. *There will
always be people that make less than others.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dan

Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik

Let me make it clear. A woman lives down the road from me in a 15'
trailer in which she has a TV, microwave, hot water, shower, toilet,
refrigerator, and heat. She may also have an old computer. she also has
an old truck. By my standards she is poor. she has hardly any money and
can't afford hardly anything beyond the absolute basics. I consider that
poor even though she has modern conveniences. But most of them came
built into the trailer. I don't know what you would call someone with
this little in life, well off? I call it having virtually nothing.

Hawke

But apparently she has enough money to but a TV, microwave and
computer. In other words, whether or not you consider her poor she did
in fact have disposable income.

All you are really saying is that she is poorer then you. Does that
mean that anyone with less money then you is poor?

Cheers

John B.

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey. And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.


The argument isn't about whether there are indigent people in the U.S,
the argument is what level of income does Hawke believe that "poor"
begins as he certainly has said that he is not talking about street
people and the homeless.



Cheers

John B.

On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.


I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.


And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:14:20 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.


I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.


And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

You're talking past each other with different definitions of "poor."
Late last year the Heritage Foundation (conservative) determined that
4% of those below the "poverty line" had no regular place to live and
had insufficient food. It looks like a good study. That's a big
number, actually, and right here in central NJ you can find plenty of
people who fit ranger's description. The church-run soup kitchen in
New Brunswick has plenty of them. My neighbor dishes out soup there
once or twice each week.

Want to see them? Get out from in front of your TV, go to your local
church (Presbyterian is good -- they're really into it) and ask where
they serve food to the homeless. As ranger says, getting out of your
comfort zone can be a real eye-opener.

Most of them are on drugs, or mentally disabled, or the victims of
abusive homes. They're not a pretty bunch. It's much more comforting
to ignore them, or to pretend they don't exist at all. They don't
always smell great, either.

The government agencies have gotten very good at counting the
homeless, and the number appears to be around 700,000 nationwide.
Heritage found that 1 person in 200 is permanently or temporarily
homeless in any given year. It's harder to put a number of how many
are hungry.

The government poverty-line numbers make for some dramatic headlines,
but you have to consider what they're measuring. The number in abject
poverty ought to be enough to raise concerns, without the window
dressing.

But it really doesn't. The average suburbanite can brush off and
ignore 700,000 or so people in a country of over 300 million. A drop
in the bucket.

Now you can return to your regularly-scheduled show, after the beer
commercial.

--
Ed Huntress

On 2/9/2012 8:36 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:14:20 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.


I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.


And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

You're talking past each other with different definitions of "poor."
Late last year the Heritage Foundation (conservative) determined that
4% of those below the "poverty line" had no regular place to live and
had insufficient food. It looks like a good study. That's a big
number, actually, and right here in central NJ you can find plenty of
people who fit ranger's description. The church-run soup kitchen in
New Brunswick has plenty of them. My neighbor dishes out soup there
once or twice each week.


That study
(http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-americas-poor)
said no such thing. What they said was:

Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
*temporarily* homeless. [emphasis added]

Even if it did, it's a pretty small number, actually. The percentage of
people living below the poverty line is about 15.1%. If four percent of
those are living in the conditions you stated, then that's 0.6% of the
population,

You and the other bleeding heart leftist want to pretend that this tiny
percentage (4% of 15.1%, or 0.6% total) are living in chronic
homelessness. That simply is not true.

There are two main points in that Heritage Foundation study, both of
which I have been making he

1. Most poor people live materially better than the majority of people
lived even 40 years ago (early 1970s), let alone a century ago.

2. The number of people living in destitution, i.e. extreme poverty,
is quite small.

The import of that is that Romney was right, even if he said it poorly:
there is no reason to worry much about the poor, as there is a safety
net that keeps all but a small number of the poor from falling into
destitution, and the repairs needed are relatively minor.

"Donn Messenheimer" wrote in message
...
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their children
and medication.


I do know people who have lived in wrecked cars in the woods and pick up
roadside cans for cash. I left an outdoor faucet on all winter so they could
have fresh water, and put a good roof on the shack they slapped together.

Lets just politely say that their values and concepts of fiscal
responsibility are substantially different from mine.

Rice or pasta extend a can of Campbell's Chunky to two or three servings
without harming the taste.

There's plenty of free food available when grocery stores and restaurants
close at night. I did a survey to see if I could help a soup kitchen. Turns
out they only wanted money donated, picking up the food is too much work.

On Feb 9, 11:14*am, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. *It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. *I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. *I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.

And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

Why don't you grow up. Come to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food
Action, and I'll be glad to introduce you to some of those people.
They most certainly are not "anecdotes," nore are they "extremists" or
"untrue." You really need to turn off Fox "news" and get outside more.

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
...
Most of them are on drugs, or mentally disabled, or the victims of
abusive homes. They're not a pretty bunch. It's much more comforting
to ignore them, or to pretend they don't exist at all. They don't
always smell great, either....

Ed Huntress

Add men who can't meet child support demands to that list.

jsw

On Feb 9, 12:11*pm, "Jim Wilkins" wrote:


There's plenty of free food available when grocery stores and restaurants
close at night. I did a survey to see if I could help a soup kitchen. Turns
out they only wanted money donated, picking up the food is too much work.

Bring it to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food Action. They prefer food
donations to cash (I'm not sure why). I often bring them cases of
Cambell's Chunky soups.

On 2/9/2012 9:17 AM, rangerssuck wrote:
On Feb 9, 11:14 am, Donn
wrote:
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.

And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

Why don't you grow up. Come to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food
Action, and I'll be glad to introduce you to some of those people.
They most certainly are not "anecdotes," nore are they "extremists" or
"untrue." You really need to turn off Fox "news" and get outside more.

I don't watch Fox News. Why does every leftist who encounters a view he
finds displeasing always reflexively make a snide comment about Fox
News? It's an /ad hominem/.

The simple fact is, poverty is not the problem leftists want to claim it
is. One of your fellow left-wing whiners has already said that only 4%
of the poor - who are 15.1% of the population, so we're talking about
0.6% of the total population - live in destitution. Even that is an
overstatement, because he was pretending that it is chronic destitution,
but it isn't - it's temporary for the vast majority of that already
minuscule minority.

You aren't seeing normal - mentally competent and generally able to work
- people at these food centers on a repeat basis. What you're seeing
there are people with severe mental defects and/or substance abuse
problems. When you leftists whine about "the poor", you're pretending
there are legions of able people who simply can't find work, or
sufficiently high paying work, to be able to care for themselves.
That's simply a lie.

As the Heritage Foundation report - the one your fellow leftist tried to
misrepresent - stated:

Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to
argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air
conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They
contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have
a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still
suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food
and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about
widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of
the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its
household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:

* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were
never hungry at any time during the year because they could
not afford food.
* 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any
time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

Other government surveys show that the average consumption of
protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and
middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most
cases.

Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray
the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an
overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:

* Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
temporarily homeless.
* Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or
trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses
or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.
* 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the
typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.
* The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are
in good repair.

By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds
to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family
members throughout the year whenever needed.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-americas-poor


The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. It's lying.

"rangerssuck" wrote in message
...
On Feb 9, 12:11 pm, "Jim Wilkins" wrote:


There's plenty of free food available when grocery stores and restaurants
close at night. I did a survey to see if I could help a soup kitchen.
Turns
out they only wanted money donated, picking up the food is too much work.

-Bring it to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food Action. They prefer food
-donations to cash (I'm not sure why). I often bring them cases of
-Cambell's Chunky soups.

When I asked a store manager about a year ago he said liability issues had
made food donations too risky. They have no control over how long the food
stays out unrefrigerated. The volunteers may be well intentioned but they
weren't all alert, careful and reliable.

Do you know the temperature setting in your refrigerator without looking?

jsw

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:09:23 -0800, George Plimpton
wrote:

On 2/9/2012 8:36 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:14:20 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.


I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.


And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

You're talking past each other with different definitions of "poor."
Late last year the Heritage Foundation (conservative) determined that
4% of those below the "poverty line" had no regular place to live and
had insufficient food. It looks like a good study. That's a big
number, actually, and right here in central NJ you can find plenty of
people who fit ranger's description. The church-run soup kitchen in
New Brunswick has plenty of them. My neighbor dishes out soup there
once or twice each week.


That study
(http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-americas-poor)
said no such thing. What they said was:

Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
*temporarily* homeless. [emphasis added]

That's not all it said. What it ALSO said was that 1.5% are homeless
on ANY GIVEN NIGHT. That means,on the average, the "temporarily"
homeless are homeless an average of 4 months per year. They're
probably in-and-out on a regular basis. They have, as I said, no
regular place to live.

And, although the Heritage report appears to be well done, they've
spun their own numbers in a few places to further their (and your)
agenda. The "homeless" number is one such.

Now, if by "no such thing" you were including my statement about
hunger, here's their spin on that:

"96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never
hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford
food."

"83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat."

"82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in
the prior year due to lack of money for food."

I was being charitable to Heritage. I counted only children. They took
their data from an Ag Dept. study and credited it. 100% - 96% = 4%.
Right? And 100% - 83% is 17% of adults. Given the nature of
self-reported figures, the children probably were hungry more than the
4% figure, if the adults were hungry four times as often.


Even if it did, it's a pretty small number, actually. The percentage of
people living below the poverty line is about 15.1%. If four percent of
those are living in the conditions you stated, then that's 0.6% of the
population,

0.6% of the CHILDREN are sometimes hungry. As for the number of
homeless, if you can just brush it off, you're part of the problem.


You and the other bleeding heart leftist want to pretend that this tiny
percentage (4% of 15.1%, or 0.6% total) are living in chronic
homelessness. That simply is not true.

Uh, I'd consider an average of 4 months per year to be pretty chronic.


There are two main points in that Heritage Foundation study, both of
which I have been making he

1. Most poor people live materially better than the majority of people
lived even 40 years ago (early 1970s), let alone a century ago.

Most people *below the government-defined poverty line*. That isn't
"most poor people," because, as you say elsewhere, most of them aren't
really "poor" in the sense that most of us think of the term.


2. The number of people living in destitution, i.e. extreme poverty,
is quite small.

Right. Which is what I said above.


The import of that is that Romney was right, even if he said it poorly:
there is no reason to worry much about the poor, as there is a safety
net that keeps all but a small number of the poor from falling into
destitution, and the repairs needed are relatively minor.

Of course he doesn't worry about the poor, and he wouldn't no matter
what the numbers were. That's the nature of his world view.

But those "repairs" will never be made as long as there are people
like Romney in charge of anything. They would cut into
financial-industry profits, anyway.

--
Ed Huntress

On 2/9/2012 10:03 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:09:23 -0800, George
wrote:

On 2/9/2012 8:36 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:14:20 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.


I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.


And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

You're talking past each other with different definitions of "poor."
Late last year the Heritage Foundation (conservative) determined that
4% of those below the "poverty line" had no regular place to live and
had insufficient food. It looks like a good study. That's a big
number, actually, and right here in central NJ you can find plenty of
people who fit ranger's description. The church-run soup kitchen in
New Brunswick has plenty of them. My neighbor dishes out soup there
once or twice each week.


That study
(http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-americas-poor)
said no such thing. What they said was:

Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
*temporarily* homeless. [emphasis added]

That's not all it said. What it ALSO said was that 1.5% are homeless
on ANY GIVEN NIGHT. That means,on the average, the "temporarily"
homeless are homeless an average of 4 months per year.

No, it does *not* mean that, because it isn't the *same* 1.5%. The
number simply cannot be massaged to show that any particular person is
homeless an average of four months a year.


They're probably in-and-out on a regular basis. They have, as I said,
no regular place to live.

No, the report does not say that a static 4% have no regular place to
live. It says that 4% - a *shifting* 4% - of the 15.1% categorized as
homeless experience temporary homelessness.


And, although the Heritage report appears to be well done, they've
spun their own numbers in a few places to further their (and your)
agenda. The "homeless" number is one such.

You, of course, have no evidence of any agenda-driven "spinning"; that's
just something that an extreme leftist needs to say.



Now, if by "no such thing" you were including my statement about
hunger, here's their spin on that:

"96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never
hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford
food."

Yes. So, 4% of poor parents reported that their children experienced
*some* episode of hunger during the year because of the parents'
poverty. That does not translate to anyone being chronically hungry.


"83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat."

"82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in
the prior year due to lack of money for food."

I was being charitable to Heritage. I counted only children. They took
their data from an Ag Dept. study and credited it. 100% - 96% = 4%.
Right? And 100% - 83% is 17% of adults. Given the nature of
self-reported figures, the children probably were hungry more than the
4% figure, if the adults were hungry four times as often.

You're grasping. It's what political extremists usually need to do.

The simple fact is, we're *still* not talking about typical poverty; far
from it.


Even if it did, it's a pretty small number, actually. The percentage of
people living below the poverty line is about 15.1%. If four percent of
those are living in the conditions you stated, then that's 0.6% of the
population,

0.6% of the CHILDREN are sometimes hungry. As for the number of
homeless, if you can just brush it off, you're part of the problem.

There's no brush-off, just pointing out that it is far from typical
among the poor, and that it isn't caused by poverty /per se/. The left
have always misrepresented the extent of homelessness as well as who is
homeless. The left have pretended for decades that homelessness is
caused by economic dislocation, such as automobile factories and steel
mills closing in the 1970s and 1980s and those workers being unable to
find other work - that is, that these are people "just like you and me."
That's a politically motivated lie. Homelessness due solely to
economic dislocation, as opposed to being due to mental defects and/or
substance abuse, is but a small percentage of the total homeless population.


You and the other bleeding heart leftist want to pretend that this tiny
percentage (4% of 15.1%, or 0.6% total) are living in chronic
homelessness. That simply is not true.

Uh, I'd consider an average of 4 months per year to be pretty chronic.

The report doesn't document any four months of homelessness per year for
anyone, liar.


There are two main points in that Heritage Foundation study, both of
which I have been making he

1. Most poor people live materially better than the majority of people
lived even 40 years ago (early 1970s), let alone a century ago.

Most people *below the government-defined poverty line*. That isn't
"most poor people," because, as you say elsewhere, most of them aren't
really "poor" in the sense that most of us think of the term.

You haven't given any other measure of poverty, comrade.




2. The number of people living in destitution, i.e. extreme poverty,
is quite small.

Right. Which is what I said above.


The import of that is that Romney was right, even if he said it poorly:
there is no reason to worry much about the poor, as there is a safety
net that keeps all but a small number of the poor from falling into
destitution, and the repairs needed are relatively minor.

Of course he doesn't worry about the poor, and he wouldn't no matter
what the numbers were. That's the nature of his world view.

No, it is false to say he doesn't worry about the poor. You, along with
the rest of the left, are misrepresenting what he said. He said that
destitution can be handled by relatively minor fixes to the safety net,
and that he would do it.


But those "repairs" will never be made as long as there are people
like Romney in charge of anything. They would cut into
financial-industry profits, anyway.

yawn just more left-wing boilerplate and fomenting of class envy;
nothing new.

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:02:02 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/9/2012 9:17 AM, rangerssuck wrote:
On Feb 9, 11:14 am, Donn
wrote:
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.

And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

Why don't you grow up. Come to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food
Action, and I'll be glad to introduce you to some of those people.
They most certainly are not "anecdotes," nore are they "extremists" or
"untrue." You really need to turn off Fox "news" and get outside more.

I don't watch Fox News. Why does every leftist who encounters a view he
finds displeasing always reflexively make a snide comment about Fox
News? It's an /ad hominem/.

It's not ad hominem. It's a stereotype. Most stereotypes contain a
grain of truth, but you're right, they aren't fair and they aren't
even mostly accurate.

So what do you watch? The Military Channel? ggg


The simple fact is, poverty is not the problem leftists want to claim it
is. One of your fellow left-wing whiners has already said that only 4%
of the poor - who are 15.1% of the population, so we're talking about
0.6% of the total population - live in destitution.

I wouldn't call Plimpton a left-wing whiner. d8-)

But that IS ad hominem. Like most rightards, you've just done exactly
what you accused the other side of doing. Naughty, naughty....

Even that is an
overstatement, because he was pretending that it is chronic destitution,
but it isn't - it's temporary for the vast majority of that already
minuscule minority.

Right. An average of 4 - 5 months per year. And that, on the average,
is every year. It's all temporary, of course...


You aren't seeing normal - mentally competent and generally able to work
- people at these food centers on a repeat basis. What you're seeing
there are people with severe mental defects and/or substance abuse
problems.

True, to an extent. If you add up substance abuse, mental illness,
physical disability (many of which are veterans -- 13% of the
homeless), domestic violence, and family disputes, you have a big lump
of them.

When you leftists whine about "the poor", you're pretending
there are legions of able people who simply can't find work, or
sufficiently high paying work, to be able to care for themselves.
That's simply a lie.

Well, the number of those is large, too. Which study would you like to
see?


As the Heritage Foundation report - the one your fellow leftist tried to
misrepresent - stated:

Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to
argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air
conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They
contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have
a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still
suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food
and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about
widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of
the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its
household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:

* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were
never hungry at any time during the year because they could
not afford food.
* 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any
time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

Other government surveys show that the average consumption of
protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and
middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most
cases.

Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray
the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an
overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:

* Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
temporarily homeless.
* Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or
trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses
or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.
* 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the
typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.
* The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are
in good repair.

By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds
to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family
members throughout the year whenever needed.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-americas-poor


The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. It's lying.

It doesn't appear that either side is looking very good on this issue.
To imply that the 4% is all "temporary," when you're talking about 4 -
5 months/year, is kind of a crock, too.

--
Ed Huntress

On Feb 9, 1:02*pm, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:
On 2/9/2012 9:17 AM, rangerssuck wrote:





On Feb 9, 11:14 am, Donn
wrote:
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day..
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. *It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. *I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. *I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.

And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

Why don't you grow up. Come to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food
Action, and I'll be glad to introduce you to some of those people.
They most certainly are not "anecdotes," nore are they "extremists" or
"untrue." You really need to turn off Fox "news" and get outside more.

I don't watch Fox News. *Why does every leftist who encounters a view he
finds displeasing always reflexively make a snide comment about Fox
News? *It's an /ad hominem/.

The simple fact is, poverty is not the problem leftists want to claim it
is. *One of your fellow left-wing whiners has already said that only 4%
of the poor - who are 15.1% of the population, so we're talking about
0.6% of the total population - live in destitution. *Even that is an
overstatement, because he was pretending that it is chronic destitution,
but it isn't - it's temporary for the vast majority of that already
minuscule minority.

You aren't seeing normal - mentally competent and generally able to work
- people at these food centers on a repeat basis. *What you're seeing
there are people with severe mental defects and/or substance abuse
problems. *When you leftists whine about "the poor", you're pretending
there are legions of able people who simply can't find work, or
sufficiently high paying work, to be able to care for themselves.
That's simply a lie.

As the Heritage Foundation report - the one your fellow leftist tried to
misrepresent - stated:

* * * Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to
* * * argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air
* * * conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They
* * * contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have
* * * a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still
* * * suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food
* * * and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

* * * Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about
* * * widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of
* * * the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S.
* * * Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its
* * * household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:

* * * * ** 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were
* * * * * *never hungry at any time during the year because they could
* * * * * *not afford food.
* * * * ** 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* * * * ** 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any
* * * * * *time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

* * * Other government surveys show that the average consumption of
* * * protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and
* * * middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most
cases.

* * * Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray
* * * the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an
* * * overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:

* * * * ** Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
* * * * * *temporarily homeless.
* * * * ** Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or
* * * * * *trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses
* * * * * *or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.
* * * * ** 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes.
* * * * ** Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
* * * * * *two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* * * * ** The average poor American has more living space than the
* * * * * *typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.
* * * * ** The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are
* * * * * *in good repair.

* * * By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds
* * * to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family
* * * members throughout the year whenever needed.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...tanding-povert...

The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. *You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. *It's lying.-

I will not respond to your knee-jerk cut & paste garbage except to say
that you are quoting numbers, and I am telling you what I have seen
with my own eyes and heard with my own ears and helped with my own
hands. You can talk about your fractions of a percent all you want,
but I have to ask, just how many hungry people is an OK number for
you? If they're so non-existent, can I give them your address?

On 2/9/2012 10:30 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:02:02 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/9/2012 9:17 AM, rangerssuck wrote:
On Feb 9, 11:14 am, Donn
wrote:
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.

And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

Why don't you grow up. Come to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food
Action, and I'll be glad to introduce you to some of those people.
They most certainly are not "anecdotes," nore are they "extremists" or
"untrue." You really need to turn off Fox "news" and get outside more.

I don't watch Fox News. Why does every leftist who encounters a view he
finds displeasing always reflexively make a snide comment about Fox
News? It's an /ad hominem/.

It's not ad hominem. It's a stereotype. Most stereotypes contain a
grain of truth, but you're right, they aren't fair and they aren't
even mostly accurate.

It is ad hominem. Leftists all assume that people who watch Fox are
stupid and willfully uninformed, so accusing me of watching Fox rather
than taking on the substance of my argument is ad hominem.



So what do you watch? The Military Channel?ggg

I don't watch any news on TV. I read some newspapers, mostly on-line,
and The Economist news magazine.


The simple fact is, poverty is not the problem leftists want to claim it
is. One of your fellow left-wing whiners has already said that only 4%
of the poor - who are 15.1% of the population, so we're talking about
0.6% of the total population - live in destitution.

I wouldn't call Plimpton a left-wing whiner. d8-)

It's you. You're the one misrepresenting the Heritage Foundation report
in a bizarre and unsuccessful /argumentum ad verecundiam/.



But that IS ad hominem. Like most rightards, you've just done exactly
what you accused the other side of doing. Naughty, naughty....

Nope - no ad hominem.. I didn't say your argument was wrong *because*
it was that of a left-wing extremist. It just so happens that it *is*
the argument of a lying left-wing extremist, but that's not why it's
wrong.


Even that is an
overstatement, because he was pretending that it is chronic destitution,
but it isn't - it's temporary for the vast majority of that already
minuscule minority.

Right. An average of 4 - 5 months per year. And that, on the average,
is every year. It's all temporary, of course...


You aren't seeing normal - mentally competent and generally able to work
- people at these food centers on a repeat basis. What you're seeing
there are people with severe mental defects and/or substance abuse
problems.

True, to an extent. If you add up substance abuse, mental illness,
physical disability (many of which are veterans -- 13% of the
homeless), domestic violence, and family disputes, you have a big lump
of them.

But still only a very small percentage of poor people, and so
necessarily an even smaller percentage of the total population. They
are not typical even for poor people, and anything conceivable done to
lift the majority of poor people out of poverty would leave most of this
highly unrepresentative minority of poor people right where they are.

The problem here is that the left are lying by misrepresentation. They
misrepresent this small, unrepresentative subset of poor people as
typical of poverty, and they are not.


When you leftists whine about "the poor", you're pretending
there are legions of able people who simply can't find work, or
sufficiently high paying work, to be able to care for themselves.
That's simply a lie.

Well, the number of those is large, too.

No, it isn't.


Which study would you like to see?

Doesn't matter - you will misrepresent it.




As the Heritage Foundation report - the one your fellow leftist tried to
misrepresent - stated:

Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to
argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air
conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They
contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have
a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still
suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food
and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about
widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of
the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its
household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:

* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were
never hungry at any time during the year because they could
not afford food.
* 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any
time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

Other government surveys show that the average consumption of
protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and
middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most
cases.

Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray
the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an
overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:

* Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
temporarily homeless.
* Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or
trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses
or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.
* 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the
typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.
* The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are
in good repair.

By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds
to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family
members throughout the year whenever needed.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-americas-poor


The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. It's lying.

It doesn't appear that either side is looking very good on this issue.

Only the left - you and your comrades - are deliberately lying about it.


To imply that the 4% is all "temporary," when you're talking about 4 -
5 months/year, is kind of a crock, too.

You haven't demonstrated any "4 - 5 months/year". It's just not there
in what you cited.

On 2/9/2012 10:41 AM, rangerssuck wrote:
On Feb 9, 1:02 pm, Donn
wrote:
On 2/9/2012 9:17 AM, rangerssuck wrote:





On Feb 9, 11:14 am, Donn
wrote:
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.

And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

Why don't you grow up. Come to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food
Action, and I'll be glad to introduce you to some of those people.
They most certainly are not "anecdotes," nore are they "extremists" or
"untrue." You really need to turn off Fox "news" and get outside more.

I don't watch Fox News. Why does every leftist who encounters a view he
finds displeasing always reflexively make a snide comment about Fox
News? It's an /ad hominem/.

The simple fact is, poverty is not the problem leftists want to claim it
is. One of your fellow left-wing whiners has already said that only 4%
of the poor - who are 15.1% of the population, so we're talking about
0.6% of the total population - live in destitution. Even that is an
overstatement, because he was pretending that it is chronic destitution,
but it isn't - it's temporary for the vast majority of that already
minuscule minority.

You aren't seeing normal - mentally competent and generally able to work
- people at these food centers on a repeat basis. What you're seeing
there are people with severe mental defects and/or substance abuse
problems. When you leftists whine about "the poor", you're pretending
there are legions of able people who simply can't find work, or
sufficiently high paying work, to be able to care for themselves.
That's simply a lie.

As the Heritage Foundation report - the one your fellow leftist tried to
misrepresent - stated:

Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to
argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air
conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They
contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have
a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still
suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food
and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about
widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of
the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its
household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:

* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were
never hungry at any time during the year because they could
not afford food.
* 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any
time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

Other government surveys show that the average consumption of
protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and
middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most
cases.

Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray
the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an
overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:

* Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
temporarily homeless.
* Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or
trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses
or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.
* 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the
typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.
* The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are
in good repair.

By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds
to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family
members throughout the year whenever needed.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...tanding-povert...

The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. It's lying.-

I will not respond to your knee-jerk cut& paste garbage except to say
that you are quoting numbers, and I am telling you what I have seen
with my own eyes and heard with my own ears and helped with my own
hands.

In other words: anecdotes, of dubious authenticity.



You can talk about your fractions of a percent all you want,
but I have to ask, just how many hungry people is an OK number for
you? If they're so non-existent, can I give them your address?

I didn't say that it is okay for anyone to be hungry. What I said is
you are grotesquely overstating the problem, and implicit in the subject
line of this thread is the accusation that Romney doesn't care about
destitute people at all. That accusation is false, and you are lying
about the severity and extent of poverty.

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
...
That's not all it said. What it ALSO said was that 1.5% are homeless
on ANY GIVEN NIGHT. That means,on the average, the "temporarily"
homeless are homeless an average of 4 months per year. They're
probably in-and-out on a regular basis. They have, as I said, no
regular place to live....

Ed Huntress

How do you count the people living in a sympathetic friend or relative's
basement or spare bedroom?

I've taken someone in and know of quite a few other cases.

Some of these huge Children Who Go To Bed Hungry statistics make sense only
if they count dieting teenagers, which is literally true but very deceitful.
You can still buy pork and chicken to feed them for well under $2 a pound. I
picked up some pork slices at $1.89 a pound yesterday as a talking point to
ask the butcher how to precook it for stew. He tried to direct me to a
cheaper whole roast instead.

Watch the buying habits of people in line ahead of you who pay with food
stamps, assuming you aren't in an "upscale" store that discourages them.

jsw

On Thu, 9 Feb 2012 13:59:29 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
That's not all it said. What it ALSO said was that 1.5% are homeless
on ANY GIVEN NIGHT. That means,on the average, the "temporarily"
homeless are homeless an average of 4 months per year. They're
probably in-and-out on a regular basis. They have, as I said, no
regular place to live....

Ed Huntress

How do you count the people living in a sympathetic friend or relative's
basement or spare bedroom?

I suspect you can find out by searching the HUD site.


I've taken someone in and know of quite a few other cases.

Some of these huge Children Who Go To Bed Hungry statistics make sense only
if they count dieting teenagers, which is literally true but very deceitful.

I don't know where you're seeing "huge Children Who Go To Bed Hungry
statistics," unless it's in critical polemics that imagine someone is
saying that. Do you have examples, or do they exist in your
imagination?

You can still buy pork and chicken to feed them for well under $2 a pound. I
picked up some pork slices at $1.89 a pound yesterday as a talking point to
ask the butcher how to precook it for stew. He tried to direct me to a
cheaper whole roast instead.

You're not the kind of guy, then, who I would consult about extreme
poverty. Trying to project from where you are to where they are is a
doomed exercise.


Watch the buying habits of people in line ahead of you who pay with food
stamps, assuming you aren't in an "upscale" store that discourages them.

Now you're mixing apples and oranges. Food stamps support a much
larger percentage of the population than those who are flat-out
hungry.

The deal is that they're looking at food, housing, health care,
education, and clothing together, and applying some relief on the food
end so something is left for the others.

--
Ed Huntress


jsw

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message

I don't know where you're seeing "huge Children Who Go To Bed Hungry
statistics," unless it's in critical polemics that imagine someone is
saying that. Do you have examples, or do they exist in your
imagination?

Ed Huntress

http://www.projectbread.org/site/Pag...er_whoishungry

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:49:37 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/9/2012 10:30 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:02:02 -0800, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/9/2012 9:17 AM, rangerssuck wrote:
On Feb 9, 11:14 am, Donn
wrote:
On 2/8/2012 8:07 PM, rangerssuck wrote:

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

This is a caricature. It doesn't even have the status of true
anecdotes, let alone an accurate description of a big problem.

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey.

I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't believe you have met anyone who
has split a can of soup five ways and called it dinner. I don't believe
you have met people who have had to choose between food for their
children and medication.

And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.

Why don't you start from the perspective of telling the truth, rather
than taking extravagantly extremist and *untrue* political rhetoric and
treating it as evidence?

Why don't you grow up. Come to the Englewood, NJ Center for Food
Action, and I'll be glad to introduce you to some of those people.
They most certainly are not "anecdotes," nore are they "extremists" or
"untrue." You really need to turn off Fox "news" and get outside more.

I don't watch Fox News. Why does every leftist who encounters a view he
finds displeasing always reflexively make a snide comment about Fox
News? It's an /ad hominem/.

It's not ad hominem. It's a stereotype. Most stereotypes contain a
grain of truth, but you're right, they aren't fair and they aren't
even mostly accurate.

It is ad hominem. Leftists all assume that people who watch Fox are
stupid and willfully uninformed, so accusing me of watching Fox rather
than taking on the substance of my argument is ad hominem.

No, it's stereotyping, and sarcasm derived from it. It's an insult but
not ad hominem. An ad hominem argument would be one that said you're a
pervert, and therefore your argument is false.

If the implication is that watching Fox distracts you from seeing the
outside world, that's just a feeble and sarcastic argument., not ad
hominem. It's just misinformed, and, again, it's stereotyping. The
premise is wrong (as if he really meant it seriously) but the argument
itself is not ad hominem.

As good students of Aristotelian logic have been saying for years, ad
hominem probably is the most misused accusation on the Internet, along
with, perhaps, accusations of being a Nazi. g There are many
detailed explanations that distinguish ad hominem from sarcastic
insults, but I like this plain-language one:

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html





So what do you watch? The Military Channel?ggg

I don't watch any news on TV. I read some newspapers, mostly on-line,
and The Economist news magazine.

The Military Channel doesn't have much news, anyway.



The simple fact is, poverty is not the problem leftists want to claim it
is. One of your fellow left-wing whiners has already said that only 4%
of the poor - who are 15.1% of the population, so we're talking about
0.6% of the total population - live in destitution.

I wouldn't call Plimpton a left-wing whiner. d8-)

It's you. You're the one misrepresenting the Heritage Foundation report
in a bizarre and unsuccessful /argumentum ad verecundiam/.

Nope. I just dug through the spin.

Here's the pictu Cato writes simplistic papers, most of which are
spun like a top. But not always. Heritage Foundation writes long,
detailed papers, which are much more subtle in their spin, but are
spun nonetheless.

American Enterprise Institute throws curves. It's hard to tell when
they're spun. From what I can tell, a significant percentage are not
spun at all.

Brookings is like AEI, but slightly to the left. And the think tank
for which my son is a researcher doesn't spin. d8-) They're
non-political, and basically just study what Congress contracts them
to study, no matter which side initiated the study.

The taxonomy of Washington think-tanks is diverse and multi-colored.
It's like tutti-frutti ice cream. Heritage is the fudge-ripple that
was left on the dipper.

But I would never argue against them because they are a righty
organization. I just know, from experience, that their reports on
politically charged social issues are almost invariably spun. So I
know with some confidence that a little analysis will uncover it.




But that IS ad hominem. Like most rightards, you've just done exactly
what you accused the other side of doing. Naughty, naughty....

Nope - no ad hominem.. I didn't say your argument....

I was just repeating what Plumper said. So he must be the lefty.

was wrong *because*
it was that of a left-wing extremist. It just so happens that it *is*
the argument of a lying left-wing extremist, but that's not why it's
wrong.

From what you've said above, it sounds like you agree with my
argument. And cut the "lying" crap. You're not astute enough to tell a
lie from the truth. And that IS ad hominem -- well deserved.



Even that is an
overstatement, because he was pretending that it is chronic destitution,
but it isn't - it's temporary for the vast majority of that already
minuscule minority.

Right. An average of 4 - 5 months per year. And that, on the average,
is every year. It's all temporary, of course...


You aren't seeing normal - mentally competent and generally able to work
- people at these food centers on a repeat basis. What you're seeing
there are people with severe mental defects and/or substance abuse
problems.

True, to an extent. If you add up substance abuse, mental illness,
physical disability (many of which are veterans -- 13% of the
homeless), domestic violence, and family disputes, you have a big lump
of them.

But still only a very small percentage of poor people, and so
necessarily an even smaller percentage of the total population.

Where did I say anything different? I even pointed out that the
numbers are very small as a percentage. Again, it sounds like you're
agreeing with me.

They
are not typical even for poor people....

Now, which definition of "poor people" are you using? Make yourself
clear.

, and anything conceivable done to
lift the majority of poor people out of poverty would leave most of this
highly unrepresentative minority of poor people right where they are.

Maybe. So what would you do with them?


The problem here is that the left are lying by misrepresentation. They
misrepresent this small, unrepresentative subset of poor people as
typical of poverty, and they are not.

I haven't heard much to the effect that they are representative. If
there is any noise out there about that, it's coming from the same
kind of disreputable extremists as the ones on the right.



When you leftists whine about "the poor", you're pretending
there are legions of able people who simply can't find work, or
sufficiently high paying work, to be able to care for themselves.
That's simply a lie.

Well, the number of those is large, too.

No, it isn't.

You're blowing smoke. Let's see your numbers.



Which study would you like to see?

Doesn't matter - you will misrepresent it.

Well, then, we're in kind of a quandary, eh?





As the Heritage Foundation report - the one your fellow leftist tried to
misrepresent - stated:

Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to
argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air
conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They
contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have
a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still
suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food
and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about
widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of
the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its
household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:

* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were
never hungry at any time during the year because they could
not afford food.
* 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any
time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

Other government surveys show that the average consumption of
protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and
middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most
cases.

Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray
the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an
overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:

* Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become
temporarily homeless.
* Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or
trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses
or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.
* 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the
typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.
* The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are
in good repair.

By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds
to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family
members throughout the year whenever needed.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-americas-poor


The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. It's lying.

The lie is that I said they are representative. That's the noise
between your ears, not anything I said.


It doesn't appear that either side is looking very good on this issue.

Only the left - you and your comrades - are deliberately lying about it.



To imply that the 4% is all "temporary," when you're talking about 4 -
5 months/year, is kind of a crock, too.

You haven't demonstrated any "4 - 5 months/year". It's just not there
in what you cited.

Let me spell it out for you. Plimpton is having trouble with this,
too, so this is for both of you.

The studies show that roughly 1.5% of the poor are homeless on any
given night. They also show that 4% are at least temporarily homeless
in any given year.

If the percentage of the poor who are homeless at some time over the
course of a year is 4%, and 1.5% are homeless on any night, then that
1.5% must be homeless over and over again, because all of the homeless
over a year only amount to 4% of the poor population. In fact, the
AVERAGE period of homelessness for those people must be 1.5/4 times
the number of days in a year, or 137 days. That's between 4 and 5
months.

Are we together now?

--
Ed Huntress

On Thu, 9 Feb 2012 14:33:28 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message

I don't know where you're seeing "huge Children Who Go To Bed Hungry
statistics," unless it's in critical polemics that imagine someone is
saying that. Do you have examples, or do they exist in your
imagination?

Ed Huntress

http://www.projectbread.org/site/Pag...er_whoishungry

That's roughly the same number reported in the Ag. Dept study that the
Heritage Foundation used in their report. Project Bread says 10.8% of
the people of Massachusetts are "food insecure." The Dept. of
Agriculture says that the nationwide figure is 14.5%. Heritage says
that 17% of the "poor" reported not having enough food to eat. That's
more or less the same as the definition for "food insecure." You can
look all of this up on the Ag. Dept. website.

These numbers don't add up until you see another place where Heritage
is spinning: they didn't include the whole population, while the Dept.
of Agriculture did.

Hmmm....

You guys don't even read the stuff you quote. You're hopeless.

--
Ed Huntress

On Feb 9, 1:57*pm, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:
On 2/9/2012 10:41 AM, rangerssuck wrote:

The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. *You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. *It's lying.-

I will not respond to your knee-jerk cut& *paste garbage except to say
that you are quoting numbers, and I am telling you what I have seen
with my own eyes and heard with my own ears and helped with my own
hands.

In other words: *anecdotes, of dubious authenticity.

Get in your car, and drive to Center for Food Action 192 W Demarest
Ave Englewood, NJ 07631 Talk to the people who come there to pick up
their food packages. Listen to their stories. Go out with the people
who work there, deliver some food packages to people who can't pick
them up. Then get back to me about the "dubious authenticity" of my
words.

Your behavior here is typical of the right-wingers (though I can't say
that I've never seen left-wingers act similarly, it just seems to come
a whole lot more from the right) - If someone presents data points
that don't fit your preconceived view of things, you brand them as a
liar. You just don't seem to have room in your head for the notion
that you (or your party) could be wrong. To which I say, grow up.


You can talk about your fractions of a percent all you want,
but I have to ask, just how many hungry people is an OK number for
you? If they're so non-existent, can I give them your address?

I didn't say that it is okay for anyone to be hungry. *What I said is
you are grotesquely overstating the problem, and implicit in the subject
line of this thread is the accusation that Romney doesn't care about
destitute people at all. *That accusation is false, and you are lying
about the severity and extent of poverty

I am not overstating anything. Romney's words were taken out of
context and shouldn't have been, but I don't for a second doubt that
his feelings about the poor are similar to yours. He's obviously never
seen poverty, and simply has no idea what it means to be hungry. On
the other hand, perhaps he HAS seen poverty, and he DOES understand
what it means to be hungry, and his heart is just made of stone.

Either way, Romney says that the poor are protected by "safety nets."
I've got news for him (and you): Those nets are full of holes. Come to
the address I listed above, and introduce yourself to some folks who
have fallen through those holes. Let me know when you're coming - I'll
meet you there. Anybody who advertizes that Wieber blows can't be all
bad ;-)

On 2/8/2012 7:08 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:55 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff wrote:

The poor in 1900 did not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. What is your point? Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. There will
always be people that make less than others.

Dan



Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik


Let me make it clear. A woman lives down the road from me in a 15'
trailer in which she has a TV, microwave, hot water, shower, toilet,
refrigerator, and heat. She may also have an old computer. she also has
an old truck. By my standards she is poor. she has hardly any money and
can't afford hardly anything beyond the absolute basics. I consider that
poor even though she has modern conveniences. But most of them came
built into the trailer. I don't know what you would call someone with
this little in life, well off? I call it having virtually nothing.

Hawke

But apparently she has enough money to but a TV, microwave and
computer. In other words, whether or not you consider her poor she did
in fact have disposable income.

All you are really saying is that she is poorer then you. Does that
mean that anyone with less money then you is poor?


Cheers

John B.


You guys aren't getting this. I'm saying the lady down the street from
me has nothing in the world but an old truck and a little travel
trailer. But since it's a fairly new trailer it has modern conveniences
like a microwave, a TV, a shower, maybe a computer, a phone, etc. So she
has most of today's things that make life better. But she is poor. She
has nothing but that little trailer even though it is equipped with
modern technology. It's not worth much money. So by American standards
she is poor. The point is you can have modern stuff and still be really
poor. I don't see what is so hard to understand about that. It seems you
are saying that if you have a cell phone and a car that means you can't
be poor? I'm saying you sure can. A few modern conveniences doesn't make
one rich.


Hawke

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:04:47 +0700, wrote:

On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 20:07:06 -0800 (PST), rangerssuck
wrote:

On Feb 8, 10:08*pm, wrote:
On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:55 -0800, Hawke





wrote:
On 2/7/2012 8:03 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:40:40 -0800, Hawke
*wrote:

On 2/7/2012 5:27 AM, wrote:
On Feb 7, 1:22 am, Jeff * wrote:

The poor in 1900 did *not have cell phones, HD televisions, cars,
microwave ovens, and such. *The poor in 2000 have all of those things.

Neither did the rich. *What is your point? *Lots of things have changed,
usually for the better, over the past 112 years, even for the poor. *The
poor of today are better off than the poor of 1900, just like everybody
else is. *So what?

My point is that Hawke is wrong when he says there has been no
change. *If you use constant standards, the poor today are well off.
But if you say the poor is the fifteen percent of the population that
has the lowest income, there is no way to change things. *There will
always be people that make less than others.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dan

Of course things have changed over the course of hundreds of years. But
someone living in a 20' trailer with a small flat screen and the other
things that come with it has all the modern conveniences from hot
running water to a microwave and a computer but he's still poor. Compare
him to a rich person in the mid 1800s who has non of those things but
has a lot of wealth. You could take a Texas cattle rancher of the late
1800s and he's got none of the things today's guy in the trailer has.
But he's got a big ranch house, thousands of acres of land, and all
kinds of livestock and equipment. He's got no micro, no computer, no hot
running water, and has an outhouse. So who is poorer?

No doubt the guy in the trailer is poorer than the guy with the big
cattle ranch but the guy in the trailer has all the modern conveniences.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. Point is you can have all of
today's modern conveniences but you are still poor and I think you know
what that means.

Hawke

So what you are telling us is the poor folks have housing, food,
entertainment, and all the other amenities to live and that is still
not enough?

In other words, it is a simple matter of seeing the rich man drive by
in his big car and feeling jealousy because he has the big black sedan
and all you have is the pickup truck.

cheers,

Schweik

Let me make it clear. A woman lives down the road from me in a 15'
trailer in which she has a TV, microwave, hot water, shower, toilet,
refrigerator, and heat. She may also have an old computer. she also has
an old truck. By my standards she is poor. she has hardly any money and
can't afford hardly anything beyond the absolute basics. I consider that
poor even though she has modern conveniences. But most of them came
built into the trailer. I don't know what you would call someone with
this little in life, well off? I call it having virtually nothing.

Hawke

But apparently she has enough money to but a TV, microwave and
computer. In other words, whether or not you consider her poor she did
in fact have disposable income.

All you are really saying is that she is poorer then you. Does that
mean that anyone with less money then you is poor?

Cheers

John B.

Fer crissakes, you can walk around pretty much any suburban
neighborhood on garbage day and pick up perfectly serviceable TVs,
microwaves and computers for free. If you want to believe that there
are no poor people in America, fine. Go right ahead. But seriously,
John, you may want to take a walk through a homeless shelter some day.
Yeah, they're all livin' the high life there.

How about the families that are splitting a can of soup five ways and
calling it dinner? How about the people who are making a choice
between feeding their kids or buyng their medications? How about the
kids wearing hand me down clothes that are three sizes too large
because it was a choice between paying the rent or buying a pair of
pants at the salvation army?

I have met some of these people, right here in "affluent" Northern New
Jersey. And no, I'm not going to post their names, addresses and
pictures for your edification. I will, however, suggest that you spend
a little time outside your own comfort zone, and see what's going on
around you. Get some perspective.


The argument isn't about whether there are indigent people in the U.S,
the argument is what level of income does Hawke believe that "poor"
begins as he certainly has said that he is not talking about street
people and the homeless.



Cheers

John B.

And as a matter of fact..most street people and the vast majority of the
homeless are there VOLUNTARILY.

They are largely drug addicts, boozers or the mentally ill and are there
by CHOICE.

In America...anyone..anyone who is mentally above the IQ of a califlower
can enjoy decent shelter, food and entertainment with not much effort.

8 hours a day at MickyDs will supply them room, board and at the
least..a Tube to watch.

Will it get you a 2500 square foot home with granite countertops?
No.
Hard work will get you that.

Happens all over America

Gunner

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that,
in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers
and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are
not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
Gunner Asch

On Feb 9, 7:07*pm, rangerssuck wrote:
On Feb 9, 1:57*pm, Donn Messenheimer
wrote:

On 2/9/2012 10:41 AM, rangerssuck wrote:
The leftist caricature of poverty is so misleading as to be for all
intents and purposes a lie. *You take what is in fact an extremely
unrepresentative sample, of people who clearly are not typical of the
poor, and call that the typical face of poverty. *It's lying.-

I will not respond to your knee-jerk cut& *paste garbage except to say
that you are quoting numbers, and I am telling you what I have seen
with my own eyes and heard with my own ears and helped with my own
hands.

In other words: *anecdotes, of dubious authenticity.

Get in your car, and drive to Center for Food Action 192 W Demarest
Ave *Englewood, NJ 07631 Talk to the people who come there to pick up
their food packages. Listen to their stories. Go out with the people
who work there, deliver some food packages to people who can't pick
them up. Then get back to me about the "dubious authenticity" of my
words.

Your behavior here is typical of the right-wingers (though I can't say
that I've never seen left-wingers act similarly, it just seems to come
a whole lot more from the right) - If someone presents data points
that don't fit your preconceived view of things, you brand them as a
liar. You just don't seem to have room in your head for the notion
that you (or your party) could be wrong. To which I say, grow up.



You can talk about your fractions of a percent all you want,
but I have to ask, just how many hungry people is an OK number for
you? If they're so non-existent, can I give them your address?

I didn't say that it is okay for anyone to be hungry. *What I said is
you are grotesquely overstating the problem, and implicit in the subject
line of this thread is the accusation that Romney doesn't care about
destitute people at all. *That accusation is false, and you are lying
about the severity and extent of poverty

I am not overstating anything. Romney's words were taken out of
context and shouldn't have been, but I don't for a second doubt that
his feelings about the poor are similar to yours. He's obviously never
seen poverty, and simply has no idea what it means to be hungry. On
the other hand, perhaps he HAS seen poverty, and he DOES understand
what it means to be hungry, and his heart is just made of stone.

Either way, Romney says that the poor are protected by "safety nets."
I've got news for him (and you): Those nets are full of holes. Come to
the address I listed above, and introduce yourself to some folks who
have fallen through those holes. Let me know when you're coming - I'll
meet you there. Anybody who advertizes that Wieber blows can't be all
bad ;-)

So, three days after I shot down Donn Messenheimer's bull**** by
telling him EXACTLY where he could go to meet some of the poor people
that he was claiming were a figment of the liberal imagination, and
there's no word from him. Another example of how, when faced with
facts that don't fit their preconceived notions (or those of their
party), the wingers skulk away.

Phttt!