What percentage of poor people deserve it?

Tommy2Nuttz wrote:

full canvas wrote:

Mother Teresa's, you're not!

1. You needed a role model to figure out that being lazy, doing poorly in school, and getting a criminal record isn't the path to success?

2. The idea that "connections" get you jobs is way overblown. Sure, it helps in some industries, but the country is still a meritocracy. Employers want the best employee. Every job I've had, I've obtained through the standard "front door" channels, i.e. applying through human resources and letting my credentials speak for themselves.

3. Mother Theresa was an evil human being ...

I rest my case. Completely clueless on how our society functions.[/quote]

Quite an argument you made there, buddy.

questionable hobo wrote:

800 dude wrote:

Nobody has any idea how to achieve that kind of success. You have to be very, very lucky. If you look at the life stories of these kinds of people, you're usually looking at a string of highly improbable events and circumstances. Which isn't to say that these people are smart and determined, but there are many smart and determined people who don't have the stars align for them.

You don't get groomed to be a billionaire tycoon the way an upper middle class kid might get groomed to be a doctor or lawyer.

Not to mention that every self-made billionaire comes from far more humble origins (by definition). Is academic hobo implying that Bill Gate's middle class parents somehow "groomed" him to become a billionaire?

So billionaires are a small hard to quantify group, I should have said 10's-100's of millions. Most people in this category were groomed to make the money they did. Think about it how does the average hedge fund manager on wall st get there? My point was that most people in life strive to achieve what they define as success, and virtually everyone defines success by being slightly better or the same as the enviroment they grew up in. Hollywood movies of young ghetto kids reaching for the stars aside the reality is that most people never reach farther than thier grasp and the op is no different. He is sitting back in the same financial situation he was born in to (not improving it vastly) and claiming that people who were born in to a poorer situation are simply lazy.

Stick with academics, academic hobo. People like you aren't suited to the real world.

I'm a teacher, and while browsing around aimlessly the other day I came across this from a VERY disgruntled teacher, fed up with what his observations reveal about the permanent underclass. I must say my school, while diverse, is not "inner city" and my experiences do not jibe completely with his. I did, however, find myself occasionally nodding my head.

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/22499-Trying-to-teach-in-a-ghetto-underclass-culture.html

Actual link

Lorenzo the Magnificent wrote:

http://www.black-and-right.com/2013/07/01/before-its-deleted-of-the-day/

Actual link

Wow...this thread only took about two pages to get insanely racist. Oh well...I guess that is typical for letsrun.

0%.

Fox News just teaches you to blame poor people

This chart says a lot about economic mobility in the US:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/37433/large/educationandmobility.png?1371851012

If your parents are in the bottom income quintile and you complete a college degree you have a 27% chance of ending up in the top two income quintiles. However, if your parents are in the top income quintile and you DO NOT complete a college degree you have a 49% chance of ending up in the top two income quintiles. And what if your parents are in the top income quintile and you do complete a college degree? You have a 74% chance of ending up in the top two quintiles.

What percentage of posters on this thread are directly and intimately familiar with the life stories of large numbers of poor people with a wide variety of backgrounds?

someone wrote:

This chart says a lot about economic mobility in the US:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/37433/large/educationandmobility.png?1371851012

If your parents are in the bottom income quintile and you complete a college degree you have a 27% chance of ending up in the top two income quintiles. However, if your parents are in the top income quintile and you DO NOT complete a college degree you have a 49% chance of ending up in the top two income quintiles. And what if your parents are in the top income quintile and you do complete a college degree? You have a 74% chance of ending up in the top two quintiles.

Just because someone is born poor and doesn't move up doesn't mean they were screwed though. If you have two f*ckbag parents, what are the odds that the kid is going to be a really smart, hardworking, upstanding individual?

Tommy2Nuttz wrote:

I think very few people in America, have a real understanding of how difficult it is to get out of poverty. Generations of poverty leaves one with no role models, no connections to jobs or even interviews, poor schools and a chaotic home life.

Since we are on percents, I'm guessing 98% of the people here have not experienced real poverty ever in their lives. But they sure are experts at breaking it all down, and offering tons of advice.

Mother Teresa's, you're not!

I experienced real poverty. At different times, we lived in our car because we couldn't afford housing. However, we NEVER took handouts from the government. Period. It made all my siblings and me want to work that much harder. All but one of us graduated from college. The one brother who didn't go to college joined the military - has had a successful 20 year career. Everyone is responsible for their own success/failure. Whining and making excuses about your circumstances gets you nowhere.

I strongly agree with both your post as well as the one to which you were responding.

way too low wrote:

I think your estimate is way too low. I would say more like 75-80 reap what they sow. Try teaching in a Title I school and you might change your mind.

So do you think these kids reap what they sow? Do you think people born in crushing poverty throughout Sub-Sahara Africa, Bangladesh, and many other places have legitimate opportunities to improve their lives?

"deserve" is not the right word, but i think i get what you mean. i think most poor people could get out of poverty or at least improve their situation. the problem is most dont know that they can or dont know how to. seriously. thats how theyve been conditioned and its typically not their fault. its easy to call them lazy or stupid but the mindset of many of our citizens below the poverty line is completely different from the middle or upper class white boy's.

upward mobility is not easy but is certainly attainable. here's an anecdote from my father's family:

his father (my grandfather) was an auto mechanic in a blue collar town in PA. his mother (my grandmother) worked the night shift at dunkin donuts. the boys (including my father) in the family worked construction during the summer. my father is the 3rd of 9 kids. he was born when my grandmother was 18. so yes, they were dirt poor living in a small 2 bedroom house. not all were "successful" but heres how some of them turned out-

child 1- PhD, teaches abroad, and is the smartest person i know

child 2- extremely successful scientist working in singapore

child 3- well known consultant in our city and worth 8 figures

child 8- another PhD and a professor at a top university

child 9- yet another PhD. works in academia

thats my anecdote. im aware i was never poor but know my dad's story well. vertical mobility can be achieved. so while poor people dont deserve it, they have to be proactive and take responsibility for changing their lives. and not all rich people are schmucks

Three Hand Luke wrote:

Kracker wrote:

I'll tell you one thing.

Every single person worth hundreds or millions or more deserves to be in jail

You are now officially entered into the finals of the stupidest poster in the history of this place.

Congratulations!

The usual ad hominem I have come to expect from the dimmer letsrun posters

95% of us deserve what we have. The other 5% don't.

Randy Oldman wrote:

95% of us deserve what we have. The other 5% don't.

About 13% of the world's population is undernourished. In some countries it is over 50%. Are you suggesting there are almost a billion people in the world that deserve to live in this condition?

I think it is pretty obvious that this is a domestic thread. Clearly people in other countries have much different levels of opportunity.

I just have to chime in and say that for kids born into low income, low expectation families/communities, it isn't as simple as just "working harder and going to college." When all you know is gang violence and drug pushing and none of your family members have ever even thought about higher education, there is a very slim chance you can escape that unless you have an unusually bold temperament and probably a mentor or role model figure pushing you to achieve.

As for me, I grew up in a middle class family, both my parents went to college, and I was expected to go to college. My father's business hit a rough patch, and technically speaking we lived through poverty for a few years before I left for college. My parents' expectations for me never changed, and I am on track to graduate from a pretty well-respected university. What I'm saying is that it's all about the kind of environment you grow up in and who you're surrounded by. To say that kids raised in inner-city projects or back woods trailer parks just need to 'work harder' to get out of poverty reveals a serious lack of insight, because it is human nature to follow the pattern of the people you look up to.