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Just a question. Exactly which people are the have nots? Is it the not rich? The middle class and struggling? Or just the very poor? Aren't we all without something?
indeed, i say we move this to the philosophy forum.
I would say the "Have Nots" are the people that George Bush excluded when he called a gathering of his very wealthy friends; "Here is my constituency, the haves and the have mores."
I consider the Haves to be the people that can live very well off the returns on their investments. The people that do not have to do anything productive if they do not desire and have as much free time as they can stand are the are the Haves. The people that CAN BUY POLITICAL PROTECTION FOR THEIR WEALTH AND CLASS are the “Have Mores”.
The rest of us that have to spend some or all of our time working to earn, instead of just receive as part of our birthright, our living, are the have nots. The people living on food stamps, begging and all the rest of out "poverty' programs are not even up to the have nots level.
I believe this evolution into a two class society is the primary failure of our economy over the last fifty years. It is the result of a deliberate set of policies designed to concentrate wealth through an unfair tax system and moving industrial capacity, while abandoning the unionized workers, to Oriental near slave states to the benefit of the Haves and Have Mores at a tremendous cost to the working and middle classes.
I think you have a very interesting perspective on this.
IMO, the main component of being a HAVE NOT is what you believe about yourself. If you believe that you are a HAVE NOT, then you will live your life as a HAVE NOT, with a constant, unrelenting feeling of being victimized, always insisting that some external circumstance needs to change before you will allow yourself to feel grateful.
I call them like I see them. IMHO the source of the "haves" income is almost as important as the amount so long as the amount is in the 95th percentile or higher.
IMO, in the U.S., the "haves" are the top 5-10% wealthiest in the nation, and the "have-nots" are the rest of us below that. Looking at it strictly numbers-wise, $50,000 is a lot closer to $0 than it is to $1 million. And someone making $50k a year probably relates more to someone below the poverty level than they do to someone with a 7-figure income.
IMO, in the U.S., the "haves" are the top 5-10% wealthiest in the nation, and the "have-nots" are the rest of us below that. Looking at it strictly numbers-wise, $50,000 is a lot closer to $0 than it is to $1 million. And someone making $50k a year probably relates more to someone below the poverty level than they do to someone with a 7-figure income.
While the numbers work ($50,000 being closer to zero than to $1 million), I still find it a bit sick to call someone who has safe, decent housing, a reasonable car, no worries about putting food on the table, and enough money left over for entertainment and enjoyment beyond the necessities a have-not. It betrays a very spoiled and unrealistic concept of life, and it betrays an entitlement mentality, as if something were wrong if you aren't in the top 10%, which by definition 90% of people cannot be. What a recipe for being constantly dissatisfied and jealous.
A WalMart greeter will make a million dollars in a working lifetime (18-65) at the going wage. A worker making less than a WalMart greeter, will get public benefits to top it up to a million.
That makes virtually every American a millionaire. It will cost a million dollars to keep a person alive and healthy for a lifetime in America, even at poverty level. 200% of poverty line is considered to be the eligibility standard for most public benefits, and for a single person, that is currently $950,000 for 47 working years, plus whatever accrues through social security in the remaining decade or so of life. That's over a million.
So everybody is a millionaire, as a birthright, because somewhere, somehow, that million will be found, to get each person through his lifetime. Health care alone, even without spiraling upward in the future, will cost the average American 1/3-million current dollars during his lifetime. (Do the math: $1.2 trillion, divided by 310-million, times 80 years.
While the numbers work ($50,000 being closer to zero than to $1 million), I still find it a bit sick to call someone who has safe, decent housing, a reasonable car, no worries about putting food on the table, and enough money left over for entertainment and enjoyment beyond the necessities a have-not. It betrays a very spoiled and unrealistic concept of life, and it betrays an entitlement mentality, as if something were wrong if you aren't in the top 10%, which by definition 90% of people cannot be. What a recipe for being constantly dissatisfied and jealous.
a $50k/yr working-class person is definitely not on the same level of destitution as someone living hand-to-mouth in the slums, but if you look at the concentration of wealth (those who "have" compared to those who "don't have"), then the fact of the matter is that the top 5-10% naturally own the most significant chunk.
it just comes down to the definition of a "have not" differing by individual. IMO, what makes someone a "have" is the fact that they have a significant portion of their society's wealth. your other definition is based on standard of living, and like someone previously mentioned, someone with a working class income can certainly try to extend themselves to a higher standard of living than a person living frugally on an upper-middle class income.
A WalMart greeter will make a million dollars in a working lifetime (18-65) at the going wage. A worker making less than a WalMart greeter, will get public benefits to top it up to a million.
That makes virtually every American a millionaire. It will cost a million dollars to keep a person alive and healthy for a lifetime in America, even at poverty level.
So everybody is a millionaire, as a birthright, because somewhere, somehow, that million will be found for each person.
I always thought the generally accepted definition of a millionaire is someone whose net worth is $1 million or greater at the current point in time, not income accumulated over 47 years.
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