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It's absolutely serious. By every measure ever tried, poor people measure stupider than rich people and the middle class measures, well, in the middle.
By every measure measured, criminals come out stupider than honest people.
There are three things: criminality, poverty and intelligence. The partial correlation of the first two with the third is much greater than that with each other. When the effect of intelligence is removed, the relationship between poverty and criminality is not much of one.
Are you referring to 'stupid' or 'ignorant'? There's a difference.
Stupid: lacking intelligence or common sense.
Ignorant: lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.
My dad and mom worked very hard, they owned their own business and would start at sunrise, and at times still be working late into the evening. We did not have a lot of money, did not have a fancy house or car.
We were 'poor' financial-wise; however, we were 'rich' as far as being loved, nurtured, guided, disciplined, and taught right from wrong.
To call my parents stupid is an insult.
Success in is not judged by how much money you have.
"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming." John Wooden
Being poor is dehumanizing in America. A dehumanized person doesn't value their life or yours. Its no wonder poor people don't share the same values that people who are not poor have. IMO its why prisons are not a good deterrent to the poor. Their life outside the prison is not so much better than incarceration. I had a childhood friend who served 7 years in prison when he was 17 and then took the rap for his younger brother and went back for another 5 years. He grew up poor, was intelligent and died in prison when he was 54 years old.
Poverty has been studied to death in America, our most prestigious university studies have concluded that we do have an ingrained institutional poverty and probably always will. Most people like to see the positive at the expense of all that is negative, and in that vein we find a large body of indifference as the main response to the nation's poverty.
Crime and poverty are connected, but, the complexities involved aren't always viewed with an eye toward the reality of what it means to actually live one's lifetime amidst the hopelessness of being poor. The OP's questions are proof of the fact that many misunderstand the "culture" of poverty, being poor has more to do with education, employment, character development, self esteem, motivation, and to a very large degree---inspiration---than it has to do with the simple fact of no money.
American poverty has a unique component to it that stems from the fact that this underclass culture exists alongside a much higher level of wealth experienced by a majority of the populace. Most of the poorest nations have the poor as their majority, but here we find the spread of wealth to be much greater than elsewhere. That spread has been the underlying cause of the indifference I spoke of, in other words, most people here feel that the poor are, for the most part, deserving of their plight.
Go to another country and look at their beggers. You seldom see anyone able-bodied and young/middle-aged. You see disabled, elderly, children, or people whose appearance horrifies you, missing legs, broken eyes, burned faces. Their able-bodied are working.
In America, as you exit a highway, you get young, able-bodied homeless people running fast to get cash from a car window. These people could be working. People from other countries often are puzzled by the sight of American poverty. SUVs and several children and food stamps. Cable tv and potato chips. Not wanting to do any better and being complacent, then blaming everything on everybody else. This is designed poverty for votes. Your welfare state isn't here to "enable" people to change their status quo but to settle people into their miserable status quo.
Are you referring to 'stupid' or 'ignorant'? There's a difference.
Stupid: lacking intelligence or common sense.
Ignorant: lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.
My dad and mom worked very hard, they owned their own business and would start at sunrise, and at times still be working late into the evening. We did not have a lot of money, did not have a fancy house or car.
We were 'poor' financial-wise; however, we were 'rich' as far as being loved, nurtured, guided, disciplined, and taught right from wrong.
To call my parents stupid is an insult.
Success in is not judged by how much money you have.
"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming." John Wooden
My parents were successful.
I believe he's using the word stupid here to mean "of a low IQ". One can have a low IQ and still have a lot of common sense, and be a hard working successful person. He's not saying having a low IQ makes you poor and a criminal. He's saying people who are poor and criminals usually also have a low IQ.
Please do provide links for your research so the rest of us can see these trends...
There's like... zillions. Type in IQ vs income into Google Scholar. It's controversial, you will find studies done in different ways controlling for different things, many of them trying desperately to refute the fact that unfortunately, those with who have lower incomes and make poorer choices, on average, have a lower IQ. (Of course there are many exceptions). That's kind of the whole point of what an IQ is supposed to measure in the first place.
There's like... zillions. Type in IQ vs income into Google Scholar. It's controversial, you will find studies done in different ways controlling for different things, many of them trying desperately to refute the fact that unfortunately, those with who have lower incomes and make poorer choices, on average, have a lower IQ. (Of course there are many exceptions). That's kind of the whole point of what an IQ is supposed to measure in the first place.
Go to another country and look at their beggers. You seldom see anyone able-bodied and young/middle-aged. You see disabled, elderly, children, or people whose appearance horrifies you, missing legs, broken eyes, burned faces. Their able-bodied are working.
In America, as you exit a highway, you get young, able-bodied homeless people running fast to get cash from a car window. These people could be working. People from other countries often are puzzled by the sight of American poverty. SUVs and several children and food stamps. Cable tv and potato chips. Not wanting to do any better and being complacent, then blaming everything on everybody else. This is designed poverty for votes. Your welfare state isn't here to "enable" people to change their status quo but to settle people into their miserable status quo.
Nonsense there are young able bodied panhandlers in almost every country in the world. Where did you come up with this?
There is a theory that poor people are more likely to commit crimes for income. But what about other kinds of crimes? Why do cities with more poor people have more murders, rapes, etc.?
Poor people I've personally known have tended to be more honest and polite than other people I've known.
Why is there an association between poverty and all kinds of crimes, not just crimes for income?
How true is it? Is it a myth? Is there some other reason for the statistics? Could the high crime rates be the cause of the poverty? But what causes the high crime rates?
People that lack intelligence and are reckless are more likely to be poor. Stupid reckless people do stupid reckless things.
Add to this that having illegitimate kids is something poor people dominate. Their kids are often dumb like their parents, and they have lousy upbringings because their parents are bad parents or not around. Just look at the number of murders that are committed by men that were raised by a single mother.
It's been proven that 90% of people in prison fall either within the top 5% of intelligence or the lowest 5%.
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