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I have posted and read numerous responses in economical threads about poor people needing more assistance. Why is it then that there are people that start at the bottom of the barrel and end up wealthy beyond imagination? Is it because they're simply way more talented than everyone else, or is it because their drive and determination got them there?
It's simply a matter of statistics. If you throw 350 million tennis balls at a hoop, eventually some are going to make it through the hoop. The vast majority are just not going to get through the hoop for a myriad of reasons-- too much speed, too little speed, poor angle, wind, deflection, etc...
Anytime you narrow an outcome down to one small result vs many possible results, you are going to see numbers taper off..
Sometimes it's opportunity, or drive, or risk, or support (parents, church), or even ruthlessness or a willingness to do something illegal to get ahead, and we can't forget dumb luck. There is always a measure of luck involved, I think. Nobody ever won the lotto by being smart or dedicated.
Most poor breed poor only a few like 3-10 actually are able to get out of the poor cycle I do think it's a mindset. Most rich bread rich or well off I know many who were setup in business by their rich parents. I only know of a few who were poor and able to climb the ladder out of poor to become rich all of them are business owners. Most who work for a living never make ends meat until they get old. I have known people who were rich and squander all the parents money after they die those amuse me the most. A couple of people I work with can't seem to keep a dime in their pockets I call these people working poor. They contently spend more then they take in and every month ask their parents for money.
Sort of. You are not poorer than you were before, just as poor.
Take me. I get a shade under $200 a month for state disability, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and about $200 a month in food stamps. If I get my federal disability, my rent goes up, my food stamps are gone, my Medicaid is gone, and I will probably have to pay for my prescriptions. So out of about $700 a month, I will probably be seeing maybe $150 or so of it. Maybe less. So there ya go.
You are just as poor financially, but you are now tired as well, and perhaps poorer psychically, because you have now worked without keeping any of what you have worked for.
I have not read through this whole thread so there is probably similar post already. But regardless, I will say this:
Anyone who says 'you just need to be more driven and climb out of poverty' is probably very privileged and does not understand poverty. Yes, people do climb the socio-economic ladder. That is a combination of hard work and luck though. Many will work just as hard and not reach the same status because we live in a discriminatory society that actively works to keep people down. There is just so much stacked against people.
It is much easier to become rich if you are born middle-class, and it is even easier if you are born rich. There is a certain entitlement in well-off people (including the middle-class and sometimes even the 'poor'- wealth and poverty are relative terms) that lets them think that they are completely self-made. They are not. Everything everyone does is based on the past work of somebody else. I often hear this story of how someone started at the bottom of a company and worked his/her way up, or how they paid their way through school or whatever. I here middle-class young adults bragging about their jobs and how they worked for it and poverty is just a mindset. They did work hard. I'm not trying to discredit that. But they still only succeeded because there are certain conditions that facilitated their upward mobility and/or the status they were born into. This must be taken into account when discussing poverty. We need to leave ego out of it. This anti-poor attitude the well-off take on to justify their own insecurities only fuels ignorance, misunderstanding, and ultimately only aids the conditions that create poverty and harm all of us indirectly.
If there's any truth to that statement, then the converse is every bit as true: Being wealthy is a mindset.
That being the case, wealthy corporations and individuals should focus on their fortunes and not on their debts. After all, a millionaire is still a millionaire after he pays his taxes.
I think the first hurdle for anyone lacking a good life is themselves. It is easy to talk yourself out of taking a risk, going back to school or starting a business on your own.
The thing is that being poor from a poorer area shuts of chance.... looking for a job with a certain accent can go against someone..not going to the right schools.. your dress... its harder for poor people to get into the arts even if their clever musically or in drama etc... they need cash to put them there and to survive... so they usually get a poor paid job or no job.. and life goes on.....being poor is different to different people... to me it was not having enough bread at the end of the day for my children....and that happened often...............for others its not having the right car ,most modern phone....or a big house..
You are just as poor financially, but you are now tired as well, and perhaps poorer psychically, because you have now worked without keeping any of what you have worked for.
No, I gave away most of my money. To the landlord, the power company, the finance company for my car, the insurance company, etc, etc.
To be honest, I'm tired of having done everything right and having still lost the game. I quit school and went back and graduated, I went to college, I tried to join the Army National Guard, I worked in several businesses for years without bouncing around from job to job, I supported myself, paid my bills, and paid my taxes. I tried to save but rents were always going up when my wage wasn't and this is what is left. Now I physically can't even work. The only way I'm going to see any money nowdays is to steal it, inherit it, win the lotto, or sell drugs. Walter White, move on over.
I have posted and read numerous responses in economical threads about poor people needing more assistance. Why is it then that there are people that start at the bottom of the barrel and end up wealthy beyond imagination? Is it because they're simply way more talented than everyone else, or is it because their drive and determination got them there?
In the realm of relativity, poverty creates wealth and wealth creates poverty. One needs the other to exist, as they represent contrast...like hot and cold. Wealth is created from scarcity. When something is scarce and of need and or desire by the free market, it can be either divided up equally among everyone, resulting in zero contrast and hence no poverty and no wealth or the few can gain control, creating wealth and the corollary of poverty for those who failed to get a share.
In other words, everyone cannot be wealthy because wealth comes from scarcity. Talents and skill sets, that produce things needed or desired by a free market....produces wealth. Owning scarce resources, needed or desired by a free market, produces wealth. Having drive, tenacity, perseverance, vision, etc, produce wealth only because such is rare for humans to have those things at very high degrees there of. Running the 100 meter in less than 9.8 seconds produces wealth, because people who can do that are scarce. Being able to supply supply something scarce and needed or desired by a free market, produces wealth.
Poverty comes from the few accumulating a too large a chunk of scarce resources, talents and such, that it leaves the masses struggling. Given that scarcity creates a zero sum game, for the masses to improve their lot the few must decrease there lot and they might not want to. If the few or minority who holds most the the wealth, resources and skill sets (born from education and degrees) want to maintain their status and wealth, they must keep the masses uneducated so that they do not become competition in the free market for skill sets that once create wealth because those who had them were scarce.
It's said that "It takes money to make money". There is a lot of truth to that. The higher your social class the more advantage you have because the more you are connected to scarce resources and or knowledge. The lower your social class the less you are connected to knowledge and resources that create wealth, because of class segregation. Wealth perpetuates wealth and poverty perpetuates poverty. If massive wealth is being created, so is massive poverty. Keep in mind also that people are COMPETING FOR STATUS AND RANK. Status and rank can only exist via CONTRAST. In other words, if one desires to be ABOVE, then others must be BELOW. If someone desires to be or feel superior, then others must be seen as inferior.
As the great Carthaginian General Hannibal once noted "It's not that I must succeed, its that others must fail". This is how our world and system really works. Others must FAIL for others to succeed and whether we want to admit it or not, the system is rigged from the top to promote failure at the bottom.
Last edited by Indentured Servant; 02-13-2015 at 07:36 AM..
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Being poor is a mindset
