UN poverty official touring Alabama's Black Belt: 'I haven't seen this' in the First World

a reply to: yuppa

So you care so much about the rich, fine, then Bezos has 100 billion dollars.

And Apple corporation hides billions of dollars away in foreign havens and you care so much about them all their billions and trillions while little kids die of lead poisoning and children in NY and NJ can't have computers.

Where do they make their money from, people on Mars?


Where do they fight like dogs to get their money from--us the consumer

They don't make their money in a vacumn


They owe the society they live and feed off of.

You cant understand that?

a reply to: Willtell

Iam poor too. i dont want to take anything from anyone though. people die everyday and you die when you are planned to die. so instead of bitching uplift yourself and screw the rest.

a reply to: Willtell

Examine the budgets of your government. There is plenty there to take care of those things, but your government would rather pay for other things - programs that benefit only a few at the expense of all.

Shouldn't a government's first priority be to pay for things that benefit everyone? Then start to pay for the most vulnerable. Then start looking at ways to help those who could help themselves but for some reason don't?

a reply to: Willtell

This isn't about caring about the rich.

It's about realizing that you can only plunder what they have for so long before there isn't anymore, and then the people who still depend on you to give to them, are still dependent.

What then?

No more rich people to pay. From whom will you steal then?

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: yuppa

So you care so much about the rich, fine, then Bezos has 100 billion dollars.

And Apple corporation hides billions of dollars away in foreign havens and you care so much about them all their billions and trillions while little kids die of lead poisoning and children in NY and NJ can't have computers.

Where do they make their money from, people on Mars?


Where do they fight like dogs to get their money from--us the consumer

They don't make their money in a vacumn


They owe the society they live and feed off of.

You cant understand that?

Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg ect are all supposed to be bleeding heart liberals, start calling them out.

Musk has the right Idea. Start over on another Planet.

originally posted by: yuppa
a reply to: Willtell

Iam poor too. i dont want to take anything from anyone though. people die everyday and you die when you are planned to die. so instead of bitching uplift yourself and screw the rest.

I’m not bitching, I don’t need rich people who are greedy and don’t want to pay their fair share.

God will deal with them.

I have my sustenance and don’t need them…

But this is a conversation about the macro society that is a socialized economic eco system where people depend on that macro ecosystem to survive

You need to stop pretending you don’t depend on it. You’re delusional unless you live in the woods by yourself.

a reply to: ketsuko

Plunder what?
Since ancient times all societies have had merchants and the merchants can’t survive without customers. It’s about one hand washing the other

The merchants are a part of the society, don’t you understand that. They are NOT separate from the society they are an integral part of it

They have to pay their fair share, it’s that simple.

They have corralled a group of politicians to deceive people to make their case

Their not separate they are a part of this society

I would like to add something to this conversation. Many do not agree with it. Many call B.S. Many say that the jobs are being replaced. Many cite numbers that do not reflect the whole story.

What jobs am I talking about?

All of the coal jobs that have been lost. Not just coal jobs, but all of the supporting jobs that coal mining needed to sustain production. The manufacturing and maintenance industries that were needed to keep the coal flowing. I live in Southern Illinois. Whole communities that were thriving and were a decent place to live are now in complete shambles. Drugs and crime are rampant. There is no jobs to replace the jobs that the thousands of people have lost. We are not talking about big city folk. We re talking towns of 1,000 to 15,000 people here.

Now it's not just the coal industry. It is many manufacturing industries that just cannot compete and and be economically viable with so many regulations. The jobs are gone. Now you have people lining up to work at the local Wal-Mart or 7-11.

Between these things I have listed and the complete destruction of our manufacturing sector due to the globalization and free trade agreements, it is a complete disaster for the blue collar community.

Do I think that coal is a environmentally friendly ways of producing power? No I do not. Do I think that companies should have free reign to destroy and pollute? No I do not.

What I do believe is other means of production should be implemented and phased in before we just cut the throats of the American working community. These jobs have not been replaced from where they were shut down. Instead when you hear that 100,000 jobs were created, the majority of those would be from some city start up firm, or a new Starbucks coffee shop paying someone $9 an hour to slave to make a cappuccino.

I did not vote for Trump, I did not vote for Obama, I do not think that any one president is responsible for big business buying their way into destroying the very fabric of what the Amerivmcan dream should be.

People can point their finger, blame the other side, and wave picket line signs until they are blue in the face and wore the soles off of their shoes. Nothing will change the decline of the blue collar community until the people have decided that enough is enough and kick big business out of politics.

You can see it in every single thread here on ATS. The bickering is sickening and has not changed or accomplished anything in this country.

a reply to: liejunkie01

Great post. I read every word of it and you speak of the other leg of the scam to keep us down I often bring up besides the political shills shielding the rich from paying taxes.

That’s the outsourcing of American industry so AGAIN the rich get richer and we get poorer

In your case its something I myself experienced working in the auto industry and then the IT industry and in the case of the auto industry watched it go to naught before it was revived somewhat.

Sure, the deliberate outsourcing of our manufacturing base is a CRIME imo.

A deliberate act with collusion by politicians so, again, the elite rich can get cheap workers in foreign lands and our jobs are therefore shipped overseas to China, India, Pakistan, Philippines, etc.,

I saw it twice. I worked for GM for a decade and had to leave before they left me.

Then in the IT industry I personally saw great jobs of Americans go to India, Philippines, China, right before my eyes working for HP.

At the beginning of the IT boom, I was there, I saw that jobs were many and head hunters literally hunted you down for jobs if you were experienced and educated.

Now not so much many of the high paying IT jobs are going overseas.

The three legs of the Dragon


Cut taxes for the Rich/Trickle down theory


Trade deals that allowed industry to destroy Americas manufacturing base plus Globalism


And of course the military industrial war and intelligence complex

a reply to: Willtell

I agree,

All people have to do is take any highway out of the city and drive for an hour or two. Small town America is dieing a slow death. Drugs and crime is a problem. People are working two and three jobs, some just give up. Welfare and the poor give in and accept that this is the way it is and will be.

Our education system is pushing kids through with no hope of a future.

a reply to: liejunkie01

Everything you say is true and we need to have hope.

We have to always try to educate people like here on this forum.

There are bright spots here and there we can build off them...

We can win our future back with the right spirit

originally posted by: Southern Guardian
a reply to: avgguy

As I recall, Alabama is heavily Republican? With a Republican controlled house and Governorship? Hasn't the Republican Party been the majority in Congress for 7 years now? Who's president at the moment? Oh, Republican.

But liberals. Those darn liberals.

what does who and what party is President, and what party controls congress have to do with water quality? and what about Obama being in charge just a couple years back when it came out much of Detroit's water was unsafe? and what laws did Obama even try to put into place knowing there were severe water issues in the country? and how can you even consider the currant President who has been in office not even a year yet to be a part of the problem. these problems did not suddenly appear when he took office. they have been created from many years of neglect. as such Obama (DEMOCRAT) would be far more at fault for not doing anything the 8 years he was in office. or how about all the Presidents before Obama, in the years it took for this situation to develop?

but honestly if we must try to blame a political party, i'd be far more interested in what parties have been in control of the municipalities with the water problems? you know those in the local levels of government that are actually responsible for things like water quality. in all honesty what can the President and congress even do about water quality that is several levels of government beneath them anyway? simply put it is not a FEDERAL problem. like i said things like water quality is in the hands of local governments. paid for by local taxes like property tax, and state taxes, controlled by state governments and municipal governments. not from federal taxes under the control of the President and congress. the most the federal government could really do is put laws in place about water quality. but wait, aren't there are already laws and regulations in place about that?

yet as at least a few members have said the real problem with poverty and thus this water problem is JOBS and PAY. it's not the fault of who pays how much tax. people with no job, pay no taxes. people with low paying jobs obviously pay little tax. the problem is not really that the rich need to pay more taxes. the problem is that the rich and corporations need to pay their workers more, and to stop outsourcing jobs overseas and free trade deals to increase the rich and corporation's profits. which is the cause of so many being poor and without jobs in the first place. people with jobs can pay their share of taxes. people who are paid well, pay more taxes on their earnings than someone with a low paying job. and just to note cutting the taxes for the rich will not do anything real to fix the problem. the only real way to fix the problem is to insure people have not just jobs, but are paid enough to pay their fair share of taxes. so what we need to do is force the rich and companies to actually fairly pay their employees, not just to make as much profits as the possibly can. as well as to put into place fair trade deals to insure that jobs stay and come back to the country.

a reply to: Willtell

Judge not remember. the rich have their cash already. they can leave and stop investing and collapse the system if pushed too far. they already pay their legal share. you want them to un constituionally be forced to pay for things the government is to do. youre mad at the wrong ones. we need budget control. stop sending money to people everywhere else. cant save the world when you are in danger yourself.

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: liejunkie01

Everything you say is true and we need to have hope.

We have to always try to educate people like here on this forum.

There are bright spots here and there we can build off them...

We can win our future back with the right spirit

dont you mean to add except richies...they should be poor as us.

The working class and Government have the same problem. Rich people. The cost of everything will rise except our revenue so the rich can have more.

a reply to: Willtell

What is their "fair share"?

Usually, when we talk about fair, it means that everyone pays the same or has an equal measure, but only when it comes to taxes does it mean that you look at people who have what you consider "too much" and suddenly what's "fair" is not longer an equal measure like it is for everything else, but an outsized portion.

I'm still not sure how that works out.

And I'm still not sure how that works out to be "fair" in the world.

a reply to: generik

Yes.

Thank you.

We had to call in a plumber because our main line backed up into our basement last weekend. The plumber had to go out over 100' to remove the clog which was a bunch of tree roots in the line and some paper. At that point, the problem was the city's line, not ours.

The crumbling sewer system where I live has been an issue now for years. I've lived in this city for the entirety of my adult career and it's been an issue for that long. In that time, I've watched Bush, Obama, and now Trump come in and do what they do.

The long and short of it is that local sewers are not a federal issue. They're local and the city here doesn't think they're a sexy ballot issue. They'd rather do flashy things like revitalize downtown with an expensive nightlife district that has to be subsidized, a new downtown arena that doesn't have a marquis tenant, a streetcar system, and now a new airport. All these are things that are running up our debt and our tax burden for 30 years out ... but you can drive through areas of the city in summer and it smells like we have 3rd world open sewers.

a reply to: links234

When ever I read about the homeless/ poverty in the US there is no american citizen witha comment which gives a plausible explanation or understanding for such situations. Then I ask myself ..what tf? How come no american citizen does understand that its government allows this to happen... It can not be other tha it is the polticians who allow this to happen and are not in service of the US people.

Vey bad things are happening in the US (government).

a reply to: zatara

I have relatives who are constantly one step away from being out homeless.

Poverty is a set of behaviors that as much as it is a lack of money. Remember how after Katrina the government gave special EBT cards to people who'd lost everything with set amount of cash on them?

Most people who don't live in poverty were seeing that amount and thinking about how those dollars could be stretched to replace as many basic goods - clothing, toiletry, household, etc. - as possible, but there were endless reports that came out soon afterward about how recipients were spending them on strippers or buying high dollar handbags.

Poverty is seeing the dollar amount you have and treating the cash like ready disposable income with no planning thought for what you will need for the future.

And I predict that even if there was a system of UBI set up, there would be people living in the streets for that reason and the UBI wouldn't be enough.