Poverty-social problem?

Ice, the reason we DO define poverty as a social problem is that it IS one.  A major one.  It has always been with us and shall always be with us. 

However, our most bigoted misfits try to blame the have-not status of the poor on the haves.  That is not how it works.

The main reason some people are poor is that they do not have the discipline to manage their money. 

The main reason that some people are wealthy is that they DO have the discipline to manage their money.

The saddest fact of all is that communists always exploit the p[ain that poor people suffer on persons who manage their money well, and then claim that "The poor downtrodden masses are affliced by the bourgeoisie . . .."

Either you have enough discipline to manage your money properly or you do not.  It is just that simple.

Poverty is more and less than a social problem. 1. It is first of all a victim to definition. A person in poverty in 2008 might be considered as wealthy in 1812. 2. It is not a single condition, but a number of different ones. You can be in poverty because of circumstance, health, ability, misfortune etc., or you might find yourself in poverty because you don’t do the things you need to do to get out of it…like working hard at a dirty job. 3. It can also be caused by economic forces, if you reward poverty you get more of it. By that I mean, if you give food stamps to people, soon you will find that you have to give more food stamps to people to get the same result. If you give benefits to unmarried mothers, then you will get more unmarried mothers. This is a great problem for those designing programs to help the needy, how to do it without encouraging activity that increases the need. 4. Poverty is a business. Those “suits” who make their living “fighting” poverty would lose their jobs if they actually won. If the black underclass would succeed, in mass, in climbing out of poverty, breaking the shackles of discrimination and bigotry, and achieving true political power, then they would no longer be slaves to the politicians who use and abuse them. Poverty is affected by race, class, education, circumstance, health, culture, and attitude, and no one has come up with a really good way of fighting it.

Poverty is either region specific or society specific. There is an extreme form of poverty in which people lack sufficient food. But people living on fertile land should not have this type of povery when the climate is favourable.

Underdevelopment is also behind poverty as a reason.

poverty=Underdevelopment+ illiteracy + lack of resources+population growth+corrupt political leadership+uneven distribution of wealth

Poverty, whether it is region specific (eg. in Sri Lanka and other war-torn countries much of national resouces are spent on national security, this kind of situation exists in many African nations and the result is poverty) or social specific (eg. in most of the third world countries by reason of non-utilization of scientific knowledge and technique, corruption and illiteracy, uneven distribution of wealth etc.), the issue is on the whole society to solve it. In it, every citizen, NGOs, and the government should be involved.

Poverty is largly a society made one which the society alone can solve.

Poverty is more a symptom than a disease. Like cancer is a symptom, but the underlying disease will kill you.

The primary causes of poverty are:

1. Lack of motivation. If you do not want to succeed, you will fail.

2. Lack of discipline. If you go in a million directions at once, you get nowhere.

3. Indecision. If you just can't (or won't) decide on a particular venture and pursue it, you will wind up on welfare.

4. Insatiety. If you cannot be content with what you have, you will want more and more but never acheive it.

5. Incompetence. If you are in a job that you do not understand well, or do not perform brilliantly, you will find yourself with a cardboard sign on a freeway off-ramp marked, "Will work for food."

Lets Wait for the 5 million hard working Americans who are about to be fired from the Car Industry, or the shopkeepers who have had to shut shop, and all those homeowners who got fired and couldnt afford to keep up with the payments and bills (and are now living out of their cars) All because of the current Financial crisis. I wonder how they will like being labelled Lazy, incompetent and Unmotivated.

Another reason was shell-shock, I'm surprised Rocmike3 didnt pick up on the fact that a lot of homeless are ex-army! And a lot of Homeless suffer from Mental Disorders!

Per Paddster16:

"I'm surprised Rocmike3 didnt pick up on the fact that a lot of homeless are ex-army! And a lot of Homeless suffer from Mental Disorders . . .!"

Paddster, I DID notice. And I did something about it. When two Air Force veterans came to me looking for work -- of any kind that paid over minimum wage -- I couldn't help but notice that one was a C-5A hydraulics technician, and the other was a Ground Support Equipment mechanic. We have lots of equipment that uses hydraulics, so their advanced expertise more than made up for their occasional days-out to deal with PTSD. They're still with the company, but I defer to discuss their salaries: I will say it's substantial, and they are still highly motivated even decades out of the USAF.

Another crotchety old vet working here worked Explosive Ordnance Disposal in Vietnam. He showed me things *I* didn't know about explosives, and how to get the safest use out of the various "energetic materials" used in hard-rock excavation. So, I took out an explosives license. He is a genius with explosives, but considering that he knows how to cripple Soviet tanks with a coffee-cup full of homemade C-4, I sure wouldn't want to be on his bad side. But also, I must point out the fact that he is loyal to a fault, so trust is never an issue.

Two young ladies working here served in the Middle East, one in 1991 and the other in 2006. Both came back with severe PTSD, and one must take medication to control crippling flashbacks and deepening bouts of depression. But, here we are a company family. We have soft shoulders for a good cry whenever it is needed. And we have a dark room if someone needs to "back down from a fury."

The VA and SSA help we get to keep them on-staff has made the difference to their rehabilitation. And yes, I get more disabled vets than you would want to consider, many of whom I can't employ. But that doesn't mean they will go away hungry or without a strong referral to some other contractor who has a backlog to fill. We have a lunch room here, and we serve from our company kitchen. No one ever has to go hungry or cold if I have anything to say about it.

No one has that coming -- especially the heroic SOB's that bore the brunt for their people and their homeland.

Booray, you have just stepped on my toes.

"If the black underclass would succeed, in mass, in climbing out of poverty, breaking the shackles of discrimination and bigotry, and achieving true political power, then they would no longer be slaves to the politicians who use and abuse them . . .."

Booray, I happen to be black, and a successful businessman. I make a point not to discriminate on ANY basis. To assure that, our employment applications have a number, not a name. The applicant takes the number with him. If qualified, and willing to work, they're going to work and the little stuff makes no difference: by little stuff, I mean race, gender -- anything that the person did not choose.

However, we work with some very nasty stuff, so we have to make criminal background checks on ALL qualified applicants. Working with hazardous materials (including explosives and explosive components) means that anyone who is forbidden to carry a sidearm, to protect that nasty stuff, won't get the job. Sorry, folks, it isn't a perfect world.

I had to turn down a veteran recently because his mother-in-law likes to play games and railroaded him into a phoney assault conviction. Feminists really do like to ruin men's lives and they really do giggle and howl with joy whenever they drive a man to bankruptcy, divorce, and eventually suicide.

That is the sole and exclusive definition of "Women's Empowerment" as settled decades ago by Sisterhood of Eden and NOW. Lilith Society and a few other cults are nastierr still. That sort of bitter and infuriating discrimination stinks on ice but when you must deal with that sort of lunatic daily, it gets old in a heartbeat.

If you want to see the real cause of poverty in America, you must take cult misfeasance into account.