The Census Bureau recently released a report on poverty and
the reporting on it in the media was predictable. The mantra was the “rich get richer”,
“the gap between the rich and poor widens”, etc… Instead of an analysis of the
cause of poverty, and how we could all be headed to real poverty, we heard the
typical emotional arguments about the unfairness of some people doing better
than others. Here is my analysis.
Let’s start with the definition of poverty: “state of being poor: the state of not having
enough money to take care of basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing.” In most of
the world this definition applies but in America, most people in poverty have plenty
to eat, drink, and have a place to live, have a TV, cable, iPods, computers, cell
phones, and a car. So how can this be poverty as compared to the rest of the
world? This is not poverty this is income redistribution and an effort to
foster class envy. It is also unsustainable, and if not corrected could be the beginning
of the end of our way of life as we know it.
The democrats are notorious for stoking envy but the republicans are not
exempt. The reason the opportunity class is shrinking is because the federal
government is taking the wealth through taxation. The median income is down to
around $50,000 per year, the lowest it’s been in a very long time. Every dollar the federal government takes from
the productive people to give to people in “poverty” the less money is
available to be put to productive use in the economy. The people in poverty are
getting what would be equal in value to a productive person bringing home $38,000
in wages. Is this poverty? We need to bring back real poverty so people have an
incentive to climb out of it. We should feed people who can’t feed themselves
and provide a basic roof over their heads but everything else must go.
Who defines poverty? The government and that is the problem. The government
has a self-interest to increase its tentacles to ensure its survival and
growth. It needs to be stopped or we will all be in poverty. Before you say,
poverty doesn’t seem that bad, the poverty we will all encounter will not be
what we see today. It will include a collapse of the financial system, food shortages
and absolute chaos which will generate more calls for a government “solution”
which is exactly what we don’t need. We need to collapse the central
government.
The generations of people in poverty are mostly people that have failed out
of the education system, depended on government for their subsistence for
generations, are disproportionately black and minority, and are the most
vulnerable to a struggling economy. They are squeezed out by the educated in
society which are mostly white. That is where the dishonesty and racial
politics rears its ugly head.
Poverty is the result of poor choices not race or some other demographic.
Most people in poverty failed out of school, had children out of wedlock and in
their teenage years, and have an attitude that someone else is to blame. Every
one of the causes of poverty is subsidized by the central government for
political reasons. The public education system is broken; the government
undermines family, and the culture, and pays the poor for bad choices. Until we
call it what it is we will continue to have the poor.
If we don’t reduce the power of the central government we will all become
poor but not the poor we see today. We have a choice to make and little time to
make it. What we need is a return to self-reliance and the greatness we achieved
through freedom and free markets. The federal government is subsidizing the cause
of poverty and it must be stopped by returning to our founding principles…
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