Get a job!

I'd pay a lot to see this uninformed fellow work alongside my friends
in the real world.  He'd lose a little weight and a lot of attitude.

“Some people are self-starters, and some people are born lazy.  Some people are born victims.  Some people are just born to be slaves.”

~ Rush Limbaugh, on economic inequality, a poorly worded but generally consistent expression of current conservative opinion; 60% say the poor are lazy, more than 80% think the poor have it easy.

It's perhaps easy to think we know what's best for others. Does our own success place us somehow above with a comprehensive perspective?  Such thinking is always inaccurate; no exceptions.

Living and working in several countries began to open our understanding on how persistent poverty happens.  It's not from unwillingness to work in any of the venues we've observed.  In the U.S. and elsewhere, poverty seems to persist for a very short list of reasons.

The decline of two-parent families is greatest in the lower

economic demographics.  Cause and effect are controversial.

Lack of opportunity is first and largest on the list.  There are few viable exits from poverty.  Most make the attempt; few succeed.  For the poor, completing their education and getting a job with upward prospects are more difficult than one might expect.

For nations, well intentioned policy efforts are perhaps second. Effects can be destructive.  Unintended consequences of assistance programs in the U.S. include the decline of lower-quintiles' economic mobility, family unity, and a generation of children with absent fathers.

Those are the top-level categories; there are subordinate causal elements from environment and culture.  Regional economic inequality is a useful indicator.

Read 'poverty level' as 'survival level'.  Survival is basic, just food and shelter perhaps.  Getting a quality education, staying healthy, eating well, having a stable home in which to do homework, those are unlikely at the survival level.

The poverty level (survival level) is a threshold, not the income level for all the households in the category.  In the U.S., the number of households with children living in extreme poverty (at $2/person/day) is about 1.7 million; more if you include the elderly and others without kids.

The U.S. suicide rate among African American men stems pointedly from their inability to find a place where they can join the mainstream, be productive, provide for a family, and get ahead.  Similar distress spans the globe.

In Africa, a father wept in shame and despair because he could not provide for his wife and children no matter how hard he tried.  His lament was not that he had no money but that he had no opportunity, no voice, no significance.

We put a young fellow through trade school and internship only to find that employment was available but not to him.  He's from the wrong tribe, Africa's equivalent to the good old boy network of influence and discrimination we're familiar with in the west.

In Africa as in the rest of the world, it's not the land that brings people to poverty, nor is it an unwillingness to work.  It's a wealth-focused economy (and government and culture) that marginalizes the lower economic segment of the population. Inequality is a weapon by which the few profit at the expense of others.  We in the west who claim the moral high-ground of equality, of law and justice, will perhaps eventually see that such a position is bent by self-interest and that what we have collectively become is in many ways unhelpful, sometimes even harmful.

No one chooses to be poor, to have their children be malnourished or undereducated, homeless or trapped in extreme poverty.  Such circumstances are imposed, not chosen.

As individuals, what options are available to us for a meaningful way forward?  And how do we avoid wrong thinking?

An interesting side note: a technical military career (particularly non-infantry) is a viable path upward for many.  Technical and leadership training, certifications, and years of performance are quite marketable and easily built upon.  Know why?  Recruits show up from everywhere, get groomed and clothed as equals, get trained according to interests and ability, and advance based on effort and skill.  It's an accessible opportunity for some.  A good educational foundation is the prerequisite, of course.  What might we deduce from that proven scenario?

mis·an·thrope

ˈmis(ə)nˌTHrōp,ˈmiz(ə)nˌTHrōp/

noun

1. a person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society.

   synonyms:

   hater of mankind, hater, cynic;  recluse, hermit ;  informal:grouch, grump "he was going to join a group of misanthropes but he disliked all the members"

Art Garfunkel speaking about himself.  “I’m a misanthrope,” he says.

When asked what advice he has given his son, he perhaps humorously offers, “Watch out for traffic.”  His son is 24 now.

Anything else? “Be kind to people. I’m working on that second one myself, because I’m not always kind. I’m judgemental and picky. When I order room service and they get it wrong I try so hard to be kind and I fail. ‘But I only asked for three things! How could you get one wrong?’

"Or to the taxi driver: 'How can this be hard? Listen to the address and take me there. Don't you care about your job?'"

Now in his 70's, Garfunkel sees his life with clarity, and he benefits from a review of his own behavior, his own attitude, and his response to others. There's more to life than what happened decades ago when he split with Paul Simon.

Just how hard is it for us to deal with life?  Can we acknowledge, forgive and move on?  Can we choose to be kind? And not just well mannered, but truly kind-hearted?  Imagine the difference it would make if the years were filled with caring about others (he said, preaching to himself as usual).

Per Person, Per Day

How much folks have to live on - from this year's data for population, productivity, and share.

“Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world’s people to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations.” — Noam Chomsky

Global Wealth

Global Interests

Global Corruption

Western civilization did indeed have a noble beginning.  Free individuals, free enterprise, equality, democracy, all are healthy but only if healthy folks are the players.  Prospects now are murky and confused as our governments join the ranks of those who forgot whom they serve and why.

We get to choose.

Friends at home.  This is the real world.

The poor and disenfranchised have no voice in the matter, and their circumstances ensure they suffer and die quietly on the outskirts of world awareness.  Shall we leave the discussion quietly and resign ourselves to the status quo? 

Not a chance.

Receiving. And Giving.

Casa Fiz do Mundo   (homemade world!)

Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I've called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing.

M10:40ff

I hope I understand.

On my short list of heroes, Casa Fiz do Mundo has been helping others for years.  We've crossed paths but never met.  

They work in western Africa; I've met some of the folks they serve so graciously.

Doubt

Do you ever doubt your own ideas?

From an interview with MIT professor emeritus, Noam Chomsky, American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, and political activist:


Q:  Do you ever doubt your own ideas?
A:  All the time. You should read what happens in linguistics. I keep changing what I said. Any person who is intellectually alive changes his ideas. If anyone at a university is teaching the same thing they were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead, or they haven't been thinking.

Q:  How would you explain your large ambition?
A: I am driven by many things. I know what some of them are. The misery that people suffer and the misery for which I share responsibility. That is agonizing. We live in a free society, and privilege confers responsibility.

Normal life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the capital city.
I took this picture from the window of my nice hotel.
Of course.

Q:  If you feel so guilty, how can you justify living a bourgeois life and driving a nice car?
A:  ... When I go to visit peasants in southern Colombia, they don't want me to give up my car. They want me to help them. Suppose I gave up material things -- my computer, my car and so on -- and went to live on a hill in Montana where I grew my own food. Would that help anyone? No.

Q:  Have you considered leaving the United States permanently?
A:  No. This is the best country in the world.
_____________________________

Today's competing demands for our attention leave little time for conscience, compassion, or conviction. Our social culture suggests we must first attend to our polarized politics and personal discontent. Today, those are the heart issues of mass media, and they are the common content of casual (if sometimes intense) conversation. Add to those the momentary spikes of interest in celebrities, sports, and meaningless memes. Perhaps none of those are legitimate issues of human existence.

We are so deeply indebted to African friends who introduced us to
their world.  :)  We have family and friends in distant places now,
and we get to stay connected with many of them.

Pictured here is the 'rowdy neighborhood'.  Among the world's
nicest people, they dragged Marilyn everywhere so they could
introduce their grandmothers, their cousins ... they did their
best to teach us.  Still, we as yet understand only  a little
of how the world really works.

Central and foremost, the good of others takes precedence (my opinion*). Governments rule, religions separate, empires conquer, tyrants oppress, dictators murder, and today's economic war ravages the world. The poor are artificially trapped in poverty along with their children, generation after generation. The wealthy and powerful extract wealth from workers, from communities, and from nations.  

Chomsky suggests that those of us who live in comparative ease, regardless of our how we arrived, carry a measure of responsibility in it all. Is he right?

There are indeed so many opportunities to help, to make a way forward for others. and to offer hope.


*The second highest priority, we're told, is that we would do well by our fellow man.  That we would do for them as we would for ourselves.  Such a measure of justice and equality will change us and the world we touch.  Mt.22:39.

The Co$t of War

Source

War actions have a price tag, but military actions are not the centerpiece of modern warfare.  Since WWII, the predominant national initiatives are economic dominance, power in the international marketplace and in the financial industries.  It's economic warfare, and the Great Recession was just one of the results.

The developed world, led by the U.S. and E.U., continues to push the limits.  

The Economic War costs more, does more damage, harms more innocent people, and causes more deaths.

The poorly regulated financial industry now plagues the entire world.  Developed countries are at risk and have suffered significant loss.  Developing countries are even more harshly affected.

The great recession continues to adversely affect national productivity, workforce participation, and economic growth.  Developed countries suffers similarly.  Developing countries of the world suffer even more as the effects persist.

See the Brookings Institute analysis here.

Curious how the war is progressing?