USA is Being SO Left Behind in the World
#1
While our president whittles away at Social Security and Medicare in lieu of corporations paying their fair share, the emerging South American nations with rising wealth are on compaigns to eliminate poverty. Not here, boy. We have to let the top 1% roll around in wealth while cutting school lunch programs. As a matter of fact, I just wish folks would just start admitting they don't like poor people. Poor people make them uncomfortable and they REALLY don't want to contribute a few dollars to help. Wars and fighter jets and tax cuts for the rich are much more important! Crying

Quote:Brazil just launched a new, multibillion-dollar program to aid the 16 million Brazilians still living in extreme poverty. The program is the latest in an effort across Latin America to stamp out poverty.

With a monthly stipend that she receives from the Brazilian government, Clemilda dos Santos can now keep the refrigerator stocked for her 10 kids, but life for the family is still precarious. At the top of a red clay hill in Japeri, the town with the lowest human development index in the state of Rio, the one-bedroom home she shares with her whole family still floods with rainwater. Her kids need winter coats.

In the past decade, Brazil has been touted for lifting 25 million people out of poverty, thanks to macroeconomic stability, high commodities prices, and a much hailed social program called Bolsa Familia that gives families monthly cash for families that adhere to conditions such as keeping kids in classrooms. But as the nation continues to rise – it became majority middle class in 2008, according to the Rio-based Getúlio Vargas Foundation – leaders say they are determined to do more, arguing that packed homes and uncloaked children have no place in today’s economic landscape.

Now Brazil has launched another multibillion-dollar antipoverty plan, called Brazil Without Misery, to reach the remaining 16 million Brazilians still living in extreme poverty. Expanding upon Bolsa Familia, it will increase cash transfers, improve public services, and create new job opportunities for the poor. Brazil’s new President Dilma Rousseff, who took office in January, says her aim is to eliminate extreme poverty within four years.

Surging BRIC middle classes are eclipsing global poverty.

“A country that has grown like Brazil can’t be content with just having a big social program like Bolsa Familia,” Social Development Minister Tereza Campello said upon the launch of the new program last month.

Regional goals

That sentiment reflects rhetoric across the region. Over the past decade, the poor have been buoyed across Latin America, as nations have enjoyed sustained GDP growth and created targeted social programs like conditional cash transfers. But now goals have been set beyond poverty reduction. In the world’s most unequal region, presidents from Sebastian Piñera in Chile to Felipe Calderon in Mexico are pledging to eradicate extreme poverty altogether.

“There is a sense that with Latin America growing at very high growth rates in the last decade or so, this is an opportunity to have a new social contract with people in the region,” says Norbert Schady, senior economic adviser for social sectors at the Inter-American Development Bank.

The region’s GDP grew by an average of 2.6 percent between 2000 and 2008, according to the World Bank. Extreme poverty has gone down from 19.4 percent in 2002 to 12.9 last year, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). And 56 million households have joined the middle class in Latin America in the past decade and a half, according to a recent ECLAC analysis.

>>>Rest of CS Monitor Article<<<

Reply
#2
(07-07-2011, 08:11 PM)Crone Wrote: While our president whittles away at Social Security and Medicare in lieu of corporations paying their fair share, the emerging South American nations with rising wealth are on compaigns to eliminate poverty. Not here, boy. We have to let the top 1% roll around in wealth while cutting school lunch programs. As a matter of fact, I just wish folks would just start admitting they don't like poor people. Poor people make them uncomfortable and they REALLY don't want to contribute a few dollars to help. Wars and fighter jets and tax cuts for the rich are much more important! Crying

Are you serious? we are not eliminating poverty Not here, boy. and Brazil is doing a better job?
Where are all these poor people that no one will help? Do you realize how many people are getting food assistance? That's not called helping? Or state and federal unemployment extensions?? that's not helping either?
Reply
#3
(07-07-2011, 08:42 PM)tvguy Wrote: Are you serious? we are not eliminating poverty Not here, boy. and Brazil is doing a better job?
Where are all these poor people that no one will help? Do you realize how many people are getting food assistance? That's not called helping? Or state and federal unemployment extensions?? that's not helping either?

This country now has welfare for the rich, the corporations, the CEOs.
The poor are increasing in number and the politicians keep cutting.
I read an article recently stating that a homeless Gulf War vet was receiving a whole $16 a month in food stamps. Boy, America can be proud of that, eh?

TV, I'm not saying we don't have social programs, I am complementing the new, emerging nations for having better priorities as far as lifting their people up, making their lives better. Our current regime is determined to make serfs out of us.
That's all.



Reply
#4
(07-07-2011, 08:49 PM)Crone Wrote: Our current regime is determined to make serfs out of us.

Serfin' USA. Smiling

[Image: shark-surfing.jpg]
Reply
#5
(07-07-2011, 08:57 PM)PonderThis Wrote:
(07-07-2011, 08:49 PM)Crone Wrote: Our current regime is determined to make serfs out of us.

Serfin' USA. Smiling

[Image: shark-surfing.jpg]


[Image: bwahaha.jpg]
Reply
#6
(07-07-2011, 08:49 PM)Crone Wrote:
(07-07-2011, 08:42 PM)tvguy Wrote: Are you serious? we are not eliminating poverty Not here, boy. and Brazil is doing a better job?
Where are all these poor people that no one will help? Do you realize how many people are getting food assistance? That's not called helping? Or state and federal unemployment extensions?? that's not helping either?

This country now has welfare for the rich, the corporations, the CEOs.
The poor are increasing in number and the politicians keep cutting.
I read an article recently stating that a homeless Gulf War vet was receiving a whole $16 a month in food stamps. Boy, America can be proud of that, eh?

TV, I'm not saying we don't have social programs, I am complementing the new, emerging nations for having better priorities as far as lifting their people up, making their lives better. Our current regime is determined to make serfs out of us.
That's all.

OKee doke, what's the deal with the vet getting $16 a month in food stamps?
Reply
#7
(07-07-2011, 09:10 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(07-07-2011, 08:49 PM)Crone Wrote:
(07-07-2011, 08:42 PM)tvguy Wrote: Are you serious? we are not eliminating poverty Not here, boy. and Brazil is doing a better job?
Where are all these poor people that no one will help? Do you realize how many people are getting food assistance? That's not called helping? Or state and federal unemployment extensions?? that's not helping either?

This country now has welfare for the rich, the corporations, the CEOs.
The poor are increasing in number and the politicians keep cutting.
I read an article recently stating that a homeless Gulf War vet was receiving a whole $16 a month in food stamps. Boy, America can be proud of that, eh?

TV, I'm not saying we don't have social programs, I am complementing the new, emerging nations for having better priorities as far as lifting their people up, making their lives better. Our current regime is determined to make serfs out of us.
That's all.

OKee doke, what's the deal with the vet getting $16 a month in food stamps?

Don't know about the Vet and the 16 bucks. Sounds strange.

And seems strange comparing Brazil (or other emerging nations/cultures) with our own circumstances.

We in the U.S. have a history of ebb and flow with political and cultural conditions. For a couple of hundred years our progress of social improvement has been, in general, moving to improvement for our people.

We are now bogged down in political positions as ugly and divergent as any time in recent history. These differences are effecting the general welfare of "the least among us" and many of our citizens are indeed "SO left behind".

We are unique in our ability to correct our course of national priorities for many reasons. We are one of the most diverse nations on the globe, have attracted over many years the "best and brightest" of people from all over the world. We have a foundation of "rule of law" that while not perfect is admired. We are industrious, inventive, and flexible. We have Disneyland.

If a majority of our citizens stay engaged, do their best to dig the facts from all the noise made in our political and social conversation, band together to make the weaker individual a collective force, and focus on ethical values rather than dogma, we will continue to be the envy of the world.

Hard work, this citizenship thing. But, it will not only save us, it will move us, again, toward that more perfect condition of democracy that will keep "So NOT left behind".

It's really up to us individually, don't you think? But, we all know that as individuals we have little power. It's time to find our collective brothers and sisters and make the weaker individual the powerful group. It's been the history of our progress and if we follow the example, the hope of our future.

SO left behind?

Not yet.
Reply
#8
(07-07-2011, 08:11 PM)Crone Wrote: While our president whittles away at Social Security and Medicare in lieu of corporations paying their fair share, the emerging South American nations with rising wealth are on compaigns to eliminate poverty. Not here, boy. We have to let the top 1% roll around in wealth while cutting school lunch programs. As a matter of fact, I just wish folks would just start admitting they don't like poor people. Poor people make them uncomfortable and they REALLY don't want to contribute a few dollars to help. Wars and fighter jets and tax cuts for the rich are much more important! Crying

So when are the 47-50% of American who pay no federal income tax going to start paying their fair share?

Meanwhile the "poor" in our country seem to have no problem buying big screen TV's, cell phones, cars that consume not-so-cheap gasoline and expensive cigarettes. The term poor is all relative.

Reply
#9
(07-08-2011, 09:12 AM)Labman Wrote:
(07-07-2011, 08:11 PM)Crone Wrote: While our president whittles away at Social Security and Medicare in lieu of corporations paying their fair share, the emerging South American nations with rising wealth are on compaigns to eliminate poverty. Not here, boy. We have to let the top 1% roll around in wealth while cutting school lunch programs. As a matter of fact, I just wish folks would just start admitting they don't like poor people. Poor people make them uncomfortable and they REALLY don't want to contribute a few dollars to help. Wars and fighter jets and tax cuts for the rich are much more important! Crying

So when are the 47-50% of American who pay no federal income tax going to start paying their fair share?

Meanwhile the "poor" in our country seem to have no problem buying big screen TV's, cell phones, cars that consume not-so-cheap gasoline and expensive cigarettes. The term poor is all relative.
Thats it, its the poor peoples fault.

Some of the poor that pay little or no taxes have little or no income, while the wealthiest Americans and corporations make billions and still pay little or no taxes.

Do you get up in the morning and turn on Fox News right away for stupid class or are you naturally stupid?
Reply
#10
(07-08-2011, 09:28 AM)cletus1 Wrote:
(07-08-2011, 09:12 AM)Labman Wrote:
(07-07-2011, 08:11 PM)Crone Wrote: While our president whittles away at Social Security and Medicare in lieu of corporations paying their fair share, the emerging South American nations with rising wealth are on compaigns to eliminate poverty. Not here, boy. We have to let the top 1% roll around in wealth while cutting school lunch programs. As a matter of fact, I just wish folks would just start admitting they don't like poor people. Poor people make them uncomfortable and they REALLY don't want to contribute a few dollars to help. Wars and fighter jets and tax cuts for the rich are much more important! Crying

So when are the 47-50% of American who pay no federal income tax going to start paying their fair share?

Meanwhile the "poor" in our country seem to have no problem buying big screen TV's, cell phones, cars that consume not-so-cheap gasoline and expensive cigarettes. The term poor is all relative.
Thats it, its the poor peoples fault.

Some of the poor that pay little or no taxes have little or no income, while the wealthiest Americans and corporations make billions and still pay little or no taxes.

Do you get up in the morning and turn on Fox News right away for stupid class or are you naturally stupid?

The National and World News forum is reserved for posts relating to news items and discussion relevant discussion surrounding them. Insults, ad hominem argument, and off-topic posts are NOT allowed. Posts of an extremely political or controversial nature should be made to the appropriate section in The Thunderdome.
Reply
#11
And so, our conversation continues, at it's very lowest level of intelligent discourse, entertaining the sour and inaccurate accusations of the badly informed. We feed that same fire with rebuttal that, like gasoline on a fire, only raises the temperature of badly formed logic and lack of any meaningful content.

But hey, it's a free country. We are free to let it sink into that place were it will be, without a doubt, "SO left behind in the world".

De Tocqueville told us over a hundred and fifty years ago that one of the significant problems he foresaw in our "Great Experiment" was freedom without the contrasting value of responsibility. We might all benefit from another reading of Democracy in America.

Reply
#12
(07-08-2011, 09:28 AM)cletus1 Wrote:
(07-08-2011, 09:12 AM)Labman Wrote:
(07-07-2011, 08:11 PM)Crone Wrote: While our president whittles away at Social Security and Medicare in lieu of corporations paying their fair share, the emerging South American nations with rising wealth are on compaigns to eliminate poverty. Not here, boy. We have to let the top 1% roll around in wealth while cutting school lunch programs. As a matter of fact, I just wish folks would just start admitting they don't like poor people. Poor people make them uncomfortable and they REALLY don't want to contribute a few dollars to help. Wars and fighter jets and tax cuts for the rich are much more important! Crying

So when are the 47-50% of American who pay no federal income tax going to start paying their fair share?

Meanwhile the "poor" in our country seem to have no problem buying big screen TV's, cell phones, cars that consume not-so-cheap gasoline and expensive cigarettes. The term poor is all relative.
Thats it, its the poor peoples fault.

Some of the poor that pay little or no taxes have little or no income, while the wealthiest Americans and corporations make billions and still pay little or no taxes.

Do you get up in the morning and turn on Fox News right away for stupid class or are you naturally stupid?

Cletus, my job for a great many years required that I go to a great many different residences and neighborhoods as well as businesses.
I have to tell you that I have always been amazed at how many seemingly able bodied people were home during the day. Or to put it another way there are a LOT of people who are on some kind of disability, have low income housing and somehow manage between those things plus food stamps or what ever to get by.

I don't think that in itself proves a damn thing but what I'm saying is that I do understand why some people get all worked up about some people who pay zero taxes.
What I don't understand is that very often the same people don't seem to care about huge tax cuts or loop holes for the wealthy or big business. OR that we spend an incredibly lot more money on our military and some of it's pointless adventures.

I wondered about the 47 to 50 % who pay no federal taxes and I found this.........

http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxes.../index.htm


This part here really got to me. That's my pay range and because I don't have a house loan with high interest to write of I've spent most of my life paying a LOT of federal tax.

Nearly 22% of those making between $50,000 and $75,000 end up with no federal income tax liability or negative liability


?????????/


In a nutshell you can't get tax money from people who don't work and the entire income tax system needs to be revised
Reply
#13
(07-08-2011, 09:59 AM)Wonky Wrote: And so, our conversation continues, at it's very lowest level of intelligent discourse, entertaining the sour and inaccurate accusations of the badly informed. We feed that same fire with rebuttal that, like gasoline on a fire, only raises the temperature of badly formed logic and lack of any meaningful content.

But hey, it's a free country. We are free to let it sink into that place were it will be, without a doubt, "SO left behind in the world".

De Tocqueville told us over a hundred and fifty years ago that one of the significant problems he foresaw in our "Great Experiment" was freedom without the contrasting value of responsibility. We might all benefit from another reading of Democracy in America.

Hey Wonky Labman said nothing wrong and simply gave his opinion. Cletus was insulting and out of line THAT's IT, so where are you getting all this? And so, our conversation continues, at it's very lowest level of intelligent discourse, entertaining the sour and inaccurate accusations of the badly informed.
We feed that same fire with rebuttal that, like gasoline on a fire, only raises the temperature of badly formed logic and lack of any meaningful content
Reply
#14
(07-08-2011, 10:19 AM)tvguy Wrote:
(07-08-2011, 09:59 AM)Wonky Wrote: And so, our conversation continues, at it's very lowest level of intelligent discourse, entertaining the sour and inaccurate accusations of the badly informed. We feed that same fire with rebuttal that, like gasoline on a fire, only raises the temperature of badly formed logic and lack of any meaningful content.

But hey, it's a free country. We are free to let it sink into that place were it will be, without a doubt, "SO left behind in the world".

De Tocqueville told us over a hundred and fifty years ago that one of the significant problems he foresaw in our "Great Experiment" was freedom without the contrasting value of responsibility. We might all benefit from another reading of Democracy in America.

Hey Wonky Labman said nothing wrong and simply gave his opinion. Cletus was insulting and out of line THAT's IT, so where are you getting all this? And so, our conversation continues, at it's very lowest level of intelligent discourse, entertaining the sour and inaccurate accusations of the badly informed.
We feed that same fire with rebuttal that, like gasoline on a fire, only raises the temperature of badly formed logic and lack of any meaningful content

You have long defended the right to say insulting and out of line content here. Now you have brought it to our attention: What more do you want?
I see Labman's post (and others) as contributing nothing to the response of "So left behind".
I posted my thoughts and later my reaction to the meaningless banter that followed.
I think I'll stand with my remarks as posted.
Reply
#15
USA is being SO left behind in the world because many of us have been conditioned to think our problems are due to charity for our people.

General Electric pays no income tax and even receives subsidies on top of it.
BP was allowed to deduct the money they put out for restoration of the gulf.

Keep believing it's the po' folk, the lazy ones, the ones at home in the middle of the day...there's nothing I can say to change your mind.

As I stated earlier: This country now has welfare for the rich, the corporations, the CEOs.
The poor are increasing in number and the politicians keep cutting.
TV, I'm not saying we don't have social programs, I am complementing the new, emerging nations for having better priorities as far as lifting their people up, making their lives better. Our current regime is determined to make serfs out of us.
That's all.




Reply
#16
(07-08-2011, 08:36 AM)Wonky Wrote: We are now bogged down in political positions as ugly and divergent as any time in recent history. These differences are effecting the general welfare of "the least among us" and many of our citizens are indeed "SO left behind".

We are unique in our ability to correct our course of national priorities for many reasons. We are one of the most diverse nations on the globe, have attracted over many years the "best and brightest" of people from all over the world. We have a foundation of "rule of law" that while not perfect is admired. We are industrious, inventive, and flexible. We have Disneyland.

If a majority of our citizens stay engaged, do their best to dig the facts from all the noise made in our political and social conversation, band together to make the weaker individual a collective force, and focus on ethical values rather than dogma, we will continue to be the envy of the world.

Hard work, this citizenship thing. But, it will not only save us, it will move us, again, toward that more perfect condition of democracy that will keep "So NOT left behind".

It's really up to us individually, don't you think? But, we all know that as individuals we have little power. It's time to find our collective brothers and sisters and make the weaker individual the powerful group. It's been the history of our progress and if we follow the example, the hope of our future.

SO left behind?

Not yet.

Dream on, Wonk...you completely avoid our corporate masters who are now in charge. I know it's painful to admit, but just look at the blatant theft of the presidency for GWB. It became a small ripple on the surface but was actually a HUGE red light warning us what was happening. And yet we slumbered. We were once an emerging nation...and somehow it got all fu**ed up. Sad



Reply
#17
(07-08-2011, 11:10 AM)Crone Wrote:
(07-08-2011, 08:36 AM)Wonky Wrote: We are now bogged down in political positions as ugly and divergent as any time in recent history. These differences are effecting the general welfare of "the least among us" and many of our citizens are indeed "SO left behind".

We are unique in our ability to correct our course of national priorities for many reasons. We are one of the most diverse nations on the globe, have attracted over many years the "best and brightest" of people from all over the world. We have a foundation of "rule of law" that while not perfect is admired. We are industrious, inventive, and flexible. We have Disneyland.

If a majority of our citizens stay engaged, do their best to dig the facts from all the noise made in our political and social conversation, band together to make the weaker individual a collective force, and focus on ethical values rather than dogma, we will continue to be the envy of the world.

Hard work, this citizenship thing. But, it will not only save us, it will move us, again, toward that more perfect condition of democracy that will keep "So NOT left behind".

It's really up to us individually, don't you think? But, we all know that as individuals we have little power. It's time to find our collective brothers and sisters and make the weaker individual the powerful group. It's been the history of our progress and if we follow the example, the hope of our future.

SO left behind?

Not yet.

Dream on, Wonk...you completely avoid our corporate masters who are now in charge. I know it's painful to admit, but just look at the blatant theft of the presidency for GWB. It became a small ripple on the surface but was actually a HUGE red light warning us what was happening. And yet we slumbered. We were once an emerging nation...and somehow it got all fu**ed up. Sad


This corporate control, that Eisenhower warned about did not happen in a vacuum. It was planned and executed to perfection without so much as a whimper from the voters whose vision had been obscured by triviality.

The entire system, all thee branches has been so corrupted by money and the power hungry that this Humpty Dumpty will never be put together again.

And by the looks of things, we will be heading back to the time with science was heresy and dissention was treason.
Reply
#18
if labman really is stupid, as seems evident, how is that an insult?
Reply
#19
(07-08-2011, 11:10 AM)Crone Wrote:
(07-08-2011, 08:36 AM)Wonky Wrote: We are now bogged down in political positions as ugly and divergent as any time in recent history. These differences are effecting the general welfare of "the least among us" and many of our citizens are indeed "SO left behind".

We are unique in our ability to correct our course of national priorities for many reasons. We are one of the most diverse nations on the globe, have attracted over many years the "best and brightest" of people from all over the world. We have a foundation of "rule of law" that while not perfect is admired. We are industrious, inventive, and flexible. We have Disneyland.

If a majority of our citizens stay engaged, do their best to dig the facts from all the noise made in our political and social conversation, band together to make the weaker individual a collective force, and focus on ethical values rather than dogma, we will continue to be the envy of the world.

Hard work, this citizenship thing. But, it will not only save us, it will move us, again, toward that more perfect condition of democracy that will keep "So NOT left behind".

It's really up to us individually, don't you think? But, we all know that as individuals we have little power. It's time to find our collective brothers and sisters and make the weaker individual the powerful group. It's been the history of our progress and if we follow the example, the hope of our future.

SO left behind?

Not yet.

Dream on, Wonk...you completely avoid our corporate masters who are now in charge. I know it's painful to admit, but just look at the blatant theft of the presidency for GWB. It became a small ripple on the surface but was actually a HUGE red light warning us what was happening. And yet we slumbered. We were once an emerging nation...and somehow it got all fu**ed up. Sad

YOU dream on.
Damned if I will surrender before the fight even starts.
WE, the PEOPLE, still have voice.
The suffering comes before the revolution. Let's not let the suffering get too intense before we find our collective voice.
Mellon, Carnegie, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Standford, and the other robber barons thought they had us bought and paid for at one time.
History is on OUR side.

We do however need to get serious. Places like this can be of real value, depending on how we use it.

Reply
#20
how is this place of value?
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)