America's Poor Live Better Than Most Of Humanity

Yoder777

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While poverty around the world is a relative term, studies have shown that the degree of "inequality" that exists within any modern industrialized nation has a direct impact on its "social fabric and quality of life."

- US for a long time has had the largest gap and inequality between rich and poor compared to all the other industrialized nations

- top 1% received more money than the bottom 40% with the gap widest in 70 years

- while the share of income going to the top 1% has increased, it has decreased for the poorest 40%

- 1 in 7 people in the US are in poverty. In 2009, 43.6 million people — 14.6 percent of the population — were living in poverty in the U.S

Then chairman of the Federal Reserve, Allan Greenspan, revealed concerns in mid-2005 that the increasing and widening income gap might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself in the US.

Poverty Around The World — Global Issues

I think you might need to look at these statistics from a different perspective:
I had a review this weekend about “The Haves and the Have-Nots,” a new book by the World Bank economist Branko Milanovic about inequality around the world. My favorite part of the book was this graph, next to which I actually wrote “awesome chart” in the margin:
economix-28milanovic-custom1.jpg

This was reprinted by New York Times economic writer Catherine Rampell in January with an explanation:

Here the population of each country is divided into 20 equally-sized income groups, ranked by their household per-capita income. These are called “ventiles,” as you can see on the horizontal axis, and each “ventile” translates to a cluster of five percentiles.

The household income numbers are all converted into international dollars adjusted for equal purchasing power, since the cost of goods varies from country to country. In other words, the chart adjusts for the cost of living in different countries, so we are looking at consistent living standards worldwide.

Contrary to the current media meme, when adjusted for international dollars as well as cost and standard of living, there is far greater income inequality in Brazil, China, and India.

Frankly, it's not even close (emphasis added throughout):

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.
That deserves a replay for those whining on Wall Street and the ignoramuses supporting them: "the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants."

Rampell further observed in her January book review:

The typical person in the top 5 percent of the Indian population, for example, makes the same as or less than the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American population. That’s right: America’s poorest are, on average, richer than India’s richest — extravagant Mumbai mansions notwithstanding.
But there's more:
At a very basic, agrarian level of development, Milanovic explains, people’s incomes are relatively equal; everyone is living at or close to subsistence level. But as more advanced technologies become available and enable workers to differentiate their skills, a gulf between rich and poor becomes possible.

Please watch this video for the real truth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP60sIKKJWQ

Even poor Americans have a lot to be thankful for compared to a vast majority of the world's people.
 
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Ludicrus

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Christians in America would do better to plead for mercy that our worst problem is obesity while Christians in other parts of the world are starving. Do you think we have all this wealth only because we're just so danged awesome?

You are assuming, of course, that the obesity problem in America is because they are wealthy, when in fact it is caused by malnutrition.

I was 200 lbs. my health was shot and I couldn't quit eating. I had severe depression and anxiety. I had acidosis and my joints were grinding. They would also get locked into place. My husband had congestive heart failure. (All because of diet.)

This had me crying out to God.

Finally, He answered in several ways.

1. He kept giving me this passage, although at first I did not understand it.

Amos 8:1-6 AMP
1 THUS THE Lord God showed to me, and behold, a basket of [ripe and therefore soon to perish] summer fruit.
2 And He said, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord to me, The end has come upon My people Israel; I will not pass by and spare them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, says the Lord God. The dead bodies shall be many; in every place they shall be cast forth in silence.
4 Hear this, O you who would swallow up and trample down the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail and come to an end,
5 Saying, When will the New Moon festival be past that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, making the ephah [measure] small and the shekel [measure] great and falsifying the scales by deceit,
6 That we may buy [into slavery] the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals; yes, and sell the refuse of the wheat [as if it were good grade]?


It was the "refuse of the wheat" that God was trying to get me to notice.

2. Then there was this show called Boston Legal that my now deceased husband used to watch and I didn't like it, but one evening the Lord told me to watch it. It was about an obese man that wanted to sue a cupcake company because it made him fat.

There, in the hearing, they came up with the facts about High Fructose Corn Syrup. It acts like a drug on the brain by shutting down the signal that you are full. In effect turning you into an addict like a crack head. You can't stop eating!!!

I thought at first that it was just a gimmick on the show. But God kept giving me that Bible passage from Amos and this show replayed again shortly afterwards.

3. I ran into a free book online called, This Famishing World.
available at Journey to Forever written during The War, it was research done to find out why most of the men couldn't pass a physical for the military.

That book showed me everything that was wrong with my health in two words...partial grains
Or, as the Bible says, the refuse.

I got off of the partial grains, which includes High Fructose Corn Syrup and High Maltose Corn Syrup, white flour and white polished rice, got on Vitamin B supplements and ate a lot of greens to reduce the acidosis in my body and got on Fish Oil for the depression.

The doctor had told me I had hardly any cartilage left in my knees, that's why at under 50 yrs. old I was walking on a cane.

I lost the weight almost immediately. Several years later, I've kept it off. My cartilage has grown back or been repaired. I no longer need a cane and my joints don't grind like a coffee grinder anymore.

But I became extremely deficient in vitamin B because of partial grains. My cholesterol went way up because of the High Fructose Corn Syrup. And I'm still working on that. The Fish Oil has been found to reduce high cholesterol. Statins almost killed me.




 
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wintermile

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You are assuming, of course, that the obesity problem in America is because they are wealthy, when in fact it is caused by malnutrition.

I was 200 lbs. my health was shot and I couldn't quit eating. I had severe depression and anxiety. I had acidosis and my joints were grinding. They would also get locked into place. My husband had congestive heart failure. (All because of diet.)

This had me crying out to God.

Finally, He answered in several ways.

1. He kept giving me this passage, although at first I did not understand it.

Amos 8:1-6 AMP
1 THUS THE Lord God showed to me, and behold, a basket of [ripe and therefore soon to perish] summer fruit.
2 And He said, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord to me, The end has come upon My people Israel; I will not pass by and spare them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, says the Lord God. The dead bodies shall be many; in every place they shall be cast forth in silence.
4 Hear this, O you who would swallow up and trample down the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail and come to an end,
5 Saying, When will the New Moon festival be past that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, making the ephah [measure] small and the shekel [measure] great and falsifying the scales by deceit,
6 That we may buy [into slavery] the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals; yes, and sell the refuse of the wheat [as if it were good grade]?


It was the "refuse of the wheat" that God was trying to get me to notice.

2. Then there was this show called Boston Legal that my now deceased husband used to watch and I didn't like it, but one evening the Lord told me to watch it. It was about an obese man that wanted to sue a cupcake company because it made him fat.

There, in the hearing, they came up with the facts about High Fructose Corn Syrup. It acts like a drug on the brain by shutting down the signal that you are full. In effect turning you into an addict like a crack head. You can't stop eating!!!

I thought at first that it was just a gimmick on the show. But God kept giving me that Bible passage from Amos and this show replayed again shortly afterwards.

3. I ran into a free book online called, This Famishing World.
available at Journey to Forever written during The War, it was research done to find out why most of the men couldn't pass a physical for the military.

That book showed me everything that was wrong with my health in two words...partial grains
Or, as the Bible says, the refuse.

I got off of the partial grains, which includes High Fructose Corn Syrup and High Maltose Corn Syrup, white flour and white polished rice, got on Vitamin B supplements and ate a lot of greens to reduce the acidosis in my body and got on Fish Oil for the depression.

The doctor had told me I had hardly any cartilage left in my knees, that's why at under 50 yrs. old I was walking on a cane.

I lost the weight almost immediately. Several years later, I've kept it off. My cartilage has grown back or been repaired. I no longer need a cane and my joints don't grind like a coffee grinder anymore.

But I became extremely deficient in vitamin B because of partial grains. My cholesterol went way up because of the High Fructose Corn Syrup. And I'm still working on that. The Fish Oil has been found to reduce high cholesterol. Statins almost killed me.





Have you studied the physiology of cartilage? The healing you received in the cartilage of your knees came from Yeshua.

Cartilage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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wintermile

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A French company is slated to complete the construction of a 300 million dollar cable-car system over Rocinha that will provide “panoramic views of the sprawling slum and the Atlantic beyond,” but not without passionate objection from community associations. The project, mirrored after the sky-high transportation system built over Complexo do Alemão in 2011, serves as a real-word metaphor for the dismal costs of slum tourism.

See more at: Slum tourism and its discontents | OUPblog

There are types who insist there are options for slum tourism and types who make serious photojournalism.

Social justice mavericks won't ease up when it comes to poverty reduction before 2015. There goes the slum tourism.

Joakim Eskilden is the photojournalist credited for this work Below the Line: Potraits of American Poverty. There are many poor Americans who do not fair well. The American poor also experience levels of violence not acceptable for any nation. For the last two years, Native American females have been sexually trafficked in South Dakota violently. Ask any American poor person, who has experienced dehumanization, if they feel special about being poor in American compared to elsewhere.

Photographs of American Poverty by Joakim Eskildsen - LightBox
 
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D

dies-l

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See more at: Slum tourism and its discontents | OUPblog

There are types who insist there are options for slum tourism and types who make serious photojournalism.

Social justice mavericks won't ease up when it comes to poverty reduction before 2015. There goes the slum tourism.

Joakim Eskilden is the photojournalist credited for this work Below the Line: Potraits of American Poverty. There are many poor Americans who do not fair well. The American poor also experience levels of violence not acceptable for any nation. For the last two years, Native American females have been sexually trafficked in South Dakota violently. Ask any American poor person, who has experienced dehumanization, if they feel special about being poor in American compared to elsewhere.

Photographs of American Poverty by Joakim Eskildsen - LightBox

Honestly, having worked with the poor in Southeast Michigan, Southwest Virginia, and rural Nicaragua, I find myself disagreeing with you. US poor do have it rough in many ways, but these pale in comparison to what is commonplace in much of Latin America and elsewhere in the third world.
 
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Yoder777

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Honestly, having worked with the poor in Southeast Michigan, Southwest Virginia, and rural Nicaragua, I find myself disagreeing with you. US poor do have it rough in many ways, but these pale in comparison to what is commonplace in much of Latin America and elsewhere in the third world.

Yes, it's a well established fact that the bottom 5% of Americans have a higher standard of living than 68% of the world's people.
 
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Ludicrus

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Have you studied the physiology of cartilage? The healing you received in the cartilage of your knees came from Yeshua.

Cartilage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All I know is the damage has been pretty much reversed because when I prayed and God gave the answer, I followed His directions.

Could be another issue of putting meal in the pot when there's poison in it!

Everybody knows that meal/flour won't take mushroom poison out of a pot, but acting on faith, now that would do it!
 
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Ludicrus

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Yes, it's a well established fact that the bottom 5% of Americans have a higher standard of living than 68% of the world's people.

There's one major difference.

OUR poor aren't kept in poverty because of a lack of ability, but by zoning regulations.

Half of the housing in third world countries would be burned to the ground here. However, there, they are allowed to build any kind of house they want and until recently make a living without the government telling them how to do it.

But now, you've got the Agenda 21 and the UN garbage going on over there and they tear down the slums, force those poor people out of their housing and build new tenement houses that nobody can afford. So give them a nicer house, raise taxes and the people can't afford to pay the rents. That makes total sense!!

NOT!

And it was farmer's here in this country that ruined their agriculture years ago, probably the UN again...convincing them to grow corn because it produced more per acre, rather than their drought tolerant grains that they had grown since the beginning.

Several generations later they are in major drought again and the corn won't produce and they've lost their own technology and have to be taught all over again.
 
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wintermile

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Honestly, having worked with the poor in Southeast Michigan, Southwest Virginia, and rural Nicaragua, I find myself disagreeing with you. US poor do have it rough in many ways, but these pale in comparison to what is commonplace in much of Latin America and elsewhere in the third world.

It is fine that we disagree. The poor who experience violence in america are not better off.

Ask any Native American female who has been sexually trafficked in South Dakota recently if we should compare her state of poorness to others around the world. Ask any white poor american in Atlanta who is also sexually trafficked the same. The poor in America who experience violence due to poverty are not better off.

In Burma they have a sense of community and family during all trials. In Latin American some have community and family and are not alone. For some who are poor in America a sense of community and family is desired.

Others from other regions of the world remark upon how American is cold.
 
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wintermile

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Yes, it's a well established fact that the bottom 5% of Americans have a higher standard of living than 68% of the world's people.

There is work to be done.

Protecting the American poor from violence--rape, murder, sex trafficking, etc--cannot be overlooked.
 
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Yoder777

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There is work to be done.

Protecting the American poor from violence--rape, murder, sex trafficking, etc--cannot be overlooked.

Sure, there are problems that need to be remedied, but the important point still stands that America's poor live very well compared to a majority of the world's people.
 
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PreachersWife2004

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There is work to be done.

Protecting the American poor from violence--rape, murder, sex trafficking, etc--cannot be overlooked.

How about protecting EVERYONE from those things? It is not just poor people that these things happen to. Its not even more likely to happen to a poor person.
 
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stamperben

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Sure, there are problems that need to be remedied, but the important point still stands that America's poor live very well compared to a majority of the world's people.
Why is this so important? That question has been bugging me ever since you posted this thread.
 
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stamperben

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How about protecting EVERYONE from those things? It is not just poor people that these things happen to. Its not even more likely to happen to a poor person.
Why would you say that? Can you show any person who is not in need, or their family is not in need, who has sold themselves into sexual slavery? And it is sexual slavery that is the issue here, for the topic is wealth.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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How about protecting EVERYONE from those things? It is not just poor people that these things happen to. Its not even more likely to happen to a poor person.

Man's inhumanity to man is part of our nature. Only God can change it, and he will in due time. In the meantime we will live in the land of wishful thinking. ^_^ (After a while ya gotta laugh.)
 
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wintermile

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How about protecting EVERYONE from those things? It is not just poor people that these things happen to. Its not even more likely to happen to a poor person.

No. Sex trafficking and rape is more likely to happen to a poor person. Sex trafficking and rape occurs nationwide. Sex trafficking victims are the least likely to be rescued.

Rape and all kinds of threats happen to poor people who are more vulnerable as they are perceived to be hated by society by those who will attack them.

The vulnerable do not have or do not perceive themselves to have the same kind of protection as everyone else.
 
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wintermile

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How about protecting EVERYONE from those things? It is not just poor people that these things happen to. Its not even more likely to happen to a poor person.

The elderly who are often poor in long term nursing care are also vulnerable. Imagine a dutiful person having to sign anonymous reports to a trusted social worker in order to protect an elderly person from abuse because other attempts to report the abuse failed to remove the threat. Imagine what happens if there is not a trusted social worker to go to.

The good guys always attempt to protect everyone.

Experts who are creating sustainable cities study slum organization. Slums have and organizational pattern that will aid the set up of future cities. If the poorest of the American poor benefited from some type of organization they would be better protected.
 
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McMatt

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Yes, it's a well established fact that the bottom 5% of Americans have a higher standard of living than 68% of the world's people.

That all depends on the standard you use to compare. You are used to your way of life, so you have a standard based on a north american perspective. Someone in latin america has their perspective based on their region.
 
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