Why do we have Poverty in America

SpaceNut · 2018-06-09 11:02:23

Following some of the page links in the articles: 2013 15% of Americans living in poverty Years after the Great Recession ended, 46.5 million Americans are still living in poverty..

Those making $23,492 a year for a family of four, or $11,720 for an individual were considered to be living in poverty.
Asians had the highest household income ($68,600), followed by whites ($57,000), Hispanics ($39,000) and blacks ($33,300).

kbd512 · 2018-06-09 11:47:45

We need more government spending, right?

Whatever is taken from Paul to pay Peter is never enough, and Peter remains poor because he has a fish and can eat for a day, but still doesn't know how to fish. Maybe we can't "government" our way out of this problem. Just a thought.

SpaceNut · 2018-06-09 16:27:26

The US Minimum Wage in the Year You Were Born

The federal minimum wage has been at $7.25 for the past nine years, but rates are changing at the state level.
1950 U.S. minimum wage: $0.75 and after inflation In 2017 dollars: $7.81
1960 U.S. minimum wage: $1 In 2017 dollars: $8.35
1970 U.S. minimum wage: $1.60 In 2017 dollars: $10.36
1980 U.S. minimum wage: $3.10 In 2017 dollars: $9.75
1990 U.S. minimum wage: $3.80 In 2017 dollars: $7.30
2000 U.S. minimum wage: $5.15 In 2017 dollars: $7.47
2005 U.S. minimum wage: $5.15 In 2017 dollars: $6.61
2010 U.S. minimum wage: $7.25 In 2017 dollars: $8.19
2012 U.S. minimum wage: $7.25 In 2017 dollars: $7.83
2014 U.S. minimum wage: $7.25 In 2017 dollars: $7.59
2015 U.S. minimum wage: $7.25 In 2017 dollars: $7.59
2016 U.S. minimum wage: $7.25 In 2017 dollars: $7.49
2017 U.S. minimum wage: $7.25 In 2017 dollars: $7.25

What does this really say about the value of a dollar over the time span?

It also means wages are not keeping up with inflation...

RobertDyck · 2018-06-10 00:33:42

US minimum wage: interesting table. It shows minimum wage from 1990 to current is on-par with 1950. Your table shows the last time minimum wage was increased was 2010, to keep it up-to-date it should be increased to $8.50. Just based on what it was in 1960 and 2010. But certainly not $15.

Values in 1970 and 1980 appear to be odd anomalies. Will Americans argue for something more on-par with 1970 or 1980?

This relates to what Canada is doing. When I got my first job in 1980, minimum wage was $3.15/hour. In 2017 dollars (Canadian dollars) that works out to $9.57, or in today's dollars $9.79. In Canada, minimum wage is set by provincial governments, not federal. In Manitoba, minimum wage rose last October from $11 to $11.15/hour, and and announced this October it will raise to $11.35. Ontario raised theirs from $11.60 to $14, with stated intent to raise it to $15 in January. But they just lost an election, the new administration may cancel that.

I've encountered some individuals who claim exchange of the dollar only applies when you cross the border, that a job which pays CAD$10/hour in Canada will pay US$10/hour in the US. Is that true? When I lived in Miami, I found groceries that cost CAD$1 in Winnipeg cost about US$1 in downtown Miami. But can we really ignore exchange?

Today, according to Google foreign exchange: CAD$11.15 = US$8.62

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-06-10 00:56:59)

SpaceNut · 2018-06-10 08:58:12

yes, ignore the exchange rate as pretty much a penny or dime or a quarter is taken at face value regardless at any shop or store you go to no matter what difference there should be.
1982 worked at electronics manufacturer as a repair tech for a whooping $5.90 /hr and the associates degree gave another dime more for the completed education which I had not completed yet.
So is that holding true for other ocupations in that they are garnering the same dollars for the working or is there some differences and how much are they?
Inflation is making the value of the dollar decrease all of which has occured after going off the gold standard.

In 1878, the Bland-Allison Act was enacted to provide for freer coinage of silver. This act required the government to purchase between $2 million and $4 million worth of silver bullion each month at market prices and to coin it into silver dollars. This was, in effect, a subsidy for politically influential silver producers.
The discovery of large silver deposits in the Western United States in the late 19th century created a political controversy. Due to the large influx of silver, the value of silver in the nation's coinage dropped precipitously. On one side were agrarian interests such as the United States Greenback Party that wanted to retain the bimetallic standard in order to inflate the dollar, which would allow farmers to more easily repay their debts. On the other side were Eastern banking and commercial interests, who advocated sound money and a switch to the gold standard. This issue split the Democratic Party in 1896. It led to the famous "cross of gold" speech given by William Jennings Bryan, and may have inspired many of the themes in The Wizard of Oz. Despite the controversy, the status of silver was slowly diminished through a series of legislative changes from 1873 to 1900, when a gold standard was formally adopted. The gold standard survived, with several modifications, until 1971.

Table shows a dirrect connection to the change.

kbd512 · 2018-06-10 14:40:57

SpaceNut,

The minimum wage needs to be about $15/hr. If you're very frugal, you can live on less, but it's difficult. I've lived on less. For practical purposes, you work 40hrs/wk for 50 weeks out of the year when holidays, vacation, and sick time are considered. That's $30K/yr. You really can't subsist in most places for less than that. That's because of taxes. It could be less if less tax money was required for government spending programs, but only by lowering government spending. No other option is feasible. Eventual retirement is impossible on less than that. That's enough money for a compact electric car, an apartment, a cell phone, tablet or laptop, utilities, health care coverage, taxes, a yearly 1 week local vacation, retirement, and perhaps a maximum of 2 children per couple or a span of 5 to 10 years. It's not living the high life, but it's good enough for Joe Average.

When we do that, corporations will find ways to replace humans with robots, wherever possible. Someone still has to figure out what to do with all the unemployed people, which means government workfare programs, which means more taxes. If you figure that one out, let us know. Some sort of workforce needs to be established to repair all the infrastructure deterioration from neglect. Prisoners should be required to work to learn a trade for future employment after their prison sentence and pay for their housing.

SpaceNut · 2018-06-10 18:08:20

It is if you have 2 people working, but thats not always the case when they still need help for a small family at the federal minimum hourly wage. The other issue is most employers are not hiring full time workers beyond a manager or two with those working under the 30 hour which would have qualified you as a full time employee to keep from paying the corporate taxes for having employees with the full time status. So many are working multiple jobs provided that the schedules are fixed between each employer but that is also an issue as they do not care if you need full time employment or need to have a fixed schedule for working.

SpaceNut · 2018-06-10 19:19:09

I know that we do not want those that get welfare that should not be recieiving to be allowed to continue but are we doing the right things when Trump’s Welfare Policy Is Unjustified, Punitive And Cruel

5b119afb1a00002700ce0590.jpeg?cache=4xcw4pzumh&ops=scalefit_720_noupscale

Government departments are following through by moving full-steam ahead with schemes to deny benefits to people unless they work, undertake job training or volunteer. New guidelines enable states to obtain federal authorization to attach “work and community engagement requirements” before very poor individuals are eligible for benefits. In Kentucky, Medicaid enrollees will have to spend 20 hours a week doing a job, job training, education or community service.

I think the voluteering would be the best as it would get others to stop taking a hand out and actually provide a hand up....

kbd512 · 2018-06-11 02:04:59

SpaceNut,

You keep trying to make this political and when you do that, the problem never gets solved.

The guy in the picture you posted didn't just show up on Skid Row one day because President Trump was elected to office. He's probably been there since before former President Bush was in office. If we have billions of dollars to spend on organizations like the UN, so we can have a UN "special rapporteur" on extreme poverty tell us he doesn't like President Trump, then we also have billions of dollars to spend on actually solving the poverty problem.

If the number of people living below the poverty line keeps increasing while the total dollars spent on programs to help the poor keeps increasing, then you're not fixing anything by throwing more money at the problem.

Washington Post - Poverty in the 50 years since 'The Other America,' in five charts

RobertDyck · 2018-06-11 12:29:36

kbd512 wrote:

The minimum wage needs to be about $15/hr. If you're very frugal, you can live on less, but it's difficult. I've lived on less. For practical purposes, you work 40hrs/wk for 50 weeks out of the year when holidays, vacation, and sick time are considered. That's $30K/yr. You really can't subsist in most places for less than that. ... That's enough money for a compact electric car, an apartment, a cell phone, tablet or laptop, utilities, health care coverage, taxes, a yearly 1 week local vacation, retirement, and perhaps a maximum of 2 children per couple or a span of 5 to 10 years. It's not living the high life, but it's good enough for Joe Average.

I disagree. I could say that more bluntly if you want. As some in Canada have pointed out, minimum wage was never intended to be enough to support a spouse and raise a family. It's intended for entry level jobs. If minimum wage is too high, companies can't pay wages. Raising minimum wage usually results in inflation, so that after inflation, minimum wage ends up what it was. This has happened many times in my lifetime, which I why I argue to freeze minimum wage and focus on dropping prices. Some have claimed that's the same, but it isn't. When wages go up, business simply increases their price accordingly. But if prices go down, they don't / usually can't drop wages.

A couple examples. Cost of basic consumer goods drastically increased in the 1970s, '80s & '90s. Business gouged customers, and there wasn't anything we could do because all stores increased their prices at the same time. But in this century we had Walmart use clout of a large corporation to drop prices. This has dropped prices to what they should be. Many businesses that had gouged customer complained, but this was a services that dramatically helped average people. Then we had dollar stores (Dollarama, Dollar Tree, etc) which competed with even lower prices. If you compare prices at dollar stores to five-and-dime stores from the 1920s-1950s, after inflation their prices are the same. So dollar stores are the modern equivalent of five-and-dime. This had dropped prices to what they should be. In the 1960s & 1970s there were affordable department stores here in Canada: K-Mart, Zellers, Woolworth. But K-Mart was put out of business, and when they did the surviving stores increased prices. Eaton's was originally a low-cost department store, but when the 3rd generation of the Eaton family was in charge, they neglected the store, allowed it fall into mismanagement until it failed. I could more examples, but the recent one: Zellers was bought by Target. Many customers in Canada were excited at Target coming to Canada, they expected Target brands and the same prices with nothing but conversion of the dollar. However, they closed Zellers stores for multiple months for conversion, and when the did open they carried the same brands as Walmart but at higher prices. Who would want to buy that? Needless to say, they failed and closed quickly.

My first job when I was 18 was setup crew at the Convention Centre. I set up for events: tables, chairs, portable walls, stage, dance floor, pipe-and-drape, etc. I was paid minimum wage: $3.15/hour in Canadian dollars in 1980. In February of 1981, half way through first year university, I got a job as a computer programmer with a very small software company. It wasn't a co-op job, it was the kind of work recent graduates would do: full-time and real software development. It paid $3.60/hour, which was an increase over my previous job. However, government increased minimum wage twice in 1981 and once in July 1982, so became $4.00/hour. My boss really didn't want to give me a raise, but was required to do so by law. So my job became minimum wage.

My first full-time job with a large company was as a computer programmer in September 1986. I was paid CAD$22,000/year. I got a nice single bedroom apartment, with underground semi-heated parking (kept just above freezing, so snow tracked in by vehicles melted). Access to the parking garage required a key, so it was secure. The building had a good-size indoor swimming pool & sauna. Most apartments had a balcony, but my apartment was ground floor so had concrete patio blocks the size of a balcony, just open to the grass lawn behind the apartment building. This gave my apartment a back door, but I rarely used it; the building was so big that walking around the building to the back lawn was not convenient. It was simpler to go through the building front door, which had a security system (buzz in guests). My apartment had a large living room, open to a dining area with hard floor, and small galley kitchen. I got the apartment in 1984 when I was self-employed, so set up a "conversation area" in the living room with TV/VCR/music-system against one wall, with couch/chesterfield on one side, and two chairs on the other. The couch separated the conversation area from the rest of the living room, where I set up two desks and a printer stand for my home office. One desk was double pedestal, the other single pedestal. I had a dining room table with chairs on the hard-floor dining area. So this was a nice apartment. It cost $430/month in 1986 including parking, with heat and water included. I had bills for electricity, cable TV, and land-line telephone, internet didn't exist yet. Cell phones were extremely expensive brick phones, not used by normal people. According to Wikipedia, Motorola DynaTAC brick phone cost "$3,995 in 1984, its commercial release year, equivalent to $9,410 in 2017", and those prices are in US funds.

My point is CAD$22,000/year before deductions was a good income. Adjusting for inflation that's CAD$45,186 or US$34,800 in today's dollars. That's isn't just subsistence, that's a good income.

kbd512 wrote:

That's because of taxes. It could be less if less tax money was required for government spending programs, but only by lowering government spending. No other option is feasible.

Yup. The only way to reduce taxes is to reduce government spending. I've said that many times.

kbd512 wrote:

corporations will find ways to replace humans with robots, wherever possible. Someone still has to figure out what to do with all the unemployed people, which means government workfare programs, which means more taxes. If you figure that one out, let us know. Some sort of workforce needs to be established to repair all the infrastructure deterioration from neglect. Prisoners should be required to work to learn a trade for future employment after their prison sentence and pay for their housing.

We already have. We're creating new products and services. When I was young there were no tablet computers or internet. Cell phones were so expensive they were only for the filthy stinking rich. Home desktop computers existed, but laptops were not yet invented. Smart phones certainly didn't exist. When I was a pre-schooler (1960s), there were no home computers at all. Business computers were the size of a couple refrigerators, and a single hard drive was the size of a washing machine. There were no cell phones at all, car phones only came into being in the 1970s. There was no microwave oven. When I was a pre-schooler, my parents had a washing machine with roller ringer, and no clothes dryer. You hung clothes outside on a clothes line to dry. For winter there was a clothes line in the basement. Diapers were cloth, my parents had a "diaper pail" for dirty diapers, that were washed/dried/ironed. How many parents would even know how to deal with cloth diapers today? Home VCR didn't exist, that means no BlockBuster video rental. Certainly there was no DVR/PVR, no NetFlix, no YouTube, etc. A blue collar working family would own one used vehicle, only rich professionals could afford a new car. Today it's common for a family to own 2 cars. You didn't eat at restaurants often, you cook dinner at home and blue collar workers brought a bag lunch. Today we have a lot more. That's what happens: those displaced by automation provide new products and services.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-06-12 13:31:20)

SpaceNut · 2018-06-11 19:58:50

The states already have such laws on the books but when each state also can and do set up there own poverty tables and fake numbers use to allow for qualification so adding in a qualification of work makes those that can not work already unable to get the help. Able bodied people that work already which get help would only be causing themselves to lose what help they are getting as that is how tight the tables are.

Yes the image of the one person does not just show poverty but a man that can not work that should be getting the help but is not due to broken systems that does not account for real numbers when looking at the actual assistance that they should get.

The image also is not really a skid row but streets that are littered such that it mean that people care little about law and nor do the law enforcement officers which are apparent. There are no cars anywhere which tells me that they can not even afford transportation other than walking or bikes. Mid way up the left I can see the homeless tents as affordable housing. I see that one person is walking with a tray of coffee's which shows there are some business that could be in walking distance. That said at least that person is surviving in the level that you have described. I can see more people in wheel chairs on the right corner sidewalk next to the building so how much work will they do?

Executive Order Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility

Reading through the order it should remove the illegals which may be on the roles as it should be.
Government established programs to help families with basic unmet needs, but it appears that we are always on hard times.
What the bipartisan welfare reform enacted in 1996 did was to remove those that were falsifying the requirement to be helped, with only paper document verification of the reality not being done.
Federal Government’s role is to clear paths to self-sufficiency but that is not possible when a person is disabled to which that is not even meantioned in the order.

Even being disabled means that you have worked to qualify for the SSDI payments. If you were a housewife that took care of the kids with no work or limited quaters before you then fall ill, you do not qualify for SSDI but you may qualify for a supplemental income based on the other household members or spouse income which gets you to the aphabet soup of SSSDI.

kbd512 · 2018-06-11 23:37:35

Rob,

I was talking about a minimal income level job that someone can hold for life and retire with. I'm thinking of career type jobs, rather than flipping burgers. If you're talking about flipping burgers, nobody should be doing that past their first two years of college. You already have more ability than that if you have a B average or better.

How do you propose to lower prices? Do you understand that the companies that sell products to Wal-Mart typically do so at a net loss, but do so anyway for name brand recognition? In other words, the manufacturers can't cover the manufacturing and distribution costs, never mind any profit, with the prices charged to Wal-Mart. The losses are made up in sales to other smaller distributors or with other products that are profitable. Wal-Mart itself works the same way. The measure between profits and losses for legitimate businesses is often measure in a few cents to a few dollars per unit of product sold. In aggregate, a company may make a lot of money, but in terms of net cash flow the differences aren't all that spectacular.

I work on forecasting software for consumer products. That means foodstuffs, clothing, consumer electronics, sporting goods, medical devices, and motor vehicles. The companies I work for don't turn around and pocket the money saved. They lower the costs of their products, expand operations to sell more products, or both. They're not interested in maximum profit per unit of product sold, they want maximum volume and minimum wasted product. There are invariably some corporations that try to maximize profit per unit of product sold, typically corporations that have manufacturing capacity constraints. I've never seen a corporation with a 10%+ total profit margin and I've been doing this for over a decade.

SpaceNut,

Has anyone mentioned IQ here? It's as good a measure as we have to indicate how trainable you are, thus what jobs you could potentially hold after training. 10% of people in general, meaning across the globe, have IQ scores that borderline on mental retardation. What percentage of those people that are the below the poverty line fall into that category, versus people with average intelligence or better?

Education may improve knowledge, presuming what was taught was also retained, but education can't improve intelligence. If you lack the intelligence to apply what was taught, then you'll always be poor. It's a bitter pill to swallow. Any commentary on that?

RobertDyck · 2018-06-12 11:15:35

I happen to know what the mark-up was for computers in the 1980s. It was typically 300%. Higher for small items, like telephone cable.

One thing we could do is force cell phone companies to service a phone that is purchased. And drop the monthly charge by the cost of the phone, because it's no longer charged. The latest scam is to not service older phones at all. Last November when I tried to get my flip-phone serviced, they refused. That cell phone company still uses CDMA, but they just don't wanna. One excuse is the phone company was purchased, the new owner wants all cell phones they carry to use SIM cards. The previous owner did not use SIM cards at all, all models of cell phone they carried did not have SIM cards. Whether information is programmed into memory on the cell phone or on a SIM card is irrelevant. They just want to sell new phones. Environmentalists should be obsessed over materials and energy needed to manufacture these phones. My concern is being forced to purchase something I don't want. My job required me to have a cell phone, so I wanted to get service for my old cell phone. I didn't need the newest and latest toy with all the gadgets. Well, in spring my employer has me doing new things that requires features of the new smart phone, so it isn't a total waste. But you get the point.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-06-12 14:25:18)

EdwardHeisler · 2018-06-12 14:31:50

kbd512 wrote:

We need more government spending, right?
Peter doesn't know how to fish..

In the desert.

kbd512 ….Trump has made more money in a single day than you have and will make in your entire lifetime. I think that's fair!

After all he is much smarter than you and knows how to game the system with his billionaire friends on Wall Street and in Moscow and you don't. That's why he considers people like you the riff-raff.

Gee …. I wonder why he is hiding his tax returns. Is the IRS still auditing all of his tax returns going back to 2010? Remember that line of crapola he shoveled out during the election and had you believing? I assume you still believe that lying sack of sh*t.

The "boss" acts like a criminal mob leader with a bunch of well off lapdogs defending is every word and move. What's Trump hiding? He sure talks like a criminal mob boss who has lots of criminal financial schemes to hide from Moscow to New York.

To tell you the truth, Trump and his ilk won't even give you the time of day and Trump would never allow you be one his lapdogs.

You're not worthy enough.

But keep trying in your fantasy world.

Isn't that right?

But keep on posting. The Donald can use you and other apologists for his anti-democratic, un-American and authoritarian regime.

It doesn't cost him anything.

Last edited by EdwardHeisler (2018-06-12 14:34:43)

kbd512 · 2018-06-12 16:36:30

EdwardHeisler,

If President Trump makes $500M/yr in money he gets to keep, then he makes about as much in a day as I do in about 5 years. Elon Musk also makes more money in a day than I make in a year, yet I've heard no whining and crying from you about how much money Mr. Musk makes. Former President Clinton was paid more to speak to the Russians for an hour than I make in a year, too. I don't much care and don't really think you do, either. Your opinion on "fairness" is entirely related to your political partisanship.

President Trump certainly knows how to make money, and I see nothing wrong with that, but you seem to envy the fact that he makes more money than you do and I don't. Envy is a character attribute of someone who feels ineffectual in life. It's an unfortunate mental problem you seem to suffer from. You've decided to demonize him, but not Elon Musk or former President Clinton. I can think of at least a dozen more individuals who make more money in a day than I do in a year, yet you chose President Trump to try to make a point that's lost on everyone but the envious. I can only assume the inconsistency is related to your intertwined partisan politics and mental health problems. Since you've presumably never met President Trump and would never deign to speak to him, nor he to you if what you said about him was actually true, you've no idea what he thinks of other people, apart from whatever you've made up in your head that you find to your liking.

Since President Trump hasn't been indicted by the IRS for tax evasion, I don't really care why it is that he doesn't post his tax returns. Do you post your tax returns? If not, does that make you guilty of anything? Has anyone here accused you of tax evasion based upon evidence they don't have? If not, then why are you here making accusations based upon evidence you don't have?

I've never asked President Trump for anything because I'm not looking for any handouts from him. Were you expecting any handouts from Hillary Clinton if she became President? Is that what this is really about? You were expecting "free money" from Uncle Sam under a Democrat Party controlled administration? If so, that's pretty pathetic.

I will keep posting here because it's so much fun to read your arrogant diatribe against people who aren't carbon copies of you. I never know what sort of nonsense you'll post next, which is what keeps this interesting. Your hateful and spiteful belief system is a ball of yarn. I'm a cat, so I'm going to play with the yarn.

Whereupon you're capable of posting a coherent logic-based argument that doesn't start with assumptions about things you don't know or insults directed towards people you've never met, something resembling a dialogue may be possible. Until then, I look forward to reading your next round of petty and childish insults or accusations that adds nothing constructive to the conversation.

SpaceNut · 2018-06-12 17:31:40

approximately two-thirds
67.0 percent of the population scores are between IQ 85 and IQ 115.
2.5 percent of the population scores above 130,
2.5 percent below 70
-----------

Grand total of all tested 72%
I guess that person failed basic math writing up the information and left it within the image:

Which probably means that the groups of 13% have grown lartger while the middle 2/3's have shrunk in size.

Individual IQ tests administered by a psychologist are much more reliable than group tests, but even the latter can provide helpful information. IQ tests give reasonably effective results for children from about age four; however, scores are less reliable for preschool children than for school-age children. Making this little more than a test of how much education your parents have given or not before starting school. Slow starters most of the time catchup later if the schools get them there rather than thinking that they are making cookies out of everyone in the same manner and since you are not starting out the same the education should change to the starting point to lay down the foundation work required to allow for the pupil to learn at a faster rate as time goes. In the end its just a means to label the child and not a measure of how they will grow or learn in the future. Education is proof that you can learn, retain, regurgitate to pass a test and not about how to make use of that knowledge as that is not taught.

What are the things that you do not see in the image that would make for the area to not be in poverty; that they clearly are in?
1 Missing thing which stands out for the ability to get place to place, no vehicles just a bike.
2 The other is the lack of places to work with in the walking distances.
3 Nothing is being grown as its all pavement and buildings.

I am reminded of lyrics:

One and One make One
One Plus One make Three

Not 1+1=2

.

EdwardHeisler · 2018-06-12 20:33:46

kbd512 wrote:

"If President Trump makes $500M/yr in money he gets to keep, then he makes about as much in a day as I do in about 5 years. Elon Musk also makes more money in a day than I make in a year, yet I've heard no whining and crying from you about how much money Mr. Musk makes".

What you clearly fail to understand is that unlike Trump, Elon Musk has actually done a great deal of useful work to earn his fortune. And he's pouring his money back into useful and important ventures such as electric cars, rockets and a concrete plan to begin the direct human exploration of Mars. Musk contributes to society, Trump doesn't. Trump has never built or spent money on anything constructive unless you consider his golf courses that are designed for the rich to be a noble undertaking …. golf courses that you would not be allowed to set foot on. Even the old "robber baron" capitalists of the 19th and early 20th century at least built the railroads, steel mills, car plants, etc., Trump has built nothing of use to society and the nation in general. Just housing, golf courses and fancy retreats for the rich. Places you can't afford to use. Trump might allow you clean the restrooms if you pay him, but nothing more than that!

So don't compare Trump to Musk. That's a nasty insult to Elon.

All of us in the Mars Society can tell you what Musk is good for. Tell us what Donald Trump is good for besides using his government position to enrich himself and his family and defend his crooked friends. We know what Trump is hiding from and so do you. He acts like a guilty man because he is guilty of criminal financial operations. He needs to be called before the grand jury and if he refuses to testify he needs to be indicted on all of the evidence revealing criminal activity that has been discovered. Don't let Trump hide behind false claims that he can pardon himself and is not required to obey laws unless the rest of us.

Musk is an educated and intelligent person and unlike Trump he has courage. So when Trump pull out of the international climate agreement Musk had the balls to tell the bully Trump to go to hell. Musk quit Trump's "business panels" and was soon followed by every other self-respecting capitalist who was not afraid to stand up to Trump.

But you seem to enjoy being an apologist for Trump and his criminal family and living in your fantasy world of right-wingnut talking points and "alternative facts."

Trump is going down. Are you doing down with him?

kbd512 · 2018-06-12 23:11:04

EdwardHeisler wrote:

What you clearly fail to understand is that unlike Trump, Elon Musk has actually done a great deal of useful work to earn his fortune. And he's pouring his money back into useful and important ventures such as electric cars, rockets and a concrete plan to begin the direct human exploration of Mars. Musk contributes to society, Trump doesn't. Trump has never built or spent money on anything constructive unless you consider his golf courses that are designed for the rich to be a noble undertaking …. golf courses that you would not be allowed to set foot on. Even the old "robber baron" capitalists of the 19th and early 20th century at least built the railroads, steel mills, car plants, etc., Trump has built nothing of use to society and the nation in general. Just housing, golf courses and fancy retreats for the rich. Places you can't afford to use. Trump might allow you clean the restrooms if you pay him, but nothing more than that!

Clearly you're not the sole arbiter of what's useful, or President Trump would never have made any money. I don't golf, so I don't care about what golf clubs I can or can't get into. For all practical purposes, it's meaningless.

I used to work for a man that owned a private yacht in the marina on the backside of the property where we worked. His boat was easily worth many times what we paid for our house. The few times he took me and the IT Director out on it, we had a great time. He likes to fish, as do I, and he likes to shoot, which made for fun times. I'll never own a boat as nice as his and don't care at all. My only thought about it was that if he enjoys his boat that much, then good for him. I spent my time in the Navy, as did he, and walked away from the experience with the impression that having your own ship wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Any other examples of envy over what other people have that you don't that you'd like to post here to let the rest of the world know how petty you are?

Nobility, and the very idea of "noble undertakings", smacks of the general terror, poverty, and misery associated with life in medieval Europe and the Middle East under the practice of organized religions. The idiots murdering each other over patches of dirt, in the name of their "god" or "king", for centuries on end, also thought they were engaged in "noble undertakings". That says more a lot more about your mentality than I ever could.

The "robber barons", as you put it, are the only reason most of us live indoors in a level of comfort far in excess of anything the serfs of medieval Europe or modern day communist societies, another sad regression to medieval life, could ever dream of.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

So don't compare Trump to Musk. That's a nasty insult to Elon.

I'll compare President Trump to whomever I wish. If you don't like it, that's too bad.

On that note, Elon Musk would also be one of those "robber barons" you spoke of if his politics didn't align with your own. When people get hurt at Tesla's factory, the company attempts to hide the fact that their workers were injured on the job. GM's workers union would have shut down the plant by now in protest over the injury rates. Many of the people who work there think they're involved in the "noble undertaking" of making electric cars, until they can no longer work, whereupon most realize that being able to go to work and make money is more important than nobility.

If there weren't any serious problems, then it's unlikely the CEO would be sleeping in the factory and spending every waking hour trying to figure out how to fix the problems. That's not a knock on Elon Musk, the person, but an illustration how real world problems and the cult of personality that symbol minded people like you follow clashes. As the late great George Carlin said, "I leave symbols to the symbol minded."

EdwardHeisler wrote:

All of us in the Mars Society can tell you what Musk is good for. Tell us what Donald Trump is good for besides using his government position to enrich himself and his family and defend his crooked friends. We know what Trump is hiding from and so do you. He acts like a guilty man because he is guilty of criminal financial operations. He needs to be called before the grand jury and if he refuses to testify he needs to be indicted on all of the evidence revealing criminal activity that has been discovered. Don't let Trump hide behind false claims that he can pardon himself and is not required to obey laws unless the rest of us.

People with more ideology than mental faculties may have missed it in their blind hatred for one man, but for the first time since my grandfather fought against the communists in the Korean War, hostilities in Korea have officially ended. Korea is dismantling its nuclear weapons and missiles. The two Koreas are reestablishing diplomatic ties. That's more than any other American President has achieved there since the war ended. Maybe our military can come home so we can stop spending billions of our dollars sitting between two countries that need to learn to live with each other.

Your personal beliefs about people you don't like for personal reasons aren't evidence of anything except what goes on between your ears. If you "know" President Trump is hiding something criminal, then I suggest you report what you know to federal law enforcement. Stop whining impotently on the internet and making claims without presenting evidence and go do that.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Musk is an educated and intelligent person and unlike Trump he has courage. So when Trump pull out of the international climate agreement Musk had the balls to tell the bully Trump to go to hell. Musk quit Trump's "business panels" and was soon followed by every other self-respecting capitalist who was not afraid to stand up to Trump.

Elon Musk and President Trump both attended the Wharton School of Business. One is educated and intelligent, yet the other is not? Okay, Bert.

I'm sure it took a lot of "courage" for Elon Musk to give his opinion to a man who doesn't really care one way or the other what that opinion is. I think President Trump demonstrated far more "courage" in telling all of our allies to go pound sand when they wanted us to pay for their "green energy" initiatives. If the Paris Climate Agreement is such a great idea, then our allies can pay for their great ideas. Incidentally, the "agreement" portion of the Paris Climate Agreement was a letter signed by former President Obama. That agreement carries the same amount of authority as, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," which is another way of saying none at all.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

But you seem to enjoy being an apologist for Trump and his criminal family and living in your fantasy world of right-wingnut talking points and "alternative facts."

You seem to enjoy posting insults, claiming your personal beliefs are facts, and complaining that other people have things you don't. It's all pretty arrogant and ignorant, but your charming personality and inability to express yourself in a constructive way comes shining through.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Trump is going down. Are you doing down with him?

You're going down Cobra Kai!

Seriously, have you been watching too many 1980's high school movies?

Where's President Trump going down to? The Rose Garden? While you're busy posting your brain cell depleting nonsense here, President Trump is doing his best to keep the world from devolving into the kind of stupidity that you routinely spout off.

I'm not aware of anything that I'm "doing down" with President Trump, or "doing up", for that matter. If that was supposed to be "going down", then what exactly would I be "going down" for? Having a difference of opinion with you?

What should my punishment be for disagreeing with you?

Last edited by kbd512 (2018-06-12 23:18:02)

SpaceNut · 2018-06-13 21:31:22

just another sign of how the US is getting poorer Child in Idaho recovering from the plague, the state's second case since 1990: Officials

plague-united-states-cdc-ht-jc-180613_hpEmbed_13x10_992.jpg

kbd512 · 2018-06-14 04:31:28

SpaceNut,

Two cases of a now rare disease in 28 years is a sign of poverty?

CDC says there are about 7 new cases reported every year. That's not exactly an epidemic. According to the story, the child was given antibiotics and is recovering. It's an awful disease to contract, but thanks to modern medicine the child will survive. According to NOAA, for the past 20 years approximately 51 Americans were killed by lightning each year.

SpaceNut · 2018-06-25 22:00:07

For those that have a stake in a homestead energy useage is one of the corner elements to being able to get out from under by producing what you use. Followed maybe later by selling that excess off.

http://www.build-a-biogas-plant.com/biogas-kits/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Constru … Using-Kit/

SpaceNut · 2018-06-30 09:03:44

Most of the homeless that are not walking from place to place with a back pack are using bicycles, sleeping bags, bags or back packs ect...

So looking at a modified bikes that can serve as the base to create shelter would be a step up for those still sleeping in the weather.

http://www.momtastic.com/webecoist/2014 … -shelters/

https://weburbanist.com/2012/10/15/bike … -cyclists/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elf-e … 2013-07-20

http://www.better.bike/pebl/

https://www.autoblog.com/2016/04/27/pod … -official/

Some of the images for what could be built.

Some like the solar

For those that like it hot and dry

SpaceNut · 2018-07-23 20:59:18

If you did not know what city in your state was in the worst condition of poverty well here it is. The city hit hardest by extreme poverty in every state

The Department of Health and Human Services sets the poverty threshold at $25,100 for a family of four in the contiguous United States. While the hardships associated with such financial strain are significant and pervasive, about 5.5 million Americans living in poverty face the additional strain that comes with living in an extremely poor neighborhood -- one with a poverty rate of 40% or greater.

New Hampshire, just 7.3% of the population lives below the poverty line, the lowest poverty rate of any state in the country.

Found the states links for fuel assistance page playing games with the table for poverty....
https://www.nh.gov/osi/energy/programs/ … bility.htm

More tables numbers games for WIC & CFS
https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/wic/eligibility.htm

https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dfa/foodstamps/ … ements.pdf

SpaceNut · 2018-07-31 17:15:35

The economy is not as rosy as Trump is saying.... surprised look.. not ...More Americans are forced to "reside" in their vehicles

The number of people who live in their vehicles because they can't find affordable housing is on the rise, even though the practice is illegal in many U.S. cities. "A lot of times, once you lose your home it can spiral downwards from there," said Megan Hustings, interim director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, in an interview. "We have seen people living in their cars anywhere from a couple of weeks to months to years. "
The number of people residing in campers and other vehicles surged 46 percent over the past year, a recent homeless census in Seattle's King County, Washington found. The problem is "exploding" in cities with expensive housing markets, including Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco, according to Governing magazine.
The problem of vehicle residency is national in scope, although its impact may be more "acutely felt in urban areas where space is more limited

https://www.nlchp.org/documents/Housing-Not-Handcuffs

187 cities, found the number of prohibitions against vehicle residency has more than doubled during the last decade.

"Much like outdoor camping and sleeping bans, city-wide restrictions on living in vehicles may leave no lawful place where homeless people may live in a community," NLCHP said in a recent report. "Bans that permit vehicle impoundment, or that result in impoundment flowing from unpaid tickets or other enforcement of such bans, can cause homeless people to lose their shelter, transportation, and personal belongings in one fell swoop – with no realistic option to retrieve or replace them."

Well for the short term a vehicle will keep you dry as compared to bicycling around would in the open....which brings me to tow behind trailers to attach to the bike which is ok for a single person but not so good for a family.

http://www.elkinsdiy.com/mobile-shelter … ke-camper/

Not sure that I like this one as much as the other

housetrike.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&ch=Width%2CDPR&crop=entropy&fit=crop&h=347&q=60&w=616&s=d36c7524d71409eb57211c7f3a7f9dc1

This one might be a bit bette but poor materials choices that make it heavy

Terraformer · 2018-08-01 03:41:13

The problem is "exploding" in cities with expensive housing markets, including Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco, according to Governing magazine.

Which are - surprise surprise! - Democrat strongholds. It *does* seem that voting Democrat causes your cost of living to go up.

Trump isn't responsible for LA, SF, and Portland zoning codes. The lack of affordable housing there is their own fault. From what I've read, Houston doesn't have the same problem, *because it lets people build houses*.

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