Reply to Are you a "Dream Hoarder"? I am, apparently

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Are you a "Dream Hoarder"? I am, apparently"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Wow, straight to the Holocaust?  Nothing makes your point like dramatic hyperbole, I guess.

Of course people have choices, but to pretend that people who grow up in poverty have the same choices and opportunities that other people do belies a blinding amount of privilege.  I'll freely admit that I shared many of the up-by-the-bootstraps ideals you're espousing when I was younger, but, being a class migrant myself and having married someone who grew up poor, I've gotten a first-hand view of just how disadvantaged people in generational poverty are and how difficult it is to break out of that cycle.  And not because of lack of grit but because many of the things we take for granted -- learning about financial management, working through bureaucratic systems, knowing the unwritten rules of professionalism, someone to help you with your homework -- it all gives someone who grows up in a community that models those things for them a huge leg up.  Both my spouse and I are class migrants -- but it was a combination of working our asses off AND having lucked into a few good opportunities that got us where we are.  Had those opportunities not arisen, we'd probably be part of the shrinking middle class struggling to make ends meet ourselves.

I am a big believer in personal responsibility, but I think that there is an overall betterment of society if help is available to people who are making the effort.  I am not in favor of continuing to create generations whose primary income is welfare and disability, but cutting them off and telling them to get to work is not going to solve the problem.  Simply telling anyone who struggles to make ends meet that it's their fault because they're not trying hard enough is ignoring the current economic reality of what's going on in the country.  And pretending like everything's fair and level is bullshit - it's a steeper hill to climb for the disadvantaged, and you're acting like there's no difference between throwing them a rope to help with the climb and installing a diamond-plated lift to carry them to the top.  Poverty is a significantly more nuanced problem that doesn't make for good soundbytes for the politicians.[/quote]

Different poster. You were going strong but lost me by the third paragraph. No one is advocating cutting off welfare and disability, but to reduce the payout for those programs as appropriately - maybe not so much for disability, but certainly welfare. Part of the solution *IS* to tell people to get to work, which is why there is prevailing argument that people should work for the welfare benefits they receive, even if it is just picking up litter on the side of the road. People who are struggling *LONG TERM* either are disabled in some way, or are simply making terrible life choices. While it takes time for someone to move up in income class, there is *NOTHING* that holds back anyone with the will and the ability to move out of poverty into the middle class within the span of a few years. There is ample reduced or free education, assistance, grants, and volunteers who willingly mentor people to improve themselves, but they must do the work themselves.

But you know what, faced with a choice to live in poverty on welfare, versus a few years of hard work to be self sufficient, it's easy for a lot of people to stick to the former.

Let me clarify again that disability is something else entirely different. I am talking about people that can, but don't help themselves. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics