Atlantic City casinos closing...

The poor may not pay higher taxes percentage wise, but interest rates depend on how good a persons credit score is. So is the rate of auto ins. 5 years ago I checked ins. rates for pilot escorts and it averaged about 3800.00 per year. Mine would have been 1965.00 (if I wanted the job) When I asked my insurance agent why mine was so much lower, it was due to my high credit rating. Wish I could buy highend equipment (for cash) because of that.

"When I asked my insurance agent why mine was so much lower, it was due to my high credit rating."

He was just saying that because it was the first thing he thought of. There's so many factors that go into a decision like that, he can't possibly know them all right off the top of his head. Remember, people that sell insurance are still sales people. Most sales people will lie for any number of reasons. Its unfortunate, but that's how it works.

With a level playing field, one can have just as good a chance to make it as anyone else. Show me that level playing field. It's never existed and probably never will.

Anyone born into poverty has a greater than 60% chance of staying there, despite attempts to raise oneself. Anyone born into wealth has a better than 60% chance of staying there despite any self destructive attempts to ruin that chance.

What you're born into goes a long way to how you're perceived and accepted. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule but ....

Our economy can turn around rather quickly making this discussion moot as our problems are one of policy and not the result of natural events.

Were it only so.

All the best,
Nonoise

Zd542, There's something I'd like to point out with regard to your blaming the poor for being poor as a result of bad decision making and not taking enough personal responsibility. Most of us contributing to this thread probably made some bone headed decisions when young but we had an internal moral compass and personal examples of what it took to succeed to guide us. Our parents, teachers, and community imbued those values in us from the time we were young. Those examples helped guide us as we grew up and gained life experience. Most of the poor never gain the advantage of positive examples and life lessons because their of crappy luck at birth.

My wife was an elementary school teacher for 39 years and believe me, she saw the full gamut of parenting and child rearing skills in our society. We are not born with the innate inborn skills needed to help us negotiate the social and financial minefields that proliferate in our society. If a kid grows up with no positive role models and no direct familial/societal pressures to succeed and evolve upwardly, no amount of government largess or standardized school testing and pressure is going to change the life trajectories of most people. That said, does that mean that we should abandon all hope and stop trying to save the few that CAN rise above their poor circumstances of birth?

Much of my work is at the other side of the educational spectrum with college students. Believe me, I see plenty of students who are the first ones in their families to go to college and they ARE rising above it all and they will stop perpetuating their family's cycle of poverty. Without the programs you say "aren't working," there would be many thousands of college students without the opportunity to change their lives. No doubt you are correct that we spend billions on social programs with inadequate outcomes. However, if we abandon efforts to help the poor and wash our hands of responsibility for them, we'll have a society with attributes of those in South and Central America eventually. Those with good jobs and adequate livelihood will live in armed compounds with private security and the rest will live in a world like the favelas of Rio and Sao Paulo.

What's the answer to our societal problems and how do we improve outcomes of the programs we spend billions on? I wish I knew. I only know both sides of the political spectrum in the US seem like the blind men feeling one part of the elephant and thinking they have the whole picture.

It's nice to see a civil discussion here. There is, however, one meme that I have to slay and that is the "billions" we spend on the poor. It sounds like a lot but compared to what?

Someone, somewhere went and did the math for an average person who made $50,000/year and what the breakdown on taxes are. I think most will be in for a bit of shock, but here goes:

$347 a year for defense
$3.98 a year for disaster relief (FEMA)
$22.98 a year for unemployment insurance
$36.82 a year for SNAP (food stamps)-about a dime a day
$6.96 a year for welfare
$43.78 a year for retirement & disability to gov. workers (civilian & military)
$235.81 a year for Medicare
$4,000 a year for corporate subsidies.
Are you sure you're pissed off at the right people?

All the best,
Nonoise