Yes, there's degrees of poor ... poor all the way down. This struck a chord with me: Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger’s trash. I

Yes, there's degrees of poor ... poor all the way down. This struck a chord with me: Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger’s trash. I've been poor enough in my life that dumpster diving was appealing and I'm glad I'm not now, but at least in my scenario there was a dumpster to dive into. I spent some time by Lake Malawi there a couple of years ago and they don't even have dumpsters. Bottle-caps, and waste-paper from the (foreign aid funded) health clinic are valuable raw materials for whatever local craft industries there are. Being poor means these dodgy strangers showing up and splashing money around and who then start making inappropriate advances on the children. But even along the lake they are privileged by having access to water and whatever tourism industry there is. Away from the lake, being poor means not having clothes. Being poor means a minor injury is a death sentence. Some of our philanthropist billionaires get some flack for the manner and means by which they distribute their aid, but a friend of mine working as a pharmacist there would just say "thank god for Bill Gates".