6 ms·

By no means are 18.1% of the population living in "abject" poverty. They're living in what the US government classifies as poverty, but in the majority of these

By no means are 18.1% of the population living in "abject" poverty. They're living in what the US government classifies as poverty, but in the majority of these cases they still have a home, have food, have electricity, etc. I'm not saying that they're living comfy lives, but when you throw around terms like "abject povery" you're really discrediting people who are actually living in abject poverty. What are your plans to get the rate below 1%? What would you have done differently that wouldn't have wrecked the economy?

wfhordie 4y ago
Ah, I love this game. It's the same one that the super-rich use to convince people barely scraping by -- or anyone who hasn't read Barbara Ehrenreich -- that you should zoom out far enough so that your situation is compared to literal kids with literal flies on their eyeballs. Your life ain't that bad, why you complainin'? The fact is, this country could fund universal childcare, universal healthcare and universal education from K-16 and not 'wreck the economy.' All it would take is doing what every other industrialized first-world country has done... and done better, with less resources. And don't worry, the people who you think are actually living in abject poverty aren't reading on HN on a Monday afternoon, so my discredit of their situation will go largely ignored.
- CodeSgt 4y ago
  I was just correcting your misusage of the term. Everything else you've said has come from you projecting your beliefs onto the discussion. I also think your perception of social aid in some other countries is wildly distorted. These benefits often come with the side effects of significantly higher taxes and subpar offerings. There's a reason why the US harbors the majority of the worlds prestigious universities and has the best patient outcomes of any medical system in the world. Of course I agree that things could be improved, they always could. But it's not as trivial as you'd like it to be.
- refurb 4y ago
  Are you saying other countries don’t have “very poor”? You’d be wrong then. Countries with universal healthcare and other social programs still have the very poor.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... ~10% of households experience food insecurity in the US. So assume that's a direct overlap, that would be most of the 18%
- wfhordie 4y ago
  That number should piss you off. The U.S. was by far the leading global agricultural exporter in 2020 with exports valued at $147.9 billion. [0] And it's not like it's hard to get the food from where it's grown to where it's needed. The US has a navigable waterway system that is smack dab in the middle of both where the food is grown and where it is eaten by the most people. That's not a coincidence.[1] I'm not playing semantic games about whether the households experiencing food insecurity are 'working poor' 'abject poor' or 'totally fucked poor'. It doesn't matter what you call it, it's a problem that we can solve in this country. [0]https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/4-countries-produce-most-food.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/4-cou... [1]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_waterway.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_w...
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Your first point is mostly just misleading. Yeah, we export a lot of food. We also import a lot of food. $147B for 2020, so almost dollar for dollar the same. It varies. https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-depends-on-agricultural-imports-and-exports/ https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-... Your second point is way off. Food moves crazy distances. The last mile is critically important. The direct path from farm to table is pretty much irrelevant and you couldn't possibly use the waterways to solve this problem effectively in its entirety. People don't want to eat a ton of raw corn and soy. Hunger is a problem, but it's a hard problem. Cost and nutrition and logistics do a weird dance. Many (most?) people suffering from food insecurity are also obese.
  - QuarterReptile 4y ago

wfhordie 4y ago

Ah, I love this game. It's the same one that the super-rich use to convince people barely scraping by -- or anyone who hasn't read Barbara Ehrenreich -- that you should zoom out far enough so that your situation is compared to literal kids with literal flies on their eyeballs. Your life ain't that bad, why you complainin'? The fact is, this country could fund universal childcare, universal healthcare and universal education from K-16 and not 'wreck the economy.' All it would take is doing what every other industrialized first-world country has done... and done better, with less resources. And don't worry, the people who you think are actually living in abject poverty aren't reading on HN on a Monday afternoon, so my discredit of their situation will go largely ignored.

CodeSgt 4y ago
I was just correcting your misusage of the term. Everything else you've said has come from you projecting your beliefs onto the discussion. I also think your perception of social aid in some other countries is wildly distorted. These benefits often come with the side effects of significantly higher taxes and subpar offerings. There's a reason why the US harbors the majority of the worlds prestigious universities and has the best patient outcomes of any medical system in the world. Of course I agree that things could be improved, they always could. But it's not as trivial as you'd like it to be.
refurb 4y ago
Are you saying other countries don’t have “very poor”? You’d be wrong then. Countries with universal healthcare and other social programs still have the very poor.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... ~10% of households experience food insecurity in the US. So assume that's a direct overlap, that would be most of the 18%

wfhordie 4y ago
That number should piss you off. The U.S. was by far the leading global agricultural exporter in 2020 with exports valued at $147.9 billion. [0] And it's not like it's hard to get the food from where it's grown to where it's needed. The US has a navigable waterway system that is smack dab in the middle of both where the food is grown and where it is eaten by the most people. That's not a coincidence.[1] I'm not playing semantic games about whether the households experiencing food insecurity are 'working poor' 'abject poor' or 'totally fucked poor'. It doesn't matter what you call it, it's a problem that we can solve in this country. [0]https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/4-countries-produce-most-food.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/4-cou... [1]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_waterway.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_w...
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Your first point is mostly just misleading. Yeah, we export a lot of food. We also import a lot of food. $147B for 2020, so almost dollar for dollar the same. It varies. https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-depends-on-agricultural-imports-and-exports/ https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-... Your second point is way off. Food moves crazy distances. The last mile is critically important. The direct path from farm to table is pretty much irrelevant and you couldn't possibly use the waterways to solve this problem effectively in its entirety. People don't want to eat a ton of raw corn and soy. Hunger is a problem, but it's a hard problem. Cost and nutrition and logistics do a weird dance. Many (most?) people suffering from food insecurity are also obese.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago