Poverty Is Poison

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 18, 2008
"Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain." That was the opening
of an article in Saturday's Financial Times, summarizing research
presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.

As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that "many
children growing up in very poor families with low social status
experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their
neural development." The effect is to impair language development and
memory -- and hence the ability to escape poverty -- for the rest of the
child's life.

So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed
about America's record of failing to fight poverty.

L. B. J. declared his "War on Poverty" 44 years ago. Contrary to
cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over
the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty
rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.

Well said.

On Feb 19, 2:49 am, tg earthlink.net> wrote:

By stealing more from the producers of the wealth (tax) who in turn
pass the cost of that theft back onto the poor.
By constructing more state indoctrination factories to poison the
mind's of children, to help keep them forever needy dumb and broke and
even more dependent upon the state to steal some more on their behalf
and then pretending they've been educated.
By constructing more places where the poor sick and the dying can
suffer longer and die younger and yet still call them hospitals.

You leftist fucking retards are the scourge of humanity and of the
poor you claim to care about and ewe're toooo fucking stupid to seee
it, why? Because you ARE the real victims and demand others be dragged
down to your fucking level.

What Can Be Done About Poverty In The U.S.A. ?

Apparently, not much.

Why?

Because it's as "psychological" as it is an "iron law" of reality.

Huh?

It feeds on itself, and is self-fulfilling down-ness.

Plus, if a depressed--in both the economic and mental senses--person
seeks bougeoiseness, (s)he is deliberately ground-down by an overall
environment.

For miserable example: An achiever or academic standout is razzed and
mocked for "trying to act white."

This phenomenon is not something I glibly make-up.

It's presumably long been in the "iterature, and I think I read an
article in TIME and perhaps an essay by a fine local columnist,
Cynthia Tucker.

Now I'm gonna piss our Brett off by saying what is now the political
obvious:

Obama is potentially ,,,dare I think it...an inspiring influence of
changing-out the degradation of millions here and in Africa.

On Feb 18, 12:53 pm, Michael Gordge xtra.co.nz> wrote:

It's not really complicated or mystical. It's just a simple matter of
case law.

There is no 1st Amend. case law where free speech has been applied to
economic issues.

We have hundreds of cases where free speech has been applied to public
nudity, hate speech, KKK, nazis, flagburning, gay this and gay that.
These are wonderful wonderful cases and I applaud them all.

But if you don't have free speech on economic issues, then the only
way you can participate in the economy is as something less than a
free citizen.

The truth is self evident: free speech on economic issues precedes
each and every free trade.

And if it's not a free trade then it's a violation of the 13th
Amendment or other theft.

There's the poverty problem right there.

On Feb 19, 12:18 am, Bret Cahill aol.com> wrote:

Who doesn't have free speech on economic issues - or any issues for
that matter?

Brat of course doesn't mean "free speech". He's deliberately
equivocating and obfuscating to avoid saying what he really means.

Because what he really means is: Mob rule, which in the chaos that
would ensue would quickly lead to dictatorship. So, what he really
mean is: dictatorship, the "doublespeak" kind that the communists
specialized in, e.g. "dictatorship of the proletariat".

In other words, what he really means is the *exact opposite" of free
speech.

Fred Weiss

On Feb 18, 12:49 pm, tg earthlink.net> wrote:

This is true. But it can be reversed with a massive cut-back in gov't
interference in the economy which would vastly improve the lives of
the poor by freeing the economy, leading to lower prices and greatly
improved services, mostly especially in education if the gov't got out
of it completely.

Actually, the solution to poverty is to stop "fighting" it. If you
want to reduce poverty there is a proven solution - a freer economy.

As to getting oneself out of poverty, Barbara Ehrenreich
notwithstanding, here's how it's done:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0211/p13s02-wmgn.html

Or see the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith. It is
based on a true story.

Or simply learn the actual history of capitalism - not as told by
liberal/socialist myth makers (and outright liars).

Fred Weiss

On Feb 18, 11:51 pm, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

I'd say so.

A means is necessary for funding the gov't, that's certainly true, and
these you mention here are legitimate functions.

I'd propose user fees. But that's really a detail and something for
the distant future, if we ever get there.

Not at all. They all would be done privately - and of course far, far
better that way.

On Feb 18, 11:28 pm, Robert Cohen msn.com> wrote: