: The number will stay at whatever level the current fashion for 'poverty levels' happens to be. As the line changes every year in a way that seems unconnected to actual impoverisation and more to loose income and 'cost of living' expenditures as well as a handful of relativism its fairly meaningless.Poverty means a 'lack of means'. I see no problem with indexing poverty to income. that these people are affected by poverty is shewn by the studies that i mentioned as rgards education, criminality ND THE LIKE.
: I am sure poeple are in poverty - poverty cannot be meaningfull where a person has a roof and food. lacking a car, radio, TV etc is not poverty.
No, i agree not having a car etc is NOT POVERTY. However i think you will find that people who are below the poverty line generally want for the fundamentals ijn life. Or are just scrimping alonmg, barely managing to survive.
So i suspect our disagreement lies in what degree of poverty the official measures capture and, without going out and doing the necessary research, i doubt we can resolve that one.
: : K: What like the activity of young children whop are forced to work in Nike factories? Or maybe the slave labour they employ in Burma, or maybe the child slave labour in Haiti that makes baseballs? (ironic isn't it, the baseball that went for the record # of homeruns in a season worth what, 1 million dollars and it was probably made by a child slave)...etc
: It is amazing. Its also amazing that all you see is Nike, not any of the thousands of things you utterly rely upon every day built be the activity of your neighbours and other adults. As comparison check the life of a child in pre-history, middle ages, industrial revolution and 20th century. getting better all the time
Ah, well now there's a presumption, that we are better off now. Whether we are better off depends on what it is one values in life, what it is that makes life 'good' to live. Now if i value sweet unspoilt air, verdent fields, and a generally pastoral existence, then would i not be happier living many years ago? I mean there is no real difference in the class structure between now and 400 or so years ago, we have the rich, the middle class and the poor. Capitalism has not changed this much, except perhaps to expand the middle class (though this process seems to have stopped now).
But at any rate, i'm not particualy interested in the living standards of the past, what concerns me is the present and the future.
: doesnt mean its immaculate right now. How do you accelarate the process? - dont interfere (which slows it down) or utterly arrest it all and try something else.
We intefere all the time. That's what governments do.
Besides I'm not advocating full scale revolution or anything like that, i just believe that income disribution is skewed in the wrong places and it is leading to the top 1% getting wealthier while the real incomes of the rest stay the same.
: : : : Capatilism doesn't work!!!!
: : : By whose standard?
: : K: By the standard of humanity.
: Who is representing humanity today?
You, me, anybody who steps forward
