Forums: Poverty Industry

Dateline did an expose tonight on southern Ohio poverty

So Republicans Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins now say they'll provide the last crucial votes to get the Dodd-Frank financial reform through the Senate. Hmmm. Could this be Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's secret plan to take back the Senate, guaranteeing another year or two of regulatory and lending uncertainty and thus slower economic growth? Probably not, but that still may be the practical effect. This week White House aides leaked to the press that President Obama may seek a review of regulations that are restraining business confidence and bank lending. Yet Dodd-Frank, with its 2,300 pages, will unleash...

When stories are told about African poverty, race often seems to play a large part. Based in Senegal, Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly (previously featured here for his work in DR Congo) traveled to South Africa earlier this year and visited one of a growing number of squatter camps populated mostly by Afrikaners - white South Africans - to document their stories and help show that, despite the fact that impoverished blacks in the region far outnumber whites, poverty is a human issue, not necessarily racial. O'Reilly: "While most white South Africans still enjoy lives of privilege and relative wealth, the...

The federal government could soon be paying for lunch for entire communities of children under a new plan in the U.S. House of Representatives. Christina A. Samuels of Education Week reports that the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010 would allow schools in high-poverty areas to be covered under a “community eligibility” option that allows free meals to all students without the traditional paperwork to determine eligibility. That would mean free meals for an extra 20 percent of students in Grand Rapids, where eight of 10 students already meet income levels to qualify for free or reduced-price meals....

...As a young reporter, I immediately warmed to this gentle woman who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for she had seen more poverty than anyone I had ever met. Speaking in the founding, festering slum where she made her simple home, I was surprised to hear her express pity for the "poverty-stricken West." "The spiritual poverty of the Western World is much greater than the physical poverty of our people," she told me, as the fan whirred above us, trying to alleviate the unbearable heat of that Indian city. Emptiness "You, in the West, have millions of...

Imagine you are an unborn spirit whom God has condemned to a life of poverty but has permitted to choose the nation in which to live. I'm betting that most any such condemned unborn spirit would choose the United States. Why? What has historically been defined as poverty, nationally or internationally, no longer exists in the U.S. Let's look at it. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the 2009 poverty guideline was $22,000 for an urban four-person family. In 2009, having income less than that, 15 percent or 40 million Americans were classified as poor, but...

Head to the local big-box electronics store and buy yourself: a Panasonic home-theater system ($500), an In signia 50-inch plasma HDTV ($700), an Apple 8GB iPod Touch ($175), a Sony 3-D Blu-ray disc player ($219), a Sony 300-CD changer ($209), a Garmin portable GPS ($139), a Sony 14.1-megapixel digital camera ($200), a Dell Inspiron laptop computer ($450) and a TiVo high-definition digital-video recorder ($300). This is not an endorsement of any of these products. I don't own any of them (though if the manufacturers are keen to find out my opinion, they can send me some non-returnable demos). But you...

When they tell you its for the kids, please reflect back on this blood curdling video:

In the 1990s, Paul Romer revolutionized economics. In the aughts, he became rich as a software entrepreneur. Now he’s trying to help the poorest countries grow rich—by convincing them to establish foreign-run “charter cities” within their borders. Romer’s idea is unconventional, even neo-colonial—the best analogy is Britain’s historic lease of Hong Kong. And against all odds, he just might make it happen.Halfway through the 12th century, and a long time before economists began pondering how to turn poor places into rich ones, the Germanic prince Henry the Lion set out to create a merchant’s mecca on the lawless Baltic coast....

Middle Class Is Abandoning Obama: He Gets Majority Approval Rating Only From Americans Making Less Than $24,000 Per Year (CNSNews.com) - The middle class is abandoning President Barack Obama, according to data released by the Gallup Poll. The only income bracket among which a majority still says they approve of the job he is doing as president are those earning $2,000 per month or less. During the week of June 7-13, only 46 percent of Americans overall told Gallup they approved of the job Obama is doing as president, tying for the worst week of Obama's presidency. Two weeks ago,...