Social "scientists"

[shh!]

I don't think so. There really ARE poor people in the U.S. Our food pantries for the poor are severely overburdened these days, and the numbers of recipients are up by a lot.

[Mish]

Do you think that all poor people are lazy?

I was wondering the same thing

If yes, it would sound like something from Bill O'reily, how Katrina should teach people to not be poor

[misombra]

i can take you to some places by where i live that resemble under developed countries.

thing about rich is countries is that very few people have the wealth.

[Lipp]

So let's attempt at being analytical then.

• What poor people are we on about?
  
  The poor people in developed countries, mainly the U.S. And by "poor" we mean those who have difficulties providing essential needs (food and shelter), not those who are living dangerously close to poverty.
  Are the poor people lazy?
  
  Just as you can't judge the entire population of a country accurately it all depends.
  

  A factory worker who's earning a miniscule wage to get by might be working hard, but the working conditions might inhibit any chances for moving up on the ladder or earning more regardless of how much work is put in. What would be required to move on up? Education could be one. And in this case economic and social barriers exist, don't they? So you work hard and you live on the line, hoping for better days

  A second one might be the drunk bum who sits in a street corner begging passers-by's for money. Or a young guy who's just hanging around and asking for spare cash.
  

  And here it's a bit trickier. Sure, they'd might be lazy and lacking any willpower to try to move on up. But face it, let's say for the bum, who'd actually hire a bum? If they're past an age or lacking physical strength they can't work at a garbage centre and not look decent enough to be toilet cleaners. It's not always just to go out there and find a job the next day.
  
  And in the case of a younger fella, as shh! could point out it's not an insignificant amount of poor people, so the competition could be quite tough even if it's got minimum requirements. Begging on the streets might be the only way to get by every day, and if you have to beg where there are a lot of people (downtown) and look for jobs outside of town, well, transportation is an issue. It might be easy to see simple jobs lined up on a website. Looking like a bum, smelling like a bum and living like a bum , regardless of age, doesn't make it easy to get even the simplest jobs.

  
  

All in all, "imaginery social barriers preventing them from getting into good schools and making good money" sounds a whole lot more plausible than "the reason we have lots of these poor people is because they are too lazy to put forth the work to outdo the others and therefore suck at life."

And so if you keep in mind that poverty in the U.S really doesn't compare to poverty in the underdeveloped countries you should be grateful for what you got and stop bitching about how you have to stand for an hour on the train because you can't afford an SUV yet.

[ecojeanne]

lipp also does it not come down to social grouping....for instance if a kid comes from a rich family....the liklihood of him being rich is very high.....just as the opposite is. I put it down to who got their hands on the money and resources first...way back hundreds of years ago and not much has changed....we've got the new rich that try and sometimes and successfully integrate with the super-rich and powerful....because as we all know if you've got the money...you've got the power....and it's who you know not what you know....as the poor and less rich families know from experience

[Lipp]

It's pretty obvious that if you're starting off at a level it's difficult to go out of it, but it's in cases like that in which the poor will succeed and be better once they become richer - they know how to accumulate wealth, they know how to minimize losses and they know what happens if they fail.

All a rich kid has to know is how to not spend more than the parents/family company is able to make, and hopefully one day be smart and learn how to run the business moderately well.

Which is why I'm actually somewhat glad that due to a fault by the uni administration they wrote out a my annual tuition fee as several thousand dollars below how much it actually costs, so I have to lower my spending and get a full-time job over the holiday to cope, and so far I've managed without any assistance from my parents, yet still know that if things fall apart and my studies are at risk I can ask them for help.

Wish I was more motivated though, seeing as it's a rare opportunity for me to be here.

[DoesntMatter]

Oh wow, 3 pages!

I agree not all poor people are lazy. Illegal immigrants from Mexico being the prime example of very hard-working people who are still poor

But people born in this country without much money have every opportunity to make a lot of money through education. A lot of them just blow it

My dad grew up relatively poor but he went to college on a full scholarship, and nonetheless was working 40 hours a week at a steel mill from midnight - 8am every day for money and also held down a part time jobs on TOP of that at the same time, and still managed to graduate at the top of his class with a degree in electrical engineering

Are people willing to do that these days? No, they want it handed to them. Luckily I didn't have to do this, but I did hold down a fair share of crappy jobs, the first one being on a farm working alongside migrant workers and the other at McDonalds, before I finally got a job selling home improvements where I made up to $20 an hour

And lw, I'm not rich. And being more descript and calling me a "rich WHITE kid," well, it doesn't really make a difference if the rich kid is white or black. Being rich here means your parents are at least multi-millionaires

[Junket]

My father came here from Vietnam and had nothing, not even a college education.

He had opened several businesses and now works for Fed Ex.

He lives comfortably in a nice neighborhood, and has always provided me with technical luxuries like HDTV's, computers, videogames, and food was never an issue. Even gave me the car I'm driving now. When I was with him, I was spoiled, but when I went home, my mother drove that house so far into debt it wasn't funny. I guess I was humbled by that side.

By that I would agree that some people born here expect things to be handed to them. You don't need a college education to live well, though you may have to work harder.

[Lipp]

Well, that sounds more like kids of low-income families who don't bother with school and never think of college. They'll just realize their mistake later on and regret it.

Just as I dislike some of the aussie students here who spend their days walking around doing nothing and complaining about how stupid the subjects are just because they can't understand. And in this case us international students pay five times as much and simply can't afford to fail a course.

[IndiReloaded]

But face it, let's say for the bum, who'd actually hire a bum?

I would. In fact, the last business location we opened, we needed some nasty carpet removed. There was a roughish-looking fellow walking past who seemed interested in what we were doing. He mentioned he was out of a job recently.... I asked if he wanted to do some carpet ripping. It was pretty labourious & took him a good 4 hours. There were times I think someone else would have given up. But he worked hard & I gave him $100 cash. Everyone was happy.

If he had come back asking for a local reference as to his hard work, I would have given one.

[boobaa]

Social "scientists" have written some of the most pretentious literature ever published. I was just reading some of the material for my class called "Social Inequality" and these people are off the fuccking chart for being full of themselves. They think using the word "foodstuffs" instead of merely "food" will give their writing some more academic integrity or something. They love the word "function" but probably couldn't do shit with the simplest of REAL functions, those being the ones in the world of math

And common sense just doesn't apply. I can't say "the reason we have lots of these poor people is because they are too lazy to put forth the work to outdo the others and therefore suck at life." Instead we have to blame imaginery social barriers preventing them from getting into good schools and making good money

Not even a real class with material worthy of studying

Also, I would like to say that reading Karl Marx has made me wonder how ANYONE could have been dumb enough to believe he had good ideas. The guy was fuccking retarded beyond help

Obviously you are from well off family.
It is actually very different to people who don't have food always on their table. These people are more easily affected, therefore they may suffer from lots of influences and it is harder for them to make the right choices. They just might do well in life, but you should realize its much harder for them. So its 50/50 and lazyness is easy to come when you are in depression. It all starts from where you are born and in what kind of enviornment you are raised. If you were born in some place else, you would think a lot differently maybe, and you would be quite sure you are right. There is no right and wrong.

[DoesntMatter]

If you think it's such crap, why don't you do something better? There's your influence in work, right there DM.

Because all I aspire to do is get people through surgeries safely and make a lot of money so that I can invest it later (or more accurately, give to my dad to invest)

Karl Marx was the Sigmund Freud of politics in that both were very influential in their fields but could NOT have been more wrong

I'd also like to say I don't think all sociologists are as dumb as Marx or all psychologists are as dumb as Freud, there are legit ones

A large percentage of them are schizophrenic or have other severe mental illnesses. I don't think we can hold them to the same level of expectation as a healthy person.

Exactly, a LOT of homeless people have actual serious mental health problems

[DoesntMatter]

Obviously you are from well off family.
It is actually very different to people who don't have food always on their table.

If the US, anyone with the slightest idea of money management can put food on the table. In elementary school, the kids with the free lunches (government subsidized) had the new Nike shoes and cell phone

People today think everyone should be entitled to the luxuries other people have earned