Korean Job Discussion Forums

[demi]

Seriously, this is not me hating on Americans. I'm hating on your government.

I know one has to consider various factors to determine whether a country is great or not but damn this is just wrong. How can the richest most powerful Nation be letting its ppl rot like this?

"A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1712965,00.html

How can this be????

[Hater Depot]

I think the lower poverty numbers in other countries are probably quite misleading if you consider the huge welfare states dedicated to keeping them low.

[seoulunitarian]

[demi]

seoulunitarian....believe me, i know I can be an arse when it comes to writing on these boards. They made me this way. I'm really quite a nice guy in real life. I think. All the hate pushed me to become a hater.

[EFLtrainer]

[EFLtrainer]

On a serious note: it is the primary flaw of capitalism; there is only so much pie and those with power and money tend to keep it. With no socially responsible safety net, you will always have large numbers of very poor and uneducated people.

Some above ask whether people are "really" poor. What a silly question! Do they have a home, food, health care, education? Well, that's more than the poor in America have.

Our education system is supposed to be equal, right? But it is funded inherently unfairly: property taxes. Thus, the wealthy give their kids a better education than the poor. Period.

Etc., etc.

I'm no communist, but US-style democracy is not the be-all nor the end-all. We have the means to keep working towards a semi(slightly?)-utopian existence because of the Declaration of Independencde and the Constitution, but it is yet a work in progress.

Bt the way, back in the 90's a friend of mine of Swedish ancestry and his Swedish wife did an anlysis of the taxation, and benefits from it, in the US and Sweden. (They were trying to decide where to settle down.) Their conclusion after looking at ALL the taxes and services? Americans paid the same taxes and got significantly less for it. People tend to look only at income tax and ignore all the other myriad taxes. (Ever looked at your phone bill in the US? Sheesh...)

Hmmm....

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

The US spends a lot of money on social programs. It poverty is cause by things like drugs and the break down of the family.

[luvnpeas]