Apparently the recession changed my political views

[Pristine20]

Kasz216 said:

Pristine20 said:
Perhaps one of the reasons why the concepts of the "poor getting poorer" is misunderstood is the fact that America is usually the only country studied. In reality, globalization has made sure that the actions of one in New York affect another in Cape Town.

Thus, if you study the world as one economy, the percentage of people living in complete and abject poverty has sky rocketed.

However, focusing on the U.S. alone, one could say that the vast majority of the poor are not poor with perhaps one of the most obvious reasons being the fact that the vast majority of poor Americans are fat which signifies excess as opposed to want.

This is partly due to welfare programs that overburden the middle class while the upper class pays less tax (a concept I've never understood). Perhaps the whole idea is to make sure people are "hazed" in the process of getting the "American Dream" so when they finally have that dream, they can appreciate it both figuratively and realistically.

I've see real poverty. Truly poor people are not fat, that's for sure.

Uh... actually reports show the opposite.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009529

I always have trouble with such opinion pieces because people cherry pick data to prove the point they are trying to drive home. Like the guy pointed out, it would seem like the "poor" are catching up due to investment in places like India and China but the fact is that thanks to such investment, America's welfare "burden" would probably increase.

Also, if you notice, relative wealth or poverty depends on what country you live in while globalization affects us all so some countries definitely get left in the dark in all this. America too is slowly leaving itself behind by shipping away all its jobs. It would seem like the chart is improving due to the vast populations of India and china but even in those countries, many would get "left behind" and probaly become much poorer than they were before.

Perhaps it's easier to think of it this way: resources are finite, one of the reasons the U.S. needs to fight wars to control certain regions is because of that. The U.S uses 40% of the world resources. If China were to expand towards the level of the U.S, we'd have to give a lot up for that to happen. There just isn't room for two. In the same way, if someone make hundreds of millions of dollars, a lot of people are a lot poorer than they were before.

The free market is good for the "winners" but what is to become of the losers? Crime and unrest are options and probably sure to come in the worst case scenario.