I am pretty sure there are WORSE Countries For The POOR

Hijinx

Well-Known Member
Deleted: Bernie Sanders Tweeted that America Is Worse for the Poor Than 'Any Other Country'


That's right. Bernie Sanders actually believes that U.S. treats poor and working-class citizens worse than any other country on earth. Does he really think that's because the American voters just won't buy into socialism?

Last I checked, in socialist Nicolas Maduro's Venezuela, it costs $150 to buy a carton of eggs. Is this really what Bernie wants?

Bernie is an idiot. His record in the Senate is and was nothing until he decided to run against Hillary and he had to stop being an Independent to do that.
His running gave him a podium to speak from,but he is still useless.
All he has to do is go into Nueva Laredo, or Tijuana to see poor people who are a helluva lot worse off than America's poor.
 

Kyle

ULTRA-F###ING-MAGA!
PREMO Member
IMG_0689.PNG
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
You can count on winning a bet when someone uses superlatives like "worst ever" and "every place on earth".

*ESPECIALLY* when you're dealing with a nation whose poor are usually better off than the middle class in more than half the nations of the earth, and better off than some of the richest in several others.

(And I shudder to anticipate the stupid blowback I'll get for that - EVERY nation has a thin strata of very rich who make all of us look like paupers - I am sure there are people in Mali and Mauritania who are richer than ME - but to stratify the rest would show that even the more wealthy are STILL much worse off than our "poor").
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member

In Dinesh D'Souza's book "What's So Great About America", that almost an exact quote from a friend from Mumbai.

He asked him why he wanted to move to America, and he answered "I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat".

For all the idiot arguments about poor people being fat because of bad food choices and affordability - this man comes from a nation where being poor means NO FOOD.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Yeah, there's poor and then there's impoverished.

When we were in Ethiopia - we saw poor. Not as bad as that man in the picture, but we saw poor, especially in the cities.

Strangely enough, we were told - by our Ethiopian facilitators - that much as we want to help, we were told NOT to do so, for lots of reasons -
but the main thing was, it would encourage every person on the street to follow us everywhere once it was known we were giving money away.
They'd come right up to our windows and sometimes it broke your heart. But even the authorities we met with told us - do not give them money - if you must give,
there are other options for you.

And even while there, we saw that some efforts to fight poverty just would not work. Anything we gave to the orphanage directly would be wasted.
For example, the kids didn't really have shoes, socks or underwear. IF they had shoes, it was whoever got to a pair first, since no one owned them personally.
When people donated shoes or clothes - they would immediately be sold and the money spent on other things. Same with toys. The one way with toys was to
give small, almost unsellable toys - like bubbles or plastic sunglasses - but a soccer ball would be sold.

The BEST way we knew to help was some kind of sponsorship program, where a child would have direct help. There would be a reliable organization who
oversaw where the money went.

It might not SEEM like much - but when your nation has an annual average salary of 250 dollars - a YEAR - the sale of a ten dollar pair of shoes is a lot.
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
This is just the core belief of most liberals/socialists in this country; that we are the most evil country on the planet. And it can only be healed with socialism. Yes, that's the insanity that exists.
 

glhs837

Power with Control
Yeah, saw some pverty, or what I thought was poverty, in the Phillipines, then I did an overnight trip to Mogadishu Somalia in 1988. Families living in cardboard box huts.....
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
And even while there, we saw that some efforts to fight poverty just would not work.

Any effort to fight poverty through direct giving or charities will never work as long as their are corrupt governments that aim to horde all the resources away from the people and refuse to educate the people. I kind of refuse to donate to charities that are aimed at feeding the poor in other countries because I know it will never get to the people that need it. And it breaks my heart.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
..... charities will never work as long as their are corrupt governments that aim to horde all the resources .....

:yeahthat:


that is how Bush ended up sending troops to Somali ... warlords were stealing all of the International AID
- the only way to help these people would be to take over their country, sell their resources, and feed the poor
... but any program would be subject to corruption - man is the problem
 

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
From personal observation while in the service. The poor in many nations would be happy to come to the US and live off of what the US poor throw away. Poor here means a home, food, several TVs, maybe a car, phone, etc.

Once in India at a red light I passed a bag of a dozen oranges out the window to the street beggars. Before the light changed they has distributed the fruit and were wildly peeling them and stuffing them in their mouths. I bet they hadn't eaten in a few days.
 

black dog

Free America
Yeah, saw some pverty, or what I thought was poverty, in the Phillipines, then I did an overnight trip to Mogadishu Somalia in 1988. Families living in cardboard box huts.....

I spent a few years working in Africa in my youth, poor to me is you do not even have any pets.
 

b23hqb

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
When we were in Ethiopia - we saw poor. Not as bad as that man in the picture, but we saw poor, especially in the cities.

Strangely enough, we were told - by our Ethiopian facilitators - that much as we want to help, we were told NOT to do so, for lots of reasons -
but the main thing was, it would encourage every person on the street to follow us everywhere once it was known we were giving money away.
They'd come right up to our windows and sometimes it broke your heart. But even the authorities we met with told us - do not give them money - if you must give,
there are other options for you.

And even while there, we saw that some efforts to fight poverty just would not work. Anything we gave to the orphanage directly would be wasted.
For example, the kids didn't really have shoes, socks or underwear. IF they had shoes, it was whoever got to a pair first, since no one owned them personally.
When people donated shoes or clothes - they would immediately be sold and the money spent on other things. Same with toys. The one way with toys was to
give small, almost unsellable toys - like bubbles or plastic sunglasses - but a soccer ball would be sold.

The BEST way we knew to help was some kind of sponsorship program, where a child would have direct help. There would be a reliable organization who
oversaw where the money went.

It might not SEEM like much - but when your nation has an annual average salary of 250 dollars - a YEAR - the sale of a ten dollar pair of shoes is a lot.

I was stationed in Asmara, Ethiopia from Jan 73 - Jul 75 with NCS/NCU. Back then, the average income for the entire country was about $65 per person per year. That was poor then, and with inflation, probably pretty much the same today.

We saw the really starving poor, every day as we walked out the gate into town. A few pennies a day fed an individual. I always stopped on base for a pocketful of change to pass out. Every time.

That's poor, folks.
 

b23hqb

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
How things have changed. Ethiopia was Communist then - and Asmara is now in Eritrea.

Yup - I witness that first hand. From Jan 75 until I left, the ELF (Eritrean Liberation Front) was in plain view conflict with the Cuban communist influenced Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, who orchestrated the takeover and executions of Hailie Selassi, his family, and close govt followers in 1975. Ethiopia really wanted to hold onto annexed Eritrea - especially Massaua - the only real blue water port for the country.

I had two very good friends - civilian tech contractors - that were killed by the ELF, and two more Navy friends that were kidnapped and held hostage for about a year. It was a great duty station, but I'm glad my time was up and time for PCS when it was.
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
Strangely enough, we were told - by our Ethiopian facilitators - that much as we want to help, we were told NOT to do so, for lots of reasons -
but the main thing was, it would encourage every person on the street to follow us everywhere once it was known we were giving money away.
They'd come right up to our windows and sometimes it broke your heart. But even the authorities we met with told us - do not give them money - if you must give,
there are other options for you.

And even while there, we saw that some efforts to fight poverty just would not work. Anything we gave to the orphanage directly would be wasted.
For example, the kids didn't really have shoes, socks or underwear. IF they had shoes, it was whoever got to a pair first, since no one owned them personally.
When people donated shoes or clothes - they would immediately be sold and the money spent on other things. Same with toys. The one way with toys was to
give small, almost unsellable toys - like bubbles or plastic sunglasses - but a soccer ball would be sold.

The BEST way we knew to help was some kind of sponsorship program, where a child would have direct help. There would be a reliable organization who
oversaw where the money went.

It might not SEEM like much - but when your nation has an annual average salary of 250 dollars - a YEAR - the sale of a ten dollar pair of shoes is a lot.

And THAT is why Bernie is correct.

Good post, sam!
 

b23hqb

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
:shrug:


about ?

Maybe he means that Bernie personally, or Bernie through the US taxpayer, will personally sponsor these poor, and I do mean, poor souls? That should bring us down a notch or ten on the income spectrum, right?
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
:shrug:


about ?

About the topic at hand; why the US is so bad for poor people. Sam gave you a first hand account of why. Beyond that, if you take into account the debilitating results of how we do welfare, the generational disability it tends to inflict on beneficiaries, you could see the argument Newt and so many others on the right used to be able to make. :buddies:
 
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