Well, No, But I Did Fly Over It Once

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Well, No, But I Did Fly Over It Once


This claim was qualified—Deaton is referring to those who live in extreme poverty. But The Scrapbook did once spend two months following around economists from the U.S. Agency for International Development in the slums of Asia, and we can say with near-scientific certitude that Deaton's claim is so idiotic it could only have been uttered by a Nobel Prize winner.

When it's pointed out that America has a generous welfare state where Bangladesh does not, Deaton waves the point away, saying, "A lot of these programs have been turned into block grants," he said, making it "very hard for people to get them." This, though as of last year, 45 million people—one in seven Americans—were receiving food stamps.

But statistics aside, if Deaton is going to denounce as dismal the existence of rural Americans, one may ask what he actually knows about life on the Mississippi. To her credit, the Atlantic's Annie Lowrey asked him just that: "Have you spent a lot of time in Kentucky or West Virginia or rural Nebraska?" Deaton's reply is priceless: "No, but I spent five weeks every summer in Montana. And that's been an eye-opener." Yes, nothing introduces you to the desperate lives of impoverished Americans like high-season fly-fishing in Big Sky Country.

"You get these people who are really quite poor, in many cases, who are very right-wing," Deaton says of the unfortunates he has met in Montana.

:shocking:
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
so idiotic it could only have been uttered by a Nobel Prize winner.

:lol:

Guys like this have no idea of poverty. Just like they have no idea of our inner cities and the struggles the residents face. I really wish they'd shut up and stop their nonsensical blathering. They live in these ivory towers, surrounded by people just like themselves, and engage in cocktail chatter instead of real research and education. Then they have the arrogance to write papers and tell us all about the world. :rolleyes:
 

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
5 weeks every summer in Montana. Lucky bastard. I wonder if he ate pizza in Red Lodge.

I should get some sort of grant to survey poverty in campgrounds all around the US. I'd do it just for the per diem.
 
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