Media Spin and the Hidden Poverty in America

#65 I agree with Tahmed sir ji...cab driving is a perfectly respectable job but writing code is a shameful and disgusting act only performed by certain species tahmed sahib loves so much.;)
ah may be that is why a few code coolies switched to cab and truck business during dotcom bust days...but then again those were our punjabi and sikh friends....madrasis and hinjus were clever they just switched to more stable companies like IBM, Intel, Lockheed.:)

Re: Mohar11, hamidm and others

Why aren`t the ``poor`` going out and working?

Even Marx said that some portion of the proletariat was lumpen (10-15%?). These are the people that some call ``white trash`` (i.e., more of an attitude than an economic class) and the blacks that Chris Rock called ``niggers`` (as opposed to ``black people;`` again an attitude issue).

Dinesh D`Souza (I think it was him) wrote about the pathologies of black culture in the US that holds them back but the same argument can be made for PWT as well. By contrast, the immigrants (illegal or legal) who make it to the US are mostly hardworking and determined to get ahead. In sharp contrast to most of the indigenous lumpenpoletariat.

#65 tahmed..the dulles flyer cabbies are ALL pakis including the owner..they line up for lunch at the food factory and always tell me that ``apka suleiman khan hamare zananeko bahot pasand hain``.

the poverty in US is different for non-immigrants because they operate at a different level. mexicans or brzilians (and some gujjus) have a family of 4 working adults, one stay home adult, and 3 kids living in a 2 bedroom triple-decker. 4 adults bring home 4800 per month, pay 1200 pm in rent, 200 pm on tortillas and 400 pm on salsa dancing and church. they drive one 1978 cutlass supreme which hose fixes up with duct-tape and pays minimal insurance if any. so the immigrants are relatively happy and saving up for felis navidad trip or the soccer match tickets.

a poor ``native`` family has one or 2 parents who are unable to go to work since they have 3 kids to take care of at home (and watch opera) and cant afford ``day care``. their family support structure is poor (granny is sick of raising keeeds) .. so they can only afford to bring home $2000 max and then they are poor...so they see no incentive since with $2000 you cannot afford a 2-bed apt and hot water and night-out.

i think they should live in group-homes like the immigrants and a lot of their problems are solved.

Asadi has brought two points and I don’t understand why people are avoiding those issues behind some individual stories. Behind the success of every Poncho, there are ten Ponchos that are still working under the minimum wage and are caught in a cycle of perpetual poverty.

His first point, as I understand it, is: Despite being the richest country in the world, poverty in the US is on the rise.
Secondly, enough money and social programs are not available to bring people out of poverty.

Saying that immigrants should not discuss this is sheer non sense. If you have a stake in this country, you should be able to discuss these issues regardless of your background. In fact, we need to discuss issues related to the US more often. As most of the interacotrs on this site live in the US, this site’s owners are US citizens and the Site is managed and operated out of this country. People living in the US should always have more interest in the US affairs than interest in Pakistan or India. That is past. This is now and the future so we should discuss issues related to this country more often and I would encourage Asadi to write more articles on the US issues.

Disagreeing with Asadi is fine but claiming that he should not write on the US issue is pure garbage.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, this is an uber-capitalist country and the policy makers until the first crash in 1929, did not pay much attention to the issues that affected the common person. Since then, while the top 70% of the system still capitalist, the bottom 30% has been more socialistic. With social programs like the social security, Healthcare and the Medicare etc., a good number of US citizens are covered in the social net thru ideas that were first advanced by the socialist.

It has sort of become mandatory for the companies to provide the Healthcare benefits to its employees. Though there is no legal requirement to do that. GM introduced Healthcare, after the US government put a freeze on increase in salaries in the 40s. To go around that restriction, GM introduced health care benefit to attract people to work for it. Since then, every US Corporation has been using this as a fringe benefit or a part of the overall benefit package. Over the years like the Social security or the Medicare, Healthcare too has become an entitlement. With the politics as it is today, it is hard for any political party to go against the entitlements. Recently, we saw President Bush’s attempt to partly privatize the social security got burned by the people despite being a progressive and beneficial idea.

The income range for poverty differs based on the number of people in the family but the current benchmark is around 19K for a family of four. There are definitely families out there that don’t make this much money. They are mostly in rural areas with biggest concentration in the south and the Midwest (percentage wise).

Can a family of four survive in 19k annual income? I would say it would be hard and no matter how hard they work; chances of increasing their income are fairly low. We also need to understand that a good number of people on less than 19K income are the retirees or the widows who are living on the minimum social security benefit which is perhaps around $600 a month now. Though based on income alone, they may appear poor but they own, in most likely cases, their homes mortgage free and live in areas where cost of living is low. Some are also supported by their families financially.

Then there is another class. These are blue color independent workers and small business owners, who routinely under report their income. Some report their incomes so low that they actually qualify for the earned income credit. Despite their having more than adequate income, on the books they appear poor and show up in the government statistics.

This is becoming a long post but my point is that perhaps the US poverty numbers don’t reflect the actual situation out there and we need to look at all numbers with some objectivity rather than weaving exaggerated tales of some success in driving a truck or having sex in Bama.

Note to Asadi:

You are the moderator here and it is not necessary for you to reply to all posts. You should ignore irrelevant posts and personal attacks.

Lets just cool down guys!

hamidm #56 beating on masadi is like beating a dead mule - the guy is even more stubborn and immune to reason than a live mule. but if this form of entertainment works for you - go for it. :-)

as for the ``truth``, the truth is that the indians on chowk are as f!ked up as masadi. the truth is that cab driving is a perfectly respectable job in the US, and the constant berating of ``pakis`` as cab-drivers by indian propagandists on chowk (and that is all these single-string players are) says nothing about those fine cab-driving gentlemen :-). It speaks volumes, though, about the shi!tty caste-ridden environment that is hard-wired in these freaks. and the truth is that regardless of the constant indian propaganda on chowk, there are plenty of hindus and sikhs who drive cabs as well in the US. all you have to do is take a break from the internet and check out the streets of NY e.g.

Re: # 56 hamidm
[...if 11 million illegal immigrants can find work, why can`t they ?...]

That`s what I never understood.... people migrate over ten thousand miles[from india/pak/china]..... don`t even speak the language and within a few years end up owning houses and what not.... and yet we keep hearing how the inner city folks ``never get a chance``.... how the dice is loaded against them... where as - all they have to do is just travel ten miles outside their stinking neighborhood and start working for a honest living....

I mean - where is the disconnect?....

Re: # 61

aslam,

.... actually most of them - the good ones- do end up here after a few years of bumming for the nhs in uk ......

Re: # 59

masadi,

.... be honest now ......do you know any ``poor`` person who is not a single mother, a drug addict, mentally deranged or simply lazy ? ........

#58 by hamidm2 on April 3, 2006 7:19am PT
i would have thought they would know the opportunities in us &canada, i wonder why they don`t go there, in uk now white european come first.

Re: # 59

Masadi. I asked you a simple question.. if you don`t want to answer it, you can say so, but dont pretend to be a joker that you are. It is so easy to see thru your hollowness. You have no substance.

#57 Kulharee, <<< #57 by Kulharee on April 3, 2006 7:11am PT
Bismailla Irahman Iraheem

Masadi Sahib

Asalam Lakum >>>

walikum salam, now since you have nothing to contribute related to the post, may I suggest you and Mr. hamidm (whose new posts are filled with the old bs platitudes that circumvent all reason and reality regarding the poor in the US) move run along and busy yourselves with your latte drinking or whatever the hell else it is you do to keep yourselves ignorantly numb about this society.

Re: # 55

aslam mian,


.... send those poor docs to america - if they can pass the usmle they should have no trouble finding a job........ if not, they can always drive a cab in ny or chicago and make a darn good living ..........

Bismailla Irahman Iraheem

Masadi Sahib

Asalam Lakum.

Have you ever thought about going back to your own rich country where women are not allowed basic freedoms such as driving. May be your services are needed more in your own homeland of the Quran and Sunnah of Prophet Mohammad Salalawalalawasalam (PBUH). Trust me, no one in the west pays attention to some unknown molvi with a diploma from some unknown paper mill with no clue about anything. Brother Ranjeet is right, you have no clue.

What makes you so sure that the stats that you are quoting are not manipulated by the US Elite? Where did you say that you go to school?

Best wishes for spring,

Khuda Hafiz and Jazak allah

Re: # 52


sorry tahmed, the truth slipped out :) ....... you must admit that pakis (punjabis in particular) are a little slow on the uptake ! ...... but on the brighter side - we have managed to capture the taxi market in all major cities in this country ........ and that is nothing to scoff at - a ny city medallion went for more than 350K last year and i know a chaudary from gujarat who owns eight of them ! .......... between the paki punjabis (14%) and the sardar jis (11%) we drive 25% of the cabs in ny city - unfortunately the russian mafia controls the bulk of the medallions (that`s what my cabbie friends tell me) ......

...... the problem i have with masadi`s nonsense is that regardless of all the numbers he bandies around i don`t know a single - not one - person who is ``poor`` ......... i am not denying that there are no poor folks in the mountains of appalachia and the jungles of the inner cities, but we all know why - these folks don`t have the incentive to go out there and work for a decent living as long as the welfare check, the ssi check and the food stamps keep them in beer and chips .......... if 11 million illegal immigrants can find work, why can`t they ?............... the answer to the ``poverty`` problem is to put the welfare mamas to work instead of taking the ``surplus``, as masadi suggests, and buying them twinkies and paying for their nails .......... and if bubba from tennesse wants to get his teeth fixed, he should stop tinkering with his truck and cousin beth and come down from the hills to pick cotton or pluck a banjo and the grand ole opry ...............

who would have thought there would be soup kitchens in uk

3,000 Indian doctors left jobless in EU-friendly UK

Vijay Dutt

London, February 6, 2006



















Indian doctors, who come to Britain in search of cushy jobs and a better life have lately found that life is not that rosy after all. Out of nearly 4,000 Asian doctors who came here recently, 3,000 from India and 800 from Pakistan, a majority is said to be struggling.
Quite a few have run out of money and with no employment prospects in sight, they are considering going back home.
A newspaper had published a photograph of unemployed overseas doctors queuing up outside the Sri Mahalakshmi temple in East London for free meals. Many are working, anonymously, in restaurants while the lucky few are working as assistants in pathology laboratories.
Dr Shiv Pandey, a senior doctor from Liverpool and an executive member of the British Medical Council, had campaigned for these unemployed doctors and even went to India to acquaint New Delhi of their plight. He said there was no hope for the new doctors to get jobs despite the fact that Britain has a shortage of medical practitioners. A few seniors also complain of racism.
At the last count, there were over 6,000 overseas doctors who had come to Britain in the past five years in response to calls by the National Health Service (NHS) for foreign medical staff. They hoped to find jobs after passing the Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board Test (PLAB) - a mandatory requirement for all immigrant doctors. But most of them are still unemployed.
The government earns a lot of money from the PLAB test, also held in India, and so holds them regularly. Most doctors come to Britain hoping for the kind of success their predecessors achieved in the 60s and 70s. Until recently, around 30 per cent of GPs in the NHS were Asian, most of them from India.
But as Dr Sisir Ray, who came here in 1966 and is a consultant at a Harley Street clinic, put it, the situation has changed. Preference is now given to doctors from the European Union and since its enlargement, a large number of them continue to come here. They do not have to appear for PLAB either.
Most senior consultants agreed with Dr Ray that young Indian doctors must be made aware of reality. Not long ago, the Health Secretary had said that those who pass the PLAB were free to come to Britain but there were no job guarantees.

Re: # 52

Ooh - closet mullah32 is angry... indian b@stadrs are flinging dirt at him, and he don`t like that one bit.....