Media Spin and the Hidden Poverty in America

It is simple to see: take the billions supposedly spent on the poor; divide that amount by the number of the poor. If the government gave this sum to each of the poor, they would be rich.

Chenab my friend, soon this thread is going to be relegated to the Chowk graveyard, so might I suggest that you collect your posts, compose an article and then we can discuss all you want, with input from others as well. IT would be quite fruitful.

I wont disappoint you however let me answer point #1 and the last point of your concerns for now

<<< a) The implication that intelligentsia is a sole custodian of objective reality that is denied to the passive ``masses`` is itself elitist. >>>

I don`t think that is the case. Give an advanced bureaucratic/capitalist society, most people have their lives and aspirations conditioned from on high. Independant though is nearly completely circumscribed. In this atmosphere, the intellectuals have the ability to transcend that structure and look at the invisible strings held by the puppet masters (the elite) that guide the movements of the masses.

<<< 6) Lastly, and again a repetition from earlier post, have you been engaged in your life in any such endeavor to ``separate from structures of power and joining the masses`` and to correct the flaws within the movements? >>>

According to the criteria assigned by this society, I am a loser alright (though I think differently, being able to transcend the moronic life that the masses have been forced into is no ``loss``) regarding wealth, job or access to power or social networks. I am effectively seperated from all structures of power as well as the corporate economy. All I can do is to try to reach the masses through various forum, and the movements they are involved in, and I do that to the best of my ability

In post #113, I had posed questions to your following statement:

``The solution lies in the intellegensia fixing their moral default by withdrawing from the structures of power in which they are hired hands and linking with the masses. I see no other solution.``

First of all, I have my own critique of many aspects of social movements and political indeologies (although I am cognizant that a movement has as many ideas and opportunites as the people it is composed of) that I had mentioned earlier. However, your essentialist statements of all movements (and yes, there are movement challenging the underlying structures!), including many current worker movements (that are bridging global solidarity, non-wage labor and indigenous labor) seems to be frozen in imagination or hugely ill-informed of dynamic evolution of movements presently. For this behemoth of a topic, summarily rejected by you as even worth considering, I will like to return at a different time and space.

I feel need for elaboration of your observation:
<<>>
a) The implication that intelligentsia is a sole custodian of objective reality that is denied to the passive ``masses`` is itself elitist.
b) If the agency of social movements to bring a liberating change is compromised by their propensity to be co-opted, how do the intelligenstia gain that agency when most of the ivory tower intellectuals are themselves spawns of accumulation of wealth and imperialism inherent in their institutions.
3) I believe you partially answered the previous question by suggesting that intelligentsia separate themselves from structures of power. What a wonderful idea! What mechanism would allow that - joining a social movement? Should the intelligenstia consider a crude practice of ``proletarinaization`` followed by many ``not perfect`` labor unions, i.e., joining working class professions to become part of the movement and thus benefit their friends by knowledge they think they have? If so, do have you examples of erstwhile progressive intellectuals doing that? You cannot neatly separate intellectual life from pratical life of individuals since both are informed and modified by each other.
4) And since many of the intelligentsia allegedly receive a profound knowledge of injustice through liberal academic programs, what can they do to ensure that the vast majority of people in the world also get the opportunity to go to universities? Should we wait for them to descend in the masses and launch a utopian system of equality or fairness for all (hopefully, if they have credibiltiy within the masses), or should we pursue even imperfect liberal measures for fairer opportunites for education and health as tactics to build a critical mass for a longterm strategy to topple the system?
5) Should the intelligentsia consider option for encouraging and joining organic intellectuals, that don`t depend on elite institutions to thrive on. Do you have any examples for such intellectuals?
6) Lastly, and again a repetition from earlier post, have you been engaged in your life in any such endeavor to ``separate from structures of power and joining the masses`` and to correct the flaws within the movements?

In addition to #111, let me clarify that I only use Chomsky`s media model, and I do not use him as a source on anything else. Chossudovsky is an economist and I find his work on the IMF/WB and the Third World to be well documented, other than that I don`t use any of his other work, Zinn is a historian and I use him for historical refereces not social movements. The only person whose work I use on understanding society and social structure, besides the classical theorists is C.W. Mills, and his standard work on organized labor in the US and its effectiveness or lack thereof is in tune with my conclusions and bourne out empirically by the shape of labor in current day US (which is contrary to Marxist aspirations in an advanced capitalist society), which brings me to Parenti who is a classical Marxist, a good tabulator of events but gets carried away by his ideology.

#110 Chenab <<< Your insight must be a monumental blow to your friend Howard Zinn who wrote about 800 pages narrating what he considered landmark and empowering social movements in the U.S. And I wonder what compelled your other frequent references (Chossudovsky, Parenti, Chomsky) to get arrested or lose jobs for ``fatalist``/co-optable anti-war movement? >>>

And at the end of it all, what have those movements achieved? They have perpetuated a system of tyranny, the largest ones among them, organized labor has been coopted and has lost all independant power to influence anything. Americans have got a few crumbs like the 8 hour working day etc but what has happened to the rest of the world under the system that has remained intact?

People who study social movements (unlike the above mentioned good folk) know the importance of resource mobilization in effectiveness of movements. The elite have all movements out resourced and so movements are coopted unless they seek changing structure and nothing short of it as the platform. Such movements would be physically and militarily attacked by this elite. The solution lies in the intellegensia fixing their moral default by withdrawing from the structures of power in which they are hired hands and linking with the masses. I see no other solution.

Re: # 109 <<< Social movements are usually coopted by the powerful by giving small time concessions. They are quite useless in creating revolution type consciousness and have usually worked within the given social strcuture, >>>

Your insight must be a monumental blow to your friend Howard Zinn who wrote about 800 pages narrating what he considered landmark and empowering social movements in the U.S. And I wonder what compelled your other frequent references (Chossudovsky, Parenti, Chomsky) to get arrested or lose jobs for ``fatalist``/co-optable anti-war movement?

#108 Chenab <<< Yet most convincing books, speeches or documentaries alone have not converted the masses >>>

Neither did I claim that they have or did but an intelligensia that links the masses, converting them into thinking publics while informing them as well as the powers that be of the consequences of their actions or inactions is indispensible. Social movements are usually coopted by the powerful by giving small time concessions. They are quite useless in creating revolution type consciousness and have usually worked within the given social strcuture, they are more akin to private solutions that have not worked, similar to what I suggest above.

Re: # 107

- Attainment of power is precisely my point. Other than wealth, organizing masses does shift the power relationships. Thus once one is conscious, the onus is on organizing people, otherwise one can be reduced to a position of armchair theoretician.
- Raising consciousness of the people is a laudable project. Yet most convincing books, speeches or documentaries alone have not converted the masses, or even when they momentarily moved the masses, they did not translate into lasting social movement. There is an art and science in organizing which is unique to theorizing, and if done effectively can be much more persuasive and lasting in bringing social change. Based on your strong religious convictions, I would assume you could be an asset for faith based/Alinsky model of organizing within mosques.
- Your analysis of poverty is wonderful. Yet many in your audience at Chowk are not the one needing to break their shackles but rather driven for their own race for the status quo. The poor masses don`t have to be convinced of injustice (if they get an access to radical literature on the internet or college campuses in the first place). They need action, and especially committment from their elite/highly educated sympathizers to join their organizations under a grassroots leadership. This is again a point where many sophisticated academic progressives act gingerly.
- A system that lays importance to people over profit is a wonderful idea. Yet one has to be aware of inherent contradictions within many progressive systems that propose to do actually that. There are many anti-capitalist strategies that are insensitive and sometimes an assault to working class or developing countries. Policies like nationalisation of resources may yield some benefits but also reveal many drawbacks like alienation of workers (ironically what Marx criticised capitalism for). Many Marxist organization also failed to recognise the entirety of race, gender, environmental injustice; eagerly trapped themselves in the hegemonic national identity; or failed to imagine non wage (home based) labor or indigenous communities` work as worthy of being organized through labor unions. The sectarianism within left, eurocentric bias of much of the left ideology, unwillingness to talk on Israel, or tokenistic response to racism has split movements including the anti-war movement in the recent past. These are some of the disturbing issues with alphabet soup of global left that broad critiques of anti-capitalism don`t address, and thus often fail to propose a practical way of organizing.
- Literature from academia is useful yet not the entire picture. Literature from the grassroots (subaltern studies, writings of slaves, or literature from grassroots organizers) can be much more insightful about the ground reality. Some suggestions for such books are:

A Movement of Movements, edited by Tom Mertes
We Are Everywhere: Notes from nowhere
Globalize Liberation, edited by David Solnit

Manzoor Cheema

#105 ballukhan the ignoramus writes

<<< It is a great idea for the western countries to stop giving any aid to these Islamic Republics........it would certainly help the mullahs to regain their ``hegemonic`` power over the people as it happened in Iran....................
>>>>

Deceptively or ignorantly he forgets that US aid to Iran stopped flowing after the mullahs not before and so their coming to power was independant of the aid business.

Chenab writes in #106

<<< Many unfortunate people you empathized with do not have the luxury to read such fine essay, and may need immidiate steps to pay the bills. What are the concrete steps to be taken to alleviate the massive problem? >>>

I do not hold a power position in the current social structure so I am helpless as you are and the majority are to cause short term change. However by making people conscious, we can certainly stride towards changing the social structure, to one that places human need fulfilment before profit maximization. By that I mean basic human needs of all have to be met before anyone can lay claim to any surplus, whatever label you want to apply to it is fine by me. The first step of course is consciousness. If the masses are distracted, seperated, confused, as is the hallmark of a capitalistic political economy, they will be kept on the margins in a happily deceived condition with private help, like non profits etc keeping them alive but on the brink. Once enough people become conscious of their misery and its causes and refuse to be part of such a social structure is when it will start to crumble. Instead of instant solutions (bandaids that capitalism offers), the solutions are more long term and are very easy. I point you to a couple of articles:

1. Global Apartheid & the World economic order http://ghetto.rationalreality.com
2. Several articles here (http://articles.asadi.org)

Re: # 103

<>

I agree about the extent of poverty and inequality in the U.S. and the rest of the world. I still am curious to know (as an activist) about what may be the alternative (or appear to be) and what concrete steps need to be taken to realize that alterative? Without that suggestion, overanalysis of the problem could lead to paralysis in term of action. Also, theory is good sometimes, and not when the house maybe on fire.
Here are some of my questions (I mention authors of some school of thoughts in parentheses): - are all forms of capitalism bad or a case could be made of capitalist model in many Western European countries and Canada? Whose definition of capitalism do you use - Adam Smith (which may appear pretty leftist ideology in today`s rehotric), Wallerstein (endless accumulation of capital), neo-liberal ideology (Milton Friedman).
Regarding alternatives: do you recommend nationalisation of all pubic resources as followed in certain commuist countries, mixture of private enterpreneurs and public welfare for the poor, anarcho-syndicalism/participatory economy (Michael Albert)/voluntary simplicity, capitalist development before maturing to socialist state (classical two-step revolution), or global south`s resurgence for their share of the pie (Walden Bello), etc.
Many unfortunate people you empathized with do not have the luxury to read such fine essay, and may need immidiate steps to pay the bills. What are the concrete steps to be taken to alleviate the massive problem? Joining unions? Counter-globalization movement? Gender equality to topple exploitation of female labor? Are these movements applicable in both affluent and deprived communities?
Have you been part of any such organizations/movements?

It is a great idea for the western countries to stop giving any aid to these Islamic Republics........it would certainly help the mullahs to regain their ``hegemonic`` power over the people as it happened in Iran....................

#103 by masadi

....the relative deprivation (comapred to what they see around them), much higher in the US ....

Solid point. I fully agree.

My impression of USA is that you may have two cars, a large screen-tv, mortgaged house, and lots of other leased stuff. But basically you live to pay the bills that arrive at the end of the month as well as keep up with the Joneses. By the time you manage to eventually become a `free-hold` owner of all this stuff, life may already have passed you by. Not everyone can cope with this acquisition-race, and many will naturally drop-out due to disillusionment.

In America, Its a dog`s life if you don`t have a couple of million in the bank.

Zeemax in #94

<< masadi,

I have with my own eyes seen a lot of `poor` drive into the gas station, fill up, and trade-in their food-stamps for pints of whiskey from the liquor store! >>>

Subjective observation, not based on a non random sample of the poor. Those who have done actual research on this have found no significant different in alcohol abuse among the poor and those above the poverty level


<<< Your threshold of $19k for a family of 4 is a lot of money in a country where a big mac costs about the same as Pakistan on a purchasing power parity basis, and gas is HALF the price. Did you know that? >>>

It is not my threshold, I rely on what the offical cut off point is, and don`t assume that just because that is the cut off point all the poor are at the top point, on average they make half of the cut off point which results in a very mean kind of existance, even at the cut off point, it is hand to mouth for a family of 4, that is why a large pecent of the US are in debt, with most of the debt comprising necessities. Yes, poverty in Pakistan is larger but not as large as the different in GNI per capita, and what makes the poverty of the poor worse in the US, like I mentioned before is the relative deprivation (comapred to what they see around them), much higher in the US and the family breakdown situation where most of the poor are single women bringing up children on their own without any sharing of resources or help social or material.

Kulharee writes in #100 <<< This article doesn’t make any recommendations as to what can be done to tackle the poverty issue >>>

Of course it does, chaning the structure of the economic institution to one that places human need fulfilment before profit maximization, there is no other solution to a society wide problem than to change the structure of the institution that is causing it.

Kulharee <<< think, USA should completely cut off all economic and other Aid to developing world to alleviate poverty at home. It should also deport leeches what suck on its system >>>

If the US cuts off economic aid it will lose its hegemonic power linked to that aid (which is one of the lowest percent of GDP wise compared to other developed countries). It will be a blessing to the developing world, they will lose the shackles. More power to your recommendation. As far as the ``leeches``, those few that you describe as leeches live in the most miserable conditions, doubling and tripling up while working their butts off to add greater surplus, per person than the fat white natives (one of whom you married apparently) that are a drain to the social service sector of this country.

Re: # 96 hamidmtoo {``..... no, we are not prepared to pay more taxes so that we can live miserable lives like the british ! ...... no offense, but the uk is like a third world country compared to the usa .... ``}

No offense taken...!! Having lived on both sides of the water I`d like to add a word.

My oncoming karma tried to prevent running over my dogma, but skidded and hit an oak tree. My dogma now pisses over my karma`s smoking wreck.

Winters in the UK suck big time. It`s April but my legs have goosebump while my rear cheeks are numb with damp and cold. The only way I stay warm and comfortable is if I stay indoor. But I am paying for my sins and I must remain active and fit to continue to commit more sins. It is hard being a hedonist.

America is a hedonist`s paradise. Twenty four years in America were mostly a bliss until the first bite of that forbidden apple. I now toil in damp mud four days a week and despite the best that polar-tech can offer, I crave the sun shine and the 70 degree (F) days of the Gulf of Mexico coast with its dunes blending into gently sloping white sand beaches.

The UK differs from America in that its half the size for twice the price. But this is temporary. It should get worse. It is further and faster to fall for the US as it is for the UK. The agriculture on this misty island is increadible. It is still possible, though by no means easy. But it keeps the arteries dilated and the waist under control. That`s good for the ticker and the pecker alike. At the half century mark these are high priority personal security considerations.

In the end, its a choice. As for the taxman... its a mugs game. The net confiscation by the governments that an individual suffers is almost identicle on both shores. The theoritical risk to self-sovreignty therefore is almost the same, but the British are clumsier, so one stands a better chance. It`s tough to be a hedonist.

Long Live the Queen.

...SR

#100 also the US should conscript Masadi in the inner city peace corps so he can put his money where his mouth is. :-)

This article doesn’t make any recommendations as to what can be done to tackle the poverty issue. I think, USA should completely cut off all economic and other Aid to developing world to alleviate poverty at home. It should also deport leeches what suck on its system while glorifying jihad and other communistic nonsense.

How come 5 million undocumented workers are willing to do anything to stay in the US? I guess they want to become poorer.

The author had raised an important issue i.e. poverty in USA. I dont see why everyone has to beat him up for that.

Even for those who have suburbanized their lives completely, Katrina had revealed this Poverty problem which is real and if complacent can increase significantly...

Now, to the issue of whether USA should stop the war on Islamic fundamentalism to work only on this Poverty issue, the answer is definitely NO

Thanks,
Avkrishna

#97 maybe we can find a welfare queen for masadi as well. then he could accompany her every month as she does her rounds to leech off the system and, as mr. aslam approvingly notes, could also claim later on that ``he hasn`t done days work since``. :-)

#96 by hamidm2 on April 4, 2006 5:28am PT
hamid mian
one of my cousin lived in new york brooklyn in the 90`s he was begging us to find him brit-paki kuri so we found him one he came to uk as `mangy` the girl had a house of her own some guys have all the luck ghar bi melay aur ghar wali bi, he has 3 kids now he hasn`t done days work since.

Re: # 95

aslam mian,


....... no, we are not prepared to pay more taxes so that we can live miserable lives like the british ! ......... no offense, but the uk is like a third world country compared to the usa ....

masadi
uk spends 3 times more per head in dollar terms on social security than US, then taxes are high here, are us taxpayers prepared to pay higher taxes, because at the end of the day money has to come from somewhere

masadi,

I have with my own eyes seen a lot of `poor` drive into the gas station, fill up, and trade-in their food-stamps for pints of whiskey from the liquor store!

As I said before on some board, `poor` in Singapore means having to go to Pattaya for vacation insted of Switzerland.

Your threshold of $19k for a family of 4 is a lot of money in a country where a big mac costs about the same as Pakistan on a purchasing power parity basis, and gas is HALF the price. Did you know that?

#92 einsteinwallah writes <<< Poverty percent rate in 20s is high. You would need army, dictatorship and censorship just to effectively enforce segregation >>>

I am sure you can do better than the objection you have come up with. The official poverty figures are calculated as adequate food times three, the real figures would include things like rent, actual fuel costs, health care, proper education etc which easily doubles the official figures. Then, all US cities are hypersegregated where as fact African Americans and Hispanics are segregated from whites (due to several institutional mechanisms, unfortunately your intelligence goes only till the medieval times where force was the only mechanism of segregation)

From article:

[If we use ``real`` measures of poverty, based upon average incomes in the US and a current basket of goods, including health and childcare, this percentage is actually double that of the official figures (many private studies and models based on them have documented this).]

And what is this ``real`` measure of poverty? Let me make my question clear. Let us first look at another quote from the article:

[Stating that poverty figures in the US under Clinton in 1996 were at 13.7 % of the population while now they are at 12.7%, he concludes that America is looking after its poor by, spending a ``massive amount`` ($368 billion was the number he quoted) even in the midst of a ``war on terror``.]

So was the figure of 13.7% also ``actually`` double if we use the ``real`` measure of poverty? You see my problem? You cannot double 12.7% and then compare it to 13.7% and then argue that it has increased. In fact no discussion is possible unless you reproduce in these pages details about this real measure.

Poverty percent rate in 20s is high. You would need army, dictatorship and censorship just to effectively enforce segregation.

Masadi Sahib,

(yes, I still hold a job, and have held one ever since I arrived in this godforsaken country, )

What is a good Muslim like you doing in a godforsaken country. There are so many Muslim paradises- IRP, Iran, KSA and if you are partial towards godforsaken paradises there are always North Korea, Cuba etc.

Regards

Big mess you all have created on here for me to go through. Perhaphs one quote from HP sahib captures it all:

<<< 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 >>>

All through these various posts by fuzair, tahmed (the df), Zeemax, Hamidm, samosa etc, the real issues are avoided. Are you denying the fact that the official US poverty level, reported by this government, puts 38 million under the poverty line (which is not the UN/World Bank measure of $1 a day that deliberately tries to understate poverty in the ``underdeveloped`` countries, which is apparently lost on Zeemax). Out of this 38 million most are way below the threshold of $19k for a family of 4 as revealed by `living wage analysis`, which puts the living wage above $8 an hour based on this threshold while the minimum wage is under $6 (and these number of the very poor cannot be explained as underreporting of income either, as they stay more or less constant year to year, except the number has increased by over 19% during Bush`s presidency). When the USDA, puts the number of people who suffer from hunger at some point in a year or are at risk of food insecurity at around the same number 38 million a year, these damn fools deny that and say the poor are eating cheetos and watching cable TV. That is the most ignorant observation I have heard and then they try to use research by a dubious right wing Heritage Foundation article that deliberately fudges the numbers.

So, if poor households have two Tvs in the US, how many meals will those two Tvs buy if need be? And if one person in that ``household`` has to work and needs a car that takes up a huge chunk of his income leaving very little for all else can he or she do given a public transport system next to nothing in most US cities? Or if the ``household`` cancels their $40 a month cable subscription how many meals will that buy to make them ``non-poor``. These are all distraction indicators, they are not social indicators of well being. The fact is that the poor given all indicators, even access to life (since they DIE at three times the rate and suffer from diseases much more than those above the poverty line) suffer tremendously.

Here is an artilce about the Heritage Foundation BS that you copy pasted

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January/February 1999
The Ever-Present Yet Nonexistent Poor


For Heritage`s poverty expert, numbers mean what he says they mean
By Seth Ackerman

As a poverty specialist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector is one of the right-wing media machine`s most prolific pundits. In 1996, the year of the welfare reform debate, he was cited in media outlets an average of more than 15 times a month (Nexis). Rector also feeds a vast network of right-wing talkshow hosts and syndicated columnists who pick up and broadcast his findings. Yet for all his influence, Rector`s work is a mess of misleading statistics and specious arguments all contrived to accomplish a single goal: to cut spending on the poor.

In 1995, Rector testified before Congress that ``since the onset of the War on Poverty, the U.S. has spent over $5.3 trillion on welfare. But during the same period, the official poverty rate has remained virtually unchanged.`` Rector`s figure--which he soon updated to $5.4 trillion--is grossly misleading: It includes huge amounts of spending not directed towards families on welfare.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated that approximately 70 percent of the federal spending that Rector classified as ``welfare`` went to households that did not receive Aid to Families With Dependent Children, the core welfare program in recent decades. Instead, most of the money went to non-AFDC households with elderly, disabled or ``medically needy`` individuals, as well as students and low-income workers--not groups most people would associate with ``welfare.``

Even if Rector`s $5.4 trillion figure were accurate, it would need to be put in perspective. Spending on ``national defense`` since 1964 overshadows even Rector`s inflated ``welfare`` number, exceeding $8 trillion at the time of Rector`s testimony--and that figure does not include spending on intelligence, foreign military aid and other military-related items.

Despite its flimsiness, Rector`s charge echoed through the media. The Los Angeles Times published a column by Rector (7/11/95) making the $5.4 trillion claim. He repeated the figure on a PBS NewsHour panel (12/26/95). Tony Snow picked it up in a column in USA Today (9/25/95) and Linda Bowles published it in a Chicago Tribune column (7/31/96). Syndicated columnist Walter Williams then placed it in the Cincinnati Enquirer (11/26/95) and Dallas Morning News (12/9/95), among other papers. The figure reappeared in the Arizona Republic this year in a news article about welfare fraud (4/19/98).

Erasing Hunger

Despite his 1995 claim before Congress that 30 years of welfare spending had not reduced poverty, Rector has at the same time argued for years that poverty has fallen so steeply since the War on Poverty that virtually no one in America today is really poor (see Footnote*). This argument was enunciated by Rector in a 1990 Heritage Foundation ``Backgrounder`` titled ``How `Poor` Are America`s Poor?`` and Rector has updated the paper several times since then--always around the September release of the Census Bureau`s annual poverty report. Rector`s report is given a different name each time it`s released--this year`s version was called ``The Myth of Widespread American Poverty``--but the content is virtually identical from one year to the next.

Rector writes in the 1998 report that ``despite frequent charges of widespread hunger in the United States, 84 percent of the poor report their families have `enough` food to eat; 13 percent state they `sometimes` do not have enough to eat, and 3 percent say they `often` do not have enough to eat.`` But his figures are taken from the ``food sufficiency`` portion of the 1988-1991 Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is considered by many researchers to be an inadequate measure of hunger. He fails to mention in his report the authoritative 1995 Food Security Survey, performed by the Census Bureau on behalf of the USDA, which was designed to improve upon the old ``food sufficiency`` measure.

The Census study found that in addition to the 14 percent of poor individuals found to be hungry that year, another 25 percent of the poor were classified as ``food insecure.`` That means those households had a ``limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.`` For example, 81 percent of respondents in households classified as ``food insecure`` said that sometimes in the past 12 months the food that they bought ``just didn`t last`` and they ``didn`t have money to get more.`` 63 percent said they could sometimes provide ``only a few kinds of low-cost food to feed the children`` because they ``were running out of money to buy food.``

Nationwide, 13.8 percent of Americans, poor and non-poor, were either hungry or food insecure--a number identical to the 13.8 percent poverty rate that year. In other words, while it is true that not every person counted as officially poor lacked food, for every officially poor person who didn`t lack food, another (officially ``non-poor``) person did.

Curiously, despite his omission of the Census Bureau`s more recent findings, Rector was not unaware of them; he refers to the Census Bureau`s study in a footnote. One can only wonder how Rector happened to come across the newer report while leaving out its salient findings.

The Wealthy Poor

Rector makes much of the fact that many poor people own cars. ``Seventy percent of `poor` households own a car; 27 percent own two or more cars.`` But Rector does not stop to consider that many of these households might need cars to get to their jobs. In fact, the 69.7 percent of poor households that Rector reports as having one or more cars in 1995 roughly mirrors the 61.4 percent of poor households with one or more workers in that year.

Rector has claimed that ``poor Americans live in larger houses or apartments`` than ``the general population in Western Europe.`` Presumably as evidence of this assertion, he included in this year`s report a chart titled ``International Comparison of Living Space.`` However, what the chart actually compares is the average floor space per person in certain European cities, such as Paris and Athens, with the average floor space in all poor U.S. households--22 percent of whom live in rural areas and 33 percent of whom live in suburbs. (Even with such an egregious bias, his numbers are underwhelming: The mostly rural and suburban homes of the U.S. poor are only about one-fourth larger than the average home in notoriously crowded Paris.)

The intent of Rector`s dubious number-crunching was to make his point that ``there is a huge gap between the `poor` as defined by the Census Bureau and what most ordinary Americans consider to be poverty.`` He was more right than he knew. That same year, the National Opinion Research Center conducted a poll of ``ordinary Americans`` asking the question: ``What amount of weekly income would you use as a poverty line for a family of four (husband, wife and two children) in this community?`` The official poverty line for such a family that year was $14,654 a year, or $282 weekly. Sixty-four percent of respondents suggested a figure greater than $282.

The following year, the Center for the Study of Policy Attitudes conducted a poll in which respondents were told the current poverty line and asked whether they thought the line should be ``set higher, set lower, or kept about the same.`` Fifty-eight percent said the poverty line should be higher and 32 percent said it should be kept about the same. Only 7 percent said it should be lower. The respondents who thought the poverty line should be changed suggested an average level of $19,400--more than $4,600 higher than the actual level that year. (Given the percentage of ``non-poor`` people who have trouble buying enough food, this seems like a more realistic standard.)

All these flaws did not keep Rector`s poverty ``research`` from being taken seriously by various media outlets--not just by Rush Limbaugh (9/25/98). His most recent paper prompted a news article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (9/25/98) and columns in such papers as the Kansas City Star (9/26/98), Christian Science Monitor (10/7/98) and Chicago Tribune (11/25/98).

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[FOOTNOTE:] * Rector tries to reconcile these arguments by cautioning that ``higher material living standards should not be regarded as a victory for the War on Poverty. Living conditions were improving dramatically and poverty was dropping sharply long before the War on Poverty began.`` But if these ``dramatically`` improved living conditions did not come from government programs, where had they come from? Certainly not from an improved job market; in January 1995, when Rector presented his testimony to Congress, jobs were neither better-paying nor more plentiful than they had been two decades earlier. The unemployment rate was a half-point higher than in 1973 and real hourly wages for the bottom tenth of workers were 12 percent lower.

---

(end copy paste)

---

Then in #68 fuzair throws out the term ``lumpen proletariat`` wihtout understanding what it means, trying to justify this poverty using Marx, absurd nonsense. People don`t find jobs because jobs are not being produced by this economy. Further that sob Dinesh D`souza`s ``culture of poverty`` reused argument holds no water whatsoever. Look around the globe people share different cultures and different work ethics yet they are poor regardless of that. The economy doesn`t work based on ``culture``. You are trying to blame the poor for their own poverty because they don`t ``work``. What if there are no jobs being produced for them, what if the jobs they work at pay a below living wage? These are all facts and the fact is that the poor, the vast majority including the homeless among them hold jobs and do work. The rest are a few paychecks away (including the non poor given the net-worth nature of Americans) from being homeless.

Tahmed in his usual nonsense fashion claims that $10K can make a person live a ``comfortable`` life in the US. You need to reexamine the poverty level defined by this government which is calculated by multiplying a food basket necessary for survival times three. Even that is unrealistic since rent and fuel together amount to more than food times three, and nevermind the over 80 million that are are without basic health care at any point during two years, are at brink of falling below the poverty level if even a small ailment like apendicitis were to affect them. And the damn fool blames the mexican border crossers for the disparity in the gini index which shows near total inequality in distribution of income in the US (what percent of the income goes to these minimum wage earners is what he does not ask and what he ignores is the percent of the income that goes to the very top which is the REAL reason why there is near total inequality.

This system is a total disgrace as far as human rights and fulfilling the basic needs of its citizens goes. A total disgrace, an inhumane disgrace. Now, if I have missed answering any of your concerns rather than three weeks later you make a post stating that ``he is wrong because he didnt address my post``, state is clearly now and don`t repeat your nonsense about your gardener making $100K a year and other bs like how many poor people I know. I know no rich people that means, wealth does not exist in the US ! Hamidm reasoning at its best.

If something is not done about Medical Insurance coverage

in the United States soon, the actual poverty level is bound

to shoot up.

There are many under-employed and unemployed people here

plus the ``Working Poor`` with no health coverage and waiting

for something to go wrong.

and now to seriously beat a dead mule (any resemblance to the author of this article is strictly coincidental):

Most economists agree that $10,000 per capita income is enough to provide a comfortable life. After that, relative poverty takes over - that is, if you are $10,000 per capita fellow in a country with a $1,000 per capita average, you feel on top of the world. however, if you are a $10,000 per captita fellow in a country with a $20,000 per capita average, you feel poor.

Also, philosophers like Masadi ignore the fact that large scale immigration (as in US) is bound to create income inequalities - a Mexican may quadruple his salary by coming swimming across the rio grande to the US, but he will make the gini coefficient (which is a measure of income distribtion) worse in the US.

And of course there are tons of other things written by other posters more learned than yours truly (not to be confused with Urstruly, please).
anyway, enough of this bs. As I said, I dont expect dead mules to jump up and say ``eureka`` when presented with some reasoning.

jang #86 please dont refer to hamidm as ``others``. That is very rude.

(For the benefit of Serious and Profound Thinkers like Masadi: The above is not meant to be taken seriously.)

And dont just keep repeating the same thing over and over again, ignoring what has been said. That is Masadi`s schtick, not yours!!

(Att: The above is also meant to be taken seriously, but only if you are a desi babu who wouldnt drive a cab if his life depended on it. )

tahmed and others calm down..noone is saying that cabbie is a bad or ill-paying profession..its just that dulles flyer is full of paki cab drivers. its nothing derogatory..hinjus are code-coolies or physicians bangladeshis run 7-11s, somalis are great parking lot attendants, irish are cops, joos are lawyers, and greek run diners..its just the way it is, nothing bad about it.

Masadi,

Try and understand your ailment. Of course, there will be problems with ANY system. We try and try and try. Maybe we will go extinct trying and most probably never achieve across-the-board success. Your worldview, OTOH, comes from `knowing` that there is a system out there that a God kinda entity knows about and we should take the gift of revelation and make it work. Or even if revelations are not explicit, then use our `God-given` abilities to achieve that utopia. But masadi, mairi jaan, do you respect the view and research that informs us that there is no such God entity and no such utopia and `us` is all we have?

Your expectations are coming with this stupid knowledge of `God has the knowledge to know about a great system because he was merciful/powerful enough to make it available`. Suffice is to say that the system is not perfect, but your expectations come from truly idiotic assumptions about reality and metaphysics.

Now do you realize, why Islamists and religionist should not be taken seriously?

masadi:

``If we use ``real`` measures of poverty, based upon average incomes in the US and a current basket of goods, including health and childcare, this percentage is actually double that of the official figures (many private studies and models based on them have documented this).``

Where can I find some of these studies?

`Poor` is 1 dollar a day or below.

Sorry masadi. You`re wrong.

Talking about transition out of poverty, and following on from #80, I did some quick (non rigorous) calculations from the US census data.

Imagine that the age distribution is constant from 1984 to 2004. Assume that poverty in the US is chronic. Then if x% of ALL children are poor, we will expect to see x% of all adults to also be poor. On the other hand, transitory poverty would imply that if x% of all children are poor and y% of all adults are poor then x should be greater than y.

Here is what the census tells us:

Year...................% of people below 18 yrs...........% of people between 18 and 64
1984...................21.5%.....................................11.7%
1994....................21.8%.....................................11.9%
2004.....................17.8%.....................................11.3%


Of course the above is a rough check. It has to be corrected for the actual age distribution, immigration, etc., etc. But still you get a tremendously stark picture. Almost 50% of poor children seem to be escaping poverty!

Re: # 65

tahmed,

...... i agree with you completely, there is absolutely nothing wrong with driving a cab - some of my best friends are limo drivers ....... if you own two limos and drive one of them yourself you can make the same, if not more, money than a code coolie sitting in front of a boob-toob twelve hours a day .......... of course you have to `work` seven days a week but you are home taking a nap when you are not making a run, or you can spend the time hanging out with your buddies at the airport ....... the only down side is that if you get into a bad card game you can loose your day`s earnings in a hurry! .........

............... the irony is that if you can sign up an indian owned sweat shop you can net 5-8000 a month by making a few weekly runs to the airport, loading ten coolies in a crown victoria every weekday morning, unloading them in a corporate parking lot, and then picking them up in the evening to bring them back to their three bedroom apartments where they live and play (all ten of them) ......... if you don`t mind the smell of heeng in the apartment, and can talk the madrasi into a card game, you can also walk away with a few extra bucks .........

Poverty is not the same everywhere. For example take two countries A and B. In A, 10% of the population is poor and the same people remain poor through generations. In B also, 10% of the people are poor. Bur every year (over a 10 year period) a different segment of the population become poor. To understand the second case situation think of it in the following way: only students are poor; once you complete college you are no longer poor. In other words I am differentiating between ``chronic`` and ``temporary poverty``.

It is quite difficult to measure ``chronic`` poverty from census data because this data is anonymous and hence one cannot follow a household through time. Furthermore, the calculation of `chronic`` poverty depends on the definition of the ``poverty line`` and the ``consumption dynamics of households below the poverty line`` (say because of the introduction of new products, birth, death, illness etc). Nevertheless several theoretical measurements exist.

For the US, the most popular sample which traces a set of households over time is the PSID data (Panel study of income dynamics). It started in 1968 with 4802 households. The size of the households have grown to more than double today because of birth, marriage etc. I do not know what is the most recent measure of chronic poverty based on this data. But in 1991, Joan Rodgers and John Rodgers in their paper ``The measurement of chronic and transitory poverty: with application to the United States``, concluded that over the period 1968-1987 two-third of the people below the poverty line faced transitort poverty. In other words, on average a family would expect to escape poverty with probability 2/3 over a 10 year period.

Not too bad.

I do not know of comparable studies for other countries.

#74 no ..i did in the past but in monkey county MD ..but do use the dulles flyer from time to time.

arjun, many F1s work on and off campus..indian engg students work in the computer center or some small engg/software operations ..you can get a work-permit for ``work-experience`` for intern jobs. i have even seen some professors with small consulting bussiness use students ``illegaly`` .. but in that case the pay as well as the work is of good quality and even useful for your resume.

samosa: Please dont confuse masadi with facts and logic. Actually, amend that.

What I mean is, you will have better luck in trying to break through the Great Wall of China using a teaspoon as your tool then you will in breaking through to Stonewall Masadi using mere facts and logic as your tools.

The way media spins information it seems masadi likes to have his own spins. I though agree in general that there is poverty in USA but if you look at this
article one gets a a very different picture of poors in USA compared to poors in other part of world. A lot needs to be done with respect to reducing number of poors in USA.
Following are some points in the article:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

mohar: OK, pal. your 20 campfollower posts are up. Here is the bone I normally toss at you after 20 unsolicited posts from you.

Be sure to read every thing I write diligently, and then make sure you twist it. ha! ha!

Re: # 70 bong

Good one :).... ClosetMullah32 just sits in his dark closet, eyes closed, nostrils flared.... as soon as he smells a hinud - he goes ballistic.... ``indians b@stards are out to get me, these caste-ridden code coolies, hate-mongers, they hate pakis.... pakis are so good people, why do they hate pakis??....``

Jang

Are you living in DC/NoVA area too?....

#39 by masadi on April 2, 2006 7:41pm PT


yes, I still hold a job, and have held one ever since I arrived in this godforsaken country, be it a low paying, hard work, service job, working over 60 hours a week while going to school full time.


I`m assuming the comrade is here on a student visa...Can someone who came here on a student visa confirm this: I thought you couldn`t work more than 20hrs if you are on a student visa..not legally anyway..

His profile says he`s teaching something..

does this all add up?

dullabhatti ji: sirjee, i have nothing against code writers. some of my best friends are code writers. what i am opposed to is this smelly attitude of sniffing upon cab driving as being a ``lower profession``. I have found cab drivers (hindus, muslims, sikhs, blacks, whites) to be perfectly fine, normal human beings trying to earn a living. and I will speak up on their behalf if I have to among these fu!king babus on chowk!!

jang #67 dulles airport cabbies are not all pakistanis, although there are many muslims among them. and the reason is simple - the cab franchise (at least the last time i checked, a couple of years ago) is with an afghan, and presumably he favors muslims. However, DC cabs are often driven by sikh cabbies all over DC (easy to spot by their turbans) and i recall taking cabs driven by hindus as well as pakistanis. so lets keep the facts straight.

the other point i made that you missed was that cab driving is something to be ashamed of only in the mind of someone brought up in a caste-ridden environment, where some forms of honest work are considered shameful. This to my mind is real poverty, this poverty of the mind. The cab driver who makes an honest living is a cut above these clowns, no matter if they wear a suit and call themselves Mo or Joe.

#69
dullabhai, every facet of the human experience is reflected in the Mahabharata. TAhmed is the blind king Dhritarastra who refuses to believe why the Kaurava`s are so vilified, instead he sits on his throne and (if you remember the TV version) goes ...

``Kya ho raha hai, yeh sab kya ho raha hai ...``

#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.....

#51 by tahmed32

[i see we have smelly indians like ranjit (the man who was gloating over the death of he earthquake victims) jumping in to fling mud at pakis.]

For a change, please let go of the insults and educate us as to why you think Ranjit is wrong. You`ve become so predictable that it is amusing some times to see you resort to insults when you have no answers to the uncomfortable questions Indians ask of Pakis.

hamidm #50 ``most indian students (and some pakis)``

the hell with the indians. why are you so deferential to these ba!stards when they come here with only one agenda on their mind - to fling dirt at ``pakis``??

masadi: i see we have smelly indians like ranjit (the man who was gloating over the death of he earthquake victims) jumping in to fling mud at pakis. Now that is real poverty, imho. Now this board is really going to start stinking!!

masadi,

``I used to go to school during the day (full time), work at the college cafetria from 4 to 8pm (7 days a week) and then work at another of your fantastic food establishments from 11pm to 7am and then be back at school at 11am.``

......... i am proud of you !........ but then what happened ?........ you, of all people should know how easy it is to make a decent living in this country - the 11 million illegal mexicans and the thousands of people who line up at american embassies every day testify to that, don`t they ?

......... having said that, i am beginning to see your problem too....... most indian students (and some pakis) figure out in a week or two that working in fine food establishments which have a drive through window is not the quickest path to the american dream - we leave that to mexicans and nicaraguans who don`t speak english .......... now, if you had worked in a restaurant with valet parking you could have made a couple of hundred a night .......... even better, you could have got the federal government to subsidize your education with research grants like most of us did ......... but i take that back - we don`t want the government squandering our money on useless research on poverty and ufo`s...........

Masadi sahib

(It is impossible to smell anything amidst the reprehensible, irrelevant stench of your post that tries to reduce the whole world to an India vs Pakistan contest. With over 90% real poverty in India, I do not think you can claim any credibility pointing your (stinking) comments at anyone )

Ranjit wasn`t the first one to start throwing stones at a more expensive better made glasshouse.

Regards

#46,writes <<< Wake up and smell the coffee. >>>

It is impossible to smell anything amidst the reprehensible, irrelevant stench of your post that tries to reduce the whole world to an India vs Pakistan contest. With over 90% real poverty in India, I do not think you can claim any credibility pointing your (stinking) comments at anyone

#45, I use the official US poverty stats, and their official definition of what makes a person fall below the poverty level, which is quite unrealistic that is why several studies have placed it to be atleast double the official numbers.

Masadi,

A Pakistani complaining about the US economy is like a prostitute complaining about the morals of a housewife. Just look at Pakistan or any other islamic country, for crying out loud!! Look at the mess and the absolutely pathetic socio-economic conditions. People in Pakistan commit suicide because they cannot feed their families. They line up outside every western embassy begging for visas to get out of Pakistan.

Have some shame, for God`s sake!! When you cannot feed and clothe people in your country and you are yourself an economic migrant to the US, at least have the decency to recognize and respect how the US is 100000000000 times better than the dump you come from.

You and other Pakistanis have this tendency of criticizing others, while overlooking what you are. For you, India`s democracy is a sham democracy, India`s secularism is a farce, US economy is a capitalist menace. In other words, everything better than you is actually worse. You suffer from a severe case of sour grapes!! And stop blaming everyone else for the crappy conditions of the Islamic world. Just because you cannot manage and administer a country, doesnt make it everyone else`s fault. Wake up and smell the coffee.

Masadi,

The accepted definition of poverty line is US$1/- per day. Is that your benchmark in case of US poverty? I think you should have defined it.

#43, what is ``shocking`` is the stink that your posts create wherever you decide to take them. The only thing more ``shocking`` than that stink is the moronic nature of them. Rather than use some specific discriptors that I have reserved for A.H`s like you, I will let it go and let you languish on in your incompetence and ignorant bravado, which is punishment enough in my opinion, but you probably don`t recognize it as such.

As for your ``shock`` treatment, try it on yourself, through direct application at the special spot that you brain resides at, behram sahib can inform you where that precise location is.

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Re: # 37

``today any idiot (documented or undocumented) can make a 100 a day mowing yards or cleaning houses ........ you should try it - it might give you an appreciation for real work instead of whining about the evil rich ......... ``

LOL!!

#40, Jang writes <<< amrican poverty is different..the poor are fatter becuase....>>>

The poor suffer equally regardless of where they live. If you`ve read ethnographic studies of them in the US you`d reali