The gap between the rich and the poor

[HTColeman]

you brought up the idea of "I'll throw a whole lot of money at my childs education because I think it'll work " vs "This is all we can afford, ok?"


The Money buys success theme....




total excuse. Education, if you are searching to learn and not expecting it to come to you, is almost free, or relatively inexpensive if you just want to learn.


Librarys, parentals, talk to you teachers about after school classes etc etc etc.

its the information age, lets use it.


Unless I totally misintrepeted the different between Bob and Tim....

I am not talking about that, I am saying both Bob and Tim have the same learning capacity and desire to learn. Education is free, but you can get a much better/easier education the more money you have. For example, SAT scores are pretty important to college. Princeton Review and Kaplan classes are about $200 and up, I was going to take one, but decided I didn't need it that much, I had a pretty good 'natural' score. Everyone I knew who took the class increased their score by 100 or more. Same goes with private tutors etc. Also, the richer student does not have to do as well in high school, b/c they don't need a full or substantially large scholarship to pay for college. You can get an average to good education if you don't have a lot of money, but you can get a much more than average education if you can pay for it, so relatively, education for poorer students is not that great when compared to what you can get with money.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf

• In 2004, 37.0 million people were
in poverty, up 1.1 million from
2003.

Do yall honestly believe that 37 million people live in poverty because they don't have ambition? Some are lazy, some are foolish, and some got dealt **** for life.

 

[128shot]

I am not talking about that, I am saying both Bob and Tim have the same learning capacity and desire to learn. Education is free, but you can get a much better/easier education the more money you have. For example, SAT scores are pretty important to college. Princeton Review and Kaplan classes are about $200 and up, I was going to take one, but decided I didn't need it that much, I had a pretty good 'natural' score. Everyone I knew who took the class increased their score by 100 or more. Same goes with private tutors etc. Also, the richer student does not have to do as well in high school, b/c they don't need a full or substantially large scholarship to pay for college. You can get an average to good education if you don't have a lot of money, but you can get a much more than average education if you can pay for it, so relatively, education for poorer students is not that great when compared to what you can get with money.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf

• In 2004, 37.0 million people were
in poverty, up 1.1 million from
2003.

Do yall honestly believe that 37 million people live in poverty because they don't have ambition? Some are lazy, some are foolish, and some got dealt **** for life.

No I don't honestly believe that, but the only way OUT of poverty is knowledge.


I have a hard time believing that someone can't just sit down and learn and learn and learn.



I think the charastics between a rich man and a middle class man (not exactly a poor man, because that sometimes happens out of well..bad luck) start when you're a wee little child and how your parents approach you and your compassion to learn.




Sure, thats a generalization, but I think it has a firm foundation.

 

[UtahBill]

The poor in the USA are rich by world standards. The Level of Poverty is an artificial number, practically meaningless. Education and opportunity go together, the more education you have, the more opportunites you get. Willing to work hard is a factor, of course. One of my sisters had a GED and a few college courses, and busted her butt at a company that appreciated her efforts. She retired an executive in that company. My younger brother is poor by my standards, but he will not call himself that. He is happy with his minimalistic life style. He thinks education is a dirty word. Likewise the really filthy 4 letter word, work.
Measuring rich or poor by financial status is only a fuzzy benchmark at best.

 

[Diogenes]

I understand your point, anyone with ambition that matches their position in society can make it. I am not saying there is no American Dream, my dad is a rags to upper middle class riches story. I just think it is unfair to immediately condemn all of those who didn't make it, and praise all who did. It is not so black and white.

I'm sorry if I left that impression, because I don't make a blanket condemnation of all who are poor. On the other hand, many of them are poor and/or homeless because they have made poor choices and/or refused treatment for their schizophrenia/alcoholism/addiction. I will gladly open my hand to those who wish to make the right choices, but I resent being taxed to support a self-destructive lifestyle (e.g., the SSI program that says "Oh! You poor fellow! You're an alcoholic? Here's $500 a month -- but only until you stop drinking.")

Measuring rich or poor by financial status is only a fuzzy benchmark at best.

That's a very profound statement.

I spent 3 years as an assistant scoutmaster, 13 years as a Big Brother, and 4 years as a volunteer juvenile probation officer. I used to tell my little buddies that life is a game where you have the privilege and the obligation of deciding how to keep score - it's a privilege because you can do it, and it's an obligation because, if you don't do it for yourself, you will go through life playing by someone else's rules... and that's playing against a stacked deck. I get a lot of satisfaction that after 30 years they - and their children - can still repeat that mantra to me.