Yet Another Perspective – 99% vs 1%

Yet another perspective of the 99% v 1%

Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America’s Poor

Today, the Census Bureau released its annual poverty report, which declared that a record 46.2 million (roughly one in seven) Americans were poor in 2010. The numbers were up sharply from the previous year’s total of 43.6 million. Although the current recession has greatly increased the numbers of the poor, high levels of poverty predate the recession. In most years for the past two decades, the Census Bureau has declared that at least 35 million Americans lived in poverty.

However, understanding poverty in America requires looking behind these numbers at the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems to be poor. For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests near destitution: an inability to provide nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter for one’s family. But only a small number of the 46 million persons classified as “poor” by the
Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity.

The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau as taken from various government reports:

• 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• 92 percent of poor households have a microwave.
• Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31
  percent have two or more cars or trucks.
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.
• Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70
  percent have a VCR.
• Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
• 43 percent have Internet access.
• One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
• One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.

For decades, the living conditions of the poor have steadily improved. Consumer items that were luxuries or significant purchases for the middle class a few decades ago have become commonplace in poor households, partially because of the normal downward price trend that follows introduction of
a new product.

Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S. Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its household food security survey. For 2009, the
survey showed:

96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food.

83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.

82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

There is a radical difference between America’s “poor” and the poor of the World! Even our poorest citizen is blessed in comparison to the rest of this world! Americans need to RE-learn GRATITUDE!

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American Heroes, American Morality

Reblogged from Samuel at Gilgal:

Quoting President Ronald Reagan: “[The Democratic Party leadership] tell us they have done the most that humanly could be done. They say that the United States has had its day in the sun; that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems; that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities. My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view. The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves…. [T]he American people deserve better from those to whom they entrust our nation’s highest offices, and we stand united in our resolve to do something about it.”

Hollywood Was Expendable | Veterans Today

Reblogged from NOW BLOG THIS! ~ GUNNY.G: AMERICAN !:

Of those in America, those who didn’t work under the WPB or grab a weapon and go fight, many made films and plays promoting participation in the war effort with anti-Nazi films and plays. Women also wrote some of them: Lillian Hellman’s 1941 play, The Rhine, warned of the rise of the Nazis, and throughout the 1940′s and 1950′s she continued to write plays and increase her political activism.

Read more… 490 more words

Awesome to read, and pathetic that so few reveal the same patriot nobility today!

US official: 13 Americans killed in Kabul attack

If all the politicians allow our soldiers to do is stand there while they are attacked, it’s time to cut our losses and come home. WAR, if it is worth fighting, is worth fighting to WIN. There is no definition of winning in this conflict. It is waged NOT by warriors, but by politicians and all they care about is re-election!

A soldier investigates the crater caused by Saturday's suicide attack in Kabul.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A Taliban suicide bomber rammed a van into an armored NATO bus Saturday in Kabul, killing 13 American troops and four Afghans, U.S. and Afghan officials said, in the deadliest attack on coalition forces in more than two months.

The explosion, which occurred as the convoy was passing the American University, sparked a fireball and littered the street with shrapnel. Heavy black smoke poured from burning wreckage at the site.

The armored personnel carrier, known as a Rhino, was sandwiched between of a convoy of mine-resistant military vehicles traveling on a four-lane highway frequently used by NATO forces in a southwestern section of the city.
Pentagon spokesman Jim Gregory confirmed to Reuters the 13 service members killed were Americans.

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This says it all!

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Human Rights