Poverty
I have been spending a good deal of my summer selling books in an area of the US that is actually at poverty-level and below. I’m no longer in that area, but I have worked in an area very similar to it today.
I talk to most of these people. In the process I learn about who they are, because I ask them lots of questions. I am generally curious, but I am especially curious about why these people are living in these conditions. I have heard people say that poverty is caused by the wealthy people of the world. I refuse to believe this now that I’ve talked to all these people.
I see poverty, and I see it as being caused by bad decisions, bad habits, and an unwillingness to change either the habits, the behaviors or the changeable decisions. These people spend their money on things addictions such as alcohol, cigarattes, coke, crystal meth, and mountain dew. These people chain themselves to a land that has fewer and fewer jobs by their unwillingness to move. Girls my age decide to have unprotected sex before marriage and forfeit much they could receive for whatever beauty they have.
Today I met a girl who is 20. She is very pretty in a very unique way. She could be a model or an actress if she’d work hard to do that. Instead, she got pregnant when she was 18 and she lives in a trailer with her parents and her two-year-old son. I talked to her for a while, because she seemed interested in the books and seemed to not want me to go — besides I am allowed to spend 20 minutes with a customer. She got to where she is today because she “wanted to do everything that wasn’t right” when she was High School age. Now she still doesn’t want to go to college, she has a baby boy, and lets her parents take care of her. Fortunately, they are good at it. They got her a good paying job and helped her finance a house that she is moving into soon.
She is just one example of many. I am frustrated by the ignorance of the people that I am working with here in Northeast Alabama. I talk to many of them and let them know that things don’t need to be like this, but they are very set in their ways. (Not everyone I run into is in poverty or making bad decisions — just a lot more than I had ever met before.)
People say that people get stuck in poverty and that there is no way out. I believe this can seem to happen, but now I am realizing that it isn’t entirely true. People afford cars, gas, addictions, non-productive excesses of all kinds — like satellite TV. If these people would give up a few of their excesses and saved their money they’d be on to something. Investing their savings would add to their income and/or provide them something to lean on when they lost their jobs. People here don’t trust banks or anything that is not cash. They don’t see much value in saving either, because there is no value to it when you have only cash — in fact there is risk involved because your cash can get lost or be stolen. It can be very frustrating listening to some of the things these people tell me. They seem so lost to me… so lost.
Posted by David under Observations |
Not to be cynical here, and not to take away any personal responsibility, but who feeds these addictions?? Our country is consumeristic, and we are very wealthy because of it. Sure, it’s appealing to say to everyone “don’t spend your money on the frivilous” but what would that do to our economy? Those satellite TVs, alcohol, cigarettes, someone is getting rich off that, and lucky for that person that they figured out a way to milk the system…that’s capitalism for ya. Not that I agree with it at all, or him, but what did Bush say to do with that “tax break” he bestowed to our nation…he didn’t say, oh save that for a rainy day, no, he said “spend!” cause that is what our US of A survives on, spending, consuming, even wasting.
So I managed to go on this side trail from your topic, but I think it’s really hard to adequately critique different economic levels of society…because we are perhaps only as well off as we are because of that “ignorance” and foolish behavior of others.
Comment by JennJula — July 2, 2004 @ 7:38 pm
If these people stopped buying cigarettes and other tobacco products, alcohol, TVs, Dish Network, shotgun shells, fireworks, etc. the economy would still survive. Surely, it would go through a “painful” transition, and a few companies would need to find new products or else fail as companies, but it would not ruin the economy.
People have actual needs and that would keep our economy going.
One of your rhetorical questions was “who feeds these addictions?” To that I would have to say anyone can and nearly anyone with the means and the desire to make some money will. One example from right here in Alabama is Crystal Meth. No company or government benefits from that addiction. No one promotes it or advertises for it either. People still want it and pay money for it though. This will happen as long as the people continue to have a demand for it.
You also mentioned it was lucky for a person who had figured out a way to milk the system. Well, perhaps luck has something to do with it, but you don’t need to be that lucky to make money off of people who smoke cigarettes. You can simply buy parts of the companies that manufacture or distribute cigarettes. That takes some financial discipline though, because you need to save some money to have money to invest.
I don’t really ever buy into these arguments against the semi-controlled capitalism that we’ve got in place today. All the rules are available to everyone — people just don’t like to pay attention to them and others don’t care to follow them.
Comment by David — July 2, 2004 @ 10:45 pm
WOOOHOOOOO…I evoked a response!! Nice to make some contact with you, David! I feel quite honored! Happy 4th of July! Ahh, fireworks going off like crazy around my house..yea for fireworks!
Comment by JennJula — July 4, 2004 @ 10:32 pm