kw: book reviews, nonfiction, poverty, policy
Jesus told his disciples, "The poor you will always have with you" (Matt. 26:11 and Mark 14:7), and some think this means God favors some amount of poverty. Instead, we must understand that this phrase expresses God's sad understanding of human nature. It is not to be taken as a prophecy that must be fulfilled. The Old Testament contains frequent admonitions to relieve the poor, and specific provisions for their debts to be forgiven, such as the Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee. In the New Testament we find that, when Judas went out to betray Jesus, the other apostles thought he might be going to give alms, and this tells us that Jesus would send Judas (the group treasurer) to do so from time to time.
Today, what do we find? In the richest nation on Earth (for the present), poverty continues to increase, not just in number, but in proportion. This in spite of the famed "war on poverty" launched by President Johnson nearly 50 years ago. Poverty, as defined by the government, had been decreasing already in the mid 1960s; it had been over 18% (8 million) of families in 1962, and continued to a low of 8.7% (4.8 million) families in 1973. After some gradual swings up and down, the figure currently stands at 11.8% (9.5 million) families. There is a defined threshold for each family size; for a family of 3, it is about $18,000 yearly. Folks, that isn't much!
Curiously, in Washington, DC public schools, spending per student is nearly $19,000, yet the education received is better in "mid-continent" schools (in the Central time zone), where yearly spending is $6,000-9,000. Hang onto this thought.
A few years ago, two prominent liberal activists, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, launched "The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience", a bus tour of 18 cities in 8 states. They write of their experiences and findings in The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. The recession of the past four years has pushed many in the middle class toward the poverty threshold, without necessarily taking them right across it. By grouping the near-poor with those defined as poor, the authors can state that the numbers of struggling Americans is 150 million, "the greatest number in five decades".
After presenting a "Portrait of Poverty", which focuses on poverty as a fact (the lack of sufficient money, and nothing more) the authors present five aspects of poverty: Opportunity, Affirmation, Courage, Compassion, and Imagination (or, in particular, the lacks thereof). Poverty of Affirmation is a particularly insidious difficulty. The (still) well-off have a nearly overwhelming tendency to think that the poor "deserve it". However, one's politics affect this outlook. People with a more liberal attitude expect government to solve problems, and have low rates of charitable donation. People with a more conservative attitude do not expect government to help in a sufficient or useful way, so they give on average four times as much to charity as liberals.
Let's back up to some of the figures above. What would it cost to raise the effective income of those families below the poverty line to, say, $30,000? With no knowledge of the income distribution, I can guess that it doesn't exceed $10,000 on average, for those 9.5 million families. So that is $20,000 times 9.5 million. That comes to $190 billion. Then, for those above the line, but making less than $30,000, we can roughly estimate another 50% added, for a total of about $285 billion. That is substantial, but it is one-third of the money wasted on the TARP programs, just in 2009. However, total charitable giving in 2011 was nearly $300 billion. While most of this went to church programs, some amount was given to organizations such as "missions" that help the poor directly, and many churches pass on funds that come to them to support such efforts.
Government spending on about 50 "war on poverty" programs totaled more than $475 billion last year. Clearly, that hasn't resulted in America's poor living at a $30,000+ level (per family of 3). By far the greatest part of it stays in the pockets of the huge army of civil "servants" who administer and carry out the programs.
The book hardly touches on figures like this. The authors call for more spending. I'd think the focus ought to be on "right spending". I'd prefer a manifesto, a demand, for a simple criterion: that governmental organizations be required to have at least 75% efficiency. Thus, three fourths of every dollar that passes through the hands of every such agency must go directly into the pocket of a poor person, either as direct cash, or as whatever kind of "food stamp" is currently in fashion, or as some other kind of voucher to cover living expenses. But be sure to make welfare frauds such as amassing vouchers for multiple dead persons, punishable by death.
A great effort is also needed to improve education, primarily by doing away with most of the administrators and other non-teachers. In the 1950s, my grade school, with 600 students, had about 20 teachers (class size was about 30), plus a principal, an assistant principal, a secretary, and the janitorial staff. There was no cafeteria staff, as we all brought our lunches. However, in schools that had food programs for poor students, it was handled by the teachers. The grade school our son went to in the 1990s had so many "junk" administrators, that only 40% of the roster was teachers, and their rate of pay was less (adjusted for inflation) than a teacher's salary in 1955. I shudder to think what the situation is now, after another 15 years. I do know this: while a number of my son's teachers, in most years, were very good, there were also a distressing number of "bottom of the barrel", tenured fools in the classroom. We need to get rid of all the vice-assistant-this and that, and apply the money to the salary budget for teachers, and apply realistic accountability for teachers to keep their jobs.
The lowest rate of publication spending is $6,000 per student. Times 20, that is $120,000 per classroom. Suppose we paid 60% of that directly to the teacher? Do you think we could attract some higher-quality teachers? There are other significant problems with public education, but I'll leave them for a different rant.
Here is my greatest area of agreement with Smiley and West: Predatory CEO's make way too much. It seems de rigueur now for a company head to receive at least $1 million per month, and often much more, just in base salary, plus they usually get stock options that can earn them even more than their salary (and how is this not insider trading?). How much is a million a month? Of course, they don't work a 40-hour week. Many are workaholics that stay at their desks 70-80 hours. So, a typical working month might contain 325 hours. That comes to more than $3,000 per hour. Quite frankly, I don't think anybody's time is worth more than about $300-400 per hour, no matter what they do (except maybe a bomb squad guy who saves a few thousand lives—he deserves an extra large bonus). I once walked into a law office to ask about their terms. This was no hotshot agency, just a small practice of four lawyers. There was no free first consultation. The first visit would require a $3,600 retainer, and their rate was $550 per hour. I didn't even smile as I walked out. I found a lawyer who did a fine job at less than half the rate, and the first visit was free.
I used to subscribe to Utne Reader. I don't know if it is still true, but Eric Utne once wrote that they followed a company principle, that the highest paid person could make no more than seven times as much the lowest paid full time worker. I am on the board of a nonprofit organization, that pays its director about $75,000. That's plenty for a good director; it is in the top 20% of national salaries. The receptionist gets something like the mid-$20s, so the place would qualify as a "good" organization by the Utne rule even if the director were paid twice as much.
The book's title is mainly there as a provocation. The only discussion of the rich is similar to the prior two paragraphs, plus a call to prosecute the predatory bankers and congresspersons who actually caused the recent recession. This shows that politics don't matter to a President, only money matters. Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama have protected the guilty at every turn.
A lot is made these days about "choice", whether related to abortion ("it's a choice that must be protected") or homosexuality ("it isn't a choice, it is genetic, and must be protected"), or another half dozen areas. More and more of us must realize that poverty is not a choice (except for a few ascetics). The Bible uses the words "oppress", "oppressed" and "oppression" more than 120 times, most frequently in the sense of a rich person taking advantage of a poor person. This is something God particularly hates. This is the core of the problem that Smiley and West are discussing. We have a system that protects the oppressors and oppresses their victims. They suggest 12 points to deal with this. You and I know that none of the 12 points has a breath of a chance of passing Congress or being signed by any President, of whatever party. It will take a renewed civil rights movement to, at the very least, force governments to allow people to escape the direst forms of such oppression, such as by re-occupying foreclosed dwellings that are left vacant by the banks. I just don't know whether such a renewed movement can go forward with as little violence (on the part of the protesters) as was seen 40-50 years ago.
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Friday, April 25, 2008
Green and purple people
kw: musings, photosynthesis, poverty
On a walk together recently, my wife, who had been gardening earlier in the day, remarked on how aggressive the plants were to shade one another out. This early Spring season we see new leaves frantically (on their time scale) striving for every bit of light. Our discussion led to my remembering a couple stories I've read, that included the concept of people becoming photosynthetic so as to reduce or eliminate the need to eat anything other than a few mineral nutrients.
I noted also that most plants are only about one percent efficient at turning photon energy into calories of sugar energy. So we discussed just how much food could be displaced by light, if people had chloroplasts or something similar in their skin. Here are some of the numbers:
The people at the University of Prince Edward Island have an analysis of green plant photosynthetic efficiency here. Basically, starting with a photon efficiency of just under 30%, other factors such as wavelength dependency reduce the total system efficiency to 6.6% or less. Measured productivity figures I've found range from 0.25%-1% for most trees to 3%-5% for sugar cane. I've also read somewhere that purple bacteria start with a photon efficiency more nearly 90%, so perhaps their total system efficiency ranges to 15%.
Thus the range of solar energy in to calories out ranges from 0.25% to 15%.
Next, the solar constant averages 1,366 w/sq.m above the atmosphere, but only 60% of the energy gets to the surface, or ~820 w/sq.m.
Finally, basic metabolism ranges from 1200 kcal/day for a small, elderly woman to about twice that for a large young man. Those with very strenuous physical jobs (e.g. lumberjacks) can require 4000-6000 kcal/day of food.
But lets look at 1200 and 2400. A kcal is 4184 watt-sec, or 1162 watt-hr (1.162 kwh), so those metabolic rates come to about 1.4 and 2.8 kwh per day.
Somebody who has the time might have the patience to face the Sun for 6 hours daily, striving for unobstructed solar access. Each square meter of photosynthetic surface would intercept 820x6 = 4920 watt-hr or 4.92 kwh.
We can grind all the figures together to determine, if photosynthesis could be produced at 100% efficiency, 1200 kcal/day, or 1.4 kwh/day, requires 0.285 sq.m of exposed surface, and 2400 kcal/day needs double that, 0.57 sq.m. For the various efficiencies, we get this table of the square meters of sunlight one must collect:
All figures below the third line conjure visions of people with great sail-like appendages they can unfurl to the sun. Even spreading 11 square meters (the size of a barn door) per person, is a daunting prospect. A naked human of ordinary size, with a mirror behind to shine light on the otherwise shadowed side, could capture only about 1.5 square meters of sunlight.
Assuming then that a method could be devised to insert the purple bacterial photosystem into human skin cells, there would remain the need to engineer winglike extensions of the body, or be limited to gaining at most a quarter to half one's calories by spending half one's time basking above a mirror. No wonder that photosynthesis in motile creatures is limited to the protozoa!
On a walk together recently, my wife, who had been gardening earlier in the day, remarked on how aggressive the plants were to shade one another out. This early Spring season we see new leaves frantically (on their time scale) striving for every bit of light. Our discussion led to my remembering a couple stories I've read, that included the concept of people becoming photosynthetic so as to reduce or eliminate the need to eat anything other than a few mineral nutrients.
I noted also that most plants are only about one percent efficient at turning photon energy into calories of sugar energy. So we discussed just how much food could be displaced by light, if people had chloroplasts or something similar in their skin. Here are some of the numbers:
The people at the University of Prince Edward Island have an analysis of green plant photosynthetic efficiency here. Basically, starting with a photon efficiency of just under 30%, other factors such as wavelength dependency reduce the total system efficiency to 6.6% or less. Measured productivity figures I've found range from 0.25%-1% for most trees to 3%-5% for sugar cane. I've also read somewhere that purple bacteria start with a photon efficiency more nearly 90%, so perhaps their total system efficiency ranges to 15%.
Thus the range of solar energy in to calories out ranges from 0.25% to 15%.
Next, the solar constant averages 1,366 w/sq.m above the atmosphere, but only 60% of the energy gets to the surface, or ~820 w/sq.m.
Finally, basic metabolism ranges from 1200 kcal/day for a small, elderly woman to about twice that for a large young man. Those with very strenuous physical jobs (e.g. lumberjacks) can require 4000-6000 kcal/day of food.
But lets look at 1200 and 2400. A kcal is 4184 watt-sec, or 1162 watt-hr (1.162 kwh), so those metabolic rates come to about 1.4 and 2.8 kwh per day.
Somebody who has the time might have the patience to face the Sun for 6 hours daily, striving for unobstructed solar access. Each square meter of photosynthetic surface would intercept 820x6 = 4920 watt-hr or 4.92 kwh.
We can grind all the figures together to determine, if photosynthesis could be produced at 100% efficiency, 1200 kcal/day, or 1.4 kwh/day, requires 0.285 sq.m of exposed surface, and 2400 kcal/day needs double that, 0.57 sq.m. For the various efficiencies, we get this table of the square meters of sunlight one must collect:
| Efficiency | 1200 kcal/d | 2400 kcal/d |
| 1.0 | 0.285 | 0.570 |
| 0.15 (purple) | 1.9 | 3.8 |
| 0.05 (cane) | 5.7 | 11.4 |
| 0.01 (shrub) | 28.5 | 57 |
| 0.0025 (tree) | 114 | 228 |
All figures below the third line conjure visions of people with great sail-like appendages they can unfurl to the sun. Even spreading 11 square meters (the size of a barn door) per person, is a daunting prospect. A naked human of ordinary size, with a mirror behind to shine light on the otherwise shadowed side, could capture only about 1.5 square meters of sunlight.
Assuming then that a method could be devised to insert the purple bacterial photosystem into human skin cells, there would remain the need to engineer winglike extensions of the body, or be limited to gaining at most a quarter to half one's calories by spending half one's time basking above a mirror. No wonder that photosynthesis in motile creatures is limited to the protozoa!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Examining the new Pangloss
kw: book reviews, nonfiction, sociology, liberal philosophy, class, race, wealth, poverty, diversity
The book is The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality by Walter Benn Michaels
I'll start with some Quotes:
The 3 goals of the book:
(1) "...to show how our current notion of cultural diversity—trumpeted as the repudiation of racism and biological essentialism—in fact grew out of and perpetuates the very concepts it congratulates itself on having escaped."
(2) "...to show how and why the American love affair with race—especially when you can dress up race as culture—has continued and even intensified."
(3) "...by shifting our focus from cultural diversity to economic equality—to help alter the political terrain of contemporary American intellectual life." (p 7)
Ch 1, "The Trouble With Race": "Learning how to rap doesn't make you a black person; it just makes you a rapper." (p 43)
Ch 2, "Our Favorite Victims": "The only inequalities we're prepared to do anything about are the ones that interfere with the free market." (p 78)
Ch 3, "Richer, Not Better": "...the politics of the neoliberal imagination involves [sic] respecting the poor, not getting rid of poverty—eliminating inequality without redistributing wealth." (p 110)
Ch 4, "Just and Unjust Rewards": "...our efforts to solve the problem of discrimination...is not so much a contribution to justice as it is a way of accepting injustice." (p 116)
"...the rich people would like a broader experience of life, but they can't get it without having some poor people around." (p 120)
"...a world in which everyone was required to finish the race at the same time would be very different from a world in which everyone was required to start it at the same time." (p 134)
Ch 5, "Who Are We? Why Should We Care?": "...when we clash with others, it's usually because we think we're right, not because we're defending our identity." (p 157)
Ch 6, "Religion in Politics: The Good News": "The trouble with diversity, then, is not just that it won't solve the problem of economic inequality; it's that it makes it hard for us even to see the problem." (p 172)
Same page: "Of the 37 million poor people [in America] in 2004, almost 17 million (45.6% of the total) were white. These people are not the victims of discrimination past or present."
"We should be color-blind because color has nothing to do with beliefs. We shouldn't be religion-blind because religion has everything to do with beliefs." (p 179)
"...disputes about religion—understood as the pope [sic: Pope] understands them, as disputes about what is universally true—are indeed useful reminders that you can't exactly be for diversity of beliefs in the way that you can be for diversity of identities." (p 188)
Epilog, "Conclusion: About the Author": "The unfairness is not in people making fun of your choices; the unfairness is in your not getting to make those choices."
Vaudeville singer Sophie Tucker (not quoted in the book): "I've been rich and I’ve been poor — and believe me, rich is better."
When I first read the title, I thought "Identity" referred to the concept of making everyone identical, something like "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut...or perhaps "outcome-based education", as hijacked for social engineering purposes (OK, I'll stop there, I promise).
No, it refers to "cultural identity" or "ethnicity". When you get right down to it, in case the quotes above didn't make it clear, the author's thesis is simply "poverty isn't an ethnicity, it is a problem we must address, but 'diversity' has blinded us to it."
The author is an irritating fellow. That made the book hard for me to read, but it certainly makes him a valuable gadfly. So, it may be awful, but somebody has to do it. Yet, I found myself wondering, is it possible to make everyone happy. Here are a few reasons why not:
The book is The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality by Walter Benn Michaels
I'll start with some Quotes:
The 3 goals of the book:
(1) "...to show how our current notion of cultural diversity—trumpeted as the repudiation of racism and biological essentialism—in fact grew out of and perpetuates the very concepts it congratulates itself on having escaped."
(2) "...to show how and why the American love affair with race—especially when you can dress up race as culture—has continued and even intensified."
(3) "...by shifting our focus from cultural diversity to economic equality—to help alter the political terrain of contemporary American intellectual life." (p 7)
Ch 1, "The Trouble With Race": "Learning how to rap doesn't make you a black person; it just makes you a rapper." (p 43)
Ch 2, "Our Favorite Victims": "The only inequalities we're prepared to do anything about are the ones that interfere with the free market." (p 78)
Ch 3, "Richer, Not Better": "...the politics of the neoliberal imagination involves [sic] respecting the poor, not getting rid of poverty—eliminating inequality without redistributing wealth." (p 110)
Ch 4, "Just and Unjust Rewards": "...our efforts to solve the problem of discrimination...is not so much a contribution to justice as it is a way of accepting injustice." (p 116)
"...the rich people would like a broader experience of life, but they can't get it without having some poor people around." (p 120)
"...a world in which everyone was required to finish the race at the same time would be very different from a world in which everyone was required to start it at the same time." (p 134)
Ch 5, "Who Are We? Why Should We Care?": "...when we clash with others, it's usually because we think we're right, not because we're defending our identity." (p 157)
Ch 6, "Religion in Politics: The Good News": "The trouble with diversity, then, is not just that it won't solve the problem of economic inequality; it's that it makes it hard for us even to see the problem." (p 172)
Same page: "Of the 37 million poor people [in America] in 2004, almost 17 million (45.6% of the total) were white. These people are not the victims of discrimination past or present."
"We should be color-blind because color has nothing to do with beliefs. We shouldn't be religion-blind because religion has everything to do with beliefs." (p 179)
"...disputes about religion—understood as the pope [sic: Pope] understands them, as disputes about what is universally true—are indeed useful reminders that you can't exactly be for diversity of beliefs in the way that you can be for diversity of identities." (p 188)
Epilog, "Conclusion: About the Author": "The unfairness is not in people making fun of your choices; the unfairness is in your not getting to make those choices."
Vaudeville singer Sophie Tucker (not quoted in the book): "I've been rich and I’ve been poor — and believe me, rich is better."
When I first read the title, I thought "Identity" referred to the concept of making everyone identical, something like "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut...or perhaps "outcome-based education", as hijacked for social engineering purposes (OK, I'll stop there, I promise).
No, it refers to "cultural identity" or "ethnicity". When you get right down to it, in case the quotes above didn't make it clear, the author's thesis is simply "poverty isn't an ethnicity, it is a problem we must address, but 'diversity' has blinded us to it."
The author is an irritating fellow. That made the book hard for me to read, but it certainly makes him a valuable gadfly. So, it may be awful, but somebody has to do it. Yet, I found myself wondering, is it possible to make everyone happy. Here are a few reasons why not:
- Some people are never happy with anything.
- Some are chronically depressed—and some of them are unaffected by every antidepressant so far invented.
- Some are simply cynical, and the happiest they get is when they see their cynicism is justified; sadly, the event always makes someone else unhappy.
- Some are too inwardly focused to be helped. They may be unhappy, but they're "least unhappy" when left alone.
- Some people are only made happy by winning a zero-sum game; someone else has to lose.
- Some are only made happy by causing unhappiness, harm, or death.
- Some are too angry, about everything, all the time, to have a happy thought.
- Some cling to a "dearest wish" that will not, cannot, ever be satisfied.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Minorities in Charge
kw: poverty, education, welfare
It was announced today that Texas has become the fourth state in which "minorities" are the majority of its population (See, for example, Yahoo! News). Four other states have at least 40% "minority" populations. Of course this is all based on the notion that "whites," meaning Euro-Americans of a range of shades, accents, and "western" ethnicities, and whose parents were born here, are the "majority."
Today's "majority" is composed of a gaggle of former "minorities." Let us take as a benchmark in time the Revolutionary War of the 1770s and 1780s. By that time "native Americans" (or whatever today's PC term may be) were probably a minority in the 13 Colonies, at least. The dominant group, the "majority" of the day, was composed of Protestant, English-speaking folk whose ancestors immigrated from England and Holland. The rather large numbers of German-speaking Anabaptists (whose descendants today include the Mennonites, Amish, Moravians, and Hutterites) were largely ignored.
Over time, immigrants from Scotland, Scandanavia, France, Italy, Ireland...all were "minorities" for a time, then assimilated into the population over a few generations (My ancestors of the third wave of Scottish immigration, in the late 1800s, were better received, finding Scottish-majority enclaves throughout the Midwest). Today few people think of the Jews as a minority group. They are usually counted as part of the "white majority." Many people I know tend to think of them almost as just another denomination.
Today, when the word "minority" is used, people tend to think black, hispanic, or asian. The first word that comes to mind, though, depends on where one is. In the suburbs north of Los Angeles, California, there has been a great increase in mainly Chinese immigration over about the past thirty years. Some of those suburbs are now nearly all-asian. A lot of prejudice arose.
About twenty years ago, during the period of most rapid influx, my wife and I went with my parents to the LA County Arboretum in Arcadia. The parking lot was quite full. As we drifted slowly, looking for an empty space, an older man jumped out of a parked car, ran up to my father, who was driving, and offered him his parking space. As he turned to go back to his car, he said, "I've been waiting an hour for someone to give this space to that wasn't a damn Asian!" After he backed out, he passed us, and caught sight of my Asian wife in the back seat. He turned quite red and sped away.
I have observed over the decades that some folks have a harder time than others being assimilated into "American" life. Italians were once hated "dagoes" (sorry...), but few traces of the old prejudice remain. For a generation or two, an Irishman who couldn't get a job as a policeman had to start a business, because there were no other jobs available to them. Today, who cares? Everybody puts on something green for St. Pat's day.
When I lived in South Dakota, the mayor of Rapid City was of the Lakota tribe, though at that time many Lakotas were nearly at war with the US Government over the Black Hills (remember Russell Means?). I observed there was quite a difference between the "reservation Indians" and those I was in school with and others who had left the reservation. The Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota people I knew had not forsaken their culture. Most spoke a Sioux language, participated in traditional ceremonies, and gave much extra effort to learn and retain their cultural identity. Their dedication is similar to Scottish-ancestry cousins of mine who continue to study and speak Erse (Scottish Gaelic), attend Highland Games (some compete), and maintain their cultural identity. All within the context of modern American life.
Few "reservation Indians" had any education beyond mandatory public school, and many did little with their lives, preferring to squeak by on the entitlements provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I really came to admire those few who educated themselves further, but stayed on the reservation to provide leadership. Tribal leaders had a heartbreaking situation to oversee. I usually didn't care for their politics, but came to look on them as heroes.
And here is a side note, that adds to the point I wish to make. I have two good friends, and each farms a couple dozen square miles in west-central South Dakota, one near Rapid City, the other a hundred miles farther East. Compared to their neighbors, they are prosperous. They have never taken out any "govenment backed" loans. During bad years, they got jobs in town to keep body and soul together, and waited for a better year. During better years, they saved their excess, or bought more land, often from those who had such heavy loan payments to make they had to sell land.
Today we hear a term, "disadvantaged minorities." Wherever there is poverty in an inner city, there is usually a population there that is ethnically different from that in the surrounding, non-poor, parts of the city or the suburbs. Philadelphia is a mainly black city in a mainly white state. San Antonio is a mainly hispanic city in what was a white state. New York City has several "minority" enclaves, Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Little Italy, and Chinatown for example. To my observation, though, the style of poverty is different in each place.
In some such enclaves (some are called ghettos, though that word was once reserved for Jewish enclaves) we see multigenerational poverty as the rule, while in others, most young people tend to escape poverty. There are two differences that I see.
Firstly, some ethnic groups, no matter where you find them, emphasize education, and do so to a fanatical level. Most of their young people at least finish high school, and every family has the ambition that at least one child will go to college (First among these, through all ages, has been the Jews. I think this is mainly because the book of Deuteronomy requires 100% literacy, so every person can read the Torah. No other group has a commandment from God to be educated).
Other groups, no matter where they may be, give education little more than lip service. The parents may nag at their kids about getting educated, but their heart isn't in it. Just by the way, to my observation, it is not the blacks who I'm pointing a finger at here; there are a couple of other ethnicities that are far, far down the scale in this regard. But to what extent the shoe fits, just wear it...and take it as an exhortation to change.
Secondly, those ethnicities in the latter category above tend to rely much more on government support. They take whatever they can get, and if they find that the "gift" is reduced when they work, they choose not to work.
Let us take it as an axiom: the government is unable to fully support everybody. There have to be taxpayers (that is those who earn money that can be taxed), so that the government will have money to give out. The biggest part of the Federal budget is that grand, diverse collection of "programs" we group under the term "welfare." There are hundreds of components. In fact, more than half of the Social Security payout is a form of welfare to the 120-odd categories of people who obtain "benefits," but didn't put a penny into the program. I include farm subsidies, guaranteed agricultural loans, GNMA and FNMA mortgage loans.
Now, there will always be more need than there is supply. Always. People say, "Oh, in Sweden, medical and dental care is free. If you're poor, the government takes care of everything," and so on, blah, blah. Income taxes in Sweden take 60% of all earned income, and still there are poor people there. The Swedish welfare system takes care of a certain percentage of everything. Just enough to keep you from starving, in most cases.
I cannot here propose a way to end welfare, as any large or national effort. But to any individual getting any kind of welfare, I say, get work anyway. Earn your own money. Yes, you'll lose benefits, but you'll also lose the grinding destruction of your own self-worth. If you have to use a government program to get a better education, do so. Then let that be the last handout you take. Earn your way out of poverty. There is no other way.
What will become of Texas? Well, it'll be run in the future by hispanics. That's not bad. As long as they are well-educated hispanics with a sense of self-respect and self-worth.
It was announced today that Texas has become the fourth state in which "minorities" are the majority of its population (See, for example, Yahoo! News). Four other states have at least 40% "minority" populations. Of course this is all based on the notion that "whites," meaning Euro-Americans of a range of shades, accents, and "western" ethnicities, and whose parents were born here, are the "majority."
Today's "majority" is composed of a gaggle of former "minorities." Let us take as a benchmark in time the Revolutionary War of the 1770s and 1780s. By that time "native Americans" (or whatever today's PC term may be) were probably a minority in the 13 Colonies, at least. The dominant group, the "majority" of the day, was composed of Protestant, English-speaking folk whose ancestors immigrated from England and Holland. The rather large numbers of German-speaking Anabaptists (whose descendants today include the Mennonites, Amish, Moravians, and Hutterites) were largely ignored.
Over time, immigrants from Scotland, Scandanavia, France, Italy, Ireland...all were "minorities" for a time, then assimilated into the population over a few generations (My ancestors of the third wave of Scottish immigration, in the late 1800s, were better received, finding Scottish-majority enclaves throughout the Midwest). Today few people think of the Jews as a minority group. They are usually counted as part of the "white majority." Many people I know tend to think of them almost as just another denomination.
Today, when the word "minority" is used, people tend to think black, hispanic, or asian. The first word that comes to mind, though, depends on where one is. In the suburbs north of Los Angeles, California, there has been a great increase in mainly Chinese immigration over about the past thirty years. Some of those suburbs are now nearly all-asian. A lot of prejudice arose.
About twenty years ago, during the period of most rapid influx, my wife and I went with my parents to the LA County Arboretum in Arcadia. The parking lot was quite full. As we drifted slowly, looking for an empty space, an older man jumped out of a parked car, ran up to my father, who was driving, and offered him his parking space. As he turned to go back to his car, he said, "I've been waiting an hour for someone to give this space to that wasn't a damn Asian!" After he backed out, he passed us, and caught sight of my Asian wife in the back seat. He turned quite red and sped away.
I have observed over the decades that some folks have a harder time than others being assimilated into "American" life. Italians were once hated "dagoes" (sorry...), but few traces of the old prejudice remain. For a generation or two, an Irishman who couldn't get a job as a policeman had to start a business, because there were no other jobs available to them. Today, who cares? Everybody puts on something green for St. Pat's day.
When I lived in South Dakota, the mayor of Rapid City was of the Lakota tribe, though at that time many Lakotas were nearly at war with the US Government over the Black Hills (remember Russell Means?). I observed there was quite a difference between the "reservation Indians" and those I was in school with and others who had left the reservation. The Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota people I knew had not forsaken their culture. Most spoke a Sioux language, participated in traditional ceremonies, and gave much extra effort to learn and retain their cultural identity. Their dedication is similar to Scottish-ancestry cousins of mine who continue to study and speak Erse (Scottish Gaelic), attend Highland Games (some compete), and maintain their cultural identity. All within the context of modern American life.
Few "reservation Indians" had any education beyond mandatory public school, and many did little with their lives, preferring to squeak by on the entitlements provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I really came to admire those few who educated themselves further, but stayed on the reservation to provide leadership. Tribal leaders had a heartbreaking situation to oversee. I usually didn't care for their politics, but came to look on them as heroes.
And here is a side note, that adds to the point I wish to make. I have two good friends, and each farms a couple dozen square miles in west-central South Dakota, one near Rapid City, the other a hundred miles farther East. Compared to their neighbors, they are prosperous. They have never taken out any "govenment backed" loans. During bad years, they got jobs in town to keep body and soul together, and waited for a better year. During better years, they saved their excess, or bought more land, often from those who had such heavy loan payments to make they had to sell land.
Today we hear a term, "disadvantaged minorities." Wherever there is poverty in an inner city, there is usually a population there that is ethnically different from that in the surrounding, non-poor, parts of the city or the suburbs. Philadelphia is a mainly black city in a mainly white state. San Antonio is a mainly hispanic city in what was a white state. New York City has several "minority" enclaves, Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Little Italy, and Chinatown for example. To my observation, though, the style of poverty is different in each place.
In some such enclaves (some are called ghettos, though that word was once reserved for Jewish enclaves) we see multigenerational poverty as the rule, while in others, most young people tend to escape poverty. There are two differences that I see.
Firstly, some ethnic groups, no matter where you find them, emphasize education, and do so to a fanatical level. Most of their young people at least finish high school, and every family has the ambition that at least one child will go to college (First among these, through all ages, has been the Jews. I think this is mainly because the book of Deuteronomy requires 100% literacy, so every person can read the Torah. No other group has a commandment from God to be educated).
Other groups, no matter where they may be, give education little more than lip service. The parents may nag at their kids about getting educated, but their heart isn't in it. Just by the way, to my observation, it is not the blacks who I'm pointing a finger at here; there are a couple of other ethnicities that are far, far down the scale in this regard. But to what extent the shoe fits, just wear it...and take it as an exhortation to change.
Secondly, those ethnicities in the latter category above tend to rely much more on government support. They take whatever they can get, and if they find that the "gift" is reduced when they work, they choose not to work.
Let us take it as an axiom: the government is unable to fully support everybody. There have to be taxpayers (that is those who earn money that can be taxed), so that the government will have money to give out. The biggest part of the Federal budget is that grand, diverse collection of "programs" we group under the term "welfare." There are hundreds of components. In fact, more than half of the Social Security payout is a form of welfare to the 120-odd categories of people who obtain "benefits," but didn't put a penny into the program. I include farm subsidies, guaranteed agricultural loans, GNMA and FNMA mortgage loans.
Now, there will always be more need than there is supply. Always. People say, "Oh, in Sweden, medical and dental care is free. If you're poor, the government takes care of everything," and so on, blah, blah. Income taxes in Sweden take 60% of all earned income, and still there are poor people there. The Swedish welfare system takes care of a certain percentage of everything. Just enough to keep you from starving, in most cases.
I cannot here propose a way to end welfare, as any large or national effort. But to any individual getting any kind of welfare, I say, get work anyway. Earn your own money. Yes, you'll lose benefits, but you'll also lose the grinding destruction of your own self-worth. If you have to use a government program to get a better education, do so. Then let that be the last handout you take. Earn your way out of poverty. There is no other way.
What will become of Texas? Well, it'll be run in the future by hispanics. That's not bad. As long as they are well-educated hispanics with a sense of self-respect and self-worth.
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