The strength of the economy is not the central factor that drives the gap between rich and poor. I could find several countries that are much poorer than Canada and still have a smaller gap. There are both richer and poorer countries with smaller gap between rich/poor. This is not a correlative factor. The USA has the number one economy and has one of the largest gaps among western democracies between its rich and poor and consequently one of the highest crime rates as well.
--------------------------freethinker---------------------------
This quote of freethinker is lifted from the thread:
"I am amazed by the left on this board"
at :
http://www.canadiancontent.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10676&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105
----------------------------------------------------------
RESPONSE TO FREETHINKER:
You know, freethinker, I've seen this point made often.
And to give you your due, your point has longevity because
large gaps between the rich and poor cause much distrust
to the point of mutiny, to the point of crime, to the point
of civil war and unfortunately is embraced without question
by the thinking intellectual LEFT.
But ultimately your point about the gap between rich and poor
needs much more examination.
Often in most people's lives in the Western modern first world,
a lot of people switch from poor to being richer often.
And so the poor is no monolith, but a changing demographic.
While the gap grows bigger in China, a million people a
month rise to a level never before dreamt.
It wouldn't have happened from patronizing foreign aid.
And what of this POOR MONOLITH ?
It appears to be a static thing. It appears that all the poor stay
poor their whole lives. But this is not true.
Nor is it true that the parents who are poor always beget poor children.
What makes some poor make it in the next generation?
Many first generation immigrant poor have a hope that defies
your sensibility, because they do what it takes as poor people
to get their children to a higher level. It is why the immigrants
often invigorate many nations even while pissing off the natives
who buy into your ideas of monolithic poorness.
You have often heard the grandparents of the Great Depression
never thought of themselves as poor.
Why?
Because of perception that everyone was in the same boat.
So now you got everybody poor. More poor people than you
could shake a stick at !!
So when everybody is POOR, you got no GAP !!
And yet these children played.
Perception my friend !!
It can defeat you or make you ALIVE !!
There is no doubt your mantra repeated like it was the 11th
Command of thou shalt have no LARGE GAP is a matter
of great philosophical contention that is quite real. Quite real.
We say our cities are failures because of it.
But in those cities are the very immigrants that have a hope
that defies other cultures of mindthink --- in particular they
defy your mantra, your zeitgeist, YOUR MINDTHINK, freethinker.
In India, the middle class is something that would look poor
in America or in Montreal Canada.
Middle class in India is rowhouses that have HOPES and DREAMS
and instead of laying down to die, they strive with vigor !!
The Polish Plumber pisses off the French !!
The Eastern German prostitute really pissed off the West German
prostitutes.
Poverty, my friend exists, because it is quite complex.
So complex that it has defeated your best ideas.
And it has defeated my best ideas.
So I propose that the old divisions of socialism and capitalism
are an inadequate answer to the complex problem of poverty.
What we need to do is target cultures of failure, cultures steeped
in a mindthink that does get passed on from generation to generation.
In the last riots befalling East Los Angeles, the ghetto natives destroyed the alchohol beverages and mom and pop stores and gun shops and appliance stores ---- mostly run by immigrant Koreans.
Only in passing did the white media notice some of these
Korean complaints of being targeted.
And just in a lightning blitzkrieg segue (totally relevant),
how many White kids send money home to their parents?
The Mexicans do.
This money sent home from Mexicans in America is the 3rd
largest percent of the Mexican total GNP, Gross National Product.
And these Mexicans are poor.
They see your gap, but they don't see the gap in the same
intellectual vein you do.
They send money home.
Did you ?
I didn't.
But then I'm a white suburbanite.
--------------------------freethinker---------------------------
This quote of freethinker is lifted from the thread:
"I am amazed by the left on this board"
at :
http://www.canadiancontent.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10676&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105
----------------------------------------------------------
RESPONSE TO FREETHINKER:
You know, freethinker, I've seen this point made often.
And to give you your due, your point has longevity because
large gaps between the rich and poor cause much distrust
to the point of mutiny, to the point of crime, to the point
of civil war and unfortunately is embraced without question
by the thinking intellectual LEFT.
But ultimately your point about the gap between rich and poor
needs much more examination.
Often in most people's lives in the Western modern first world,
a lot of people switch from poor to being richer often.
And so the poor is no monolith, but a changing demographic.
While the gap grows bigger in China, a million people a
month rise to a level never before dreamt.
It wouldn't have happened from patronizing foreign aid.
And what of this POOR MONOLITH ?
It appears to be a static thing. It appears that all the poor stay
poor their whole lives. But this is not true.
Nor is it true that the parents who are poor always beget poor children.
What makes some poor make it in the next generation?
Many first generation immigrant poor have a hope that defies
your sensibility, because they do what it takes as poor people
to get their children to a higher level. It is why the immigrants
often invigorate many nations even while pissing off the natives
who buy into your ideas of monolithic poorness.
You have often heard the grandparents of the Great Depression
never thought of themselves as poor.
Why?
Because of perception that everyone was in the same boat.
So now you got everybody poor. More poor people than you
could shake a stick at !!
So when everybody is POOR, you got no GAP !!
And yet these children played.
Perception my friend !!
It can defeat you or make you ALIVE !!
There is no doubt your mantra repeated like it was the 11th
Command of thou shalt have no LARGE GAP is a matter
of great philosophical contention that is quite real. Quite real.
We say our cities are failures because of it.
But in those cities are the very immigrants that have a hope
that defies other cultures of mindthink --- in particular they
defy your mantra, your zeitgeist, YOUR MINDTHINK, freethinker.
In India, the middle class is something that would look poor
in America or in Montreal Canada.
Middle class in India is rowhouses that have HOPES and DREAMS
and instead of laying down to die, they strive with vigor !!
The Polish Plumber pisses off the French !!
The Eastern German prostitute really pissed off the West German
prostitutes.
Poverty, my friend exists, because it is quite complex.
So complex that it has defeated your best ideas.
And it has defeated my best ideas.
So I propose that the old divisions of socialism and capitalism
are an inadequate answer to the complex problem of poverty.
What we need to do is target cultures of failure, cultures steeped
in a mindthink that does get passed on from generation to generation.
In the last riots befalling East Los Angeles, the ghetto natives destroyed the alchohol beverages and mom and pop stores and gun shops and appliance stores ---- mostly run by immigrant Koreans.
Only in passing did the white media notice some of these
Korean complaints of being targeted.
And just in a lightning blitzkrieg segue (totally relevant),
how many White kids send money home to their parents?
The Mexicans do.
This money sent home from Mexicans in America is the 3rd
largest percent of the Mexican total GNP, Gross National Product.
And these Mexicans are poor.
They see your gap, but they don't see the gap in the same
intellectual vein you do.
They send money home.
Did you ?
I didn't.
But then I'm a white suburbanite.
