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So I was watching Bill Maher this weekend and they got onto the topic of poverty and how this “new” issue is what is responsible for the poor African Americans who could not escape New Orleans. New issue?

Excuse me while I throw up while the political left throws blame on the political right for the blight of the poor in America. Anyone who thinks that poverty and economic inequality is a new issue deserves to be killed to death with a blunt instrument because they have been living in a cave for the past 300+ years.

I will give all you people a clue. Capitalism *is* inequality. There are poor, there are rich. We can ignore the problem in America, after all as a whole we are richer than everyone. Sure we have the poor in the cities and countryside, but luckily we export most of our poverty with the help of multinational corporations. We don’t have to go downtown and see those thousands of factory workers making our clothes for cents on the dollar, making just enough money to survive until the next day they can work. We don’t see that because they are in India, Indonesia, China, etc.

Do people have their head so far up their ass as to recognize this? With each passing year the gap between the rich and the poor grows wider. With each year the middle class shrinks, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is not related to politics, it is a function of capitalism. Case in point, China has a similar income inequality rating as the United States. See for yourself at wikipedia.

Notice the countries with the least inequality are those in Europe. These social democracies are what the United States needs to aspire to, although extended the social safety net can only accomplish so much. The root of the problem is that poor people simply cannot succeed in a system that puts so much against them. It starts when they fall out of their mothers womb and continues for the rest of their life in most regards. Sure people can get out of the cycle, but it requires work and primarily education.

This problem will continue to get worse until we start looking for a cure, not ridiculous treatments that prop people up for 18 years while they are “innocent children” and then lets them down as “guilty adults”. Education is the key and it will the topic of a future article.

poverty,inequality,bill maher,gini,poor