[msm_]

Occam's razor. Either:

* There are solutions to poverty, which the individual person can follow, but (even though poverty is hell) people ignore them and prefer to stay poor

* The solutions to poverty you think about actually aren't. The money-deprived people already know about them and (having much more knowledge about poor people's world) know they don't work.

Since you - like almost everyone here - are a smart person with a scientific mind, I'm sure you can see that the first explanation is more likely.

If you get downvoted (as a matter of fact, I didn't) it's only because you declare that there is a miraculous solution to poverty, that would help people, that nobody talks about, and then you well, don't talk about it.

[carlosjobim]

You forgot with your razor the third option:

* People who have successfully clawed and scratched themselves out of poverty are almost never taken into consideration in discussions about poverty.

At most modern culture appreciates a rags-to-riches story. But rags-to-normal stories are unheard of. When was the last time you heard about people going from poverty to having just decent lives? Doesn't really pique the interest of people, perhaps.

But that's what countless people have done, they're just not considered in the perspective of poverty. At most you just see them as some everyday guy in the supermarket or on the bus.

Getting out of poverty and back on your feet again is very close to a miracle. That's how it feels for those who experience it. But hackers spit on it with contempt, because that was not the solution they would have preferred. Or that was not a solution which was applicable to every single person on earth. And in that case, I guess we should file a formal complaint also against all the saints who cured the blind but didn't cure the deaf.

[projektfu]

Either:

1. There are solutions to organization and staying on task, that person can use, to successfully manage their lives, or

2. Those solutions actually aren't. They only work for people who would have been organized anyway.

Casting this dichotomy into a different area that I understand better helps me to see what you are saying. I think that it also gives me an idea that this is not a dichotomy. There are solutions to poverty for the individual. The individual must be aware of them, use them, and keep using them, until they are no longer poor. Then, they have to have a system to avoid returning to poverty. The sum total of this is much harder than it seems, so to many people it seems like those solutions cannot work. Sure, to a person for whom these approaches work, who has become broke and homeless, they can do it, but that is cold comfort for those who cannot escape poverty.

Thanks for the insight.

[treis]

There's a clear 3rd option where the poor are self destructive shit heads.

IMHO this is one of those areas where lots of things can be true. If you're sick or catch bad breaks then yep poverty is a grinding cycle. If you're not then the American Dream is still alive. But the "American Dream" always kinda sucked. In that you never got a ton of luxuries and it was all somewhat precarious.

[bluGill]

There are solutions to poverty and the majority of people do follow them successfully. However there are always people getting into poverty and so there is always poverty. Worse there are people who cannot follow the solutions we have to poverty - this is a small minority, but it is the ones that are hardest to deal with.

There are also a tiny number (less than 1 in 1000) who have a lot of wealth but choose to live in poverty because that is freedom. If you look close you see they are the ones who have a warm coat and working heat in their tent. This is not poverty, but they try to be counted in your poverty numbers because it helps them. When you have wealth living in poverty is not that bad. (the above is a story a homeless man told me this week while I was helping out at our local food shelf. The homeless man is in poverty and I get the impression his divorce settlement is the problem and as soon as his kids are out of school he plans on getting a real job)