POVERTY in the good old U.S. of A.

The Census bureau defines poverty for a family of four to be $21200.00, This, of course, means if you make $21201.00 you better not cry poor because you will get your ass kicked. Add or subtract about $3500.00 per child and you can figure the rest out yourself.

How did they come up with this ridiculous calculation? Civil servants! They assigned two guys to figure it out and they were probably pissed about something (Civil servants are always pissed) Maybe they didn’t get overtime the week before so they say “frig it” (Civil servants are always saying “Frig it”) so they get out the old dart board and throw the darts and BAM! $21200.00 was the magic number. By the way, all Government policy is decided by the dart board method, do you think they are actually analyzing this stuff? Please! I was a civil servant and I know!

You guys do not remember the dark ages when the Government decided that people had 2.4 children per household. Well as Americans we could not tolerate anyone having more than us so Uncle Sam was forced to chop up babies and hand out a .4 baby to every family with two children. It was heart wrenching. I lead the fight that stopped this barbarous practice and reasoned with the people that instead of chopping every fourth baby up we could all keep two kids and send the odd number overseas where they could work eighteen hours a day in sweat shops making clothing so Wal-Mart can sell us Americans real cheap clothes. Yea, always felt good about that.

How do you think we defeated the Evil Empire during the cold war? Simple, we found out they had more missiles than us and being Americans that was intolerable so we built ten billion of the suckers and forced the Soviet Union into bankruptcy. The rest is, as they say, history

Back to poverty.
Defining this dire and heart breaking “condition” as “poverty” does not speak adequately to the problem. I propose the Quaismodo chart; I believe it speaks more eloquently to the issue. Here goes:

$21200--------Poor Fucks
$16000--------Really Poor Fucks
$12000--------Destitute
$10000--------Totally Fucked

There!

Everything in life is a continuum and we as a society need to address the degrees of poverty, I submit:

“Jim, how’s it going man?”
“Not good Quas I am a poor fuck.”
“Stop crying man, I am totally fucked.”

See…big difference.

The problem with the typical American’s view of poverty is: IT’S THEIR FAULT! You know it’s true, never try to bullshit the Quas. It is not that we are bad people; it is the bullshit that was inculcated into our brains since birth. The American Dream, work hard and you will succeed. Maybe I was precocious because I never bought into that bullshit. Sure there are Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and a whole bunch of self made very wealthy people. However, the overwhelming majority of global wealth is inherited. Yea, people are born into it, which takes a lot of hard work.

If poverty was a chosen condition it would require the following mindset:
“Honey, I was thinking, who really needs a car, nice house, vacations, adequate heath care, education for our kids. Babe, that shit is over rated, I think we should shoot for being Destitute.”

If you believe it’s their fault you can not run from that logic. Sure you see poor people on the street corner drinking and it appears they do not want to partake of the American Dream, but it is only that they have had their hearts ripped out of their chests, and they simply no longer give a shit.

Briefly, world hunger:
Ever see those poor beyond poverty people from third world Countries waiting in line for hours for a friggin bag of rice and the friggers are grateful! If I was hungry and had to wait in line for two hours and some dude handed me a bag of rice, I would say:
“What the frig am I suppose to do with this?
“Go to a wedding?”
“Give me a burger and a beverage of my choice or I will kick your ass!”

Well, I am an American.

I never do this but I will step out of character.

THE BIGGEST CRIME OF THE LAST ONE HUNDRED YEARS IS NOT THE HOLOCAUST, NOT THE LACK OF CONCERN ABOUT THE AIDS PANDEMIC, IT IS THAT AS A GLOBAL COMMUNITY WE ALLOW ANOTHER HUMAN BEING TO GO TO SLEEP AT NIGHT HUNGRY. IN THIS TIME OF UNPRECEDENTED HUMAN WEALTH AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT WE ALLOW THAT CRIME TO GO UNFOUGHT DEFINES ME AS A PIECE OF SHIT! YOU DECIDE FOR YOURSELF. I GUESS WHEN WE DECIDE TO LOOK AT ONE ANOTHER AS TRUE BROTHERS AND SISTERS, MAYBE THEN WE WILL RISE AS ONE AND SAY NO MORE!

Till then, fuck you and give me a burger and a beverage of my choice.


Quas.