Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Why Poverty Is Poison

This article explains the permanent damage that poverty can do to children, in terms of neural development. Poverty is bad for the health of adults too. Nor is it necessarily the fault of the poor; although some people are poor because they made bad decisions, many more are poor because they were born that way and couldn't get out, or because of involuntary crushing debt. (A majority of individual bankruptcies are now caused by medical bills.) A country is only as strong as its citizens. When a lot of the citizens are poor, sickly, and uneducated ... the country is weak.
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  • 1 comment
wyrmwwd

Thank you for posting this...

wyrmwwd

February 20 2008, 00:53:07 UTC 13 years ago

... and for your comments.

I was born to poor parents. I worked really hard and took some chances, and worked really hard some more, and finally got to a point where I considered myself "affluent". Then, the skills that I had developed that I thought were going to sustain me (computer programming) until I retired became a major outsource. My job went to India. Suddenly, I found myself in my late 40s with no marketable job skills. I slid back into poverty, but hopefully some family in India is now eating regularly.

It wasn't because I was lazy, or addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling. It was because I thought that computer programming was a pretty good profession and I worked really hard at it.

Poverty is really, really hard on a person. It affects health and self-esteem in very, very significant ways, and I agree with you. I am not weak, the country is.

BTW... I am hoping to dig my way out of this again over the next year. It should be interesting to watch.