My first poll for the NZ public

[Ocean1]

Why do we still have extreme poverty when there's 50% more aid given than is required?

Because the definition of poverty changes with the level of income. You could make them all millionaires and the official number of poor wouldn't change a jot.

Of course it would, especially as they're all millionaires and will be able to afford anything that they want.

No, it wouldn't. The poverty industry measures poverty as the percentage of population with income less than 60% of median income.

Which is bullshit of course, under that definition you could double everyone's net worth and not change poverty. The only way to reduce relative poverty is to reduce "income inequality", the “solution” is to tax people more and hand out more welfare. Classic socialism.

The problem they've got is that both relative AND absolute poverty has taken a very large and sustained drop in the last few decades, so they have to keep re-inventing poverty definitions to make their spiel even vaguely relevant.

Attachment 311843

Old socialist bullshit is getting old.

Yes, that's the poverty industry.

Lucky I'm not a socialist then.

No. The problem they've got is that the cost of living is rising faster than there is money available for those who need it. There are loads of reports around about it... you'd think people might make the rather obvious connection eh... but nah.

Yeah, there's no shortage of carefully crafted reports that the world is ending, based on the price of turnips per starving vegan.

But if you'd bothered to check the real numbers posted above you'd possibly see why most people see them as the bullshit they are.

Which leaves a few various fuckwits bleating about "the system", which in fact is actually working rather well...

bwaaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa.

Enter fuckwit, stage left... http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/mone...-child-poverty

[Brian d marge]

As ageneral rule if givernments spend money the reverse of the required outcome generally occurs
The basics of life should be capped at a percentage of the minimum wage after that do whatya want . .
Butfresh healthy food and abasic house and healthcare etc should never suffer the vagaries of the market

[mashman]

Enter fuckwit, stage left... http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/mone...-child-poverty

I reckon next year would be better, but hey... if you're not going to take the issue seriously by continuing to throw financial band aid's, pun intended, at it the problem, then you're sweeping the issue under the rug for 10 years or so until some govt decides that it's subsidy over, no more budget. You'll have forgotten within 10 seconds. Pathetic attempt at stopping something that is well within our means to stop.

[Ocean1]

I reckon next year would be better, but hey... if you're not going to take the issue seriously by continuing to throw financial band aid's, pun intended, at it the problem, then you're sweeping the issue under the rug for 10 years or so until some govt decides that it's subsidy over, no more budget. You'll have forgotten within 10 seconds. Pathetic attempt at stopping something that is well within our means to stop.

Are you really that thick that you can't see that no matter how much money you throw at the fixing the "problem" of the number of "poor" defined as "earning less than 60% of the median income" it won't change?

Again: you could double everyone's real income and the number of poor would be exactly the same.

If you had a memory as good as an average sheep you'd realise that's exactly what's happened, repeatedly over the last few decades.

[bogan]

Are you really that thick that you can't see that no matter how much money you throw at the fixing the "problem" of the number of "poor" defined as "earning less than 60% of the median income" it won't change?

Again: you could double everyone's real income and the number of poor would be exactly the same.

If you had a memory as good as an average sheep you'd realise that's exactly what's happened, repeatedly over the last few decades.

Yeh that is why you have to steal procure gifts from the top half, to transfer to the bottom half and push their incomes above that 60% of median, while pulling it down too.

Which is also good to solve the problem of those who work too hard or don't like their job, cos they would no longer have to work to stay out of poverty.

Though more gifts may need to be procured, and the median income might drop a little more.

But that is the great thing about poverty, it isn't an absolute measure, so you can use it again and again to drag down those who you are jealous of until everyone is 'equal'...

[mashman]

Are you really that thick that you can't see that no matter how much money you throw at the fixing the "problem" of the number of "poor" defined as "earning less than 60% of the median income" it won't change?

Again: you could double everyone's real income and the number of poor would be exactly the same.

If you had a memory as good as an average sheep you'd realise that's exactly what's happened, repeatedly over the last few decades.

bwaaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa. So under the rug it goes.

[Ocean1]

bwaaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa. So under the rug it goes.

I guess you really are.

[mashman]

I guess you really are.

You read me incorrectly. I laughed. Pay everyone the same is 1 solution that nullifies your median income poverty calculation. No doubt something the left are working towards, tui. If it's profitable, the right will subsidise it. Like I said earlier, the people are forgotten during that tug of budget war. That you'd rather nitpick over the absoluteness of a calculation and the resultant definition makes me laugh.

[bogan]

You read me incorrectly. I laughed. Pay everyone the same is 1 solution that nullifies your median income poverty calculation. No doubt something the left are working towards, tui. If it's profitable, the right will subsidise it. Like I said earlier, the people are forgotten during that tug of budget war. That you'd rather nitpick over the absoluteness of a calculation and the resultant definition makes me laugh.

With what?

[mashman]

With what?

What with?

[bogan]

What with?

See my example above, you'll have less to pay them with than they get now

[Ocean1]

You read me incorrectly. I laughed. Pay everyone the same is 1 solution that nullifies your median income poverty calculation. No doubt something the left are working towards, tui. If it's profitable, the right will subsidise it. Like I said earlier, the people are forgotten during that tug of budget war. That you'd rather nitpick over the absoluteness of a calculation and the resultant definition makes me laugh.

It's not my poverty calculation, but if you want to pay everyone the same then by all means feel free to do so.

And yes, the left have that in common with you, they have no idea where money comes from.

And it's hardly nitpicking to point out that some fuckwit's definition is in fact utterly irrelevant to poverty, especially when it's so easy to demonstrate that only fuckwits can't see it.

[mashman]

It's not my poverty calculation, but if you want to pay everyone the same then by all means feel free to do so.

And yes, the left have that in common with you, they have no idea where money comes from.

And it's hardly nitpicking to point out that some fuckwit's definition is in fact utterly irrelevant to poverty, especially when it's so easy to demonstrate that only fuckwits can't see it.

I intend to.

Why does the left have anything in common with me? They're just as useless as the right.

No, it's still nitpicking.

[mashman]

See my example above, you'll have less to pay them with than they get now

Print more money then.

[bogan]

Print more money then.

I was not talking about the numerical value of money.

There is a reason why capitalist countries live in less poverty than those which are not.