China has a Plan! Why doesn't America have a plan for ending poverty?

China has a plan! Why doesn't America have a plan for ending poverty? Robert R. Odle, Ph.D. an aspiring good citizen of the earth

… share or do without ....

My mom had a simple rule about eating or drinking anything around strangers or friends.  Either share what you have or do without it until they leave.  She also told us not to leave money or anything else lying around because in tempting someone else we put in part responsible for their downfall. I was thinking I never remember sharing our meals with strangers, but perhaps no one ever felt like a stranger after we shared a meal with them. It was part of the respect my mom gave to all people and doing what she could to help them while not being judgmental.

Poor people are strangers to most Americans.  We don’t know them, we make up stories about what they are like, or not like.  We talk about their willingness to work or not work like we had spent the day with a representative group of them while we failed to get them out of their proverbial rocking chair.  But, mostly, we don’t know poor people.  I guess we can make up stories about them and begin to hate them, or we can be indifferent, or we can imagine they are not too different than us and have compassion for their plight.  I’m guessing, but I suspect there are no poor people among my precious few readers of this blog.  Even in the digital world, we don’t know them.

I don’t know if you realize that China has lifted more people out of poverty than any other country in the history of the world.  No, it wasn’t an accident, but a deliberate policy backed up by actions. Of course, poverty depends to some extent where you draw the line in the sand and say below this income level you are poor.   Here I will just define it as those because of circumstances or their culture that are unlikely to make significant improvement in their income, health or general well-being in their life time.  That more or less fits many, if not most, of the bottom 40% of the people in our country.  Upward mobility is mostly a thing of the past. Our generation has seen more downward mobility.

Deliberate Action, the suffocating mud of poverty

Poverty is not a magical spell that falls over someone.  It comes from being taught to see life in a certain way, by your parents or other adults, when you are a child combined with there being very little resources available to the poor person to change their path. Poverty is a condition of one’s physical reality combined with a lack of life skills on how to struggle against the physical condition one finds one self in.

Most people who know my roots would say I grew up in poverty.  I would describe those first twenty years of life as feeling like I was walking in a ditch filled with thick mud that at times was waist deep as my richer friends walked along a paved road parallel with my ditch.  I saw my dad fall and get pulled down into that mud.  I saw my mom learn to survive in the mud and saw my brother rail against mud until it pulled him under.  Ironically,  of the three people I know that made it out of the neighborhood, two of them followed me into metallurgy at college.  Seeing my dad pulled down by the thick mud that eventually strangled him, gave me that little push to help me get free -- as if his last push propelled me out while pushing him too far below the surface to survive. My mom had given me a lot of the skills to survive on the street (double meaning) when I did get my break.

It was not an accident that I got out.  My parents and others took deliberate actions to push me up and out of poverty.  Sadly, I’ve been afraid of the mud of poverty my entire life and have made a lot of bad decisions because of that fear that has brought me back to that muddy river more than once.

America Can End Poverty, by deliberate actions

America could end poverty in one or two generations, or we can let it continue to expand.  
It’s always either expanding as it is in this country or shrinking like it is in China.  For practical purposes, the Scandinavian countries, many countries in Europe, and Australia have essentially eliminated poverty as we know it. China is probably less than a generation away from eliminating poverty -- and yes, the wheels could still come off, but they are trying. I may not agree with how these countries eliminated poverty, but it is hard to argue with the their results. Beyond the scope of this document, but look at what the Gates foundation is doing to eliminate poverty, or Google's ambition to bring Internet to everyone on the planet (less poverty).

Practical Steps

To help people get out of poverty, America can give these people a helping hand in several obvious ways (and all of them help the entire country--duh):

1. Public transportation.  Yes, public transportation helps the poor, who are walking in the mud, more than it helps those walking down (or driving down) the paved roads of middle income America.  Most of the Western World has better public transportation than we have.  I have seen worse public transportation  in my travels in Peru, but right off hand I can’t remember any others.  
1. High Speed Trains.  China is building more high speed trains (200 mph) than the rest of the world put together. Trains will soon be criss-crossing their entire country.  Rates will be subsidized.  What a wonderful gift they are giving to their poor.  What an example for America. Even Russia is building high speed trains. And, of course, so is much of Europe.
2. Infrastructure. Subways, bus stations, good roads, bridges, buses, shuttles, etc.  Yea we know how to do it.  We just don’t.  Instead we watch it crumble and yes, it will affect all of us as our bridges start crumbling into the sea, but the poor will be hurt more since few of their jobs can be done from home, etc. And poor roads are already impacting the cost of good and services transported over them.
3. Internet Access and Infrastructure.  To lift the poor out of poverty, we have to give them access to the Internet on the same level as the privileged, which will end up being free internet and devices for all people, much like we consider food. With information/knowledge comes power and leverage, and cooperation among the poor. Think how FB could be used to help organize and help the poor.
4. And yes, it will cost money.  Nothing good comes free.  The most straightforward way to fund transportation and infrasture  is raising the gasoline tax about 10 cents a gallon. Of course, we probably can and will make it more complicated.
2. Childcare.  If you are a single mom in poverty, just having a job and transportation doesn’t mean you can just leave your kids and go to work. Instead we need:
1. Childcare centers in and around places of work.
2. Childcare centers in the middle of neighborhoods of poverty.
3. Childcare run by the Peace Corp for America (more below) and by poor people for other poor people.
4. And yes, this has to be paid for.  The Walmarts of the world need to step up to the plate as well as the state and local governments.  I’m guessing the federal government has their heads too far up their ass to be much help.
3. Education and Training.
1. For the poor, let’s make it a job to become educated and trained.  Your level of help from Uncle Sam depends on how well you are doing in improving yourself … yes, it is for them and it is for America.  
2. Free public education through a four year degree for everyone.  Most of the Western World are already doing this … and yes, America is being left behind.  We will not be leading the world in anything as those graduating college and even high school continues to decline.  And no, the poor are not going to be able or willing to go on college loans. Our country is already been strangled by college loans, now greater than credit card debt, and limited job opportunities to pay back the loans. (Note, the first time home-owner has disappeared from the market place, guess why? Part of the problem is that they are trying to pay off massive school loans ... less new houses, less jobs, etc. I digress.)
3. As the number of jobs decline, we are going to have to reward and pay people for tasks that used to fall under the umbrella of charity.  Why, because we need jobs and helping our fellow man is the most important job of all.
4. Peace Corps for America
1. It is sad, but much of America is now like a third world country, except worse, they have lots of guns.  They need help from the outside above a policeman that shakes them down periodically. We have a military that goes into the rest of the world to try to rebuild countries and the Peace Corp that tries to bring help to the poor in other countries.  Why not a nationally funded Peace Corp to help lift our poor out of poverty.  There are many places they could help America:
1. In our projects/slums
1. Child and old people babysit and teach.  Run kindergartens, after school programs.
2. Teach life skills.  Planning and prioritizing expenditures.  Saving.  Writing resumes.  
3. Help the homeless.  Run soup kitchens.  Build shelters.  Organize car pooling.
4. Give people in poverty a reason to live and hope instead of doing drugs and gangs.
5. Help those that are addicted to address those emotional problems that are driving them to drugs in the first place.  Rehab one on one.
2. In our disadvantaged schools
1. Tutoring
2. Running clubs
3. Co-teaching, Para teachers
2. Require Americans to give a couple of years of their life in serving in the Peace Corps for America.
1. This helps not only the poor, but it would give a whole generation of Americans face time with those less fortunate.  They won’t have to make up stories about what it is like to be poor.  When our government comes out with programs built on stories that are not true, or that do not address core problems, we will know.
2. the Peace Corps also gives us a way to employ an unlimited number of people that would otherwise be on welfare.  Of course, the Peace Corps has to pay more than welfare, but hopefully it will come to mean much more than just getting a check.
3. This will help build character that is so sorely lacking in our country.  We are all about ourselves, power and control.  Developing a little national humility in facing our problems, accepting that it is US and not THEM with a problem could really be good for us.  Could we become that shining light on a hill again?
5. How do we pay for all of this .. and more?
1. Gasoline tax increase.
2. Carbon tax to raise money for the above and to push us gently toward renewable energy sources.
3. A progressive capital gains tax.
4. Inheritance tax.
5. Reduce our military footprint.  Influence the world with how we take care of our weakest.

Sadly, we have not admitted we have a problem.  We still believe that as long as we have the highest GNP and the strongest army, we are doing well. But, for those of us that judge our country not on how well we make money but how well we help the weakest among us, there is real cause for concern.  Like our infrastructure, our country moral fiber is corroding at its foundation.  We are full of blame and our own importance and unwilling to help the growing masses of people floundering in the mud of poverty.