Poverty and Wealth Part One By Bert Lorenzo

A person could think we have a weak economy from the stuff we hear in the news. Journalists and economics experts in print and on television bombard us with news and messages of high unemployment, low retail and real estate sales and of people who must eat dog food to survive. I’ve even heard economics and real estate experts compare our economy with the economy of the great depression a time of 35-40% unemployment. Today we have about 4% unemployment. I can’t take experts seriously when they make wild comparisons.

We live in a time of the strongest economy in not just United States but world history. Today a person can create or build wealth anywhere in the world. It only takes intelligent choices. I come to this conclusion not as an expert but through common sense and simple observation as Aristotle suggested.

Watch any sports event and you will see capacity filled stadia. Baseball, basketball, hockey, arena football and regular football stadia both pro and amateur turn away people at the gate. Americans make the cable and phone company owners rich every month. I go out to lunch every day and must wait for a table. How can anyone seriously claim we have a recession or depression when Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars every weekend at the movie houses and later rent and buy DVD’s of the same movies?

This doesn’t mean we can’t make our economy even stronger. We can. This doesn’t mean we don’t have poverty. We do. Except for children all adults choose poverty through the decisions they make. Professor Walter Williams at George Mason University did extensive research on the causes of poverty and found three factors all (I do mean all.) poor people have in common. All those who escape or avoid these three factors escape or avoid poverty. Children constitute approximately 50% of the world’s poor. They don’t choose poverty. They inherit it. Adults choose poverty according to Williams when they don’t finish high school, don’t work and have children out of wedlock. What a simple formula. Everyone can avoid or escape poverty. They need a high school diploma. They need to work at any job and stick to it so they can advance and marry someone also with at least a high school diploma who likes to work. Then the couple can have children if they choose. We don’t need government programs or this or that politician-only intelligent choices. Politicians can’t cure poverty only help its spread through policies that promote poverty and they can’t create or build wealth only punish wealth creators and builders.

I define poverty as a lack of basic necessities or the inability to acquire those necessities. The poor have little or no wealth or possession. No person with a T.V., phone or cable fits this definition. No person who struggles but still can purchase food and shelter every day fits this definition either. Four billion people on the planet fit this definition. An amazing 50% of the world’s population lives in poverty. Half of those -adults- either inherited their poverty or remain poor because of choices they’ve made. The rest ended poor through their poor decisions. The person who struggles to earn food and shelter lives a hard life but as I write above doesn’t fit my definition.

An individual might meet all three factors or any combination and still manage the basic necessities but all poor as I write above share these three factors and none others. This means adults have complete control over their station in life even in communist, undemocratic systems. While in such systems people may not have access to basic knowledge or work they do choose to reproduce. They then place themselves and their newborn in poverty. People without access to education and work could find other ways to feed and shelter themselves but make it impossible or close to once they reproduce.

The teenager who quits school and reproduces has little or no chance at work. The teenager’s choices lead her to poverty. A high school diploma offers individuals privileges like access to more sophisticated education and certain jobs. Marriage gives couples and their children the stability and foundation to create or build wealth.

I will examine the nature of wealth and how to create or build it in my next composition.