Saturday, May 26, 2012
Robbing the poor
In her essay "When All Else Fails, Rob the Poor", Barbara Ehrenreich describes how society tends to take advantage of the financially unstable Americans. This article explains how with the way society and businesses make it un-achievable for the less fortunate to become a part of a higher income bracket. Ehrenreich explains how major credit card companies treat people from a lower income bracket. First these credit card companies charge the poor with higher interest rates. "Gary Rivlin, who wrote "Broke USA," calculated that the poor pay an effective surcharge of about $30 billion a year for the financial and banking services they use." She also explains how employers are legally allowed to keep a big portion of money which should be paid out to employees. Many companies fail to pay their employees minimum wage and also the required amount of money for overtime worked. Ehrenreich, also states Kim Bobo, concludes in her book "Wage Theft in America" how U.S. employers pocket around $100 billion a year through these practices. In this article, Ehrenreich explains how the government is the biggest transgressor of being prejudice and taking advantage of the poor. The state keeps creating incompatible punishments to minor infractions that are made. This article is effective in using logos such as "Payday Advance" making this an invitation to the poor having them believe that their using this system will help them get ahead, while in actuality their desperation is just another way for companies to take advantage of the poor and weak willed. Ehrenreich describes this process as a "legal loan shark". Ehrenreich's articles expresses pathos, by sharing the story of the homeless Michigan woman. I believe that Ehrenreich's article allows its readers to know exactly what is going on in the society of the United States and it really makes your stomach turn when you think about what happens everyday in your own backyard. America used to be all about helping people, just because the people that need help are poor it doesn't make you any less of a person.
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Trina did a good job of covering this article. I haven't read the article yet but after reading this I am very interested in reading Robbing the poor in it's entirety. With everything else in this country, if you follow the money you will see who makes the decisions and why. The poor doesn't have any representation, and when they finally do get someone in office their voice isn't heard because it is drowned out by big money including banks and credit card companies. If a poor person isn't represented very well or at all, then who is looking out for the homeless? I don't recall who said it, but I think it was Warren Buffet that "the whole country does good, when the poor and middle class do good" so I think it is obvious that greed is behind robbing the poor.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that the government intentionally "robs" the poor. They spend loads of money every year on lower class citizens with wealth fare to those who need it. They may seem to just try and spread that same money they giving to these lower class people among them. Instead of spending middle and upper class taxes to provide a base of living to the lower class. I would personally rather have the poor be charged for a few things so I wasn't charged extra for them.
ReplyDeleteIt is the American way to spend money we don't have. Our society is geared towards convenience. Most Americans get into debt at a young age and live the rest of their lives paying off debt. We all want to live comfortably and we pay for it. I believe this stems from childhood. Not having a financial education on how to manage money. This trend isn't isolated to the poor either. The National Debt is ridiculous thanks to government spending. The politicians spending money obviously don't know how to manage finances as well. Everyone from corporations to individuals that know that a lot of Americans are ignorant to how money works take advantage of that fact. We have to raise our children to be financially independent. Some of our children will be politicians and hopefully we can change how Americans spend money in twenty years if we all take a stand, make a change, and leave a legacy for our children to be proud of.
ReplyDeleteThe poor have fewer options when it comes to a bail out. When you are poor you don't have much except what you can scrape by with. The poor are easy targets for credit companies, cash advance businesses and government issues because they have fewer resources than someone who more financial stable. The poor have more obstacles, which leads to more stress, which can lead desperate decisions. The lower class is offered assistance from government funded programs, but this does not make peace with what is causing such massive levels of poverty. Overall, Barbara makes a strong argument about the pool the poor is drowning in.
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