>>>I don't know about that. Have you ever seen who goes to Harvard and other Ivy league schools? The student body list is so full of foreign names.
>
>>Is a foreign name a "minority"? And I think the issue is about minorities at home, not foreigners. ... Does it follow that a foreign named person is a poor person? I just don't see the logic here.
>
>You may have a point. But there are ways to go to college if you want to go.
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>And you don't have to go to an Ivy league to break the poverty cycle. I know a several people that started out by going to a two year college and tranfered to a university.
>Believe me, if I can graduate from a University, any one can.
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>But maybe it should all start at the lower level like in high school. Too many kids don't\won't even finish high school. Why?
>
>
>>>>IMO, there's no way out of having the poor, as long as we have a lessez-faire capitalism and unrestrained corporations. The powers that be will always need certain level of unemployment (6% unemployment is good for the economy, they say), or else they'd have to deal with employees' demands, and start paying them properly and give them benefits and even, maybe even, decrease their profit rate because of that.
>
>>>Interesting theory.
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>>It's more than a theory. Or at the least it's an important part of making capitalism work "well". "Well" being defined as 'for the corporation's benefit'.
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>Note to self: Learn the theory behind this. :)
>
>
>>>>Charity and/or throwing money at the poor will not work in the long run because it doesn't address the cause. And the cause is the corporate need for a certain level of unemployment... which is something that's been out there for a few centuries now.
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>>>I think people like NAACP, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton needs them more.
>
>>That's what the media (big corporate, don't ever forget) wants you to believe. Making the poor, and those who try to do something about it, into "the enemy" lets corporations take more and more. Look at what they've done to the reputation of unions over the last 20 years or so!
>Corporations now run under the objective of more $$$ and more $$$ and more $$$ and we have been thoroughly conditioned by the media and schooling that more $$$ is THE essence of life. Too bad for those who just can't hack it.
>
>I guess one can make excuses for not being able to help yourself, but most the blame should go to the individual.

The theory... if there was full employment there would be competition for employees, driving up salaries, which is decidedly not good for the corporation. On the news tonight they were bemoaning that there are plenty of jobs in New Orleans but nobody to fill them. Which suggests that the poor blacks of NO weren't unemployed but simply got poor by being underpaid.
Look at seasonal fruit pickers (a euphemism for illegal immigrants). The industry would be dead without them and they promote the idea that these people do work Americans won't do. They forget to add ...for the wages we pay.

As for most of the blame to the individual, I say that's the attitude that's been drummed into us and its a falsehood TODAY.
It's the individual's fault when the manufacturing job he's been working at successfully for 20 years is packed up and moved to China?... It's the individual's fault when wages and benefits are cut while hours are increased, making it tough to make ends meet anymore?... It's the individual's fault when corporations suck so much of local/state tax monies that schools suffer and roads suffer and police services suffer and fire services suffer and...?
When we're all selling used WalMart goods to each other on e-Bay you'll see what I'm talking about.

cheers