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Strike day in France | 121 comments (121 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: Absolute poverty (none / 0)
"Experiencing homelessness" during the course of a year is not the same as "being homeless", and therefore not even remotely comparable to the numbers for the other countries, and as such not useful.

And it's not about "not having permanent address". It's about having no place to sleep in, and having to ask to an emergency shelter.

No it's not. It is about not having a permanent adress. That's the definition used, and then number of around 800.000 is what other sources also use. And that is NOT about going to shelters, but not having apermanent address.

The fact that you compare your past situation to homelessness shows you have only a very tenuous grasp with what poverty actually means in the industrialised world.

Realitycheck: It is homelessness in the definitions used to gather the statistics above. I explained this in my post. What was unclear?

Try to use facts rather than groundless affirmations.

Try to not throw stones in glass houses. You just claimed that 1.5% of the population of the US lives in shelters or on the streets. That's ridicolous. It's time to come back to reality.

by freedomfighter on Fri Oct 26th, 2007 at 02:38:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Absolute poverty (none / 1)
The word "address" doesn't appear on the link I provided. Nor in the page where that site define homelessness. So I fail to see how you deduce that the statistics are compiled with your definition of homelessness. Again, read the links. (And it's not only shelters and street, either.)

"Experiencing homelessness" may not be the same as "being homeless", but it is a sure sign of strong poverty, of unreliability of housing access. It is an indicator of absolute poverty.

And 1.5% of Americans experiencing homelessness every year is reality, as frightening as the 2% that sleep in jail every night (another indicator of poverty)

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Fri Oct 26th, 2007 at 07:28:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Absolute poverty (none / 0)
You are now grasping on a set up number as a last straw in your mental defences, and completely ignore to check what these numbers mean in reality or that you need to make a comparison with the rest of the world, if these numbers are really to say what you want them to say.

At this point all I can do is to repeat what I already have said until it hits home, but my experience is that it's a very frustration experience to do so, and it takes a long time, and most of the time fails, so I'm not gonna waste my time doing that. You'll just have to continue to live with your pre-concieved idea of how the world looks.

by freedomfighter on Sat Oct 27th, 2007 at 05:17:20 AM EST
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Re: Absolute poverty (4.00 / 2)
You're repeating yourself and not giving any kind of evidence of what you assert, unlike everybody else on this thread. You are the one with no understanding of reality, or a wish to hide it.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sat Oct 27th, 2007 at 10:28:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Absolute poverty (none / 1)
I repeat, because you ignored this. The case that was presented here was twofold:

   1. That freedom of choice was an argument for keeping the current situation in French pensions.

   2. That if you allow people freedom of choice in pensions, poverty and starving old people  will ensue.

There has been exactly zero evidence to support this. Instead you are digging down the debate into a quagmire by repeatedly asserting statements that have no contact with reality, and using irrelevant statistics in an effort to polish a complete turd of argumentation.

Then claiming that I don't come with evidence is rather absurd.

It is not debate, it's me trying to explain, and you putting your fingers in your ears and loudly repeating random numbers to yourselves to prop up your myths and avoid challenging your basic assumptions. Or foundational myths, as rg calls them. That was a good post, read it:

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/10/21/65910/511

I think the foundational myths here are:

  1. The effects of an action is what you wanted them to be.
  2. Since we are nice persons those that do not agree with us are evil.
  3. Everything that happens happens because somebody decided it should happen.
  4. The bigger the effect, the more powerful the person.

All of these are wrong. But these myths means that all good things that happens happens because somebody good and powerful wanted them to happen, and all bad things happen because somebody bad and powerful wanted them to happen. And with that attitude, all the evils of the world must come from some really powerful place. And the most powerful place is the US government.

Hence, US is evil. Hence, US policy is evil. Hence, the US must be a much worse place to live than most other places.

The rest of the sick and screwed up arguments here, together with the general fear of freedom, can probably be extracted from these basic assumptions.

by freedomfighter on Sun Oct 28th, 2007 at 09:15:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Strike day in France | 121 comments (121 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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