The Age of Extremes

Poverty: something hard to define, something that will always be there, and something that needs to changed. In this article, Massey discusses poverty in the United States as well as other countries. He also discusses the concentration of affluence and how the social classes are constantly drifting apart. He discusses much inequatlity involved with poverty

Reading this article made me think a lot, espeically after reading others comments and feelings on it. Poverty is something that is a major issue in the United States yet it does not seem as if much is being done to fix it. It blows my mind how the budget is spent and all those celebrities that are out adopting babies from other countries and donating massive amount of money to them. Take a look at what just happend over in Haiti. Yes, I feel terrible for there struggles, losses, and their great need of help but what about us, the United States. Why are we always expected to go over and help all of these disaster areas; who helped up with Katrina? I know the United States is seen as one of the best places to live but we do not have our shit together. The US is such a young country and we need to learn from others.

Poverty and inequality will never go away; its what makes the world go round. Not everything can be equal when it comes to everything. As much as it sucks, there has to be the rich and there has to be the poor. I personally recieve grants for schooling; I am not wealthy by any means. But I understand I have the opportunity from government funding to achieve bigger and better things for myself. I think the working and middle classes are better off. We are not priviledged with all the luxories in the world but we have the opportunity to make it ourselves and have that wonderful feeling of accomplishment.

The leaders of this world need to quit spending all of our money on things we dont need to. They need to continue to support education in order to have a better off society.