The Price of Jim Paine’s “Well-Appointed Bathrooms”
June 12th, 2008
(A guest editorial by Try-Works reader, Business Major.)
Over the past few years, Jim Paine, PirateBallerina’s self-described Moonbat in Charge, has revealed more than enough about his views on taxation to firmly establish his credentials as a member in good standing of the Let Them Eat Shit School of “Free Market” Economics (otherwise known as rabid “Milton Friedman groupies”).
Hence, among other repugnancies, Paine’s continuous whining about “every dime of taxpayer money” expended in efforts to better the lot of “colored folk,” even as he’s displayed all the rhetoric elegance of Geraldine “How dare you state the obvious?” Ferraro in trying to counter suggestions that his is a profoundly racist outlook.
Heretofore, we’ve simply referred those seeking to unravel the implications of what Paine passes off as “principles” to The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Kline’s brilliant analysis of the unspeakable misery resulting from the imposition of Friedmanism upon country after Third World country since 1973.
To this, we can now add a local dimension. As was reported in the New York Times on June 11, “Colorado experienced the nation’s largest rate of growth in impoverished children from 2000 to 2006.” By the latter year, “180,000 children—15.7 percent of the state total—were living in poverty in Colorado…a 73 percent increase since 2000.”
Nor was Colorado’s “leadership” in this area in any sense marginal. The second-highest rate of increase in child poverty occurred in New Hampshire, where it was 47%. In other words, Colorado led its closest rival by a whopping 26% (i.e., a full lap in a 4-lap race).
There’s more. While the increases in states like New Hampshire and Delaware—the latter, with a rate increase of 45%, placed third among the 50 states—were suffered disproportionately by communities of color, such lopsidedness was nowhere near so pronounced as it has been in Colorful Colorado.
The rate of increase pertaining to Colorado’s black children, for instance, was 116%. While no data was reported by the Times regarding Latinos, but among American Indians—a group against which Paine has consistently voiced an especially virulent loathing (all the while pretending to be doing exactly the opposite, of course)—the rate of child impoverishment rose by a staggering 473 percent.
Tellingly, the median income of Colorado’s burgeoning white urban population actually rose during the same period.
How to account for the so-called Colorado Paradox? How about the fact that during the years 2000-2006, Colorado served as a veritable national showcase for implementing the very economic model Jim Paine so vociferously champions?
Not only was the Bush program of corporate welfare and tax cuts for the most affluent in place during the entire period, but, in Colorado, the effects were amplified immensely by Bill Owens’ control of the governor’s mansion, and by certain services provided to the state’s lily-white elites by such unsavory types as Bob Beauprez, Tom Tancredo, and Benny “The Scotsman” Campbell in the U.S. House and Senate.
With this cast of characters running the show in behalf of its “natural constituency”—a population guaranteed to induce snow-blindness when viewed without benefit of dark lenses—it’s no wonder that what little remained of Colorado’s social contract after passage of the “taxpayer’s bill of rights” in 1992 was quickly shredded.
While the portion of the state’s public revenues devoted to sustaining everything from social services to education stagnated or declined, appropriations to expand policing and prison capacity rose steadily. At the same time, the tax codes were utilized to “stimulate investment and development”—read, “profitability”—to an unprecedented degree.
All told, the 2000-2006 period came as close to economic nirvana as anything Friedmanites like Paine have yet experienced on the domestic front. Indeed, his only real complaints have been that Colorado’s duly-elected “stewards of free enterprise” weren’t able to privatize the state’s infrastructure altogether.
Maybe if all those newly-impoverished black and Indian children had literally starved or died for lack of home heating, Herr Eichmann would have been satisfied that “economic justice” has at last been delivered to Colorado’s master race.
But probably not. Some forms of moral depravity know no bounds.
Be that as it may, one thing couldn’t be clearer at this point. And that’s that the price of the several “well appointed bathrooms” adorning Jim Paine’s utterly unearned country estate has been paid in suffering by an untold number of the hungry, shivering little “darkies” upon whose very futures he’s pronounced himself entitled to foreclose.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
“No single factor can explain the increase in Colorado, the study said…” but you seem to have discovered who is at fault. It’s Jim Paine and his fancy bathroom.
Paine is responsible for
1. “a growing number of single parent households,:
2. “a shortage of jobs for lower wage workers
3. “a low rate of high school graduation”
4.”an increase in the number of Hispanic children, who are more likely to live in poverty or drop out of high school, the study said.”
Even so, Jim Paine is doing a substandard job of it, since “Colorado (at 15.7%) remained slightly below the national rate of child poverty of about 18 percent. This means that nationally, bathrooms are 14.6% fancier on average than Paine’s. How humiliating!
Why didn’t you include these details, Ben?
June 12th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Well, how’s about we start with that I didn’t write it. Idiot.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
So I see. So you aren’t responsible. Probably didn’t even read it.
Business Major, when you start working in your field, you will need to be mindful of including all material facts and not just those that support a particular view.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Ben,
I’m relieved to find you didn’t write this but surprised you would post it. I’d guess I’m not the only idiot who would assume it was yours or at least that you approved it.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Just because I didn’t write it doesn’t mean I don’t agree with it. The point was to the boom-growth in impoverished children here in Colorado. I absolutely consider the mindset of you and your clones responsible for that.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I absolutely consider the mindset of you and your clones responsible.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Granted, Scrunt, you’re not the only idiot out there.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Laurie, I think the general question is: to what extent is the wealth of some based on the poverty of others?
There is nothing surprising about BM suggesting that Paine’s ability to remodel his home is connected to the economic policies of Colorado’s government and private sector, and that those very same policies have pushed more Coloradan families into poverty over the course of this decade.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Funny, ain’t it? Although she comes off like she’s one of the world’s leading authorities on how essays should be written, the Scrunt has never managed to publish one. With her, it’s always blah-blah-blah about how somebody else should have written theirs.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:32 am
There is plenty of evidence that the relative distribution of money among different classes of society drives the poverty rate. This simple reason for this is that prices are driven by the ability of people to pay for things, and the more wealthy the upper-class is, they put upward pressure on necessities that everyone needs such as housing, food, water etc, so the poor can’t afford them. Remove those top 20% rich from an area, and prices would need to be lowered. This is particularly clear in the recent housing market.
From 1945-~1975, a very large american middle class was enabled from the fact that large fortunes were wiped out in the depression and WWII. E.g. my grandfather could have 5 kids and a stay at home spouse and a big house and car and they all had clothes (no medical due to the faith healing religion), with a job as a salesman after two years in college. And this is despite the much lower worker productivity at the time when there was less mechanization or computers. Forgetting race issues of the time, things were like this because the distribution of money between classes didn’t allow prices to go up. Rather than the linear supply-demand relationships that you learned in econ101 (which is not an empirical science), prices actually have feedback loops because demand is driven by the amounts people are earning. A simple illustration is Henry Ford’s decision to pay middle class wages so that his workers could afford to be buyers. Capitalists have an incentive to pay as low as possible, yet they also require other rival businessmen to pay high wages so that there will be demand for their products. Unless there is some coordination involved to get these businessmen to raise wages and create middle class people who are able to purchase things, then they actually drive the flow of money between businesses down by acting for their immediate self interests.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:09 am
matteo,
The NYT article lists possible causes for the increased poverty level in CO. The wealth of others is not on that list. What about another’s success causes people to have children without a committed partnership and an incomplete education?
As far as I can tell, Jim Paine did not earn his money on the backs of poor people. BM only wants to say he did because their politics don’t agree. Odd that he doesn’t accuse WC or GS of causing poverty. They are doing well financially.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Rock, you’re hopeless.
Sybil, I disagree with your view with the exception that Henry Ford wanted everyone to be able to afford his car. People make choices about their purchases. They buy everything they want if they have the money and are selective if they don’t. (Drugs as a selection can take a big bite out of a household budget but some people will adjust their other needs to buy them.) The key for the seller is to provide what everyone wants. They can’t control the personnel or other costs of their competitors so they must produce products that people will buy and control their own costs.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:54 am
To translate for Laurie: poor people are poor because they do drugs and make other poor choices; rich people are rich because they’re smarter than other people and make better choices. To extend the logic: as a group, white people are richer than, say, American Indians, because white people are smarter and make better choices.
Clear?
June 13th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
You and Laurie both forgot to mention the “coddling” part of that argument. You know, like how giving American Indians a lot of cheap and free access to higher education after stealing their livelihood and murdering their ancestors fails to teach them the value of a dollar. Or the cultural values argument, like how all darkies hate smart people. We’ve all heard your side before Laurie and it’s garbage. Our industrial and technological advances may or may not owe a lot to the free market, but using the free market as a moral philosophy fails to ensure or improve quality in things like education, healthcare, and so on for anyone not born into a privileged position. That is a violation of both the principles of equality and freedom (which are not mutually exclusive as some in your camp tend to believe– abolition, for instance, was a major stride forward for both) upon which this country was founded. Without those no society can be called just or expect to avoid catastrophic internal rebellion.
June 13th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Well said.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I’m confused, Laurie. I thought that Business Major’s complaint against Mr. Paine had to do with the Mr. Paine’s positions on taxes and whether tax monies should be expended on things like public education and social services. In other words, the question is not whether Mr. Paine is doing well, but whether he’s willing to pay his fair share to help those less fortunate than himself?
Has Ward Churchill taken positions on these matters similar to Mr. Paine’s? If so, please tell me where.
Oh yes, another thing: Do you have information indicating that Ward Churchill owns a $2 million estate like Mr. Paine?
June 13th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Ben,
I think you meant to say “thoroughly confused”.
“using the free market as a moral philosophy fails to ensure or improve quality in things like education, healthcare, and so on…” It’s a moral philosophy that works so much better than communism or socialism.
“…in things like education, healthcare, and so on for anyone not born into a privileged position.” Pell grants, student loans, Medicaid, housing and utilities assistance, food stamps, child care assistance and zero tax brackets are not for the privileged. So what society are you talking about and who will provide these things when the “catastrophic internal rebellion” you long for occurs? You?
“To translate for Laurie: poor people are poor because they do drugs and make other poor choices; rich people are rich because they’re smarter than other people and make better choices.”
Wrong and simple minded and you know it. I attached the choice of buying drugs to neither the rich, the middle class or the poor. I think we all know smart and stupid people in every earning catagory who do drugs. My point was about why people buy one thing rather than another.
Sybil said “…demand is driven by the amounts people are earning.” I say demand is driven by what people want, regardless of their earnings. They often will go without things they need or take on debt to have what they want. For example, drugs, which are all consuming for some people will be purchased with earnings, loans, trades or supported by crime. The drugs will be bought and the rent won’t be paid. You can say I meant something other than what I wrote but you’d be wrong.
June 13th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Sally,
“In other words, the question is not whether Mr. Paine is doing well, but whether he’s willing to pay his fair share to help those less fortunate than himself?”
Mr. Paine has no choice, if his elected representatives don’t agree with him. The majority rules and his taxes are still due. He doesn’t have to say he is happy about it.
Concerning WC, there’s no use pretending his household income isn’t at least 4-5 times that of the average American household. I’ve read he didn’t come from a “priviledged” family. His education was funded at least in part by student loans. Is his success good fortune or do you think he believes he worked hard for his money? His taxes help fund the Iraq war. He has no choice, if his elected representatives don’t agree with him. The majority rules and his taxes are still due. He doesn’t have to say he is happy about it.
June 14th, 2008 at 1:37 am
“It’s a moral philosophy that works so much better than communism or socialism.”
Economic systems are not moral philosophies, and all attempts (communist, socialist, capitalist, or otherwise) fail as a result. It’s like trying to use reader response lit theory to do calculus.
“Pell grants, student loans, Medicaid, housing and utilities assistance, food stamps, child care assistance and zero tax brackets are not for the privileged.”
On yours and Paine’s free-market philosophy, these things should not exist, that’s precisely the problem.
“who will provide these things when the “catastrophic internal rebellion” you long for occurs? You?”
I do not long for catastrophe, I’m not suicidal. I want the welfare systems traditionally provided by a just state to be preserved and improved in order to avoid just such an outcome. I will indeed pay for my part. Those payments are called taxes and charitable donations. I consider them worthwhile. That opinion is due to the fact that I am not a selfish moron (someone who thinks I could pay to build my own roads if only all the poor people would stop spending my money on food).
“I attached the choice of buying drugs to neither the rich, the middle class or the poor.”
The instant I read your comment about drugs I took note of the fact that you intentionally left out an explicit reference to the poor. I also knew you would be criticized and respond in precisely this way. You are a fucking sham and a liar. I hope you can feel your insides rotting away as the stress of trying to maintain your lies to yourself and others eat away at your aging, sagging body. I hope you dream about the fanciful day when nano-technology can reverse the aging process, and try to take supplements to keep yourself alive till then. I hope you die a week before it happens, and cry yourself into your last permanent sleep because you realize what a worthless shitbag you’ve always been, and that it’s all come to nothing, because no one lives forever and you could have loved your fellow human but choose not to out of greed and hatred.
June 14th, 2008 at 1:57 am
A few post scripts:
That should have said “…and all attempts to use them as such (comunist…).”
When you spoke about drugs, Laurie, you were talking about poor people, and your attempted dodge is a watery shit of a lie, here’s the proof:
“They buy everything they want if they have the money and are selective if they don’t. (Drugs as a selection can take a big bite out of a household budget but some people will adjust their other needs to buy them.”
So people are selective if they don’t have the money. Some of these selective people, those without the money, adjust their other needs to buy drugs. What do we call people without the money for their needs Laurie?
Yes, Jim Paine doesn’t have to say he’s happy about paying taxes, that’s a red herring. I didn’t say he couldn’t say it. I’m saying he’s an idiot for actually thinking that libertarian economics can work for any sustained period of time. He can say it all he wants, and those of us who think beyond the walls of our own domiciles will continue to explain why the idea is completely fucking moronic.
Lastly, I’m sure you will try to make fun of something like youthful anger in the final section of my response. I would like to state that it’s full of hope, not anger.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:31 am
now paine seems to be saying the only legitimate role of government is to protect his stuff.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:44 am
That’s not fair, c-parker. He also believes in the Bureau of Land Management.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Of course she’s a shitbag and a liar, Tyndale. That’s why we call her Scrunt (and even that’s a compliment).
That said, there are still a couple of points I can’t resist making with regard to her “argument”:
1) The idea that “Jim Paine did not earn his money on the backs of poor people” is true, but only because Paine hasn’t “earned” any money. Actually, he’s never done an honest day’s work in his life, having instead inherited his wealth, all of it obtained “on the backs of poor people” (and, more specifically, people of color).
2) Her “majority rule” premise—as anyone capable of spelling “K Street” can easily explain—is unworthy of a retarded eighth grader.
Now an aside to you, Tyndale: Paine’s economic “philosophy” is in no genuine sense “libertarian.” The man has absolutely no problem with government intervention in the economic system, so long as it serves to reinforce and protect his own privilege. Should you bother to unravel the whole self-contradictory mess he passes off as a political-economic “philosophy” you’ll find that his outlook—like that of any Friedmanite—comes much closer to the textbook definition of fascism than to libertarianism.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
paine opposes on principle all functions of government he doesn’t benefit from.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Laurie,
The NYT’s article cites two groups (The Colorado Fiscal Institute and The Colorado Children’s Campaign) as making a connection between Colorado cutting funding for public investment and the increase of children living in poverty.
Perhaps taxes were cut, revenue was shifted from general welfare to initiatives that favor those already well off, or maybe both occurred, either way this would benefit someone like Paine (regardless of how he made his money) to the detriment of others less fortunate than himself.
Whether the wealth of one group causes poverty, or aggravates the problems associated with poverty, obviously depends on how that wealth is generated (for an extreme example read King Leopold’s Ghost).
In Paine’s case the claim is simply that part of his wealth is owed to Colorado cutting back on public investment which in turn contributed to more families slipping into poverty.
As to problems associated with poverty (single mothers, drug addiction, school drop outs, etc.),
I don’t believe poverty alone is a sufficient cause of these.
An interesting study would be to see if there is
a correlation between the rates of these problems
among poor populations in urban centers and the level of economic disparity of the cities in which they live.
June 14th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I have no idea how or even if Paine is wealthy. He could be deeply in debt, secured by his ranch, for all I know. You folks seem to think he inherited it. Is this a guess, a known fact or a wish to justify your opinions?
Tyndale, I’m not angry and I’m certainly not wishing you a horrible death. You’ve got some real problems. For your information, I’ve got two very close family members, who I deeply love, who also had/have drug addictions. These are middle class people. I’ve seen first hand how they support their addictions. Stop putting your biases into my words.
Matteo, the NYT article indicated the most impoverished areas are rural and not urban. It also specified single parent households as the major likely cause. Furthermore, the report tracks poverty from 2000 to 2006. Nationally, 2000 was the lowest rate in decades. Had the chart started from 1995 or 1965, the conclusion would show the rates lowered. The rates ranged from 15 to 20 percent since 1965. Check it out.
Also, consider the population increase in CO between 2000 and 2006. Under 18 years census were 1,081,500 and 1,146,500 in 2006. Keeping in mind that some aged out of the group, the increase is significant. We could be playing catch up on helping some of these people. It will be interesting to see the stats in 2007 and 2008.
I have no problems with government programs funded by taxes provided they are not open-ended. It irritates me when I hear people talk about knowing how to “work the system” year after year. I also have spent many dollars and hours on charities. Maybe you have too. Maybe Paine has, as well. Why assume we don’t?
June 14th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Geez! I just took a look at this year’s Colorado budget. What the heck are you folks talking about? More than 70% of the 17 BILLION dollars total budget goes to human/health services and education!
http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/jbc/FY07-08BIB.pdf
June 14th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
You should put quotes around the word “principle” when using it in connection with Jim Paine, Parker, because, as always, he’s busily talking out of several sides of his mouth simultanously.
Witness his inclusion of “farmers,” “national parks,” and “education” among the things he claims to believe it’s “illegitimate” for the government to use tax monies to support.
Next, witness the fact that he lists his country estate as a “ranch,” which means that every gallon of water consumed by his designer livestock is deeply discounted, compliments of a federal subsidy built into the annual farm bill. Obviously, he’s had no qualms about pocketing the substantial savings (or, perhaps more accurately, spending all those tax dollars on his “well appointed bathrooms”).
And again, in the listing for his estate, Paine makes it clear that the profitability of his “ranching” operation is also dependent upon his holding of leases for addition acreage—again steeply discounted, and apparently transferrable to anyone able to fork over the $2 million he claims his estate is worth—with the federal Bureau of Land Management.
Plainly, he suffers no pangs of conscience about accepting the taxpayer subsidy that comes with every acre of land he leases from the BLM. Quite the opposite, he’s actively inflated the supposed “market value” of his property, based in no small part upon the “great deal” he’s obtained at taxpayer expense.
Viewed in this light, it’s easy to see that Paine has no “philosophical” problem with tax monies being expended to create vast tracts of “federally-owned” land, just so long as it is then consigned, as with the BLM and the National Forest Service, to maximizing the profits of mining corporations and loggers, as well as individual farming/ranching “entrepreneurs” such as himself.
His only “moral” objection is to the designation of a small fraction of the federal domain as National Parks, open to use by the general public (in other words, his complaint is that the taxpayers rather than he, personally, might derive some benefit from that which we rather than he paid for).
The bottom line is that Jim Paine is and has always been more deeply addicted to being on the dole—and on a far greater scale—than the most stereotypical “welfare queen” depicted at the height of the “Reagan Revolution.”
This leaves Paine’s oft-repeated objection to the expenditure of tax monies to underwrite education. Here, one may assume that if an actually principle pertains, the strenuousness of his objection would increase in direct proportion to the percentage of any institution’s budget which is derived from governmental sources.
As a benchmark, I submit the extent of the caterwauling in which he’s engaged over the past several years about the roughly 7% of the University of Colorado budget accruing from tax revenues.
Oddly, he’s said nothing at all about West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force and Coast Guard academies, the Army War College, and various related institutions, all of them funded ENTIRELY by taxpayers.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Laurie,
The article does not cite an increase in single parent households as the “major likely cause”, but only as one of several “contributing factors”. The article also spends considerably more time discussing Colorado fiscal policy than it does single parent families:
[quote]“This report and this finding validate a lot of what we largely know, in that Colorado continues to lag behind in key areas of public investment,” an institute spokesman, Scott Downes, said. “That prevents us from creating the kind of future that we want for our communities, our children and generations to come.”
Mr. Downes attributed the situation in part to a “knot of fiscal restraints” like a 1992 constitutional amendment, the Tax Payer’s Bill of Rights, that was intended to restrain state spending. [/quote]
Nor does it claim the majority of the increase occurred in rural, as opposed to urban, areas but rather that the increase was most pronounced in urban [i]and[/i] southern rural areas.
Even so, I was not arguing that urban areas were harder hit, but only suggesting that a comparative study of urban poor populations might help clarify the conditions which cause or worsen
certain problems associated with poverty.
Concerning assumptions, you seem to have assumed I assumed you don’t contribute to charities. I wrote nothing about the matter.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I didn’t wish you a horrible death. I actually envisioned a fairly pleasant option, falling asleep. I just hope your greed catches up with you when you finally face your own mortality head on.
Those state budget statistics are as they should be, and that apportionment needs to be defended from selfish bastards.
Take a look at the federal budget, however, which is much more sizable. 21% on defense and security, which goes largely to private contractors. 4% goes to education.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
“For your information, I’ve got two very close family members, who I deeply love, who also had/have drug addictions. These are middle class people. I’ve seen first hand how they support their addictions.”
Ah, yes. If there’s a malady known to humanity, the Scrunt has experienced it first hand, or by way of her infinitely extended roster of family members—no numbering in the hundreds—all of whom she “loves deeply.”
Yeah. Right. You bet.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
You rock, Metro.
And Laurie? You’re a scrunt. Pure, simple, and truly.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Tyndale,
We’re talking about Colorado.
Rose, you have no heart. Very ugly indeed.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Once again I find you folks are not wanting to discuss anything honestly. You make things up and the nastier the better. That’s entertainment! I’m taking a break from this insanity.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Well Laurie, when you return I would appreciate a response concerning our disparate interpretations of the New York Time’s article.
June 14th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
It’s not that I have no heart, drama queen. It’s just that I’m unwilling to allow you to use it to your advantage with all that phoney tragedy and empathy you keep trying to peddle.
In other words, I’m able to recognize true ugliness when I encounter it. If you’d like to join me, try a mirror. Scrunt.
June 14th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Let’s see, now. The Scrunt purports to know virtually nothing about Jim Paine or his finances, yet her defense in both regards has been unequivocal.
Does this tell us something about what she means by “making things up.” Or what she considers to be an “honest discussion”?
June 14th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Yes, Scrunt, Jim Paine absolutely, positively inherited his bucks.
Although, as Metro detailed, he’s been able to add steadily to his pile by sucking like a vacuum cleaner on the public tit, he got the pile itself simply by virtue of existing.
Reckon being born into wealth was one of those “smart choices,” he made? The ones that distinguish his from the comparatively stupid choices that make poor people deserving of their poverty?
June 14th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I always wonder about dumb fuckers like our sitting president, too. What smart choice did he make? Powder cocaine over rock?
June 14th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Rose,
You can save your sympathy. If you live long enough and care about anyone besides yourself, you will have pain of your own to experience. I promise you, it will happen. The most likely sources will be your babies. Then your siblings or your spouse. I’ve learned far more about addiction than I ever wanted to know and I never dreamed I’d need to know. I’m glad for you that you can’t tell the difference between real pain and drama yet.
Matteo,
I think our differences lie in that you quote what was said about the study while I’ve quoted what the study said, making no mention about commentary in the article.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Rock,
“…Jim Paine absolutely, positively inherited his bucks.”
What is your source of this information?
June 14th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Laurie,
Your previous posts seem based more on an inaccurate synopsis of the article than direct quotes from the actual study:
“Matteo, the NYT article indicated the most impoverished areas are rural and not urban. It also specified single parent households as the major likely cause.”
If I could figure out how to format these comments I would have italicized “the NYT article indicated”.
However, if you can give direct quotes from the study which support what you previously said the article indicated, then please do so.
June 15th, 2008 at 3:30 am
[deleted]
June 15th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Matteo,
Here is the complete report:
http://coloradokids.org/includes/downloads/kidscount2008.pdf
See page 12, Children in Poverty in Colorado: The Landscape
The US Census, the source of the statistics, show urban areas to have far lower percentages of children living in poverty in urban areas than rural. However, there are larger numbers of poor children in urban counties.
An aside: The report recalculates the number of Hispanic children included with White children on the pie chart, more than doubling that number (116,000 of the 180,000 who were listed as white adjusts to about 70,000.) They assert that some number of Hispanics were listed as White in the census. There is no explanation as to how they determined this or how that recalculation was done. The number of poor American Indian children is just under 4200 in Colorado. Apparently this is up from about 1000 in the year 2000.
June 15th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Matteo,
To clarify the urban vs. rural statistics, here’s an illustration:
Let’s say Denver County (the poorest of the urban counties) has 100,000 children and 30% are poor. That equals 30,000 poor kids.
Let’s say Jefferson County has 40,000 children and 5% fall below the poverty level. That equals 2000 poor kids.
Let’s say Saguache has 1000 children and 48% are poor. That equals 480 poor kids.
Denver and Jefferson Counties have far more poor kids than Saguache while Saguache has a far higher percentage of poor kids and we are talking about percentages as a measurement of change.
I also want to mention that Colorado Kids has a vested interest in showing a decline in conditions for children. Their purpose is to influence public policy. Their bias is obvious, when you compare the raw data to their conclusions. While I believe one hungry child is one too many, I don’t appreciate an organization justifying their existance by manipulating the facts. Check it out for yourself.
June 15th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Ah, yes. The Scrunt’s all worried that Colorado Kids is “manipulating the facts” (which is something none of the ballerinas—least of all the Scrunt herself—would ever do, right?).
How fucking lame is that? Not to mention tedious.
But, hey, look on the bright side. She’s also claiming that she’s going to New York on “vacation.” Not that I believe she’s actually going anywhere, but, just in case I’m wrong—I mean, I do have to admit that picking the most expensive place in the country as a tourist destination seems right in character—how ’bout we take up a collection to help her stay?
June 15th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
The source of my information ain’t all that hard to find, Scrunt, which is why—as you’d have noticed, had you been paying attention—Jim Paine hasn’t denied it. Assuming you’re actually interested in finding out for yourself, you’ll bestir your fat ass and track it down on your own.
Meanwhile, allow me to employ the PB rules recently set forth by “Retired Bill”—and roundly endorsed by you, I might add: Since the statement has been made, it’s on Paine to disprove it.
I can also follow “Bill’s” shining example in another regard, if you like, i.e.: I’ll happily provide you with a link to some utterly irrelant bit of information—in this case, the rules governing inheretance in the state of Colorado should work quite nicely—to “prove” what I said is true.
“CASE CLOSED.” Right?
June 15th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I’m confused, Laurie. You seem to be saying that the rate of increase in the impoverishment among white children has been falsely inflated by virtue of Latinos being lumped in with whites.
Is that what you meant?
If so, wouldn’t that mean that instead of American Indian kids being 9 times more likely than white children to suffer poverty, the actual disparity would be much greater? And wouldn’t that tend to reinforce the point Business Major was making in the first place?
Please help me understand all this.
June 15th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Laurie, come on, your sophist tactics make me puke.
“Tyndale,
We’re talking about Colorado.”
Which is no longer a part of the United States? What’s all this about national parks then?
June 16th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Laurie, by “disparate interpretations” I meant your view that the article “specified single parent households as the major likely cause” of the increase in poor children, as opposed to my take that the article focused more on Colorado’s fiscal policy than parenting issues.
Your claim is simply counter-factual given an accurate reading of the article:
“No single factor can explain the increase in Colorado, the study said, but a growing number of single parent households, a shortage of jobs for lower wage workers and a low rate of high school graduation contributed.”
The study itself simply says:
“families headed by single females (sic) have the highest rates (of children living in poverty) of all (groups)”
Which is obviously not the same as fingering single parent households as the cause of childhood poverty, which would be like saying homosexual men cause AIDS.
And why assert you were quoting from the study concerning single households as the major cause of childhood poverty? As you clearly wrote that you believed the article stated this, and besides you were not even quoting…you were paraphrasing…and very inaccurately at that.
Anyways, the relevant passage in the article is drawn from the study’s white paper which states that, “there is NO single factor responsible for even most of the increase” and goes on to list single parent households as one of four “contributing factors”.
If you believe childhood poverty is mostly due to
poor women having kids, fine, but you shouldn’t reference articles which plainly disagree with you and reports you claim are compiled by nefarious children’s advocates to buttress your argument
As for the differences between urban and rural areas…what does it matter, and where did you become fixated with the idea that this was something we are debating?
Your claim that “the NYT article indicated the most impoverished areas are rural and not urban.”
was both false* and apropos of nothing.
*The article actually reads, “The most pronounced rates of child poverty were found in urban centers like Denver and in southern rural areas like Alamosa and Costilla Counties.”
June 16th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
She’s also claiming that she’s going to New York on “vacation.”
Once again, you have me confused with someone else.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Ah, so I did… For whatver it’s worth.
Which ain’t much, given that it seems to be the best you can come up after matteo and Tyndale reducing your “arguments” to rubble, Scrunt.
Care to address their substantive points rather than my own blissed out fantasy that you could be in the process of disappearing?