Growing Risks of Poverty

All of those who track any news source know all a middle-class American can find out about this financial crisis. There are many words that help to describe such a crisis, let me say just a few of them: recession, broke, failure, big trouble, scared, worried, crisis, and poverty. The focus of this blog post is entirely on the last of these words.

I would like each and every one of you to think in your head of the definition for poverty. Hold it there. Now, as you reread your own definition, read the official one: the state of being extremely poor. Compare them. What are the similarities and differences between yours and the official one? My definition would have been simply: extremely poor. That is quite similar to the official definition. But what would slip my mind, and I’m sure most of your minds, most of the time is that we as a country have put ourselves in the column of poorer nations without realizing it. I know that to most Americans that would seem like a crazy thought.

But, just look at how the Iraq War has been funded. For those who may not know (mainly the younger folks who read my blog) our government has mainly funded this unnecessary war through “loans” to China. There is no way that the United States has enough money to pay back even 10% of what we owe to China.

Plus, look at the recent recession that I mentioned at the start of this post. Just last week the Dow dropped a record amount of points and the outcomes are beginning to seem like the final few years before the Great Depression. The chaos surrounding the recent bailout bills are an example of how we can’t have control over our own internal economy much less pay back other countries. What a big mess!!!!

Too many times we Americans think of poverty as an issue in the countries of Africa, the Middle East, and the like but don’t have eyes that can open wide enough to see the poverty that inhibits so much of the United States. In this day and age, while a multi-trillion dollar war is (hopefully) coming to a close and the economy that has propped up the country for many many many years falls into ruin, we as a nationwide population need to find our calling and step up to what we need to do to fix this crisis.

Thanks to money-hogging CEOs and a president whose main goal is to prop those rich few up and hope that the wealth trickles down to us we are in the sad place at the possible threshold of a second Great Depression. This is the day to begin planning and researching how to get involved! I don’t mean switch professions, there are many ways that any one of you can help while staying within the confines of your chosen career path. If we don’t act today then the entire country will find itself impoverished within the next 5-10 years. Get involved (and enjoy), Alex.

This post is part of Blog Action Day ‘08, Poverty.