Vincent Guarisco - Poverty In America: From Riches To Rags

Like a pebble dropped in a pond, everything we do affects the people in our lives, and their reactions in turn affect others. The choices we make will have far-reaching consequences. Each of us carries within us the capacity to change the world in small ways for better or worse.

I once read that, "short of genius, a rich man cannot imagine poverty." Perhaps. But these days, wealthy imaginations are not as narrow as they used to be as all walks of life (the rich included) witness the massive poverty increase in the land of plenty. Could it be that, for most Americans (the 99%), the blessed era of fruitful sustainability is coming to a close?

Numbers don't lie. The economic injustice that fuels poverty is very real. And with unemployment soaring, even those lucky enough to have jobs are either working part-time or lumbering through long hard hours for a paltry check that is rarely enough to pay the bills. This is not quality of life. This is not the way it's supposed to be in a civilized society. Along with the physical aspects, chronic depression and loneliness is an ever-present life-degrading condition during hard times, and the numbers are staggering. In fact, with economic absurdities piled upon stress, it makes a strong emotional case that fragile minds now feel like worn-out slaves profoundly living on a huge modern-day plantation. This is especially true with crushing debt burdens, high inflation, job lay-offs and ongoing austerity measures in this full-blown era of psycho-economic "globalization." It doesn't take a mental giant to figure out how the system works and for whom. For details on what to expect here in the U.S., see the tragic mess in Greece. It's not pretty. 

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http://www.countercurrents.org/guarisco070312.htm