Four Charts That Will Tell You All You Need To Know About "The War On Poverty"

Here's a chart that I've probably posted a dozen times.  It shows how poverty was dying nicely, all on its own, until LBJ declared war on it. 
Then poverty started feeling better, was taken off life support, and is now doing quite well. 

 

Here's another chart showing the amount spent by Federal anti-poverty agencies per poor household in 2011.  It comes to more than $61,000 per poverty-level household.  These numbers were bitterly contested when first released by The Weekly Standard, but they are what they are. 

 

Here are two more charts showing the wealthiest counties in the USA  Check out the counties around Washington D.C. 
This is where the 1% lives. 

By name....

From The Atlantic Monthly, hardly a Tea-Party periodical....

To be clear, this isn't telling you that the richest people in America live one commute from D.C.  In fact, parts of Connecticut, New York, and California are much, much richer than the richest parts of the Greater DC Area. Instead, it's telling you that these counties, of varying sizes, have the highest median income, because there is a striking concentration of high-earning (if not quite vertiginously rich) households around the district.

On the Virginia side, Falls Church City (#1 richest county in the country) is enveloped by Arlington (#7) and east rim of Fairfax County (#5), which borders Loudoun (#2) on its west side. From Loudoun, you pass south through Prince William (#13) to Stafford (#9).

In Maryland, encircling Washington, you have, clockwise from the noon position, Montgomery (#12), Howard (#4),  Anne Arundel (#24), Calvert (#23), St. Mary's (#29), ​and Charles (#18). All of these counties border each other, forming a kind of reverse-C (or Hebrew Fe) around the District.

A staggering amount of the money we send to Washington D.C. stays there.   (We send it there because all truly civilized societies provide welfare, safety nets, free educations, free transportation, and free internet wireless, or so they tell us....)

So.... Is the system working? 

Why you'll never hear The Idiot talk about REAL income inequality

Check out this chart.  All of the numbers are adjusted for inflation. 

It compares the kickoff of LBJ's War On Poverty income stats to those of 2009.  (And yeah, the Evil 1% somehow started doing a lot better in 2009 when Obama got elected.  I wish I had those numbers on here.) 

Everyone is doing better than they were.  Granted, they would be doing better if LBJ had never been born, because trillions and trillions were wasted on redundant government programs rather than productive industry and services. 

But seriously.... are the numbers on that chart something to get worked up over? 

Go here to read the article from which these stats came. 

Let's move on. 

Do you earn more than $34,000 per year? 

Then you are in the Evil 1%.  Yes.  If you pull in 34K, you are in the top 1% of earners in the world. 

When The Idiot gives his next State Of The Union speech, he won't mention this.  He will only talk about income inequality amongst U.S. voters, and how if more power is given to Team Blue, he'll spread around high income voters' stuff a lot more. 

Barack Obama will never, ever mention how our (relatively) free market capitalist system has so many of us so far ahead of the rest of the world that we sometimes think we're in last place. 

But check it out, from Dave Ramsey.  Yeah, $34,000 puts you in the Evil 1%. 

And if you only earn enough to be considered "poor" in the USA, you could still be in the Evil 14%. 

Worldwide average income is probably someplace between $6,000 and $7,000 per year. 

How much inequality do you really want to eliminate?  Do you want to help the poor starving bastards in North Korea by giving their government all but $7,000 of your income?  Or had you rather see a rising tide of Free Market Capitalism lift every boat in the harbor? 

Poverty has won the War On Poverty

Libertarians are often caricatured as uncaring bastards who would throw their grandmothers out on the street if Granny ever stops harvesting her percentage of the wheat crop.  But it really is possible to be in favor of Granny's continued existence in her old age, while opposing John Boehner and Barack Obama being her means of support.

Libertarians generally oppose wealth redistribution by force, therefore we dislike Uncle Sam’s welfare schemes.

Statists claim it’s because we’re greedy. (We are greedy. You are greedy.  We all want more than we have. Lots more. Unlike the Statists, though, we want you to have more also, so you'll spend it on what we produce. We know that your success doesn’t require our failure.) But greed isn’t the reason we oppose mandatory government welfare programs.

Here’s the real reason, folks: Government welfare isn’t an effective method for fighting poverty.  In fact, it looks like welfare is keeping poverty alive. 

Check out the chart, from Economist Daniel Mitchell’s International Liberty website.  LBJ’s War On Poverty was the equivalent of spreading top-notch fertilizer on a weed patch. Poverty was dying until Washington D.C. got involved in killing it.  Incredible, isn't it? 

Folks, poverty was disappearing !!  Dropping like VHS sales!!!  But when anti-poverty programs appeared, poverty stabilized between 11-15%.   How much would you give to learn what woulda happened if the War On Poverty had never been declared????  Think of the fifteen trillion or so that they've spent on anti-poverty programs.  Do you think that might have been better spent by producers rather than D.C. looters? 

People are poor because they can't be productive.  (Or in a few cases, won't be productive.)  Yeah, some prosper because of lotteries, and a few eventually claw their way out and prosper because of handouts. But most of the poor get stuck, generation after generation after generation, sitting by the mailbox waiting on the goodies from Uncle Sugar.

When Washington demonizes success (especially from the entrepreneurial side as opposed to the sports/arts/entertainment side) and demands an ever-increasing cut of the profits from any business or individual, the productive members of society are left with less and less to spend on other things, like employees. George Soros, Warren Buffett, and dotcom jillionaires might be political numbskulls, but their instincts on how to spend money are far superior to John Boehner’s and Barack Obama’s. Let ‘em keep more of their money and the jobs will follow.

If we were to cut the U.S. tax burden in half, poverty in the U.S. would die. There would be a sprinkling of unemployed disabled people who could easily be provided for by using pre-LBJ methods. In that era, we had thousands and thousands of civic, fraternal, and church benevolence funds in place that we’ve almost forgotten how to administer.

We could easily end poverty.

But we’re too compassionate to even consider doing so. 

Note to self:  Create another chart showing how Islamic Extremists were dying off until our government got involved in trying to kill them. 

Happy Presidents Day

Happy Presidents Day

Here's a list of the United States presidents and first ladies that I've seen, along with the circumstances. I've given each encounter a numerical grade based on nothing more than the general vibe of the experience.

Let's start with the most recent president. In February of '08 I saw Barack Obama when he spoke at Reunion Arena in Dallas. This was the infamous appearance where he got applause for blowing his nose. Having re-read my post about the event, I'm proud to say that I didn't get suckered in, although I had a lot of respect for his rhetorical skills. I'm also proud that I contributed $12.50 to help him defeat She Whose Name Is Not Spoken in the Democrat primary. But Godalmighty, he's an economic disaster.

Score: 7

I used to manage the Bookstop store at Preston & Forest in Dallas. (We were bought out by Barnes & Noble, who eventually closed all the locations or converted them to B&N stores.) This store was in the same shopping center where one-time presidential candidate Ross Perot got his infamous $10.00 haircuts. In 1992, Perot was often in our store saying things like "Ahm lookin' fer yer books on guvment waste !" We'd go find whatever he was looking for, and two nights later the little man would be quoting the books on television. We were drunk with power.

Another celebrity of sorts often came into the same store to kill time. George W. Bush was then owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and he often came in the store and spent a lot of time in the History, Current Events, and Biography sections. He always bought more than one book. You can say a lot of things about the man, but illiterate he's not. In person, he's a really nice guy. We had more than one conversation about how 3rd baseman Steve Buechele's batting average was improving. Somewhere in my house I've got an autographed GW Bush business card that I've been trying to find for about 10 years.

Score: 9

I've never seen the current Secretary Of State, or her husband.

Score: 10 (out of gratitude)

The guy before The Clintons was George H.W. Bush. I saw him throw out the first pitch at a Texas Rangers baseball game in 1991. Papa Bush was captain of the Yale baseball team, and played first base. But the pitch he threw made it only 2/3rds of the way to home plate before bouncing in the dirt.

Score: 4

My mother went to high school in Merigold, Mississippi, and graduated in a senior class of maybe 7 people. One of these 7 was a guy named Larry Speakes. After running a few newspapers, Larry became press secretary for senator James Eastland, and then worked his way up to press secretary for president Ronald Reagan.

Larry's now known for two quotes: "I would dodge, not lie, in the national interest," and "Those who talk don't know what is going on and those who know what is going on won't talk."

In 1981 or 82, my father bought a used Winnebago motor home for about $2,500.00
That was about $2,000.00 more than it was worth. We worked on it for a few weeks, and decided to take it on a shakedown cruise.
From Mississippi to Washington D.C.
My mother made arrangements with Larry for us to get a private tour of the White House. My father's farm co-op gave us a 50-pound bag of Mississippi Delta rice to take to the Reagans. Larry's father was still the town banker in Merigold, and he gave us two fishing poles that he wanted to give his grandsons as birthday presents.

So my parents, two sisters, brother and I drove a ramshackle motor home all the way to the White House parking lot, got out of it with a 50-pound bag of rice and two fishing poles, went through security, and carried the stuff inside. We didn't get to go into the Oval Office, but Larry took us to the press briefing room where they have all the news conferences. Somewhere there's a picture of me behind the podium looking very un-presidential.

We got to see Reagan's helicopter land in the back yard of the White House. He was a very tall, very healthy looking man. The helicopter prop wash was blowing everyone's hair all over the place, but Reagan's didn't budge. He waved at us. I don't know if Nancy ever cooked the rice.

Score: 8

Before I worked at Bookstop, I managed stores for a Mom & Pop company called Taylors Books. I once had to help work the door for a Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter book signing when they came to Dallas. They were publicizing their book "Everything to Gain: Making The Most Of The Rest Of Your Life". The line of customers zigzagged down every aisle of the store, out the front door, around the store, and into the back alley. Carter seemed nice enough, and Miss Rosalynn seemed mildly sedated. Their publicist would hand them a book, the former president would write "Jimmy &", and his wife would write "Rosalynn Carter". They could get it done in less than 8 seconds per copy.

We had plenty of copies of the book. Acres of it. But the Carters could only stay for about two hours. Even at 8 seconds per copy, some customers were going to be turned away.

This would have been in 1987 or 1988. Reagan had been in office for most of his second term by then. History had already passed judgement on the Carter presidency, and that judgement wasn't very kind.

The people waiting in line to see JIMMY CARTER OF PLAINS GEORGIA with their own two eyes? They didn't care. These were die-hard democrats, the last of the true believers. Jesus Christ himself was inside Taylors Books, turning water into wine, and I was the one who had to keep letting them in at the rate of only one customer every 8 seconds.

This was my first experience with The Herd Mentality. It wasn't pleasant when Jimmy and Rosalynn left us to do radio and TV appearances.

Score: 2

I never saw Gerald Ford, although I had one supervisor in the early 80's who thought I should go to his wife's clinic.

In April of 1973, my parents got us up in the middle of the night to go to the new Naval Air Station in Meridian, Mississippi. Richard Nixon was going to be guest speaker at the opening of the base. Daddy fired up the station wagon, Mama threw some peanut butter and crackers in the back seat, and we took off.
(This was near the peak of the Watergate scandal, and the only places that Nixon could appear without being booed were military bases in the Deep South.)
When we got to Meridian, we'd eaten all the peanut butter and there was already a mob in the open field that surrounded the podium. The best we could have honestly done for seats was about 75 yards away from the president. But we are not a shy family.
Daddy saw some empty chairs in the second row of the VIP area, and we started plowing toward them. The seats had signs on the backs, reserving them for assorted high ranking officers. My parents STEPPED OVER THE ROPE BARRIERS WITH THE SECRET SERVICE MEN WATCHING, and led us to the chairs.
We got to hear Nixon speak from about 10 yards away. When the speeches were over, my mother was impressed that Pat Nixon got down on her knees at the edge of the stage to shake hands with a woman in a wheelchair.
Daddy's theory on why we got away with it: The Secret Service knew that any family smelling that much like peanut butter couldn't be a threat to the president.

Score: 8

I never got to see LBJ, but I saw his wife Lady Bird get the BRIT International Award of Excellence for her work in preserving Texas plants and wildlife. Fort Worth's own Van Cliburn played the piano and sang for her. It was a great night.

Score: 7

That's all the presidents and first ladies that I've seen. Hope you enjoyed hearing about it. I've enjoyed remembering it.