Poverty rate goes up, but commenters blame the poor!

I'm appalled at many of the comments on this page: More Americans Living in Poverty
I'm so tired of people blaming the victims.  Tired old hackneyed excuses of too many babies, too lazy, deserving of being poor.   This economy only works for the well off. A "living wage" is double what the minimum wage is and yet millions of people don't receive one. Many people do back-breaking work for 40 or 50 years at very low wages. There is always someone willing to do the job at that wage, so they have no choice. We despise unions because they try and increase the wages of working people to a living wage standard. Illegal mmigration is a boon to American corporations because it holds down wages, so that is why it never gets fixed. We should be demonizing the people who hire illegal immigrants, not the people just seeking to work and provide for their families. We are falling in our standard of living for the vast majority of Americans, while other developed countries aren't. We used to be number one - we are lucky to still be considered number 11 now. It's only a matter of time before we slip further. Henry Ford believed that you needed to pay people well so they could buy the products you were selling. We no longer believe that, because 1) we don't make many products anymore and 2) corporations can always sell those products overseas instead [see GM selling more cars in China than US]. But the reaction is to blame people who are poor for being poor, people who are unemployed for being unemployed, people who are sick and uninsured for being sick and uninsured. A rising tide lifts all boats, but a falling one grounds all those boats on dry land. We are grounding millions of Americans, in a misguided ideology of inidividual responsibility, when the corporations and the rich are really pulling the strings. Wake up, before it is too late.

Mass Murder - is it just the modern world?

I just read about a serial or perhaps spree killer in the Philippines who went on a rampage in the last month killing 9 people. They found him through his Facebook page. He was an educated and employed 28 year old computer tech. Yesterday, the news carried the arrest of a serial killer from the metro DC area, charged with the murder of two sets of mother/daughters and suspected of more. He is college educated and employed. The things that made these stand out are the foreignness of the first and the race of the second. Most [I read 85%] serial killers on record are white, middle class Americans. I'm wondering if we are just rubbing off on the rest of the world or if there is something else going on. I read one article which says it is a phenomena of urbanization and alienation. That would at least explain its increase over the last 100 years. It would be interesting to see if the spread of media is correlated with this phenomena, or is it that we just hear about it now, where once it was a local event. I had always assumed that civilization would lead to civilized people, but it seems to lead to the opposite. Or perhaps there are just so many more people in the world, that even a small percentage of deviates produce significant numbers of these killers. Nonetheless, it is depressing.

New York Times Energy Bill Editorial

The last EIGHT Presidents, Republican and Democratic have recognized the need for a complete overhaul of our energy policies and the likely need for a price on carbon, but NONE of them have followed through and the Congress has put its personal members political interest in front of the country's everytime. I'm only glad that I won't live to see the full results of their cowardice, but unfortunately, I have to live through the decline. Until there is a price on carbon, we quit subsidizing oil and coal, and we get serious about energy conservation, there will NEVER be life without an energy crisis of some kind. Meanwhile, China, with its authoritarian government, can continue to build a coal plant a week, while still making leaps forward to make itself the leader of green technology throughout the world. Maybe when it is too late for us to take the lead we will wake up to what we are doing to jobs, the climate, the environment, and the middle class in this country. We can point the finger at our "leaders" but we are the ones who put them there and failed to demand accountability from them. All this talk about the burden the deficit will place on your children and grandchildren is pontification, since there won't be a livable planet for them to grow up in and the jobs to pay the debt.