Don’t forget that it costs 30% taxes and other deductions of that 7.25 to earn it, and another 8-10 percent to spend it. Also, in most places in the US, transportation is a necessity, so you’ve gotta spend some money on a car if you want to be able to get back and fourth to work. So the worker actually nets after taxes and all that about 4 or 5 bucks an hour. It’s also the law here that if you have an automobile that it must be insured, and it’s a law now that you must also have health insurance. My car and health insurance come to nearly 400 bucks a month give or take a bit. Imagine a person netting 5 an hour having to give up 400 a month just to be compliant with those insurance laws. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have to be responsible if they cause an accident, but that it’s a real hardship on people who make very little money to have to pay so much. Oh yeah, if you do cause an accident or have to go to a doctor…even if you’re completely insured…you still have to empty out your pocket that day in the form of deductibles and copayments etc.
Yes, Sanjay, Mr. Reasonable is correct. The general cost of living in the US is astronomical compared to that of India. My girlfriend lived in India for a time and has often tried to get me to move back there with her simply because it is SO much less expensive to survive there.
MR, you people have have wrong picture of lower class. Vehicle insurance is compulsory everywhere, including India.
But, I do not think that a person surviving on minimum wages should have facilities like car. In India, a person surviving on minimum wages cannot think of two wheeler, even in the dreams, forget about car. This is precisely the difference between two countries.
Secondly, car is not a necessity by any stretch of imagination, no matter in which part of the world are you living. One has to use public transport under such circumstances, even if it takes some more time.
MR, when you are surviving on minimum wages or job guarantees, you have to live a life of survival, not luxury. It is as simple as that. Government is responsible only for the survival of the poor, not their luxuries. If one wants all, he has to come in the open ground and fight the competition.
Asking for job guarantees and minimum wages is some sort of help/donation. And, such people cannot be choosers. They are not supposed to have luxuries or live at par with those who are fighting competition. This is where liberals tend to cross the line of rationality.
With love,
Sanjay
You work to cause the world to be just another Indian slum. Mexico does what you suggest.
Granted the USA is getting more and more like just another 3rd world country.
Sanjay, public transportation is not an widespread option in the US. If you’re outside of the dozen or so major cities which have robust public transit, then having a car is necessary. The issue here is that even if you fight competitively, in a great number of cases this amounts to nothing. There’s no good will between business and labor in the US whatsoever.
Zinnat (Sanjay), humans are luxury beings; so if you want them to not have luxury, then you do nothing else than the rulers do: make the 1% of all humans (the rulers) richer and richer and the 99% of all humans poorer and poorer.
The “Brazilianisation” of the world is a process of “3rd-world-isation” which will lead to a tiny, crowded, and very ugly “island” of the 99% of all humans with a tiny luxury and to a huge, sparsely populated, and very beautiful “island” of the 1% of all humans with a huge luxury.
The humans as the luxury beings are not able to stop the luxury itself - what they get, if they try to stop it, is an unfairer and unfairer distribution (allocation) of the luxury. So, for example, you can eschew luxury, of course, but that merely makes the distribution (allocation) of the luxury unfairer and unfairer, so that you consequently must eschew luxury, whereas the 1% of all humans can get more and more luxury, because your eschewal of luxury does not mean all humans’ eschewal of luxury but the increase of other humans’ luxury. At last 99% of all humans will have to eschew 99% of all luxury (wealth), whereas 1% of all humans will have that 99% of all luxury (wealth).
What people “need” is relative to what everyone else has. A computer with internet access may seem like a luxury, and indeed it was 20 years ago, but now, in the US at least, it is a necessity if one is to find a job and manage their life. The same is true of automobiles in most parts of the US. The vast majority of people do not live within walking distance of their place of employment. Also true of cell phones, soon to be true of smart phones. Only a few things start out as necessities - food, clothing, shelter - most other things necessary for survival become that way as a society evolves.
Don’t forget that jobs have also to do with luxury (wealth). So if somemone wants to find a job, this one also needs some things which are usually luxuries and suddenly necessities in order to (get a job to) get more luxury (wealth). So luxuries, although usually not needed, can become necessities, and if they do, then merely in order to get other, thus more luxuries, not in any and every case but in order to reproduce and propagate luxury in general, regardless whether they are for anyone and everyone or not. So luxury can only find its end by disasters, catastrophes, cataclysms. Therefore I said:
MR, are you telling me that an undeveloped country like India has better public transport systems than US? I cannot buy that. Secondly, the same is the opinion of those Indians who visited, lived or living in US.
As far as the fighting for completion and defining survival is concerned, you are looking at it from where you stands. Means, one must have a decent apartment and a car otherwise it is not acceptable. That Is not going to happen ever, no matter how develop and rich US may become.
Those, who are in the survival phase, cannot have the lives of normal persons and have to compromise at many issues.
With love,
Sanjay
Upf, that is not true. You are forgetting the currency rate difference. That is the only reason why India looks cheap to you, otherwise it is not.
Your girlfriend must be getting salary In US $ which is almost 64 times costlier that ₹ (Indian currency). Let me give you an example to understand what I am trying to say.
IPhone 6 16gb is around 600 $ in the US. Means, an US citizen having minimum wages can buy it from his 10 days earnings. Right. But, it costs around 45000 ₹ in India. If you translate it into the terms of minimum wages here, a labourer had to accumulate his earnings for more than 150 days to buy an iphone6. So, which labourer is getting more money or has more purchasing capacity?
My daughter got B. Tech in IT from one of the top 10 colleges amongst India and recruited by Samsung through campus selection one year ago. Her salary is about 50000 ₹ per month, which is considered quite good according to Indian standards (higher middle class). Even, she has to spend her almost one whole month salary to buy an iphone6. Now, compare it with the one month salary of a B. Tech in IT in US. How much iphone6 can be purchased there from one month salary there?
The same is true for most of the purchases. You can compare it yourself.
With love,
Sanjay
Upf, there is some worth in your argument but it is still not perfect.
First of all, need is not relative to what others have. Everyone has different circumstance thus their needs are bound to be different.
Secondly, there is no permanent line between necessities and luxuries. Both definitions are relative and depend on the circumstances. As usual, let me again provide one example to explain my point.
Say, there is blue collar worker. He owns a car and use to go the work using it. Let us assume that car is a necessity for him because it saves some time from him and he can afford its expenses too.
But, given that his job is strictly confined to 10 to 5 without any extra working hours or burden, is having a driver necessity or luxury to him?
At this moment, driver is certainly a luxury because he would not get any extra benefit from not driving on his own. The car will take the same time whether he drives or the driver. Thus, his saved time and effort from non driving would go in vain.
Now, the situation changes, he gets promotion and included in the management. He is also now asked to take some different responsibilities like negotiations with overseas suppliers and buyers.
Now, due to the different time zones, he has to be available all the time on phone and net in order to be in touch, but he cannot do that if he had to drive s car for some hours. Thus, having a driver becomes necessity for him now.
In the same way, if he loses his job or gets demoted, the same car would becomes a luxury for him, because now saved money by using public transport is more valuable than his saved time.
With love,
Sanjay
James,
Living in poverty and living in disgust are not synonymous. I have travelled almost the whole upper half of the India during last 15 years, including very remote areas in Kashmir, and came to know the difference between the two life styles.
I have found that people living in small remote villages are living a far better life than this so called developed metro life, which you and MR trying to suggest.
Secondly, I do not think that poor people are more well placed in US than India in general. Slums are slums, irrespective of where they are. Slums were not a rare thing in the developed world either merely one century ago. It is an essential phase of urbanization.
Thirdly, living a life of survival or poverty does not necessarily means living In the slums.
With love,
Sanjay
Do the poorest people in Indian tend to be fat, or do they tend to be starving to death?
In the US, cheap food is loaded with fat. You’re right about that one Ucc.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNERxbBtT5Q[/youtube]
Oh let the sun beat down upon his face, stars to fill his dream
Sanjay’s a traveler of both time and space, to be where he has been
To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed
Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace, whose sounds caress his ear
But not a word he heard could he relate, the story was quite clear
Oh, oh.
Oh, Sanjay’s flying… mama, there ain’t no denyin’
He’s been flying, ain’t no denyin’, no denyin’
All he see turns to brown, as the sun burns the ground
And his eyes fill with sand, as he scans this wasted land
Trying to find, trying to find where he’s been.
Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream
Heed the path that led him to that place, yellow desert stream
His Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, he will return again
Sure as the dust that floats high in June, when movin’ through Kashmir.
Oh, father of the four winds, fill his sails, across the sea of years
With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear
Ohh.
When he’s on, when he’s on his way, yeah
When he sees, when he sees the way, you stay-yeah
Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, when Sanjay’s down…
Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, well he’s down, so down
Ooh, my baby, oooh, my baby, let him take you there
Let him take you there. Let him take you there…
Poorest people in India do not tend to be fat but they do not starve to death either, if you exclude very rare exceptions.
Ucci, India may not be a rich and developed country but it is not Uganda or Somalia either.
With love,
Sanjay
Nice piece of writing. That would have looked even better if posted at creative writing section.
By the way, let me tell you that intense travelling was part and parcel of my job, not any pleasure or vacation trips.
With love,
Sanjay
Those are the lyrics to the song. I didn’t write em.
When I read your comment, I immediately pictured you trekking across the desert with a that turtle neck jacket and a turban on.
I put you into the song, Sanjay. Don’t you see? You are this traveler of both time and space!
2op
Really we should stop paying welfare and people can just do what they used to do prior to that i.e. Become career criminals eh! If you want a less civilised society then by all means kill the poor and the old or some such thing.
Otherwise employ socialist philosophies for those who haven’t had the >luck< to attain independence.
E.g. In britain we used to have socialist housing, most of which was built and paid for a long time ago. This means it majoritively has no cost after that, whereas capitalist housing always has cost, and now the welfare bill has to pay that ~ hence costs much more.
Now to costs of healthcare/financial black hole… [which is different to unemployment].
Which is mathematically cheapest; kill a poor person who cant pay for themselves, or kill a rich person who can pay for themselves and many others and share the wealth!
Personally i don’t want their mindless moronic banal jobs, so fuck them all, they can pay or not pay ~ in many ways. If the world falls more into chaos, with death and suffering everywhere, it would result in a less populated and stronger world.
thanks capitalism, for providing the means to your own ends.
_
Hey, you’re the one that said poor people in the U.S. weren’t any better off than those in India, so you invited the comparison. I’m just wondering on what grounds you think they are comparable!
In the U.S. you are considered to be living in poverty if a family of four is taking in less than 23,000 dollars a year.
India literally DEFINED poverty in terms of whether or not people were meeting their nutritional/caloric needs to survive, so for you to say poor people in India aren’t starving when that’s literally how poverty is defined is strange. Since 2005 they’ve switched from a caloric to an economic way of measuring the same thing- are these people earning enough to not die.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in … of_poverty
I think it’s important in deciding how to ‘help the poor’ to have an accurate image of what the poor actually live like.