Community Chat

[JBKO]

Thank you all for your replies. All very interesting. Blackhole99 that is very true about Mexico. Wealthy people are kidnapped very frequently and that includes celebrities and other well-known people.

[JBKO]

Reiki604:Third-world countries are basically every country in Latin America, and Africa. It's debateable what is considered third-world in Asia.

[reiki604]

What makes them 3rd world???

Extreme poverty?

Large disparity between rich and poor?

Lack of technology?

Lack of education?

Lack of health care?

Lack of adequate nutrition?

Violence?

????????

[Mominohio]

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@chrystaltreewrote:

I don't think it's any different than being middle class or upper middle class here and driving by the housing projects or seeing the homeless lined up in front of a church to get a 2 free baloney sandwhiches and bottle of water.  It's no different than going into the city to buy a $400 Dooney bag and dropping $5 into that homeless guy's cup, the one with who has one leg.  Every country has it's "haves" and it's "have nots".  And some parts of this country have a heck of lot of "have nots".

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In many places it is very very different. 

Even the majority of what we consider 'poor' here have so much more materially and in opportunity than much of the poor in the rest of the world. 

The 'have nots' and their circumstances are much worse in other parts of the world than most of what we consider to be 'have nots' in this country. 

[DearPrudence]

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@reiki604wrote:

What makes them 3rd world???

Extreme poverty?

Large disparity between rich and poor?

Lack of technology?

Lack of education?

Lack of health care?

Lack of adequate nutrition?

Violence?

????????

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What do they all have in common? Overpopulation. The elephant in the room.

[JBKO]

DearPrudence you are on to something. There are what? 17-20 types of birth control. And some of them are virtually free. You just need proper education on them (i.e Fertility Awareness Method).

[holly&ivy]

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@DearPrudencewrote:

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@reiki604wrote:

What makes them 3rd world???

Extreme poverty?

Large disparity between rich and poor?

Lack of technology?

Lack of education?

Lack of health care?

Lack of adequate nutrition?

Violence?

????????

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What do they all have in common? Overpopulation. The elephant in the room.

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I respectfully beg to differ.  A lot of "third world" countries are in developing phases that is making them more self reliant. Stigmatizing a growing nation by western standards isn't always so black and white. While yes they may not be up to 1st world standards on paper one would have to look at their day to day achievements if you wanted to categorize them. And yes their are a lot of places in the us that go unnoticed and are in need of being revitalized and helped.

[Kalli]

Jmho but I am concerned that going forward we are losing that middle class (don’t wish to link this to p o l i t i c s either since this has been decades in the making.). Just saying that when my hub and I were young we both had jobs, saved, bought a small house in the suburbs, started our family and invested, slowly increasing our financial worth.  Looking at my 2 sons, only the one with a Masters and professional career can afford to do what we did. My son who’s a construction guy wouldn’t be where he is now without our help. And it’s not for lack of hard work or for contracted jobs as he has more work than he can keep up with. 

So it’s just an observation since this discussion brought up haves and have nots.  It seemed it was easier to move from being “have nots”, like hub and I did, to being “haves” back in the 80s and 90s than now.  

But maybe I’m seeing the glass half empty? 

[JBKO]

Kalli, you are absolutely right. I had a coworker who dropped out of college to work at our company back in the 1960's. She recently retired and forget about being hired for her position unless you have a master's and several years experience. 

[QueenDanceALot]

I guess I don't really see much of a difference in being well to do in this country and seeing all of the poor struggling in this country than being upper middle class in a third world country.