The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the recent Census Bureau report on income and poverty in 2022 is a major fail for the Biden Administration. The report showed the supplemental poverty rate rose in one year by nearly a record amount. The child poverty rate doubled. Almost every income group – old people, young people, males, females, and residents of every region of the country lost ground.
Continue reading Poverty Rate Climbs Under Biden Administration
By Charles Stampul
Karl Marx perfected the art of exploiting people in his personal life while developing a way to scale the practice. One could imagine him roasting Genghis Kahn in hell. Continue reading More Deaths Linked To Karl Marx Than Genghis Khan
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, “Chamber of Commerce” is the go-to digital resource for small business owners and entrepreneurs, providing the guidance they need to start and run successful businesses. Getting a small business going from the ground up is no easy task.(Source: https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/about/)
By Stephen Stirling | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 13, 2016 at 8:36 AM, updated December 13, 2016 at 3:06 PM
The struggles of Atlantic City are well documented.
Casino closures. The threat of bankruptcy. The recent state takeover.
But while much has been made about the pain being felt by the city and its most famous commercial tenants, new data show its residents likely feel the sting more than most.
November 26, 2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, President-Elect Donald J. Trump Statement on the Passing of Fidel Castro , “Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.
“While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.
“Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. I join the many Cuban Americans who supported me so greatly in the presidential campaign, including the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association that endorsed me, with the hope of one day soon seeing a free Cuba.”
By Editor on September 21, 2015
The voluntary exchange of goods and services, the essence of capitalism, is the most moral way to organize an economy. (It’s really self organizing mostly.) You give me something I want. I give you something you want. We both walk away better for the transaction.
Whereas socialism, often couched as somehow morally superior to capitalism, is based fundamentally on theft. Be it of wages, time, property etc. It is driven by force. As such it is deeply immoral.
Ask yourself how you would feel if someone walked up to you with a gun and demanded 30% of your wages. The bandit however assures you that the money he takes will go to help people who “need” your money more than you do. You may not however even know how the money which is stolen from you is spent. How would you feel? Would you go to the ATM and just hand the money over knowing that though you were being robbed your money was being given to people who “needed” it? (Probably the robber’s “needy” friends.)
Would you be OK with this? If you are not consider how similar this is to our current crony capitalist/socialist lite system we have in the USA. The only difference is the robber has an officially issued badge when he takes your wages and property.
Of course when someone has a gun it is generally wise to just fork over the money. But it sure isn’t a “moral.” situation.
https://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2015/09/capitalism-is-moral-and-it-works-catholic-priest/
Practicing what Pope Francis preaches, Catholic Charities on Monday unveiled an effort that culminates with the papal visit to Philadelphia and draws attention to issues of poverty among local parishioners. (Greg Adomaitis, NJ.com)https://www.nj.com/camden/
Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty
By Lyndsey Layton January 16 at 5:00 AM
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.
The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade were eligible under the federal program for free and reduced-price lunches in the 2012-2013 school year. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.
“We’ve all known this was the trend, that we would get to a majority, but it’s here sooner rather than later,” said Michael A. Rebell, the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Columbia University, noting that the poverty rate has been increasing even as the economy has improved. “A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.”
The shift to a majority-poor student population means that in public schools, more than half of the children start kindergarten already trailing their more privileged peers and rarely, if ever, catch up. They are less likely to have support at home to succeed, are less frequently exposed to enriching activities outside of school, and are more likely to drop out and never attend college.
Ferguson Unrest Shows Poverty Grows Fastest in Suburbs
By Toluse Olorunnipa and Elizabeth Campbell Aug 16, 2014 12:01 AM ET
A week of violence and protests in a town outside St. Louis is highlighting how poverty is growing most quickly on the outskirts of America’s cities, as suburbs have become home to a majority of the nation’s poor.
In Ferguson, Missouri, a community of 21,000 where the poverty rate doubled since 2000, the dynamic has bred animosity over racial segregation and economic inequality. Protests over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager on Aug. 9 have drawn international attention to the St. Louis suburb’s growing underclass.
Such challenges aren’t unique to Ferguson, according to a Brookings Institution report July 31 that found the poor population growing twice as fast in U.S. suburbs as in city centers. From Miami to Denver, resurgent downtowns have blossomed even as their recession-weary outskirts struggle with soaring poverty in what amounts to a paradigm shift.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-16/ferguson-unrest-shows-poverty-grows-fastest-in-suburbs.html
Number of Children Living in Poverty Climbs Sharply in NJ, Rising in all but 3 Counties
The number of children living in poverty continues to rise in New Jersey, as measured by the newest edition of the Kids Count report for the state, which is being released today by Advocates for Children of New Jersey.
Almost one-third of all New Jersey children — 646,000 — were considered low-income, which is defined as living in a family with an income at twice the federal poverty limit, in 2012, the latest New Jersey Kids Count shows.
That’s a big increase from 2008, when some 310,000 children, or 15 percent of all New Jersey children, were living at the poverty level, with almost half of those considered very poor, in families with incomes of less than half the poverty limit. That year, the poverty level for a family of four was $23,050.
“While the rankings shift every year, we see certain trends across many counties, including increasing child poverty, fewer child care options for working parents and high housing costs,” said Cecilia Zalkind, ACNJ’s executive director. “These statistics should be used to inform local, county and state leaders, as well as community organizations, in their efforts to improve the well-being of all New Jersey children.”
The report shows that child poverty continued to rise from 2008 to 2012 in all but three counties — Morris, Salem and Warren. Warren and Salem saw substantial declines, at 46 and 22 percent, respectively, while Morris had a modest 1-percent decrease. In the other counties, increases in the number of children living in families earning too little to meet their children’s needs ranged from a low of 8 percent in Monmouth County to a high of 246 percent in Somerset County.
Statewide, the number of children living in poverty jumped 22 percent during this time. (O’Dea/NJSpotlight)
