Poverty

What is Poverty?

Poverty is general scarcity, dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. It is a multifaceted concept, which includes social, economic, and political elements.Poverty may be defined as either absolute or relative.

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Food

About 21,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every four seconds, as you can see on this display. Sadly, it is children who die most often.

Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.

There are effective programs to break this spiral. For adults, there are “food for work” programs where the adults are paid with food to build schools, dig wells, make roads, and so on. This both nourishes them and builds infrastructure to end the poverty. For children, there are “food for education” programs where the children are provided with food when they attend school. Their education will help them to escape from hunger and global poverty.

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Money

• Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
• 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

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Poor Person's Perspective

When it comes to forming an opinion on poverty, some Americans just can’t seem to understand why poor people can’t just stop being poor. One of the things that gets harped on is the idea that poor people spend money on frivolous things; somehow some people believe that, if the poor just gave up their cell phone and Nikes, they would pop up into the middle class. What these people don’t realize is the extent to which being poor is living a life of self-denial. To be poor is to be forced to deny oneself constantly. The poor must deny themselves most trappings of:

• an adult life (their own apartment, framed pictures on the walls, matching dishes);
• a comfortable life (a newish mattress, a comfy couch, good shoes that aren’t worn out);
• a convenient life (your own car, eating out);
• a self-directed life (a job you care for, leisure time, hobbies, money for babysitters);
• a life full of small pleasures (lattes, dessert, fresh cut flowers, hot baths, wine);
• a healthy life (fresh fruits and vegetables, health care, time for exercise);
• and so, so many more things that don’t fit into those categories (technological gadgets, organic food, travel, expensive clothes and accessories).

They have to actively deny themselves these things every day. And, since most poor people remain poor their whole lives, they must be prepared to deny themselves (and members of their families) these things, perhaps, for the rest of their lives.

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Advertising

Michael Jordan has come out with a new ad campaign touting his new sneakers for sale. From an advertising standpoint, it is a beautifully crafted story, narrated by Jordan himself, about how his basketball riches were earned by him, as opposed to some God-given talent or luck. A debatable theory, but OK. As compelling as the message is delivered, it still is about a really expensive pair of sneakers marketed to many who cannot afford them . There are millions of people being drawn in not knowing what is hitting them. Make no mistake. You can see all the "NBA Cares" commercials, courtesy of the NBA's PR machine, but there is no excuse for selling sneakers at such outrageous prices.

Don't be fooled by the funny or interesting ads you see on TV. People who have studied the psychology of what makes you buy, and more to the chilling point, what sets you off emotionally. They care about this: what makes you unhappy, upset or uncomfortable enough to change your buying habits. The key to an ad that works for an advertiser is not one that amuses or entertains you, although that is the means to the end for advertisers. The ads have messages in them. Not some voodoo or hex that gets put on a person. However, the message is one that unless you watch for them, you will never notice them. It is subliminal, meaning that the points are being made, but an untrained eye will take the message in and be unaware that a kind of brainwashing is taking place. For example, an ad that has a sexy woman watching a guy drinking a certain type of alcohol, has several messages underlying. The woman, hottie no doubt, is checking the guy out in a bar. The brand of alcohol is seen as a mechanism to attract the woman, and although this is never stated, it is certainly implied. The inclination of getting sex from this hottie is also implied, with her watching the man drinking his beverage of choice.

Who is watching this ad? People sitting at home watching television. By that definition, most of what you see on ads will show people having more fun than us, doing more exciting things (driving a cool car that you can buy, going on a cool vacation, eating tasty food) than we are doing at that moment. It ignites a switch in our brains (at least that's what advertisers hope). One of longing, needing… wanting.

That want is what separates people from their cash, especially those in many cases that can least afford the product.

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Sneakers

There are certain sneakers in the world today that can break out riots and even deaths . There are many examples of this. One of them is when a barber Jose Mendoza in the Berwyn county located in Illinois was brutally murdered over a pair of Yeezys. Mendoza who was in the middle of purchasing the sneakers for $1,800 was killed just outside his barber shop. This shows how strong the advertising of something can be, enough to take a person's life. At the end of the day sneakers are all the same but the advertising makes it seem more than that. Someone wearing a pair of really good advertised sneakers will be looked at very differently in society and that is just the world we live in.