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Right Thinking and the Poor
I remember years ago my family watched two movies set in the Depression-era: Cinderella Man and Sea Biscuit. Great movies, but the intense poverty portrayed in them unsettled my children.
After both movies, the kids asked all sorts of questions about the Depression and hardship, like “Why did Red [the horse-loving boy] have to leave his family to live with someone else?” I explained, “I’m guessing his parents put most of their money into the stock market, then lost it all when the market crashed.”
I then turned to my investment-aggressive wife and said, “That’s why I like to put money in other things, too, like bonds.” The kids anxiously inquired, “So we have enough money to stay in our house, even if the stock market crashes again?” I said, “Not forever, but we could buy a little time.”
I tried to comfort them, but without flat-out lying to them, my words couldn’t eliminate fears of poverty. They were a little scared and somber.
We live in an era of mass affluence. Not only do we have a remarkable number of millionaires and families with annual household incomes in excess of $100,000, but we have virtually no poor people in our country, in absolute terms. Lots of people are poor when compared to rich people or even middle-class people, but in absolute terms — the ability to acquire one’s basic sustenance — our country…
