The article by Margot Roosevelt, a prominent
American journalist and direct descendant of President Theodore Roosevelt, cannot
be ignored. She pinpoints Orange County,
California, where I reside, as an area with “. . . poverty growing
dramatically, along with income inequality, homelessness and overcrowded
housing.” Her claims are shocking; I’ve
lived here for decades and never seen what she reports.
Of concern to Ms. Roosevelt is the
“opportunity gap,” by which the children of the affluent enjoy “abundant
supports and resources” while those of the lower-income and less educated
receive “stalled or declining social mobility.”
This she attributes to “a dire housing shortage for the middle class and
the poor,” the result of a “two-tiered economy, with more and more wealth
concentrated in fewer and fewer families.”
Equally dire is an “educational disparity,”
wherein “the percentage of high school dropouts and high school graduates
living in poverty is rising sharply.” That
72% of students from fashionable Laguna Beach Unified School District are
eligible to attend UC and USC schools, while only 39% from low income Anaheim
Unified, is the result of a masking of “vast racial, ethnic and geographical
gulfs,” while acknowledging that “less
than half of low-income students are proficient in English.”
The subject of health is then introduced,
with an admission that “obesity-related diseases are on the rise.” The only recommendation is that the trend is
“likely to continue if we don’t find ways to reduce childhood obesity.”
The final two sentences of the article seem
to encapsulate Ms. Roosevelt’s grasp of the particulars: “Some of these issues
can’t be solved by charity. We need the
leadership of elected officials.”
In response, I’ll offer a testimonial. I grew up during the Great Depression. During most of my youth my parents and I
lived in an unfashionable 1-bedroom apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota. Money was always in short supply, but that
didn’t cause me to fail in the classroom or stuff myself into obesity. There were other students whose parents
appeared to be more prosperous, but I never envied them nor felt I was entitled
to what they had. I got by adequately
and my father always managed to see I had the required dime so I could join my
friends each Saturday at the movie matinee.
Many times in my life I’ve been “broke,” but
never once have I been “poor.” Broke is a financial condition; poor is a mental condition. And finally, I’m convinced that few, if any,
problems can be solved by charity—and even fewer by elected officials.
Al Jacobs, a
professional investor for nearly a half-
century, issues a
monthly newsletter in which he
shares his financial
knowledge and experience.
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