The Economist (the world-class news magazine], April 25, 1987, had the following diamond-hard two sentences:
"An American's chance of staying poor is less than 1/2 percent if he or she does the following three things: (a) completes high school; (b) gets and stays married; (c) stays employed, even if initially only at the minimum wage. Americans who fail these three requirements have an up-to-80 times greater chance of staying for a long time below the official poverty line, and breeding sad generations there."
For those of us not gifted in statistics, that "less than 1/2 percent" figure translates to 199 chances in 200 of escaping poverty.
Conclusion: Poverty is not "something that happens to me". Poverty is not "unavoidable." Doing those three things above, even if difficult, will prevent your child or grandchild (or niece/nephew/ward/neighbor's child/etc.] from being poor and breeding poor kids.
Completing high school means sticking it out and doing a bit of studying; it means not giving up.
Getting and staying married means joining a spouse in a lawful contract BEFORE you have a child or children, plus staying with that person through bad times, even if you don't feel like it.
Staying employed means getting a crappy job to start out, which will show your next employer that you can stick with it. I still remember the corny old expression "sticktoitiveness" from my high school sports days: "stick-to-it" as an ability or property.
Are these difficult tasks? Are these impossible tasks? No. To quote the Greek poet Virgil (Vir-jhill), born 70 BC, died 19 BC, age 50-51):
"Go forth a conqueror and win great victories."
More genius Virgil quotes: "Happy is he who can trace effects to their causes," and "Mind moves matter."
Sources: Davidson, James Dale, and Reese-Mogg, Lord William; The Great Reckoning, Summit Books, New York, 1991, p. 272.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/v/v
Check out books by Virgil at Amazon.com: www.amazon.com
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