I don't know what to say to this (Nicholas Kristof column)

[Ardent15]

MONT-BELO, Congo Republic
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Jude Kokolo has been stuck in first grade for the last five years because his father says he can’t afford to pay $2.50 a month in school fees. But his father says that he averages $2 a day on alcohol and cigarettes.

There’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous:

It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households.

That probably sounds sanctimonious, haughty and callous, but it’s been on my mind while traveling through central Africa with a college student on my annual win-a-trip journey. Here in this Congolese village of Mont-Belo, we met a bright fourth grader, Jovali Obamza, who is about to be expelled from school because his family is three months behind in paying fees. (In theory, public school is free in the Congo Republic. In fact, every single school we visited charges fees.)

We asked to see Jovali’s parents. The dad, Georges Obamza, who weaves straw stools that he sells for $1 each, is unmistakably very poor. He said that the family is eight months behind on its $6-a-month rent and is in danger of being evicted, with nowhere to go.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23kristof.html?hp

So, in a world in which the wealthy continue to fuck over the poor, Kristof is saying that the poor are to blame for their own suffering?

Yes, that is "sanctimonious, haughty, and callous", Kristof.

[pnwmom]

1. Alcoholism does cause many families to suffer, and those without much money

to begin with are in the worst position. Think of the father in Angela's Ashes. No one would argue that his alcoholism (which caused him to spend his paycheck in the bars) didn't have a huge economic impact on his family.

[RandomThoughts]

2. The concept has been said before.

Many think that if a poor person deserved material wealth he should act within their mind set, the concepts in their mind frame. And take the wealth by using any means including worse things.

That is how bad creates bad.

A person shows imbalance and luxury to create envy, then says all a person has to do is do some bad things and they can have it.

There are also many people, including people with money and position that do for the better ideals of trying to make things better, many people use what they do have not to get more, but to help many people, not with secrecy or self serving ways, but with kindness and justice.

[pnwmom]

3. What do you think of his possible solution: empowering women in these families?

"Because there’s mounting evidence that mothers are more likely than fathers to spend money educating their kids, one solution is to give women more control over purse strings and more legal title to assets. Some aid groups and U.N. agencies are working on that.

"Another approach is microsavings, helping poor people save money when banks aren’t interested in them. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the most powerful part of microfinance isn’t microlending but microsavings.

"Microsavings programs, organized by CARE and other organizations, work to turn a consumption culture into a savings culture. The programs often keep household savings in the women’s names, to give mothers more say in spending decisions, and I’ve seen them work in Africa, Latin America and Asia."

_________________

I mentioned the mother in Angela's Ashes before. If she had had some legal title to the family's income, the kids would have had a different life.

[CTyankee]

4. I think this is key. Men have been feeling empowered long enough.

It is time to hand the reins of the money to women so they can do what they need to do to raise their children. The men must be constrained, by the law if necessary, so that they are not a problem in this process. There can be no rights without it, just as civil liberties were supressed under the Wiemar Republic before WWII.

It is the only way this change will take place. Sometimes the central government has to take over the role of enforcing rights...

[liberalhistorian]

5. I'm sorry, but I've seen this both personally and professionally

WAY too many freakinbg times not to agree, unfortunately, that there's at least something to it in some cases. Notice I said SOME cases. I've known plenty of families who are very poor, but who use what limited funds they have for cigarettes and/or alcohol, and not food and diapers. Addictions are very powerful, so much so that most people who do this, although they intellectually know better, have a very hard time stopping without some real help. Helping addictions without judgment and harshness is what needs to be done. After all, the middle and upper classes can afford treatment, if they so choose, while those of lesser means cannot do so on their own.

My son's father hasn't paid child support in three years as he hasn't been able to work due to very real physical and mental impairments and disabilities; he's been trying to get SS disability for awhile now. His wife works but, with only a two-year degree, doesn't make much money and they have their own child together as well. Yet, despite having developed COPD, among many other ailments, he still smokes nearly two packs a day and so does she. They're really hurting financially, but they use what limited funds they have on four packs a day between the two of them and have no intention of stopping. Yet he can't afford any child support at all?????

I could name at least ten more such cases I personally know of and many more I'm professionally aware of. Help with addictions should really be a prime concern here, help without judgment and harshness.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Why turn this article into class warfare? Do you have a solution where...

a guy who makes 20 bucks in a good month can smoke and drink and pay his bills?

And, ummm... would this be just an African problem? I doubt it, since I've seen it enough in this country in my short lifetime, across all racial and ethnic lines.

Sure, you can dig out tons of quotes about how the poor got themselves into that situation. Dickens is full of characters saying that, and the point is not whether it's true or not, but what to do about the cycle of poverty that they are in.

I doubt anyone thinks it'sd a good idea just giving this guy free cigarettes and booze, hoping it wil free up some rent and school money, but does anyone know how to teach him to adjust his priorities?

[liberalhistorian]

9. How about first paying your bills and feeding your family and

THEN smoking and drinking, instead of the other way around? Wow, what a concept.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. That's kinda my point, but some would prefer to confer nobility on the...

drunken smokers of the world.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Yep, let's blame the poor!!

[pnwmom]

11. I think it's really blaming addictions, which occur across the board.

Unfortunately, the children in the poorest families suffer most from these addictions, because there is no extra money available to support them.

[Motown_Johnny]

8. then the answer must be free wine, cigarettes and prostitutes

unless you want to eliminate that 2.50 a month the guy won't pay

[applegrove]

12. Development planners have been focusing on 'girl child' education

and women because the women typically do not waste money in the fashion the article suggests.

In the 1890s in the USA and Canada there was the temperance movement which was based on reaction to children and women living in squalor because the men were spending too much money on alcohol.

The less developed nations are just going through the same phases as we in the West went through.