>>being poor in a developed country has rarely been bad and its hard for many to realize that is true

Have you ever been poor? I understand that absolute poverty in an undeveloped country is worse, but to make a statement like you have shows that you apparently have very little understanding of the reality of poverty in a developed country.

Being merely poor sucks in an environment that is stacked to keep you down by merely ENVIRONMENTAL means. Not even propoganda.

As I said before, if you eat substandard food, don't give your body stress in manageable amounts (exercise), and are constantly bombarded by a level of stimuli unthinkable to someone from 1800...

Being "poor" or even "homeless" doesn't have to suck as bad. From experience, the whole homeless shelter (particularly within Veteran Affairs) system is ripe for disruption. You wouldn't believe how much money is wasted on absolute bullshit (coughAnyoneWithASocialWorkDegreecough) as opposed to simple procedures and steps which actually help a person to not be homeless.

Two things which persisently keep a lot of homeless people down are a lack of employable skills and a lack of supportive social networks that keep a person "in the game" so that they're not bored and smoking crack.

I believe parent's point was that GDP is significantly decoupled from experience of the vitality in a 'main street'perspective. In China they get high GDP growth rates, but if the productive activity was building high rises where no one lives, we may need to reevaluate our notion of 'productive'.

In China high GDP growth rate is mainly translated into moving people from village to city. It is more like: lives of both city and village people is only very slowly improving (while faster than in developed countries), but there are quickly getting more of the former and less of the latter. Only those who move reap the benefits.

This process will be over soon when urbanization hits Western levels (about 10-15 years from now), then the growth rate will moderate.