While it is not the main focus of the article, something that did catch my attention was Krugman's setence "I don’t think the poor are invisible today, even though you sometimes hear assertions that they aren’t really living in poverty — hey, some of them have Xboxes!" It was clear that he said this in jest, suggesting that the poor in America really are poor. Yet my argument is that the poor in America are only poor relative to the rich in America. The poor in America are still much better off than many of the poor around the world. So it does appear that the American economic system, however far apart the rich and the poor are within it, does offer the poorest in society a better livelihood than many other places around the world. This is something that we need to continually consider when we talk about economic justice policies.
While it is not the main focus of the article, something that did catch my attention was Krugman's setence "I don’t think the poor are invisible today, even though you sometimes hear assertions that they aren’t really living in poverty — hey, some of them have Xboxes!" It was clear that he said this in jest, suggesting that the poor in America really are poor. Yet my argument is that the poor in America are only poor relative to the rich in America. The poor in America are still much better off than many of the poor around the world. So it does appear that the American economic system, however far apart the rich and the poor are within it, does offer the poorest in society a better livelihood than many other places around the world. This is something that we need to continually consider when we talk about economic justice policies.
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