Feeling good about the world? Let me fix that.

This is a really fascinating article.

It explains, albeit very briefly, the cycle of poverty-to-prison.  That people who are poor tend to be more likely to spend more time in prison and, due to their experience, have a harder time holding down a job.  Thus, they stay poor and remain likely to go back to prison.  This chart is really interesting:

The rate of High School dropouts going to prison has increased.  Especially among African Americans.  It's pretty interesting, also, to see that White High School dropouts are more likely to be imprisoned than Latino dropouts.  The article explains that "...if current incarceration trends hold, fully 68 percent of African-American male high school dropouts born from 1975 to 1979...will spend time living in prison at some point in their lives".  Mind-boggling.

Depressed yet? No? 

How about this. 

The article explains how from "...rural America to the urban cores of deindustrialized cities, a military caste system is slowly taking shape".  It describes the two major markets for recruiters: Poor people and military children.

"According to a 2007 Associated Press analysis, 'nearly three-fourths of [U.S. troops] killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.'"

Add to this the fact that a large number of soldiers returning from combat service are affected by Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury and Anxiety/Depression, all issues that affect being able to get and maintain a job.

So this is what faces the poor in the US:

 

Excuse the terrible mspaint graph, but there you go.  Left off, of course, is the race element as well as servicemen and women tending to have children who also go off to serve.

So, there you have it.  There is a machinery at work in our society that aims to grind the poor into a pulpy mash to fuel our prison and military economy.

Have a nice day.