Do extremely rich people know what is best for the poor?

I'm sure they mean well, but some of the advice given by the rich to the middle class or poor is so unrealistic, so fantastical, that it almost seems like there is some "ego" attached that insists on reminding the world "I'm so rich that I forgot to factor in the fact that (to use one example) you can only shop once every two weeks."

So they give you a one-week shopping list to "make you healthy" that will cost you over a hundred and fifty dollars.

"Do this and you will be healthy. Shop for these fifty organic vegetables, ten organic fruits, three organic meats. Every week."

And if you can't, what is the answer:

"You think this is expensive? What about Diabetes medication, cardiac meds, stents, stroke rehabilitation."

How about this: "Too much sodium."

Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.

All of the above is true. But IMO it is so cruel to just add suffering and fear onto poverty. We all know it is better to eat healthy than not, to be thin rather than fat, to be rich rather than poor, to have health insurance and practice prevention rather than turn to emergency clinics.

I wish "they" would lay off the poor. Don't the poor and lower middle class have enough to worry about right now???

Jesus christ...

it would be difficult for them to know. If they were born into a family that never had to worry about the bills getting paid or how to put food on the table they would be disconnected from many of the harsh realities of life. Not to say that there aren't very charitable and giving wealthy folk out there. But to truly know how it is to be poor in this country you had to have come from there.

Face it, anyone who is poor in this country and pulled themselves by their own bootstraps to be mega-rich has a combination of talent and luck that the majority do not and will never have. They also have probably spent so much time on trying to accumulate this wealth that they haven't even really been paying attention to the struggles of the average person.

especially now that the market has lost nearly half its value, their house isn't holding its value, and indications are that this will last a very long time, no matter how many economists who missed all the signs of impending disaster are now telling us about the impending recovery. They're thinking out loud about what they're going to do when they finally admit to themselves they're not rich any more.

I have been poor quite a few times in my life, mostly thanks to my poor health and consequent inability to get health insurance. None of the well meaning advice ever applied to me, that's for sure. Fresh fruits and veg? Well veg, yes, cheap root veg and winter squash. Salad was coleslaw, not bad on sandwiches with homemade rye bread, cheap and filling. Fruit? Well, raisins. Maybe a banana once in a blue moon when my legs started cramping. Beans of every variety, at least once a day. My diet was boring but nutritious.

All the grains were whole grains and I never used a lot of salt, but that's as health foody as I was able to get.

However, none of the great food could compensate for the fact that I had to go off many of the meds that had kept me stable for long periods of time, allowing my illnesses to progress. It couldn't compensate for the complete lack of preventive care and the near lack of chronic care.

I'm afraid there are going to be a lot of formerly comfortable middle class people looking at a comfortable retirement who are going to be on the steep side of a very unpleasant learning curve.

I've been there and I know why they're giving advice now so I'm willing to cut them a little slack.

Just don't push it.

for those of us not in the same bracket.

that's precisely why many of us wouldn't cry if the whole country crashed.

Maybe some would THEN begin to UNDERSTAND.

no way around it. cheap food is cheap for a reason - preservatives, fat, salt and sugar. exercising takes time and time = money. you really have to be driven to stay in shape on a budget. its not easy. throw in trying to raise a family and/or working more than one job and it goes from difficult to impossible.

My dad used to say, "If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the kind of people he gave it to."

there are still a few rags to riches stories out there.

or they wouldn't be rich.

There are an awful lot of people out there who, somewhere along the way,, heard the phrase "everyone is entitled to their opinion", and took it WAY too much to heart. These people seem to think that they are not only entitled to have an opinion on, well everything, but that everyone else is just dying to hear it as well.

If you never studied Physics and you think Isaac Newton is the guy who invented that fig cookie thing, guess what? You have NO IDEA whether that car that supposedly runs on tap water will work or not. I'm sorry, you just aren't qualified to chip in your two cents on the subject. Don't tell me Income Tax is illegal then in your next breath inform me that you never read the Constitution, it's Amendments, or any of the relevant laws. Don't tell me Global Climate Change is not a threat (or that it is) if you don't even vaguely understand the theory behind it.

Some people really need to develop the ability to simply say, "Ya know what? I don't really know enough about that to have an opinion". Sure, if you want to have an opinion on subjects you know nothing about no one can stop you, but you're an idiot. Time and again it happens, right here on DU, some blowhard churns out a screed on some topic they know less than zero about, then gets angry when they are told that their opinion isn't worth the calories they burned laboriously tapping it all out. Hey guess what Buddy? IT ISN'T.

If you aren't poor (and we're talking really poor here, not someone who ran up a ton of credit card debt then lost their job. Temporarily.) and you've never been poor, you don't know what it's like. You just don't. Don't feel badly, no one will hold that against you, but DO understand that little factoid. If you instead insist on telling everyone that you have all the answers you are going to be laughed at. At a minimum. If you persist people will get angry. And that is exactly what you deserve. Because my fine feathered friend you are the one talking out of your ass. Don't be so impressed with yourself, stop composing your next post, and just LISTEN for a few seconds to people with more relevant experience than you. You just might learn something.