<<Where do we place the poverty line?>>
I don't know. Here's a good starting point for a discussion of that issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_thresholdOf the various alternative definitions discussed, I like this one:
David Gordon's paper, "Indicators of Poverty & Hunger", for the United Nations, further defines absolute poverty as the absence of any two of the following eight basic needs:[4]
• Food: Body Mass Index must be above 16.
• Safe drinking water: Water must not come from solely rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby (less than 15 minutes walk each way).
• Sanitation facilities: Toilets or latrines must be accessible in or near the home.
• Health: Treatment must be received for serious illnesses and pregnancy.
• Shelter: Homes must have fewer than four people living in each room. Floors must not be made of dirt, mud, or clay.
• Education: Everyone must attend school or otherwise learn to read.
• Information: Everyone must have access to newspapers, radios, televisions, computers, or telephones at home.
• Access to services: This item is undefined by Gordon, but normally is used to indicate the complete panoply of education, health, legal, social, and financial (credit) services.
There's obviously a highly arbitrary element to all of the definitions. I think what's important is to establish one definition as the standard, and make sure that however it's composed, it describes a way of life and a measure of deprivation such that anyone who can envisage the life so described would say, "Whoaahh, I would be very unhappy living that life and I wouldn't want anyone's kids to have to live that way," and yet so constructed that with a few minimal improvements, it would become a life that could be described as "liveable, but only barely."
I think it more important that there BE a uniform standard than that the standard be one that everyone can agree on. If we are going to discuss standard of living, we need some kind of metrics that will permit comparisons of various alternative
<<The advrage buyijng power of a Cuban would be lessor than the buying power of an American on the edge of poverty.>>
plane, I think this would be a good time for you to start defining your terms. Exactly what do you mean by "buying power" and how does it apply to benefits and services that the average Cuban doesn't have to buy because they are provided to him free of charge by the state, such as medical care, education, and in some cases, and to some degree, housing.
Another thing I query about your statement is that it seems to presuppose that there is some inherent advantage to owning the things that "buying power" can get you and no value to cooperative use of cooperatively owned property as an alternative to private ownership. Suppose the "American on the edge of poverty" can scrape together the price of a 15-year-old clunker and "the average Cuban" can't. What is the BFD? For his $799 clunker, the "American on the edge of poverty gets some pollution-spewing, unsafe piece of shit that keeps draining his wallet for repairs, gas, parking, insurance, etc., whereas the average Cuban has cheap access to decent and adequate public transportation. So I don't think that "purchasing power" is an adequate metric for comparing living standards across two countries with different economic systems, one in which the state provides a lot of things to its citizens, the other in which the state provides relatively few things to its citizens. This is where the HDI referred to in one of CU4's earlier posts provides a much better yardstick for comparison purposes.
<<How long does an American work to earn a chicken , a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs?
<<How long for a Japaneese , Cuban , Venesualian , French ,etc....>>
I'm sure there are studies done that would answer your questions. The answers would be interesting, of course, but would need adjustment for (a) things that the non-American workers don't have to work for at all, because they are provided free of charge by the government rather than purchased privately and (b) the problem of unemployment, i.e., that there are Americans, Cubans, Japanese, etc. who can't earn a chicken or loaf of bread because they have no job. That's why, again, I think metrics like the HDI, referred to above, are the more relevant measure of comparison.
<<It is a longstanding beleif in the US that a person can do better for himself than the government can do for him , this beleif begins back in the day that it was obviously ture.>>
Sorry, but I don't think it was ever "obviously true" that people would do better through an every man for himself competitive frenzy than through an organized cooperative group effort. I think it was always true, and still is, that cooperative effort produces better results for most people than "rugged individualism." The "longstanding belief" that you are referring to is a myth.
