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Great article. I think it points out something that lawmakers should be aware of.

I'm not sure I see how this bit fits in (and unfortunately I think this also makes it less likely that the rest of the article will get the attention it deserves): And if you should make the mistake of trying to escape via a brief marijuana-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too.

You can argue for or against the legalization of drugs, but (unlike needing to sleep in a cardboard box) smoking marijuana is not a necessary outcome of being poor. You can try to argue that its necessary as an escape from reality, but this is surely not as strong an argument. Nor is it the case that this is a crime committed exclusively by the poor.

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I think you can make a very solid case that crimes of the rich - war, fraud and expropriation of public funds - outweigh the crimes of the poor by quite a margin.

Sure. I was just trying to point out two things. 1) While the rest of the article presents great points, this point is much weaker. 2) Lawmakers need to take the content of this article to heart. Unfortunately, the mention of drugs will probably make that less likely.

Very true. Another difference is, the rich choose to commit crimes, the poor don't (at least in the majority of the cases). That homeless guy at the street corner didn't choose to be homeless, but someone like Madoff, chose to commit fraud, knowing fully what he was doing.

> didn't choose to be homeless

Let's be realistic here. One generally ends up in that situation by exercising bad judgment and choices over time.

Yes, they might have been irresponsible, might have made bad choices. But many people end up homeless, for reasons outside their control (bankruptcy, families abandoning them etc). In any case, their 'crimes' are nothing compared to those like Madoff.

These homeless people need help, not punishment and fines.

EDIT: Just remembered this http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive/anne.mahlum.h...

Programs like those would have far more impact than jail.

> reasons outside their control (bankruptcy, families abandoning them etc)

Those reasons are usually well under individual control.

Perhaps this is true in some strictly literal sense, but we could argue all day about whether the responsibility for that judgement and those choices really lies with the homeless person in question, or with our culture, education, and society.

If a lot of apparently sane people make (disastrously) bad choices, I think it should be our first inclination to consider where the bad choices are coming from, and perhaps try to help them make better ones, before we dismiss the issue as some individual flaw.

Let's be realistic here: you don't know what you're talking about at best.

Those who are homeless tend to be so for a few reasons: * Being a battered wife who has finally decided to leave her husband; * Being mentally ill without the support structure to ensure that you have all of the (expensive!) medications you require and/or treatments that keep you stable enough to be productive to society; * Losing one's home to a fire or other disaster without sufficient insurance to recover from it (if one could even afford or qualify for insurance) or where the insurance company refused to pay for legitimate damages (see also Katrina); * ...and exercising bad judgement and choices over time.

Stop being a judgemental ass.

Any of those you said, can happen to anyone, anytime. If a family is living paycheck to paycheck, something like this happens, they can be financially ruined and become homeless in just a few months.

Not sure why kingkongrevenge is so harsh.

There were just short of 17,000 murders last year. Are you seriously going to suggest that they were committed primarily by the rich?

I'd much rather lose money to Bernie Madoff than get killed in a botched robbery. Losing part of your retirement << losing your life.

No - and I don't see how you could interpret my comment thusly. I'm contrasting murders to state murder, i.e. wars, which are of course started by the elite of the country/ countries involved.

And, in developed/first-world/etc. countries, have a habit of not killing a terribly large number of countrymen, most of whom more or less volunteered for the job anyway. (Presumably, they were in fact aware of what joining the military entails.) So it isn't really a crime of the rich against their own countrymen, at least.

If you think people volunteered to go off and get involved with war then you are possibly delusional. Most of my friends that joined the reserves (the ones that were supposed to be helping natural disasters really) volunteered to defend their country. Starting a war in Iraq was something they didn't volunteer for. And millions of killed civlians is something else they didn't volunteer for either.

I agree entirely, which is why I said that it wasn't a crime "against their own countrymen, at least." Everything else is distinctly less ambiguous, as you point out.

I was mainly addressing your point on fraud and expropriation of public funds. Compare that to violent crimes, which are committed primarily by the poor.

On wars: wars are started by officials selected by a broad swath of the public. At least 50% (+/- epsilon) of the population, rich and poor alike, share the blame.

What is the demographic profile of voters? Ah, I see we can get some data here: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting.html

Here's some data:

    .Less than $10,000	41.3
    .$10,000 to $14,999	41.2
    .$15,000 to $19,999	44.3
    .$20,000 to $29,999	48.0
    .$30,000 to $39,999	54.4
    .$40,000 to $49,999	58.2
    .$50,000 to $74,999	65.9
    .$75,000 to $99,999	72.6
    .$100,000 to $149,999	74.9
    .$150,000 and over	78.1

Now there's an interesting correlation between voting participation and income, eh?

In what kind of media do you think elite consensus-generating mechanism plays out? National Enquirer? New York Post? New York Times? And how poor are the participants in such consensus-generating mechanisms?

The idea that the rich and powerful aren't at the heart of determining a country's political opinion, and consequent military aggression is, to be quite frank, desperately naive.

Playing devil’s advocate:

America has killed 200,000+ people in Iraq an Afghanistan over the last 7 years which is greater than 17,000 * 7. Now add all those killed by poor pollution controls and our ass backward private medical system and... [rage]

PS: Per capita the Rich cause more harm and more benefit in society because they have more power to change things. It’s easier to help and hurt a large number of people with a coal power plant than it is with a single gun.

I suspect that Ehrenreich was writing for an audience that sees recreational pot use as one of those "technically illegal but who cares" crimes, like jaywalking or driving five miles over the speed limit.

The smell of marijuana comes out of my next-door neighbor's house on a daily basis. One of the guys who lives there has a criminal record. We are literally two blocks from the nearest police station. And yet nobody in that house is getting busted for marijuana possession (even before MA partially decriminalized it).

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