Quote:However, in a true free market capitalist government with minimal regulations, your country's poor are richer and live a higher quality of life than any other country's poor.  Our country's poor still have a better quality of life than any other country in the world's poor.  If the free market is allowed to go unfettered, than the quality of life will continue to increase.

 

This is a rather unverified sentiment.

 

Here in the USA the poor are still richer than in other poor countries because the poor here started out richer due to a structure of programs and laws stemming from Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ.

 

The elevated status of America's poor has nothing to do with the free market and everything to do with what came before. As things continue along the current course and infrastructure continues to crumble and social welfare programs are continually degraded the living standards of the poor will continue to degrade relative to third world nations.

 

Of course if you compared what it's like to be in poverty in the USA and what it's like to be poor in the better European countries you'd find that America's standards are already lower than the European world's poor.

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