I have to address the economic conditions of everybody, including, and perhaps first, those who are poor.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am open-eyed about what poverty does to people.
I myself am from a very poor background; I experienced firsthand poverty in this country, and that is not unrelated to my desire, from the moment I became president, to make a priority of poverty reduction in this country.
Very few people can afford to be poor.
What many economists fail to understand is that poor people are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than rich people are.
Poverty is everyone's problem. It cuts across any line you can name: age, race, social, geographic or religious. Whether you are black or white; rich, middle-class or poor, we are ALL touched by poverty.
For most of history, almost everyone was poor. Power and wealth belonged to only a few.
Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle and always want more and more.
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.
You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way.