#overt

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food. ↗

— Jill Lepore

#business #common-defense #disasters #domestic-tranquility #emergencies

What is Poverty? A hateful good; a mother of health; a putting away of cares; a discoverer of wisdom; business without injury; ownership without calumny; happiness without anxiety. ↗

— Secundus the Silent

#poverty #business

The festive music died down and the granite pillars were replaced with rotted wooden beams as he continued down the alleyways. The scent of fresh flowers turned to mold, and the colorful mosiacs of honor and nobility were nonexistent. Run-down tenements were shadowed by its surrounding buildings, as if the capital itself wanted to conceal its existence. ↗

— Evan Meekins

#fantasy-fiction #fiction #oppression #poverty #young-adult

Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. That's where it will be. ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#social-change #change

I’m encouraging young people to become social business entrepreneurs and contribute to the world, rather than just making money. Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun. ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#goal #poverty #real-values #business

So let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts. That is the process under way - not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen. This is a story of transformation. It is change that is already taking place, and change that can accelerate if you'll just open your heart and join in. ↗

— Nicholas D. Kristof

#emancipation #empowerment #poverty #success #transformation

This time of year," she said, "people’s consciences gnaw at them. They give away truckloads of canned goods and quote Dickens and wring their hands over the ‘less fortunate.’" We boarded the Metro and took seats perpendicular to each other. "But God forbid anyone should address why they’re poor in the first place, or try to change the structures that keep them poor. Then the ‘less fortunate’ turn into ‘welfare queens’ and ‘derelicts.’ But if I were a lobbyist whoring on behalf of some transnational corporation, I’d never hear the word ‘derelict.’" "So when it comes to taking care of poor people," I said, "if Mother Teresa is the Hallmark card, then you’re the electric bill. ↗

— Jeri Smith-Ready

#change

You can't change things. That's life. Poor stays poor, rich says rich, and those two, they will never meet. ↗

— Antonia Michaelis

#change

The walls around the hood keep the people on the inside from the changes on the outside. ↗

— Darnell Lamont Walker

#poverty #walls #change

I talked to a calzone for fifteen minutes last night before I realized it was just an introverted pizza. I wish all my acquaintances were so tasty.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#alone #calzone #communicate #communication #desperation