Are the poor always with us?

An erudite econometrics expert once lectured me on the history of poverty in my country. There was a lot of math, having to do with taxation or GDP or the wealth gap or unequal school systems or something.

I don’t know. He was trying to educate me.

Math is not my thing. When I went to my state university, I attended a required remedial math class because my public education secondary school was “known” for not privileging the hard sciences.

I grew up in a religious area. I know science is the devil and math is his manipulative cousin.

Anyways, I ran away from those unholy subject areas as soon as I fulfilled the minimum requirements, and both I and my poor satanic hard science professor-priests breathed grateful sighs of relief. Me for my soul and they for theirs.

I assume.

As a history major, I obtained expertise in the narrative instead, and I learned that if you are alive, your ancestors probably did some shady sh!t.

Moreover, the shadiness of said sh!t is inversely proportional to your current level of material comfort, i.e., the wealthier you are compared to your neighbors, the more ethically dubious your genetic lineage.