Poverty of spirit amid the recession.

Do you buy it?
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Watching news coverage of shops open on Thanksgiving and stores invaded by shoppers on Black Friday, one might not believe there is a recession going on.  It all seems to be business as usual...  Thus far our  recession is not like the Great Depression - masses are not exactly lining the streets standing in breadlines.  At least we are not hearing much about it if they are.  Network news no longer hides the fact it is a propaganda machine for the the liberal agenda, in today's terms, a mouthpiece for the Obama Administration.  So you won't learn anything there.
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There are really poor people out there, families who have lost jobs and homes.  Yet if you get all of your information from television - as many Americans still do - you get the impression everything is just fine despite the recession and the isolated stories of financial woe.  Climate change is still the big crises as evidenced by NBC's Green Week, wherein all the programming adapted some sort of green story line to their prime time line-up.  See, so we are so not poor if we can worry about greenhouse gasses.
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Every American is aware that as a nation, we are the most affluent in the history of human society.  We continue to have access to all the riches our world offers.  We are a country where many of the poor are too fat - few, if any are actually starving; I just read today we throw away 40% of our food.  As we all know health care is a problem - nevertheless - there really is access, albeit limited.  (Ironically, with reform, it could be even more limited - rationed.) 
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My point is that most of the poor in the U.S. can get what they need - the basics.  Yet even in welfare homes, most have a television, DVD player, cell phone, and so on.  And even if  these things are lacking - these items - or the material perks they represent - are often the first things poor people want - after better food, clothing and shelter of course.  But people want that no matter how affluent they become:  A newer, bigger house, better clothes, fancier food... In our era of the epicurean, the ostentatious, and the avaricious.
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Who are the poor?
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Which poses the question, where is poverty of spirit?  Indeed, what is poverty of spirit?  Many established religious orders of vowed men and women seem to offer a sort of lip service to poverty - many genuinely working for social justice issues and wearing ugly clothes - but the majority live pretty well, benefiting from paid for higher-education, health care, housing (including apartments), wardrobe budgets, travel expenses, and so on.  Of course there is nothing wrong with that when it is necessary for the mission of the congregation.  In such case, the well formed religious understands the necessity to practice spiritual poverty and detachment - which happen to be interior virtues usually unascertainable to outsiders, not to mention none of my business. 
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Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to be truly poor in spirit when modern men - religious or otherwise,  take pride in their academic achievements, intellectual riches and progressive socio-politico ideals, which tend towards an elitism oblivious to the devastating moral poverty the culture.  Moral poverty is not the same thing as spiritual poverty, much less, actual poverty. 
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Moral poverty is not a virtue.