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What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

theguardian.com

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Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#51

Post by OJFord »

Everything is profitable to other people.

    > makes $400k a year renting out 131 trailers
So, just over $3kpa each. Not a lot. It only sounds like he's profiting a lot because nobody would do that unless at scale - i.e. have 131 of them.

At those margins (I don't know what the costs are, but with that little annual profit per trailer it really doesn't matter) there would be no reason to not want the poverty-stricken to have more money, other than perhaps an unwillingness to change business model. The profit margin is just _so_ much greater on more expensive properties.

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#52

Post by ctdonath »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #10
sokoloff wrote: post #5

People in poverty use services and consume goods. Someone provides those goods and services. Would they be better off if every business closed their doors to the impoverished, so as to not "make a buck off the poor"? Of course not! The trailer park owner in the article owns 131 units and "makes" (presumably grosses) $400K a year. Those units are about $250 per month, hardly the stuff of Viking-style pillaging, IMO. T…

Predatory businesses are still exploitation. > Building such a business (and I assume running a 131 unit mobile home park) is absolutely work, the value of which is evident by the paying tenants. Running a sweatshop is still work, the value of which is evident by its customers. Just because someone needs to work or a place to live doesn't make it right or commendable.

OK, say those "exploitive" businesses didn't exist. That doesn't subsequently mean "non-exploitive" alternatives would exist, it just means those customers/employees would have no options (not even "exploitive" ones). Is having no option better than having a bad option, when good options aren't available?

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#53

Post by educar »

So, I thought the question was obvious and answer is a resounding 'yes'. Many elections are won by keeping people poor and in many of those countries politicians hand out freebies. This is also the case for non-goverments. It is in the best interests of the middle class to have a working poor population because one can offload chores (like house work, car driver) to the poor at a cheap cost.

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#54

Post by CydeWeys »

sokoloff wrote: post #35
douche wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corner stores make their profit on tobacco, alcohol and scratch tickets, though. The rest of it is just to give a patina of respectability.

That's an excellent point. The lottery aspect does bug me a lot. (Though my "regular" grocer also has lottery, tobacco, and beer/wine, so I don't think the bodega is worse than the other grocers in that regard.)

The lottos are state-run though. Don't blame the bodega owner, blame the government for financially preying on poor people who are bad at math in the first place. I don't think you can really criticize someone too much for selling something that the government plays ads for on the radio.

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#55

Post by fzilla »

sokoloff wrote: post #23
zanny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the people that provide goods and services now to the impoverished (especially the actual exploiters, like pay day loans and corner stores, and the manufacturers that supply the junk foods they eat and drink) have a financial incentive to keep people in poverty and grow their demographic. Combine that with an very easily corrupted government like the US has now, and you get corporations dictating policy to preven…

I'm not so sure the corner bodega belongs in the same category with the payday loan assholes. Yes, the corner bodega is more expensive than the full grocery store, but they also probably have way lower sales per hour of labor, lower sales per square foot, lower sales per other overhead (rent, insurance, security, utilities, taxes), higher credit card interchange fees, higher shrinkage and spoilage, and pay more for t…

> Yes, the corner bodega is more expensive than the full grocery store

All your justifications are reasonable from a business standpoint. But if I'm so poor and my circumstances are so bad that a bodega is the only place I can realistically go for groceries, what difference does it make to me?

This seems to be the exact point of the original article. Someone is making money off of bodegas, just like someone is making money off of gouging the poor on housing or payday loans, and in all cases the added cost can be justified as "perfectly legitimate business expenses." And the poor continue to suffer and bear the brunt.

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#56

Post by Retra »

ams6110 wrote: post #36
Overtonwindow wrote: post #2

Poverty is profitable to other people. People who are in poverty often have to depend on services that are overpriced and predatory. From check cashing services, and payday lenders, to not being able to go to a grocery store where prices are better, but instead depending on smaller stores of convenience where the prices are often higher. The lottery depends on those in poverty. Sometimes I think even the police and c…

Sometimes I think even the police and city governments depend on people in poverty You're right, but I don't think anyone has mentioned another big profiteer, the welfare bureaucracy itself. The government pays people to remain in poverty, and everyone employed in those programs is profiting from poverty and is incentivized for it to continue. So are the politicians who create these progams. It also contributes to th…

Those people could just as easily be employed in other domains. This is all the more true when their income is conditional upon a centrally-managed stipend like all government employment is.

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#57

Post by tim333 »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #30
danharaj wrote: post #14

What if Marx was right?

That's actually a thoughtful comment, irrespective of whether one "agrees with communism". Not sure why it's being downvoted.

Presumably amongst the 50 volumes of Marx/Engels Collected Works he was right in some places and wrong in others.

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#58

Post by CydeWeys »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #40
Tycho wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once someone is trained, they might just leave and work somewhere else.

That can be contractualized, right?

The entire US is at-will employment. It can't be.

About the most you can do is try to claw-back your training expenses if they don't stay for a certain number of years, but you can't squeeze blood from a stone. That money was already spent on basic necessities of life and can't be recovered.

Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

#59

Post by zw123456 »

There is an old saying that "if you took all the money away from all the rich people, and spread it around evenly to everyone else, within 2 or 3 years, all the formerly rich would be rich again having taken advantage of the poor who don't know how to make and keep money". This adage, although heartless to be sure, has some degree of truth to it in my view. The problem is twofold, 1) a lot of people become rich not because they are so smart but because the lack compunction, that is, they feel no remorse for taking advantage of someone else 2) people who come out of poverty often lack the skills to know how to improve their situation, such as a lack of business skills, money management and etc., not having had good role models. In my view, the role of the government should be to check the first, that is to insure that some are not taking advantage too much, obviously this is a far to complex issue to even begin to cover here, but I am just touching on the gist, the second is to lend help to those in poverty through education and training assistance. The third component is of course, the well to do who are willing and able to help and do (e.g. the Gates and others). Thank you for the excellent thought provoking post and many good comments so far.
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