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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?

#311

Post by krzrak »

jakobegger wrote: post #266

Instead of giving money to poor people, who then have to spend it all on rent, why not provide affordable housing? In Linz we have something called "housing cooperatives" (the German word is "Wohngenossenschaften"). These cooperatives build apartments, and to rent them you become a member of the cooperative. The goal of these cooperatives is not to make a profit, but to provide affordable housing. And it's amazing ho…

We have the same in Poland (they have long tradition since communism times) - they quickly turn into bureaucratic nightmares ruled by hegemons for whom rubber stamp and paperwork is more important, than the cooperative members and their well-being.

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

#312

Post by oli5679 »

tamana wrote: post #201
arkades wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They take extraordinarily high margins, often involving mis-representation to their customers along the way (largely by illustrating their fees as flat numbers, which obfuscates that if you translate it into actual APR terms - to compare to other lenders - they're asking for what equates to absolutely ridiculous interest rates). Generally, if there's a demand for a service, people should come flooding in and reduce t…

Pay day lenders are required by law to publish APR. The ugly truth at the bottom of it is that their customers base is fundamental to stupid to know what is good for them, or too impulsive to make responsible choices, or too desperate to seek alternatives, or too ignorant to know their alternatives. Their are some easy improvements (education and outreach and banking programs for the poor and poorly educated) and som…

I had a friend who worked for a UK payday lending company. The borrowing patterns of customers seemed hard to interpret as being in their long-term interests. Customer retention was too high and borrowing patterns too consistent for the loans to be primarily shielding customers from unexpected shocks rather than just punishing their lack of self-discipline.

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

#313

Post by arethuza »

crdoconnor wrote: post #289
bardworx wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. In any system, some folk will always squatter and some will always attempt to gain power/advantage. Your world sounds too much like Atlas Shrugged.

>Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. A system where everybody was equal was never tried. A system where the necessities were guaranteed was tried - in the Soviet Union - and it was, by and large, very successful. It was successful enough , in fact, that Western elites responded…

I really don't think the UK NHS was created in response to anything the Soviet Union did - the Labour movement in the UK had a long history long before the Soviets were around.

The NHS actually shows the power of democracy over an elite - after all the 1945 election removed Churchill and voted in the socialist Attlee government. Attlee was so effective as a leader that even Thatcher spoke highly of him:

'Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the Nineties, he was all substance and no show.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1194059/A-giant-ma...

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

#314

Post by danharaj »

pnevmatico wrote: post #261
danharaj wrote: post #14

What if Marx was right?

What if your grandfather perished in a Marxist labor camp? What would you think then?

There's no such thing as a Marxist labor camp and I'm well aware of the cluster fuck that every would-be dictator of the proletariat was starting with Lenin. I'mean not a Marxist, and especially not a Marxist-Leninist. That doesn't mean I can't take Marx's economic ideas seriously.

Also, you probably don't care about the fact that there are labor programs at US prisons where workers are paid cents for the hour to do labor. I think your moral challenge is in bad faith.

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

#315

Post by cauterized »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #62
FussyZeus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't seen it, look up the Last Week Tonight on municipal violations and prepare to get angry. However there are a few things that are more explainable than others; check cashing places exist because banks are not designed for the poor at all. Thankfully this is, I think, going to change in the next few years what with all the startups cropping up to offer financial services to lower income people, since mos…

In my experience banks don't charge fees for efficiency reasons, they charge fees because they can.

Yup. Otherwise they wouldn't be adding new fees to accounts that have been open for decades.

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

#316

Post by forgetsusername »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #302
thecopy wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the sense that he or she is charging 70% of their monthly income for rent. No. He or she is charging an absolute amount, not a percentage of their payslip. >And it's coercion alright if the alternative is being left homeless. Coercion /koʊˈɜːrʃən/ is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner by use of intimidation or threats or some other form of pressure. There is no coercion here. Po…

>> He or she is charging an absolute amount, not a percentage of their payslip. Here's another analogy. I make this beautiful and unique item that you want to buy. I charge - literally - an arm and a leg over it. Like, the actual body parts. You protest: "You're asking for a part of my body??". I reply "I'm asking for an arm and a leg, not a part of your body". Hey, maybe you can pay me with someone else's arm-and-a-…

>I make probably 70 times more than the people who are forced to live there

I can only assume you're using all your excess income to build and subsidize homes for the poor?

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

#317

Post by madaxe_again »

jakobegger wrote: post #266

Instead of giving money to poor people, who then have to spend it all on rent, why not provide affordable housing? In Linz we have something called "housing cooperatives" (the German word is "Wohngenossenschaften"). These cooperatives build apartments, and to rent them you become a member of the cooperative. The goal of these cooperatives is not to make a profit, but to provide affordable housing. And it's amazing ho…

We used to have something like this in the UK, but then under "right to buy", the vast majority of the council funded housing was sold off to private landlords (council tenants usually did not have the funds to buy themselves, so were offered deals by large private landlords like "we'll give you £10k, you can keep living there for 10 years, we'll give you the money to buy it, you then sell it straight on to us"), and they're now doing a second round of the same to sell off what remains.

So - we now have large corporations like the Curo group who own what was once local authority housing and run it for profit - meaning that at any given time about 30% of their 13,000 properties are unoccupied, that their tenants never have any maintenance issues addressed, and the rents are high - and the waiting lists are worse than when it was publicly operated. Never mind the impact on the rest of the property market, with insanely inflated prices, as nobody wants to build anything new as it'll decrease the value of their portfolio.

So - housing cooperatives/local authority housing are great, but beware the state selling them to private profit-making entities. It hasn't ended well here, and it absolutely is the case that poverty is profitable.

The poorer and more trapped they are the more secure your investment is.

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

#318

Post by tim333 »

The arguments in the article seem a bit of a muddle. Fair enough landlords make money from renting to poor people but they also make money renting to rich people and are probably not the main cause of the poverty.

Most laws and government policies that affect poverty have trade offs - subsidise education and someone has to pay for it and so on. And tennant's rights come into that - laws that favour renters at the expense of landlords will probably be lobbied against by landlords though that's a bit removed from the arguments in the article and affects wealthy renters as well as poor ones.

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

#319

Post by kofejnik »

crdoconnor wrote: post #289
bardworx wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. In any system, some folk will always squatter and some will always attempt to gain power/advantage. Your world sounds too much like Atlas Shrugged.

>Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. A system where everybody was equal was never tried. A system where the necessities were guaranteed was tried - in the Soviet Union - and it was, by and large, very successful. It was successful enough , in fact, that Western elites responded…

Unlike you, I have personally experienced communism and Soviet Union. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

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

#320

Post by johnchristopher »

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…

> the value of which is evident by the paying tenants.

That's something I have a very hard time to understand. I mainly see that position on HN. It seems like here the price is always justified and fair because it is sanctified by the free market ideology. Prices should always be maximized because it makes sense for the seller and to hell with global long term consequences.

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