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Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

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Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#171

Post by gozur88 »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #90
slackingoff2017 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to consider a move to a happier place, the Midwest is not doing well these days. I moved from an economically depressed city in the midwest to a southern tech boomtown a few years ago and the difference in mood is striking. Everyone is new here, everyone is making good money. Remember how it was right before the housing crisis or before the dotcom bubble burst? That's how it feels here. The Midwest is me…

> ...do yourself a favor and visit some reputable cities in the sun belt. On an individual level this might make sense, but if everyone does this, it just amplifies existing problems. In the city you're leaving, inequality would just grow worse, there would be a brain drain, and family support structures would weaken. In the city you're going to, housing costs would go up, and pockets of area would be insulated from…

It makes sense for everyone if people move to where the jobs are. Why would you encourage people to stay in a place they can't thrive?

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#172

Post by gozur88 »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #31
maxwin wrote: post #5

It is both a personal choice and a reflection of society. I am not sure which one has bigger weight. But if you live in the US , are not physically impaired, and high school educated. Personal choice definitely has much more weight. I know many friends who come to US from Myanmar. Don't speak English , no degrees. But almost all of them live above average several years later. But they sure need to work really hard.

I anecdotally know far more people who coast and don't do well than I know who either coast and do well or don't coast and don't do well. I think part of the problem is a combination of a bias against impugning others effort because "you don't know their struggle" and just enough counter examples (where hard work doesn't pay off) to feed confirmation bias. The question that I have is this: is the growing narrative ab…

>The question that I have is this: is the growing narrative about the United States not being a meritocracy a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yes, and particularly on the personal level. You'll never be employed if you don't look for a job.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#173

Post by humanrebar »

pm90 wrote: post #157
humanrebar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Good" government regulation is what created the mess. Patents on prescriptions. When loopholes can be applied or not to offer generics. Licensing and certifications. What counts as "health insurance". What kinds of medical practices can be opened. What drugs can be offered across state or national boundaries. Who gets discounts on health insurance (employers) and who doesn't (employees). The list goes on.

This is simply not true. What you seem to be suggesting is that we leave the healthcare market completely open to market forces. This would be a disaster of epic proportions because, realistically, not everyone can afford their own healthcare costs. This is why we have health insurance, and regulations exist to protect citizens against predatory practices. Some of these regulations are misguided, and others are a res…

> What you seem to be suggesting is that we leave the healthcare market completely open to market forces.

I suggested nothing of the sort. I said our current regulation regime is harmful, however good the intentions were when it was passed.

> This would be a disaster of epic proportions because, realistically, not everyone can afford their own healthcare costs.

I also never said the impoverished should be left to die in the streets. The government clearly needs to help people afford things. But the current regulatory approach is both too heavy and too complex.

> ...regulations exist to protect citizens against predatory practices.

And they're clearly not working, no matter the intention when they were passed.

> Most of them are OK.

Like the ones that let pharma companies keep generic drugs off the market? Or the ones that heavily regulate drug releases but could not prevent the opioid epidemic?

There should be regulations. There should be welfare. They should both be simple (anything else is not fair, especially for the consumer) and they should use markets to figure out what the price of things should be (anything else is still not fair and is subject to special interests).

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#174

Post by humanrebar »

rrock wrote: post #152
humanrebar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, it's private and for profit, but it's not market based. It's just a big ball of bureaucracy, unintended consequences, and corruption (at least in the sense that the system isn't following its intended purposes). If it were market based, there would be a trivially discoverable price for commodity operations and such. How much does it cost for a skin cancer screening in Topeka? It depends? Well, that's a routine…

"Golly, I may be having a heart attack. I think I should take a moment to shop around for a cardiologist, so I can get quality treatment for fair prices." Don't expect market forces to come to the rescue. It doesn't work that way.

Emergency rooms and insurance makes a ton of sense for heart attacks. They makes little sense for routine things like cholesterol tests.

Some things are very expensive but also predictable. Like giving birth. Or reparative plastic surgery. Or non-emergency heart surgery. People would shop around for those things as appropriate.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#175

Post by verylittlemeat »

shaftoe wrote: post #109
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What isn't luck? Bingo!

This is fatalism and societies that adopt this attitude fall into some nasty traps. For example, there's no point to solving problems because it's the will of God.

It seems like more of a philosophy of humility than fatalism.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#176

Post by haberman »

function_seven wrote: post #62
haberman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nov 7, 2016 "fact": Hillary Clinton has a 98.2% chance of winning the presidency: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/polls-hillary-clinton-wi... There are facts, but it does them no service to overstate what the evidence actually says.

Different pundits had different odds on that race. No matter which one you go with, what makes you think those odds weren’t true facts? Remember, n=1 in this scenario.

You can look at:

1. the specific circumstances of the outcome. Hillary Clinton didn't lose just barely, she lost by a lot. And she lost states like Wisconsin, which wasn't even supposed to be in play.

2. the fact that predictions like HuffPo's were far off from more credible pundits like 538.

3. the fact that HuffPo so aggressively mocked anyone who took a more measured view. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/whats-wrong-with-538_us_...

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#177

Post by EdSharkey »

mikeash wrote: post #162
EdSharkey wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcastic, but you willfully lack imagination. There are urchins who choose not to work and do just fine. It's fairly straightforward to scam Social Security Disability for main income and then collect EBT, food stamps, and get some housing in the projects. It's not a great life, but it's a living, and there's plenty more help to pay for phone and utilities. If one is wicked, then they can sprinkle in some identity t…

What about all the poor people who want to work but can't find a job, or all the poor people who do work but just don't earn enough to stop being poor?

I wasn't talking about those people, was that not clear? I wrote because you were being either sarcastic or snarky or chronically compassionate.

There are scam artists that stitch the rich tapestry of welfare programs together to make a living. You might choose to look the other way, out of compassion, whereas I choose to look straight at it and call it theft, out of compassion. I am being compassionate (tough love). You are being compassionate (empathy). Both of our voices are important in this discussion.

I actually don't believe you have to sacrifice your belief system to acknowledge there are fraudsters in the system who are a drain on society. Everything I have read about SSD says the fraudulent claims are anywhere between 1% and 25% of the total. I'm willing to accept that as few as 1% of claims are fraudulent, but even 1% would be 106000 out of 10.6 million (2011 numbers), and that's still a ton of fraud just in that one benefit.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#178

Post by EdSharkey »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #70
EdSharkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government regulations created the twisted non-market for healthcare that exists in the united states. Pretty please don't sign us up for more government. You know there are 7 big health care providers in my state building spectacular facilities as fast as they can, and they don't have to compete with each other? There's no competition. Every pleb goes dutifully to the assigned provider his employer sends him to. You…

Why do most people in the US seem to never look abroad when it comes to healthcare? The US healthcare system is probably the most privatized in the developed world. The systems in other developed countries (e.g. any European country) give more weight to the government, and have been shown by all sorts of metric to work much better. How can you still say "don't sign us up for more government"?

60% of health care nationally is paid for by the government. In more liberal states, it's closer to 75%.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#179

Post by mikeash »

EdSharkey wrote: post #177
mikeash wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about all the poor people who want to work but can't find a job, or all the poor people who do work but just don't earn enough to stop being poor?

I wasn't talking about those people, was that not clear? I wrote because you were being either sarcastic or snarky or chronically compassionate. There are scam artists that stitch the rich tapestry of welfare programs together to make a living. You might choose to look the other way, out of compassion, whereas I choose to look straight at it and call it theft, out of compassion. I am being compassionate (tough love).…

I was talking about those people. Was that not clear?

I was being sarcastic because I was replying to a person who said that avoiding poverty was simple, all you have to do is get a job.

I don't see what any of your comment has to do with this.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#180

Post by foldr »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #166
foldr wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>everyone is making good money For some highly restrictive definition of "everyone". I think this statement kind of exemplifies the problem.

In cities with booming economies this is accurate. High income newcomers spend a lot of money which creates more jobs and raises wages for existing residents. Any long time residents that own property have newfound wealth, and local businesses thrive.

Most of the tech boomtowns have significant poverty, and the tech industry seems to have made it somewhat worse, not better.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/04/01/poverty-rates-near-rec...

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