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The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

nytimes.com

81–90 of 238 posts

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#81
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I read that most homeless seem to head to CA because it's where the money is... Here in NL we have some homeless, but also lots of government systems in place to offer housing and incentives to possibly work or get schooling. In the end this is actually cheaper, as to prevent crime and what not. Not sure how this would work in the US.

Utah simply housed their homeless and it was cheaper because homeless people were no longer using emergency services for basic healthcare among other things[1]/ 1. https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...

It's only a fraction of the people that are homeless in CA, but a great result none the less. Here is an article of just LA. Seems quite out of control compared with Utah. :(

1. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-count-2...

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#82

Americans are slowly becoming more radical as a reaction to economic pressures. With each side's policies alien to the other, compromise becomes impossible. Eventually one side will have to win out and then things will get very interesting.

> Eventually one side will have to win out and then things will get very interesting. Well things are pretty violent already, with the deadly class war the police is fighting against the population (~1k in 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo... ) plus the countless arrests, macing, tasering and other violent actions of police against peaceful demonstrators, plus all the violence committ…

Could we not exaggerate? It doesn't help the discussion.

plus all the violence committed by Nazis (e.g. the Heather Heyer murder and the other actions counted as right-wing domestic terrorism)

"all of the violence", you listed one death. One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. You also act like there isn't such a thing as left-wing domestic terrorism. That terrorism killed more people in a single event, 7/7/16, than that nutjob running someone over did. What about the mob of nazis and anti-facists getting into fights in Berkeley? If you're not committed to one of those groups, it's just as bad. It's mob violence either way.

Nazis suck, but please try to be objective. When you frame the argument as you are, you are setting up flamebait. Some nazi will use your exaggerations against you.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact remains that everyone starts with nothing. The parent questions why some are able to flourish, while others continue with nothing indefinitely.

>The fact remains that everyone starts with nothing. This is clearly wrong.

I struggle to see what is inherently bestowed upon a new born child beyond life itself? The child may eventually be given things, but that's not the same thing as what we are talking about. Some examples of how it is clearly wrong would be useful, because there is nothing clear about it to me.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#84

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that the U.S. immigration policy (or lack thereof) bears a signification part of the blame here. Why in the face of globalization (and now increased automation) the U.S. continues to have an effectively open-door policy to low-skill workers makes no sense at all. As a U.S. citizen, I'd like to see a return to the temporary moratorium that existed until the mid 1960s (say 10 to 15 yea…

Yeah that won't help one bit. What jobs in particular are you talking about?

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#85
post #19

So what do Switzerland, Germany and Iceland better than the rest of the developed nations?

They haven't had decades of sustained mass immigration of low-skilled workers.

You don't know much about Germany eh?

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#86

This video from Anaheim (California) is reminiscent of travelling around Dehli (from 39' in - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7hWzqdPDk ). The level/amount of poverty in this video is shocking.

Probably worse in CA, but this exists on some level in every state. Here in NJ we have the same exact thing, just not along a bike path.

Berkeley has a tent community dead in the middle of downtown on some government property. Berkeley's homeless problem is really front-and-center. The otherwise nice parks in the area are pretty unusable.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#87

This is the other side of globalization. Globalization is super nice when you're secure in your job, "hey everything is getting cheaper!" but when your job is the one in the crosshairs what you're feeling is a pressure that is pushing the living standard of the third world and yours together. That's why I find it so annoying that this board is usually against abundant H1B's but for factory outsourcing. It's completel…

Why should Bubba live a better life then Liu Chu just because he was born in one country and Liu Chu another? Globalization has reduced extreme poverty worldwide, to the point where it will not exist in a few years.

Globalization has very little to do with the plights of blacks in the Mississippi Delta. Old fashioned racism and a lack of jobs in sectors which aren't agriculture have a lot more to do with it.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#88
According to the World Bank, 769 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2013; they are the world’s very poorest. Of these, 3.2 million live in the United States, and 3.3 million in other high-income countries (most in Italy, Japan and Spain).

I tried to track down this factoid. First I went to the world bank: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=U...

which does show 1% for the US. In the notes it says " Data for high-income economies are from the Luxembourg Income Study database." My next stop was there. From http://www.lisdatacenter.org/frontend#/home I found that the source of their data was Current Population Survey (CPS) - Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) (United States). The Current Population survey has a table creator here: https://www.census.gov/cps/data/cpstablecreator.html

Although there is nothing that quite matches the 3.2 million figure cited, the LIS did some harmonization so the most likely ultimate source is the 3.446 million people living in households that were categorized as having "no income" in 2013. This is separate from the 2.775 million people that were categorized as living in households that have "$1 to $2,499 or loss" in income.

I'm very skeptical that this is an appropriate use of this data. The world bank poverty number is supposed to be about consumption--it has to do with people consuming very little in the way of goods and services. But no one at all can live on no goods and services. They'd die of hunger and thirst in far less than a year. It could in theory be the case that millions of Americans were living on less than $1.90/day in consumption but it cannot possibly be the case that millions of Americans are living on $0/day.

To the extent that the figure cited for "no income" means anything (and isn't just noise in the data), it doesn't mean what the world bank means when it says living on $1.90/day.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#89

Americans are slowly becoming more radical as a reaction to economic pressures. With each side's policies alien to the other, compromise becomes impossible. Eventually one side will have to win out and then things will get very interesting.

>With each side's policies alien to the other

This is just an symptom of economic inequality. If you do not belong to the same economic class anymore, then what might make the country better for you, might make the country worst for the other person. There is no way to avoid this.

Re: The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The vast majority of those 1000 deaths are unambiguously from the justified use of force There's two problems with this. 1) if you define "justified use of force" like Americans do, then yeah, of course it's justified, a guy pulling up his pants while being dragged on the ground is now "reaching for a weapon" so an officer is fully justified to shoot him dead. He was practically asking for it, and it shows up as su…

A significant difference is, that American police are arresting Americans. They are likely armed, while in other countries that may not be the case.

They are not likely armed. Fewer than half of all households have even a single gun. Most of those aren't households where the gun owners carry in public: they're the kind of household where the "responsible gun owner" leaves his kit where the two year old can get it and accidentally shoot his 6 month old sister to death.
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