The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by supreme_sublime » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #176

moreorless wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rich african americans get treated differently from rich white people. I am neither a rich white male nor a rich black African American. Can you please elaborate on how they are treated differently?

>Racial slur sprayed on LeBron's house: 'It's tough being black in America' https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/sport/lebron-james-racist-gra...

When I see these things I'm always skeptical. I doubt LeBron did that himself, but there are TONS of hoax "hate crimes". Especially the ones that seem to be picked up by the news seem to end up being hoaxes.

We saw it recently in Canada with the girl who supposedly had her hijab cut, but it ended up being a lie. Who knows why she lied, perhaps for attention, maybe her mother put her up to it.

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

#202

Post by 11_4_time » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

adamc wrote: post #142

Leader2light wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it even mean any more to be "for immigration"! At what point do you feel the USA will have enough immigrants? It's already a nation of immigrants!

I am for free travel and work across "national" boundaries. That means I think the U.S. should be welcoming to others, and we should try to work out deals where our citizens can work abroad. I believe that the best way to avoid war is to invite everyone to the table, help everyone get richer, do better, be more invested in a peaceful world. In the modern world, war is a nightmare solution.

Europe will soon have a chance to test out your theory:

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/wHXSXEN_EkCmuj8Jnb9I6EVD9g...

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

#203

Post by e40 » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #161

e40 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the East Bay (near SF). I befriended a guy living on the street more than a year ago. He was a machinist in the midwest and was laid off. Because the winters are too brutal there, he came to CA. He didn't have valid ID and without an address it was difficult for him to get ID, without which the places he could possibly live were inaccessible. Last fall he finally found a group home, but it was temporary, and h…

Couldn't you give him an address by allowing him to register at yours to obtain the ID?

Turns out, I did some research and found he could use the local Post Office as his mailing address for the ID. He went into the PO and the people there didn't want to deal with him. The basically threw him out (this PO has a guard, which is a little odd to me). I offered to go with him to the PO and sort it out, but he was unwilling, even after I made the offer multiple times.

But, the good news is that he ended up walking to the DMV (3+ miles from where I would see him) and he did get his ID. That's why he was able to get into that temporary home last year. It was a huge hurdle for him to get that ID. I can only imagine that anything that requires a lot more effort than that would be beyond his abilities.

I will say, too, that what drew me to him was that he seemed to never ask for money from anyone, but he was often present on the same block when I would walk to/from work. I started up a conversation with him and over time we became friendly, and I would buy him food when he said he needed it. It was clear there were other people helping him (much more than I was), so he often didn't have immediate needs for food. Shelter, though, that's the big issue and when I did Google searches for local shelters it was really hard to find anything I could take to him.

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

#204

Post by 11_4_time » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

orf wrote: post #80

11_4_time wrote: post #75

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…

> Give me your tired, your poor, > Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, > The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. > Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me I think it would be hypocritical at best, given America's history and current position to take such a stance. Surely the right thing to do is not to be scared of the immigration bogeyman and take some concrete steps towards the future, rather than…

That's from a poem tacked onto the Statue of Liberty in 1903, not U.S. law or policy. People quote that as if it's from the preamble to the constitution or something...

Mass immigration made sense when the U.S. was a manufacturing colossus, no longer. Immigration should be targeted and far lower than it is now.

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

#205

Post by e40 » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #126

e40 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've all seen the articles about Republican controlled cities putting homeless people on buses for Berkeley and other destinations in CA. wahsd is clueless.

This raises an interesting question: Do US democrats think inter-state immigration is bad? For example some liberal friends when talking about immigration last year kept posting that poem on the statue of liberty: > "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free", etc. The Republican controlled cities are giving huddled masses to the people who accept that immigration logic.

> Do US democrats think inter-state immigration is bad?

Not at all. The US has a big problem with homelessness, and for a long time we've been sticking our head in the sand.

Cities like SF have been trying to do something about it for a while, but I don't believe any city can solve the problem. This issue is greater than one city or one state. It's a national problem that requires national solutions.

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

#206

Post by indemnity » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #83

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Privilege is invisible to you? Must be nice.

Health of mother - Advantage. Mother being able to take care of child in the early years - Advantage. Dad present - Advantage. Encouraging, safe home environment - Advantage. Parents that expect and encourage excellence (sports, academic) - Advantage. Never going hungry - Advantage. Going to schools with resources and good teachers - Advantage. Going to good college - Advantage. Parents connections (business and academic) - Advantage.

These advantages compound.

There will be outliers with none or only some of this who still happen to make it. They are not common, and not proof that the system works as intended.

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

#207

Post by indemnity » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

jokermatt999 wrote: post #197

randomdata wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transfer of wealth through generations is wealth that is still held in family name until the time that it is given to the child. The child still starts with none. Ownership is not automatic in our society. It has to be transferred.

Ok, fine. They still have to inherit that money. But as they grow up, the rich baby will have access to better nutrition, better education, a less stressful environment, etc compared to the poor baby. That's without considering fetal health/nutrition. There are many known factors that can affect a child's health, growth, and intelligence, and therefore success. I don't think the distinction of "babies have $0" is rel…

He suffers from the affliction, that, having mastered programming, all other domains of human endeavour must be as reducible to simple logical constructs, and the world just needs him, to come and show how simple it really is.

It’s crazy how many think they have a monopoly on intelligence by virtue of being able to tell the machine what to do.

A logical statement in isolation is seen as sufficient to win arguments (like “babies have no money at birth”).

Wow, thanks Socrates, now I see the light. The scales have fallen from my eyes.

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

#208

Post by notyourday » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #86

odonnellryan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry, I have zero sympathy to people from Berkeley complaining. Considering the amount of money that Berkeley citizens collectively have and the progressive positions that they hold I am baffled why they do not add an addition $X thousand per year tax to everyone who makes more than a federal poverty level there to make sure that all out of luck homeless people have a real roof over their head, warm meals and medical care.

Unless of course the so called progressive population does not actually care that the middle of downtown Berkeley looks like a third world country.

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

#209

Post by koheripbal » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #130

xya3453 wrote: post #99

> Beyond that, many Americans, especially whites with no more than a high school education, have seen worsening health: As my research with my wife, the Princeton economist Anne Case, has demonstrated, for this group life expectancy is falling; mortality rates from drugs, alcohol and suicide are rising Yet in 2018, most diversity initiatives still focus on race regardless of socio-economic background.

Here we go again. Race correlates strongly with socioeconomic background. Insofar as diversity initiatives are actually attempting to improve the lives of disadvantaged people in this country, arguments like yours amount to relative privation. Heart disease kills more people than lung cancer, but there's nothing wrong with raising money to research lung cancer.

I think this misses the point that we are using our dollars inefficiently.

Between race and socio-economic status, the later has a stronger correlation to health and so it should be used as the main indicator directing where/how to spend those healthcare dollars.

When it comes to people's health, these dollars need to be blind, or we are needlessly throwing some number of lives away each year.

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

#210

Post by dsr_ » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #32

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…

When it gets down to it - talking trade balances here - once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here - once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel - once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity - y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else

music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery

-- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992)