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Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#21

Post by whatever1 »

darawk wrote: post #8
brickcitymang wrote: post #2

Poverty in America is a result of American capitalism, at a very high level. At a very very high level, it is caused by human greed, and a lack of love for our neighbors. We can talk about wages and employment rates, and race all day long, but those are just details. It's human greed in the end, and our inability to love others like we love ourselves.

Is that why hunter gatherer societies didn't have poverty? Is that why communist countries weren't poor? How is that working out for Venezuela? Capitalism is literally the only thing in human history that has ever lifted large numbers of people out of poverty.

Hi. China is calling.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#22

Post by sonnyblarney »

wallflower wrote: post #17
sonnyblarney wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My belief is that the non-linearity is not due the lack of opportunity of some, but rather the hyper-opportunity of others. The Silicon Valley isn't really an 'American' centre, it's like a 'Global Centre' where for the first time, indiviuals can have massively disproportionate, global impact. A doctor may earn a big income, but he can only work on so many patients where as some global firms ... the yields are huge.…

It's not really hyper opportunity, it is impact. Impact is the reason why an elementary school teacher gets paid in the low-to-mid 5 figures and a professional ball player can get paid 7 figures. Usually, a school teacher has 20-30 kids in their classroom, while a professional ball player can indirectly influence tens of thousands of kids and adults in their "buying" decisions. Impact is why Franz Schubert died poor…

Yes I agree to all of that except you're missing out on power and market power.

The biggest winners will be investors in tech, not employees, who will do well, but not as well as capital FYI.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#23

Post by tosser00001 »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #16
tosser00001 wrote: post #14

Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

Illegal immigrants are 1% of the population in the U.S. It's used as a way to divide people rather than an actual serious issue.

Pew Reasearch puts the number at 3.5%, which I think is quite high enough to impact growth. But downward wage pressure at the lowest sectors comes from both legal and illegal immigration.

It would be interesting to see what at short term lowering of immigration would have on wage growth.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#24

Post by tosser00001 »

tosser00001 wrote: post #14

Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

It’s interesting the immigration cannot even be mentioned without getting down voted.

It seems obvious to me that fewer low skill workers would result in higher wages for those who could most benefit from it.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#25

Post by sdinsn »

tosser00001 wrote: post #14

Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

I'd argue that legal immigration has the greatest impact on higher sectors of society- such as salaries in software / IT. This can be fixed by raising the minimum pay for H1Bs. I'd believe that illegal immigration has a incredibly small effect overall.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#26

Post by mc32 »

tosser00001 wrote: post #23
nickthemagicman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illegal immigrants are 1% of the population in the U.S. It's used as a way to divide people rather than an actual serious issue.

Pew Reasearch puts the number at 3.5%, which I think is quite high enough to impact growth. But downward wage pressure at the lowest sectors comes from both legal and illegal immigration. It would be interesting to see what at short term lowering of immigration would have on wage growth.

3.5% is a lot of pressure on housing --which is quite inelastic in demand but also very slow to respond to increased demand.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#27

Post by bobwaycott »

whb07 wrote: post #3
brickcitymang wrote: post #2

Poverty in America is a result of American capitalism, at a very high level. At a very very high level, it is caused by human greed, and a lack of love for our neighbors. We can talk about wages and employment rates, and race all day long, but those are just details. It's human greed in the end, and our inability to love others like we love ourselves.

I don't care or need to love you. But I do love my family and myself. So if I need to put on a smile and provide a service or good to you for money to help the people I love I will do it. That's the point of capitalism and free markets. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their…

Ah, the old trope of trotting out Adam Smith. It may surprise you to know Smith was concerned about unfettered self-interest and the ways it would damage society. He wasn’t lauding self-interest and praising it as the perfection capitalism claims it to be.

Why not include some more of his gems?

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable.

In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#29

Post by darawk »

whatever1 wrote: post #21
darawk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why hunter gatherer societies didn't have poverty? Is that why communist countries weren't poor? How is that working out for Venezuela? Capitalism is literally the only thing in human history that has ever lifted large numbers of people out of poverty.

Hi. China is calling.

China is successful now entirely as a result of their conversion to capitalism. This is an extremely well known fact about China. China tried communism, it went absolutely terribly. They changed to capitalism, and things got good. I can't imagine an example that more perfectly agrees with my point.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#30

Post by noobermin »

hogwild wrote: post #9

The woman in this story is handcuffed by her decision to have 3 kids. Show me the 20 year old dropout. Explain why he/she can't devote themselves to self improvement.

The article points out this is is a vanishingly small percentage:

>That is, among the poor, two in 100 are working-age adults disconnected from the labor market for unknown reasons. The nonworking poor person getting something for nothing is a lot like the cheat committing voter fraud: pariahs who loom far larger in the American imagination than in real life.

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