Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate • Hacker News Board

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#141

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Nov 30, 2018, 11:29 PM UTC

jhayward wrote: post #44

justaman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wanted to point out that racism like that is on its last leg. I used to live in a rural, very conservative, upper class area. While they do watch fox news, they are not racist. Its close minded to call fox news racist or cnn socialist.

"I'm not saying they're racist, I'm just saying that racists like them a lot" [1] (paraphrased from Gillum) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/11/...

> "I'm not saying they're racist, I'm just saying that racists like them a lot"

Civil Liberties organization defends due process. "I'm not saying they're rapists, I'm just saying rapists like them a lot."

Fertilizer company sells ordinary fertilizer that happens to be a major component of large bombs. "I'm not saying they're terrorists, I'm just saying terrorists like them a lot."

Tech company protects privacy of customers. "I'm not saying they're child pornographers, I'm just saying child pornographers like them a lot."

This form of argument is obviously more incendiary than illuminating.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#142

Post by stretchwithme » Fri, Nov 30, 2018, 11:33 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #81

someone7x wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were making the argument and affirming that they were discriminating based on political affiliation, in an attempt to show they were not discriminating based on race. It was a conscious legal strategy to admit this. Wow. Can't be racial prejudice if its already political prejudice. Reminds me of the court scene in New Jack City where the Wesley Snipes confesses to being a foot soldier and therefore he can't be…

>Wow. Can't be racial prejudice if its already political prejudice. It can, but it's not in many cases. I also know lots of conservatives who are not the strawman racists people on the left like to attack. They really only care that people don't vote in left-wing people. Keep in mind that suppressing the Democrat vote will dis-proportionally affect black people (as well as poor people, etc), but that doesn't mean the…

Maybe they are just prejudiced against policies they don't agree with. Just like everybody else.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#143

Post by perfunctory » Fri, Nov 30, 2018, 11:41 PM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #36

kartan wrote: post #6

> Luckily, there is just such a concept: It’s called material security. This is really important. There are people that are one paycheck away from not being able to afford rent and basic necessities. I have lost my job in the past. I was calm and just enjoyed the time while I was looking for a new job. I have money saved. For a lot of people that will have been an extremely stressful situation. That kind of stress is…

> I was calm and just enjoyed the time while I was looking for a new job. I have money saved. For a lot of people that will have been an extremely stressful situation. That kind of stress is related to bad-decision taking Without that phenomenon (the "must get a job very soon / now" mindset), loads of low paid / unskilled positions would just never be filled. No-one would work crap jobs. It feels to me like the econo…

Any system that necessitates the "must get a job very soon / now" mindset is not very different from slavery.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#144

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Nov 30, 2018, 11:51 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #94

coliveira wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatism tries to maintain the existing structures of society and, in a country like USA, these structures are racially determined - it is just part of the history of the country. Therefore, conservative policies will tend to maintain racial discrimination, even when this is not the stated goal of the policy maker.

>Conservatism tries to maintain the existing structures of society Only in a loose, meaningless sense of the word that doesn't really tie to most conservatives in the US. Many conservatives in the US want to change structures of society, particularly WRT how much the government is involved. >these structures are racially determined - it is just part of the history of the country Not really. A poor white immigrant is…

> No, they will tend to discriminate against low-income people.

Even this is disputed. The conservative argument is that existing regulations make it more difficult to operate a business, so more of the people who would otherwise have their own small business are stuck working a dead end job for someone else, or are unemployed because the small business they would have worked at was destroyed.

Better for the same person to have a $60,000/year job than a $30,000/year job plus $15,000 in government assistance.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#145

Post by refurb » Fri, Nov 30, 2018, 11:51 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #134

refurb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get an unsecured line of credit at your bank for a lot less than 20%. Or find one of those credit cards with 0% APR for the first 12 months.

Generally hard to do with no current income. Or don't they check?

Well I think the goal is to line it up when you do have a job.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#146

Post by ggm » Sat, Dec 01, 2018, 12:09 AM UTC

petermcneeley wrote: post #77

ggm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it demands all government tax spend in ways to alleviate poverty be viewed as an externality which would not be needed in a higher income workforce. So it has qualities of tax hating but in a context of better social equity in pay. Like you, I think rent controls and low income rent support are supporting better lives for working poor, and do far more than paint over cracks, but the poverty trap is real: peop…

So your in support of UBI instead?

Not sure. I'm not a tax hater. I think of economics as a forcing function for better happiness not a thing in its own right.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#147

Post by wahern » Sat, Dec 01, 2018, 12:11 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #108

xadhominemx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody's insecure about non-whites having the ability to vote Actually they are, and go so far as to pass laws specifically to suppress non-white votes https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1051657219899617280

Wow! Talk about not providing context for that quote! The State's argument was voting hours were inconsistent across the state. The districts that offered additional voting opportunities, that other districts did not have , were predominantly African American and would vote Democratic. So their answer was to ban Sunday voting so that every district had the same window of opportunity to vote . One could argue that the…

"In emails, state and county Republican officials lobbied members of at least 17 county election boards to keep early-voting sites open for shorter hours on weekends and in evenings – times that usually see disproportionately high turnout by Democratic voters. Reuters obtained the emails through a public records request."

"The officials also urged county election boards to open fewer sites for residents to cast ballots during early voting that began on Oct. 20 and ends on Saturday."

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-northcarolin...

The reason inconsistencies existed is because there was a coordinated campaign in 2016 that made the holdouts appear inconsistent.

This is classic voter suppression. There will always be different voting patterns among different groups. Identifying the patterns of your preferred group and then normalizing just those patterns is how suppression is accomplished, period.

What blows my mind is that Republicans have been discussing these strategies freely and openly for years, and yet for some reason people still feel compelled to believe post hoc rationalizations.

The Republican Party is morally bankrupt. America is an intrinsically conservative nation and conservatism will live on. But apologizing for the Republican Party and its politics... I find it inexcusable.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#148

Post by zjaffee » Sat, Dec 01, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

post_break wrote: post #62

People cannot buy a phone outright. It's that bad. We're literally financing a $500-1000 device because they can't take the hit up front. Now I'm sure most people here could swing a phone tomorrow if they needed to say theirs was stolen, but you gotta think about how many people just can't. How about tires, there are places to rent tires. Financing a car? Common. 8 payments to put two front tires on your car? Seems i…

Except the thing about all of the items you've mentioned is that you can get stupidly low rates, and in some cases no interest loans, my savings account interest rate is higher than that of my car loan. You're better off taking out the loan to build credit at this point than just paying for something outright.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#149

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Dec 01, 2018, 12:18 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #46

esotericn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was calm and just enjoyed the time while I was looking for a new job. I have money saved. For a lot of people that will have been an extremely stressful situation. That kind of stress is related to bad-decision taking Without that phenomenon (the "must get a job very soon / now" mindset), loads of low paid / unskilled positions would just never be filled. No-one would work crap jobs. It feels to me like the econo…

This attitude seems alien to me. If there's a job that nobody wants to do, the employer should offer more compensation. If that raises the price of the service such that the venture is no longer profitable, then that indicates a fundamental lack of demand for that service relative to its cost. No poor person should be expected to subsidize the comfort of the higher classes via their desperation.

A secretary (back in the days when that was a career) in the office my dad worked at once complained to him "garbage men get paid more than I do!"

My dad asked her why she didn't quit and become a garbage man.

She replied: "no way! that's a dirty, disgusting job!"

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#150

Post by laurencerowe » Sat, Dec 01, 2018, 12:21 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #131

DoreenMichele wrote: post #118

The risk of eviction, meanwhile, can be roughly measured by the percentage of people’s incomes that they spend on shelter each month. As of 2015, 17 percent of Americans spent half or more of their incomes on rent. This is why we (here in the US) need to address housing. And I don't know what term to use. "Affordable housing" is the term I want to default to, but that gets misinterpreted by people and ends up being a…

Adam Smith observed years ago that cost of housing tends to eat up most people's pay raises. Which is to say if you can afford more you get more. Of course there are limits. Everybody has a point where their house is big enough for them and there are no better areas to move to (or the better areas are out of reach). Then they improve it for lack of anything else to to with their money.

The bigger issue is that as society in general gets richer much of the increase is being captured by landlords (and to an extent older property owners.) In the UK, the size of new build homes is at a 90 year low. [1]

[1] https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/04/shrinking-homes-the-ave...