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Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

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Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#91

Post by tomnipotent »

rb808 wrote: post #42
tomnipotent wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I grew up on welfare, and I can't tell you how often my mom would talk about section 8 housing and how that would change everything. Having to move was my parents greatest nightmare - they would barely afford day-to-day things, nonetheless first/last/deposit.

> section 8 housing and how that would change everything Sorry can you clarify - do you mean she wanted to be eligible? Or was eligible but couldn't find a suitable place. I've always wondered if buying a property to rent to section 8 tenants is a good idea or not. (investment wise or charity wise)

Section 8 has a years-long waiting list, and it's basically a lottery for the vouchers when I was growing up.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#92

Post by wang_li »

altacc wrote: post #85
wang_li wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible way…

Whether or not you believe in helping others is a personal choice. Most societies across the globe and throughout history have recognised the need for community & solidarity in order to survive & thrive. > Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor... You make it sound like there’s an infinite loop of childbirth which will eventually use up every last dollar in the world, but that’s not what happens in real…

>You make it sound like there’s an infinite loop of childbirth which will eventually use up every last dollar in the world,

It's not infinite, but we cannot provide every child in the world with the same standard of living as that had by the average Norwegian, for example. And given that a couple chose to give birth to a kid even though they could easily see that they can't provide for the child and society can't provide for the child. E: It shows they don't have a limiting factor.

>Not everything is a zero sum game. Currently the US right seems to frame a lot of centrist/left policies as significantly detrimental to the lifestyle and income of the average person. There is plenty of economic resource out there which we can utilise before we make any significant impact on a typical taxpayer’s lifestyle.

Life is certainly zero sum in many ways. If you take ten thousand dollars from me this year and pay it back to me fifteen years later by saying "hey, the average productivity, prosperity, happiness went up by 30%" that doesn't undo the fact that you prevented me from sending my child to a better school. I will never have the opportunity again to send my five year old to a great preschool because next year that kid will be six and that one year of more nurtured development will never be able to be regained.

Currently the US doesn't pay for everything it does on an annual basis. Approximately 25% of spending is borrowed. And of the total four trillion dollars in spending, around sixty percent of that is for social security, medicare, medicaid, social safety net programs, chip, snap, and etc. Additionally, less than 40% of households are net tax payers. You really can't make dramatic changes in social programs without also dramatically impacting people's lives.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#93

Post by wang_li »

fzeroracer wrote: post #69
wang_li wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible way…

> I will agree that it's a very unfortunately situation, but I'm not going to lower the standard of living of my own family that limits their chances of having their best life so as to provide for the child of a stranger who doesn't give the same care and thought to me and mine. Where does this argument end? For example if you end up needing to live in a rest home and your family can't afford or refuses to take care…

>For example if you end up needing to live in a rest home and your family can't afford or refuses to take care of you, why should my tax dollars go to help you out?

Your tax dollars shouldn't. I would have to be a real asshole who has no empathy and care for you to live my life in a way that I end up destitute in my old age and expect you to sacrifice your family's well being so I can live my life selfishly and greedily.

>As many countries have justifiably chosen, they consider this to be an extremely barbaric approach.

You might phrase it like that, but every single day in every single country that provides a generous safety net someone dies whose life could have been extended by some amount of time if only the country had spent more money on doing so.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#94

Post by wang_li »

Frondo wrote: post #76
wang_li wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible way…

> How do you justify tapping the productivity of a Boeing working in Renton... Well, the direct answer is: these are all Americans, and all pay some kind of tax to their city, county, state, and ultimately the country, in theory so they can draw on the shared resources of the nation. That's how you justify supporting the kid in Mississippi and not the kid in Cambodia. As for rationally holding the belief that people…

We don't live in a post scarcity society. As such it's not possible to support every kid to a high standard of living unless you limit the number of kids.

I also want to point out that they don't pay taxes to their city, county, state, and country. There have been several studies by the CBO[0 - see the chart on page 31] that show that the lower 60% of households are not net tax payers at the federal level to such an extent that their entire non-federal tax payments offset by the transfers and benefits they receive from the federal government.

0 - https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-...

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#95

Post by deepnet »

scrollbar wrote: post #58
wang_li wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible way…

Yes, you can rationally hold that belief. You have different priors about how society and people work than I do, very different. Go ahead and try to come up with reasons parent and I are rational, instead of assuming the worst and belittling others' thought processes. Maybe you'll learn something.

TFA: Being poor is a highly non trivial prior.

There are many poverties, many dimensions of wealth.

Happy educated young are a public good and the wealth of nations.

A rising tide raises all ships.

Female education is the driving factor in population stabilisation.

Inherited inequality is implicitly unjust.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#96

Post by cocoa19 »

scrollbar wrote: post #58
wang_li wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible way…

Yes, you can rationally hold that belief. You have different priors about how society and people work than I do, very different. Go ahead and try to come up with reasons parent and I are rational, instead of assuming the worst and belittling others' thought processes. Maybe you'll learn something.

Please don't attack the man, attack the argument.

Writing snarky remarks is uncalled for and not pleasant to read on this forum.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#97

Post by pitay »

wang_li wrote: post #46
altacc wrote: post #3

In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no faul…

You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible way…

There are many times the number of people that can sustainably live on earth at the moment (something like an order of magnitude). You can see consequences of this by looking at much more overpopulated areas in the middle east, Africa, or India where starvation is much more a part of life. This is a huge problem in more developed areas as well, with environmental degradation, pollution, and the land made poorer by only a small fraction being wilderness.

A naive idea is, have a baby penalty. A baby penalty would make would be parents think twice about having children, and more about family planning and contraception. It would suck to be a child in a family that cannot afford to raise children (this really needs to be emphasized). To offset this people can be paid to bring up a child that their parents cannot afford, this works great as the people who raise the other parents children are less likely to have children themselves. Now this is naive, is not fleshed out, and has all sorts of things that can go wrong, but conversations about these things has to start. Take China, without their 'Family Planning Policy", the place would be a much worse place to live in than today. What was described is something much softer than the Family Planning Policy, but countries may have to move to something like China's policies to have any hope.

"We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now." - David Attenborough

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#98

Post by xrd »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #11
altacc wrote: post #3

In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no faul…

We also have no requirement to become a parent. No education requirement once you become pregnant or a parent from the local schools or clinics. Good parenting is not just some "God given talent", but can be improved through education to help parents of all wealth levels. If you want to raise the "potential of the country", help with sex education and parental education.

Honest question for you: are you doing that? If not, why not? If so, can you share the successes and failures?

I agree with you 100%.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#99

Post by opportune »

rb808 wrote: post #42
tomnipotent wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I grew up on welfare, and I can't tell you how often my mom would talk about section 8 housing and how that would change everything. Having to move was my parents greatest nightmare - they would barely afford day-to-day things, nonetheless first/last/deposit.

> section 8 housing and how that would change everything Sorry can you clarify - do you mean she wanted to be eligible? Or was eligible but couldn't find a suitable place. I've always wondered if buying a property to rent to section 8 tenants is a good idea or not. (investment wise or charity wise)

Relative did this and found it was not a good move. Usually the types of places that rent to section 8 tenants have very high cap ratios assuming you collect rent every month... just think for a bit why other investors leave those on the table considering how financially advantageous that would be.

Ok I’ll spoil it a bit: first, you still have to do maintenance on these places like fixing the roof, plumbing, etc. and it doesn’t matter if you bought it for pennies, it still has to be livable to rent. Second, section 8 doesn’t cover everything (at least for some) so your tenants will often not make rent: the decision whether to continually take losses on renting or to evict a family (possibly making them homeless) is up to you. And among poor people you will have higher rates of things like hoarding or drugs so your likelihood of dealing with that is high (approaching near certainty as number of properties grows).

He ended up selling off his real estate “empire” in less than 5 years after being threatened with a gun, evicting a family, and having one house get entirely gutted one night (including wires and toilets)

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#100

Post by sansnomme »

xrd wrote: post #98
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also have no requirement to become a parent. No education requirement once you become pregnant or a parent from the local schools or clinics. Good parenting is not just some "God given talent", but can be improved through education to help parents of all wealth levels. If you want to raise the "potential of the country", help with sex education and parental education.

Honest question for you: are you doing that? If not, why not? If so, can you share the successes and failures? I agree with you 100%.

Make contraception as common and mandatory as school vaccination programs. Vasagel exists for males (and more technologies will show up down the line) and female contraception is relatively mature. Have the implants tied to RFID with expiry dates signed by manufacturers. Verifiable chain of trust. Make having babies similar to driving licenses. Whitelisting instead of trying to prevent it from occuring after the fact. The technology is there, just that everyone would hate the idea and implementation. Not to mention the societal ramifications.
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