Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

sticerd.lse.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 310 posts

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#211

Post by BluePen7 »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #145
ip26 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you [...] can't afford maintaining them Not sure I can entirely agree, when I was broke I had a fair amount of free time and I spent a lot of it learning to repair motor vehicles. Parts are not free, but labor & markup is most of the cost anyway.

> when I was broke I had a fair amount of free time How did you manage this? I was working my ass off just to keep the bills paid and doing chores to avoid costly services like dining out and maintenance.

Not who you asked, but without extra means you end up with free time any time you're not working. You can't afford to do anything.

If you don't have a job where you can simply take on more hours, but it's also not predictable enough that you can get a second job, you just end up with a lot of useless free time on short notice.

Can't afford hobbies, trips, no significant other (being poor doesn't help your dating life), what else is there to do?

It took money for me to actually run out of free time. I honestly really enjoy tinkering and fixing stuff, but it's usually no longer worth my time (to my own dismay).

Before money learning to fix something meant the difference between keeping the car going, or having your car break down without money for the shop bills. I've fixed lots of stuff by flashlight so I could get to work the next day.

Nowadays being put in that sort of back-against-the-wall scenario isn't likely to happen, unless I sign up for some sort of game show or reality TV where it's purposely planned.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#212

Post by SilasX »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #200
SilasX wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, turn it into a perpetually profitable self-funding charity that fronts the poor the money to get the cheaper option in return for a cut of the savings. It's probably not possible because there are factors other than what you described.

Just because you created a way for someone to pay bulk rate in smaller amounts doesn't make the savings magically appear in a bank account. At best, you just invented credit cards. But poor people often either can't get credit cards, or the interest rates are astronomical, or they require a cash deposit (that they can't afford) to secure them.

I didn’t invent credit cards. I pointed out that being able to borrow isn’t the limiting factor. It’s well over 100% rate of return for the bulk savings you can get for some of the examples often cited. That’s a tad more than the interest a credit card charges (or what the charity I suggested could charge).

The point of my comment was to suggest that you be the lender and get these easy returns, if you’re so confident in the theory. Why did you think it would be relevant whether current credit cards would lend to them?

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#213

Post by quercusgrisea »

missedthecue wrote: post #206
quercusgrisea wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food insecurity is not specific to communist countries, it's a massive problem in capitalist countries today. The US is the richest country in the world and 37 million people experienced food insecurity in 2018 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States

"Food insecurity" is nowhere near the same thing as going to another city to stand in line for potatoes and onions. On the whole, decentralized distribution is always better than when centrally controlled

>"Food insecurity" is nowhere near the same thing as going to another city to stand in line for potatoes and onions.

What's the difference? Millions of people in the US have to line up at soup kitchens and food banks in order to avoid starvation.

>On the whole, decentralized distribution is always better than when centrally controlled

That's a strong claim; I'd be interested to look at evidence for it if you have any.

One major counterpoint would be the enormous reductions in poverty that China has achieved over the last decades. Quoting from Wikipedia here:

>The dramatic progress in reducing poverty over the past three decades in China is well known. According to the World Bank, more than 850 million Chinese people have been lifted out of extreme poverty; China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#214

Post by SilasX »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #199
SilasX wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, turn it into a perpetually profitable self-funding charity that fronts the poor the money to get the cheaper option in return for a cut of the savings. It's probably not possible because there are factors other than what you described.

Isn't this essentially the whole premise behind microfinance (microloans), which are a form of charity?

Micro finance works in the third world, for existing successful entrepreneurs; I’m addressing its application to blue collar first world poor.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#215

Post by jollofricepeas »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #199
SilasX wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, turn it into a perpetually profitable self-funding charity that fronts the poor the money to get the cheaper option in return for a cut of the savings. It's probably not possible because there are factors other than what you described.

Isn't this essentially the whole premise behind microfinance (microloans), which are a form of charity?

Not always...

Its been found that what most have called charity is actually predatory lending by another name. I’m sure there are some legit players but like most things in life you may need to read the fine print and get a lawyer.

Source: https://mathbabe.org/2015/10/13/microfinance-is-mostly-a-sca...

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#216

Post by noch »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #140
noch wrote: post #123

The paper says: > The question is whether the bimodality is symptomatic of a poverty trap, namely whether poor people do casual jobs and hold nearly no productive assets because they do not have the talent to do anything else or whether the fact that they are poor prevents them from acquiring the assets needed to climb the occupational ladder. The cause/effect inversion, of talent/ability => asset acquisition, is alw…

You really should read some criticisms of The Bell Curve style arguments. I'd start here: https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Her...

The article you linked to is helpful but makes several important claims/conclusions that have been convincingly disproved/challenged in the time since 1996. For instance, it claims:

> In fact IQ is a great example of a trait that is highly heritable but not genetically determined [...]

However, "On the genetic architecture of intelligence and other quantitative traits" (Hsu, 2014, https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3421) which cites a substantial amount of supporting research, notes:

"The largest component of genetic variance for both height and intelligence is additive(linear), leading to important simplifications in predictive modeling and statistical estimation. Due mainly to the rapidly decreasing cost of genotyping, it is possible that within the coming decade researchers will identify loci which account for a significant fraction of total g variation."

Block(1996) also incorrectly asserts that:

> IQ is enormously affected by normal environmental variation, and in ways that are not well understood. [...] IQ is very reactive to changes in environments in the normal range.

From Hsu(2014): "[W]ithin a range of favourable environments (i.e., providing good nutrition, hygiene, and access to education) evidence strongly supports the claim that individual differences in cognitive ability are largely associated with genetic differences.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#217

Post by [deleted] »

m0zg wrote: post #130
asdff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of perspective is very important, especially here on HN where I see plenty of ignorance on this topic. When you work these jobs, often the local cost of living is pinned to these minimum wages, where you stagnate and are unable to save. How can you possible afford to move when your rent increases? You have no savings to rent a vehicle to move your things, nothing to put down up front for a new apartment, an…

> You have no savings to rent a vehicle Come on, U-Haul is like $50, including some mileage. > cost of living is pinned to these minimum wages That is true. That's also reason #3245 why UBI is a stupid idea.

[deleted]

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#218

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

noch wrote: post #216
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really should read some criticisms of The Bell Curve style arguments. I'd start here: https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Her...

The article you linked to is helpful but makes several important claims/conclusions that have been convincingly disproved/challenged in the time since 1996. For instance, it claims: > In fact IQ is a great example of a trait that is highly heritable but not genetically determined [...] However, "On the genetic architecture of intelligence and other quantitative traits" (Hsu, 2014, https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3421 ) wh…

Hsu's research doesn't hold up under review. You're just doubling down on the exact same flawed reasoning.

It's pretty clear where you're at and what argument you actually wanna make so I'm out.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#219

Post by arcticbull »

missedthecue wrote: post #208
ChrisLomont wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For much the 1900s the top income tax bracket in the US was over 80%, Top tax is not the same as effective tax rate. For example, when Reagan lowered the top brack from 50% to 37% while also closing taxable shelters,the amount the rich paid actually went up. The CBO has all this type of data. >This is a result of social policy. It's more the result of changes in the world economy. Computers have made skilled jobs va…

>Top tax is not the same as effective tax rate. For example, when Reagan lowered the top brack from 50% to 37% while also closing taxable shelters,the amount the rich paid actually went up. This is something a lot of folks miss. The US has the most progressive tax system in the western world. The top brackets pay a much larger percentage than anywhere else.

Yeah, no, they don't, and it isn't.

Estate tax being practically zero means huge quantities of un-earned wealth are transmitted from generation to generation. This isn't true in most first-world countries.

The top tax rate in the US isn't nearly as high as many European countries.

The specific quantity of money that is collected as tax revenue has much more to do with just how successful the higher classes are in the US as compared to other countries. This is a function of (wealth inequality multiplied by the top tax rate) not of how progressive the system is -- certainly not at the federal level.

If you have citations, they are much welcome.

The post you're replying to missed many critical factors, such as the fact that the average salary in constant-dollar terms has remained the exact same since 1964 in the US. [1]

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#220

Post by jahaja »

noch wrote: post #123

The paper says: > The question is whether the bimodality is symptomatic of a poverty trap, namely whether poor people do casual jobs and hold nearly no productive assets because they do not have the talent to do anything else or whether the fact that they are poor prevents them from acquiring the assets needed to climb the occupational ladder. The cause/effect inversion, of talent/ability => asset acquisition, is alw…

This is just one hop away from resolving into racism, but somehow this kind of bullshit is consistently allowed on HN.
Post reply on HN