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Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

lse.ac.uk

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Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#121

Post by not_knuth »

thundergolfer wrote: post #64
Consultant32452 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically the only reason I accumulate any resources or am productive at all is for the benefit of my child. I wouldn't think twice about committing violence against anyone who tried to stop me.

With the words you’ve used, you sound threatening and extreme. What do you mean by someone trying to stop you “accumulating resources” for your child?

I am in the same boat as you. While it is very normal for parents to be defensive, I found the comment a bit unnecessarily aggressive without an immenent threat (heck, we're on some comment section on the internet here, not a dome in hunger games battling for survival).

But then again, I have not had children of my own, so I can't relate to the need to defend my offspring.

And from friends I know that parenting is really hard with lots of sleepless nights. Perhaps the parent commenter just had a bad day.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#122

Post by fractionalhare »

refurb wrote: post #112
fractionalhare wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have an answer off the top of my head, but I did some searching for you. A short article from inequality.org [1] suggests that most of the richest people in the world (Forbes 400) were born with significant financial advantages, if they weren't already wealthy. Since there are many more rich people than the Forbes 400, that doesn't seem too representative of the usual rich person. It's hard to find anything c…

Those “born on first base” — in upper-class families, with inheritances up to $1 million — make up 22 percent of the 400. [1] I wouldn’t call 22% of the richest 400 people in the world having inherited more than $1M to be evidence inheritance dominates the causes of inequity. I mean, another way to put it is “80% of the richest people in the world DID NOT inherit their wealth.” [1] https://ips-dc.org/the_self-made_ha…

That's not actually the only claim/result in that briefing; but yes, I agree that it doesn't seem representative for the question you're asking. Do you have any better citations? It doesn't seem like there's a conclusive answer from the academic community.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#123

Post by sul_tasto »

postingpals wrote: post #35
sul_tasto wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Above all we need to focus on delivering opportunity via improved circumstances and empowerment, irrespective of merit or success: that is the only path to actual equality.” Please consider that you are advocating for communism. I hope you will consider reviewing the histories of China and the USSR, et al. after World War 2. The critique and solution you offer do not lead to “actual equality.”

This is a logical leap i'm afraid. We have been trying to give people what they need using government welfare for a century now. It's not communism to correctly understand that some people need to be given opportunities to prove themselves in the market regardless of their race, wealth, etc.

I understand what you’re saying, and technically you’re correct. However, the quote I referenced is typical of the coded language being used to justify and advocate for much more extreme policies of redistribution that I’m not convinced many would agree with.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#124

Post by jules »

orange_tee wrote: post #24
padolsey wrote: post #2

These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…

You are so focused on economic inequality that you ignore the greater picture: there will still be a hierarchy. There will still be humans dominating other humans and asserting themselves above them. Maybe in the far future humans will create a social technology to live in true equality but in the immediate future this is clearly not happening. As long as there is a hierarchy, you cannot really have equality, sorry.…

Economic inequality within a developed nation is one of the least important kinds of inequality. I'd trade one standard deviation of income for one standard deviation of pretty much anything else, such as intelligence or attractiveness. The average person in a developed nation lives better than the kings and emperors of the past in material terms. They had a bigger dwelling, but I'd much rather live in a modern apartment than in a medieval castle. A rich person today can buy a $1200 phone, and a poor person has to make do with a $200 phone. That extra $1000 only marginally improves the quality of the phone. The $200 phone today is still better than the $1200 phone of 10 years ago. The medieval king had no phone, heck, he probably didn't even have running water. The food he ate was worse. We can eat bananas every day, the king perhaps only saw a banana on one of his paintings. The healthcare he had access to was way worse. The transportation he had access to was way worse. The entertainment he had access to was worse.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#125

Post by Consultant32452 »

postingpals wrote: post #115
Consultant32452 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically the only reason I accumulate any resources or am productive at all is for the benefit of my child. I wouldn't think twice about committing violence against anyone who tried to stop me.

Are you suggesting you'd kill someone if they tried to tax you slightly more highly? Or if they took some of your child's inheritance according to a means tested solution? That is very weird.

My means tested solution is if someone tried to take my resources I will weigh killing them against the consequences of killing them. Their life would have no value in the calculation.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#127

Post by howlgarnish »

slfnflctd wrote: post #100
sul_tasto wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Above all we need to focus on delivering opportunity via improved circumstances and empowerment, irrespective of merit or success: that is the only path to actual equality.” Please consider that you are advocating for communism. I hope you will consider reviewing the histories of China and the USSR, et al. after World War 2. The critique and solution you offer do not lead to “actual equality.”

It's difficult for me to believe this observation is being trashed so hard. No, meritocracy likely is not the best system. It just happens to be better than the others we've tried at scale so far-- including attempting to give everyone the same opportunities regardless of ability. What else is being described there, if not communism? What am I missing? The real underlying problem is that we are strongly predisposed t…

+1. The grandparent's statement is a paraphrase of "from each according to ability, to each according to need", which is a classic communist slogan.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#128

Post by jasonclaiid »

For those that believe people are poor because they did not work hard, I am curious what importance you attribute parenting to the outcomes of children?

Every parent I know invests a significant amount of time and often money in raising their children, and there is a significant amount of empirical evidence that parents play a significant role in how children develop. Do you simply believe the evidence to the contrary? It does exist, I am aware. It often seems to measure obviously superficial interventions, in my opinion, but I understand the debate.

What is the level of parenting beyond which there is no additional return in terms of economic outcome?

Because from what I understand, parents play a significant role in not only cognitive development (reading at an early age, for example) but also in terms of setting expectations for their children.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#129

Post by bonoboTP »

absolutelyrad wrote: post #62
Consultant32452 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically the only reason I accumulate any resources or am productive at all is for the benefit of my child. I wouldn't think twice about committing violence against anyone who tried to stop me.

Exactly. And people who want wealth inequalities to fade away, can they explain people who have better looks due to better genetics. Then they carry for their next generations. Maybe also force attractive people to mate with less attractive ones so these inequalities also go away? Sounds insane doesn't it? This is equally insane idea. This is just unfair to everyone. It is wrong, immoral, unethical to tax the wealth…

Have you heard of Western Europe? It's not a binary choice between "eat or be eaten", "the poor are just lazy" vs. "force attractive people to have sex with unattractive ones", "brave new world" utopia.

Western European programmers still live very well, they just aren't as rich as in the US. And the high taxes do moderate and blunt the cutthroat competition to a degree, which results in less crazy work life balance etc.

Of course these debates get very heated because everyone wants the system that would give them more. I was born to poor parents who could afford their own education because it's free here. My relatives had a social net to bounce back from during rough times (primary school teacher). It's not good for a society to have a large portion who feel existential dread and that the only way up is taking huge risks that often require initial capital.

The reason it is like this in the US is because it's not a nation. It's just atomic families and people from all over the world, tolerating each other and minding their own business. There is no feeling of solidarity, especially across races.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#130

Post by howlgarnish »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #43

> We find that in the absence of credit constraints only 2% of households would be best off doing wage labor, while 97% of households are exclusively reliant such work at baseline. Conversely, only 1% work in livestock when 90% would do so if they had access to the same asset wealth as the middle and upper classes. Overall, this implies that 96% of households are forced to misallocate their labor. So the authors sugg…

No, the authors are debunking the popular theory that poor people are poor because they don't have the skills/gumption needed to not be poor. Turns out that when you give them a productive asset (a cow) that lets them be not-poor, they're perfectly capable of staying not-poor.
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