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How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

npr.org

221–230 of 268 posts

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have more chance of dying from car accidents than Covid if you're under 55 years old. By locking down hard on age groups who aren't vulnerable to the virus you're enabling the clown world that OP is referring to. Sure lock down the elderly that's fine but making national health policy based on one demographic is full on straight clown world stuff.

Car accident rate doesn't grow exponentially, with doubling time measured in days. With an infectious disease like this, what you want is to curb its ability to spread. That means disrupting the entire social network, because while the virus is most dangerous to the elderly, it spreads best through the young. Also lung damage, the fact that small chance of disability or death multiplied by whole country getting infec…

How do you explain lack of exponential growth in numerous place without Covid restrictions?

Do you think Covid is following an exponential growth model in the under 55 age group if in a YEAR there's still less deaths than car accidents?

Covid is way more complex than "SHUT IT ALL DOWN, EXPOENTIAL GROWTH, FLATTEN THE CURVE".

These have just become buzzwords for simple minds to cling to a simple narrative and don't model the world accurately at all.

Honk honk! Welcome to Clown world!

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have more chance of dying from car accidents than Covid if you're under 55 years old. By locking down hard on age groups who aren't vulnerable to the virus you're enabling the clown world that OP is referring to. Sure lock down the elderly that's fine but making national health policy based on one demographic is full on straight clown world stuff.

COVID is not just about deaths, it also has a risk of lung/heart damage. Also, even if people don’t die or gain lung/heart damage they can still take up hospital capacity until there’s not enough capacity for the people who can survive with hospital care but won’t without. Anyway, my point is that the UK choose their current situation by being afraid to act back when small steps could have made a huge difference.

Oh right and Covid toes?

No no it doesn't.

What is the percentage of people who have that type of reaction? Have you even looked at that? It's miniscule.

It's argued not to be from Covid directly but by comorbidities and would happen with any illness.

The news media blew it up out of proportion to scare you and millions of other people like you who have a poor grasp ofstatistics and risk... for money and it worked!

Welcome to clown world. Honk honk!

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#223
post #132

I agree with this on principle, but I just can't shake the feeling that this sort of conveniently "incidentally" leftist NPR story is slanted, and therefor untrustworthy. I've been gaslit by too much media for too long to trust anything I read from anything even slightly mainstream. Everything is politically compromised, with few exceptions (WHO, CDC, UN, the list goes on).

Imagine thinking that NPR is leftist

I think leftists replaced actual arguments with sarcasm sometime around 2010.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#224

I agree with this on principle, but I just can't shake the feeling that this sort of conveniently "incidentally" leftist NPR story is slanted, and therefor untrustworthy. I've been gaslit by too much media for too long to trust anything I read from anything even slightly mainstream. Everything is politically compromised, with few exceptions (WHO, CDC, UN, the list goes on).

I mean, WHO tried to convince people that cov19 wasn't transmissible through the air for a couple months, and they accepted fake infection /death numbers from CCP no?

Exactly. To the average person trying to figure out what's real, the Democrats saying "Go to Chinatown" in the early days and the WHO saying it wasn't airborne begin to look very similar. What's to stop people from jumping to the conclusion that both of these groups had the same motive (to rid the White House of a certain individual)?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#225

I agree with this on principle, but I just can't shake the feeling that this sort of conveniently "incidentally" leftist NPR story is slanted, and therefor untrustworthy. I've been gaslit by too much media for too long to trust anything I read from anything even slightly mainstream. Everything is politically compromised, with few exceptions (WHO, CDC, UN, the list goes on).

I also agree with this on principle, but like you, I can no longer trust most major media channels. I've seen too much blatant lying and agenda-pushing from them the past few years.

It's a pretty huge problem: How do we move forward or know how to act or what to do if we can't get any unfiltered and unbiased factual information whatsoever?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#226
post #72

I agree with this on principle, but I just can't shake the feeling that this sort of conveniently "incidentally" leftist NPR story is slanted, and therefor untrustworthy. I've been gaslit by too much media for too long to trust anything I read from anything even slightly mainstream. Everything is politically compromised, with few exceptions (WHO, CDC, UN, the list goes on).

Slanted toward what? Advocating for pulling people out of poverty? Advocating for keeping people in poverty? I'm genuinely interested in understanding why you think this story is slanted and in what direction you think it slanted you and why you think it matters.

The purpose of stories like this seems to be to lay a groundwork of "facts" that, when worded a certain way in a headline, give the appearance of an underlying bed of evidence which slants toward leftist issues at best, and flat-out campaigns for them at worst. NPR is why people say, straight-faced, things like "reality has a liberal slant".

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#227
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you so much. My parents died or bailed on me as a kid. I spent many years living in a van as an adult. Now that I have a house, just having a shower every day is like the greatest luxury to me. Forget the 4 seasons, Porsches, Rolexes. I lay in the shower for hours sometimes.

Didn’t have a hard life as you, but hundo percent, a warm shower really feels like luxury. I’ve never seen the appeal of porches and rolexes other than signifiers. I’ve rented luxury cars but they didn’t feel worth it to me. May be just me. I love affordable, highly reliable things that just work with very little upkeep. I love my Toyota. I love my small town home. I love having low burn rate. It makes me legit happy…

Yep. And coffee or a beer with friends. Taking the dog to the dog park. Going on a hike. Etc.

For me I've found that luxury and happiness are actually found in the simplest things.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some definitions of communism... in the US, many would have us believe that universal health care is a key component of communism and China still has plenty of that.

I don't think capitalism is incompatible with government run services. Some services are so fundamental that everyone needs them and thus demand is very easy to predict. Adding profit incentives to basic needs just adds friction and inefficiency since the transaction is involuntary. Private industry is really, really good at innovation (e.g. discovering new drugs and treatments) and providing optional goods and servi…

Completely agree with you. I was just pointing out that the public discussion of universal healthcare in the US tends to demonize it as a path to Leninism or Maoism, in contrast with the claim that China now has nothing resembling communism. At no point was I advocating for communism (or any other economic system).

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some definitions of communism... in the US, many would have us believe that universal health care is a key component of communism and China still has plenty of that.

China doesn’t have universal healthcare free at the point of use. The UK, a capitalist country, does.

I'm not sure how this relates to my claim

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#230
post #132

I agree with this on principle, but I just can't shake the feeling that this sort of conveniently "incidentally" leftist NPR story is slanted, and therefor untrustworthy. I've been gaslit by too much media for too long to trust anything I read from anything even slightly mainstream. Everything is politically compromised, with few exceptions (WHO, CDC, UN, the list goes on).

Imagine thinking that NPR is leftist

This is a terminology issue. It's true that NPR isn't "leftist" in the eyes of many people on the left who endorse socialism. However, NPR is definitely liberal, which leans left on cultural issues, and often centrist or slightly to the right on economic issues. The sterotypical upper-middle class, urban, liberal professional is always an NPR listener.

So I understand your disagreement: NPR is not generally going to criticize our system of capitalism. After all, many liberals - particularly the opinion-making elite - are thriving in this system.

But they will always approach cultural issues from the left liberal point-of-view. Recently, NPR Opinion has swung even more to the left: just listen to their afternoon talk shows. All Things Considered and Morning Edition have not gone as far, and are more center or center-left. Allsides, the media bias organization, agrees and rates NPR opinion as "Left" and NPR News as "Centrist":

https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

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