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What really drives the poor

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Re: What really drives the poor

#61

Post by ams6110 »

Unseelie wrote: post #59
chrismealy wrote: post #49

Mike Konczal: Here’s the normal story. Picture you are in a room with 10 people. Each of them has a slice of cake. How much you are willing to pay for a slice of the cake is the ‘marginal utility’ of having it, and the more cake you have the less any more cake is worth to you. You’d be willing to pay a $1 for the first slice of cake, but you’d only be will to pay 90 cents for the second slice. You’d only be willing t…

This is a brilliant example, but even after reading the article, I feel like it needs a stronger connection to the problems of poverty. So, anyway, Guys, the situation where you're in a room where people are screaming is poverty, but its only one moment of poverty. In poverty, you go into that room over and over and over again. You can't afford to keep your whole reality quiet, but you can buy a moment or two of peac…

If you tie in the theory of addiction this makes even more sense; addictive substances provide some temporary escape or pleasure but you quickly feel as bad as before or maybe even worse, which makes the next "escape" even more compelling.

Re: What really drives the poor

#62

Post by temphn »

tokenadult wrote: post #37
temphn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really as simple as noting the robust heritability of cognitive traits (see "The Blank Slate") and the strong correlation between intelligence, conscientiousness, and wealth. But surprisingly, many highly intelligent people (including many in this very thread) will actually deny that they have any natural cognitive advantages over the poor. They will readily admit they are smarter than those "idiots" who can't…

(see "The Blank Slate") The book The Blank Slate was published almost a decade ago http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/06... and research has moved on. The chapter in The Blank Slate that has the most to do with heritability of cognitive abilities is largely based, as author Steven Pinker acknowledges in his bibliographic references, on the work of Eric Turkheimer. But Turkheimer has revised his…

If you want a modern reference on the heritability of intelligence, read Paul Thompson from UCLA:

www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/HARDI-IQ/hardiIQ-PR.html

He and his colleagues can predict IQ from a 3D brain scan, a concrete dataset of voxels; it is not just about correlations between relatives any more.

Read his numerous papers and those of his peers; the heritability of intelligence is an empirical, easily verifiable fact based on direct scientific measurement. The observed associations between brain structure, inheritance, intelligence, and income exist even if one refuses to look at them.

Re: What really drives the poor

#63

Post by temphn »

arethuza wrote: post #30
temphn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism reduced the poverty of Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam, Chile, and Estonia (to name a few). What country was built from foreign aid?

You could argue that most of Western Europe and indeed Japan was only able to recover as quickly from WW2 because of aid from the United States (e.g. the Marshall Plan in Europe) - and both areas seem to have done quite well. Isn't it also arguable that present day countries that started as colonies also benefited from a degree of aid/investment from the countries doing the colonizing? Setting up colonies was an expe…

The Western European nations were developed before the Marshall Plan. The Plan did not build the countries in the first place.

Re: colonialism, our fundamental difference may be that you may not believe wealth can be created (or destroyed), only redistributed. Is that a fair guess? No blame intended, the distinction between money (zero sum) and wealth (nonzero sum) is not trivial.

Re: What really drives the poor

#64

Post by bruenig »

temphn wrote: post #62
tokenadult wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(see "The Blank Slate") The book The Blank Slate was published almost a decade ago http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/06... and research has moved on. The chapter in The Blank Slate that has the most to do with heritability of cognitive abilities is largely based, as author Steven Pinker acknowledges in his bibliographic references, on the work of Eric Turkheimer. But Turkheimer has revised his…

If you want a modern reference on the heritability of intelligence, read Paul Thompson from UCLA: www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/HARDI-IQ/hardiIQ-PR.html He and his colleagues can predict IQ from a 3D brain scan, a concrete dataset of voxels; it is not just about correlations between relatives any more. Read his numerous papers and those of his peers; the heritability of intelligence is an empirical, easily verifiable f…

IQ tests don't measure anything in particular unfortunately.

Re: What really drives the poor

#65

Post by bruenig »

MaysonL wrote: post #40
Unseelie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have entirely and completely missed the point. The point is that they are buying things that make their lives better. They aren't buying things that make themselves healthier, no, but they're buying things that make their lives bearable, and you're making the assumption that that's an 'unwise' choice. Their preferences aren't in the line of work hard for nine months, they're on doing well enough to have a bearabl…

A single, healthy man in a developed economy.

A single, healthy, white man with a college education (the credentials from which he did not use, but the education is itself significant) in a developed economy who could not last more than 9 months.

Re: What really drives the poor

#66

Post by mkr-hn »

Duff wrote: post #54
paganel wrote: post #38

I barely made it half-way through the article, it sounded like an United Colors of Benetton add adapted into a Nobel-winning Economics paper. Just a couple of gems that made me skip it: """ they may well be more driven by ideas, simply because they have less information about the world outside """ So, supposedly, us, the rich people, live in the "real" world, why them , the poors, live in a world from which they cann…

I share your disgust. Personally, I have a real problem with academics or journalists who go on a junket to a third world country and act like the people around them are animals in some zoo. Look at any western family for a similar period of time and no doubt you will spot all sorts of bizarre dysfunctions or irrational behavior, regardless of wealth. People are people.

Here's an instructive contrast to the poverty safari: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/03/01/from-the-rich-t...

And GRS comments are worth reading.

Re: What really drives the poor

#67

Post by tokenadult »

temphn wrote: post #62
tokenadult wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(see "The Blank Slate") The book The Blank Slate was published almost a decade ago http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/06... and research has moved on. The chapter in The Blank Slate that has the most to do with heritability of cognitive abilities is largely based, as author Steven Pinker acknowledges in his bibliographic references, on the work of Eric Turkheimer. But Turkheimer has revised his…

If you want a modern reference on the heritability of intelligence, read Paul Thompson from UCLA: www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/HARDI-IQ/hardiIQ-PR.html He and his colleagues can predict IQ from a 3D brain scan, a concrete dataset of voxels; it is not just about correlations between relatives any more. Read his numerous papers and those of his peers; the heritability of intelligence is an empirical, easily verifiable f…

A press release? I'm a lot more familiar with the relevant peer-reviewed literature than that.

The self-promoted study you kindly linked has many of the usual problems with study design

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

common in studies cited by the popular press about IQ. Try again when you can cite something meaningful, better peer-reviewed, and more on point to the subject of this thread (causes of poverty).

Re: What really drives the poor

#68

Post by delinka »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #48
wvoq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. I'd like to see if I can offer you some personal insight about the plausibility of extrapolating evidence from the scenarios you describe into broader policy judgments. Currently I'm in a Ph.D. program in a field I find extremely interesting, and am quite happy with my position relative to my goals and background. A few years ago, however, I was living in a one room apartment above an auto body shop, sharing a ki…

>"The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potatoes -- an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do…

It's also not cheaper to buy brown bread and raw carrots. It's less expensive to buy the "tasty" higher-sodium canned foods. Eating healthy is not inexpensive. Add to that that raw foods in quantity go bad sooner than cheap canned items and the cost of raw and healthy give up because of the extra waste.

As for entertainment, the more wealthy enjoying turning off their brains as well. But they spend money on going to live performances at playhouses or symphonies. TV is comparatively cheap. Also with TV, you have more immediate choices (especially with something like Netflix): to watch more cerebral material or dumbed-down garbage.

Re: What really drives the poor

#69

Post by gaurav_v »

lsc wrote: post #57
wccrawford wrote: post #6

They finally hit on the real story halfway down: "“Generally, it is clear that things that make life less boring are a priority for the poor,” they write in their new book." Yes, the poor spend their money unwisely when they have extra. That's the real reason. If a rich person finds themselves down on their luck, they knuckle down and work really hard to get into a situation where they can afford to buy luxuries. It…

Tell me. Is defending your betters on a internet form likely to make you more rich? Are you making a good choice by wasting time on hacker news? or one that is likely to leave you in your current financial position? From your comment history, I'd guess you are no more wealthy than I am, and much like me, you are not significantly more wealthy than your parents. Of course, this is just a guess based on little informat…

Regarding Gates: A lot of people can afford to go to Harvard given financial aid. I think the more relevant point to his story is that his parents were so wealthy they could send him to an elite private _middle and high school,_ where he had access to a computer.

Re: What really drives the poor

#70

Post by yummyfajitas »

paganel wrote: post #38

I barely made it half-way through the article, it sounded like an United Colors of Benetton add adapted into a Nobel-winning Economics paper. Just a couple of gems that made me skip it: """ they may well be more driven by ideas, simply because they have less information about the world outside """ So, supposedly, us, the rich people, live in the "real" world, why them , the poors, live in a world from which they cann…

...the rich people, live in the "real" world, why them , the poors, live in a world from which they cannot see "outside"...lesser world

The value judgments ("real world", "lesser world") are your own invention. They do not exist in the article.

Information deprivation is a real issue for the poor in many places. For example, before mobile phones, farmers were unable to deliver their crops to the location with the highest prices.

I don't understand what you feel is condescending - Banerjee and Duflo are applying standard economics to the poor, mapping their utility functions and designing interventions with desirable policy outcomes. Economists do the same thing to CEOs, smokers/fat people, politicians, home purchasers and many others. Why is economics condescending when applied to the poor?

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