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What really drives the poor

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Re: What really drives the poor

#81

Post by yaix »

wvoq wrote: post #34
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…

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…

Very good comment with some really good observations, thanks!

Re: What really drives the poor

#83

Post by burgerbrain »

j_baker wrote: post #29
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…

At 9 months, he had completed his goal, and a family member fell ill. Wait, what was this? He got faced with a situation he couldn't handle with wise decision-making, saving, and elbow grease and had to tap into his riches to get himself out? You know, the real problem is that he got a nice apartment and car. If he lived in a shack and walked everywhere, I bet he'd have been able to help his family member out. Was he…

The only reason he had to help his relative when they fell ill is because although he was playing poor, he technically still had the money. Refusing to help the family member for the sake of making a point would be highly unethical.

Had he actually been that poor (only 5k in his name at the time), then he would have been under no real obligation to drop everything and support that family member.

Re: What really drives the poor

#84

Post by yummyfajitas »

pfedor wrote: post #74
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…

It is a commonly used argument that the lives of poor people are very hard and unpleasant and that dealing with the hardships sucks out all their energy and brings down their spirits so they can't take advantage of all the opportunities that middle-class people have to improve their situation. The problem I see with this reasoning is that if you consider the entire range of standards of living which people had throug…

So, to claim that there exists a standard of living threshold, and that below this threshold life is objectively hard, whereas above this threshold it's easy, and that it so happens that the line lies between the poor and the middle class in contemporary America, you have to believe that we're looking at a very unique time and place.

Not only that, but you also need to ignore most of the world. Even traders, programmers and executives living in Bandra (a part of Mumbai more expensive than Manhattan) tend to have lifestyles worse than many US poor people. I.e., cramped apartments in poor condition, long commutes and very few luxuries.

Given this, the Karelis/bee sting/screaming guy theory would predict Mumbai's corporate lawyers would behave similarly to the US poor - never saving for the future, blowing their money on crappy food and booze rather than education, etc.

Strangely, that doesn't happen.

Re: What really drives the poor

#85

Post by josephcooney »

zem wrote: post #55
daniel-cussen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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…

why do you need to invoke calories? cooked food is tastier than raw food (okay, that could be an evolutionary bribe to cook your food, but i doubt it given the time scales involved). likewise, tv is a cheap form of entertainment, and requires very little energy to watch (energy that might not be left, after a hard day, for more involved pursuits).

Cooked food is tastier than raw food eh? Sounds like the mother of all generalizations....

Re: What really drives the poor

#86

Post by ippisl »

Someone wrote: post #56
hooande wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a statistics point of view, your argument seems to be flawed. It's very unlikely for someone who is born poor to end up rich, no matter how wise their choices are. From the wikipedia page on "Economic Mobility" [1]: "Children previously from lower-income families had only a 1% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 5%" I can't imagine that making perfect decisions for one's entire life would change tho…

"Children previously from lower-income families had only a 1% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 5%" That phrase is almost devoid of content. In the extreme, both that statistic and "Children previously from lower-income families had a 90% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 25%" could be true. I would be surprised if that was the case, but I couldn't find the data to proof that in that lin…

from wikipedia[1]: Moving between quintiles is more frequent in the middle quintiles (2-4) than in the lowest and highest quintiles. Of those in one of the quintiles 2-4 in 1996, approximately 35% stayed in the same quintile; and approximately 22% went up one quintile or down one quintile (moves of more than one quintile are rarer). However, 42% of children born in the bottom quintile are most likely to stay there, and another 42% move up to the second and middle quintile[3]. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 39% of those who were born into the top quintile as children in 1968 are likely to stay there, and 23% end up in the fourth quintile[3]. Children previously from lower-income families had only a 1% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 5%[4]. On the other hand, the children of wealthy families have a 22% chance of reaching the top 5%[4].

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#United_States

Re: What really drives the poor

#87

Post by tomjen3 »

chromatic wrote: post #26
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?

Perhaps changing the subject from Andrew Carnegie will express my discomfort with the implicit syllogism more effectively. Cory Doctorow gives his books away for free. Cory Doctorow has achieved great financial and literary success. Therefore, everyone who gives books away for free will achieve great financial and literary success.

I don't really buy that argument (you could take any property they shared, no matter how irrelevant, and make the same argument, i.e. they both had two feet): Cory Doctorow makes money because he has spent a large amount of time to create an audience, because he writes interesting books and because he is constantly on the lookout for new ways to monitize them.

And yeah, most people who pull that of would properly experience success.

Re: What really drives the poor

#88

Post by westicle »

josephcooney wrote: post #85
zem wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you need to invoke calories? cooked food is tastier than raw food (okay, that could be an evolutionary bribe to cook your food, but i doubt it given the time scales involved). likewise, tv is a cheap form of entertainment, and requires very little energy to watch (energy that might not be left, after a hard day, for more involved pursuits).

Cooked food is tastier than raw food eh? Sounds like the mother of all generalizations....

You've obviously never tried my grandmother's baked lettuce.

Re: What really drives the poor

#89

Post by Joeri »

pfedor wrote: post #74
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…

It is a commonly used argument that the lives of poor people are very hard and unpleasant and that dealing with the hardships sucks out all their energy and brings down their spirits so they can't take advantage of all the opportunities that middle-class people have to improve their situation. The problem I see with this reasoning is that if you consider the entire range of standards of living which people had throug…

It's true that people have a sort of baseline happiness, and that they tend to drift back to that level of happiness when left in a stable situation. So, it's true that being poor doesn't automatically make you unhappy. But let's be honest: being poor doesn't help.

I also object to the relative definition of poverty, that if you have less than those surrounding you, you're poor. I've always felt that an objective definition is much more useful. Suppose we objectively define "the poor" as everyone not having access to basic human rights? Can you honestly say there aren't many people that fall into that category even today? To me that's a category worth reducing to zero.

Re: What really drives the poor

#90

Post by omouse »

“Generally, it is clear that things that make life less boring are a priority for the poor,” they write in their new book.

“They don’t just need nutrition that will keep them alive longer—they also need a reason to want to live longer. Being healthier by denying yourself the little pleasures you can afford, a cup of tea or a bowl of steaming rice, makes little sense if you have nothing else to look forward to,” says Banerjee. “I think they make exactly the choices I would make in their place as regards food.”

...isn't that fucking obvious? You can extrapolate from our own rich society where people would rather spends thousands on electronics than on non-fast-food. Paying double for healthier food? Fuck no. Paying hundreds for an iPhone? Fuck yes.

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