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Once poor, always poor?

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Re: Once poor, always poor?

#161

Post by jokoon »

ivanmontillam wrote: post #24

It's true that culture can make you poor, by the means of setting your mindset. I've seen people in the towns of South America (i.e. not the main cities) whose family traditions set them on a path of "wait to be given" instead of "go and get it" mentality. Of course, this never materializes, and the person lives their life impoverished. Money is such a taboo in these families, that you end up thinking it's dirty unti…

The culture of money can also be a taboo in politics.

Money is a necessary tool and be well managed, but it should not be a priority.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#162

Post by jokoon »

throwaway55421 wrote: post #3

"It is a sad and little-known reality that poverty tends to persist between generations". Is it? To me it's intuitively obvious and I can't think of any real person who would disagree? I can't even conceive of a different way this could work. Reducing the correlation to zero would require basically removing money's functional utility.

Most people, particularly in the west, believe that merit can be acquired, "just do it", "self made man", free will etc.

Liberal economics are surrounded with those kinds of ideals that always explain that the poor deserve their status, that they only have themselves to blame.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#163

Post by AussieWog93 »

xwolfi wrote: post #98
ralusek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these are poor minorities in a white mans world If we're in the reality of accepting that culture, patterns of behavior, and what thoughts are inculcated in people actually impact the outcomes they'll net in life, then I hope we can start legitimately talking about the harm that comes from attitudes like the one you've laid out. The idea that, say, a black person need not even try, because they'll just be attemptin…

Yeah it's very americano centric. In China where I emigrated, white people arent poorer than their yellow counterparts in average because immigration is done differently (no slavery, no low income, leave if you cant make it etc). The problem is more complex than color, it's just the immigration origin of the population that drive the current state. A better sentence maybe would be "to be a descendant of slaves in a w…

>In China where I emigrated, white people arent poorer than their yellow counterparts in average because immigration is done differently (no slavery, no low income, leave if you cant make it etc).

Not saying you're wrong about white people, but I've heard some very different stories about Filipino/Indonesian maids in HK, as well as Black and Domestic Migrant labourers holding a rural hukou on the Mainland.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#164

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

vpilcx wrote: post #155
bko wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. Can't you just hack this by going to school for pretty much anything you're interested in and being able to work in an unrelated field? > my next gripe with it is the seemingly insurmountable debt that said education brings You've established that education is a good investment. So why not find an affordable college? It's not a…

> You've established that education is a good investment. My friend often comes to me and says, "Hey, man, how come you don't invest your money in ?" Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest. > So why not find an affordable college? So I did a quick calculation. Affordable, meaning junior college and public state college, would come out to roughly $23k for a bachelor. Maybe…

"Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest."

You have your time and energy to invest, and you can get an educational loan.

" then work at your job for 5-10 years to pay that debt off"

I don't think all of your money goes into paying off the debt during that time.

"I'm philosophically opposed to getting a piece of paper for a job that I could do just as easily without a college education as I could with one"

Well if you don't need it and don't want it, obviously don't get that degree.

" I also feel really uncomfortable with debt in general, especially debt that I cannot choose to have absolved through bankruptcy."

Since you have established you can earn as much without a degree, and it takes 5 years to pay off the costs, you could also work for 5 years and save money for the degree.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#165

Post by MomoXenosaga »

thjkgfgrrioppo wrote: post #16
throwaway55421 wrote: post #3

"It is a sad and little-known reality that poverty tends to persist between generations". Is it? To me it's intuitively obvious and I can't think of any real person who would disagree? I can't even conceive of a different way this could work. Reducing the correlation to zero would require basically removing money's functional utility.

Is money really the issue? In many places, everybody gets a free education, and even university is free. So everybody could simply become a doctor or a lawyer and expect an income above the poverty line - at least if money was the only issue.

Education hasn't been free for a long time. You have to spend money on private tutors, books and laptops if you want your children to compete in the rat race.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#166

Post by thaumasiotes »

vpilcx wrote: post #160
kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdles for poor people to jump through." There are certainly a lot of useless majors. But that doesn't imply all of them are useless. "the fact that educational debt in America can never be voided through bankruptcy seems like a conscious systemic decision to create debt slaves." I'm not in the US, but isn't the…

> There are certainly a lot of useless majors. But that doesn't imply all of them are useless. It's not so much a critique of the majors but rather the professional requirements of the job listing. For jobs that don't have an innate technical (technical in the loosest sense of the term) requirement, they only want a certain class of person working there and college degrees are just how they do that. > I'm not in the…

> One rationale that I heard that seems reasonable at face value is since you can't give back your education, that's the justification for not being able to declare bankruptcy.

It goes a little further than that. It doesn't really matter that you can't give back the education. It's that the loan is entirely unsecured - there's no collateral, but also the people who get student loans typically don't have any assets. So it would cost nothing to take out student loans, study, and then declare bankruptcy.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#167

Post by newsclues »

wiseowise wrote: post #120
curiousgal wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a Catch 22. Are they poor because they have too many children or are they having too many children beacsue they are poor?

Are you implying that having many children might lead to better outcome financially?

Does buying multiple lottery tickets increase your odds of winning?

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#168

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

krapp wrote: post #39
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're a teenage girl, depending on your culture, your family seems to be peer pressuring you to be a mother Ironically, societies that do not steer girls to parenthood are subject to extinction. I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just the law of nature.

>Ironically, societies that do not steer girls to parenthood are subject to extinction. Which societies have gone extinct due to this?

Perhaps look at countries that have been taken over by islam.

Many religions have rules for making women have more children, as it is a means of taking over society.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#169

Post by AussieWog93 »

jokoon wrote: post #161
ivanmontillam wrote: post #24

It's true that culture can make you poor, by the means of setting your mindset. I've seen people in the towns of South America (i.e. not the main cities) whose family traditions set them on a path of "wait to be given" instead of "go and get it" mentality. Of course, this never materializes, and the person lives their life impoverished. Money is such a taboo in these families, that you end up thinking it's dirty unti…

The culture of money can also be a taboo in politics. Money is a necessary tool and be well managed, but it should not be a priority.

>Money is a necessary tool and be well managed, but it should not be a priority.

I have to disagree with you there. Money shouldn't be #1 priority, of course, but it's definitely up there.

Allowing your kids to experience poverty because you're unwilling to provide for them is a form of negligence.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#170

Post by anovikov »

mrjin wrote: post #149
anovikov wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the trick in every social class? Society is built in a way that tries to prevent members of each social class from moving up, and that goes from lowest to highest classes alike. Poor people are taught to distrust everything and everyone, and to think strictly short-term because nothing you can't hold in your hands here and now can be trusted to be real, this prevents them from moving to the middle class. Mid…

IMO it has not much to do with how every social class are taught but rather the Mathew effect. Put aside those exceptionally smart or dumb ones, most people are more to less with the same capabilities and the class they were born to almost define who they will become. The reason is simple: upper class have maybe 10 times the resource a middle class have and in turn a middle class may have 10 times the resource a poor…

Well, statistics around the world clearly shows proportion of poor people reducing from ~40% to ~10% in one generation :)
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