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Once poor, always poor?

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Re: Once poor, always poor?

#231

Post by Empact »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #216
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, obviously, that's not the case with all education, but my next gripe with it is the seemingly insurmountable debt that said education brings. Literally, all of my friends that have gone to college are no where near paying their debt off and I'm in my late 30s. I grew up lower middle class - not poor - took on a healthy amount of debt to get a CS degree from a crappy college in West Virginia. Most of my classma…

I am also bothered by the rise in income inequality. Specifically, in many highly developed nations, the likelihood one can jump up income deciles has greatly decreased generation-over-generation. As someone who grew up lower middle class and leapt many, many income deciles, what ideas do you have to decrease income inequality? For example, you say that you are in the top 1% now. Do you favour increasing your own per…

They are contributing to decreasing income inequality by describing how they increased their income.

Why should it follow that people who break from a culture of poverty should be forced to support those who do not? It smacks of the “black tax” described in the article - a response that undermines the good that could otherwise follow from greater employment and productivity.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#232

Post by quesera »

RHSeeger wrote: post #211
vbezhenar wrote: post #191

When I started to pile some cash, so many opportunities opened up to save more money. Like I've got a chance to buy a good car for a good price, but I need money right now. Or I can buy plenty of food at once with a good discount, but I need to have enough money and enough refrigerator space to store it. Poor people who don't have a house, must spend tremendous money to rent it. I'm spending like $20/month to pay for…

> I'm spending like $20/month to pay for house that I own. Even assuming you own the house outright (which is not true for most people that have bought a house less than 30 years ago), that number seems ridiculously low. In every place I've lived, the land taxes alone are an order of magnitude higher than that. And then maintenance for the house is on top of that (something that people renting don't pay directly). I…

The usual process is to "buy" a multi-family house and rent out the part you are not using. This can also be done with single-family and roommates.

When the numbers work, you contribute little or nothing to the mortgage/taxes/insurance/maintenance, while having a place to live.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#233

Post by weregiraffe »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #34
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…

> 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.

No post body was provided.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#234

Post by tjpnz »

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.

Having money buys your kid diagnosis and treatment for their learning disability, and later on private tutoring at university. Even if they're reasonably bright the spoilt brat with middling intelligence will have significant advantages.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#235

Post by marcosdumay »

dijit wrote: post #195
pjerem wrote: post #188

That’s where I can see the efficiency of free education. I live in France and I come from about the median class. I didn’t struggle in my education. But while I was a student, I saw quite a lot of people, who came from poor family being able to catch the opportunity to leave this poverty. Of course they still struggled more than me to pay their day to day expenses while I had the chance to be backed by my parents. So…

This is a harder problem than just "Free Education". I grew up in the UK (in "deprived" areas, to a single parent with no income other than jobseekers allowance and some childcare from the state) and I can formerly attest that my "free education" was atrocious. I am not sure if there was a negative feedback loop involved: School funding was determined by efficacy. How do you measure efficacy of a school? Well, test r…

> How do you measure efficacy of a school? Well, test results... which people from this kind of background will not have good ones.

If you are going to test a school, your tests must be differential. If you don't test at the beginning and end of the course, you'll only measure noise.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#236

Post by lotsofpulp »

throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #230
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…

I think their point (which i agree with) is why do you need a college degree just to get a basic entry level job with a career path. You're delaying entering the workforce for 4+ years ($100k+ at minimum wage, minus some if you work during college) with ~30k debt (with your example tuition/costs not sure if it include room & board) so they should get a similar output from that education. This probably wasn't the situ…

> why do you need a college degree just to get a basic entry level job with a career path.

The two options here are that either all the businesses using college degrees as a signal are wrong and they could be saving a lot of money by hiring non college educated applicants for slightly less pay and building them up.

OR college education is a useful signal and so businesses are willing to pay a higher price for it.

If the prior were true, then I would assume a business would have developed already to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity. It is not a novel or less known idea.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#237

Post by MrsPeaches »

dijit wrote: post #195
pjerem wrote: post #188

That’s where I can see the efficiency of free education. I live in France and I come from about the median class. I didn’t struggle in my education. But while I was a student, I saw quite a lot of people, who came from poor family being able to catch the opportunity to leave this poverty. Of course they still struggled more than me to pay their day to day expenses while I had the chance to be backed by my parents. So…

This is a harder problem than just "Free Education". I grew up in the UK (in "deprived" areas, to a single parent with no income other than jobseekers allowance and some childcare from the state) and I can formerly attest that my "free education" was atrocious. I am not sure if there was a negative feedback loop involved: School funding was determined by efficacy. How do you measure efficacy of a school? Well, test r…

> But Homework is a necessary part of education.

Is it though? Sounds like it was actually exclusionary in your case.

I believe that Finland has no homework and yet has some of the highest PISA scores.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#238

Post by eadmund »

vpilcx wrote: post #141
duxup wrote: post #14

> Cultural norms can also encourage poverty cycles. I often wonder about these. Growing up I watched friends whose families had what you might describe as a cultural distrust of institutions, including schools, or even anyone who seemed to “think they’re better than us” (translation anyone who did well in school or a career). They constantly made self defeating choices and seemed destined to have the same problems/ p…

I'm one of those people living in poverty that distrusts school institutions. My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdl…

> My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdles for poor people to jump through.

In the U.S., this is due to the fact that employers practically may not use proficiency exams; since they are prevented from testing for actual proficiency, they must use a proxy, and a college degree is a decent proxy for 'reasonably educated enough, exposed to enough general knowledge, knows how to function in a group.'

I don't think that class really enters into it.

> the fact that educational debt in America can never be voided through bankruptcy seems like a conscious systemic decision to create debt slaves.

More that without the inability to discharge it in bankruptcy interest rates for student loans would need to be sky-high: the smart move for anyone graduating at 22 would be to immediately declare bankruptcy when all he would have is debt and no assets.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#239

Post by marcosdumay »

throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #230
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…

I think their point (which i agree with) is why do you need a college degree just to get a basic entry level job with a career path. You're delaying entering the workforce for 4+ years ($100k+ at minimum wage, minus some if you work during college) with ~30k debt (with your example tuition/costs not sure if it include room & board) so they should get a similar output from that education. This probably wasn't the situ…

Yeah, and the OP's point is that refusing to participate is self defeating. If you see a bad system, you should hack it, not take the hit.

And by all means, keep complaining and if you have some power, use it to fix the system. But don't incentive people to act in self-defeating ways.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#240

Post by dijit »

tudorw wrote: post #117
BitAstronaut wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be that they prioritize their car and have a budget adjusted for it.

the only Lambo owner I ever met had saved since he was 14 and had nothing else but his car...

Jesus christ, even a 16yo Lambo is $100,000 (which is an unthinkable amount of money for a British person on average salary).

For context my mums 2 bed house in Coventry was not much more than that, and she's still paying off that mortgage.

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