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Once poor, always poor?

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Re: Once poor, always poor?

#301

Post by giraffe_lady »

xyzzy21 wrote: post #292

If you've had direct experience with the poor, you know there is a non-trivial segment that have ZERO ability to plan and ZERO ability to defer gratification. I've experience this in both the USA and overseas in the developing world over the last 30 years. These are the ones who will be "once poor, always poor" because you can't unlearn the habits that cause these behaviors after adolescence and certainly never as an…

> Only separating selected individuals from the culture can allow the adverse cultural effects to be overcome.

This generally turns out well from what I understand absolutely nothing to be concerned with here!

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#302

Post by wobblybubble »

inglor_cz wrote: post #299
wobblybubble wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, undeniably so, but the same applies to non-Asian groups. You’re the one who wanted to focus on Asians: > > As usual in the American racial discourse, this argument entirely ignores the huge gaping hole in its side that is the Asian community. But now that you aren’t managing to prove your point you (perhaps) want to broaden the topic again. Or? > Nigerian Americans have the highest # of PhDs per 1000 people. A…

"One could theorize that the descendants of chattel slavery will have (for example) less family wealth than whites who are descendants of property owners and indentured servants. " People have even less family wealth in less stable places, plagued by war, genocide, forced expropriation, violent regime changes, state bankruptcies etc. For example, both Germany and Poland were big heaps of rubble in 1945. Nothing to in…

> People have even less family wealth in less stable places

But we’re comparing whites and blacks in America, so the old “but people are starving in Africa” doesn’t apply here.

So why is there a disparity of family wealth between whites and blacks in America? Any alternative theories? Because “but the bombing of Dresden…!!!” does not explain it.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#303

Post by inglor_cz »

wobblybubble wrote: post #302
inglor_cz wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One could theorize that the descendants of chattel slavery will have (for example) less family wealth than whites who are descendants of property owners and indentured servants. " People have even less family wealth in less stable places, plagued by war, genocide, forced expropriation, violent regime changes, state bankruptcies etc. For example, both Germany and Poland were big heaps of rubble in 1945. Nothing to in…

> People have even less family wealth in less stable places But we’re comparing whites and blacks in America, so the old “but people are starving in Africa” doesn’t apply here. So why is there a disparity of family wealth between whites and blacks in America? Any alternative theories? Because “but the bombing of Dresden…!!!” does not explain it.

It sort-of does, because America is a country based on immigration and many contemporary Americans, not just white ones, have relatively recent background in poorer, less stable, more violent countries. A lot of people who are now living comfortably are kids or grandkids of parents who came with nothing in their pockets.

As for your question, I do not have any theory. A viable theory would have to explain the variation of the black-white gap across the US.

Looking for data, I found a graph mapping the differences of average black and white income (not wealth) across U.S. states:

https://www.stlouisfed.org/-/media/project/frbstl/stlouisfed...

If racism was the only root explanation, Pennsylvania would be more racist than Georgia and Wisconsin more racist than South Carolina. That does not seem plausible to me.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#304

Post by innocentoldguy »

fallingknife wrote: post #154
innocentoldguy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was sort of my experience. I grew up in poverty and stayed in poverty until I was almost 25 years old because I didn't know any better. My parents didn't distrust institutions. Instead, they mocked things they couldn't afford, so I grew up thinking college was a "stupid waste of time and money" and unimportant. For me, the things that broke me out of my family's cycle of poverty were a public library, a love of…

College is a stupid waste of time and money. Unfortunately, it's usually not unimportant.

Without college, I wouldn’t know anything about rococo though.

Ah, wait! I see your point!

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#305

Post by armonge »

User23 wrote: post #252
dijit wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Over the long term? The frequency and size of the checks their alumni write them. It's good signal that the alumnus likes the school well enough wish to do so and was prepared to be successful enough to be able to.

I believe writing checks to your university is a USA only thing

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#306

Post by User23 »

rbanffy wrote: post #290
User23 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you measure efficacy of a school? Over the long term? The frequency and size of the checks their alumni write them. It's good signal that the alumnus likes the school well enough wish to do so and was prepared to be successful enough to be able to.

> The frequency and size of the checks their alumni write them This only measures economic success, which is only a single dimension of educational success. It also fosters inequality, as schools with better outcomes from other factors (such as rich parents) will receive more resources as the ones that fail for factors the school system can’t control (such as, surprise, poverty).

Economic success is a decent proxy for social success, and has the advantage of being quantifiable. Being successful also correlates with health and happiness. If the purpose of school is to prepare students to have good lives then it’s a good metric. Not to mention donating to the school is charitable, which is another nice trait for people to have.

Evidently you believe that the purpose of school is enforcing equality? How exactly does that work in a way that doesn’t result in at best failure and at worst an Harrison Bergeron hellscape?

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#307

Post by tudorw »

dijit wrote: post #240
tudorw wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess a decade of sofa surfing would just about cover that!

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#308

Post by rbanffy »

User23 wrote: post #306
rbanffy wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The frequency and size of the checks their alumni write them This only measures economic success, which is only a single dimension of educational success. It also fosters inequality, as schools with better outcomes from other factors (such as rich parents) will receive more resources as the ones that fail for factors the school system can’t control (such as, surprise, poverty).

Economic success is a decent proxy for social success, and has the advantage of being quantifiable. Being successful also correlates with health and happiness. If the purpose of school is to prepare students to have good lives then it’s a good metric. Not to mention donating to the school is charitable, which is another nice trait for people to have. Evidently you believe that the purpose of school is enforcing equal…

> Economic success is a decent proxy for social success

By that logic, Jeff Bezos would be an amazing human being. I believe we can agree he isn't.

> Not to mention donating to the school is charitable, which is another nice trait for people to have.

Donating to the school in your catchment area will increase the sale value of your property, and improve the school for your kids and your neighbors. That's not charitable. What would be nice is donating the same amount to the least privileged schools in your city/county/state. A donation that benefits your own kids? Seriously?

> Evidently you believe that the purpose of school is enforcing equality?

Evidently you confuse equality of opportunities (which I do support) with equality of outcomes (which I don't). Overall, the more unequal a society gets, the less democratic it becomes.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#309

Post by User23 »

rbanffy wrote: post #308
User23 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic success is a decent proxy for social success, and has the advantage of being quantifiable. Being successful also correlates with health and happiness. If the purpose of school is to prepare students to have good lives then it’s a good metric. Not to mention donating to the school is charitable, which is another nice trait for people to have. Evidently you believe that the purpose of school is enforcing equal…

> Economic success is a decent proxy for social success By that logic, Jeff Bezos would be an amazing human being. I believe we can agree he isn't. > Not to mention donating to the school is charitable, which is another nice trait for people to have. Donating to the school in your catchment area will increase the sale value of your property, and improve the school for your kids and your neighbors. That's not charitab…

> By that logic, Jeff Bezos would be an amazing human being. I believe we can agree he isn't.

You know what a proxy is. Please don't straw-man it's against the guidelines and not very interesting besides. One can always pick out individual exceptions. "My grandfather smoked two packs a day his whole life and never got lung cancer," doesn't refute that smoking is correlated with lung cancer.

> That's not charitable

Your highest obligations of charity are to yourself, your spouse, and your children. Once those obligations are met I agree that it's good to donate to your wider community. It's uncharitable to neglect your family for the dopamine hit of virtue signaling.

> least privileged schools in your city/county/state

It's observably true that poor school quality in the USA isn't due to a lack of funding. California's school system is proof.

> Evidently you confuse equality of opportunities (which I do support) with equality of outcomes (which I don't). Overall, the more unequal a society gets, the less democratic it becomes.

I don't confuse them, I consider them both equally impossible. Equality of opportunity is impossible because in large part one's opportunities are the result of the decisions one's parents made, beginning with choosing to procreate together. It's a heresy against the tabula rasa dogma to say so, and yet it moves.

As for a society being more or less democratic, that's a grave oversimplification. First, there are no extant democracies. We have constitutional monarchies, federal republics, and so on. Second, the extent to which democratic decision making is beneficial is very much a consequence of scale and locality. It makes sense for the citizens of a county to popularly elect the Sheriff that will police them. Paradoxically, a larger pool of electors is actually less democratic. If the citizens of the entire country voted on who was to be sheriff for the county, then the citizens of that county effectively have no vote at all over their own affairs.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#310

Post by afpx »

difosfor wrote: post #23

Given the generally accepted ideal of equality in the rich and educated world it strikes me as crazy that we continue to work hard to keep refugees out of our islands of wealth instead of structurally working on improving the chances of all people on earth. We seem to just turn a blind eye to this huge inequality or even increase and abuse it when it suits us. For example: Why don't we apply our minimum wage laws to…

This is a strange comment to me because this is exactly what a lot of people have been doing for the past 40 years. Over a billion people have been brought out of extreme poverty, and hundreds of millions have entered the middle class. Changes don't happen overnight.
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