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The history of the end of poverty has just begun

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Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#131

Post by refurb »

coldtea wrote: post #102
slibhb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Poverty" (the word) is relative and has a cultural meaning. But it's not clear that we should care about those components of the word/concept. If the poorest person in the world has a car, a home, food, and water, are they poor just because other people have much more? Even if they are, does it really matter? We find poverty viscerally disturbing because it comes with privation. If we get to a point where that is no…

> If the poorest person in the world has a car, a home, food, and water, are they poor just because other people have much more? Yes. And we could ask the same for things the poorest medieval peasant had, that a caveman didn't. Would you say the medieval peasant wasn't poor? > Even if they are, does it really matter? Yes. We're social animals. Here's another way to look at it. Would it be ok if the poorest black pers…

No it doesn’t matter. As a society we can determine what poverty is. Yes it can change over time, but there is a set standard of living that “isnt poverty”.

Now if everyone in society has that standard of living it doesn’t make a different whether someone has 100x more, everyone has a set standard of living that is above poverty.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#132

Post by majormajor »

slibhb wrote: post #88
coldtea wrote: post #48

One problem, other comments hint on the same thing, is that poverty is not an absolute, it's relative. We would consider ourselves poor if we lived as a family of five in a tiny early 20th New York immigrant's appartment, even though we'd be much better off than a feudal peasant living in a straw hut with no electricity and a distant water well (the "working class" of its day), which in turn would be must better off…

"Poverty" (the word) is relative and has a cultural meaning. But it's not clear that we should care about those components of the word/concept. If the poorest person in the world has a car, a home, food, and water, are they poor just because other people have much more? Even if they are, does it really matter? We find poverty viscerally disturbing because it comes with privation. If we get to a point where that is no…

> If the poorest person in the world has a car, a home, food, and water, are they poor just because other people have much more? Even if they are, does it really matter? We find poverty viscerally disturbing because it comes with privation. If we get to a point where that is no longer the case, poverty may still exist but perhaps it shouldn't bother us as much.

It might matter. I think the relative levels would be less important that the perceived ability to change one's level, and perceptions of if the different levels are earned. If everyone has basic needs met to a higher level than today, but hopelessness persists, and you still have violence and crime as a result... that's an outcome I'd want to change.

But maybe that's less a result of what the baseline is, and more a result of being stuck, regardless of the baseline.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#133

Post by keithnz »

coldtea wrote: post #48

One problem, other comments hint on the same thing, is that poverty is not an absolute, it's relative. We would consider ourselves poor if we lived as a family of five in a tiny early 20th New York immigrant's appartment, even though we'd be much better off than a feudal peasant living in a straw hut with no electricity and a distant water well (the "working class" of its day), which in turn would be must better off…

There are actually qualifiers, absolute poverty and relative poverty. Where relative poverty is more about a semi fuzzy baseline whether someone has enough money that they can function in a society without extreme disadvantage, often talked about as inequality. Absolute poverty has a defined amount of $1.90 a day.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#134

Post by ahahahahah »

aszen wrote: post #95
Isamu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Poverty is only now starting to decline” More like: progress has been made at extreme poverty ($1.90/day) and now we can upgrade our expectations to start to address basic poverty ($30/day).

Folks 30 usd a day isn't basic poverty at all, it's what i used to earn as a software developer for some time. It's a pretty decent amount in a third world country

That's right. That's why they are talking about PPP dollars, not USD. Read more here: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/icp/brief/poverty-ppps

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#135

Post by willjp »

I'd be much happier if UBI proposals were higher. Living on ~900$/month nowadays would be difficult.

20 years ago I was able to split rent for a tiny concrete windowless-basement-bedroom for 450$/mo, trimmed my grocery/cleaning bill down to 100$/mo by eating nothing but rice, beans, and frozen vegetables, 120$/mo for a phone and internet (which I consider essential), and another ~80$/mo in bus tickets. That's ~750$/mo.

Nowadays, when two bedroom appartments in small remote cities are going for 1600$+, I'm guessing splitting rent is much closer to 800$. That doesn't leave enough money for food, transportation, and communication methods. Heaven forbid you get injured or sick.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#136

Post by novok »

paxys wrote: post #17

I agree with the overall arguments and conclusion, but I wonder if we need a better way of measuring poverty than some overly-adjusted "dollar per day in income" value. Like, how many calories per day in food is your family getting? Do you have consistent shelter? Do you have access to basic medical care? Are you safe from physical threats? Can you pay an unexpected bill? Do you have a social structure in place aroun…

Yeah I agree. The people who criticize such metrics backed statements that "it's getting better" say that those same metrics are often subject to Goodhart’s Law dynamics[0], fudging and outright lying with numbers. If you subtract China out of many of these numbers, it's the same or worse in many cases.

They then cite things how calories per person in India has actually dropped compared to a few decades ago for example, and it's not because they are a developed country that learned to let off the ice cream, but more Indians are suffering malnutrition in the past. Or how the things that are cheaper are nice optionals and the necessities of life are becoming more unattainable, like the food issue in India. India might have less 'poverty', but is it just a measurement error, on purpose or not?

[0] When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#137

Post by altvali »

WalterBright wrote: post #110
dane-pgp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings. And today's rich are doing even better than that, so there's no harm in taxing their wealth, right?

History shows that confiscating the wealth of the wealthy has a negative effect on the poor.

Can you elaborate? I'm interested to learn more.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#138

Post by ProfessorLayton »

willjp wrote: post #135

I'd be much happier if UBI proposals were higher. Living on ~900$/month nowadays would be difficult. 20 years ago I was able to split rent for a tiny concrete windowless-basement-bedroom for 450$/mo, trimmed my grocery/cleaning bill down to 100$/mo by eating nothing but rice, beans, and frozen vegetables, 120$/mo for a phone and internet (which I consider essential), and another ~80$/mo in bus tickets. That's ~750$/m…

The solution to your housing costs isn't increased payments, but cheaper housing. Housing prices are spiraling out of control almost everywhere because we refuse to build more of it through asinine zoning restrictions.

High housing costs have such ripple effects on the cost of everything else that it's incredibly frustrating to see everything else but cheaper and more available housing be proposed as a means to help the less well off (This isn't a jab at you in particular).

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#139

Post by Frondo »

chrisco255 wrote: post #78
coldtea wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings. Only in some very limited aspects. "Oh, they can eat wild strawberries in winter" or "have access to modern technology whereas a medieval king didn't" and such. The don't have the power of medieval kings, the don't have the wealth of medieval kings, they don't have the estates of medieval kings, the servants and free time of medieval kings, th…

They have access to all the world's information. They can travel across continents in a number of hours for less than two weeks wages. They can push a button on their phone to have gourmet food delivered to their house in under an hour. They can press another button on their phone to fetch a personal driver that will deliver them to any destination. They can choose to drive themselves, of course, and can travel hundr…

America's poor can't travel (it costs! even if you bus it, you need time off work, a place to stay, etc), they can't have gourmet food delivered (it costs!), they can't fetch a driver (it costs!), they often can't drive themselves (cars cost!).

They also generally can't afford medical care, child care, a wide variety of leisure activities (plays, shows, even movies cost!)

They do have access to information and music, but if I had to be a medieval king or a poor person in Cleveland, it is such a no-brainer I can't even understand how the question is being asked.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#140

Post by throwaway0a5e »

hkt wrote: post #107
chrisco255 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the government is generally bad at using capital and the ROI on higher tax rates reaches negative at some point, nevermind that it can print as much as it wants.

Most crashes are caused by misallocated capital in the markets, and state intervention on a massive scale is usually the answer. The state isn't an amazing tool, but it is the best one we have. It can bring about universal healthcare and education, mass housebuilding programmes, regulation and optimisation of dysfunctional markets.. and even put human beings on the moon. Meanwhile, "investors" pile money into.. um, d…

>Meanwhile, "investors" pile money into.. um, dogecoin?

And why are they doing this? The trail leads right back to... government.

"Side effects include investors to dumping money into sketchy stuff because nothing else returns worth a crap" is one of the big gripes people have with 2008+ fed policy.

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