Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The history of the end of poverty has just begun

ourworldindata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 449 posts

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

#191

Post by mbrodersen »

WalterBright wrote: post #148
noahtallen wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings. This can’t be true. Just look at the homelessness situation across the US. No shelter, no income, no sanitation. That is certainly worse quality of life than a king. You must starting your definition of poor quite a ways up the income scale. Maybe you could make make an argument for solidly middle class and above? Even then, there are even a l…

The homeless issue in the US is much more of a drug addiction and alcoholism problem than a down on one's luck problem. Something like 90% of the homeless are in that category. > Who needs plumbing when you have a servant to bring you whatever you want? I like hot showers. I bet you do, too. Besides, what do you think happens to kings when they get a toothache? No anesthetic, nothing to be done except an idiot with a…

So the 40 million Americans living below the poverty line with zero access to health care or dental services are living like kings? Really? May I suggest that you talk to some of them and ask if they feel like Kings/Queens?

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

#192

Post by mbrodersen »

WalterBright wrote: post #109
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…

Let's see, they're taller (better nutrition), live in heated / air conditioned dwellings, indoor plumbing, flush toilets, clean water, fresh food year round, no smallpox, far fewer diseases, far better educated, infinitely better medical and dental care, better clothing, TV, phones, ... And they live longer, too.

Really? Why don’t you ask homeless people with no access to shelter, health care or dental care if they feel like Kings/Queens?

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

#193

Post by mandernt »

noahtallen wrote: post #144
WalterBright wrote: post #33

The end of poverty began in the US around 1800, when the specter of famine was finally eliminated. Throughout the 19th century, Americans grew in height and life expectancy, resulting in America's poor being the richest poor people in the world. Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings. This can’t be true. Just look at the homelessness situation across the US. No shelter, no income, no sanitation. That is certainly worse quality of life than a king. You must starting your definition of poor quite a ways up the income scale. Maybe you could make make an argument for solidly middle class and above? Even then, there are even a l…

No post body was provided.

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

#194

Post by austincheney »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #138
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…

There is no evidence that building more housing has ever reduced housing prices or that it will do so into the future.

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

#195

Post by Guest42 »

austincheney wrote: post #194
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is no evidence that building more housing has ever reduced housing prices or that it will do so into the future.

I agree. To me it seems as though a small handful of corporations owns a large percentage of multi-tenant housing and an increasing percentage of single tenant houses and is able to set prices algorithmically and that other landlords price similarly.

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

#196

Post by s1artibartfast »

guerrilla wrote: post #174
WalterBright wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see, they're taller (better nutrition), live in heated / air conditioned dwellings, indoor plumbing, flush toilets, clean water, fresh food year round, no smallpox, far fewer diseases, far better educated, infinitely better medical and dental care, better clothing, TV, phones, ... And they live longer, too.

That sounds like a bunch of rich people stuff to me. If you're poor, you're lucky if you have a place (many don't) let alone heating and air conditioning (are you kidding?), what you can afford to eat is terrible nutritionally and obviously you can't afford medical or dental going into without life-ending debt. And this is when we're talking about the US, not even a poor country.

Depends on what you mean by poor. Are you talking about the bottom 25% bottom 1%, or bottom 0.1%.

Homelessness is bottom 0.1%

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

#197

Post by dwaltrip »

WalterBright wrote: post #33

The end of poverty began in the US around 1800, when the specter of famine was finally eliminated. Throughout the 19th century, Americans grew in height and life expectancy, resulting in America's poor being the richest poor people in the world. Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings.

Humans are social animals, and kings are at the absolute top of the social hierarchy. They had immense power. Poor people have very little power in comparison. This has an immense effect on their experience in the world.

Most poor people in the US face a variety of real hardships. Your comment seems quite tone deaf to this reality.

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

#198

Post by TulliusCicero »

austincheney wrote: post #194
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is no evidence that building more housing has ever reduced housing prices or that it will do so into the future.

This is the opposite of true. The evidence that building more housing decreases prices is overwhelming: https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-...

> To be clear, this debate is not about whether new housing can reduce housing prices overall. At this point, that idea isn’t really in doubt. There’s good reason to believe that in regions with high housing demand, building more housing can help keep the prices of existing housing down. In their Supply Skepticism paper from 2018, Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Katherine O’Regan offer an excellent introduction to the broader question of how market-rate development affects affordability. Citing numerous individual studies and reviews of dozens more, they conclude that “the preponderance of the evidence shows that restricting supply increases housing prices and that adding supply would help to make housing more affordable.”

Because of course it does. Demand doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's a number judged against supply.

If you want to see the real world impact, look at rents where the rules make it easy to build housing. For a city of its size and national importance, Tokyo has dirt cheap rent compared to the states: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

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

#199

Post by TulliusCicero »

Guest42 wrote: post #195
austincheney wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence that building more housing has ever reduced housing prices or that it will do so into the future.

I agree. To me it seems as though a small handful of corporations owns a large percentage of multi-tenant housing and an increasing percentage of single tenant houses and is able to set prices algorithmically and that other landlords price similarly.

A handful of corporation own most of the grocery stores, but grocery prices remain reasonable, nowhere close to as insanely priced as rent.

The difference is real competition: there's only so much land that exists, and localities only allow so much housing on that land. Demand goes way up, supply goes up only feebly, the result is predictable.

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

#200

Post by guerrilla »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #196
guerrilla wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a bunch of rich people stuff to me. If you're poor, you're lucky if you have a place (many don't) let alone heating and air conditioning (are you kidding?), what you can afford to eat is terrible nutritionally and obviously you can't afford medical or dental going into without life-ending debt. And this is when we're talking about the US, not even a poor country.

Depends on what you mean by poor. Are you talking about the bottom 25% bottom 1%, or bottom 0.1%. Homelessness is bottom 0.1%

Yeah, I just defined it in my comment. Poor people don't have those things I complained about and many (0.1% of all people apparently) don't have houses.
Post reply on HN