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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

#211

Post by WalterBright »

mbrodersen wrote: post #191
WalterBright wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They still have better health and dental care than medieval kings, who had zero of both. They didn't even have toothbrushes or any notion of dental or medical hygiene.

BTW, those miniseries on the lives of medieval royalty that are popular today are romantic fantasies. For example, the only warm place in a castle in winter is right next to the fireplace. They had no concept of central heating, not even an iron stove. Do you want to live through a winter in England with no heating?

How about being around people who never, ever bathed? What do you think happened to all the poop in the castle? Did the cooks ever wash their hands? Most of your kids are going to die before they're adults.

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

#212

Post by thaumasiotes »

the_gastropod wrote: post #79
thaumasiotes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Virtually all of this reduction in extreme poverty occurred in China, which makes the notion that this was a triumph of capitalism / neoliberalism kind of silly. How so? Under communism, China ran itself deeply into the ground and tens of millions of people starved to death. Economic reform changed that, in a straightforward triumph of capitalism. When one of the major stimuli to the period of economic reform is th…

China's flavor of capitalism is, indeed, a vast improvement over their communist past. But it includes a lot more state-involvement than the more laissez-faire style of the U.S.

They're also much poorer than the US is. They have most of the reduction in poverty because they started so low, not because they've ended up so high.

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

#213

Post by WalterBright »

mbrodersen wrote: post #192
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.

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

They can walk into any emergency room and get free care.

Kings had zero access.

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

#214

Post by nemothekid »

chrisco255 wrote: post #63
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?

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.

>government is generally bad at using capital

This is hardly true, and is only "common" wisdom due to an incredibly effective PR campaign by Ronald Reagan. In the 60s, when we were sending people to the moon, people didn't generally hold such contempt for government. Any large government is no more dysfunctional than a large private corporation - the inside of Google isn't all sunshine and roses.

>that it can print as much as it wants

Just because you don't see it come out of your paycheck doesn't mean it's not a tax. It's an undemocratic, flat tax that is paid with inflation.

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

#215

Post by WalterBright »

guerrilla wrote: post #181
WalterBright wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America's poor can't travel How do you explain the hundreds of thousands of destitute migrants tramping thousands of miles to get here? They'll get treated for free in emergency rooms. Medieval doctors were worse than no medical care at all, ever. > even movies cost! During the Depression, the movie houses were full of people sleeping, as they were cheaper than a hotel.

> They'll get treated for free in emergency rooms. Um, no, that is not free in the US. You can go into serious debt that way.

They still get free treatment, regardless of their debt. The hospitals just write off those debts, it's covered by the high prices they charge the patients who can pay.

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

#216

Post by austincheney »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #198
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.

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…

Where I live they have not been able to build new housing fast enough to keep up with rising population over the last thirty years. The prices increase directly proportional to the current velocity of new housing availability at any given moment. If they continue to build new housing at this rate my city will become one of the 10 largest US cities within the next 15 years and the value of my house will boom to more than 3x what I paid for it.

Why? Fixed assets exist outside the supply/demand cycle of high school economics. You can’t make more land but you can always build more houses irrespective of demand. Aside from conjecture and speculation there is no evidence (data) linking house price reduction (not rent) to new housing availability.

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

#217

Post by nemothekid »

WalterBright wrote: post #210
nemothekid wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The homeless issue in the US is much more of a drug addiction and alcoholism problem than a down on one's luck problem. This is more like a convenient truth. How many of those people become homeless, then turn drugs? It's not like the US's social safety net is particularly robust, and even just being on the street for a week can expose you to the violent way the homeless are treated.

Drug addiction leads to homelessness, as the addict's priority is always getting the drugs. Things like jobs, friends, family, sense, are all sacrificed for the drugs. Everything is sacrificed, and so they wind up on the street. Treating a homeless drug addict as a victim of poverty is like giving cough medicine to a person with lung cancer. It does not work.

That is a very simplistic view of addiction; High functioning addiction is the norm - Purdue made billions creating them. I'm sure - at your workplace in a major city like SF or NY you have worked with people addicted to Benzos, Cocaine, or Alcohol. Most of them will tell you they can "quit any time" (they can't), but are still capable of taking a shower and showing up to work.

>Treating a homeless drug addict as a victim of poverty is like giving cough medicine to a person with lung cancer. It does not work.

How do you rehab someone who does not have stable shelter? Are they supposed to battle withdrawal on the street? Housing first policies have demonstrably worked in Finland and Austria.

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

#218

Post by CryptoPunk »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #203
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…

That isn’t a solution either, because individuals and businesses with the money will simply snap-up the real estate. Discouraging multi-ownership and preventing residential ownership by business mes needs to happen as well.

Discouraging investment in housing will have exactly the opposite effect that you intend.

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

#219

Post by ModernMech »

alboy wrote: post #97
lovich wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality of wealth and/or income is how you get high averages but still see people living in poverty. Something like 10% of Americans experience food insecurity throughout the year and I’d place that as a pretty basic necessity of life

The USDA defines[1] food insecurity to include the following: >Food Insecurity >Low food security (old label=Food insecurity without hunger): reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake. People in other countries would scratch their heads at the very concept of "food insecurity without hunger". [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistan…

There are two levels of food insecurity described in your source. Why did you only quote the one?

  Very low food security—In these food-insecure households, normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. 

  3.9 percent (5.1 million) of U.S. households had very low food security at some time during 2020.
And according to the graph at the bottom it's still true that people who are Low Food Security are hungry -- just at a lower yet non-zero rate compared to Very Low Food Security.

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

#220

Post by TulliusCicero »

austincheney wrote: post #216
TulliusCicero wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where I live they have not been able to build new housing fast enough to keep up with rising population over the last thirty years. The prices increase directly proportional to the current velocity of new housing availability at any given moment. If they continue to build new housing at this rate my city will become one of the 10 largest US cities within the next 15 years and the value of my house will boom to more t…

> Where I live they have not been able to build new housing fast enough to keep up with rising population over the last thirty years.

Yes, because rules in the US handicap new housing growth.

> The prices increase directly proportional to the current velocity of new housing availability at any given moment.

Yes, because they have the same cause: demand increasing.

Imagine that every car maker was heavily constrained in how many cars they could make. As demands for cars rise, they find every angle to try and produce more cars, but the price keeps going up. Did the new supply cause the price to rise? No, they just have the same cause.

There have been myriad studies on this, almost every economist finds that new housing in booming areas makes housing prices less bad than they would be otherwise.

> You can’t make more land but you can always build more houses irrespective of demand.

This isn't true. Zoning severely handicaps more housing in the places people want to live.

Well, except for Houston (sorta), and indeed, rent there seems substantially lower than other major cities in Texas like Dallas and Austin.

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