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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

#261

Post by barry-cotter »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #232
barry-cotter wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost of housing would go up until a lot of people are still homeless That’s true if building enough housing to meet demand continues to be illegal.

The effective purpose of a UBI (why the ruling class likes the idea) is to constrain risky tendencies of a highly financialized economy that depends on a large supply of dirt cheap labor without too much inflation. With UBI, gainful employment will be an elite luxury only accessible to those with existing wealth. Everyone else will be a reserve army of cheap labor that serves to bare the weight of the financial ebbs…

> With UBI, gainful employment will be an elite luxury only accessible to those with existing wealth.

Gainful employment is when the product of your labor is worth (much) more than you are willing to sell your labor for. If you’re not rich and you want to become rich working for Google at $200K a year is clearly superior to a UBI of $40K a year. Even with an arithmetically impossible UBI[1] like that there are still many people who would like to be rich, but just middle class.

[1]US average household income per capita is under $60K.

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

#262

Post by mbrodersen »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #201
mbrodersen wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Source? Why don't they have medicaid? It covers everyone under the 140% the poverty line.

How about the millions of people who are just above the poverty line but can't afford private health/dental?

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

#263

Post by mbrodersen »

t-3 wrote: post #239
mbrodersen wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather be a US homeless person living in the streets or a medieval king?

Homeless. In medieval times, everyone was poor, and one person's life had no value to another. In modern times, I can be relatively safe from violence and predation, recieve shelter from compassionate strangers almost anywhere, get medical care for free with government benefits or through the emergency room, and if I'm really doing bad, go to jail and get three hots and a cot. Sounds vastly preferable to dying by 40…

I would prefer to be a medival king. Easy access to having sex with the most beautiful woman in the world, beheading people I don't like, fixing laws I don't agree with, having people willing to do anything to please me etc. Lots of perks!

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

#264

Post by wyre »

>I calculated that at a minimum the world economy needs to increase five-fold for global poverty to substantially decline. This is in a scenario in which the world would also achieve a massive reduction in inequality: inequality between all the world’s countries would disappear entirely in this scenario. It should therefore be seen as a calculation of the minimum necessary growth for an end of poverty.

A five-fold increase of the global economy is certainly not easy to achieve, but it is also not impossible – it is what the world has achieved in the last 5 decades, and the climate researchers of the IPCC expect even more growth for this century in their ‘Sustainability Scenario’, the scenario in which the world is most successful in avoiding climate change.

I'm interpreting this to mean that my generation has a chance to see the end of poverty in 50 years. This is incredible!

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

#265

Post by mbrodersen »

t-3 wrote: post #239
mbrodersen wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather be a US homeless person living in the streets or a medieval king?

Homeless. In medieval times, everyone was poor, and one person's life had no value to another. In modern times, I can be relatively safe from violence and predation, recieve shelter from compassionate strangers almost anywhere, get medical care for free with government benefits or through the emergency room, and if I'm really doing bad, go to jail and get three hots and a cot. Sounds vastly preferable to dying by 40…

I don't think you have any clue on what life is like as a homeless poor person or a person in jail in the US.

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

#266

Post by chaostheory »

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…

While you’re partially right that chronic homelessness is related to drug abuse, most of them are mentally ill. Unfortunately due to legal changes in the 1980’s, you can no longer help the mentally ill unless they provide consent. The end result is they stay homeless, while the other 80% of the homeless end up recovering in less than a year.

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

#267

Post by TulliusCicero »

austincheney wrote: post #226
TulliusCicero wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

None of that is evidence of houses going down in price.

Yes, we have many studies for that.

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

#268

Post by TulliusCicero »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #243
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…

> Tokyo has dirt cheap rent compared to the states You can rent small two and a half tatami sized apartments in Tokyo that wouldn’t even be legal to let in most of the west. Is that what they mean by reducing zoning rules? Also, by basically mandating that all housing be rebuilt every 20-30 years, Tokyo effectively prevents speculation on residential real estate (housing depreciates as it gets older, negating land ap…

I’m talking about comparing 1br’s to 1br’s.

Japan tearing down building after 20-30 years is, as far as I’ve seen, greatly exaggerated. You see apartment complexes all over the place obviously older than that.

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

#269

Post by t-3 »

mbrodersen wrote: post #265
t-3 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless. In medieval times, everyone was poor, and one person's life had no value to another. In modern times, I can be relatively safe from violence and predation, recieve shelter from compassionate strangers almost anywhere, get medical care for free with government benefits or through the emergency room, and if I'm really doing bad, go to jail and get three hots and a cot. Sounds vastly preferable to dying by 40…

I don't think you have any clue on what life is like as a homeless poor person or a person in jail in the US.

I've been both. I don't think you have any idea.

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

#270

Post by e4e78a06 »

guerrilla wrote: post #169
dustintrex wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that the wealth of Swedes comes from the (indirect) exploitation of the poor. IKEA and H&M are household names that give Swedes and the world cheap clothing and furniture, virtually all of which is made by comparatively much poorer people in China, Bangladesh, etc.

I think that's definitely true but we have some heavier examples than the ones you listed and at the same time massive natural resources which include iron (and many other metals), hydro and timber as well as significant local value generation in high-tech and services. The lack of inequality comes definitely from the very strong labor movement though. > The main industries include motor vehicles, telecommunications,…

Volvo - exploits poorly paid non-union workers in countries like Mexico to make cars and/or car parts

Ericsson - charges telecom companies a fortune for crappy gear because there's only 2-3 leading edge 5G equipment providers, which in turn makes it more expensive for people to get telecom service

H&M - sweatshop labor for clothes manufacturing

I only went through the first half but there are a number of companies in there that exploit poor people. I'll also add this link [0] which shows Sweden has very low corporate income tax and most of Swedish government income comes from taxes on labor and goods (VAT), which is hardly the high corporate tax model that most left wing Democrats are pushing today.

[0]: https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-swede...

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