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Why do you think people are poor?

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Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#221

Post by CJefferson »

sparknlaunch wrote: post #215

In a recent fictional book about poverty in the UK, two types if poverty were identified. One was unintentional poverty- someone falls into trouble due to no fault of their own. Maybe illness, trauma etc The other is intentional- individuals taking full advantage of government benefits. In the UK generations of families have been stuck in this category. One group feel more deserving...

The problem in the UK, which is caused by the government, is that there are several points where people end up with less money overall (including housing benefit, and childcare) if they earn more money / work more hours.

While you can argue about 'deserving', it is the government's fault that they have set up a system which encourages people not to work.

Unforuntatly, the current attempts to fix this are (in my opinion) just creating a more confusing system where it is easier to get trapped or confused.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#222

Post by CJefferson »

Produce wrote: post #108
Ralith wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A year after graduation, ten of the first sixteen Clemente Course graduates were attending four-year colleges or going to nursing school; four of them had received full scholarships to Bard College. The other graduates were attending community college or working full-time. Except for one: she had been fired from her job in a fast-food restaurant for trying to start a union. It sounds like it was successful to me.

So the solution is to make everyone a nurse or an engineer or a manager? Who's going to sweep the streets and grow food?

How about some people from privaliged backgrounds, that decided not to take advantage of the many opportunities they received?

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#223

Post by skilesare »

lsc wrote: post #201
sparkie wrote: post #148

Because the system makes sure people stay poor. How many of you were taught in school that if you pay yourself a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend/bonus you can avoid paying a significant amount of tax (legally)? Or how many of you were taught how to become "employable" so that you can earn the same amount of money and pay considerably more tax, unavoidably - because you aren't in control of your own fi…

Do you really think the average business owner makes more as a business owner than they would as an employee? I don't have the statistics at my fingertips, but I'd find that surprising. I know I'd be making 3x-5x what I'm making now if I was working for other people. Yeah, running a business means that you have a possibility of making a whole lot of money, and yeah, if you have the contacts to get investors to give y…

I think you're doing it wrong. I quit working for a company about a year ago and am on course to make 2.5x what I made last year.

A small business should never be run in such a way that the employees are making more than the owner. How would any business work that way?

People typically pay a premium for a temporary service rather than employing someone full time. That is how you make money. It is why I pay a plumber a crap ton when my pipes break because it is still cheaper than employing one full time.

What business are you in that causes you to make a third of what you would make as an employee doing the same thing?

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#224

Post by flyinRyan »

learc83 wrote: post #177
sparkie wrote: post #148

Because the system makes sure people stay poor. How many of you were taught in school that if you pay yourself a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend/bonus you can avoid paying a significant amount of tax (legally)? Or how many of you were taught how to become "employable" so that you can earn the same amount of money and pay considerably more tax, unavoidably - because you aren't in control of your own fi…

>There's a reason this isn't taught in public schools folks - it's because the people at the top want more for themselves and less for you. While I agree with you that schools should do more to encourage people to own their own business, do you really think school curriculums in the US are decided by a shadowy cabal of the wealthy? Whether to teach business and entrepreneurship would be almost entirely up to the loca…

Read/Watch "Manufacturing consent". It doesn't need to be a wide spread conspiracy. Once you get some kind of environment established people lower down the tree will perpetuate it themselves with no outside stimulus.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#226

Post by flyinRyan »

sparkie wrote: post #172
herdrick wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're talking more about things that could help middle class people. Very few poor people have issues that could be helped with "pay [themselves] a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend".

Sure it'll help the middle class with out current system, but the point was more about how all people should value themselves. Rather than selling your time in exchange for money (i.e., being an employee), you are better off exchanging your value for money. This should apply to any class really. The reality is different for poor people, but my point was more about "what could be", rather than "what is". Trying to thi…

You got downvoted for saying it but honestly I would expect this philosophy of selling value to apply more to the poor since they're typically not able to make themselves look "employable" anyway. If you're selling a service or a product no one has to know if you attended a top university.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#227

Post by Shivetya »

spydum wrote: post #150
Shivetya wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because a private school would not have confined my friend's child to special education because she spoke Spanish in class one day to a friend. Perhaps rich people are getting the result they believe they are supposed to receive? As in, their behavior is modified in minor ways they do not perceive but all towards the goal of increasing the success of the children they enroll? It really comes down to parents. Children…

That is odd.. so politicians should have less freedoms than the citizens they serve? Good luck finding someone to elect. It is bad enough political organizations go dredging through their personal lives. It amazes me people are still willing to serve in public office.

I will give you the reason, I tire of them incessantly telling other people public schools are well and fine for other people's children but they find all sorts of reasons to prevent their children from attending.

So, they need to sleep in the bed they make. If they don't offer parents the choice of what schools to send their kids too on the basis that their schools are perfectly fine then why don't they stand behind their words and send their own kids there.

Yes I support vouchers, I think schools should have to compete for the money. The money needs to follow the student, not the school. In the nearly forty years we have had a Department of Education the only thing that has gone up is the cost per pupil, scores certainly have not.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#229

Post by celer »

thematt wrote: post #77
scarmig wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it, then, that despite the school someone goes to not mattering in outcomes once you control for external factors, rich people still disproportionately prefer to send their kids to private schools, and are willing to pay 20-30k per year over a decade to do so? I could totally believe that it's totally irrational on the rich parents' part: kids and health are places where people lose much sense of rationality a…

It's because it does matter to the outcome, if you consider the outcome to be more than just GPA. GPA is not the best indicator of whether it's a worthwhile investment. The selection of a private school takes in to account additional factors like the environment you learn in, the connections you make, the college prospects you get and also the mere existence of religion.

Could you expand on the "mere existence of religion?"

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#230

Post by flyinRyan »

pippy wrote: post #157

People are poor when a market doesn't employ capitalist methods. In a purely capitalist job market the hardest working, most productive people would get paid the best and have job security.

This sounds like religious dogma. How do you define "hardest working"? Would someone holding down two and three jobs count because these people tend to be some of the poorest.

I can imagine that if we could somehow make compensation transparent to the point that, say, buying bananas is so that every single worker has a rough idea of the value their work provides that would help raise wages but I would still struggle for a definition of "hard working" that would mean those that engage in it will become the richest.

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