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Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

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Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#211

Post by opendais »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #50
psychometry wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A third of the population in the richest nation on earth lives in poverty. According to you, that's not a problem because even poorer people in Bangladesh are slightly less poor than they would be if American companies had never employed them. What kind of callous person could look around at all the suffering and think this system's working great? Or do you not look around at all, holed up in a tacky mansion of your…

95% of the biggest nation in the world (or maybe second biggest, no one really knows the exact pop of India and China) lives in far deeper poverty than poor americans. Many of them experience actual suffering - not enough food, no flush toilet, no power. What, precisely, do you believe poor Americans are suffering from? The only concrete answer I usually hear is envy (I.e. "oh noes the inequality"). http://economix.b…

No offense, but you are just ignorant :/

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/food-insecurity-affects-50-mill...

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-r...

So, 14.3% of US Households don't have enough food. Food insecurity is another way of saying "Hey, we may not eat today but we eat enough calories on average to survive.".

You think these people are paying their power bills over food? Seriously?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/18/american-recession-...

"69 percent of households that rely on food charities to survive have been forced to choose between paying for utilities and paying for food."

"66 percent of households said they’ve had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care. Thirty-one percent said they had to make that choice every month."

I'm guessing some people are letting the power bill go unpaid based on that, eh?

So when you say its "Envy" are you saying you are ignorant or that 14.3% of the people in this country are envious, ungrateful bastards for thinking they deserve 3 square meals a day?

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#212

Post by wpietri »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #140
wooter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more than dollar menu cheeseburgers per calorie. what? not even remotely true. i frequently buy 6 lb bags of frozen broccoli/cauliflower/carrot for 8 bucks. There is cheap, healthy food out there, some people just aren't buying it.

6 lbs of broccoli at 23 kcal / 100 grams is about 621 kcal for $8, or 77kcal / dollar. A $1 cheeseburger is 350 kcal, so $8 would buy you 2800 kcal - and I'm sure there's products with even higher calories per dollar. (note this is off a random website, may be inaccurate) You have to remember that for a nontrivial percentage of people - like the homeless - this is a survival situation, where 'healthy' has a much lowe…

And let's not forget the necessary infrastructure to get and store bulk frozen food, plus the time, infrastructure, and supplies needed to prepare it. How many 6-pound bags of broccoli can you manage while changing buses? How many fit in the freezer of the small, old fridge your apartment has? How long can you spend cooking when you're pulling hours at two different low-wage jobs with erratic schedules and still have to get the kids to school?

I cook and eat a lot of healthy stuff, and I do it at a pretty reasonable price. But it is definitely a luxury that I pay for in time, and it still only works because I have decent infrastructure.

For those who did not grow up poor, it's worth reading John Scalzi's "Being Poor" to get a feel for the experience: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#213

Post by Zigurd »

msandford wrote: post #199
zanny wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have no successful model for dealing with this. Canada seems to have had pretty good success with that basic income town. And no major western democracy has really attempted it yet. I like it because it lets you have a completely deregulated economy, because both employer and employee would be participating in voluntary negotiation without a huge bias towards the employer - when one side is starving and need she…

In theory that sounds great, but what happens if everyone says "fuck it!" and just starts taking the basic income? I think it's fairly obvious that with nobody paying taxes there is not enough government revenue to pay and thus the system falls apart. Let's call this 0% workforce participation. On the other hand, if everyone works really hard and is super productive and starts businesses and etc then at some point th…

> In theory that sounds great, but what happens if everyone says "fuck it!" and just starts taking the basic income?

That's actually an argument for basic income. It's the mirror image of money politics, only its actually democratic.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#214

Post by redmoskito »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #91
zanny wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is tremendous long run psychological and physical harm associated with living paycheck to paycheck in perpetual debt having to eat subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more than dollar menu cheeseburgers per calorie. And if you don't have a working kitchen you can't cook farmers market produce. And that is at best. A lot of us are unemployed, and families are collapsing in on themselves as y…

There is tremendous long run psychological and physical harm associated with living paycheck to paycheck This is entirely in the control of most poor Americans. India's GDP/capita is $5500 after adjusting for cost of living, yet India has a 20% savings rate. Poor Americans could reduce consumption and save if they wished. in perpetual debt having to eat subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more th…

Respectfully, it believe you've misread that census report. 3% of _all_ American households lack a complete kitchen, not 3% of poor Americans.

That is a much more striking statistic, and there's reason to believe it may be higher, since marginalized Americans are both the most likely to be suffering lack of basic resources and the most likely to be unrepresented by the US census. Further, this study only measured households, and ignores the homeless and incarcerated, which represent another 2% of the population.

Considering that 10-15% of adults in the US live in poverty, your reference suggests that anywhere between 30% and 50% live without a complete kitchen.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#215

Post by redmoskito »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #117
pilsetnieks wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 6 lb bags of frozen broccoli/cauliflower/carrot for 8 bucks That implies access to a working freezer, electricity, and transportation to drive out to Costco or wherever; things that are nowhere near granted for everyone.

The freezer and electricity are available to at least 97% of poor Americans. One or more cars is available to 73%. http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf For comparison, India and Bangladesh are likely to have electricity percentages around 50% (no good data is available) and car ownership rates in the single digits.

*Freezer and electricity are available to 97% of _all_ American (households). One or more cars is available to 73% of _all_ American (households).

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#217

Post by _broody »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #188
_broody wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't get what yummyfajitas is getting from his own sources. The Oregon experiment article he linked to stated, verbatim, that 25% more people reported themselves healthier thanks to increased health coverage, and 10% better mental health. Yet he is using this link to claim better health insurance does nothing for poor people. Also, using a pre-2008 crisis census report to argue that everything is fine today is…

Measured health outcomes did not go up, only self reported health did. Further, the increase in self reported health was present even before people had a chance to go to the doctor. Better health insurance makes people feel better. That's not the same thing as making them healthier. If you think the data changed between 2008 and the next AHS survey, feel free to prove it. Or just call me a troll, far less work.

> Measured health outcomes did not go up, only self reported health did. Further, the increase in self reported health was present even before people had a chance to go to the doctor.

That's BS, that report only presents no change in points on some physical health metrics which are dependent on lifestyle and not medical attention anyways.

> If you think the data changed between 2008 and the next AHS survey, feel free to prove it.

Sure, have a go at it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble

It's clearly disingenuous to claim that the housing situation today is represented by a report concluded before the crisis where everyone lost their homes and/or jobs.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#218

Post by pron »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #130
yummyfajitas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is tremendous long run psychological and physical harm associated with living paycheck to paycheck This is entirely in the control of most poor Americans. India's GDP/capita is $5500 after adjusting for cost of living, yet India has a 20% savings rate. Poor Americans could reduce consumption and save if they wished. in perpetual debt having to eat subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more th…

I can't tell if you are trolling or are serious. Anyways, I'll leave is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...

Excellent article. Thanks!

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#219

Post by dragonwriter »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #203
dragonwriter wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What, precisely, do you believe poor Americans are suffering from? The only concrete answer I usually hear is envy (I.e. "oh noes the inequality"). Even if that was the only thing and the only source of suffering for poor Americans was relative deprivation compared to others in their immediate context, so what? Relative deprivation is an important, extensively empirically demonstrated, source of disutility. If one…

Envy is a source of disutility. So is pooping in a field because you lack a flush toilet. If you feel that forcing more people to poop in the field in order to reduce feelings of envy among wealthy Americans is a good thing, make that argument.

> If you feel that forcing more people to poop in the field in order to reduce feelings of envy among wealthy Americans is a good thing,

wealthy Americans aren't the ones facing relative deprivation (which is why the reference upthread was to "poor Americans"), nor is it a problem only in America -- inequality (with a strong and persistent ethnic basis to the inequality) is something that neoliberal international trade regimes promote on both the more developed and less developed sides of trade arrangements.

See, e.g., World On Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, Amy Chua (2003).

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#220

Post by redmoskito »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #188
_broody wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't get what yummyfajitas is getting from his own sources. The Oregon experiment article he linked to stated, verbatim, that 25% more people reported themselves healthier thanks to increased health coverage, and 10% better mental health. Yet he is using this link to claim better health insurance does nothing for poor people. Also, using a pre-2008 crisis census report to argue that everything is fine today is…

Measured health outcomes did not go up, only self reported health did. Further, the increase in self reported health was present even before people had a chance to go to the doctor. Better health insurance makes people feel better. That's not the same thing as making them healthier. If you think the data changed between 2008 and the next AHS survey, feel free to prove it. Or just call me a troll, far less work.

I don't understand. From my brief reading it looks like measured outcomes did improve significantly (see diabetes, depression, cholesterol). Am I misreading this?
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