11–20 of 106 posts
The poor in Bangladesh are at least allowed to have shelter in slums. Anywhere in the US it would be highly illegal and violate many regulations.
I think there are two reasons for it:
1) People don't seem to be as mobile, in general, and you'll find 3 generations of family living very close to each other quite often. I was hanging out with a local in Leon, Nicaragua and met like a dozen of her family members walking around a couple of blocks. People who are having hard times seem to just take up with family. We found one drunk lying on the side of the road, and she insisted we stop and find out what was wrong with him and take him back to his family. I had barely registered that he was there.
2) There don't seem to be as many zoning or construction safety laws, so building a shelter by yourself with almost no money seems to be quite easy. It might be a shack on the side of the road with no water or electricity, but it's better than sleeping on the street.
I was also struck by how jovial even people with very little seemed to be. Like having cable tv, food, friends and family was enough for people to be satisfied with where they are with life. They also seemed relatively fatalistic about health and safety issues. When you don't really have any expectation that someone is looking out for you, the idea that you could die from an accident or sickness any day doesn't seem to be that unlikely. People there in general just seem to take it in stride. I guess you have to if you want to get out of bed in the morning.
I think it made me realize that loneliness might be worse than poverty, and that the lack of social support for poor people in the us is worse than the lack of money. We could do more for people by creating social connections than we could be just giving them a check. I don't really know what the answer is there. I don't think it's a problem at either the market or government can solve.
The author of the question does not have a straightforward answer but puts this forward as a thought provoker. For example while Appalachians have higher income on average (PPP) than a typical Bangladeshi, Appalachian life expectancy is lower. So maybe the marginal increase in income is more impactful in a place like Bangladesh -where people are less able to commit self-harm (even unintended like poor diets). Maybe p…
How about an illegal heroin problem?
The poor in Bangladesh are at least allowed to have shelter in slums. Anywhere in the US it would be highly illegal and violate many regulations.
The poor in Bangladesh are at least allowed to have shelter in slums. Anywhere in the US it would be highly illegal and violate many regulations.
The poor in Bangladesh are at least allowed to have shelter in slums. Anywhere in the US it would be highly illegal and violate many regulations.
Rent is just theft based on the monopolization of land. Forcing the poor to pay to live in government approved ghettos is more extortion of their limited resources by those who monopolize the commons.
The author of the question does not have a straightforward answer but puts this forward as a thought provoker. For example while Appalachians have higher income on average (PPP) than a typical Bangladeshi, Appalachian life expectancy is lower. So maybe the marginal increase in income is more impactful in a place like Bangladesh -where people are less able to commit self-harm (even unintended like poor diets). Maybe p…
Does Bangladesh have a systemic prescription opiate problem? How about an illegal heroin problem?
If you want to talk about the impact of opiates on Bangladeshi poverty today, you should go back much further in history.
Bengal opium, being much higher quality than the product found in China and Afghanistan, was the major impetus behind the British annexing the territory back in 1757. They used this monopoly to extract exorbitant taxes from Bengal, causing widespread man-made famines which killed tens of millions of people. They then used this tax money and the opium to flood the Chinese market with cheap, high-quality opium, against the Chinese rulers' will, in an attempt to undermine the Chinese government as well by creating a widespread opiate epidemic. China did not come under explicit colonial rule the way Bengal did, but it came very close.
Over this time period, Bengal went from being the richest region in the second-richest empire/region in the world (next to China) to one of the poorest, which it still is today, despite its rapid growth in recent years.
This strategy isn't over, by the way. The opiate market was (and still is) a part of the US military strategy in Afghanistan - balancing the desire to "crack down" on heroin production and smuggling against the desire to provide Afghani civilians with an agricultural economy that doesn't rely on Taliban support.
Bangladesh doesn't have a synthetic opiate problem, simply because people there are generally too poor to purchase synthetic opiates in the first place. Raw opium is still used in these areas due to its widespread availability, but it's much less addictive than the synthetic opiates, because pharmaceutical synthetics are obviously designed to be highly concentrated and potent.
As for the raw numbers, 0.3% of Bangladeshis consume opiates at least once per year, compared to 0.57% in the US, 0.8% in Italy, 2.65% in Afghanistan (the highest) and 0.004% in Singapore (the lowest).
If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We walked around barefoot, unsupervised, climbed trees, ate wild fruit, made spears from wood and once you were four you had to take your two year old sibling with you and look after them. There were no nannies. Here is the interesting thing, none of us ever had to see an occupational therapist to help us with our hand eye co-ordination. Falling out of a tree was enough incentive to figure it out on your own. I digress, the point I am trying to make is that I remember my childhood as a happy time. Full of activity and adventure. I would have been classified as poor because I we slept on the floor, shared blankets as kids. Kids ate from the same plate, grouped roughly by age group. No toys except ones we made ourselves.
I am not advocating returning to the village. Running water and healthcare are good things. I often wonder about who is better off, me in town with access to water and health but with all manner of rates and taxes and social pressures?
Edit: typos
The author of the question does not have a straightforward answer but puts this forward as a thought provoker. For example while Appalachians have higher income on average (PPP) than a typical Bangladeshi, Appalachian life expectancy is lower. So maybe the marginal increase in income is more impactful in a place like Bangladesh -where people are less able to commit self-harm (even unintended like poor diets). Maybe p…
Does Bangladesh have a systemic prescription opiate problem? How about an illegal heroin problem?
The poor in Bangladesh are at least allowed to have shelter in slums. Anywhere in the US it would be highly illegal and violate many regulations.
I don't understand the downvotes. Rent is just theft based on the monopolization of land. Forcing the poor to pay to live in government approved ghettos is more extortion of their limited resources by those who monopolize the commons.
All property is theft.