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To help poor people, give them money

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Re: To help poor people, give them money

#111

Post by danielnaab »

thedevil wrote: post #97
danielnaab wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the evidence points the opposite direction... in the United States, you are unlikely to escape the economic circumstances that you are born into, especially if you are born into the top or bottom quintile: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/04/us/comparing-e...

The difference is in the culture you learn. So of course if you grow up poor, you're more likely to be poor. For example, you would think payday loans are normal if that's how you grew up. The problem with the "evidence" you're using is that it can be interpreted many ways. It's merely a correlation. In circumstances closer to controlled experiments where I actually gave someone money, they usually wound up worse off…

Of course culture plays a role, as does education level of one's parents, access to opportunity such as good health care and higher education, the role of the criminal justice system in your community, the stress of dealing with basic material needs, etc, etc. Point being the cards are stacked against you if you are born into poverty, and those who escape it are basically the exceptions that prove the rule. So if we were sane, we'd focus our attention on leveling the playing field so as to lower the barrier to entry into the middle class, and not focus attention on blaming poor people for having poor values.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#112

Post by unclebucknasty »

csentropy wrote: post #93
DiabloD3 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a poor person myself, who grew up poor, and am still quite poor (although less poor than I used to be).... That is exactly what it is. Poor people are poor because we are poor. We see rich people making money on the stock market, and wish we could, but we have no excess money to do that with. We see rich people upgrading their homes and their cars and their whatevers to be more energy efficient, but when our car b…

This had to be the most absurd argument ever made. Poor people are poor because they are poor and therefore they will be? I can give you a million examples of poor people that have gotten wealthier (including my own and a lot of people I personally know) but it wouldn't matter to you would it? Ever heard of social mobility? To fix society, give everyone everything they need for free? Amazing insight.

Several years ago, I saw a replay of a news show from the 60s on which the guest was MLK Jr. The interviewer suggested that King's success, as well as that of a few other "colored" people was proof that nothing was wrong with the status quo.

Segregation and all the other ills of the day had nothing to do with the challenges faced by "colored" people. They just needed to be smarter and work harder.

Putting aside that there are various degrees of poverty, I will just congratulate you and your friends. But, studies show that economic mobility is far more difficult than in the past and more difficult in the U.S. than in many western European nations.

The severe and worsening income and wealth stratification of the past few decades is no accident. There are structural problems with our economy. That a relative few can overcome this to some degree neither disproves nor mitigates that fact.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#113

Post by pdeuchler »

clavalle wrote: post #89
pdeuchler wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> "they make decisions that help them in the short term, because to their experience there is unlikely to be a long term." This is also known as "poor decision making skills". Granted, it's very understandable in many situations, but let's call a spade a spade

No, it is making decisions based on information you aren't considering. Poor people are making economic decisions not to come out ahead but to mitigate their losses. They aren't doing this because they want to, it is because it is the best decision they can make given their constraints. For example, they can either sell their time for minimum wage, far less than the value they create, or they can starve or go homeles…

>>> "Poor people are making economic decisions not to come out ahead but to mitigate their losses"

It's not just those below the poverty line, all of humanity does this... even the rich.

But where did I say they are dumb? I know some incredibly smart people that are horribly off financially. I also didn't say they were the only ones with poor decision making skills. Sometimes the situation is a product of their upbringing or environment, sometimes it is because of willful ignorance or willing risk.

Please don't think I'm denying that for the most part lower socio-economic classes are more liable to be exploited. I understand how class mobility has become increasingly difficult in recent times. I believe in a minimum wage.

But ignoring an important facet of the issue because it's uncomfortable isn't going to get you any closer to solving the causes of the problem. Besides, the good news is you can teach financial literacy and decision making.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#114

Post by Retra »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #29
charlesdm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of wealthy people (mainly inherited) who became poor after bad investments. But, obviously if you have significant amounts of capital, it's harder to lose it all.

You can always find examples for all sides. But it is just a statistical fact, that moving up from being really poor today has become much more difficult than it was decades before, maybe with the exemption of being a computer scientists (but also there it is not so easy for a normally gifted person to finish studies and so on without help from the parents).

Everything I can find on economic mobility suggests that it has been stable for quite a while... up to half a century.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#115

Post by Veratyr »

Frondo wrote: post #73
pdeuchler wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> "they make decisions that help them in the short term, because to their experience there is unlikely to be a long term." This is also known as "poor decision making skills". Granted, it's very understandable in many situations, but let's call a spade a spade

What? How is acting rationally given your past life experience "poor decision making"? If you don't have money to spare, and then one month you get a windfall and do, it's absolutely rational to assume (and consequently base your decisions on) that you'll go back to the former state.

Because assuming you'll go back to the former state means that you've decided you're unable to learn.

If you live your life a certain way and it ends up with you being homeless or poor, sure, living life that same way will end up with you being homeless or poor again.

Now if you learn (that blob of grey matter in your head is great at this by the way) from your past mistakes, there's a chance you can avoid that.

Let's say I'm a homeless guy who ended up being homeless because I lived far far above my means and gambled away my savings.

I suddenly get a $10000 from a lottery ticket I found in the street.

I could immediately buy a suit, rent a car and go stay in a hotel and live the high life for all of 2 weeks. I could go to a casino and get that glorious rush I remembered so fondly for a few hours.

And then I'm back on the street.

Or I could learn from my mistakes and go buy a nice cheap business casual outfit ($100), pay upfront for a room with housemates/students for a few months (6 months - $300/month in a cheap area = $1800), buy a cheap prepaid phone ($80), car ($2000) and couple of weeks gas ($100) then put together a resume and start looking at jobs. If I'm not an appealing worker, I can potentially go to community college for a few months and get qualified doing something useful while also getting federal aid. I'll have around $5920 left over so I'll allocate $920 for a few sets of clothes and general things that a human being needs and put the other $5000 either in the bank or into education.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#116

Post by Frondo »

Veratyr wrote: post #115
Frondo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? How is acting rationally given your past life experience "poor decision making"? If you don't have money to spare, and then one month you get a windfall and do, it's absolutely rational to assume (and consequently base your decisions on) that you'll go back to the former state.

Because assuming you'll go back to the former state means that you've decided you're unable to learn. If you live your life a certain way and it ends up with you being homeless or poor, sure, living life that same way will end up with you being homeless or poor again. Now if you learn (that blob of grey matter in your head is great at this by the way) from your past mistakes, there's a chance you can avoid that. Let'…

This hypothetical sounds so divorced from reality, it's kind of tough to imagine that anyone would think of it as reflective of poor people's reality.

I'm saying, if you're living on $800 a month, and you get that sweet, sweet EITC money, you're going to use it to buy a new sofa, since your brother puked all over your sofa one night and you could never really get the smell out, and get all your bills current.

You might say that the stink of puke is worth putting up with, and the hypothetical poor person should pay for two credits of an associate's degree at the community college instead, which, ok, education is great, but the real reality is that for a lot of people, it's just not possible to work harder or earn your way out of poverty.

Not because of bad choices (e.g. living high on the hog from their magic $10,000 lottery ticket), but because low-end jobs in this country are unlivable and there's a whole cottage industry built up around screwing the poor with extra fees on every transaction they face throughout the day.

The solution isn't to tell poor people to put up with the puke smell and work their way through a 20-year associate's degree two credits at a time, so they can make 30c more. The solution is to make the economy work for them, as well as it works for those of us posting here.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#117

Post by JupiterMoon »

lliamander wrote: post #110
JupiterMoon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of the deserving and undeserving poor is an old (Victorian times) concept in the UK. It relates to the idea that some people are poor because they are feckless and lazy (the undeserving), whilst others are poor due to circumstances beyond their control (the deserving). The links from google in my earlier post should be sufficient to explain further details.

Citing a google search is a bit lame. Suffice it to say that I am familiar with the concept (hint: it is a lot older than Victorian England) and that I am asking you to defend your statement about ianferrel's comment. So again, what do you mean by "deserving"? What do the poor deserve that (in your interpretation) ianferrel claims they do not? It is one thing to say that some peoples' poverty is the result of their b…

> Suffice it to say that I am familiar with the concept

Cool

> again, what do you mean by "deserving"? What do the poor deserve that (in your interpretation) ianferrel claims they do not?

Actually nope not cool. You are clearly not familiar with the concept. This question does not make any sense in terms of the concept...

The concept of the deserving and undeserving poor has nothing to do with what the poor in general deserve or don't deserve. It implies that there are two type of poor people.

1. Deserving poor people (in ianferrel's mind those that make sensible decisions about money) 2. Undeserving poor people (in ianferrel's mind those that make poor decision about money)

I raised this issue because in Victorian England this concept was behind a lot of hand wringing and moralisation and very little actual social improvement. Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it - but those that don't know it can't help but forget it and people like ianferrel are clearly missing a huge swath of social history which would help them gain context for their opinions.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#118

Post by thedevil »

danielnaab wrote: post #111
thedevil wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is in the culture you learn. So of course if you grow up poor, you're more likely to be poor. For example, you would think payday loans are normal if that's how you grew up. The problem with the "evidence" you're using is that it can be interpreted many ways. It's merely a correlation. In circumstances closer to controlled experiments where I actually gave someone money, they usually wound up worse off…

Of course culture plays a role, as does education level of one's parents, access to opportunity such as good health care and higher education, the role of the criminal justice system in your community, the stress of dealing with basic material needs, etc, etc. Point being the cards are stacked against you if you are born into poverty, and those who escape it are basically the exceptions that prove the rule. So if we…

I'm with you on trying to improve the odds for poor people. My argument is merely that throwing money at them won't fix their situation. I'm not just trying to blame the poor but to explain why throwing money at them won't work.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#119

Post by Mikeb85 »

shadowfiend wrote: post #57
Mikeb85 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malaria generally kills only the young and weak. It's like the flu over here. The problem is malnutrition. Hence why a large amount of mosquito nets are never used to sleep under, but rather as fishing nets. I know people who have had malaria (family that lives in a tropical 3rd world country). All survived. Giving out mosquito nets to conquer malaria makes as much sense as giving out medical masks to conquer the flu…

Please do a detailed reading of the linked evaluation of the Against Malaria Foundation. There is a fairly rigorous discussion of the impact on both fatal and non-fatal potential malaria infections, as well as how the evaluation is done. While anecdotal evidence is more emotionally powerful, there seems to be pretty strong large-scale evidence that at least in the places AMF targets , the nets are effective at a rela…

I have and I'm sure the mosquito nets are effective.

The point isn't to say they're not, but rather to say the nations that have been most successful at preventing malaria deaths are those that are most developed, or have access to anti-malarial drugs (which are dirt cheap).

The flu kills thousands every year and used to kill many more (the 1918 flu epidemic killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people around the world), but we don't even consider it to be fatal anymore due to our level of nutrition and medical care - which comes from development.

Also keep in mind the US used to have malaria-spreading mosquitoes and a fair amount of malaria-deaths, but now it's considered eliminated as a public health concern. Maybe some of the techniques it used could be applied to Africa, and not just band-aids that keep Africa hooked on western 'aid'.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#120

Post by learnstats2 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #119
shadowfiend wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do a detailed reading of the linked evaluation of the Against Malaria Foundation. There is a fairly rigorous discussion of the impact on both fatal and non-fatal potential malaria infections, as well as how the evaluation is done. While anecdotal evidence is more emotionally powerful, there seems to be pretty strong large-scale evidence that at least in the places AMF targets , the nets are effective at a rela…

I have and I'm sure the mosquito nets are effective. The point isn't to say they're not, but rather to say the nations that have been most successful at preventing malaria deaths are those that are most developed, or have access to anti-malarial drugs (which are dirt cheap). The flu kills thousands every year and used to kill many more (the 1918 flu epidemic killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people around the wor…

> we don't even consider it to be fatal anymore due to our level of nutrition and medical care - which comes from development.

This is absolutely nothing to do with human development.

Good health can compound problems with flu because it leads to a cytokine storm - flu epidemics tend to kill healthy young people disproportionately.

The scientific community has been extremely concerned about another influenza epidemic because there is no guarantee that we can do anything about it, medically speaking.

If there was an epidemic on that scale again, the best practice is to close schools and workplaces, to restrict travel. In other words: to temporarily stop the benefits of human development.

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