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Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

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Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#121

Post by imtringued »

wang_li wrote: post #94
Frondo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you justify tapping the productivity of a Boeing working in Renton... Well, the direct answer is: these are all Americans, and all pay some kind of tax to their city, county, state, and ultimately the country, in theory so they can draw on the shared resources of the nation. That's how you justify supporting the kid in Mississippi and not the kid in Cambodia. As for rationally holding the belief that people…

We don't live in a post scarcity society. As such it's not possible to support every kid to a high standard of living unless you limit the number of kids. I also want to point out that they don't pay taxes to their city, county, state, and country. There have been several studies by the CBO[0 - see the chart on page 31] that show that the lower 60% of households are not net tax payers at the federal level to such an…

I don't know why you decided to contradict yourself. You say they don't pay taxes and then the taxes they pay don't offset the benefits they receive which are two completely different things. Clearly they are paying taxes and a redistribution scheme takes money from the top income and transfers it to lower income by definition. There is nothing surprising about this.

You're also forgetting that those workers exist. Beyond taxes the benefit of workers is also in the products and services they provide. When you're a retiree you still need someone to stock shelves in the supermarkets and sit in front of the cash register or someone to work on a farm and pick up the harvest.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#122

Post by imtringued »

pitay wrote: post #97
wang_li wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible way…

There are many times the number of people that can sustainably live on earth at the moment (something like an order of magnitude). You can see consequences of this by looking at much more overpopulated areas in the middle east, Africa, or India where starvation is much more a part of life. This is a huge problem in more developed areas as well, with environmental degradation, pollution, and the land made poorer by on…

>To offset this people can be paid to bring up a child that their parents cannot afford, this works great as the people who raise the other parents children are less likely to have children themselves.

You didn't think that through. They are less likely to have children because they have decided against children. A female lawyer isn't going to give up her career to take care of other people's children. She has much better options.

What may happen is that poor people get their children taken away and sent to another poor family that now gets paid for taking care of the child. It's basically a very "unorthodox" form of childcare/adoption without class mobility.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#123

Post by jirdperson »

In the US, conversations about poverty frequently appear to depict poverty as a choice, i.e. people bear moral responsibility for their poverty because their decisions ostensibly produced it. In this thread, multiple comments take this assumption for granted and embrace the goal of reducing poverty primarily for the sake of impoverished children - who bear no responsibility for their position. This approach seems incredibly primitive to me for a number of reasons. First of all, show me an adult that wants to live in poverty. Secondly, where do we draw the line between childhood and adulthood?

Does an impoverished 17 year old assume responsibility for their poverty on their 18th birthday? What about their 20th? 25th? At what age can we expect their lifetime of accumulated knowledge, experience, habits, etc. to deliver them from poverty? Is it simply the age when they decide that they no longer want to be poor and, thus, take the requisite actions to ensure their escape from poverty?

Instead of basing our (American) assumptions about moral responsibility, as it relates to poverty, on our religious heritage (i.e. the atavistic Protestant ethic), why don’t we abandon our assumptions altogether and simply consult the data (as the author of the linked book excerpt suggests)?

Emergent fields of research such as neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, and so forth offer a far different perspective than the simplistic view I alluded to above. It’s understandable that some might prefer a worldview that justifies the status quo and assuages the cognitive dissonance associated with life in a highly stratified society, but that’s no longer an empirically-defensible position. We should all work to make that fact known, as is the OP’s source.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#124

Post by imtringued »

ailideex wrote: post #65
ska wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either people have agency ... Or things are more nuanced than this view allows. What if people in general have some agency, but not always enough to counteract the larger scale actions that affect them?

> What if people in general have some agency, but not always enough to counteract the larger scale actions that affect them? Would one of those actions be the urge to have sex? If not then not sure what we are talking about here. I think the majority of people who have children they can't provide for bear the responsibility for that and I don't really see where in that you want to plug your nuance - but if you have s…

It is very easy to point at a poor person and make up a random reason why they are poor. (It's not like anyone will spend resources on validating your claim.)

It is very difficult to look at a random average person and predict whether they will become poor within the next 2 decades.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#125

Post by imtringued »

opportune wrote: post #99
rb808 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> section 8 housing and how that would change everything Sorry can you clarify - do you mean she wanted to be eligible? Or was eligible but couldn't find a suitable place. I've always wondered if buying a property to rent to section 8 tenants is a good idea or not. (investment wise or charity wise)

Relative did this and found it was not a good move. Usually the types of places that rent to section 8 tenants have very high cap ratios assuming you collect rent every month... just think for a bit why other investors leave those on the table considering how financially advantageous that would be. Ok I’ll spoil it a bit: first, you still have to do maintenance on these places like fixing the roof, plumbing, etc. and…

I am constantly thinking about ways to find a satisfying solution to these problems. I feel like China is one of the few countries that actually managed to do it. It's not just about having an export surplus. Before they could export anything they still had to build the factories and get workers to move there.

I think the answer is to find a way to drag up a limited group of people as high as possible and then use the gains from those people to drag up the rest to a medium level of wealth. The conventional theory of trickle down economics completely ignores the second step. It's just an excuse to not do anything.

From what I can tell changing an existing community gradually is possible but it will take much longer than creating an entirely new but also well designed community. Find (or slowly create) a highly successful city and try to build another city that follows the same success model. This is probably a good answer for many developing countries but may not be enough in an already developed country.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#126

Post by Shorel »

opportune wrote: post #99
rb808 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> section 8 housing and how that would change everything Sorry can you clarify - do you mean she wanted to be eligible? Or was eligible but couldn't find a suitable place. I've always wondered if buying a property to rent to section 8 tenants is a good idea or not. (investment wise or charity wise)

Relative did this and found it was not a good move. Usually the types of places that rent to section 8 tenants have very high cap ratios assuming you collect rent every month... just think for a bit why other investors leave those on the table considering how financially advantageous that would be. Ok I’ll spoil it a bit: first, you still have to do maintenance on these places like fixing the roof, plumbing, etc. and…

Ohh, la estrategia del caracol.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#127

Post by imtringued »

asdff wrote: post #111
zozbot234 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relative poverty is really a proxy for social exclusion/marginalization. You don't solve "poverty" by giving people more money, you solve it by strenghtening local communities, building solid institutions and enhancing social capital. This is the best foundation for solid middle-class values, which in turn are the catalyst for self-sustaining growth in incomes. (Of course meaning "poverty" in this relative sense, as…

What does this mean in practice? In Los Angeles, local communities are some of the strongest in the world. No one would say that poverty is solved, this city is known as the city of the working poor.

It may sound obvious but why not build a second Los Angeles?

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#128

Post by wang_li »

imtringued wrote: post #121
wang_li wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't live in a post scarcity society. As such it's not possible to support every kid to a high standard of living unless you limit the number of kids. I also want to point out that they don't pay taxes to their city, county, state, and country. There have been several studies by the CBO[0 - see the chart on page 31] that show that the lower 60% of households are not net tax payers at the federal level to such an…

I don't know why you decided to contradict yourself. You say they don't pay taxes and then the taxes they pay don't offset the benefits they receive which are two completely different things. Clearly they are paying taxes and a redistribution scheme takes money from the top income and transfers it to lower income by definition. There is nothing surprising about this. You're also forgetting that those workers exist. B…

When I was a child my parents would give me $20 to go to the movies. I would go purchase the ticket from the cashier. I was literally the ticket buyer, but I was not the ticket payer.

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#129

Post by d10r »

sershe wrote: post #113
Spooky23 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What awful point of view. What's the consequence for being deemed unsuitable? Who determines that you are unworthy of reproduction? What other fundamental rights should unsuitable people be deprived of?

How is having children a fundamental right? It's a hobby. In fact, in this case I'd consider it worse than many other hobbies because you are making another person, statistically speaking, suffer because you want to have a pet project that you cannot afford.

Oh yes, lets get back to discussing eugenics instead of discussing our slow descent back into feudalism which creates such issues in the first place. This discussion has already made good progress 100 years ago. Then something happened and suddenly stopped it. Don't remember what it was...

Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand

#130

Post by Frondo »

wang_li wrote: post #94
Frondo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you justify tapping the productivity of a Boeing working in Renton... Well, the direct answer is: these are all Americans, and all pay some kind of tax to their city, county, state, and ultimately the country, in theory so they can draw on the shared resources of the nation. That's how you justify supporting the kid in Mississippi and not the kid in Cambodia. As for rationally holding the belief that people…

We don't live in a post scarcity society. As such it's not possible to support every kid to a high standard of living unless you limit the number of kids. I also want to point out that they don't pay taxes to their city, county, state, and country. There have been several studies by the CBO[0 - see the chart on page 31] that show that the lower 60% of households are not net tax payers at the federal level to such an…

We do not live in a post-scarcity society, but the US is rich enough to guarantee every child a standard of living that includes adequate food, shelter, and education.

When these discussions come up, I often think about this simple chart:

https://i.redd.it/pg5w8ws3b0o31.jpg

If the distribution of wealth, i.e. access to resources, were what 92% of Americans considered ideal, we'd need the minimal social programs you seem to want, and your low-wage worker in Renton would probably pay nothing to support a poor kid in Mississippi.

The current wealth scheme in the US is very much a consequence of US politics, i.e. taxation, wage laws, etc., it's not a natural state of being. (There is no natural state of being for a society.) What we have now is the result of choices made over a long time; getting different results, so you'd never be on the hook for someone in Mississippi, would take different choices from society, not just you declaring that we cannot afford and therefore should end social programs.

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