I've been poor all my life, the thought of having money laying around scares me, I should invest, but giving it away like that scares me even more.
I'm moving next week and part of my reserves will be gone, and weirdly enough I'm relieved that someone else will take care of it. I don't feel fit to handle it.
Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
141–150 of 225 posts
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why limit Elon Musk - who is arguably ensuring the long-term survivability of our species - for some arbitrary target like absolute equality? Why is a powerful bureaucrat with no money more desirable to you than a rich entrepreneur that had to prove his value before attaining reward? What is wrong with the youth have little-to-no savings and the elderly/about-to-retire having significant wealth and assets?
Is Elon Musk doing that? Or the engineers who work for him?
Elon Musk carried a lot of the financial risk to get the company into the position it is in now. The engineers did not. Funny how risk is always completely neglected in these "entrepreneur bad, engineers good" narratives.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#143Please note that this study is in the context of extreme poverty in populations such as rural villages in Bangladesh. It’s an interesting study and worth reading if you’re interested in what it takes to lift these populations out of poverty. The authors propose that their extreme poverty is a meta-stable state that prevents them from accessing wealth-building opportunities. The authors show that time-limited wealth t…
For developed nations there are many other studies.
As a starting point, here is infographic: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-social-mobility-...
Countries in the top 20 are "The Lands of Opportunity" where family background matters less compared to 21-40. Cheap, high quality education, healthcare, and inclusive institutions matter.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#144These conclusions apply to the third world, not the rest of us. Here in Europe for example, anyone can study and become an entrepreneur (I did it, with pretty much 0 wealth in the family).
Does this mean that poverty, in the first world at least, is a solved problem and being poor is a choice for those remaining in poverty?
No, obviously some people are forced to stay poor by special circumstances, but in many cases it's just life choices (trade-offs) or ignorance.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#145These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
You are so focused on economic inequality that you ignore the greater picture: there will still be a hierarchy. There will still be humans dominating other humans and asserting themselves above them. Maybe in the far future humans will create a social technology to live in true equality but in the immediate future this is clearly not happening. As long as there is a hierarchy, you cannot really have equality, sorry.…
It is not the existence of hierarchy that is the problem. It is the type of hierarchy and the effects of that hierarchy. The parent and the study argue that we should give greater resources to those with the least resources in such a way as to broaden access to opportunities.
You can argue that is not worth the expense (it costs X to produce Y outcome and redistributing X would lead to negative impact Z. Y + Z results in a net loss to society). But it seems hard to argue that inequality or hierarchy is inevitable so we should not even try to ameliorate the negative effects of that structure or imagine different ones.
To me, the “inequality inevitable” mindset seems like a frequent way those who benefited from the existing system rationalize not sacrificing anything to help less fortunate people. I am very sympathetic to arguments that redistribution is not effective, but the debate should be about what is or is not effective. “Inequality inevitable” sidesteps that and asks that we just give up before even trying or imagining different possibilities because we’ve failed in the past. It is hard to not see such arguments as a misguided effort to rationalize one’s self interest.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#146For those that believe people are poor because they did not work hard, I am curious what importance you attribute parenting to the outcomes of children? Every parent I know invests a significant amount of time and often money in raising their children, and there is a significant amount of empirical evidence that parents play a significant role in how children develop. Do you simply believe the evidence to the contrar…
> There is a significant amount of empirical evidence that parents play a significant role in how children develop.
I would like to see this. As I understand, Judith Harris wrote The Nurture Assumption in 1998, and it still stands.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#147Please note that this study is in the context of extreme poverty in populations such as rural villages in Bangladesh. It’s an interesting study and worth reading if you’re interested in what it takes to lift these populations out of poverty. The authors propose that their extreme poverty is a meta-stable state that prevents them from accessing wealth-building opportunities. The authors show that time-limited wealth t…
I find it hard not to come to the conclusion that similar mechanisms are at work when you see for instance the economic situation of Afro-Americans in the United States.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#148Here's interesting observation by by Nobel prize-winners Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo:
"We have already seen, in the previous chapter, another example of people who had lucrative opportunities to save but did not use them: the fruit vendors from Chennai, who borrowed about 1,000 rupees ($45.75 USD PPP) each morning at the rate of 4.69 percent per day. Suppose that the vendors decided to drink two fewer cups of tea for three days. This would save them 5 rupees a day, which could be used to cut down on the amount they would have to borrow. After the first day with less tea, they would have to borrow 5 rupees less. This means that at the end of the second day, they would have to repay 5.23 rupees less (the 5 rupees they did not borrow, plus 23 paisas in interest), which, when added to the 5 rupees they saved that second day by again drinking less tea, would allow them to borrow 10.23 rupees less. By the same logic, by the fourth day, they would have 15.71 rupees that they could use for buying fruit instead of borrowing. Now, say they go back to drinking their two cups more tea but continue to plough the 15.71 rupees they had saved from three days of not drinking so much tea back into the business (that is, borrowing that much less). That accumulated amount continues to grow (just as the 10 rupees had turned into 10.71 after two days) and after exactly ninety days, they would be completely debt-free. They would save 40 rupees a day, which is the equivalent of about half a day’s wages. All just for the price of six cups of tea! The point is that these vendors are sitting under what appears to be as close to a money tree as we are likely to find anywhere. Why don’t they shake it a bit more?"
From "Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty"
https://www.amazon.com.au/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-...
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#149These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
It's not just about "rewarding", or giving out high paying position to who we want to. There are real and difficult things to do in the world that some other people need. They (employers, clients, customers) decide that this work is so important to them that they exchange money for it. Then the person can use that earned money to improve their life. For example if a top surgeon flies to a different country to do a di…
Agree with everything you said on the surface. Sounds reasonable. Of course we want the surgeon to be prepared for his job. It's important.
But then there are those in this thread arguing that Elon Musk's reward should be unlimited because he's "arguably ensuring the long-term survivability of our species." Wow, that sounds very important. I guess he should have the most money then.
Nevermind the fact that the majority of his wealth is literally gained by "sitting in a chair and taking cash". That's the job of a capitalist after all - they don't work for their money, they sit in a chair and let the ownership of assets make them money. I mean, sure he's "doing things" but are the things he's doing worth $140 billion? What has he "done" in the last 9 months that made him $88 billion richer? Is the planet saved yet?
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have an answer off the top of my head, but I did some searching for you. A short article from inequality.org [1] suggests that most of the richest people in the world (Forbes 400) were born with significant financial advantages, if they weren't already wealthy. Since there are many more rich people than the Forbes 400, that doesn't seem too representative of the usual rich person. It's hard to find anything c…
Those “born on first base” — in upper-class families, with inheritances up to $1 million — make up 22 percent of the 400. [1] I wouldn’t call 22% of the richest 400 people in the world having inherited more than $1M to be evidence inheritance dominates the causes of inequity. I mean, another way to put it is “80% of the richest people in the world DID NOT inherit their wealth.” [1] https://ips-dc.org/the_self-made_ha…
Not to mention that thanks to the government, $1M is a one bedroom apartment in SF. So these people want to give them more power over our resources?! crazy.