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Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#231

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

Tommek wrote: post #214

Why do these articles always start with a story about a person? I see this in nearly all articles from american news papers. It's strange. Seems like a paper from a young student who needs to get his 3000 wordcount. It just bloats the article and makes it difficult to get the information out of it.

Many writers still get paid by the word or they get an assignment that requires X number of words.

Some of the worst offenders are magazine writers. I've read articles that go on and on and yet say nothing.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#232

Post by oblio »

toofy wrote: post #151
TangoTrotFox wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire farming industry is distorted. It's much more subsidized and controlled than most industries. For instance we literally pay some farmers not to grow food. And at times when harvests are high the government will prevent farmers from marketing some portion of their harvest which, in extreme cases, can mean that food simply ends up getting destroyed. It's all about extreme manipulation of supply to try to con…

> For instance we literally pay some farmers not to grow food. And at times when harvests are high the government will prevent farmers from marketing some portion of their harvest which, in extreme cases, can mean that food simply ends up getting destroyed Wait, so they are intentionally keeping food prices higher by paying people to not grow food? I mean, I understand that we need farmers and dipping food price mark…

It's most likely from the Grand Depression, when farmers were literally throwing away food because of over production. Subsidies smooth out production cycles and keep farmers in business.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#233

Post by kingofhdds »

pwm wrote: post #206
throwaway8879 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't make them intelligent at all. This idea that there should always be fairness and equality in existence is very naive.

What’s wrong with the idea of sharing?

Nothing, unless you force a dog which hunted its bone to share it with one who slept the whole day, and call it "equality".

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#234

Post by kijin »

sanxiyn wrote: post #173
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #170

America is a country of huge wealth. Wealthy in natural resources, capital equipment, labor ... fucking everything. And yet we have such terrible poverty. When I read stories about poor people in America, always there is lurking just below the surface the key element of scarcity. Not food. Not transportation. Not clothing. Not even, surprisingly, health care. The missing factor in all these broken lives is the simple…

Yes, it's all about density. Source: living in South Korea.

Exactly. There are almost no American-style "single-family homes" in South Korean cities, except in very wealthy or very poor neighborhoods.

There needs to be a certain amount of communal spirit in your culture in order to make this work, though. People have to be comfortable with spending most of their time in common spaces such as parks, pubs, and Starbucks instead of hanging out in their own backyard. They also need to be willing to spend money (both publicly and privately) to keep those common spaces in good order.

This might become a non-issue even in America, though, as more and more people just sit in bed and stare at their phones instead of going out.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#235

Post by gepi79 »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #170

America is a country of huge wealth. Wealthy in natural resources, capital equipment, labor ... fucking everything. And yet we have such terrible poverty. When I read stories about poor people in America, always there is lurking just below the surface the key element of scarcity. Not food. Not transportation. Not clothing. Not even, surprisingly, health care. The missing factor in all these broken lives is the simple…

The problem in the USA is lack of morality.

The lack of morality to vote for decent politicians. Why do US citizens claim to want medicare for all but vote for Democrats or Republicans who do not want medicare for all ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX5GSClA8z4&t=207

The lack of morality that private property should be spent to help other persons in need.

The lack of morality that allows an insane military budget and immoral lies and crimes and murder in other countries by political and military and economic warfare.

https://chomsky.info/1990____-2/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-...

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#236

Post by bshoemaker »

blacksoil wrote: post #141

The lady in the example is 33 has a diabetes, 3 kids to support, and presumably also have to support for her disabled mother. To make the matter even more sad she had no higher level education. I can imagine how hard and tough it is for her. But I don't think raising the minimum wage or a mandated salary increase/promotion is the real solution here. The real solutions would be to: 1. Educate parents on the importance…

The US is not a developing country, it's the most wealthy country in the world. This comparison does not seem useful.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#237

Post by EliRivers »

burfog wrote: post #86
bsder wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. True. But we also have lots of studies showing that the best of the lowest socioeconomic class almost never do better than the laziest of the uppermost socioeconomic class.

We have social mobility, not a social lottery. Moving all the way from the bottom to the top might take a couple generations, which will obviously involve needing to win at a fierce competition. That looks an awful lot like a meritocracy.

I understand the US has very low social mobility, which would imply that if it is a meritocracy, it's a very bad one.

As an aside, when the word "meritocracy" was coined, it wasn't considered a good thing. It was a bad thing.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#238

Post by dgudkov »

noobermin wrote: post #18

It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Similarly, if you are born to very well off standards, even if you're a dope and spend money from Dad's inheritance on cocaine, sure, you won't be successful but you'll still have a net of some kind. You ca…

>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder.

This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best time ever to self-educate.

Once in a while I walk past a person selling pens/begging for money in my neighborhood. I always wonder how much he could've learnt and improved his life if he spent his time on learning instead of sitting on a bench and begging for money. I have sympathy for people that are poor due to unbearable circumstances such as mental illness or disability. But I honestly don't understand why an otherwise capable person won't make an effort to self-educate in order to break out of poverty.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#239

Post by peterwwillis »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #195
ojii wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why hasn't the market solved this problem? Maybe "the market" is not a good tool to solve inequality.

Solving inequality goes against everything in nature. The market is as close to an evolutionary natural state as we can get.

We develop drugs and medical practices to artificially extend our lives. We build gigantic civilizations and trade goods around the globe. We take the coffee beans from a farmer in a poor nation undergoing drought, pay that farmer between $0.07-$0.50 per kilo of coffee, and then sell that kilo in a coffee shop (after roasting and brewing) for about $70.

We aren't natural. We don't need natural evolutionary states. We need unnatural, human-oriented, ethical states.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#240

Post by vermooten »

Tommek wrote: post #214

Why do these articles always start with a story about a person? I see this in nearly all articles from american news papers. It's strange. Seems like a paper from a young student who needs to get his 3000 wordcount. It just bloats the article and makes it difficult to get the information out of it.

It brings it alive - sounds corny, I know, but it's true. The article depressed me, which had it just been a piece about statistics and policy statements would have left me cold.

Interested to know why you're not interested in the human angle.

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