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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

#341

Post by burnmaster »

--- ARTICLE FORMULA ----

> Storytelling: 90%

A narrative about how one family's poor choices have resulted in negative outcomes and ultimately, suffering.

> Argument: 5%

Lack of wealth and systemic ethnic persecution result in poor choices by victims. Negative outcomes result. As does suffering.

> Solution 5%

Give more money to people who are both suffering and poor.

Do not address the role that personal choices will or have influenced their own suffering.

Do not address personal accountability.

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

#342

Post by kgwgk »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #311
anoncoward111 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll call you inhumane then. Despite record employment levels and rising average net worth in the USA, millions of people are still starving and struggling with drug addictions and so on. Averages and generalizations only tell a portion of the story. Anecdotes can shed light on "noise".

There was a time (or at least so I'm told) when having a job meant you could build a living, own a house, support a family. So we the started looking at employment percentages as a measure for the quality of the economy. This incentivizes increasing employment percentage. An easy way to do that is by decreasing the value of a job. Suddenly it doesn't ensure you can build a living, own a home, support a family anymore…

When was that time when any job meant you could own a house and support a family?

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

#343

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

ionised wrote: post #326
throwaway8879 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing resources with other people has absolutely nothing to do with being intelligent.

Why not? We are a social species that attained our dominant position on the planet through co-operation.

In fact we're a social species on top of an interconnected ecosystem which only started being interesting when cells worked out how to cooperate.

All complex life on earth exists because of cooperation. Competition drives some feature drift, but the biggest step changes happened because of the increase in complexity made possible by cooperation.

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

#344

Post by ionised »

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.

The US is among the worst of the developed nations for social mobility.

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

#345

Post by amelius »

perfunctory wrote: post #291
neilwilson wrote: post #148

If there are only 19 bones for every 20 dogs, then it doesn't matter how good a bone hunter they all are there will always be one dog disappointed and the other 19 will be grateful for the bone no matter how thin and weedy it is. Systemically the 'interest rate targeting' approach starts to tighten up policy when unemployment gets below 5% - which they consider 'full employment' even though 1 in 20 haven't got jobs.…

> Thus in the not too remote future, the rate of interest would have to be negative and income tax would have to be replaced by an income subsidy. Interesting. We definitely have negative interest rates in some places by now. Now waiting for the income subsidy.

I'd like to see a simulation of this scenario.

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

#346

Post by throwaway8879 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #334
throwaway8879 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I can eliminate that dog so I don't have to share my 5% of the kill every single time.

Or the other dogs can pack together to eliminate you. Considering the number of times this has happened in human history, any ideas of kingly invincibility you may have are unlikely to be realistic.

That's completely fine. The problem with this entire thread is the thought that there is some kind of inherent value to human life. There isn't.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It's the nature of any gamble, and life certainly is one.

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

#347

Post by ekianjo »

achow wrote: post #241
ekianjo wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible poverty? Well much less poverty than in about 95 percent of the planet so everything is relative. Now, the market cannot solve a problem that is linked to human nature. Humans like living in dense areas rather than on the top of mountains, so space will be more and more expansive as density increase. Nothing unusual. Density also brings more jobs and more commerce so this is a cycle that goes with it. This b…

OP makes it very clear cheap space where it matters, where people need it: "NIMBY" and "neighborhood character".

Its never going to be cheap where it matters. Look at Tokyo, there are a lot of new appartment towers built every single year but prices dont go down because demand is always high. At best you can stabilize prices but cheap is unrealistic.

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

#348

Post by sheepmullet »

mick87 wrote: post #282
sheepmullet wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market did solve the problem and then we blew it by undermining the family unit so we have people dependent on the state with no significant family support. Good point. In my birth country you must support your elderly parents by law. Even without the law 99% of families would. The idea that the government should do it seems crazy. The government only needs to step in where the elderly have no family, are unabl…

From my point of view, that you have to support your elderly sounds crazy. Here most elderly either gets support in their own home by professionals (by the local government) or at a home with professional care (run by the local government). I'd rather spend time with my family on our own terms and not because I have to support them.

> Here most elderly either gets support in their own home by professionals

That’s common as well if they can mostly look after themselves and only need say a weekly visit from a nurse.

I think the only difference is the children are expected to pay.

It’s maybe half live with their kids and the rest live independently.

> or at a home with professional care

This is common when they need full time care. But this is usually only a small % and not for long.

And again the kids pay.

> I'd rather spend time with my family on our own terms and not because I have to support them.

That’s one way to think about it.

My perspective is my parents supported me for 16 years and so I have a duty to support them.

I think it is good for character, helps people to appreciate life, and helps build meaningful relationships. It also means grandparents get to spend lots of time with their grandchildren.

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

#349

Post by michaelt »

chkdsk wrote: post #147
nitwit005 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine an extremely simplified model where all immigrants to a city are experienced taxi drivers. There's more demand for goods, but probably only a small uptick in demand for taxis. The supply of available taxi drivers has gone way up however.

So you believe taxi drivers never need to use taxis?

A taxi driver generates 8 hours per day of rides.

While taxi drivers sometimes consume rides, I can't imagine anyone thinks they consume 8 hours a day of rides?

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

#350

Post by Asooka »

tialaramex wrote: post #293

Both article and (so far) HN comments manage to avoid the phrase Protestant Work Ethic. The Protestant Work Ethic is a belief that work itself is inherently a good idea, usually because it is in some sense desirable by God, but this idea has outlasted mainstream confidence in the Protestant idea of a personal God. If you reject the PWE then very different possibilities emerge and in particular "full employment" stops…

Protestant work ethic would also absolutely recognise taking care of your family as "work". In fact, it would recognise nearly anything that keeps you non-idle and isn't done purely for pleasure as work. The requirement to be employed in order to receive social help is really weird, it should also factor in any elderly parents and children to take care of. Even from the point of view of complete utilitarianism aiming for maximum workforce, helping parents raise children is a net gain because those children will grow up to be workers, at least until they themselves have children to take care of.
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