Chicken or egg
- Thread starter Marvin the Martian
- Start date
I think what you mean to say is you have no freaking clue what I am asking.
Does poverty create a situation that makes one less marketable?
If so, what solutions are available?
Quoting a failed comedian on a subject not asked above does not advance debate.
Grow up. I didn't lecture you at all. If you really pulled yourself up, then you have my congratulations. Many, many people are and will be unable to pull themselves up, no matter what you did (if you really did it).
Your reply does nothing but deflect by asking irrelevant questions amounting to a personal attack. I hope everybody notices that you deflect by asking "What is your proposal?" when the truth is that your own Posts 11, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, 33 and 37 don't offer any solutions. You had more chances to be a brilliant statesman. You go first.
You start by saying I don't know "everybody" without establishing that you know "anybody" or have any experience at all with being in poverty. Sorry, but people that have no experience in it grate me a bit when they act like they care more about it than me. You can go first on your solutions, or you can "stuff" it.
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And another thing - don't fricking give me the "if you really did it" BS. I'm not doubting you on whatever the hell you did in your life, though you haven't said what that is yet . . .
i don't doubt you either, but you shouldn't act like you're the unchallengeable poverty expert on this board just because you say so (particularly when you raise numerous detailed issues but offer no solutions). State your point, prove it and refrain from the personal attacks and Trumpish bragging. If you do that, I'd certainly consider it.
I have never proclaimed to be an "unchallengeable poverty expert." I've merely discussed the issue as someone that has experienced it. It's only truth that I find it particularly grating for those that have never wanted for anything to act like they care more about it than I do. If that's not you, I apologize. Maybe I was mistaken.
Ah yes. Thought we might be making progress, but Aloha Hoosier says, "What about Stuffshot?" Why are we not surprised by his habit of deflection?
Really? Progress on what? Let's go back to your first post in the thread when you said, "well, you don't know everyone [that has experienced poverty], so your anecdotes are only barely helpful." Then you went on to provide . . . some anecdotes. Anecdotes you haven't even witnessed or experienced first hand. What was your point? Did you have some policy position to propose? If so I missed it and I apologize again.
I would agree we've done a decent job about providing a floor for today's poor. But keeping it is and will continue to be a fight. I know that I'm at the poor end of the scale among those here. While I've been able to stay away from direct public assistance, the only thing that's kept me from abject poverty is the ACA. I think it will survive long enough for me to make it to Medicare (the wife got there last year), but I worry for those like me but younger who would have it taken from them if the Pubs had their way.
When I first got here three years ago or so, there was widespread condemnation of people like me who needed and depended on Obamacare. Even the bootstrappers viewed us as a drain. I have the impression (may be wrong) that some of that disdain has been tamped down since I got here, even if no minds have been changed. Making things human makes people pause. It's easier to make blanket statements about "the poor" being lazy and stupid and undeserving than it is to say that about Uncle Mark to his "face". (I think the only one that had the balls to do so was mjv/JDB.)
Well, that's a whole different bag of potato chips, of course. The first step, which I think was Mark's point, and which you seemed to be (unintentionally, of course) overlooking was the importance of recognizing that poverty is not necessarily something that people do to themselves. It can be, of course. But it can also be something that just happens to people through no fault of their own.
Which I think is critically important to answering your question: how do we deal with it? Because I think moving forward, as we inch toward a mostly automated post-scarcity economy, we are going to see it becoming more and more difficult to escape poverty. I think - assuming we keep a generally capitalist system - that wealth will be increasingly captured by owners. We will therefore need an artificial mechanism to redistribute a small portion of that wealth to the rest of society, not only to help alleviate abject poverty, but also to keep the economy humming. After all, the rich ownership class won't be able to maintain their wealth solely by selling to other rich owners. Having everyone own at least enough wealth to be a consumer is good for all members of the economy, rich and poor alike.
I think the long-term solution is obvious. Again, assuming we keep a generally capitalist system, I think we will end up painting a small veneer of socialism on top of it, through the use of a universal basic income. I think this income will be enough to provide everyone with necessities, but not enough to discourage people from working hard to gain some level of comfort and luxury. And while I imagine we will need programs for emergency situations, and will also provide certain things on a public level (I think universal health care is inevitable, for example), I also think this basic income will replace most forms of welfare.
However, that's how I imagine the economy looking, say, several decades from now. We're not to post-scarcity yet. We can smell it, but we can't quite touch it. So working through the transition between now and then will be the tricky part. How do we make sure that, when we do finally get there, we don't already have a small upper class and a giant lower class, with a gaping chasm between them where the middle class once was? I'm not sure. Sort of like the South Park underwear gnomes, I can see there are three stages in this process, but the middle stage is just a giant question mark for me.
I think that study begs the question. By that I mean the study focuses on people who are already "heavily budgeted" and live not in abject poverty, but certainly live month to month; hand to mouth, or paycheck to paycheck. Some people live this way because of circumstances beyond their individual control. Others live this way because of prior poor decisions about education, health, drugs, and crime.
I am very surprised, if not shocked, by the statistic that 71% of young potential military recruits are disqualified from joining up because of obesity, poor education, drugs, and/or criminal history. These young people are on their way to lives of poverty. Each of these issues are the result of individual choice. These young people as adults, seem to be the subjects of the study. Granted, the bad choices may be the result of poor parenting, poor neighborhoods, or gangs and high crimes. That said, there are still choices to be made. We've proven to ourselves that the War on Poverty isn't changing things. Relieving people of individual responsibility by making the safety net wider and deeper doesn't seem to help. In fact, these causes of poverty seem to be getting worse. Others in the country soar with high education, motivation, and achievement. These people are mired in disfunction and poverty, largely having to do with choices made by many people over generations. Yeah, it could be evolutionary, but not in the direction you suggest.
I have data that shows anti poverty programs were successful in south eastern KY even while the Republicans were successfully defunding the programs. You could try telling your story using objective facts..
You should read Elijah Anderson on the politics of eye contact. What makes you think poor people do not know how to navigate their own neighbourhood?
Of course part of that study wasn't in the US, it was on sugar cane growers in India. In that part of the study, people's IQ seemed to drop when they had the least amount of money to survive on. It went back up after harvest and they were flush with money. So it wouldn't surprise me that from the cash poor parts of America you find people making bad judgments. If that study is accurate, we would expect poorer people to make worse judgments overall. It seems your argument bolsters the study.
Bad decisions are a part of it because many don't know what the good decisions are. All they've seen are the bad ones so they do what they know. This is why I've volunteered for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for years. These kids need good role models and they need someone to help them make good decisions. It's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done outside of my own marriage and family. I recommend that some of you guys give it a try.
Was it yellow or brown mustard on that mustard sandwich?
That is a good point, some people just have never been taught and role models that can teach those things would be a great help.
What is the metric for success in places like Harlan County?
I don’t doubt that the War on Poverty has helped many people. But overall the poverty rates have not appreciably changed for decades except for those over 65. And there are reasons for that in addition to WOP legislation
I agree. It’s pretty much undisputed that poor people make poor choices. I see that every time I look at the grocery carts in my local urban Walmart. But the point not studied is the choices that lead people into poverty. Do young people not study STEM disciplines because they are poor? There is a lot of social issues besides poverty that are part of the mix that lead to poor decisions. I don’t understand “cash poor” in this context. Is there another kind of poor that is relevant?
LOL. Yeah, they're called Social Security (minimum basic income) and Medicare (universal health care).
I think big brothers and big sisters are wonderful. I commend you for putting your time and effort to where it does the most good.
The over 65’s in the 60’s grew up on farms in the depression. They were dirt poor and they are now dead. They have been replaced by the greatest generation and the boomers who grew up and worked in boom times. The over 65 poverty rate was bound to change. I don’t disagree about Medicare and SS, but that isn’t the whole story.
Cash poor is probably the wrong words since it covers what I am trying to exclude. I have a coworker with very large investments who never wants to touch them. I get that, but his complaints about being poor sort of fall on deaf ears when he pretty much built a $350,000 home paying cash (he technically used credit cards so he could get the cash back and paid them off pretty much as soon as the charge hit). I would exclude whatever kind of poor he thinks he is (and his salary is above the US median, so even though he thinks of it as poor it isn't).
I think so? I am not sure. I think he was exceedingly taught the value of every penny, the result is a tremendous concern over every penny. It must work for him, he does have that savings. At the same point I think it is a large part of his hypertension problem.
It is unquestionably iterative. How do we break this? Education. How do we implement equitable education? It starts with cultural acceptance of education, which is far less among poor people, regardless of gender or geographic location.
I agree, it's interesting that that topic has engendered very little commentary . . . my sense is that few, if any, of us have thought about it.
When one is in a crisis they, pretty much by definition, they devote pretty much all of their energies and focus to resolving that crisis. When the crisis is chronic, like poverty, the devotion of energies and focus on solving - or just coping with - the crisis generally precludes one the opportunity to use energy and focus - brain power - to develop new brain pathways and new ways of thinking by focusing on something other than the crisis . . .
. . . on the other hand, for some folks the crisis can cause that person to think in ways other than what the crisis' limitations are, so they can escape - or transcend - those limitations. They find a way to be creative. What causes one person to transcend while most remain captive to the limitations . . . that's the magic bullet that keeps eluding us from a policy perspective, isn't it?
BTW, one of the great quotes from Hillbilly Elegy is Vance's extended family's insistence that he not confuse knowledge and intelligence; one can have similar or even superior intelligence without having the same knowledge as someone else.
Why don't you give us a quick summary of Anderson's observations.
BTW, are you in a British former colony or in Britain proper? I noticed your use of the "u" in "neighbourhood" above.
Oh brother . . . what a bunch of hogwash . . . .
You'd be better off breaking this down along gender lines for a better analysis. Girls generally are far more adept at valuing education than boys when the educational opportunities are primarily available . . . I firmly believe that's in part because we have so few men as teachers any more (making education perceived as a feminine activity), and in part because the educational system doesn't value recess - the opportunity for boys to burn some of their pent up physical energy - as much as it used to. Plus the maturity horizons for girls and boys are different with boys' brains often not fully maturing until age 25.
Wait a second, are you telling me that poor communities (rural or urban) hold education to the same standard as those in the middle and upper class? If the parents don't care about education, you would expect child performance and educational longevity to be sub-par relative to the average child. I don't see how it is debatable that lack of education is a root cause of being poor?
I agree with your take on gender differences, but fail to see how that applies to the original response. Wouldn't gender differences occur across socioeconomic groups?
I read your link, but can't access the study itself. There is so little information in your link that it's impossible (for me) to assess whether the conclusions make sense. Personally, I tend to view any study that purports to measure variations in "IQ" (whatever that is) with skepticism.
Then there's the question of the relationship between "IQ" and most anything else.
If having a money crisis can lower one's IQ, then the IQ measurement is absolutely not accurate to begin with....
Regarding poverty and decision making, poverty limits the decisions that you get to make. An 18 year old with money in his background is afforded more opportunities/decisions to make. An 18 year old from the poors in 1967 went to Vietnam...
There's really no chicken or egg argument here. It's a proven fact that poverty normally casts a long shadow that darkens multiple generations. I personally know people from my hometown of Utica, Indiana who have been in poverty for decades and from the looks of it, will continue to be.
Who do you people think is enrolling in IU this year?? Do you think it's a bunch of poor 18 year olds from poverty stricken families?? Of course not, on the low end it's kids like my sister. She went to IU in 1988, dad worked at Ford Motor Co. in Louisville on the line. Nothing fancy there but still plenty enough money to send her away.
Regarding poverty and decision making, poverty limits the decisions that you get to make. An 18 year old with money in his background is afforded more opportunities/decisions to make. An 18 year old from the poors in 1967 went to Vietnam...
There's really no chicken or egg argument here. It's a proven fact that poverty normally casts a long shadow that darkens multiple generations. I personally know people from my hometown of Utica, Indiana who have been in poverty for decades and from the looks of it, will continue to be.
Who do you people think is enrolling in IU this year?? Do you think it's a bunch of poor 18 year olds from poverty stricken families?? Of course not, on the low end it's kids like my sister. She went to IU in 1988, dad worked at Ford Motor Co. in Louisville on the line. Nothing fancy there but still plenty enough money to send her away.
The inescapability of poverty weighs so heavily on the author that s/he abandons long-term planning entirely, because the short-term needs are so great and the long-term gains so implausible. The train is just not coming. What if the psychology of poverty, which can appear so irrational to those not in poverty, is actually "the most rational response to a world of chaos and unpredictable outcomes," he wrote.
Nice article and goes to the point. I think this thinking is why the lottery is so big, people can't plan to move from abject poverty to wealth so the go for the hail Mary pass. Desperation circumvents some of the normal processes.
In the US, this probably is shown a lot with the working poor. Many of our most poor have serious issues beyond poverty, a significant percentage of homeless have mental issues and/or drug issues. Those enact their own toll. Thanks for the find.
The cheap yellow kind, of course.Was it yellow or brown mustard on that mustard sandwich?
I don't think that article helps solve the chicken or egg problem at all.
I have considerable experience with mentoring and supervising young lawyers as well as observing and talking with other young lawyers. The kind of law practice in the community I worked in boiled down to you can only eat what you kill. Meaning that if you didn't or wouldn't work long hours, or beat the bushes for new business, or a combination thereof, you didn't eat. Some lawyers had an aptitude for hard work, others had an aptitude for attracting business, others had both, still others felt entitled to comfortable incomes and sat in the office doing nothing until the clients picked them out of the phone book based on their yellow page ad. The latter group was always waiting for the train. The former 2 groups went down to tracks to meet the train.
The point is that no matter what your situation, background, wealth, or chosen occupation, there are those who wait for the train and those who don't.
I'm not so naive to think that education and status doesn't matter. It certainly does. A lawyer or a doctor can wait for the train and likely live better than a high school dropout no matter how hard the dropout works. But the point is that no matter where you are on poverty/wealth scale there are choices to be made to improve your situation. The poor and disadvantaged might not know what to do, and there is where social services comes in. Not to provide a permanent safety net so that there is no need to meet the train, but in terms of how and where to look for the train. Like the story about teaching a person to fish.
