Why do you think people are poor?

http://harpers.org/archive/1997/09/0074349

by pron • 14 years ago

323 279 14 years ago

harpers.org

tgrass• 14 years ago

[September 1997]

[Edit] and still relevant...just pointing out the date.

calinet62• 14 years ago

And still relevant.

notatoad• 14 years ago

Thanks for pointing that out. As i was reading the article i was having flashbacks to Bunny Colvin attempting to 'socialize' his students in Season 4 of The Wire. It's reassuring to know that the study and science probably inspired the television show, and not the other way around.

planetguy4• 14 years ago

Surely genetics plays a huge role, one that's ignored in this article.

calinet62• 14 years ago

Does it now? Cite your sources, please.

planetguy4• 14 years ago

This shouldn't be in the least bit controversial; it's well known that a great many human characteristics are extremely heritable, and it would be absolutely shocking if none of these characteristics turned out to be helpful or harmful in becoming rich or poor.

But since you want sources, here we go:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21826061 "Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic."

The other half, that intelligence is correlated with income, should be fairly obvious from everyday experience, but nonetheless here's a nice graph

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yzQUAtWS_U4/TZYCh68KW8I/AAAAAAAAAd...

Next up I will provide citations for the fact that the sky is blue, since we seem to be on a prove-the-bloody-obvious kick today:

"Human color vision and the unsaturated blue color of the daytime sky", Glenn S. Smith, American Journal of Physics, Volume 73, Issue 7, pp. 590-597 (2005).

paradoja• 14 years ago

Surely? Any sources?

WiseWeasel• 14 years ago

What would be the point? It's not an issue we're equipped to address, so what good would come from dwelling on the topic, even discounting the risk of muddying the author's point with divisive claims?

kylebrown3• 14 years ago

Genetics is a red herring, but so are most discussions about "social" causes. Social is just the new genetic. More often than not, the discussion goes down the same slippery slope of blame-the-victim reasoning to rationalize the status quo.

planetguy4• 14 years ago

It makes all the difference in the world. If people are poor because that's the best they're genetically equipped to do, then there's not much we can do about it.

Look at pigeons. They eat out of garbage cans. They die within a few years. They get run over by cars rather a lot. But we don't really worry about this, because they're just fucking pigeons.

tokenadult3• 14 years ago

New York Times obituary of Earl Shorris, the author of this 1997 article, who died this year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/us/earl-shorris-who-fought...

New York Daily News obituary:

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/06/rememberi...

Obituary in The Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/article/168212/remembering-earl-sho...

A list of his articles published in Harper's:

http://harpers.org/subjects/EarlShorris

grandalf• 14 years ago

Life is a series of scenarios, each leaving the person slightly better equipped to deal with future scenarios or slightly worse equipped.

Small disadvantages multiply, as to small advantages.

dredmorbius6• 14 years ago

To paraphrase William Gibson: everything is here, it's just unevenly distributed.

The universe tends toward clumpiness.

Dn_Ab3• 14 years ago

And so we get a lognormal distribution where small positive differences (arguably ultimately due to luck; genes, environment, continent, family network etc) combine to give enourmous advantages.

That said, regardless of your starting point it pays to try to position yourself to gain as many positive points as you can - with luck you can ride that same multiplicative unfairness to achieve better than linear progress.

crasshopper2• 14 years ago

Power law (Pareto distribution), not lognormal.

But you're partly right. Simulate random exchanges at random prices and the wealth distribution will come out Pareto.

However, we cannot conclude that because [a] random exchanges lead to a power-law dist and [b] we observe a power-law in reality, that [c] the real wealth distribution is tantamount to random.

gms77774• 14 years ago

I remember reading an article at one point about a study done on high school students. I can't remember exact details, but there was a program where students in areas with bad high schools could apply to be sent to better high schools. If I remember correctly, admission to the program wasn't merit based, but first-come, first-serve. The study compared the students who got into the program, and the students who applied but didn't get it. The kicker? Their performance in school (I don't remember the metrics, though I agree its a relevant difference whether its GPA or standardized test scores or something else) was about the same.

The takeaway point? The ones applying were the ones who were motivated to learn (or had family who encouraged them to take education more seriously). Those that want to learn, will learn.

Not to be discouraging, (as I read this article and found it incredibly inspiring), but the students in these classes are the exceptionally motivated, who stuck through this education despite the difficulties. The hurdle that must be overcome for this to have widespread implication is how we get more people to find that motivation.

zzeroparticle• 14 years ago

I did find the lowering of barriers that would impede access to education like providing free meals, free transportation, and access to free babysitting to have been really helpful. In a way, it's like lowering the activation energy required to get motivated students into an environment where they can flourish.

grassclip• 14 years ago

I feel that the desire for an education is intrinsic. If you want to learn, you will (as evidenced by the study gms was talking about). Simply having access to all those goodies won't lead to motivation. Unmotivated students in that cushy environment would just lead to them being happier and more content, not make them work harder.

jiggy20112• 14 years ago

It's possible to go to an excellent school and fail to learn anything if you don't want to, especially if you have been culturally conditioned to hate school.

At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to.

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

OK, this is just one anecdote, but...

I grew up in a fairly rural, poor part of North Carolina, went to generic, poor to below average public schools, came from a dirt-poor family that most people would describe as "white trash" or "redneck" or whatever... my father dropped out of school in 8th grade, and my mom finished H.S. but never college.

But, despite not going to a "good school," or growing up in a household full of academics, or living in an affluent neighborhood or anything, I always managed to keep learning, and things turned out fairly well for me (to date). I went to college, gaining (over the years) 3 A.S degrees, and not quite bothering to finish my B.S. I've worked professionally as a software developer for the past 12 years, and have broken the 6 figure / year salary margin (while still living in NC, mind you).

When I look back at my own travails, I agree with the sentiment that "people who want to learn, will." If the classes I was in were boring as %!#^ (and they were) I went to the library and checked out books. Even my poor ass rural public school managed to have a library, and there was the local public library. And even though my family was poor, we went to things like the once per year "library book sale" at the main public library branch, and bought books for $0.25 / each... I'd go and bring back boxes of books on science, math, electronics, software, etc. And I read, and I hacked on shit in my spare time, and read more, and pursued the stuff that interested me. Honestly, I'd say my school (I'm talking elementary school through high-school here, not college) had little to nothing to do with what I learned, and my outcome in life.

Again, just one anecdote, and admittedly a personal and biased one from one limited perspective... but I don't put much stock in the idea that it's "impossible to learn anything" pretty much regardless of what school you attend.

I guess it's one reason I get annoyed when people talk about "Horatio Alger stories" as though they were a myth, or believing in them was some kind of logical fallacy. I %!#^ng lived that story, so I know first-hand that it's possible to ascend from poverty to a decent lifestyle through a lot of hard work and determination.

hackinthebochs3• 14 years ago

>Those that want to learn, will learn.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. In fact, it seems like the study you mention supports the exact opposite. Those that wanted to learn (as evidenced by being first to apply) didn't show signs of being better able to learn given the same environment and resources. Wanting to learn isn't enough, but requires an environment in which to flourish.

gms77774• 14 years ago

Apologies if the wording wasn't clear in the original comment.

The students who applied for the program performed about the same, regardless of whether they went to the "good" schools or the "bad" ones.

I'm not arguing that an environment which promotes learning isn't better. I believe that having the resources and support probably motivates people to learn more. I was just saying that for the already motivated, it didn't make much of a difference.

dllthomas3• 14 years ago

The difference between "applied first" and "applied last" in motivation is probably dwarfed by the difference between "applied last" and "didn't apply".

If it was being used for a study, though, it was probably a lottery out of those who applied, not first-come, first-served.

ramses0• 14 years ago

Freakonomics story.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2007/10/04/more-evidence-on-the-...

I can't find the exact reference but I believe somewhere in the book they talk about the mere fact of entering your student into this lottery to go to a better school meant that the student would have better outcomes (regardless of whether they "won" the lottery or not).

The idea being that it was the mere "intent" of a parent wanting better for their child that had the most impact on student performance.

edderly• 14 years ago

Yeah, there's a nice summary of some of these types of papers here:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/2007/RAND_WR460.pdf (section 2.3).

Some people wish to extrapolate that lottery results proves that a (statistically) lower quality pupil going to a a good school is without benefit.

scarmig• 14 years ago

Why is it, then, that despite the school someone goes to not mattering in outcomes once you control for external factors, rich people still disproportionately prefer to send their kids to private schools, and are willing to pay 20-30k per year over a decade to do so?

I could totally believe that it's totally irrational on the rich parents' part: kids and health are places where people lose much sense of rationality and perspective. But it's still worth considering that the people who are typically most invested and knowledgeable about their kids and the benefits of a good education do usually go for private school if they have the means to.

thematt2• 14 years ago

It's because it does matter to the outcome, if you consider the outcome to be more than just GPA. GPA is not the best indicator of whether it's a worthwhile investment. The selection of a private school takes in to account additional factors like the environment you learn in, the connections you make, the college prospects you get and also the mere existence of religion.

timwiseman• 14 years ago

In the case of this particular study, it seemed that the quality of the school as a factor was overshadowed by the desire to learn, as shown by the attempt to get into a better school. This does not mean that the quality of the school does not matter, simply that desire to learn matters much more.

Shivetya2• 14 years ago

because a private school would not have confined my friend's child to special education because she spoke Spanish in class one day to a friend.

Perhaps rich people are getting the result they believe they are supposed to receive? As in, their behavior is modified in minor ways they do not perceive but all towards the goal of increasing the success of the children they enroll?

It really comes down to parents. Children are not autonomous for the early formative years and how the parents treat them, from setting their morals and encouraging good behavior sets the course for most of their life barring abrupt unforeseen external forces.

I have only one issue with private schools, I do not believe any politician should be allowed to send their children to one.

rsl7• 14 years ago

Your kid can't be captain of the squash team if there is no squash team.

nrkn• 14 years ago

Because going to a private school gives your children the opportunity to network with the children of other wealthy people.

clarky07• 14 years ago

This is part of Freakonomics (http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden...). Though you could have obviously seen it elsewhere.

In the book, it was referring to lottery based admission to the better schools. The result was that it didn't matter whether the students won the lottery or not. They performed equally well (on whatever generic criteria you use to judge academic performance in hs, most likely state standardized tests). The point being that students who cared enough to want to be in the better school would do well no matter where they were.

pron5• 14 years ago

Maybe, but the lucky ones who get into the good schools because their parents can donate a building or two, will also do well no matter how lazy or stupid they are, so life's still unfair.

gms77774• 14 years ago

That may very well have been where I saw it. Thank you.

neilk• 14 years ago

Do we know that virtuous intent is what separates those who apply versus those who don't?

That might just be measuring the stability, resources, and values of the family. I can easily see how a kid with a supportive family can do well, even under challenging circumstances.

But is that fair to the kid who was born into a more chaotic environment?

Or, a family where the parents make a rational choice not to send their kid to this school? Perhaps they can't afford increased activity fees. Or perhaps they worry about their kid being a fish out of water, competing with kids from more privileged backgrounds?

Or, a family where the parents are actively anti-learning -- either through internalized racism or sexism[1], fear of their kids becoming alien to them, or a belief that the rest of society is so racist that education isn't helpful?

[1] A friend of mine from rural Quebec was dissuaded by her mother from getting a college degree, because, quote, "we're not made for great things".

jshen• 14 years ago

"The ones applying were the ones who were motivated to learn"

Wasn't it their parents that were applying? Doesn't that change the conclusion you drew?

cantankerous• 14 years ago

My question to your takeaway point would be, if these people are so motivated that they do better in courses, why do they stay so poor? Either merit is being suppressed by social forces (most definitely), or merit isn't the only requisite thing for social ascent.

Tichy5• 14 years ago

Could somebody do a TL;DR, please? I am interested, but I am not sure where the article gets to the point?

emil0r• 14 years ago

One TL;DR would be that the liberal arts are very important. As such it follows that reading, words & meaning, as well as the pursuit of thought are very important. The conclusion is that you should read the article.

Tichy5• 14 years ago

You know that there is a gazillion of articles out there - we have the internet now! Why should I read this particular one, which from the outset seems to have a dubious hypothesis?

Would liberal arts help some African child in a remote village? I am asking because I think I wouldn't last long in such an environment, despite of my capability to read...

aero142• 14 years ago

Umm. Poor people who learn philosophy understand the world better and might be better equipped to influence it. I guess that was the point. The author rambled a lot and implied a lot without saying much concrete. Pretty poor writing if the author's goal was rhetoric.

Mz12• 14 years ago

Real education is the path out of poverty. It always has been. Real education teaches people to think more effectively. Not everything called "education" fits that requirement. The poor are often subjected to training rather than education, which very often doesn't resolve anything. Training tends to reinforce the social trap they live in.

I suggest you not only read the article but also the book it is about. It is one of the more important books I have read.

Tichy5• 14 years ago

Is it actionable?

danielweber• 14 years ago

Did this project have good results? Have other people successfully replicated those good results running the project themselves?

I suspect, like most projects, it didn't meet both of those criteria. However, if it did, I would be extremely interested.

yummyfajitas2• 14 years ago

"Real education" sounds dangerously close to a "true Scotsman".

codex3• 14 years ago

Evolution encourages diversity. At any given point in time and place, some people are better adapted than others. The least adapted make up at least some of the poor. By this relative definition, some poor will always be with us, even though their standard of living is rising continually.

kaonashi2• 14 years ago

Social Darwinism, really? I thought that went out of style with eugenics.

philwelch2• 14 years ago

Stylishness is not equivalent to truth.

jlgreco2• 14 years ago

Genetics don't have to be involved for traits to be passed on between generations. There is more to a phenotype than just the genotype.

It is not a stretch to think that natural selection could apply pressure to traits that are passed on through culture and exposure to ideas.

sliverstorm• 14 years ago

I don't believe the comment you are replying to is Social Darwinism. As I understand it, that particular view set is actually a belief/value system, while the comment you reply to is merely an observation that assuming variety, there will always be a bottom rung.

yummyfajitas2• 14 years ago

Eugenics didn't go out of style. It's used quite successfully to prevent horrible genetic diseases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dor_Yeshorim

tokenadult3• 14 years ago

Evolution encourages diversity.

That's quite a general statement for the discussion here, which you then use to make a specific conclusion about the human behavioral issue under discussion in this thread. Could you kindly fill out the reasoning steps you are implicitly following with more citations to research on each factual assertion you are relying on?

even though their standard of living is rising continually

This is generally correct. A popular book on the issue (I don't endorse ALL its conclusions, but I like its citation of many different reliable references) is The Rational Optimist.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/

codex3• 14 years ago

It's pretty simple: Humans are diverse. Evolution created humans. Therefore, evolution created human diversity. "Encourages" is perhaps the wrong word--evolution really produces diversity because it responds to the diverse conditions of the earth.

However, this is just background color, it doesn't change the argument. As long as humans are generically and epigenetically diverse there will be differences in fitness. In capitalist societies it makes people more or less wealthy; in other societies it makes them more or less powerful, or influential, or with more or less social status. There are other factors that can make someone poor but this one seems impossoble to completely remedy.

grlthgn• 14 years ago

umm.. no evolution does not encourage diversity. "encourage" implies that there is some sort of hierarchy or level in terms of evolution, and there isn't.

hackinthebochs3• 14 years ago

These sorts of points are silly, and wrong. If the general tendency of life under evolutionary processes is "diversity", through whatever natural processes are at play, then its reasonable to say in common language that "evolution encourages diversity".

Personally, I disagree that evolution encourages diversity. It seems to me that diversity occurs in spite of it, as a result of our ever changing, dynamic, earth.

dredmorbius6• 14 years ago

Evolution does not "encourage" diversity.

Evolution is predicated on some distribution of genetically inheritable characteristics with differential survival / reproductive benefits. Depending on a number of other characteristics, one might end up with highly diverse, or highly homogeneous local or regional populations.

codex3• 14 years ago

You are right in general, but for succinct Internet discussion it is necessary to simplify as much as possible. Unfortunately this can sidetrack the discussion as flaws in the simplification are addressed.

In the case of humans, evolution did encourage diversity, if only because it created sexual reproduction in humans, which increases the diversity of offspring. And of course, humans are not all identical today, implying an evolutionary response to different environmental conditions.

drharris• 14 years ago

Thanks for posting this article. It was extremely well written, so much so that I just bought some of his books. It feels like this should be a movie. Sounds more inspiring than Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, etc.

luminaobscura• 14 years ago

bad luck. (bad genes, bad parents, bad country...)

zygotic• 14 years ago

Swing low. Give it all away.

Mz12• 14 years ago

I read his book years ago, the one this article references. It was wonderful. I highly recommend it.

dredmorbius6• 14 years ago

It's about brakes, accelerators, and random (mis/good)fortune.

Brakes are the things that slow you down. Accelerators are the things that give you a boost.

Any one of us has these both imposed on us and has some degree of influence over them, though to what specific extent varies a lot.

The point of the essay (confession: I skimmed it) is that an effective education is among the more powerful accelerators which can be applied. It's actionable (lifting a concept from a thread here) in the sense that both individuals and communities / society as a whole can engage productively in efforts to increase the availability / efficacy of education.

It's a fact recognized by the father of capitalism, Adam Smith, and the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson.

stretchwithme4• 14 years ago

In order to accumulate resources, one must use the resources available wisely, consuming just a portion and investing the rest to produce more resources.

Individuals and societies that don't do this grow poorer.

eli_gottlieb9• 14 years ago

But your investment returns are someone else's uninvested consumption. Aggregate demand is like a field of crops, and our society seems to have chosen to eat its seed corn.

stretchwithme4• 14 years ago

Not all returns are someone else's consumption. If that were the case, there would be no industry.

You can invest in a business that makes things for businesses or things that are actually investments for consumers.

An education is not (usually) consumption for a consumer. Neither is a car that more than pays for itself with the time it saves. Using the same car to go traveling around the country instead of getting an education is more consumption than investment.

Our society has chosen to water down the natural incentives to make prudent investments. Saving money no longer pays meaningful interest. The government gives you large incentives to buy a much bigger house than you might otherwise buy or rent. That "extra" house is consumption.

Produce13• 14 years ago

She's completely correct that it's the culture of the rich which make them rich.

What she's completely wrong about is that it's their morality that makes it so.

We, the rich, the middle and upper classes, are the ones who fund prisons, we are the ones who do not share our food with our neighbors, we are the ones who refuse to mix with them and share our culture.

It's like Terrence McKenna said - "Culture is not your friend". Culture is a tribal way of life - it's a gang sign, whether that sign be dressing in red or blue or wearing a suit. It's our culture which judges that those who perform certain jobs are more deserving of comfort than others. Yet without that farmer growing his crops how would you eat? Without that garbage collector removing waste, how would you stay healthy? Without that secretary, how would your business function properly? It's these value judgements which really hurt us. Someone will always need to do those jobs (until our machinery is smart enough, anyway) and, as it stands, they will always be deemed by the rest of us to be undeserving of the comfort that we have just because we do something essentially far less fundamental.

Just as power corrupts, so inequality breeds resentment and poisons society. There's a word for the solution I'm hinting at but it's too dangerous to even mention.

eli_gottlieb9• 14 years ago

You should realize you can actually say "socialism" on this site.

Produce13• 14 years ago

Bzzzt! Different word. Socialism does not address inequality of power.

Jun82• 14 years ago

I don't know what the exact unutterable "dangerous" solution you have in mind, but I can assure you, that's not it. The concept of inequality is bred into the human psyche (our hardware or software), you cannot get rid of simplistic social constructs such as communism, etc. Even if technology advances to the level of creating robots to do all menial tasks, our concepts and need for inequality will not go away (for a more pop but stronger version of this idea see Mr. Smith's monolog to Morpheus in The Matrix).

Now, there is a solution that will work and is dangerous: Huxley's eugenics/genetic engineering solution described in Brave New World. And we're fast approaching that solution, I think.

Produce13• 14 years ago

>The concept of inequality is bred into the human psyche

If it's inherent then why are there examples of societies which lack it?

mhartl2• 14 years ago

I'm genuinely curious. Could you email me the word? My address is in my profile. I promise not to share it.

Produce13• 14 years ago

Anarchism!

dkokelley• 14 years ago

> Yet without that farmer growing his crops how would you eat? Without that garbage collector removing waste, how would you stay healthy? Without that secretary, how would your business function properly? It's these value judgements which really hurt us.

So, our society (which may or may not be structured around our competing cultures) has a mechanism for valuing these goods. We have the principles of economics - supply and demand. The things you mentioned are all objectively good to have. They're essential, even. But we've become very good at generating these goods. We've studied crops and health to maximize the good that these things provide, and we can now generate them with fairly little skill and effort. The reason that people who perform these ESSENTIAL tasks earn so little is that the supply of people ready and willing to do them is so great compared to the amount we need them to produce. If the supply of people who could perform these jobs decreased, or the demand for the goods they produce increased, the workers could demand higher wages.

I don't disagree that there are many factors that can and are used by "the rich" to keep "the poor" down, but I disagree that how society values these basic goods is really a significant source of this discrimination.

erikpukinskis• 14 years ago

Sad that he tells the students "This will be proof, I hope, of my idea about the humanities".

It's Viniece Walker's idea, the woman he met in prison, who earned the idea with her struggles.

I wish more people of privilege were aware of how often they "forget" to give credit where credit is due, especially when credit is due to someone of less privilege.

cgs1019• 14 years ago

Well, he did preface the entire article with that fact; it's not as if he doesn't give credit. There are any number of reasons not to go into the details of the inspiration during the course itself, and anyway, there's nothing whatsoever to indicate that he didn't mention it at some point.

To imply that this most selfless, compassionate, and generous person not only forgot to give credit but did so as a result of some inbuilt insensitivity to wealth disparity is an egregious misrepresentation. I mean, did you read what the guy's work was about? Is this really a nit to be picked?

Mz12• 14 years ago

If you read the actual book, you would know he earned the trust of prisoners by confessing his own sins to them. I don't think he states in the book what terrible thing he confessed. Whatever it was, he earned their trust and respect. He in no way held himself above them.

ilaksh• 14 years ago

This article is breathtakingly ludicrous. The 'humanities' and the culture that espouses them are essentially pre-scientific. The exercise described by the author is an embarrassing demonstration of that.

Inequality is built-in to the structure of our 'civilization'. There are social science studies which have demonstrated how that works. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=inequality&... Some of those might not be as ludicrous as the article (although many of the authors of those studies may be social Darwinists which would probably invalidate many of the results).

My current perspective is this: there is a very simple, stupid set of beliefs which are supporting the structure which leads to the maintenance of vast inequality. Basically, we still have castes and have gone through a few different rationalizations and slight variations over the centuries.

So I think that good social science will look at income inequality over generations in terms of social class and look at social class as an extension of ancient caste systems. I also think that at one time caste systems may have provided an overall benefits to societies, but modern technology has long since made them obsolete.

readymade• 14 years ago

Because they're stupid and lazy;No because they're oppressed and victimized LOL ROFLMAO TLDR

cgoddard• 14 years ago

Poverty is structural. Why are people poor? Largely because they are working jobs that pay shit wages, or live in areas they are too poor to escape, where there are not quality jobs matching the skillset taught to them by society.

This article is elitist bullshit coming from someone who has lived their life completely alien to poverty, who struggles to understand it.

When every type of worker makes enough money to afford to live in a school district with resources and quality educators, have health care, buy groceries, and care for their kids, we'll be in a lot better condition as a society.

sparkie13• 14 years ago

Because the system makes sure people stay poor.

How many of you were taught in school that if you pay yourself a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend/bonus you can avoid paying a significant amount of tax (legally)?

Or how many of you were taught how to become "employable" so that you can earn the same amount of money and pay considerably more tax, unavoidably - because you aren't in control of your own finance.

How many of you were taught to open a bank account as a good way of "organizing your finances" (read: filling the pockets of fat men).

How many of you were taught anything about running your own business and being in control of yourself and your securities?

There's a reason this isn't taught in public schools folks - it's because the people at the top want more for themselves and less for you. They don't care about you - except when you're gullible enough to believe you're making a choice when voting season arrives.

The poor are poor because they think "that's just the way it is," and continue about their lives. It's only when you realize that's not the way it should be, because you're being fucked, that you start to do something about it and make yourself.

Then there's the moral effect. You either see the need to do something to change the system, and remain poor - or you accept it, and realize that the best way for you to make more money is to keep poor people poor (and gullible) - thus prolonging the system.

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

There's a lot to be said for that. If somebody had really sat down and hammered me on the power of compound interest and taught me a little bit about the capital markets, when I was, say, 14 or so... I think I would have made a lot of decisions differently and would probably be better off today. Although, to be fair on this point, I'm not sure it would have helped, because I can't - in retrospect - say that my 14 year old self would have taken those lessons to heart. You think about time differently when you're young... the idea of saving for "the future" and building wealth slowly... would I have appreciated the idea of Dollar Value Averaging back then? Hmmm... hard to say.

But anyway, I agree with you in principle, sparkie. What we're taught about how the world works, when we are young, is tremendously influential.

sparkie13• 14 years ago

I only really discovered the advantages of creating my own business when I was around 23, I'm 25 now. I also got into a significant amount of debt in order to get a degree to make me more "employable" - and I'm still paying it back.

I'm perhaps most irritated by this because I'm mostly self-taught (in computer science) and university did very little for me. I should've studied business instead, but probably like you suggest, I would've considered that idea incredibly boring at school leaving age.

Boredom aside though, I do wish I'd learned more about business and life in general during school. I'm still trying to learn my way around the system now, but there aren't enough hours in the day. I'm sincerely grateful for the people who've taken the time to explain things to me anyway.

astrodust2• 14 years ago

Compound interest only works when the interest paid exceeds inflation. Your money is simply rotting otherwise and would be better invested in something that's appreciating at a more rapid rate. Maybe that's wine or stocks or a house.

Your parent's generation had savings accounts that paid actual interest. Today you get a token 0.25% on a good day. With the prime rate being so low there's not much to be made by leaving your money sitting around.

As much as it's important to save money, it's also important to not save too much. Living a life of frugality in the hope of having a happy future is the deferred life plan and for many it never pans out.

Spend what you need to have an enjoyable life now and if you can save, by all means. Life within your means and spend wisely, but don't be such a cheapskate in the hopes that your accumulated pennies will somehow make you a billionaire some day.

wtn• 14 years ago

> How many of you were taught in school that if you pay yourself a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend/bonus you can avoid paying a significant amount of tax (legally)?

You shouldn't do that, it's not permissible under current tax rules… IRS requires that officer shareholders be paid a reasonable salary, and if you're making enough money to pay dividends, minimum wage will be hard to justify as "reasonable." I'm not sure how paying bonuses will help with tax avoidance as those are taxable like regular wage income.

sparkie13• 14 years ago

IRS only applies to US companies. Each country has it's own different loopholes that allow you to pay less tax if you're earning more. The big corps pay far less tax than they should.

Note to term, "tax avoidance". "Tax evasion" is illegal, but there are plenty of legal ways to avoid tax, many of which I'm not aware of myself, but will be grateful for anyone willing to share.

And that's a big part of it - people don't share the knowledge - it's "insider" knowledge, and you aren't in the club. The fewer that know, the more money those who do, can make.

herdrick• 14 years ago

It sounds like you're talking more about things that could help middle class people. Very few poor people have issues that could be helped with "pay [themselves] a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend".

sparkie13• 14 years ago

Sure it'll help the middle class with out current system, but the point was more about how all people should value themselves. Rather than selling your time in exchange for money (i.e., being an employee), you are better off exchanging your value for money. This should apply to any class really.

The reality is different for poor people, but my point was more about "what could be", rather than "what is". Trying to think about it in terms of the current system is flawed, because the current system is designed to enrich people.

If everyone was avoiding tax then the tax would need to rise, or the laws would need to change - this may or may not be a good thing to the masses - but it's certainly not a good thing to the rich - which is why they make sure it doesn't happen.

learc83• 14 years ago

>There's a reason this isn't taught in public schools folks - it's because the people at the top want more for themselves and less for you.

While I agree with you that schools should do more to encourage people to own their own business, do you really think school curriculums in the US are decided by a shadowy cabal of the wealthy?

Whether to teach business and entrepreneurship would be almost entirely up to the local school district. There are thousands of them and each one is independent--that's a pretty far reaching conspiracy. I know members of my local school board, and I can assure you they aren't part of the "people at the top" trying to keep the poor man down.

The real reason people more people aren't self employed is that we've managed to link health insurance with employment.

flyinRyan4• 14 years ago

Read/Watch "Manufacturing consent". It doesn't need to be a wide spread conspiracy. Once you get some kind of environment established people lower down the tree will perpetuate it themselves with no outside stimulus.

rprasad4• 14 years ago

What you have suggested is tax evasion. You must pay yourself reasonable rates, otherwise, you will be treated as evading employment taxes. For a white collar job, that means significantly more than minimum wage.

The penalties (higher back-interest rates and fines) for tax evasion are quite severe. Jailtime is also a possibility.

sparkie13• 14 years ago

I've not suggested tax evasion - stop exaggerating.

The only point I've mentioned is one of tax avoidance, which is in common practice. I've not advised you to do it either, just making a point that it is done - the system is unfair - people avoid tax (legally), whilst you are paying your honest share.

And please, Americans - are you able to think outside of your own country and it's laws?

nl• 14 years ago

If you really think it is tax that is making people poor (ie, your number 1 & 2 suggestions) then you may wish to consider other factors.

lsc4• 14 years ago

Do you really think the average business owner makes more as a business owner than they would as an employee? I don't have the statistics at my fingertips, but I'd find that surprising. I know I'd be making 3x-5x what I'm making now if I was working for other people.

Yeah, running a business means that you have a possibility of making a whole lot of money, and yeah, if you have the contacts to get investors to give you money in a situation where you get paid well if things go well and the company closes (with no fallthrough to you) if things go poorly, sure, you are doing pretty good; but that's not how most real businesses work.

skilesare• 14 years ago

I think you're doing it wrong. I quit working for a company about a year ago and am on course to make 2.5x what I made last year.

A small business should never be run in such a way that the employees are making more than the owner. How would any business work that way?

People typically pay a premium for a temporary service rather than employing someone full time. That is how you make money. It is why I pay a plumber a crap ton when my pipes break because it is still cheaper than employing one full time.

What business are you in that causes you to make a third of what you would make as an employee doing the same thing?

zithtar• 14 years ago

I hate these "it's the system" arguments almost as much as I hate argument ignoring the systemic issues entirely.

It's clear that in your world view, a bunch of rich, white "fat men" (read: Republicans, according to you) are controlling everything from banks to schools to everything else. I feel sorry for you. The world is not the gigantic conspiracy you've created in your mind.

drivingmenuts• 14 years ago

> How many of you were taught in school that if you pay yourself a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend/bonus you can avoid paying a significant amount of tax (legally)?

That's the one I don't get. At tax time, it's still income. It's not like that bonus/dividend is magically untaxed because it doesn't show up bi-weekly or monthly.

The rest of isn't taught because The Man wants to keep you down - it's because teachers aren't taught those things either (at any level) and most of them have enough on their plate just trying to satisfy state requirements. You make it sound like a grand conspiracy of old, rich white people and it's not.

What the wealthy do have that most of us do not is the access to resources and a bit more free time to use those resources because they're not scrambling for a dollar like the rest of us.

I generally agree on the rest of it, but I'll add this: sometimes you're so far down a hole that the existence of light or that someone gives a damn about you is not even imaginable. Sure, you may have people that will get your back in a tight spot, but that's a far cry from knowing people who can make your life materially and spiritually better and would willingly do so.

pippy• 14 years ago

People are poor when a market doesn't employ capitalist methods.

In a purely capitalist job market the hardest working, most productive people would get paid the best and have job security.

flyinRyan4• 14 years ago

This sounds like religious dogma. How do you define "hardest working"? Would someone holding down two and three jobs count because these people tend to be some of the poorest.

I can imagine that if we could somehow make compensation transparent to the point that, say, buying bananas is so that every single worker has a rough idea of the value their work provides that would help raise wages but I would still struggle for a definition of "hard working" that would mean those that engage in it will become the richest.

dedward4• 14 years ago

I see lots of people blaming "the system" and whatnot for not teaching you to be rich..... and getting you into debt. And to be sure, the financial industry has been given too much rope to hand out credit without enough risk.

But I seem to recall seeing many other forums about university, mortgages, etc, where people who's parents paid for their education, helped with a house, etc, are ridiculed - and I don't mean super rich dynastic trust fund babies....

It only takes a generation and some common thinking for a family to stick together and get ahead, and ensure their children never need to borrow money from a bank to get an education, or buy a house. You don't have to be rich... but why can't we live, you know, a generation ahead? I know a guy who told me his parents paid for all his stuff, his house, etc, and therefore all his work and all that (good tech guy) was just being saved up for HIS kids, ad-infinitum. They aren't trying to be rich - they just stay a generation ahead.

How many people, 10 years into their working life, have a year's minimum expenses in liquid cash, a cushion, just in case? How about 6 months? Most don't even have 2 weeks.... most live hours away from disaster if they don't get paid on time, and they blame everyone else. Get a couple months ahead and you no longer think about when payday is.... it's not relevant. Want to be an entrepreneur? great. Do it. People don't understand what money is for, or how to really use it to their advantage. They learn abou their "credit rating" - that's it.

My rules: - There's nothing wrong with cash in the bank (really secure, liquid assetts). People tell you you are losing out because of inflation..... most of those people got smashed when the stock market crashed. I'm not knocking investment, I'm just saying, cash is okay. I've weathered the ups and downs of the financial world without worry or concern while everyone else was freaking out. A good credit rating is good - but it should be a side effect of good financial practices, not a goal in and of itself. My credit rating probably isn't great - it's not bad because I've done nothing wrong, but I haven't borrowed large sums and paid them back, that kind of thing.

Credit cards should work for you, they are not a privilege. They should protect you from risk of theft, and help you balance out and manage cache flow. They should never be used for money you don't have. There are other ways to go about that (and in a circle of friends with similar practices, you borrow from friends - imagine a society based on the same)

Avoid debt. Debt is okay - but don't get over your head... stay far, far away from that kind of debt. Debt carries a psychological burden as well.... for me it feels great knowing that when I get paid, my money is mine. If I borrow some money, pay some interest so I can keep some liquidity rather than spend cash on something big the interest payments are worth keeping my security cushion adequate - but if push comes to shove, I can just pay it off - that's what I mean.

You want a simple credit card without fees or nasty interest rates. You want protection and no nonsense. You want cash in the bank, always growing - I don't mean retirement savings, I mean a cushion - it should grow all the time. After 20 years of working you should be in a position where you could have no job for a year or more without screwing up your life. (not saying you SHOULD do that, you probably shouldn't - but you should be able to - that makes negotating salaries and dealing with employers much, much easier).

It's really simple. Avoid debt. Build and keep adding to a cash cushion. Dip in once in a while, no problem, but keep it growing. It'll hurt at first, but before long you'll LOVE it. Be as aggressive as you can. Liquidity = opportunity. (Imagine having a rented home and lots of cash in the bank rather than an underwater mortgage when the housing market crashed. Most people tragically sufferred - you would be in a position to take advantage of the situation immediately.

omgsean3• 14 years ago

>It only takes a generation and some common thinking for a family to stick together and get ahead, and ensure their children never need to borrow money from a bank to get an education, or buy a house. You don't have to be rich... but why can't we live, you know, a generation ahead? I know a guy who told me his parents paid for all his stuff, his house, etc, and therefore all his work and all that (good tech guy) was just being saved up for HIS kids, ad-infinitum. They aren't trying to be rich - they just stay a generation ahead.

You are talking about unbelievable sums of wealth that are completely unavailable to the working poor. This is great advice for people who are already unbelievably privileged (probably most of us at HN) but it does jack shit for people who are living pay cheque to pay cheque because their pay cheque is barely enough to sustain any standard of living.

lotharbot2• 14 years ago

I know a ton of people who were "working poor" either just post-WWII or as immigrants, who nonetheless have managed to acquire some pretty good sums of wealth. Most of them don't go as far as being "a generation ahead", but their hard work and sacrifices put their kids and grandkids in position to be successful without going through the sorts of financial dire straits that others treat as normal.

dedward4• 14 years ago

I can see your point, given the audience here - but I'm in no way unbelievably rich. I'm not working poor, but I'm still freaked out at how I'm going to retire and pay for my kids education, etc.

BUT

People who live cheque to cheque, if given double the salary, would very shortly still end up living cheque to cheque. Triple it, same thing.

I'm not dismissing problems with the system - but I've seen people who make in a month what I make in a day (more because of where I live, only a little becuase I make a good wage - it's not something that would impress anyone on this forum, let me assure you) who still manage to save money slowly, raise kids, buy a house eventually, etc....).

It's about your attitude towards money, not the amount.

sparkie13• 14 years ago

Interesting point on the "avoid debt," because that's what naive young adults here are told not to worry about. Get a student loan, no problem - bank overdraft, fine. They are roped into the system when they're young and naive, and they spend half of their adult working life trying to climb their way out of it before they can really start saving whilst still paying off their mortgages.

I agree with your sentiments about being conservative with your finances, and there's no doubt a huge portion of poor people are terrible with money. You see people struggling to pay rent, but queuing up for the new iPhone - such way of living is ludicrous, and they are bound to stay poor that way. The reality is they don't need it - you don't need gadgets, fashion accessories, takeaways, beer, drugs and other money drains - but at the same time, if you're not buying the latest and greatest, someone else isn't making enough money - which is considered bad for the economy. They encourage you to spend.

atirip• 14 years ago

"After 20 years of working you should be in a position where you could have no job for a year or more without screwing up your life."

We call it - "Go fuck yourself, boss" money.

dedward4• 14 years ago

Call it whatever makes you happy I guess - but personally, as much as I might want to, I htink it's abad idea to burn bridges. "go fuck yourself boss" is the wrong mentality - if the place isn't for you, you just go, move on, and leave it in the past.

usablebytes• 14 years ago

May be because the feeling of 'being important' has died inside them.

A lot of social factors can be blamed for that situation and truly though; but the important fact is 'it starts with the very individual'. Unless that individual feels the need, the situation won't change, no matter what. So if non-poor part of the society wants to do anything about it, the first thing that should be tried is to 'awaken' the poor.

eliben• 14 years ago

Great article - thanks for sharing.

It's a shame that most comments here respond to the title of the article and not its contents. Hint: it's not what you think

chipsy• 14 years ago

We became poor after deciding to adopt agriculture and systems of debt - previous to that, your wealth was momentary and related to your immediate friends, the seasons, and location, so the concept didn't really exist as we know it.

As civilization gained wealth, some people became rich, but they were only rich relative to everyone else's poverty. The wealthiest people of Rome had, in most respects, less than what someone on Western unemployment benefits may have now. They could do better on basics(which are important), but the technology of today was unfathomable.

But one of the technologies we haven't found is a way to escape the status differentials, complexities, and failures of our debt system; solving that problem is the key to solving poverty.

ismarc2• 14 years ago

It's hard to write this, and my opinion is probably biased because of it, but this article is nothing but a giant load of horse shit and is a carefully constructed as "feel good" to reinforce the preconceived notions the author had going into it. A little bit of background; I grew up poor, people randomly leaving food on our doorstep poor, my parents giving the bike I had bought with my own earned money to my brother for christmas poor, moving every couple of years because my dad would make a bad enough name for himself in an entire town/city that he couldn't get a job poor. I was rejected from his classes (I was actually living in Queens at the time) when they were first available. I may have been one of the two 16 year olds turned away, but I'm pretty sure I was older than that at the time, I may have been one of the people who was "too poor" to take the class. I distinctly remember being told that I "wasn't what they were looking for" and that they "wanted the classes to be as beneficial to all attendees as possible." So, given that, my opinions may be a bit biased.

What I learned, clawing myself to where I am (I currently make more than twice what both my parents combined ever made), is that independent of the person, you HAVE to get the out of the situation they are in. Being "poor" or below the poverty line, life is not what you would expect. There is nothing extra, there is not even enough to sustain yourself. Each month, you make decisions of what bills to pay (food, electricity, gas, rent) based on which is most likely to be shut off. You spend money you can't afford on things you don't "need" because you need just something, anything, to make it feel like you are actually alive and not just some "thing", only there to feed on the remains you can come across. Learning about the humanities doesn't change the fact that you're working a minimum wage job 3rd shift and rarely making it to your classes at high school (just often enough to keep from being expelled) just so you don't end up homeless. It doesn't change the fact that you try to cheat and go through the lunch line twice to get two free meals just so you can have something to eat that evening (breakfast? The programs that give kids breakfast ends at middle school).

I escaped from poverty because I am significantly above the average intelligence level and I managed to make the right decision at the right time. For a point of reference, not the last time I talked to my dad, but the time before that, he was letting me know he may not have a phone for a while because the lady's cell phone plan he was on had passed away almost a year ago, and now that it was up for renewal and she was dead, he likely would not be able to put it in his name. I was paying someone I knew $30 a month to sleep in a sleeping bag in their closet when I joined the Army (shipped out January of 2000). I blew the ASVAB out of the water and had my choice of MOSes with all sorts of bonuses as well. But none of that mattered. What mattered was that I was removed from the environment I was in. I was able to see how other people lived while being provided for and then having some extra money on top. When my enlistment was over, I moved on and have done great things and I am now in a wonderful place in life now. But I'm unique in that aspect. A large number of people I served with would not be able to once they were discharged and I hope most of them stay in, because it's a better life for them.

Just as having middle class or better contacts, friends, network and confidants can help you maintain or better your station, being poor and having poor contacts, friends, network and confidants will help you maintain or lose ground. If everyone you know is working for minimum wage, you don't ask where a good place to work is expecting good work, you're expecting somewhere that will actually give you full-time hours, or enough to barely sustain yourself.

Downvote me, rail against me, disagree, defend the article all you want to, but the article is full of as much hope and potential as the government programs that are available to help the poor go to college, all the way up to covering the entirety of their tuition. It sounds like such a great idea, but the reality is that fully covered tuition means jack shit when they are working 70-80 hours a week just to make rent and keep the lights on. It's feel-good drivel by people who never truly understood (and never will understand) what it's like to be at the poverty level or below.

zokiboy• 14 years ago

Success of this program can be explained by the social connections made during the course - teachers were all having better quality of life - also students were shown different way of life through the lectures. If teachers were good as it seems they have backed their lessons with real life stories. In a way, the daily lessons were their out of the situation they were in.

vacri2• 14 years ago

I don't think you're as much at odds with the author as you claim. What I read in the article was him trying to teach a different way of looking at things, a new angle, which is what I read you got out of your enlistment.

coob• 14 years ago

Yes, this quote from the reply jumped out at me: "What mattered was that I was removed from the environment I was in."

The author is saying the same thing, though perhaps more to do with mental models than physicality.

ismarc2• 14 years ago

I'm not saying it didn't have a positive effect on the people who were able to participate. What I'm saying is that it showed a positive impact for a carefully chosen group of people who met a very narrowly defined set of characteristics. There's nothing in the way it was done that provides any specific insights into people at or below the poverty level, what keeps them there or what can be done to provide help improving their situation. All it served to do was to highlight that smart people in a bad situation want to learn and are improved for having learned, the same as smart people in a not-bad situation. I called it a "feel good" piece because the only meaningful conclusion it reaches (because the narrow selection constraints prevented it from being broadly applicable) is that poor people are people, too and look how great it is we helped some.

Retric2• 14 years ago

The problem with poverty in the US is not 'no money' the problem is not knowing how to live without it. If you have math and problem solving skills you can avoid a lot of huge money sinks everywhere from the grocery store to transportation etc. You can decide to keep your apartment cold enough that your neighbors help heat it. But, when your desperate the idea that you will suffer now to get ahead becomes unacceptable, anything to feel better now because the future is not something you want to think about.

PS: Mental illness runs in my family so I have plenty of poor relatives, and a few rich ones. It's not hard to find two people that make about the same amount of money living vastly different lives. Just compare grad students with other people living on what they make.

hapless• 14 years ago

Graduate students are typically well above the poverty line.

Graduate student stipends run from $15,000 to as much as $40,000 (for 20 hours of work!) The median wage in America is around $26,000. Many graduate students make more money than the average worker.

This is a perfect example of how out of touch we, the professional class, are. Most of us have no idea how little capital (social, financial, and otherwise) the working poor have at hand.

Graduate student pay: http://www.cas.usf.edu/business-services/data/osu-survey.pdf

Median wage statistics from the SSA: http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010

mnl• 14 years ago

I love you man. You speak the truth, some people won't be able to get it, because it's against their DNA. I'm growing sick of this herd of pompous self-satisfied kids pretending to understand everything without actually listening and helping anybody but themselves.

soc88• 14 years ago

Isn't this exactly what the article said?

> I escaped from poverty because I am significantly above the average intelligence level and I managed to make the right decision at the right time.

LOL. Dunning-Kruger comes to mind.

dedward4• 14 years ago

To be honest I read Rich Dad/Poor Dad, stuck with cash because I was too lazy to manage a portfolio (which worked out well stress-wise) and didn't bow to pressure to borrow for cars and houses when my peers were because I'm stubborn and don't like debt- it's looking back that I can put it into advice.

eli_gottlieb9• 14 years ago

Fuck, I grew up upper-middle class and I agree with you wholeheartedly. What good was the course to the woman who got fired from her fast-food job for trying to unionize (which is blatantly illegal but happens all the time)?

What would have been good for her? 1) A liveable wage. 2) A society that doesn't fuck her over for wanting a liveable wage. 3) A society that doesn't fuck her over for trying to get a liveable wage by unionizing.

Uchikoma• 14 years ago

I have no clue. I think I know why I'm not poor

1. Luck to be born in Germany 2. My parents did everything despite their low incomes to get me to university and support me with everything I've ever tried - and got me out of stupid situations I got myself into 3. Luck to get a job in the early 90s for programming web sites when very few people could do that, although the job offer was out there already for 3 months. Because someone at university told me during holiday about something called "WWW" 4. Luck that my girl friend left me - somehow - and I wanted to get over that by working a lot 5. Luck that I got VC financed and become CTO of a startup during the dot com boom

sparknlaunch• 14 years ago

In a recent fictional book about poverty in the UK, two types if poverty were identified.

One was unintentional poverty- someone falls into trouble due to no fault of their own. Maybe illness, trauma etc

The other is intentional- individuals taking full advantage of government benefits. In the UK generations of families have been stuck in this category.

One group feel more deserving...

DanBC• 14 years ago

> The other is intentional- individuals taking full advantage of government benefits. In the UK generations of families have been stuck in this category.

The UK tax and benefits system creates perverse incentives. The systems are baffling (advisors for tax or for benefits need a lot of training (accountants need degree level studying and qualifications)) and interlocking. They are handled by different government departments. Mistakes are common. If the people paying the benefit make a mistake to your detriment nothing happens. (Or if you make a mistake to your detriment.) (And if you don't notice in time you're unlikely to get that money ever.) But if they make a mistake in your favour that money will be clawed back, no matter how long ago the mistake was made. And if you make a mistake in your favour, or if you don't report their mistakes in your favour, you risk interview under caution, arrest, and prosecution.

Compare this treatment of people who are poor with, for example, very wealthy companies taking extreme borderline legal tax avoidance measures.

People who have learned dependence might not feel deserving, but getting them off benefit and into work isn't as easy as clubbing them with punishments. Especially since it was society that put them there.

Here's an example of Vodafone:

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/22/vodafone...)

They owed maybe £6bn, probably £4bn. They paid £1.2bn in a deal.

CJefferson2• 14 years ago

The problem in the UK, which is caused by the government, is that there are several points where people end up with less money overall (including housing benefit, and childcare) if they earn more money / work more hours.

While you can argue about 'deserving', it is the government's fault that they have set up a system which encourages people not to work.

Unforuntatly, the current attempts to fix this are (in my opinion) just creating a more confusing system where it is easier to get trapped or confused.

shin_lao• 14 years ago

If you want to get out of poverty, stop thinking like a poor person.

vacri2• 14 years ago

As ismarc above states, half the battle is also being surrounded by poor people who disregard accomplishment.

m0skit0• 14 years ago

There are poors so rich can stay rich.

antninja• 14 years ago

The richer are some, the poorer are others.

There is a limited amount of money/wealth in the world. If some people take/earn/inherit more than average, then less wealth will remain available to others. The only way to fight poverty is to prevent exaggerated accumulation of wealth (the rich must be incited to spend his money, if not through creating jobs, then through taxes).

maked002• 14 years ago

Just one more apologist for the 1% telling them it's ok that you have so much and most other people have none. It's their choice. They choose to be poor. It is very simple. So go back to cheating on your taxes so you can afford shinyer rings. It's not your fault our infrastructure is crumbling, its all those poor people who refuse to choose to not be poor. Shelve next to other right wing wacko screeds like Ayn Rand.

maked002• 14 years ago

Gotta love all these ditto heads doing the 'start your own business' chorus. 99% of all new businesses fail.

The 1% have been working very hard to pull up and destroy the ladders they used to get where they are.

In the current fascist economy there is simply no way 100 out of 100 people can all strike it rich. The handful at the top are busy cementing their position.

The game is rigged.

fjorder• 14 years ago

It's interesting that this article mentions Heisenberg. Although the Heisenberg uncertainty principle was formulated for quantum particles, it can be paraphrased as saying that measurements disturb the system being measured. It is perilous to apply quantum physics to the behavior and interactions of humans, but here I believe it is illustrative. Specifically, I think Shorris' study perturbed the system he was trying to measure while he was still in the process of trying to measure its different aspects.

Shorris' argues that the key to escaping poverty is the study of the humanities. His evidence is that a group of carefully selected students who, after being given a year of quality education, seem to be able to escape the poverty that entrapped them. Learning the humanities therefore provides a way out of poverty. While this is an uplifting, perhaps even inspirational message, the conclusions he draws are highly questionable for a plethora of reasons.

1. Response bias: Students expressing interest in the course are likely the most motivated individuals in their respective circles.

2. Selection bias: Students deemed "too impoverished" or "too uneducated" were rejected.

3. Intervention by study conductor: Education and career advice was not only given freely, but volunteered to promising pupils.

3. Variables not controlled: The education included high quality instructors who might have been capable of "inspiring" their students, regardless of the subject being taught, as well as providing an "in" to their respective institutions. Disruption of routine: Students were required to leave their immediate neighborhood and social circles regularly and engage in rigorous study.

4. No control group.

I could go on for a while, but this is sufficient. Shorris' study group consisted of the most highly motivated members of the poor minus those who were the least educated. He then intervened in their lives, not just to give them a quality education, but also by changing their habits, exposing them to the unfamiliar, enhancing their motivation and giving them career/education counseling plus networking connections to the educational institutes of the participating teachers.

I will not dispute that this course was a fantastic idea that enriched the lives of those lucky enough to take it, but it simply cannot be used as evidence for the notion that study of the humanities specifically can be used to combat poverty. Instead, it should be used a model for other similar courses.

Why do you think people are poor?

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