> Do you seriously believe that people having to put $400 on their credit card isn't a sign of increasing poverty? You are that daft?
Less people would rely on a credit card for $400 today than 10 years ago. That's a sign of decreasing poverty.
I'm not arguing that everything is perfectly fine. There are people struggling. But the trend is undeniably positive. People are better off today than 10 years ago, and the same was true 10 years ago as well.
> Furthermore the sign of bankruptcies declining does not disprove the claim that the majority of bankruptcies are medical related.
This was your claim:
> Honestly the point was to demonstrate the declining standard of living of Americans.
Yes, most bankruptcies are medical related. But bankruptcy rates are down, so your point that this indicates declining standard of living is nonsense.
> 47% of Americans cannot meet a $400 emergency expense. You deny their poverty?
Yes. You yourself posted: "About 15% of the US population (50 million people) are at or below the Federal poverty rate." You refuted your case.
> small cohort
I've seen these middle class people everywhere I've worked. They're not a "small" cohort. In fact, most of the people I've worked with fell into this category. As far as I could tell, I was the only engineer in the office building who did not deposit the paycheck the same day. I know this because others expressed shock that I didn't.
> it still knocks a rather major hole in a foundational premise of free-market economic theory
No, it doesn't. These people chose to behave this way. It's their right to. Nobody made them buy the boat. One of these boating people would sell his boat when he needed cash, and when he had cash, he'd blow it all on another boat, or a new car, or an RV, or whatever caught his fancy. Free market theory posits that people have a free choice. Not that what they do makes fiscal sense to anyone else.
> It's a poor basis on which to make assessments of national wealth, poverty, and/or inequality.
How much cash is in your bank account is a very, very bad assessment of wealth, poverty, and/or inequality. But that's what you're putting forward.
For another example, I have next to $0 in my checking account, and don't have a savings account. But I'm not poor, even though you'd classify me as poor. I keep it all invested. I only use cash as a transfer mechanism.
P.S. I actually did have a boat once (!) and me and my friends had a couple marvelous summers waterskiing on Lake Washington.
> Society as a whole gets richer, but within those confines the rich can get richer and the poor can get poorer.
But, do they get poorer?
> Granted the poor today (I assume) have a higher quality of life than they did 50 years ago,
Good - they're getting richer.
But, why does the sentence continue.
> but their expectations for life are also (probably) higher and cheap credit means that they can live beyond their means and a deeper whole for themselves, while temporarily giving themselves the impression that they have money to spend.
Huh?
The fact that US poor can be better off than ever before has no connection to easy credit.
In fact, even with the easy credit and the resulting bankruptcy, they're better off now than past poor.
Note that I'm not arguing for stupid credit policies (pushed mostly by govt). I'm pointing out that they have nothing to do with whether the poor are better off now.
Oh, and most poor people didn't get into the cheap credit problem because they didn't even qualify under the stupid standards.
However, the efforts to prop up folks who bought what they can't afford have kept folks who saved out of those houses. It's unclear why that's a good thing.
For the good of society, banks need to lose money on stupid loans.
No, this is wrong. The real tragedy is that poor people do have credit cards. The credit card system overwhelmingly favors those at the top -- people who automatically pay off their balances each month and enjoy 30-day interest free loans the rest of the time, versus people at the bottom who have a perpetual negative balance on their cards and who pay exorbitant interest rates that would be illegal in a civilized country.
> Credit cards make everything more expensive when the poor often can't use them due to bad credit.
This makes sense.
> Putting grocery stores in really upscale areas makes the groceries cost more (across all stores), even though the poor don't shop at the fancy stores.
This does not. You've transitioned to talking about averages for some reason.
> You’re saying that because catastrophes happen there’s no point in saving?
No, nothing in what I wrote says that. Literally nothing I wrote should lead to that conclusion. (Good thing you brought up straw man though!)
The point is that saving doesn't guarantee insulation from poverty, and that in America medical costs are historically a leading reason why that is the case. This is in the context of a discussion around how we treat poor and homeless people.
So if you wanted to take one bullet point from what I wrote, you could do worse than "it's not morally okay to look down on poor people in the US because if you're not relatively lucky, that could also be you" or something similar.
> By most metrics? Are you kidding? People are making way less now than fifty or sixty years ago and basic necessities cost way more (adjusted for inflation
The Economist article to which I linked gave multiple metrics that contradict this claim.
> And finding an affordable place to live is impossible in some areas, extremely hard almost everywhere that's desirable to live.
True, and I mentioned that there are exceptions to the overall positive tend and specifically noted housing costs. But the solution to this problem is well known: increased the supply of housing.
> And of course, poverty is relative so seeing the rich get healthcare while you and your own family get sick and die has a huge effect on people that probably isn't captured by any metric I know of.
But that's the thing: the data indicates that the poor aren't becoming worse off. Yet we have the perceptions that it is.
I think understanding why this contradictory perceptions exists lies at the heart of a lot of social chsllenges today. Like why people in the US become so strongly against immigration and free trade despite the strong evidence that these things have a positive effect on the country.
And, the number of people slipping below the poverty line is increasing. These any many others are simply objective measures of poverty. If you reject facts, then of course nothing can be proven to you.
>Over 10 years it rose from 2.3% to 3.4% of the population.
1.) You're citing the wrong stat for the point you're trying to make but, but even that would be a 50% increase in just a decade. As I said, "rapidly growing"
2.) A decade does not begin to capture the period during which globalization's effects were most profound (i.e. the stat you cited started after the effects had begun to manifest).
3.) You're citing the BLS definition of poor. Many economists (and now the U.S. Census Bureau) better define "poor" so as to provide a fuller picture of poverty in the U.S. (see above re: 146 million such Americans).
>You contradict yourself. People unemployed due to structural reasons are people who have nothing to contribute to the modern economy
Why do they have nothing to contribute to the modern economy? And, how is it that the people to whom their jobs have been outsourced for pennies on the dollar do have something to contribute to the modern economy? No contradiction on my part. You're just talking in circles and failing to make the appropriate connections.
> And the poor spend a lot higher percentage of their income on every day purchases that are being impacted.
The wages of the poor go up with inflation.
> I have a mortgage that is several multiples above my annual income. Most other wealthy people also have debt because it makes sense due to low rates and good credit. The poor often have a tough time getting credit. If you're not making a lot of money it's tough to get debt at multiples of your annual income.
That's why family annihilators are dominated by middle-class dads who lost their jobs and couldn't find another. Middle-class people can accumulate an ungodly amount of debt before the runway runs out.
> Yes this is true, but the poorest people are better off and there are fewer of them than there have been historically
Better off than when? A decade ago? Two, three, or four decades ago?
Poverty wages have stagnated for almost half of a century. Cost of living has gone up, inflation has gone up and the ability to afford healthcare has left with them. Bankruptcy rates in states that didn't expand Medicaid are soaring.
I was raised on a low income and it was tough, then. Looking back on people who are still living where I came from, they are struggling. They're working multiple jobs, whereas one was enough to live on 20 years ago.
Truthfully, I don't know how they're making ends meet without being in a ton of debt and I don't know who would continue to lend to them in that situation.
Constant housing, health and income insecurity is soul crushing and I find it strange that it's so easily dismissed.
And it was almost identically rich 20 years ago. Actually, since the national debt keeps going up, and we've engaged in multiple wars since then, a case could be made that we're worse off.
> National wealth is having enough ambient wealth in every single community so that starvation is really rare.
So, maybe what you meant to say was, "I'd rather be what most people consider to be poor today (as long as I got to live in the United States), than rich twenty years ago."
> Our country has only gotten richer and richer in the last thirty years.
I disagree. We had the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. People were genuinely hurting. Employment among many groups (such as "poor" laborers) hasn't rebounded. Meanwhile, 20 years ago was in the middle of a boom.
> I'd rather lose everything and become homeless today
...as long as it's in the United States. (Which you did not clarify in the first place.)
> I'm not making that decision for everybody. Just me.
Sure, but you presented your argument as rational, not just personal. And then for some reason you were BOTHERED that I tried to understand your position. Why state your position, if you don't want other people to take it seriously and try to understand it?
> Barrels of cash aren't all that hard to come by.
All evidence points to GENERATIONAL poverty being the norm. So, yes, wealth IS that hard to come by.
> Massive national wealth isn't...
Far out. So, as a rich person 20 years ago, you'd move to the nation with the greatest national wealth.
> But my point is that national wealth created both the option to have heart surgery and the ability to have it relatively cheaply.
And my point is that TWENTY YEARS AGO, the United States wasn't THAT different than it is today. In fact, relative to median income, the same medical procedures cost more today (even adjusting for inflation) than they did back then. By a LOT. And most outcomes aren't proportionally better. We're still way behind in life expectancy and infant mortality, for instance.
> as if I don't know the difference or something
No, I'm trying to understand your statement, "I'd rather be poor today than rich twenty years ago." I'm trying to actively listen, and keep asking you if I'm understanding you correctly, even to the definitions of each of those words "poor" that I use in my head.
> But again, the only thing that really solves the poor's problems is national wealth. There's not enough liquid wealth to spread around to stop poverty.
That's a great assertion to digest, and I don't buy it. There are nomadic people, to this day, living in areas of Africa we'd be tempted to call a desert, who work less than 10 hours a week gathering food, seeking shelter. They spend the rest of their days lounging, chatting, teaching their children. If there is enough food and water to provide for a population, everything else is relative, isn't it? They even take care of their neighbors when they are sick.
> Hehehe, good thing you live in a country where the things that can seriously test that belief in unconditionality generally don't happen.
Let me imagine the worst imaginable environment - I'm a Jew, living in Nazi Germany. I think my friends and family still unconditionally love me. Are you convinced they don't?
> Totalitarian states insert politics into families specifically to keep these sorts of bonds from giving communities the power to resist the state.
So, again, I think you should have said, "I'd rather be what most people consider to be poor today (as long as I got to live in the United States), than rich twenty years ago."
Because if you and I made a list of all of the poor people in the world today, I think you'd be forced to agree that MOST of them live in places you would not ever want to live. No national wealth. Totalitarian government. Warlords. Corruption. Not enough food and water. No opportunities for employment, or education. No internet.
> In case you missed my point, it's that just about everything you think of as 'you', your life, your wealth, your family, your very mind, is a product of the country you live in.
In case you missed my point, the US twenty years ago isn't THAT different from the US today, to offset the difference between being able to financially provide for my family, and NOT.
> the options people have available to pull themselves out of poverty
But they don't. All the data says you're EXTREMELY likely to have the same wealth as your parents.
I think, in order for your assertion to make any sense, you must believe that most people are poor because they're not as motivated as you are. I'm not even trying to load that statement, or put judgement on it. That's the only way I can make sense of what you've said.
> There is a ton of attention being paid to the actual problems both poor people and ACTUALLY POOR people are having, and a lot of resources devoted to promising options.
I don't buy it. Even our beloved veterans are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal. I'll think the options are promising when they start to have an impact. And I mention veterans, because even Conservatives claim to want to use government to help poor people, as long as they're veterans. But we still haven't put a dent in it.
> I made an assertion concerning my own convictions that you are taking out of context.
No, you made an assertion, and I want to discuss it, to see if it was rational, and to try to gain knowledge from whatever perspective you have.
> Most of those volunteering in soup kitchens are closer to the people they're serving than they are to you.
Most of the people stocking soup kitchens are more like me. Disposable income, secure in their career. And twenty years ago, there were more people like that (relative to population size), than there are today. The middle is shrinking.
> And the things rich people try to do to help the less well-off often boil down to ego gratification and do no real good.
A rich person is CAPABLE of doing everything a poor person can. You may be right that the rich need to be educated.
> I can't even begin to try to convince you because the very way you think about wealth is utterly silly.
/sigh
Thanks for the insult.
WHY BOTHER talking, if you don't ENJOY talking with people who think differently than you? SERIOUSLY?
>generally impoverished people would rather have lower rates on the debt that they have.
Generally impoverished people aren't granted lower rates because of the credit system. They typically pay usury rates. Only people with existing assets / collateral get low rates.
>They'd also rather have jobs, which again comes with more investment.
Generally impoverished people have shit jobs, that's why they are generally impoverished. Also, investment leads to automation and offshoring which actually lowers jobs.
>They'd also like to have a higher quality of life, again which comes with more investment in capital/production/real output.
If investment in capital/production/real output helps impoverished people, it's very little. It generally helps already wealthy people.
You're looking at stuff from a textbook macroeconomic position. In the realistic / microeconomic world, things aren't as you are portraying them.
> There are almost 47 million people living in poverty in the US
Look at the definition of poverty and you'll agree it's certainly a form of poverty, but again compared to the majority of the planet doesn't really cut it.
Living paycheck to paycheck is generally an unfortunate choice or lack of education, but the point remains that there's a paycheck.
And I can certainly agree that the culture of credit/debt isn't the best.
> Just because the average American has it much better than the average African doesn't mean their situation is necessarily very good.
I completely agree, it's not good at all. I think this underlies my point at the beginning that we need to give even if we don't have $45B. Our ability to generate the paycheck or our ownership of assets on average outstretches the vast majority of the planet.
>Don’t most U.S. based poor still have housing, food, cable television, air conditioning, heat, cell phones, and access to public libraries with WiFi?
No. Most probably have housing, but definitely not those other items. Not without going into debt. This is truly a laughable assumption, but let’s imagine the answer is “yes”. How many people are poor in the US? And is it acceptable that half of them are homeless?
>It’s not luxury but isn’t it major progress vs 100 years ago?
100 years ago? You mean the Soviet Revolution? You mean the fallout of the guilded age? Or do you mean 90 years ago at the start of the Great Depression?
Do you know what you’re talking about? Most rich people don’t.
> Median housing was smaller 50 years ago and people had more kids then.
Adjusting for inflation and the average household income, do you think things, in general, were way cheaper 50 years ago, or way _way_ cheaper? By trying to argue against my 1 bedroom apartment portion of my comment, I almost feel like you've bolstered the rest of it.
> Poor people have smaller houses than rich people yet have more kids.
Are we accounting for other factors like are poor people typically using (or even have belief systems that allow for the use of) contraception? Do poor people, speaking potentially overly broadly, tend to plan their financial arrangements as cautiously as people that are more well off? I've been well off, and I've been homeless, and I can personally tell you that I never thought more about planning for retirement as I did once I started having a disposable income.
> Following this line, most people are financial idiots, which means they are responsible for their poverty?
Your whole comment is conflating poor financial planning with actual poverty.
If you break people into: those legitimately without enough resources to get by, those who would have enough if they knew how to manage money, and those who have enough whether or not they can manage money; I would wager that the people with enough money but terrible planning skills would be the plurality, whether or not they were the outright majority.
Once you slip into the "I can afford this because I can make the monthly payments" line of thinking, you are pretty much by definition living at the cusp of your means. That's where most people are, whether or not it's a good idea for them to be.
Try getting a checking account or a share account in a credit union when you have a checkered history of overdrafts or bounced checks.
Frankly your comment reads like a person who's never been poor lecturing poor folks.
Frequently what we'd describe as a "financial decision" isn't a decision for poor people so much as a desperate attempt at keeping one's head above water. It's hard to do what you might call "the rational thing" when one is starving, has hungry kids, or has to choose between food, utilities, or medicine.
> Poor people: save money and pay off credit card debts.
So, "poor people, get surplus income".
Or, equivalently, "poor people, stop being poor".
> And saying poor people couldn't save even a dollar is nonsense.
If you can reliably meet the requirements of life without charity or depletion of reserves, you arguably aren't meaningfully poor. Poor people can save sometimes, but that's mostly saving a reserve for the bad times that will come (usually fairly soon and frequently), not net savings over the long term.
That isn't true. Living standards have improved for some large demographics and not for others. You're entirely discounting the massive improvement the eg poor in the US have seen in the last 40 to 50 years. It was horrific to be in the bottom 1/4 in the US just as recently as 1980 and prior, far worse than it is now.
Just look at welfare state related spending as a share of GDP in the US in 1960 or 1970, versus today (hint: it barely existed at all in the 1960s). Over 40 years, spending on low-income programs increased by 10 fold. Look at homelessness just as recently as the 1980s vs today, it has been cut in half. Look at the poverty rate in the 1960s vs today (23% down to ~12.x% today, near a record low). Look at violent crime and murder in the 1970s and 1980s vs today, both rates have plunged (the poor are far more likely to be victims of both).
There was no widespread free healthcare for the bottom 25% in 1970, for another example. That socialized healthcare costs the US an enormous amount of money to fund. That's a dramatic quality of life improvement for poor people who a generation prior would have had no consistent access to healthcare.
> The problem is that poor people need cash for lots of things.
That isn't the problem, it's the reason why giving them cash is better. Because if they can't afford to put gas in their car to get to work, using that money will keep them from borrowing it from the credit card company. And then in six months they'll still have $500 less credit card debt plus having not paid 25% APR for six months.
Less people would rely on a credit card for $400 today than 10 years ago. That's a sign of decreasing poverty.
I'm not arguing that everything is perfectly fine. There are people struggling. But the trend is undeniably positive. People are better off today than 10 years ago, and the same was true 10 years ago as well.
> Furthermore the sign of bankruptcies declining does not disprove the claim that the majority of bankruptcies are medical related.
This was your claim:
> Honestly the point was to demonstrate the declining standard of living of Americans.
Yes, most bankruptcies are medical related. But bankruptcy rates are down, so your point that this indicates declining standard of living is nonsense.
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