What, precisely, do you believe poor Americans are suffering from? The only concrete answer I usually hear is envy (I.e. "oh noes the inequality").

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...

And that is at best. A lot of us are unemployed, and families are collapsing in on themselves as you have fewer and fewer breadwinners.

what? not even remotely true.

i frequently buy 6 lb bags of frozen broccoli/cauliflower/carrot for 8 bucks. There is cheap, healthy food out there, some people just aren't buying it.

You have to remember that for a nontrivial percentage of people - like the homeless - this is a survival situation, where 'healthy' has a much lower priority than 'calories per dollar'.

I cook and eat a lot of healthy stuff, and I do it at a pretty reasonable price. But it is definitely a luxury that I pay for in time, and it still only works because I have decent infrastructure.

For those who did not grow up poor, it's worth reading John Scalzi's "Being Poor" to get a feel for the experience: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

But these "free" products are going to me, my wife, and our family. We're both well-educated, have good jobs, and live a comfortable life. What ultimately gets me the free stuff is time, access to technology (computer, printer, etc.), relationships built to acquire extra coupons, ability to drive to a nice suburban store that runs deals and doubles coupons.

I guess what I'm getting at is that a lot of people don't have access to get these good deals or aren't prepared for them. In many urban environments, if you don't have a car, your only access to groceries are small convenience stores or very small local grocers, who tend to have bad prices, bad selection, old items, etc. Either that, or you take a bus to the bigger grocery store, wasting a lot of time and having to adhere to the bus' schedule.

Have you ever had your car break down? Last winter, mine did less than a mile from my house on the interstate in the middle of the night, and I was completely stranded. Relatively, I travel hundreds of linear miles a month and have never felt that way, because "I'm only ever a few hours away from home." Your world gets a helluva lot smaller when you don't have mobility, and anyone who doesn't appreciate that really can't understand the problem with calling pulling up farmer's markets in a 20 mile radius on Google a solution.

That implies access to a working freezer, electricity, and transportation to drive out to Costco or wherever; things that are nowhere near granted for everyone.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

For comparison, India and Bangladesh are likely to have electricity percentages around 50% (no good data is available) and car ownership rates in the single digits.

This is entirely in the control of most poor Americans. India's GDP/capita is $5500 after adjusting for cost of living, yet India has a 20% savings rate. Poor Americans could reduce consumption and save if they wished.

in perpetual debt having to eat subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more than dollar menu cheeseburgers per calorie.

Poor Americans tend to be fat. That means they can reduce calories and increase the quality of food while spending the same amount of money.

And if you don't have a working kitchen you can't cook farmers market produce.

3% of poor Americans lack a complete kitchen (see table 2-4).

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

tl;dr; Poor Americans have some self inflicted problems. That's not much of an argument for protectionism against poor Bangladeshi's suffering from externally inflicted problems.

I'd take the rural village or even the urban slum over the American inner city any day.

It might look from the outside that life "is entirely in the control of most poor Americans". But nothing could be further from the truth. The amount of forces conspiring against you as a student or young would-be worker in the ghetto is simply unfathomable to anyone with a middle-class or wealthier background (like myself). I'd argue you have a much better chance at moving up in the world as a poor person in Vietnam than America. There, you start a small business (eg; selling goods on the street) and work hard to grow it. Here, you can't just do that: people don't buy anything off the street. And don't tell me "they can just learn to code": I tried to teach them. They don't have computers. Not in the schools. Not at home.

Also, consider that unhealthy foods are often genuinely addicting and addictions are really, really hard to break. Especially when you're stretched then.

I don't want this to turn into a rant, so I'll just say that before you start blaming the American poor for their problems, spend some time living there, talking to them, and understanding their problems.

Your argument would be wrong, at least as of the last time we ran this experiment. Back in the 80's we took a bunch of Vietnamese and turned them into poor Americans. Now they are not poor. In contrast, the Vietnamese who stayed behind are still very poor. That includes the ones who started small businesses like selling goods on the street.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_American#Socioeconom...

Comparing income (even adjusted income) in one society to that of a very different culture makes little sense. This applies both to poor people as well as the rich (who buy different things in different cultures), although the differences are much bigger among the poor because they are less exposed to foreign fashions.

Even if the economy was completely fair (and it isn't -- access to education and to key contacts plays a major role in your chances for success), there are so many social pressures surrounding us (and while all of us are subject to some social pressures, those the poor experience are usually much more choice-limiting) that describing economic behavior as a free choice is completely disconnected from reality, and from everything we've learned in about a century of sociology.

EDIT: And as to your original question, what do the American poor suffer from, they suffer from poor healthcare, bad education, constant financial dread, constant encounters with the law, life in high-crime neighborhoods and probably dozens of more very serious problems that I'm lucky enough not to have experienced. Your patronizing attitude, suggestion that people not in imminent danger of starvation are not suffering (or that there suffering is their own choice) is completely ignorant. If I recall correctly, we've had a similar argument over feminism, and there, too, you've shown complete disregard and disdain to any actual research on the subject by people devoting their lives to it. You can either learn about property -- or not -- but you should know that if you don't, you're arguments stand on ignorance, which, unlike poverty, is actually your own choice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...

The problem then with being poor in America is not that you're rich compared to a farmer in vietnam, the problem is that you're poor compared to the people you see on your crappy TV.

To quote the report: "Mental health is also a key pathway through which inequality impacts on health. There is overwhelming evidence that inequality is a key cause of stress in itself and also exacerbates the stress of coping with material deprivation"[0]

[0] http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/100821/E...

The best solution I see to the problem of envy is directing social opprobrium towards people who exacerbate the problem (e.g., politicians appealing to envy, celebrity news publicizing lifestyles of the rich and famous).

The cause of their problems is not just from celebrity news or politics. It's the very society we live in. You can't just ban advertisements for cars, or decide that cars can't look new on the street. In other words: it's not just the things they see on tv that can spark these problems. Everything around them lets them know they're at the lowest rung of a very large ladder to the socio-economic top.

You're suggesting that we try to make the ladder appear shorter, or somehow hide the top from view. Apart from the fact that, as outlined above, this cannot effectively be done in my opinion. I also find it morally offensive that you'd rather defend a system that is likely not perfectly compatible with human nature. You'd rather try to remove the perception of inequality than the inequality itself.

If we cannot change how humans react to inequality: we get jealous, get sick, turn criminal or exhibit other negative traits. Then we should instead change our society to address the real issue: the inequality itself, and not just it's perception. Now doing that would be a whole other barrel of fish obviously.

If you'd rather use the a different term to avoid inspiring negative feelings about me, feel free to suggest one. For the remainder of this post I'll use the term "Mind State X" to describe an unpleasant mental state resulting from the observation that other people possess qualities that you wish you had.

If we cannot change how humans react to inequality: we get jealous, get sick, turn criminal or exhibit other negative traits. Then we should instead change our society to address the real issue: the inequality itself, and not just it's perception. Now doing that would be a whole other barrel of fish obviously.

I'm confused. Is inequality intrinsically bad? If so, then Mind State X is irrelevant, and you should be able to make that argument without it. If Mind State X is the thing that is bad, then inequality is irrelevant if it does not cause Mind State X.

Lets also generalize this discussion of Mind State X. Many non-money related things cause Mind State X - I'm tall and good looking, some people are short and ugly. I have sex with many women, some people are involuntarily celibate. I'm somewhat skinny, other people are far more muscular than me. These things can also cause Mind State X.

For example, a woman I used to sleep with is now sleeping with someone who is much stronger and more muscular than me. I feel Mind State X as a result. I believe the solution is that she shouldn't inform me of this. You believe the solution would be for her to be prevented from doing this, I take it?

On to practical matters: Everything around them lets them know they're at the lowest rung of a very large ladder to the socio-economic top.

Residential segregation and targeted advertising would seem to be a great way to address this. Luckily the world is moving in that direction anyway.

And yes, this means that inequality is bad in and of itself.

What the difference is is clearly outlined in the report I previously posted:

"It is abundantly clear that the chronic stress of struggling with material disadvantage is intensified to a very considerable degree by doing so in more unequal societies. An extensive body of research confirms the relationship between inequality and poorer outcomes, a relationship which is evident at every position on the social hierarchy and is not confined to developed nations. "

"Mental health, resilience and inequalities Box 9: Poverty and powerlessness It is evident that the consequences of an individualized view of poverty can often be devastating.... The sheer lack of respect and understanding given to the disadvantaged in Britain is highly corrosive of wellbeing, and all the more so because it is constant and overwhelming. We have had welfare recipients tell us how every interaction they have with the official welfare world is negative: no one has a good word to say to them; they spend hours shuttling between agencies in grimy offices that reinforce their powerlessness. Their time is of no account because they are considered to be of no account. Jones et al 2006 p. 439"

And finally:

"Economic analysis based on WHO data on the global burden of disease (see Box 4) suggests that of the total health burden, just under half is attributable to premature mortality and just over half to non- fatal outcomes (morbidity and disability). Mental illness, including suicide, accounts for less than 5% of all premature mortality but for over 30% of all morbidity and disability. No other health condition (apart from cardiovascular disease) accounts for more than 10% of the total burden of disease within the population (WHO 2005; 2006)"

These are the mental, and apparently also physical, problems I'm talking about. And they are the result of inequality, be it perceived or real.

As for your example, you seem to want me to agree with you that you should 'prevent her from sleeping with someone else'. Which would be a morally apprehensible thing to do.

I'll stop you right there, in no way is your sexual life in any way comparable to the way poverty impacts the mental wellbeing of people. I'd call what you sketch in your example envy. But that is not what these people are suffering from.

As for your idea of residential segregation, this seems to be another try to 'hide' the inequality. You're still attacking the perception instead of the real problem. I restate that you can't hide the inequality in our society. Say you do separate (forcibly?) all poor people from the rest. How do you stop them from seeing the people on TV? Radio? On the street, where they work?

Even if you somehow work it so that there's absolutely no contact between the former poor people and the rest of society, you've only succeeded in sawing of 1 rung from the ladder. Will you do the same with the new 'bottom rung'? As outlined in the rapport and by me, the issue is not wealth in absolute, it's the perceived gap in wealth between you and your peers, the people you see on tv that are no different from you except they got wealth and you don't.

If inequality were bad in and of itself, then you wouldn't need to refer to Mind State X to explain why it is bad.

I.e., suppose inequality doesn't cause Mind State X. Do you still care? If so, why?

I'll stop you right there, in no way is your sexual life in any way comparable to the way poverty impacts the mental wellbeing of people.

Suppose, hypothetically, I dig into the psychology literature and discover that the distribution of sexual partners causes Mind State Y which is just as bad as Mind State X. Would that make restricting the actions of others moral?

More concretely: what specific psychological properties determine that Mind State X justifies restricting the actions of others, but not Mind State Y? And if I could dig into the psychology literature and show that Mind State Y satisfied those properties, would you change your opinion?

I also postulate that you aren't really recognizing how devastating Mind State Y can be. Your Box 9 quote describes quite accurately my impression of the lives of less attractive men. Feel free to browse various "manosphere" subreddits (e.g. "red pill", seduction) to read many examples of this.

The real problems they face are debilitating sickness, taking care of a family member with debilitating sickness, struggling to continue sleeping where they are presently, struggling with maintaining a human identity in a society that treats them subhumanly, trying to get hired as a felon, trying to secure the trust of any financial institution, trying to break drug habits and cope with psychosis and other mental illnesses without access to a pharmacy or non-ER doctor.

Its hard to empathize with people with an outlook so different, that they can't imagine working their way out of poverty. Because I can.

Let's assume that you aren't able to use any existing education or connections, you start off with significant debt, and you are located in an area with high unemployment. If you are able to be back in your apartment in a month, I'll eat this computer.

Edit: If we threw the idea up on kickstarter, I'm sure that there would be more than enough support to pay for your opportunity costs (assuming you're not independently wealthy). It'd be an interesting experiment.

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream

http://www.amazon.com/Scratch-Beginnings-Search-American-Dre...

And what's with the debt-but-no-education? How was that supposed to work? One or the other.

It's not very often in life that the phrase "check your privilege" is appropriate or reasonable, but right here, right now, that's picture perfect.

I mean, you can't think of a single possible way that one could get into debt besides ivy-league loans, and you're saying that you understand what poor people have to deal with?

I'm not sure there's an ethical way to set up the experiment where you apply for a bunch of minimum wage jobs to see which ones you can get; and I doubt there's a way you can spend the time to do it.

But I'd be really interested to know if you could get a minimum wage job within a fortnight.

I live in a small community. Most of the families are self-employed. Who created their job? They did. Didn't wait for some company to decide they were worth paying.

So I have a problem with folks that wait for somebody to make a place for them. That's no way to run your life.

Perhaps. Certainly, the advantages of a relatively privileged condition aren't limited to money and property, but include lots of deeper advantages that (among other things) are useful for the gain of money and property. That's among the reasons why generational poverty is is generational, and requires active effort to break the cycle rather than simply the absence of active effort to maintain it.

> What's a guy to think, when folks complain about how its too hard to move, to get an education, to save money, when I know I can do it?

You could maybe use that ability to get an education you are so proud of to learn enough to have some broader basis for understanding the world than simply your experience of what you are able to do given your own particular circumstances.

I would definitely watch that experiment and I think people would support it on Kickstarter. (People don't want to support the actual folks doing this that much -- it's depressing -- but it would be interesting to see someone with all the advantages of education, marketable skills, previous steady employment, and ease with middle- or upper-class mores and culture try to make it come together.)

Yes, you likely would be back in an apartment with a job. because when you grew up your mistakes didn't result in a felony charge, and because you have not had to burn through so much credit you can nolonger even open an account.. because you had enough resources to graduate high school rather than sling drugs. Because until now most of your health issues until now have been solved rather than pushed off and allowed to worsen.

And most importantly, because you've developed social ties to the institutionally established rich class.

That is a much more striking statistic, and there's reason to believe it may be higher, since marginalized Americans are both the most likely to be suffering lack of basic resources and the most likely to be unrepresented by the US census. Further, this study only measured households, and ignores the homeless and incarcerated, which represent another 2% of the population.

Considering that 10-15% of adults in the US live in poverty, your reference suggests that anywhere between 30% and 50% live without a complete kitchen.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

Well, just for starters, they're suffering from entirely treatable diseases and injuries because they don't have health insurance, or don't have non-shitty health insurance. Quite a few of of them are suffering from childhood malnutrition, leading to lifelong cognitive and developmental defects. On the lowest rung, they are suffering from homelessness and all the deprivation and desperation that comes with it.

You're trying to tell us that someone to trying to raise kids in a rotting, roach-infested apartment in a drug-haunted slum, with no chance at a decent education and no real hope of advancement, is really perfectly all right because at least they're not actually living in a Delhi sewer. Or are you not even aware that this happens in America? You sound like the closest you've ever come to actually knowing a poor person is tossing a quarter to a homeless man in the subway.

If that were the case, the increasing access to health care should make them healthier. It didn't.

http://www.nber.org/oregon/

Do you have evidence for childhood malnutrition?

Once you come up with a definition of "rotting, roach-infested", feel free to check what fraction of poor Americans actually fit that definition. See table 2-4: http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

Suffice it to say, probably the majority of my friends are poor by American standards. But then again, I live in India. And even when I was a poor American I still lived better than they do. Though I'm usually told that grad school doesn't count as poverty, even though the economics of it are the same.

> Do you have evidence for childhood malnutrition?*

The WHO doesn't seem to have much data on actual malnutrition rates for many nations, including the US, after a few minutes of searching, but "Some 13 million American children live in homes with limited access to food, and an average one in three children receive food assistance via the food stamp program..." (http://www.livestrong.com/article/487412-malnutrition-in-ame...)

It is absolutely true that poverty in India is deeper and more widespread than in America. That doesn't remotely mean that American poverty isn't real or that people aren't suffering. By your logic, a man with a broken finger isn't allowed to complain if a man with a broken leg exists, and that man isn't allowed to complain if a paraplegic exists, and so on down the oneupsmanship scale of wretchedness. Where, exactly, is the cutoff point beyond which we're no longer allowed to care about human misery?

If you want to argue that poverty in India and worldwide is a huge problem, and that the Western world could and should do more to address it, I'll agree heartily. But what you said was that poverty in America is not a problem and that poor Americans aren't suffering, and that's bullshit.

And, if that is the case, which direction do we go? Do we push the poor people in the US down or raise up the poor people elsewhere or a combination of both?

I'd rather raise others up while helping our own. Free markets are fine as long as they don't become a race to the bottom and create perverse incentives to keep the poor poor.

As the world economic power, along with our wealthy allied nations, we need to tie positive social movement, like raising the minimum wage, access to nutritious food, clean water, medical care, social mobility etc. to access to our markets.

If the people's lot doesn't improve, their elites don't get rich. Simple as that.

I argued that it would be horrendously immoral to do so.

If the goal is to pull everyone out of poverty, is there a way to accelerate the process? I'd say, yes. Predicate the elites selling their people's labor to wealthier powers on improving labor's situation in that country. They are not doing it on their own, at least not fast as they could.

I think we can help both the poor people in the US and everywhere else. We just need to squeeze the top a bit harder.

Also, using a pre-2008 crisis census report to argue that everything is fine today is extremely intellectually disingenuous. It's almost like he's openly trolling.

Better health insurance makes people feel better. That's not the same thing as making them healthier.

If you think the data changed between 2008 and the next AHS survey, feel free to prove it. Or just call me a troll, far less work.

That's BS, that report only presents no change in points on some physical health metrics which are dependent on lifestyle and not medical attention anyways.

> If you think the data changed between 2008 and the next AHS survey, feel free to prove it.

Sure, have a go at it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble

It's clearly disingenuous to claim that the housing situation today is represented by a report concluded before the crisis where everyone lost their homes and/or jobs.

Diabetes was diagnosed more.

Even if that was the only thing and the only source of suffering for poor Americans was relative deprivation compared to others in their immediate context, so what? Relative deprivation is an important, extensively empirically demonstrated, source of disutility. If one is interested in alleviating actual human suffering that exists, rather than artificially creating self-justifying excuses to defend perpetuating suffering, one would recognize that it is an important problem (not necessarily something which we should blindly bear every cost to minimize, as doing so may at some point do more to exacerbate other sources of suffering than it does to alleviate the suffering directly attributable to relative deprivation, but likewise something that should be considered, weighed, and addressed to the extent practical without doing more harm than good.)

If you feel that forcing more people to poop in the field in order to reduce feelings of envy among wealthy Americans is a good thing, make that argument.

wealthy Americans aren't the ones facing relative deprivation (which is why the reference upthread was to "poor Americans"), nor is it a problem only in America -- inequality (with a strong and persistent ethnic basis to the inequality) is something that neoliberal international trade regimes promote on both the more developed and less developed sides of trade arrangements.

See, e.g., World On Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, Amy Chua (2003).

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/food-insecurity-affects-50-mill...

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-r...

So, 14.3% of US Households don't have enough food. Food insecurity is another way of saying "Hey, we may not eat today but we eat enough calories on average to survive.".

You think these people are paying their power bills over food? Seriously?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/18/american-recession-...

"69 percent of households that rely on food charities to survive have been forced to choose between paying for utilities and paying for food."

"66 percent of households said they’ve had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care. Thirty-one percent said they had to make that choice every month."

I'm guessing some people are letting the power bill go unpaid based on that, eh?

So when you say its "Envy" are you saying you are ignorant or that 14.3% of the people in this country are envious, ungrateful bastards for thinking they deserve 3 square meals a day?

You seem to be confusing "food security" with "very low food security".

http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/foo...

None of these things are hunger, however.

So when you say its "Envy" are you saying you are ignorant or that 14.3% of the people in this country are envious, ungrateful bastards for thinking they deserve 3 square meals a day?

The natural consequence of not getting enough food is weight loss. Where are the skinny poor people? Note that here in India, even in a well developed city, they aren't hard to find. In the poor parts of the US where I've lived, you mostly just see fat people.

From the link: "Food insecurity—the condition assessed in the food security survey and represented in USDA food security reports—is a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food."

"reports of reduced quality"

What do you think quality means in a nutritional context? How it tastes? No, that is desirability.

> The natural consequence of not getting enough food is weight loss. Where are the skinny poor people? Note that here in India, even in a well developed city, they aren't hard to find. In the poor parts of the US where I've lived, you mostly just see fat people.

You do realize you can just eat a bunch of starchy foods and suffer malnutrition but not lose weight right? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/malnutrition-obe...

I think the issue here is you are trying to be pedantic without understanding the context of the words being used. That and complete ignorance of "sufficient calories to gain weight" != "3 square meals a day".

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng... "(Especially of food) having different elements in the correct proportions: a healthy, balanced diet"

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng... "A substantial, satisfying, and balanced meal:"

So your argument is basically: "Well 14.3% are alive and not starving to death"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512141912.ht...

2-3,000 people a year die from malnutrtion in the US.

> The natural consequence of not getting enough food is weight loss. Where are the skinny poor people? Note that here in India, even in a well developed city, they aren't hard to find. In the poor parts of the US where I've lived, you mostly just see fat people.

This isn't evidence either btw. Its anecdotal. You are refusing 5% of the population doesn't get enough to eat and people dying every year in the US as "well, I don't see it".

But hey, 2-3,000 people dying a year isn't a problem for you eh? Because its just envy. Nope. No material impact whatsoever.

Then I don't think you've really been listening. Their lives are extremely unpleasant. Spend some time in a poor neighborhood in America, talking to people. I haven't read it but the book On the Run by Alice Goffman might paint some helpful vignettes.

We have an entire industry--advertising--devoted to making people want more things.

So something like envy, which is to say wanting something that someone else has, is a significant driving factor behind economic activity. Mental suffering and physical suffering amount to the same thing: unhappiness with the current state of affairs. It does not matter if one person wants to not die of cholera while another wants a new smartphone with a faster processor. It only matters what that person is willing to do or to forego to get that thing.

The first person may be willing to spend a week with a shovel in a pit filled with sewage to get adequate sanitation for the rest of the year. The second person already has a flush toilet, complete with sewer and treatment plant, so maybe they're just giving up new tires for their second car.

All of economics is just individual humans making choices about what they want.

Poor Americans have been told throughout their lives that they can have a certain lifestyle--pretty good in comparison to a lot of other countries--if they are willing to follow certain rules and spend some time working rather than playing. Many of them are finding that to be a lie. So perhaps they are suffering instead from a perceived betrayal of a social compact? Everyone willing to produce shall be able to consume in equal measure?

What I am seeing through my biased eyes is that significant limitations are being placed on ordinary people's ability to produce valuable goods and services, and so their ability to consume is falling below that required by their former customary standard of living.

Replace "India or China" with "Black or Hispanic" to see how sad this comment is. It still surprises me to see that we live in a world where racism is condemned but discriminating people for the place they were born in is socially accepted.

Now, to answer your question, we should care about people in India or China because they're people. Human beings. The place they were born in, just like the color of their skin, should be an irrelevant factor. Something assigned to you randomly just before birth.

Nationalism sucks.

The irony is that people in India and China understand this simple dynamic perfectly well. You don't need to explain to the average Indian or Chinese person why they should care more for the plight of their neighbors than that of, say, even poorer people in Africa.

However, if you favor some sort of protectionism, I'm curious why you think I should care about poor Americans. Supposing I were to give up humanism and revert to tribalism, as you seem to have done, why would I allow poor Americans into my tribe? Why not simply define my tribe as wealthy white males?

(I personally have practical reasons not to do this. A minority of my friends are American and a smaller minority of the Americans are white males. But those are just practicalities, not moralities.)

I'm also curious whether you favor imperialism. After all, if our goal is simply to maximize American utility, why not just pillage and plunder everyone else?

In any case, I'm not advocating for political change overseas. I'm simply advocating against threatening people with violence for engaging in mutually agreeable trade. I.e., if I want to hire an Indian person to work as my secretary, it's not right to forbid this in order to force me to hire an American.

China is already a middle income country, India is a high lower income country. if you want poor, look at Africa.

It was posted here about 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373041

I don't think we should look at poverty as a solved problem, but I think it would be overly cynical to not acknowledge how much the "system" has done for the poor.

FWIW, I'm less enthusiastic about the current system/situation than mattmcknight appears to be.

It's not 1/3, and poverty is a relative term, but really the fraction doesn't matter.

"The Census Bureau today released data indicating that the overall poverty rate in 2013 was 14.5 percent – a decrease from 15.0 percent in 2012. This change was the first decrease since 2006." http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/14/PovertyAndIncomeEst/ib_poverty201...

The US poverty rate does not include the price of non-cash government benefits. The average cost per Medicaid enrollee, which all people at the poverty line qualify for by income, in all states, is $5,563. It doesn't include food assistance. It doesn't include housing subsidies. These vary, but are widely received.

>What kind of callous person could look around at all the suffering and think this system's working great?

What kind of callous person could think helping a person with more money in a country that provides them numerous benefits is better than helping a person with less money?

"Or do you not look around at all, holed up in a tacky mansion of your own?" I have traveled the world many times over the past 20 years. The positive change I have seen world-wide is perhaps invisible to you because you choose to focus on actions which cause others to consider you to be helpful, instead of actions which are actually helpful.

My house may be slightly tacky.

i dont think anyone is saying the system is working great. Capitalism the worst system, except for every other system tried. What do you suggest?

I live in a country in the EU. 90% of the population does not understand supply and demand. Even more people do not understand the notion if "rhetorics".

You want those people to participated in making decisions? Do you really believe that?

I am so fed up with this vain anarcho bullshit. WAKE UP. People are dumb. Dumb as a brick. If you want to help them, you have to drag their body over to the finish line.

Any attempts to temper with the social framework by largely un/poorly/mis-informed masses of people leads to catastrophes.

Russia 1917 Italy 1929 Germany 1934 Spain 1939

Some enlightened people will always try to exploit people's resentment to gain control and use it as they see fit. Soon the system is far worse than before.

I saw a definition of being rich as "never having to worry about money". Now take being poor as "always having to worry about money".

Doesn't matter if you have got a widescreen TV. If you sell it off you may eat better for a few weeks, but after that you will still be in the same situation, in constant worry about money.