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Domestic abuse is not limited to the poor. But, back to the point, assuming they are not as rational as the rest of us, somehow sub human, is a harmful positio

Domestic abuse is not limited to the poor. But, back to the point, assuming they are not as rational as the rest of us, somehow sub human, is a harmful position to take -- it precludes any positive action to change the incentive structure of the poor -- in your view, no matter what is done, they are still broken creatures beyond help. That you admittedly take that position with other more useful hypothesis still worthy of exploration is deeply disturbing. All the more so since I doubt you are alone and that your position is common.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
The poor commit 4x as much domestic abuse as high income people. And I single out domestic abuse because unlike robbery or selling drugs, "stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry children" is a nonsensical excuse for beating one's wife (or spending one's money on drugs and tobacco) But, back to the point, assuming they are not as rational as the rest of us, somehow sub human, is a harmful position to take -- it precludes any positive action to change the incentive structure of the poor -- in your view, no matter what is done, they are still broken creatures beyond help. It doesn't mean this at all. It just means that we need to create the right incentives, and these incentives need to take into account real life behavior rather than wishful thinking. For example, giving poor people the option to not work will be exploited. But if we need to prevent them from starving, why not put them to work? Bring back FDR's Civilian Conservation Corp. Then we can also fix our crumbling infrastructure for cheap. That fixes your incentives - you can either do hard labor for low money, or you can start looking for a better job.
- clavalle 10y ago
  The poor may commit 4x the /reported/ domestic violence. Wealthier people have more to lose. I don't doubt that there is somewhat more domestic violence among the poor but I'd be willing to bet that if you take a wealthy couples and put them under extreme financial stress that the numbers would quickly even out. And vice versa. Assuming people are largely rational is wishful thinking? I am not against something like the CCC but forcing people to work or starve starts to look like slavery. Since it leads, as you say, to very cheap labor it incentivizes keeping the poor right in the situation they are in. The poor are not the only ones that can exploit a broken incentive structure.
- Applejinx 10y ago
  Why should it be low money? Because private contractors (with far, far less resources in terms of capital investment in equipment and bulk materials) are just better? Sounds good. My little town has a giant hulking diesel powered snow muncher, hundreds of times the size of a consumer snowblower, which munches huge impacted Vermont snowdrifts and TAKES THEM AWAY, paid for by my tax dollars. Hell, yes, fix the infrastructure, across the board. Pay good money to work on that. Hell, I'd sign up, I like supporting my community. The heavy machinery does most of the hard labor anyway. Unless you're literally suggesting introducing meaningless and inefficient physical labor for poor money just to punish poor people for being poor? I think maybe you are. Civilized societies have giant diesel power snow munchers. Just saying. We have big machines and robots and stuff, now.
- majewsky 10y ago
  > And I single out domestic abuse because unlike robbery or selling drugs, "stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry children" is a nonsensical excuse for beating one's wife (or spending one's money on drugs and tobacco) Your fallacy is the same as of microeconomics: You try to explain human behavior with only one tool, rational maximization of return on investment.
VLM 10y ago
"it precludes any positive action" Not really. On a nation scale its more or less a justification of imperialism or at the very best unequal alliances. That is going thru a bit of a popularity lull at every scale from large imperialism 19th century style down to recent brexit. Its smaller scale equivalent in the welfare state has been under intense turmoil for decades... was the CCC a great idea or a horrible unconstitutional experiment? Was closing all the mental hospitals some of which were abusive and tossing the crazy people into homeless shelters a wise idea? A large fraction of economically non-viable young black men are very expensively warehoused in prisons, that's not going to scale much larger either financially or ethically although it's worked very well up to this point (for everyone but then incarcerated economically non-viable young black men, anyway). The general zeitgeist at the nation level seems to be to let them fail in place and kind of ignore the problems, while patting ourselves on our backs for our wise non-interference. Look at the path from Somalia to Zimbabwe to South Africa and the inevitable outcome of western civilization doing nothing. Or the future of a country like Nigeria where they're gonna give birth to a billion people, but they'll never produce food for more than 50 million long term sustainably or maybe 100 mill temporarily western industrial ag style, but we're hands off in the west, so unless China saves them ... (and Chinese gotta eat too, so what are the odds of that...). I figure based on the above national level analysis, the individual welfare level analysis should anticipate the checks getting cut off in the coming decades then its sink or swim time. That'll be an interesting time to live in Detroit.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

The poor commit 4x as much domestic abuse as high income people. And I single out domestic abuse because unlike robbery or selling drugs, "stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry children" is a nonsensical excuse for beating one's wife (or spending one's money on drugs and tobacco) But, back to the point, assuming they are not as rational as the rest of us, somehow sub human, is a harmful position to take -- it precludes any positive action to change the incentive structure of the poor -- in your view, no matter what is done, they are still broken creatures beyond help. It doesn't mean this at all. It just means that we need to create the right incentives, and these incentives need to take into account real life behavior rather than wishful thinking. For example, giving poor people the option to not work will be exploited. But if we need to prevent them from starving, why not put them to work? Bring back FDR's Civilian Conservation Corp. Then we can also fix our crumbling infrastructure for cheap. That fixes your incentives - you can either do hard labor for low money, or you can start looking for a better job.

clavalle 10y ago
The poor may commit 4x the /reported/ domestic violence. Wealthier people have more to lose. I don't doubt that there is somewhat more domestic violence among the poor but I'd be willing to bet that if you take a wealthy couples and put them under extreme financial stress that the numbers would quickly even out. And vice versa. Assuming people are largely rational is wishful thinking? I am not against something like the CCC but forcing people to work or starve starts to look like slavery. Since it leads, as you say, to very cheap labor it incentivizes keeping the poor right in the situation they are in. The poor are not the only ones that can exploit a broken incentive structure.
Applejinx 10y ago
Why should it be low money? Because private contractors (with far, far less resources in terms of capital investment in equipment and bulk materials) are just better? Sounds good. My little town has a giant hulking diesel powered snow muncher, hundreds of times the size of a consumer snowblower, which munches huge impacted Vermont snowdrifts and TAKES THEM AWAY, paid for by my tax dollars. Hell, yes, fix the infrastructure, across the board. Pay good money to work on that. Hell, I'd sign up, I like supporting my community. The heavy machinery does most of the hard labor anyway. Unless you're literally suggesting introducing meaningless and inefficient physical labor for poor money just to punish poor people for being poor? I think maybe you are. Civilized societies have giant diesel power snow munchers. Just saying. We have big machines and robots and stuff, now.
majewsky 10y ago
> And I single out domestic abuse because unlike robbery or selling drugs, "stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry children" is a nonsensical excuse for beating one's wife (or spending one's money on drugs and tobacco) Your fallacy is the same as of microeconomics: You try to explain human behavior with only one tool, rational maximization of return on investment.

VLM 10y ago

"it precludes any positive action" Not really. On a nation scale its more or less a justification of imperialism or at the very best unequal alliances. That is going thru a bit of a popularity lull at every scale from large imperialism 19th century style down to recent brexit. Its smaller scale equivalent in the welfare state has been under intense turmoil for decades... was the CCC a great idea or a horrible unconstitutional experiment? Was closing all the mental hospitals some of which were abusive and tossing the crazy people into homeless shelters a wise idea? A large fraction of economically non-viable young black men are very expensively warehoused in prisons, that's not going to scale much larger either financially or ethically although it's worked very well up to this point (for everyone but then incarcerated economically non-viable young black men, anyway). The general zeitgeist at the nation level seems to be to let them fail in place and kind of ignore the problems, while patting ourselves on our backs for our wise non-interference. Look at the path from Somalia to Zimbabwe to South Africa and the inevitable outcome of western civilization doing nothing. Or the future of a country like Nigeria where they're gonna give birth to a billion people, but they'll never produce food for more than 50 million long term sustainably or maybe 100 mill temporarily western industrial ag style, but we're hands off in the west, so unless China saves them ... (and Chinese gotta eat too, so what are the odds of that...). I figure based on the above national level analysis, the individual welfare level analysis should anticipate the checks getting cut off in the coming decades then its sink or swim time. That'll be an interesting time to live in Detroit.