3 ms·

I don't think it's that surprising. Anecdote: Right after I barely graduated from High School after my family clawed its way out of homelessness, I spent a few

by bane 9y ago

I don't think it's that surprising. Anecdote: Right after I barely graduated from High School after my family clawed its way out of homelessness, I spent a few years working minimum wage jobs with long commutes in an old car. I could barely afford gas and groceries let alone decent housing and college. After about 3 years of work, I managed to scrape together just enough to enroll in my local community college for two semesters, one class per semester. Total cost? At that time about $400 including books. And that $400 could have vaporized with one flat tire, or one visit to the doctor. An acquaintance of my parents heard that I was going to college, suddenly took an interest and hired me sight unseen to come work at his startup in an entry-level developer job at 3x my then current pay. I worked there for a couple years and when I was close to finishing college, another acquaintance hired me and doubled my pay. After that I was attached to a growing career and haven't looked back. But it all started with getting that tiny little bit of money together.

mcherm 9y ago
It is incredibly surprising. You aren't surprised because you have experienced this. But any economist would look at this and say something like this: > You claim that there are people where an investment of $400 would > quickly (within a couple of years) give them a salary increase in > the range of $20,000 to $50,000 per year. That is obviously untrue. > If it WERE true, then at lease ONE person in the country would have > spent $4,000 to seed a 10-person program which granted the $400 in > exchange for a promise to contribute $8,000 back in a couple of > years. A x20 replication factor would easily swamp administrative > costs and participants who refuse to pay afterward and the program > would still be growing exponentially. I think the source of the fallacy is that while there ARE people for whom $400 is a difficult-to-surmount barrier beyond which no other major impediments stand between them and middle-class success, they are an impossible-to-find minority in a sea of people who are willing to ASK for $400 and those for whom $400 is a major impediment, but further impediments would prevent them from succeeding. Alternately, we can look at the literally thousands of charities (including schools themselves) that offer merit-based and need-based scholarships, and conclude that the economist is partly right and the system DOES exist, but isn't meeting all of the need.

by bane 9y ago

mcherm 9y ago

It is incredibly surprising. You aren't surprised because you have experienced this. But any economist would look at this and say something like this: > You claim that there are people where an investment of $400 would > quickly (within a couple of years) give them a salary increase in > the range of $20,000 to $50,000 per year. That is obviously untrue. > If it WERE true, then at lease ONE person in the country would have > spent $4,000 to seed a 10-person program which granted the $400 in > exchange for a promise to contribute $8,000 back in a couple of > years. A x20 replication factor would easily swamp administrative > costs and participants who refuse to pay afterward and the program > would still be growing exponentially. I think the source of the fallacy is that while there ARE people for whom $400 is a difficult-to-surmount barrier beyond which no other major impediments stand between them and middle-class success, they are an impossible-to-find minority in a sea of people who are willing to ASK for $400 and those for whom $400 is a major impediment, but further impediments would prevent them from succeeding. Alternately, we can look at the literally thousands of charities (including schools themselves) that offer merit-based and need-based scholarships, and conclude that the economist is partly right and the system DOES exist, but isn't meeting all of the need.