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A study of all Americans born between 1978 and 1983, by economists Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie Jones and Sonya Porter, found that even the black sons
by bsanr 8y ago
A study of all Americans born between 1978 and 1983, by economists Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie Jones and Sonya Porter, found that even the black sons of wealthy parents exhibited extraordinary downward mobility relative to whites. They also had much higher rates of incarceration. Unlike white slaveholders after the civil war, intergenerational transmission of black wealth one century later seems much more fragile.
It has been extraordinarily easy to rob black families of their wealth, whether through exclusionary institutional policy that keeps them from building or maintaining wealth through conventional means, exclusionary networking that keeps them from learning about new and unconventional means, or simply through the act of burning it down.
Many wealthy black men and women are self-made in the real sense; that is, they don't have networks like the ones described in the article to pass down to their children, who, as a result, are essentially starting from square-one (plus their more elite educations, which only do so much good[1]).
1 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/29/no-college-isnt-the-answer-reparations-are/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/29/...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tick_tock_tick 8y agoThe lack of access to basic banking services in low income area's is one of the biggest failures of the private banking system. Even when services are available they often are overloaded with cryptic fees which erode trust in all financial services. There have been talks in the past of expanding the Post Offie's charter to encompass basic banking services like savings accounts and cashing check.
- anitil 8y agoI sound like a Planet Money shill on this forum, but I'd recommend listening to a great episode [0] from 2013 which talks about 'folk' banking institutions used by people in the US. It takes its information from the US Financial Diaries project [1]. One interesting 'product' I'd never heard of was a savings club where every member contributes $x every month, and every n months you get $x*n. It performs a similar consumption smoothing as a credit product [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/18/193176928/episode-466-diy-finance https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/18/193176928/epis... [1] https://www.usfinancialdiaries.org/ https://www.usfinancialdiaries.org/
- brianpgordon 8y agoDo you actually get the prevailing n-month CD rate of interest in that scheme, or is it purely to teach fiscal discipline? What's the point of collectivizing it? And it seems like people poor enough that they can't access traditional banking products would have a real problem with lack of liquidity if they have an emergency and need their savings immediately.
- bsanr2 8y agoI think you answered your own question. The "lack of discipline" is not an internal failing, but an externality imposed disproportionately on poor people/PoC. Therefore, a savings product that makes access difficult in most cases but not impossible (for true emergencies), and without onerous penalty should access be necessary, makes its usage more palatable, even with the lack of interest.
- anitil 8y agoThe episode goes in to this. Typically these are people who would struggle with traditional financial institutions, and so they harness peer pressure as a savings tactic.
- jpster 8y agoPopular in some black American communities. It’s aka a sou-sou. Not sure if there’s an interest payment element. I believe the biggest benefit is the solidarity of doing something (saving money) that’s hard to find discipline for on your own.
- theturtletalks 8y agoReminds me of how Central Park is on land that was taken from a predominantly black neighborhood called Seneca Village. The government used eminent domain to strip the residents of their land. Where would those black families be if they were allowed to keep that land in the heart of NY?
- zaphirplane 8y agoYou mean if the land taken from the native Americans that was sold African Americans, wasn’t acquired by NY? At least the forced acquisition has a veneer of legal and public good. But to speculate on your question, i strongly doubt that finding yourself owning prime land years after purchasing it translates to multi generation wealth. Yes the lives of those families would be better if they sold and did something useful with the money. I suspect mostly it would be wasted away, mismanaged and wilted down thru inheritance, that’s my observation from personal observation of how much land wealth my x*grandfather had compared to my parents
- empath75 8y agoProbably would have been forced to sell it due to rising property taxes.
- baldeagle 8y agoOne of my most surprising moments in American history was learning about 'black wall street' and the race riots of Tulsa after WW1. I'm going to share a link here -- I'm not sure of the source's meta-bias, but this article I think is a balanced read. https://www.theringer.com/2018/6/28/17511818/black-wall-street-oklahoma-greenwood-destruction-tulsa https://www.theringer.com/2018/6/28/17511818/black-wall-stre...