Fighting Poverty One Idea at a Time

Nomad wrote:

I disagree with your premise about the solution to poverty is the transfer of wealth. If that were the case, why do so many lottery winners and professional athletes wind up broke? They clearly had massive wealth transferred to them.

I do however think that education, as listed earlier, is a part of the solution.

You mean that people who aren't used to having money aren't good at having money? Quelle suprise.

I bet if you took a bunch of millionaires and took all their money away, they'd do a terrible job of living in poverty too. Sudden and drastic changes to lifestyle are hard to manage.

I disagree with your premise that "transfer of wealth" = "dumping a million bucks on their front lawn and walking away."

Jonman wrote:
Nomad wrote:

I disagree with your premise about the solution to poverty is the transfer of wealth. If that were the case, why do so many lottery winners and professional athletes wind up broke? They clearly had massive wealth transferred to them.

I do however think that education, as listed earlier, is a part of the solution.

You mean that people who aren't used to having money aren't good at having money? Quelle suprise.

I bet if you took a bunch of millionaires and took all their money away, they'd do a terrible job of living in poverty too. Sudden and drastic changes to lifestyle are hard to manage.

I disagree with your premise that "transfer of wealth" = "dumping a million bucks on their front lawn and walking away."

So are you implying that these people would be "less broke" if they only had been given less money? They had the same access to financial services as most other people, probably even more, but made very poor decisions. You can lead a horse to water...

Jayhawker wrote:

The problem with Ryan's proposal is that it is just repackaging the same ideas. We have a ton of poor people in this country that need help, and we use programs to make sure they get food, housing, and healthcare. He wants to see if there is a snazzy new way to do it without proposing any ideas. Instead, he wants to let state opt to muck around with the current way to provide service, but throw in requirements that are created to privatize welfare.

Plans would be approved on four conditions: The state would have to spend all funding on people in need. Second, the state would have to hold people accountable through work requirements and time limits for every able-bodied recipient just as there are for cash welfare today.

Third, the state would have to offer at least two service providers. The state welfare agency couldn't be the only game in town. And fourth, the state would have to measure progress through a neutral third party to keep track of key metrics.

All this does is figure out how to deal with the poor that we have, while trying to privatize welfare, meaning that there would be a financial incentive to keep a large class in poverty for a new industry, or the eventual dismantling of the social nets we have.

You claimed you wanted a discussion about how to diminish poverty. But you haven't posted a single thing about that, other than agreeing that education is a good thing to invest in.

What Ryan wants to do is spend less and hope that helps. What most of the people in the thread are saying is that if you invest in real changes then we will spend less.

That is either gross misunderstanding or gross mis-characterization of the idea. The crux of his argument is more accountability for governmental services, more opportunity for people who are already doing a great job, and allowing those with good ideas to be vetted through small scale funding and development.

Here is an example from a great book called Switch by Chip and Dan Heath

Find a bright spot and clone it.

That's the first step to fixing everything from addiction to corporate malaise to malnutrition. A problem may look hopelessly complex. But there's a game plan that can yield movement on even the toughest issues. And it starts with locating a bright spot -- a ray of hope.

When Jerry Sternin arrived in Vietnam, the welcome was rather chilly. The government had invited his employer, Save the Children, the international organization that helps kids in need, to open an office in the country in 1990 to fight malnutrition. But the foreign minister let Sternin know that not everyone in the government appreciated his presence. The minister told him, "You have six months to make a difference."

Sternin had traveled to the country with his wife and 10-year-old son. None of them spoke the language. "We were like orphans at the airport when we arrived in Vietnam," he said. "We had no idea what we were going to do." Sternin had minimal staff and meager resources.

The conventional wisdom was that malnutrition was the result of an intertwined set of problems: Sanitation was poor. Poverty was nearly universal. Clean water was not readily available. The rural people tended to be ignorant about nutrition.

That analysis was, in Sternin's judgment, TBU -- true but useless. "Millions of kids can't wait for those issues to be addressed," he said. If addressing malnutrition required ending poverty and purifying water and building sanitation systems, then it would never happen. Especially in six months, with virtually no money to spend.

*****

When we analyze a big, complicated problem -- like malnutrition in Vietnam, or a married couple nearing divorce, or a business on the verge of bankruptcy -- we seek a solution that befits the scale of the problem. If the problem is a round hole with a 24-inch diameter, our brains will go looking for a 24-inch peg to fill it. So, naturally, the experts on malnutrition in Vietnam wanted to talk about poverty and education and sanitation systems.

Our focus, in times of change, goes instinctively to the problems at hand. What's broken and how do we fix it? This troubleshooting mind-set serves us well -- most of the time. If you run a nuclear power plant and your diagnostics turn up a disturbing signal once per month, you should most certainly obsess about it and fix the problem. And if your child brings home a report card with five As and one F, it makes sense to freak out about the F.

But in times of change, this mind-set will backfire. If we need to make major changes, then (by definition) we don't have a near-spotless report card. A lot of things are probably wrong. The "report card" for our diet, or our marriage, or our business, is full of Cs and Ds and Fs. So if you ask yourself, What's broken and how do I fix it?, you'll simply spin your wheels. You'll spend a lot of time agonizing over issues that are TBU.

When it's time to change, we must look for bright spots -- the first signs that things are working, the first precious As and Bs on our report card. We need to ask ourselves a question that sounds simple but is, in fact, deeply unnatural: What's working and how can we do more of it?

*****

Ignoring the experts, Sternin traveled to a local village and called together all the village's mothers. He asked for their assistance in finding ways to nourish their kids better, and they agreed to help. As the first step, they went out in teams to weigh and measure every child in the village. Then, they pored over the results together with Sternin.

He asked them, "Did you find any very, very poor kids who are bigger and healthier than the typical child?" The women, scanning the data, nodded and said, "Có, có, có." (Yes, yes, yes.)

He said, "You mean it's possible today in this village for a very poor family to have a well-nourished child?"

"Có, có, có."

"Then let's go see what they're doing."

Sternin's strategy was to search the community for bright spots. If some kids were healthy despite their disadvantages, then that meant something important: Malnourishment was not inevitable. The mere existence of healthy kids provided hope for a practical, short-term solution. Sternin knew he couldn't fix the thorny root causes. But if a handful of kids were staying healthy against the odds, why couldn't every kid be healthy?

To understand what the bright spots were doing differently, the mothers first had to understand the typical eating behaviors in the community. So they talked to dozens of people -- other mothers, fathers, older brothers and sisters, grandparents -- and discovered that the norms were pretty clear: Kids ate twice a day along with the rest of their families, and they ate food that was deemed appropriate for children -- soft, pure foods like the highest-quality rice.

Armed with that understanding, the mothers then observed the homes of the bright-spot kids, and, alert for any deviations, they noticed some unexpected habits. For one thing, bright-spot moms were feeding their kids four meals a day (using the same amount of food as other moms but spreading it across four servings rather than two). The larger twice-a-day meals eaten by most families turned out to be a mistake for children, because their malnourished stomachs couldn't process that much food at one time.

The style of eating was also different. Most parents believed that their kids understood their own needs and would feed themselves appropriately from a communal bowl. But the healthy kids were fed more actively -- by hand if necessary. The children were even encouraged to eat when they were sick, which was not the norm.

Perhaps most interesting, the healthy kids were eating different kinds of food. The bright-spot mothers were collecting tiny shrimp and crabs from the rice paddies and mixing them in with their kids' rice. (Shrimp and crabs were eaten by adults but they weren't considered appropriate food for kids.) The mothers also tossed in sweet-potato greens, which were considered a low-class food. These dietary improvisations, however strange or "low class," were doing something precious: adding sorely needed protein and vitamins to the children's diet.

*****

As an outsider, Sternin never could have foreseen these insights. He knew nothing about sweet-potato greens. The solution was a native one, emerging from the real-world experience of the villagers, and for that reason, it was inherently realistic as well as sustainable. But knowing the solution wasn't enough. For anything to change, lots of mothers would need to adopt the new cooking habits.

Sternin refused to make a formal announcement. He knew that telling the mothers about nutrition wouldn't change their behavior. "Knowledge does not change behavior," he told us in the spring of 2008 (Sternin passed away in December of that year). "We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors." The mothers would have to practice it. They'd have to act differently until the different started to feel normal.

The community designed a program in which 50 malnourished families, in groups of 10, would meet at a hut each day and prepare food together. The families were required to bring shrimp, crabs, and sweet-potato greens. The mothers washed their hands with soap and cooked the meal together. Sternin said that the moms were "acting their way into a new way of thinking." Most important, it was their change, something that arose from the local wisdom of the village. Sternin's role was only to help them see that they could do it, that they could conquer malnutrition on their own.

Dozens of experts had analyzed the situation in Vietnam, agonizing over the problems -- the water supply, the sanitation, the poverty, the ignorance. They'd written position papers and research documents and development plans. But they hadn't changed a thing.

Six months after Sternin's visit to the Vietnamese village, 65% of the kids were better nourished -- and they stayed that way. Later, when researchers from Emory University's School of Public Health came to Vietnam to gather independent data, they found that even children who hadn't been born when Sternin left the village were as healthy as the kids Sternin had reached directly. That provided proof that the changes had stuck.

In tough times, we'll see problems everywhere, and "analysis paralysis" will often kick in. That's why, to make progress on a change, we need to provide crystal-clear direction -- show people where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that's why bright spots are so essential: They provide the road map.

Sternin's success began to spread. "We took the first 14 villages in different phases of the program and turned them into a social laboratory," he said. "People who wanted to replicate the nutrition model came from different parts of Vietnam. Every day, they would go to this living university, to these villages, touching, smelling, sniffing, watching, listening. They would 'graduate,' go to their villages, and implement the process until they got it right... . The program reached 2.2 million Vietnamese people in 265 villages. Our living university has become a national model for teaching villagers to reduce drastically malnutrition in Vietnam."

This is the type of thinking we need for a massive accelerating problem like poverty. The blanket approach of transfer of wealth will not work. How many countries have tried and failed to do that strategy due to massive problems with corruption and apathy?

This joke probably won't get this thread anywhere, nevermind.

To actually combat poverty in the US we are going to need to gamble, big time, on the strength of the dollar and its use as the default currency of the world. We have to be prepared to ignore the deficit spending we will incur and we have to be patient enough to wait for an entire generation of people to enjoy the benefits of the spending.

We need family planning on as broad a basis as we can get. Education about when to get married, when to have kids, how to deal with having kids. This means that we have to accept the fact that people are likely to have sex, which can, in some cases, lead to children. If a person is not at a point where they should have kids, we need a national support system for them, either by providing safe abortions or setting up adoptions. We can save a lot of money and administration (let alone gestation and moral quandaries) by making birth control, either chemical or prophylactic, easy to get - probably for free.

We need to educate young adults (and older ones, too) on how to manage finances and nutrition. A Federal Commission to provide assistance to people who have crippling debt can do wonders for stabilizing the currently-wounded middle class. It does not need to be a debt amnesty, but a structured, Federally-backed refinance should allow some breathing room. Cutting subsidies to less healthy food options can help pay for lowering the costs of nutritional food, which will long-term improve the health of the populace, and will lead to healthier children.

We need to start teaching kids as young as age 4. Nation-wide, most likely full-day, preschool, preferably taught in at least two languages through complete immersion (alternating between nothing but Spanish then English every other day). If we can assume that these children will be receiving a balanced meal, not pumped up on short-term energy like sugar and not malnourished, they should be much better equipped to benefit from the preschool. We need to find ways to remove the racism that still pervades our culture, so that minority children are not starting off with a useless burden.

[school stuff goes here, I don't really know enough to comment strongly]

Not-for-profit (maybe Federally owned) companies should be lending to students who seek higher education, and the loans should be tax-deductible. With only the government writing the checks, the colleges will need to adjust their tuition/fees levels to stay competitive with each other.

They had the same access to financial services as most other people, probably even more, but made very poor decisions. You can lead a horse to water...

They had the same access, they didn't have the experience/education about how to be wealthy to know that it was necessary. That's a big difference.

Secondarily, this comes off incredibly offensive. You basically just implied all poor people, if given money will waste it all and go broke again.

Nomad wrote:

This is the type of thinking we need for a massive accelerating problem like poverty. The blanket approach of transfer of wealth will not work. How many countries have tried and failed to do that strategy due to massive problems with corruption and apathy?

I don't know. How many?

Many of the ideas we are proposing are lifted from what other countries are doing with positive effects.

What I will do is drop this comic here because I thought it was interesting.

IMAGE(http://cdn.iwastesomuchtime.com/412013211849funnycomicnordiccountriesAmericaneducation.jpg)

Atras wrote:

To actually combat poverty in the US we are going to need to gamble, big time, on the strength of the dollar and its use as the default currency of the world. We have to be prepared to ignore the deficit spending we will incur and we have to be patient enough to wait for an entire generation of people to enjoy the benefits of the spending.

We need family planning on as broad a basis as we can get. Education about when to get married, when to have kids, how to deal with having kids. This means that we have to accept the fact that people are likely to have sex, which can, in some cases, lead to children. If a person is not at a point where they should have kids, we need a national support system for them, either by providing safe abortions or setting up adoptions. We can save a lot of money and administration (let alone gestation and moral quandaries) by making birth control, either chemical or prophylactic, easy to get - probably for free.

We need to educate young adults (and older ones, too) on how to manage finances and nutrition. A Federal Commission to provide assistance to people who have crippling debt can do wonders for stabilizing the currently-wounded middle class. It does not need to be a debt amnesty, but a structured, Federally-backed refinance should allow some breathing room. Cutting subsidies to less healthy food options can help pay for lowering the costs of nutritional food, which will long-term improve the health of the populace, and will lead to healthier children.

We need to start teaching kids as young as age 4. Nation-wide, most likely full-day, preschool, preferably taught in at least two languages through complete immersion (alternating between nothing but Spanish then English every other day). If we can assume that these children will be receiving a balanced meal, not pumped up on short-term energy like sugar and not malnourished, they should be much better equipped to benefit from the preschool. We need to find ways to remove the racism that still pervades our culture, so that minority children are not starting off with a useless burden.

[school stuff goes here, I don't really know enough to comment strongly]

Not-for-profit (maybe Federally owned) companies should be lending to students who seek higher education, and the loans should be tax-deductible. With only the government writing the checks, the colleges will need to adjust their tuition/fees levels to stay competitive with each other.

I like these ideas.

Demosthenes wrote:
They had the same access to financial services as most other people, probably even more, but made very poor decisions. You can lead a horse to water...

They had the same access, they didn't have the experience/education about how to be wealthy to know that it was necessary. That's a big difference.

Secondarily, this comes off incredibly offensive. You basically just implied all poor people, if given money will waste it all and go broke again.

This is a much more polite version of what I wanted to say.

I think Ryan's on to something. Prisons have become more efficient with privatization, to the point of actual profitability. Imagine what that approach could accomplish for welfare services!

Ok, sarcasm aside now.

I think Ryan's proposal is more rhetoric than solutions. Look at things like this, where I will be bolding some things to pull out afterward:

Plans would be approved on four conditions: The state would have to spend all funding on people in need. Second, the state would have to hold people accountable through work requirements and time limits for every able-bodied recipient just as there are for cash welfare today.

Third, the state would have to offer at least two service providers. The state welfare agency couldn't be the only game in town. And fourth, the state would have to measure progress through a neutral third party to keep track of key metrics.

If approved, the state could use that money to expand state programs and to partner with local service providers. Families in need would have a choice. There wouldn't just be a state agency. Instead, they could choose from approved non-profits, for-profits or even community groups unique to their neighborhood. These groups could provide a more personalized form of aid through case management.

Ok, all the money has to be spent on people in need.

Well, except for the money being spent on redundant employees and overhead costs due to the duplication (or triplication, quadruplication, etc) of service providers.

And except for the money being spent to pay the neutral third party (i.e. corporation, most likely for-profit) that's tracking key unspecified metrics.

And except for the money being spent on paying for more case workers so that everyone can have access to more personalized plans (this last one has potential to yield actual benefits, though).

Right now, you have to go to a bunch of different offices to enroll in a bunch of different programs, often with different paperwork requirements and eligibility standards. Under the Opportunity Grant, you could go to one office and work with one person. That person would give you financial assistance, but could also act as a personal resource. Maybe you're struggling with addiction and you need counseling. Maybe you come from a broken family and you need a network of support. The point is, you would work together to get from where you are to where you want to go.

I rather like this idea and would love to see it, so long as it was properly funded (which means more funding than we currently have for social support programs) and case workers had reasonably stringent standards as well as solid oversight and accountability to prevent people in need from slipping through the cracks because their assigned case worker is negligent/lazy/whatever.

Instead of trying to supplant local communities, the federal government would support them.

I am not opposed to this. But it would require some stringent regulations and standards to ensure that everyone is getting the same base quality level of assistance. This means yet again more money to hire and maintain a staff of inspectors to ensure we're seeing the quality of service we need to demand to make this system worthwhile.

So yes, nice talking points from Ryan so he can spitball some "ideas" out there that aren't really fleshed out, and aren't supported by his actual policy proposals or Congressional record and campaign speeches & platforms.

Nomad wrote:
Jonman wrote:

I disagree with your premise that "transfer of wealth" = "dumping a million bucks on their front lawn and walking away."

So are you implying that these people would be "less broke" if they only had been given less money? They had the same access to financial services as most other people, probably even more, but made very poor decisions. You can lead a horse to water...

I have no idea where you get that inference from. They *were* less broke when they were wealthy, then they got broke again. Wealth is not a static situation. Poor people get wealthy. Wealthy people get poor. Or not.

I'd also add a "Citation needed" to your assertion that lottery winners end up broke. I'm pretty sure that plenty of them do just fine, it's just that "Ex-poor person is happy and financially stable thanks to initial luck followed by diligent management of their finances" doesn't make for a compelling headline.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:

What I will do is drop this comic here because I thought it was interesting.

skim

So interesting Jayhawker posted it on the previous page.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:

What I will do is drop this comic here because I thought it was interesting.

I agree, you filthy skimmer.

Demosthenes wrote:
They had the same access to financial services as most other people, probably even more, but made very poor decisions. You can lead a horse to water...

They had the same access, they didn't have the experience/education about how to be wealthy to know that it was necessary. That's a big difference.

Secondarily, this comes off incredibly offensive. You basically just implied all poor people, if given money will waste it all and go broke again.

I'm not sure how you can reach the conclusion you did about my statement without some pretty serious negative assumptions. I was specifically speaking of people who had money and access to financial guidance, and chose reject it. I said nothing about "all poor people", but I guess if you want to twist my words, you can come up with some fairly bad things for me to say. You probably should have gone all the way and said I think all poor people are animals that need to be broken, bridled, and ridden to town.

Atras wrote:

To actually combat poverty in the US we are going to need to gamble, big time, on the strength of the dollar and its use as the default currency of the world. We have to be prepared to ignore the deficit spending we will incur and we have to be patient enough to wait for an entire generation of people to enjoy the benefits of the spending.

We need family planning on as broad a basis as we can get. Education about when to get married, when to have kids, how to deal with having kids. This means that we have to accept the fact that people are likely to have sex, which can, in some cases, lead to children. If a person is not at a point where they should have kids, we need a national support system for them, either by providing safe abortions or setting up adoptions. We can save a lot of money and administration (let alone gestation and moral quandaries) by making birth control, either chemical or prophylactic, easy to get - probably for free.

We need to educate young adults (and older ones, too) on how to manage finances and nutrition. A Federal Commission to provide assistance to people who have crippling debt can do wonders for stabilizing the currently-wounded middle class. It does not need to be a debt amnesty, but a structured, Federally-backed refinance should allow some breathing room. Cutting subsidies to less healthy food options can help pay for lowering the costs of nutritional food, which will long-term improve the health of the populace, and will lead to healthier children.

We need to start teaching kids as young as age 4. Nation-wide, most likely full-day, preschool, preferably taught in at least two languages through complete immersion (alternating between nothing but Spanish then English every other day). If we can assume that these children will be receiving a balanced meal, not pumped up on short-term energy like sugar and not malnourished, they should be much better equipped to benefit from the preschool. We need to find ways to remove the racism that still pervades our culture, so that minority children are not starting off with a useless burden.

[school stuff goes here, I don't really know enough to comment strongly]

Not-for-profit (maybe Federally owned) companies should be lending to students who seek higher education, and the loans should be tax-deductible. With only the government writing the checks, the colleges will need to adjust their tuition/fees levels to stay competitive with each other.

Some great ideas here Atras.

Jonman wrote:

I'd also add a "Citation needed" to your assertion that lottery winners end up broke. I'm pretty sure that plenty of them do just fine, it's just that "Ex-poor person is happy and financially stable thanks to initial luck followed by diligent management of their finances" doesn't make for a compelling headline.

Here is a quote from an article about a couple who didn't lose it all after winning due to conservative financial planning.

History is replete with lottery winners whose lives have gone sour after becoming rich.

The National Endowment for Financial Education cites research estimating that 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money will lose it within a few years.

Here is a quote from an article about professional athletes riches to rags stories.

Analysts at Mint.com report that 60% of NBA players file bankruptcy within five years of retirement.

Football players are even worse. More than 78% of NFL stars will file for bankruptcy within five years.

Major League Baseball (MLB) players have only mildly better luck, filing for bankruptcy four times more often than the average U.S. citizen.

For some perspective, there were 1.2 million non-business bankruptcy cases in 2012 – that’s down from 1.36 million in 2011. There were 114.5 million households in America in 2011. So the average household bankruptcy rate likely hovers around 1.2% during any given year.

And finally, this hit the news cycle today...

An estimated 1 in 3 adults with a credit history -- or 77 million people -- are so far behind on some of their debt payments that their account has been put "in collections."

If people aren't taught to be wiser with the money they have, or are unwilling to use the knowledge they have, all the cash in the world isn't going to make it better.

Nomad wrote:

The National Endowment for Financial Education cites research estimating that 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money will lose it within a few years.

So what's the takeaway from this? That managing finances is hard to do well? That shouldn't be news to anyone who's tried to balance their household budget, regardless of what their income is.

Here's something further. How many of those 70% of people were financial professionals? You know, people whose wheelhouse is managing finances. I'd be willing to bet a teeny, tiny, proportion. So the lesson there is that lack of knowledge is the problem, not lack of funds.

By the way I vaguely recall Nomad works as an adviser in financial services industry, please correct me if I am wrong.

Thing is, Ryan's right about the potential for states to come up with experiments and practices and structures that work and work well. Like how Connecticut didn't f*ck up its health exchange. That's a "bright spot" of the sort Nomad's book indicated.

I'm remarkably pessimistic about how the experiment would turn out in neoconfederate states. You can get all your services in one place--but it needs 30-foot-wide hallways and a doctor with admitting privileges at a local hospital. You're accountable through work requirements--which consist of being paid a stipend, not a wage, for working at the Halliburton Gruel Factory. Don't worry, though, your work means you qualify for subsidies that allow you to buy Grool™.

It's like Lisa said to Mr. Burns: "Even when you try to do good, it turns out evil!"

I was specifically speaking of people who had money and access to financial guidance, and chose reject it.

Or didn't understand what it was, what it could do for them, and why it's necessary because they're not already regular users/know someone who is a regular user of financial services.

You talk about negative assumptions, but you're assuming, right there, that these cases were a result of everyone saying... I know exactly what these financial service providers do, will do to ensure my money stays with me, etc... but f*ck them because I can do it better... oh sh*t, now I'm broke again.

Many people with very little money are not going to be comfortable with the idea of handing over large chunks of their money to a person to manage. They're going to have concerns of theft, corruption in the service provider to choose products based on something other than the receiver's best interest, etc... and while they will likely be better off in the long-run as a result of that...

As noted, ACCESS to financial services is not the issue. It's understanding what those services can do for you... which is not something many poor people have the opportunity/need to learn. Meanwhile, those who have grown up in a wealthy environment have a pretty good idea what those services do, and know people that are already trustworthy in that field thanks to family/peer group recommendations.

Well, Paul Ryan knows his market. He's been trying to dismantle the social safety nets for years. This time he plays the nice guy role and lets others play the"blame the poor for poverty" game for him.

None of this has anything to do with eliminating poverty. It has instead devolved into a debate on the best ways to manage the poor.

The ideas people have been proposing are designed to stimulate the economy and job growth, which has, in the past, led to less poverty. But in the meantime, Paul Ryan will formulate the perfect protein bars the poor can eat for the smallest amount of money we can pay. That way, the income gap is not really a big deal, right?

Nomad wrote:

Here is a quote from an article about a couple who didn't lose it all after winning due to conservative financial planning.

History is replete with lottery winners whose lives have gone sour after becoming rich.

The National Endowment for Financial Education cites research estimating that 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money will lose it within a few years.

Here is a quote from an article about professional athletes riches to rags stories.

Analysts at Mint.com report that 60% of NBA players file bankruptcy within five years of retirement.

Football players are even worse. More than 78% of NFL stars will file for bankruptcy within five years.

Major League Baseball (MLB) players have only mildly better luck, filing for bankruptcy four times more often than the average U.S. citizen.

Wait, so your "proof" that poor people are terrible with money is solely based on examples where people went from literally having from nothing to having millions of dollars overnight?

That might be a valid point if the anti-poverty programs we were considering involved cutting poor people checks with lots of zeros on them, but that's not the case. We're talking about benefits that are only a few hundred dollars a month.

I would make a counter argument that most poor people are actually outstanding at managing their money because they have so little. The problems they run into are when they literally don't have enough money to cover the basics, such deciding if you're going to pay the heating bill this month or the water bill.

That's poverty. Choosing between sh*t options.

Nomad wrote:

If people aren't taught to be wiser with the money they have, or are unwilling to use the knowledge they have, all the cash in the world isn't going to make it better.

Again, you're making the assumption that poor people are spending money on frivolous things. Most people I know with credit card debt have it because they use their credit card to cover monthly shortfall on necessities or they incurred a large, unexpected expense. It's not because they've gone out and bought 60 inch TVs or went out to eat every night of the week.

So what the statistic you referenced really shows is that a rather large percentage of Americans simply aren't making enough money and practically everyone lives paycheck to paycheck.

And that takes us back to all the issues you didn't want to talk about like a living wage, tax policies, and income inequality. Hell, you should probably also toss in banking reform because someone's giving people all these lines of credit in the first place.

Nomad wrote:

And finally, this hit the news cycle today...

An estimated 1 in 3 adults with a credit history -- or 77 million people -- are so far behind on some of their debt payments that their account has been put "in collections."

If people aren't taught to be wiser with the money they have, or are unwilling to use the knowledge they have, all the cash in the world isn't going to make it better.

Wonder what that statistic would look like if medical and/or student debt was taken out of play.

(hint: I know what it would look like, and it wouldn't make for nearly as shocking of an article)

edit: The point of that being while it's fun to say "well everyone is just dumb with their money", it's actually important to look at places where that matters. Generally, we can agree that medical costs are ridiculous and many students are sold a bill of goods when it comes to the worth of their student loans. Statistically, those are - overwhelmingly - what lands people in collection accounts.

I'm a big proponent of financial education - I run a program aimed specifically at financial education for anyone, but we end up mostly dealing with poor families and the lower middle class. While I will agree that the state of actual education when it comes to the topic of money, credit, and debt is abysmal, given the scope of the way this thread started, it's a little irritating to see it drift back to "well the poor are just screwing themselves!" by saying they should just be smarter.

That's not a problem with the poor. It's a problem with everyone, across all bands of wealth. It's a poor strawman, intentional or not. Many people are crap with money. Some people just have enough money to either have other people deal with it, or they simply have enough excess income that it doesn't spin their lifestyle out of control.

Jonman wrote:
Nomad wrote:

The National Endowment for Financial Education cites research estimating that 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money will lose it within a few years.

So what's the takeaway from this? That managing finances is hard to do well? That shouldn't be news to anyone who's tried to balance their household budget, regardless of what their income is.

Here's something further. How many of those 70% of people were financial professionals? You know, people whose wheelhouse is managing finances. I'd be willing to bet a teeny, tiny, proportion. So the lesson there is that lack of knowledge is the problem, not lack of funds.

It's both, and in some cases it's the fact that instant gratification trumps a more conservative budgeting approach.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

By the way I vaguely recall Nomad works as an adviser in financial services industry, please correct me if I am wrong.

I don't work in the financial industry.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

Thing is, Ryan's right about the potential for states to come up with experiments and practices and structures that work and work well. Like how Connecticut didn't f*ck up its health exchange. That's a "bright spot" of the sort Nomad's book indicated.

I'm remarkably pessimistic about how the experiment would turn out in neoconfederate states. You can get all your services in one place--but it needs 30-foot-wide hallways and a doctor with admitting privileges at a local hospital. You're accountable through work requirements--which consist of being paid a stipend, not a wage, for working at the Halliburton Gruel Factory. Don't worry, though, your work means you qualify for subsidies that allow you to buy Grool™.

It's like Lisa said to Mr. Burns: "Even when you try to do good, it turns out evil!"

You and I are in 100% agreement about this, but I don't think this Montgomery Burns effect is limited to just one side of the political spectrum.

Demo wrote:

You talk about negative assumptions, but you're assuming, right there, that these cases were a result of everyone saying... I know exactly what these financial service providers do, will do to ensure my money stays with me, etc... but f*ck them because I can do it better... oh sh*t, now I'm broke again.

You might have a case if I had actually said something remotely close to this, but once again you are putting words in my mouth that I did not say. If you read the cases you will see that people made bad financial decisions for a myriad of mostly preventable reasons. (ie. Don't gamble excessively, don't buy 6 houses if you can't afford it, don't leverage your future for instant gratification) Once again, we are talking about specific situations, not "all poor people".

Why are you so against education for people about financial health? (or maybe you are not, but just come across that way)

Jayhawker wrote:

Well, Paul Ryan knows his market. He's been trying to dismantle the social safety nets for years. This time he plays the nice guy role and lets others play the"blame the poor for poverty" game for him.

None of this has anything to do with eliminating poverty. It has instead devolved into a debate on the best ways to manage the poor.

The ideas people have been proposing are designed to stimulate the economy and job growth, which has, in the past, led to less poverty. But in the meantime, Paul Ryan will formulate the perfect protein bars the poor can eat for the smallest amount of money we can pay. That way, the income gap is not really a big deal, right?

High-lar-ee-ous, but not exactly helpful. I get it. You despise Paul Ryan. Why then derail a good topic (brainstorming solutions for US poverty) to bash him?

plavonica wrote:
Nomad wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Technically, most posts in this thread aren't even talking about the actual plan, as much as they are about general wealth inequality and straw-manning conservatives.

Several of us did propose ideas, but you brushed them all off as attempts just to levy more taxes. Heck, I even asked you about what you considered the "leaks in the boat" in the current welfare system and you didn't respond.

Any discussion about poverty is going to involve the transfer of wealth. Any anti-poverty plan whose basic premise is that we have to transfer less wealth than we currently do isn't really an anti-poverty plan. It would be a plan to reduce government spending. And, if that's the ultimate goal, then let's just agree to start with a less vulnerable portion of the population.

A few posted ideas, but if you look back thru the thread it's not a stretch to say most posts weren't talking about potential issues with the original article or even specific ideas to improve our current anti-poverty plan.

Plavonica wrote:

Universal basic income, universal 'free' healthcare, 'free' education up to and including university, and decriminalize/medicalize all drugs.
All these steps have been taken in different countries, some have even take more than one step. I don't know of any country that has tried them all but we can look around and see how they do it and pick the policies that work best. I'm sure there are a couple others I might be missing.

It's all been said and discussed before. There are solutions available to us complete with case studies, scientific empirical evidence, and even evidence from entire countries trying out these solutions over the course of decades.

The case for basic income:
Business Insider
EconoMonitor
Huffington Post
Forbes
Wikipedia

The case for free higher education
List of other countries we could ask

There are better healthcare systems that cost far less, like the french healthcare system (just to pick an example, there are others).
Slate
Huffington Post
Wikipedia

Decriminalizing and medicalizing drugs
Time Magazine
Forbes
Wikipedia

What is preventing us from picking out the best parts and creating our own, better system? It's not like we don't have clear evidence and prior examples to work from. Possibly things like money in politics and this need to be fixed sooner rather than later.

We have other problems not directly related to poverty but they probably don't help. Just look at the mess of the pharmaceutical companies or the travesty of our patent system as two possible examples.

So instead of cursing the darkness, why not work on finding solutions that won't require all of the legislative branch to die and be replaced with actual representatives that represent the people instead of clamor for power and prestige.

OG wrote:

Wait, so your "proof" that poor people are terrible with money is solely based on examples where people went from literally having from nothing to having millions of dollars overnight?

That might be a valid point if the anti-poverty programs we were considering involved cutting poor people checks with lots of zeros on them, but that's not the case. We're talking about benefits that are only a few hundred dollars a month.

I would make a counter argument that most poor people are actually outstanding at managing their money because they have so little. The problems they run into are when they literally don't have enough money to cover the basics, such deciding if you're going to pay the heating bill this month or the water bill.

That's poverty. Choosing between sh*t options.

...

Again, you're making the assumption that poor people are spending money on frivolous things. Most people I know with credit card debt have it because they use their credit card to cover monthly shortfall on necessities or they incurred a large, unexpected expense. It's not because they've gone out and bought 60 inch TVs or went out to eat every night of the week.

So what the statistic you referenced really shows is that a rather large percentage of Americans simply aren't making enough money and practically everyone lives paycheck to paycheck.

And that takes us back to all the issues you didn't want to talk about like a living wage, tax policies, and income inequality. Hell, you should probably also toss in banking reform because someone's giving people all these lines of credit in the first place.

Why is it so tempting to project all your conservative hatred on me? Where did I say all poor people are terrible with money? What is so terrible about teaching people how to be financially wiser? Education and financial help are not mutually exclusive. I'm just saying you can't throw money at the situation (ie. wealth redistribution) and expect things to get better. I have no problems talking about "all the issues you didn't want to talk about like a living wage, tax policies, income inequality, and banking reform", but these things are doomed to fail without better oversight than we have now, and not giving people the education they need about financial matters. The bureaucracy and mismanagement involved with current anti-poverty solutions is staggering.

Nomad wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

Well, Paul Ryan knows his market. He's been trying to dismantle the social safety nets for years. This time he plays the nice guy role and lets others play the "blame the poor for poverty" game for him.

None of this has anything to do with eliminating poverty. It has instead devolved into a debate on the best ways to manage the poor.

The ideas people have been proposing are designed to stimulate the economy and job growth, which has, in the past, led to less poverty. But in the meantime, Paul Ryan will formulate the perfect protein bars the poor can eat for the smallest amount of money we can pay. That way, the income gap is not really a big deal, right?

High-lar-ee-ous, but not exactly helpful. I get it. You despise Paul Ryan. Why then derail a good topic (brainstorming solutions for US poverty) to bash him?

It's a darn good topic. I don't think debunking Ryan's plans is a derail, since the OP brought him up as a starting point. And it is not the only thing I've posted in this thread.

I think the disconnect you seem to be having is that you believe that the almost $800 billion the federal government spends on 92 programs to help struggling families is the issue. The issue is that poverty has become such a problem that it is taking this many programs and this much money to mange the problem of poverty.

These programs are not supposed to be the answer. They are symptom of 30 years of trickle down economics. Gutting those programs and waving the magic wand of "innovation" is not going to solve the issue.

Why are you so against education for people about financial health? (or maybe you are not, but just come across that way)

I'm not, at all. I'm very much in favor of it. But I think expecting people to know right from wrong when they receive what feels like an infinite amount of money is unrealistic. I think comprehensive financial education should be part of schools and a mandatory class in high school. Instead, we have people trying to gut social service nets (because, let's be honest, that's been Ryan's goal in the past... this state level of every program is like saying, hey, we'll make gay marriage a state issue so those states that support gay marriage can do so... oh look... all those politicians we paid into state legislatures that we couldn't get into the national level suddenly voted against it... WILL OF THE PEOPLE!) so people are starving and being told their failure is their own fault exclusively.

We have the solution to poverty, we have massive amounts of data on how it works, why it works, and how it can work for the USA.

Yup. We rank outside of the top 10 in so many things that Americans say they care about, but the ways to do so that are being shown by other countries who are way above us and actually in that top ten are political non-starters because... AMERICA! FREE MARKET! WOOO!

plavonica wrote:

What? You wanted solutions right?

Yep

Those are solutions that are proven to work.

How soon do you think any of them will be passed in Congress?

Are you one of those climate denying uber-christians that like to pray the cancer away?

Nope. I did not realize that was a pre-requisite for "Uber-Christianity". Also I have no qualms about praying for people with cancer.

Do you also ignore doctors in favor of your local pastor?

Nope. Not sure what this has to do with anti-poverty measures...

Do you believe the earth to be flat?

Nope.

Have you taken a look at the theory of evolution lately?

Yep, as can be attested by the many evolution threads on this board.

Are you worried about them dirty mexican child refugees coming here to take your job?

Nope, and I take offense to your calling Mexican children dirty. What kind of monster are you?

We have the solution to poverty, we have massive amounts of data on how it works, why it works, and how it can work for the USA. Part of that solution is to stop the current political/corporate pump&dump of the American people's wealth. It might not be 'fair' to to the uber-wealthy to give the power back to the people to live their lives but it has gone too far. America will be a 3rd world country by the time these f*ckers are done and move somewhere else.

I'm not in favor of the "pump&dump" corporate policy. I'm not in favor of the current pseudo-oligarchy. If you have read many of my posts, I'm not a Republican, nor the straw man conservative you seem to think. I'm a realist.

Jayhawker wrote:

I think the disconnect you seem to be having is that you believe that the almost $800 billion the federal government spends on 92 programs to help struggling families is the issue. The issue is that poverty has become such a problem that it is taking this many programs and this much money to mange the problem of poverty.

Is there no part of you that could consider that some of these programs might be mismanaged and ineffective?

How soon do you think any of them will be passed in Congress?

Well, how soon is anything suggeted by Paul Ryan likely to pass the Senate or avoid an executive veto?

If we don't want to talk about anything that can't pass Congress or get the President's signature, we might as well wait until after the mid-term or maybe the next Presidential election given the current state of our legislature.

Demosthenes wrote:
How soon do you think any of them will be passed in Congress?

Well, how soon is anything suggeted by Paul Ryan likely to pass the Senate or avoid an executive veto?

If we don't want to talk about anything that can't pass Congress or get the President's signature, we might as well wait until after the mid-term or maybe the next Presidential election given the current state of our legislature.

Let me repost a portion of the book I quoted earlier.

Switch wrote:

When we analyze a big, complicated problem -- like malnutrition in Vietnam, or a married couple nearing divorce, or a business on the verge of bankruptcy -- we seek a solution that befits the scale of the problem. If the problem is a round hole with a 24-inch diameter, our brains will go looking for a 24-inch peg to fill it. So, naturally, the experts on malnutrition in Vietnam wanted to talk about poverty and education and sanitation systems.

Our focus, in times of change, goes instinctively to the problems at hand. What's broken and how do we fix it? This troubleshooting mind-set serves us well -- most of the time. If you run a nuclear power plant and your diagnostics turn up a disturbing signal once per month, you should most certainly obsess about it and fix the problem. And if your child brings home a report card with five As and one F, it makes sense to freak out about the F.

But in times of change, this mind-set will backfire. If we need to make major changes, then (by definition) we don't have a near-spotless report card. A lot of things are probably wrong. The "report card" for our diet, or our marriage, or our business, is full of Cs and Ds and Fs. So if you ask yourself, What's broken and how do I fix it?, you'll simply spin your wheels. You'll spend a lot of time agonizing over issues that are TBU.

When it's time to change, we must look for bright spots -- the first signs that things are working, the first precious As and Bs on our report card. We need to ask ourselves a question that sounds simple but is, in fact, deeply unnatural: What's working and how can we do more of it?

Nomad wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I think the disconnect you seem to be having is that you believe that the almost $800 billion the federal government spends on 92 programs to help struggling families is the issue. The issue is that poverty has become such a problem that it is taking this many programs and this much money to mange the problem of poverty.

Is there no part of you that could consider that some of these programs might be mismanaged and ineffective?

There is no part of me that believes mismanaged and ineffective programs have anything to do with poverty. You are perpetuating the same straw man that Ryan has been perpetuating for years.

All federal programs that are mismanaged and ineffective should be fixed or eliminated. That is a given. But they do not contribute to poverty, nor were they designed to eliminate poverty. They were designed to manage poverty.

And while we are on straw man arguments, let's just say that the ability of Americans to handle incredible wealth has absolutely nothing to do with poverty or the ability of the poor to manage their funds.

I think the best way to think of it is the way the Indian philosopher I. Krishnamurthi put it.

The hungry man does not want to hear about food. He wants to eat.

The root cause of poverty is not financial literacy. In point of fact, he decisions of the poor that may seem obtuse to the rich often have their own internal logical consistency. Much of that (as I have witnessed) often has to do with the desire to preserve some semblance of humanity -- a humanity, ironically, all too often lacking in folks more affluent than they.

Nomad wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:
How soon do you think any of them will be passed in Congress?

Well, how soon is anything suggeted by Paul Ryan likely to pass the Senate or avoid an executive veto?

If we don't want to talk about anything that can't pass Congress or get the President's signature, we might as well wait until after the mid-term or maybe the next Presidential election given the current state of our legislature.

Let me repost a portion of the book I quoted earlier.

Switch wrote:

When we analyze a big, complicated problem -- like malnutrition in Vietnam, or a married couple nearing divorce, or a business on the verge of bankruptcy -- we seek a solution that befits the scale of the problem. If the problem is a round hole with a 24-inch diameter, our brains will go looking for a 24-inch peg to fill it. So, naturally, the experts on malnutrition in Vietnam wanted to talk about poverty and education and sanitation systems.

Our focus, in times of change, goes instinctively to the problems at hand. What's broken and how do we fix it? This troubleshooting mind-set serves us well -- most of the time. If you run a nuclear power plant and your diagnostics turn up a disturbing signal once per month, you should most certainly obsess about it and fix the problem. And if your child brings home a report card with five As and one F, it makes sense to freak out about the F.

But in times of change, this mind-set will backfire. If we need to make major changes, then (by definition) we don't have a near-spotless report card. A lot of things are probably wrong. The "report card" for our diet, or our marriage, or our business, is full of Cs and Ds and Fs. So if you ask yourself, What's broken and how do I fix it?, you'll simply spin your wheels. You'll spend a lot of time agonizing over issues that are TBU.

When it's time to change, we must look for bright spots -- the first signs that things are working, the first precious As and Bs on our report card. We need to ask ourselves a question that sounds simple but is, in fact, deeply unnatural: What's working and how can we do more of it?

Ummmm... am I the only one who doesn't see how this answers my question in the slightest? Basically what I saw was the suggestion of a lot of liberal solutions... a rebuttal saying that wouldn't pass Congress (let's be honest, the House)... me asking if the more conservative plan can't pass the Senate/White House, why are we talking about that either then... then a section of a book about problem solving... which... what?

Either way, this book's analogies, like our education system, are flawed. Suggesting that we ignore problems like health, energy production/usage, housing for the homeless, reproductive rights, public transportation because we already suck at them is a terrible idea. Especially when all of those things have been shown to help fight poverty.

Or another way to use this anology in the way the writer is trying to use it... but in the opposite direction... we clearly, as a country, suck at fighting poverty... our grade here has been slipping for a while... so screw that D-, let's go work on something else.

Nomad wrote:

Is there no part of you that could consider that some of these programs might be mismanaged and ineffective?

You've brought this up multiple times now, Nomad. And I've repeatedly asked you to provide examples of the supposed ineffectiveness, mismanagement, and waste of existing anti-poverty programs. And you've declined to do so every time. If you're going to claim something then be prepared to defend your position with facts.

Double so because the example plan you referenced is going to fracture those 92 federal programs into who knows how many separate anti-poverty programs for each state. That's because while there might be a catchy name for the funding source, the states are going to have to replicate most of those 92 federal programs.

Then they're going to have to have a least two separate service providers execute those programs. Of course that means states are going to need a whole other layer of management to coordinate those service providers--which Ryan mentions could literally be dozens of different local groups--and make sure they don't duplicate or overlap each other. And then they're going to need an entirely separate third-party group to audit their metrics. Speaking of which, some group is going to have determine which metrics are going to be tracked and what the standards of success are.

And all of the above is supposed to be more effective, more efficient, and better managed than what we're currently doing.