President Trump

[rhendon]

I read your entire post. I didn't feel you gave a black and white answer to this:

So if the licensing reqs plan went into effect and after a year we see that the rich got 500m and the poor got 50k, do we agree "Oops, that's a failure." ?

assuming inflation isn't making that 50k worthless in any real sense, and assuming that removing licensing reqs didn't have unintended safety/environmental consequences that we would deem unacceptable, i would not agree that that was a failure. income inequality in and of itself is not a problem in my mind - the problem is poverty and the damage that it causes to humans. if we had a system in which no one was poor (ie they had food/shelter/health/jobs/leisure/etc) but some people were fabulously rich, i would be fine with that.

This is actually a better way to think of it. I think the income inequality that we have right now is hit even worse because almost half our country lives below poverty levels.

But when the kids come out 40k in debt, struggling to find work that will allow them to pay less than 1/3rd of their monthly income in rent which is what previous generations had, it makes it tough to get ahead.

In Austin, average rent is like 900 a month. 900 a month means you have to bring home 2700, which means making 4kish a month. So 48k a year is what you'd have to make. That is almost the national average. Plus in Austin, public transit isn't a thing. So you need a car. All of sudden, you need to be making 55k a year just to meet what they say you need to make. Half the country doesn't make that.

[Blarg]

I read your entire post. I didn't feel you gave a black and white answer to this:

So if the licensing reqs plan went into effect and after a year we see that the rich got 500m and the poor got 50k, do we agree "Oops, that's a failure." ?

It is a failure, because of the opportunity cost. That's 500m in revenue that could have been used to help the poor in some better way.

Basically, I think the issue is that if you reduce a barrier, but even afterwards it is still too high for the poor, then you have just helped the rich. For example, the price of a yacht is a barrier to the poor having a yacht. So maybe you propose eliminating sales tax on yachts. This has reduced the barrier for a poor person to buy a yacht, and yet it is still the case that no poor person buys a yacht.

So for example with charter schools, even if you provide funding / tax rebates / whatever to reduce the cost of going to a charter school, if it is still too expensive for poor people, then you have only helped the rich ( / middle class) at the expense of the poor people, because that money could have been used for something that benefited them more. If charter schools become cheap enough / free so that poor people can go to them, then that's basically just a public education system.

Similarly, there are barriers to starting a business other than a business license. So if removing the fee for a business license is not enough to reduce the barriers to the poor, then you are just helping the (rich) people who would be starting a business anyway.

[AdmiralMotti89]

I read your entire post. I didn't feel you gave a black and white answer to this:

So if the licensing reqs plan went into effect and after a year we see that the rich got 500m and the poor got 50k, do we agree "Oops, that's a failure." ?

No. You'd have to demonstrate (or at least plausibly explain) how the societal harm of such a hypothetical wealth increase outweighs the effects of getting someone(s) out of poverty for me to jump on board.

If, on the other hand the question were the poor getting X wealth increase and the rich getting YX wealth increase, I would agree that at some point Y could get big enough to have net negative effects.

Your ratio of rich gains to poor gains was meant to be absurd. Assuming the most equal country in the world has a reasonable ratio of rich wealth to poor wealth (and you could argue it doesn't, sure), then your interpretation of what would be a disastrous amount of income inequality might be off.

By the way any black and white answers about my questions about inflation and suspended drivers' licenses?

[AdmiralMotti89]

It is a failure, because of the opportunity cost. That's 500m in revenue that could have been used to help the poor in some better way.

You make it sound like that hypothetical 500m would be used for food or clothing or shelter or something.
Would like to see you demonstrate this (or demonstrate that it would be helping the poor at all). Where is your evidence? Where was the money going before? In my specific example of the hair braiding, it was going to pay a school for a cosmetology certificate that doesn't even teach hair braiding. So where was the money going there, and for what purpose? Then it comes to the actual licensing fees like the test administration fee and the license renewal fee every two years (that doesn't have any continuing ed. requirement). Where does that money go? To the poor?

There is a lot off about your analysis, including some broken window fallacy. It's a situation of throwing money at the schools to not teach the desired skill anyways, and at the cosmetology licensing department to not actually protect anyone from the "perils" of hair braiding, just to pay its costs of the bureaucracy to regulate hair braiding that helped no one, entrepreneur or consumer, in the market of hair braiding. Even if you could demonstrate that the rich people who started hair braiding businesses without paying all that money "greatly outweigh" the number of poor people who started such businesses, the money that would have been spent is no longer spent on a useless certification and a useless license for the desired venture, but those with that money at least have a chance to spend it on something that isn't eminently wasteful. And it'd be a tall order to make a convincing argument that such a hypothetical income inequality increase would outweigh the benefit of re-allocation of those resources away from waste.

And so far, none of that has taken into account the positive impact that barrier removal would have for those for whom the barrier is disproportionately burdensome. So Nebraska recently made hair braiding an exemption to cosmetology licensing requirements. It'd be interesting to see who lost out with that bill passing. Certainly not the person who wanted to braid hair but couldn't afford to overcome the barrier. Certainly not the person looking to be braided, as they now have more options. Perhaps those already in the market who could afford to get the licensing lose out. They may have to lower prices to deal with increased competition, or increase quality of service. Interesting. The people with a lot of money, who are already established in an industry, may receive lower profits while those who were previously locked out of access the market can gain some profit. Does that have interesting broader applications for income inequality in other markets? Possibly.

Milton Friedman can often illustrate things well. Here's a good 5 minute video of him on licensing (with at least a couple nice cuts to people falling asleep in the audience).

Basically, I think the issue is that if you reduce a barrier, but even afterwards it is still too high for the poor, then you have just helped the rich. For example, the price of a yacht is a barrier to the poor having a yacht. So maybe you propose eliminating sales tax on yachts. This has reduced the barrier for a poor person to buy a yacht, and yet it is still the case that no poor person buys a yacht.

So for example with charter schools, even if you provide funding / tax rebates / whatever to reduce the cost of going to a charter school, if it is still too expensive for poor people, then you have only helped the rich ( / middle class) at the expense of the poor people, because that money could have been used for something that benefited them more. If charter schools become cheap enough / free so that poor people can go to them, then that's basically just a public education system.

Similarly, there are barriers to starting a business other than a business license. So if removing the fee for a business license is not enough to reduce the barriers to the poor, then you are just helping the (rich) people who would be starting a business anyway.

You're running a hypothetical (removal of a barrier that doesn't get rid of other barriers) that is disanalogous to the only example I've seen of licensing detailed in this thread so far (the hair braiding). For that woman, she couldn't braid hair because of requirements that wouldn't help her get better at braiding hair and wouldn't help anyone be "protected" from "malpractice" of hair braiding.

Sure, there are licensing barriers, for physicians for example, that if removed wouldn't help people who can't go to medical school anyways. It would also be interesting to see you apply the reasoning in your final paragraph to Friedman's assessment of medical licensing. You might find that it doesn't benefit the wealthy like you might think (not that it would allow those who can't afford med school to suddenly be doctors, either).

(Side note, as I don't want to get into charter schools yet, are you sure you aren't mixing up charter schools with school vouchers? Charter schools often have free tuition.)

[Gergall]

By the way any black and white answers about my questions about inflation and suspended drivers' licenses?

This is my 3rd attempt to explain why I can't answer your list of points:

1.suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets
2. debt monetization (increasing inflation)

Those aren't proposals. Those aren't complete sentences. I'm sure you would find it difficult to answer the following list of questions just as I have had trouble with your list:

1. overtime wages
2. deforestation
3. neighborhood watch groups

[AdmiralMotti89]

By the way any black and white answers about my questions about inflation and suspended drivers' licenses?

This is my 3rd attempt to explain why I can't answer your list of points:

1.suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets
2. debt monetization (increasing inflation)

Those aren't proposals. Those aren't complete sentences.

And this is my 3rd time posting this paragraph, which you have shown little to no acknowledgement of so far (other than picking the hot dogs example, the least fleshed out, and saying that one wasn't clear while ignoring the other 7):

Which of these (apart from maybe the soda tax, which was already admitted as my weakest example and not worth arguing) doesn't have a clear disproportionate effect regarding the poor, where any positive results would be disproportionately for the poor? With 5 the rich can already eat whatever they want, but dietary guidelines that influence programs like school lunches result in choices that are only alleged to be healthy. 2 deals with inflation, which hits people with less money harder. 1, 4, 6, and 8 all deal with fees/fines, which obviously hits people with less money harder. With 3, the rich already have the opportunity to get out of bad schools so considering the possibility that a kid could get a better education at a charter gives the poor access to such opportunity. 9 shouldn't need explanation. Another one I didn't think of at the time was the cost of bail from jail, I'm sure the application of the argument is obvious there too.

@Motti Your list is too ambiguous for me to be convinced that they disproportionately favor the poor. For example #3 just says "Charter schools". What about charter schools? Make more of them? Give them money? What? The same goes for your whole list. I cannot agree with you on supporting any of those things as written. If they were more fleshed out it might help (but unfortunately, it didn't help in the case of the licensing requirements).

You posted the above AFTER I added the paragraph onto my list, suggesting that the only thing I said about charter schools was "charter schools." But when I already added to the list before your post "With 3, the rich already have the opportunity to get out of bad schools so considering the possibility that a kid could get a better education at a charter gives the poor access to such opportunity" and you show zero acknowledgement of that sentence of further detail. So why should I add details to explain my point to you when you don't acknowledge the details I add?

I'm sure you would find it difficult to answer the following list of questions just as I have had trouble with your list:
1. overtime wages
2. deforestation
3. neighborhood watch groups

Not really. I would take a stab at my first impressions of the concept so the other person could have SOME idea of what I understand/think about the concept so they don't have to explain what inflation even means, for example, before explaining what the effects of changes might be.

1. I would guess if overtime wages are increased, that would affect whichever group relies more on overtime wages, which I suspect would be the poor (with the usual concerns about increased wages affecting unemployment).
2. I would say there are effects of deforestation that are bad for everyone, but I would say it more disproportionately affects those who can't move away as readily from the areas where the effects would be starker.
3. I would say that more effective neighborhood watch groups would benefit the poor more, based on the idea that currently they are underserved in terms of security services and initiative relative to the rich.

There's a starting point on my interpretations of those concepts and how they relate to the topic of benefit to the rich relative to the poor (not that you were actually bringing those into the conversation). That was actually really easy. And maybe you'll say "That's not what I meant by neighborhood watch groups," and you would explain further, if these were actual points.

Similarly, in looking at "suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets," a reasonable person might think "well the poor have less money, so it's harder for them to pay tickets, so suspension of licenses affects them more." I'm having trouble believing that you weren't able to get there (or to any inference at all on the topic, much less) on your own.

So continuing in the topic of benefits to the rich relative to benefits to the poor:

Here's the list I posted before:

1.suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets
2. debt monetization (increasing inflation)
3. charter schools (probably going to get assassinated just for mentioning it)
4. squeezing out food trucks/carts
5. lobbyist-influenced fed dietary guidelines
6. efforts to rein in money-managing (often "cryptocurency") apps that have lower fees than payday lender
7. soda tax (kinda silly, but pros and cons I suppose)
8. bacon wrapped hot dogs in LA (seriously)
9. Elvis Summers and homes for the homeless

Which of these (apart from maybe the soda tax, which was already admitted as my weakest example and not worth arguing) doesn't have a clear disproportionate effect regarding the poor, where any positive results would be disproportionately for the poor? With 5 the rich can already eat whatever they want, but dietary guidelines that influence programs like school lunches result in choices that are only alleged to be healthy. 2 deals with inflation, which hits people with less money harder. 1, 4, 6, and 8 all deal with fees/fines, which obviously hits people with less money harder. With 3, the rich already have the opportunity to get out of bad schools so considering the possibility that a kid could get a better education at a charter gives the poor access to such opportunity. 9 shouldn't need explanation. Another one I didn't think of at the time was the cost of bail from jail, I'm sure the application of the argument is obvious there too.

Why exactly do you think there's even a possibility for disproportionate benefit for the rich with those? Even if there were little to no help for the poor, how could it possibly disproportionately benefit for the rich?

@Motti Your list is too ambiguous for me to be convinced that they disproportionately favor the poor. For example #3 just says "Charter schools". What about charter schools? Make more of them? Give them money? What? The same goes for your whole list. I cannot agree with you on supporting any of those things as written. If they were more fleshed out it might help (but unfortunately, it didn't help in the case of the licensing requirements).

Without once again ignoring the majority of my paragraph below the list, which of these are still unclear? It's pretty easy to say "I cannot agree with you on supporting any of those things as written" when you ignore any further explanation. I never claimed the list was a list of solutions. I said it was a "list of topics, change in which may help those who have no wealth get a little, and those who have a little to get a little more and that "I'd be surprised if everyone didn't find a handful that they would have negative opinions about how the situation has been handled till now. I'm pretty sure I included enough info for each for a google search if anything is of interest."

If you apply even a modicum of effort to looking up and using reasoning skills on these topics, which ones still aren't clear? Inflation, for example.
Surely by now you know what debt monetization is. And you know the effects it has on inflation. And you have an opinion on how inflation affects the poor. And you have an opinion on how inflation affects the rich. So you must have an opinion on how debt monetization is affecting the poor? And is it all unclear as to what more will do? As to what less will do? Likewise, if you are incapable or unwilling to google "Elvis Summers and homes for the homeless" and get an understanding of that issue how could any specific change I would eventually make make sense to you?

[mikefrench]

so i think motti is obv way too dedicated to his weird licensing argument but i'd like to just say that there is a shred of truth to it. it's often overblown (reasonable people exist all over america and are employed by cities and counties and like helping people navigate bureaucracies) but there was a move in the mid 20th century toward a sort of technocracy that was more interested in gatekeeping than in outcomes.

[mikefrench]

fwiw i think poor people deserve normal size homes

[mikefrench]

I read your entire post. I didn't feel you gave a black and white answer to this:

So if the licensing reqs plan went into effect and after a year we see that the rich got 500m and the poor got 50k, do we agree "Oops, that's a failure." ?

It is a failure, because of the opportunity cost. That's 500m in revenue that could have been used to help the poor in some better way.

Basically, I think the issue is that if you reduce a barrier, but even afterwards it is still too high for the poor, then you have just helped the rich. For example, the price of a yacht is a barrier to the poor having a yacht. So maybe you propose eliminating sales tax on yachts. This has reduced the barrier for a poor person to buy a yacht, and yet it is still the case that no poor person buys a yacht.

So for example with charter schools, even if you provide funding / tax rebates / whatever to reduce the cost of going to a charter school, if it is still too expensive for poor people, then you have only helped the rich ( / middle class) at the expense of the poor people, because that money could have been used for something that benefited them more. If charter schools become cheap enough / free so that poor people can go to them, then that's basically just a public education system.

Similarly, there are barriers to starting a business other than a business license. So if removing the fee for a business license is not enough to reduce the barriers to the poor, then you are just helping the (rich) people who would be starting a business anyway.

i basically disagree. the point is, this doesn't have to be zero sum.

now in a practical sense, i think we're VERY far away from any sort of system in which that zero sum solution will ever be implemented. we have a system that caters to the rich so completely that we will need to dismantle some of their welfare state to create the safety net america needs.

[AdmiralMotti89]

I read your entire post. I didn't feel you gave a black and white answer to this:

So if the licensing reqs plan went into effect and after a year we see that the rich got 500m and the poor got 50k, do we agree "Oops, that's a failure." ?

To further illustrate the point...

(I'm not saying that your 10,000:1 hypothetical is even a useful or accurate framing of the results of licensing easing regardless of what the ratio would be, but let's say that there were some general policy that had that particular effect and we were looking only at the relative wealth increases like your example did. Maybe you'll want to expand the look beyond just the 500m to 50k comparison, but I think that's where your position gets weaker, not stronger, especially considering the aspects of increased competition as I described in my response to Blarg, and the effect of getting "over the bump" on wealth generation over time)

Warren Buffett gets $500,000,000. He makes $12,700,000,000 a year, so we might say he needs this money less than anyone else.
Now we don't know exactly who would get the 50k, but if it's reasonable for you to make up a 10,000:1 ratio then it's reasonable for me to suggest that that 50k might go to a person looking for an opportunity in one of the 1.5 million households that live on $2 per person per day, and it's fair to say that this household needs that money more than (just about) anyone else.

Both Buffett who got 500m and that person who got 50k have more wealth. But you might say the inequality increased. Why exactly is that bad (much less why is that bad relative to the fact that absolute poverty decreased?)? Since you have so far been reticent in describing the negative effects of income inequality, I looked up the argument myself.

One argument is that it puts disproportionate power, especially politically, in the hands of those at the top. That's a reasonable concern. So let's take a look at that here, and let's assume that a person's power is directly related to their wealth (if that's unfair, please state why). Buffett's income increased by 3.94%. The poor person's income increased by 6849.32%. Sounds like the poorer person's power is increasing at a much faster rate, right?

Let's say for the sake of simplicity (and if expanding the number of people would actually add anything to illustrating the principle here, please explain how), these are the only two people, and other things equal (a bigger ceteris paribus than is often the case in econ problems, admittedly), the wealth change you mention occurs.

Buffett's wealth as percentage of total societal wealth,before:
99.9999942520%
After:
99.9996156833%

Other person before:
0.0000057480%
After:
0.0003843167%

Looks like the poor person went from having 6 millionths of the wealth (power) to 4 ten-thousandths of the wealth (power). I think it's getting clear that it's a tall order to argue that the rich gain more in the example in the senses that matter the most, even in an immensely artificial example crafted to show just that. (Just in case I'm accused of saying 4 ten-thousandths of the power is good, that's not what I'm saying)

So, what potential negative effects would you argue we need to weigh against getting people out of poverty? Naturally and of course there should be a look at where the increased wealth is coming from (not that all of it would be "taken" from somewhere else, as that is the zero-sum misconception of wealth generation), but if we return the 10k:1 example to licensing requirements, we will end up realizing that some (not all) confer no public "protection" benefit. But so far I have brought up more negative consequences of inequality than you have. (1:0, as far as I've seen)

You example was exaggerated to show that allegedly, at some point, the income inequality would generate problems that outweigh benefits to the poor. But even the exaggerated example hasn't shown that, much less a practical estimate of what the costs would be (much less demonstrating that in the market, there would be an increase of income inequality at all).

[Gergall]

1. I would guess if overtime wages are increased, that would affect whichever group relies more on overtime wages, which I suspect would be the poor (with the usual concerns about increased wages affecting unemployment).

My proposal wasn't to increase overtime wages.

2. I would say there are effects of deforestation that are bad for everyone, but I would say it more disproportionately affects those who can't move away as readily from the areas where the effects would be starker.

So you agree with my proposal on how to address deforestation?

3. I would say that more effective neighborhood watch groups would benefit the poor more, based on the idea that currently they are underserved in terms of security services and initiative relative to the rich.

So do you agree with my proposed law regarding neighborhood watch groups?

[AdmiralMotti89]

1. I would guess if overtime wages are increased, that would affect whichever group relies more on overtime wages, which I suspect would be the poor (with the usual concerns about increased wages affecting unemployment).

My proposal wasn't to increase overtime wages.

2. I would say there are effects of deforestation that are bad for everyone, but I would say it more disproportionately affects those who can't move away as readily from the areas where the effects would be starker.

So you agree with my proposal on how to address deforestation?

3. I would say that more effective neighborhood watch groups would benefit the poor more, based on the idea that currently they are underserved in terms of security services and initiative relative to the rich.

So do you agree with my proposed law regarding neighborhood watch groups?

To reiterate

I said it was a "list of topics, change in which may help those who have no wealth get a little, and those who have a little to get a little more and that "I'd be surprised if everyone didn't find a handful that they would have negative opinions about how the situation has been handled till now. I'm pretty sure I included enough info for each for a google search if anything is of interest."

So after you google searched the ones that sounded interesting to you, did you find any that after reading about how the situation has been handled up till now, you had negative opinions? Do you think that there are any of those in which change can help those who have no wealth get a little, and those who have a little to get a little more? Did you find any that have disproportionate negative effect on the poor relative to the wealthy?

I think in the topics you posted, potential change may help those who have no wealth get a little, and those who have a little to get a little more. But if I wouldn't even engage on whether change would have an effect in those areas, why would you take the time to post specifics?

Let's say X has a disproportionate effect regarding the poor, in that X makes things harder for the poor to generate wealth than it makes things harder for the rich to generate wealth.
Do you acknowledge the difference between "change in X may help those who have no wealth get a little, and those who have a little to get a little more" and "We should change X to Y."?

What I want to know is if you even agree that X (for which the items on my list minus the withdrawn soda tax point can be substituted) has a disproportionate effect regarding the poor.

Recently, I wrote

What's ambiguous about the impact on the poor of suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets? What's ambiguous about inflation?

Where in there am I making proposals on these topics? I am asking about the current effects of these topics. I am not asking you to comment on these proposals, because they aren't proposals.

So in which of those topics, as in what's going on right now, does the status quo put a disproportionate effect on the poor?

1.suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets
2. debt monetization (increasing inflation)
3. charter schools (probably going to get assassinated just for mentioning it)
4. squeezing out food trucks/carts
5. lobbyist-influenced fed dietary guidelines
6. efforts to rein in money-managing (often "cryptocurency") apps that have lower fees than payday lender
7. soda tax (kinda silly, but pros and cons I suppose)
8. bacon wrapped hot dogs in LA (seriously)
9. Elvis Summers and homes for the homeless

Which of these (apart from maybe the soda tax, which was already admitted as my weakest example and not worth arguing) doesn't have a clear disproportionate effect regarding the poor, where any positive results would be disproportionately for the poor? With 5 the rich can already eat whatever they want, but dietary guidelines that influence programs like school lunches result in choices that are only alleged to be healthy. 2 deals with inflation, which hits people with less money harder. 1, 4, 6, and 8 all deal with fees/fines, which obviously hits people with less money harder. With 3, the rich already have the opportunity to get out of bad schools so considering the possibility that a kid could get a better education at a charter gives the poor access to such opportunity. 9 shouldn't need explanation. Another one I didn't think of at the time was the cost of bail from jail, I'm sure the application of the argument is obvious there too.

So if you want to engage on whether the status quo in these examples has a disproportionate effect on the poor, then maybe I will take the time and effort to get to specific proposals. But I am not going to spend my time getting to specifics if you won't address whether the status quo for these is one of disproportionate effect on the poor.

For example,

what's ambiguous about the impact on the poor of suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets?

Does it have a disproportionate effect on the poor? If you're reading that as a policy suggestion, then I don't know what to say.

[Gergall]

Oh okay, I see what you're asking:

1. "Suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets" probably affects lower-middle class folks the most. Rich and middle-class people can afford to pay the tickets. Poor people don't drive cars.

2. Inflation - If you don't mind I'll steer clear of this one, as economics is complicated and unfun to talk about. Lets discuss some different ones instead.

3. Charter Schools - I hear about this sometimes but I am woefully uneducated (see what I did there) on this topic.

4. Squeezing out food trucks - Not sure what this means, google returns food trucks with the word Squeeze in their name, as well as some food truck squeeze toys (the internet has everything)

5. Lobbyist dietary guidelines. This is a problem that ought to be addressed. I have no idea if it disproportionately affects the poor, but I'd support replacing lobbying influence with independent fact-driven guidelines nonetheless.

6. I'm not familiar with this. My gut reaction when hearing about cryptocurrency isn't "This is a major issue that poor people are facing" but I'll hear you out.

7. Soda tax. Yeah regressive taxes disproportionately affect the poor.

8. Bacon hot dogs - Not sure what this is even after trying to google. If this is another regressive sin tax like the soda tax then yes.

9. Elvis Summers - Not sure what this is. Looks like a guy that builds tiny houses?

[AdmiralMotti89]

Oh okay, I see what you're asking:

1. "Suspension of driver's licenses for unpaid tickets" probably affects lower-middle class folks the most. Rich and middle-class people can afford to pay the tickets. Poor people don't drive cars.

I was surprised when I looked it up, but apparently there's quite a few people living in poverty that drive cars. http://www.governing.com/topics/transpo ... verty.html
Regardless, it sounds like we are in agreement that it's easier for people with more money to pay tickets.

2. Inflation - If you don't mind I'll steer clear of this one, as economics is complicated and unfun to talk about. Lets discuss some different ones instead.

Sounds good. (Though I disagree that economics is unfun )

3. Charter Schools - I hear about this sometimes but I am woefully uneducated (see what I did there) on this topic.

Then let's do the same thing that we did to 2.

4. Squeezing out food trucks - Not sure what this means, google returns food trucks with the word Squeeze in their name, as well as some food truck squeeze toys (the internet has everything)

Fair enough. It's been awhile since I read the article (or maybe it was a video), but the basic idea is that some restaurant owners (through influencing governments) have more influence in where food trucks can "set up shop." Food trucks are often started by people who don't have or can't get the capital to do a brick and mortar restaurant. I can't fully substantiate the whole idea at the moment but if you aren't convinced I can see if I can find the story.

5. Lobbyist dietary guidelines. This is a problem that ought to be addressed. I have no idea if it disproportionately affects the poor, but I'd support replacing lobbying influence with independent fact-driven guidelines nonetheless.

I think where I was coming from is this: Let's say you want your kid to eat healthy. The kid is on free/reduced lunch. He is stuck with the school food that's "healthy" according to the lobbyists who influenced the guidelines. Someone else has a lot more money, and they can provide their kid with healthy food (who will probably trade it for Gushers or something, but at least the kid had the opportunity)

6. I'm not familiar with this. My gut reaction when hearing about cryptocurrency isn't "This is a major issue that poor people are facing" but I'll hear you out.

Lisa Servon argues apps that use cryptocurrencies (and I'm not enough in the know to be cool enough to just say "crypto") offer lower cost alternatives to payday lenders/check cashing. People strapped for money (and who aren't using banks, for various reasons) often use payday lenders, with big interest rates. I'll admit where I go on faith is of the accuracy of the opinions of some talkshow guests that governments are trying to suppress cryptocurrency. Maybe that's not true or not true, and I watched a 1/2 hour video on bitcoin once and am still confused, so I'd be happy to drop that one like I did the soda tax.

7. Soda tax. Yeah regressive taxes disproportionately affect the poor.

8. Bacon hot dogs - Not sure what this is even after trying to google. If this is another regressive sin tax like the soda tax then yes.

In LA, they are apparently banned at food carts because grilling them instead of steaming is allegedly unsafe. But they are popular and people sell them anyways. Police "raids" result in fines or throwing out the food. These fines or confiscation of product disproportionately impact the vendors who are struggling to get by and can't afford a day without sales. That's my understanding, I think this article is about the same lady about whom I first heard the story: https://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/th ... al-2151873

9. Elvis Summers - Not sure what this is. Looks like a guy that builds tiny houses?

Here's the article I believe I first heard about it from: https://reason.com/reasontv/2016/12/09/ ... iny-houses
I buy into the argument that these houses provide a "secure foundation" for the homeless, as the article states. The government didn't crack down on the secure foundations of the rich, so their treatment of the houses Summers built disproportionately affects the homeless, who are also (presumably) poorer.

[mserisman]

I read your entire post. I didn't feel you gave a black and white answer to this:

So if the licensing reqs plan went into effect and after a year we see that the rich got 500m and the poor got 50k, do we agree "Oops, that's a failure." ?

assuming inflation isn't making that 50k worthless in any real sense, and assuming that removing licensing reqs didn't have unintended safety/environmental consequences that we would deem unacceptable, i would not agree that that was a failure. income inequality in and of itself is not a problem in my mind - the problem is poverty and the damage that it causes to humans. if we had a system in which no one was poor (ie they had food/shelter/health/jobs/leisure/etc) but some people were fabulously rich, i would be fine with that.

This is actually a better way to think of it. I think the income inequality that we have right now is hit even worse because almost half our country lives below poverty levels.

But when the kids come out 40k in debt, struggling to find work that will allow them to pay less than 1/3rd of their monthly income in rent which is what previous generations had, it makes it tough to get ahead.

In Austin, average rent is like 900 a month. 900 a month means you have to bring home 2700, which means making 4kish a month. So 48k a year is what you'd have to make. That is almost the national average. Plus in Austin, public transit isn't a thing. So you need a car. All of sudden, you need to be making 55k a year just to meet what they say you need to make. Half the country doesn't make that.

Good thing half the country doesn't live in Austin then...

[rhendon]

I read your entire post. I didn't feel you gave a black and white answer to this:

So if the licensing reqs plan went into effect and after a year we see that the rich got 500m and the poor got 50k, do we agree "Oops, that's a failure." ?

assuming inflation isn't making that 50k worthless in any real sense, and assuming that removing licensing reqs didn't have unintended safety/environmental consequences that we would deem unacceptable, i would not agree that that was a failure. income inequality in and of itself is not a problem in my mind - the problem is poverty and the damage that it causes to humans. if we had a system in which no one was poor (ie they had food/shelter/health/jobs/leisure/etc) but some people were fabulously rich, i would be fine with that.

This is actually a better way to think of it. I think the income inequality that we have right now is hit even worse because almost half our country lives below poverty levels.

But when the kids come out 40k in debt, struggling to find work that will allow them to pay less than 1/3rd of their monthly income in rent which is what previous generations had, it makes it tough to get ahead.

In Austin, average rent is like 900 a month. 900 a month means you have to bring home 2700, which means making 4kish a month. So 48k a year is what you'd have to make. That is almost the national average. Plus in Austin, public transit isn't a thing. So you need a car. All of sudden, you need to be making 55k a year just to meet what they say you need to make. Half the country doesn't make that.

Good thing half the country doesn't live in Austin then...

Yea half live in more expensive places. The other half lives in cheaper places. The national average for rent is 1400 a month according to 1 site. It is 950 according to another. The cheaper one lists the state of Washington at 1159. The cheaper one also lists Austin at 1400 a month.

[mserisman]

Yea half live in more expensive places. The other half lives in cheaper places. The national average for rent is 1400 a month according to 1 site. It is 950 according to another. The cheaper one lists the state of Washington at 1159. The cheaper one also lists Austin at 1400 a month.

Shows how misleading stats are.. in a few seconds I looked up Seattle (about $1900) and Spokane (about $960). So State levels are pretty meaningless.

Anyway, curious as to one aspect of this conversation. Is this entire conversation just hypothetical philosophy? Are people here impacted by poverty and feel they have no options?

[arebelspy]

What a privileged position to view discussions of poverty as "hypothetical philosophy."

You really don't know anyone near the poverty line? Or even sub-30k gross?

Could be time to go meet some new people, if that is the case.

Regardless of if you do or don't know someone in that position, poverty isn't hypothetical philosophy just because I'm not poor.

Is talking about malaria hypothetical philosophy to me just because I don't have malaria? No, of course not. I still care about the issue, and take action on it (donate to Against Malaria).

[rhendon]

Yea half live in more expensive places. The other half lives in cheaper places. The national average for rent is 1400 a month according to 1 site. It is 950 according to another. The cheaper one lists the state of Washington at 1159. The cheaper one also lists Austin at 1400 a month.

Shows how misleading stats are.. in a few seconds I looked up Seattle (about $1900) and Spokane (about $960). So State levels are pretty meaningless.

Anyway, curious as to one aspect of this conversation. Is this entire conversation just hypothetical philosophy? Are people here impacted by poverty and feel they have no options?

Ignore added. Its just not worth discussing things with you. You live a very sheltered life full of bias and it isn't worth the time or effort to discuss them with you.

[vhstapes]

I was born in to and continue to live in poverty, mostly because where I live has not only incredibly high rent/property tax, but the cost of living in general is insane. I work over full time most weeks, one job as program manager for a non-profit employment agency for people who experience disabilities and other barriers to employment, and one job as a computer tech (my own business). Still absolutely broke most of the time.

I stay where I am because my family lives here and they are the only means of support we have for my 2 kids. Not monetary support, but things like storage, watching the kids, etc.

But I don't comment in the this thread much because I value my free time (lol) and I feel there's little point to me trying to ever keep up with the Admiral's walls of text (or really any or it, I'd rather be talking about cards). Nor is fixing poverty something I think any amount of armchair debating is going to figure out. First politicians have to actually give a * about poor people, and not be in the pockets of big business. At least, IMHO, of course.