Video on overpopulation/poverty/immigration

[Winstonm]

I never know how to understand statements like "Workers in country X make only $2 a day". OK, but how does that relate to their living expenses? I spend several times that much on lunch each day, but villages in 3rd World countries don't have sub shops that charge $6 for a sandwich.

 

I'm not trying to say that these people aren't dirt poor -- when you see their living conditions, it's obvious that they are literally so. But I just dislike this particular way of describing it. 50 years ago wages in the US were also much less than they are now, but so were prices of everything else. Dollar amounts are all relative. It's like when they describe movie successes in terms of box office revenues, without adjusting for the inflation in ticket prices. I have to assume that $2 in one of those poor nations buys more than it does here, because otherwise all those people would die of starvation or exposure.

 

To quantify the numbers some barometer must be used - hence, the dollar-per-day figures. And as far as relativity of the poor is concerned, relative living expenses matter not whether the poverty figures used are $1, 2, or $3 dollars a day - these groups represent extreme poverty where $6 dollar sandwiches are not to be confused with the necessity of locating and transporting clean drinking water each day.

[Winstonm]

What does it mean to live on under $1 or $2 per day?

 

 

Most of the points below are taken from analysis by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of survey data from 13 countries.12 We also consider information from Portfolios of the Poor,13 which tracked the financial lives of over 250 households in 3 countries at a high level of detail.

 

Most of income is spent on food. People living on less than $1 or $2 per day reported spending a large proportion (between 55 and 80%) of their incomes on food. The proportion of income spent on food was not substantially different between the under $1 and under $2 per day groups.

 

 

There is little ownership of "productive assets." People living on under $1 a day generally reported owning few “productive” assets such as bicycles, sewing machines, phones, or tractors,15 though in some areas a large proportion of poor households own small plots of land.

 

Varying ownership of TV and radios. Ownership of non-productive assets also varied widely across countries and between urban and rural areas. In Tanzania, for example, almost no one living on under $1 a day reported owning a television, while 57% of those living on the same (adjusted) income in Hyderabad, India owned one. Rates of radio ownership were higher than those for television. About 70% of those living on under $1 a day in Peru, South Africa, and Nicaragua own radios, and in several other places ownership rates were over 40%.

 

 

Varying access to electricity, water and sanitation. The poor often lacked access to basic infrastructure, and as with assets, there was large variability among households around the world. In Mexico and Indonesia, for example, electricity access was nearly universal, but in-house tap water and ownership of a toilet or latrine were far less prevalent in Indonesia (data for Mexico not available).

 

Poor health. The poor reported often being sick. Among the surveys cited by Banerjee and Duflo (2006), no surveys yielded an average 'percent of household members sick' (in the month before the survey) of below 10%, and many reported rates above 25%.

 

 

Multiple occupations. Banerjee and Duflo (2006) also looked into how the poor earn their incomes. One pattern they found in many parts of the world was the tendency of the poor to engage in multiple occupations. Common occupations were running very small businesses, small-plot agriculture, and day labor.

 

The authors argue that by spreading themselves across a variety of occupations and operating their businesses at such small scales, the poor miss out on gains from specialization and scale economies.

 

They believe that this poverty-perpetuating behavior comes from the desire of the poor to minimize risk as well as their inability to raise the capital needed to operate more efficiently.

 

Unpredictability and risk. Banerjee and Duflo (2007) argue that what often separates the 'middle class' (which they define as living on between $2 and $10 per day) from the poor in developing countries are steady well-paying jobs, not greater success at running small businesses.

 

Banerjee and Duflo hypothesize that more reliable income flows may be the reason the middle class invest more of their income in the future than the poor do.

 

(However, we note that it is also possible that, to some degree, people who are more future-oriented in general are the same people who end up with higher incomes.)

 

Portfolios of the Poor suggests that in addition to having small incomes, the poor often have irregular and unpredictable incomes.

 

The book reports on Collins, et al.'s studies of how the poor in India, Bangladesh, and South Africa manage the fact that "the reality of living on two dollars a day is that you don’t literally earn that sum each day."

[onoway]

This TED Talk has some interesting data on poverty and population

[kenberg]

From Winston's post:

 

Varying ownership of TV and radios. Ownership of non-productive assets also varied widely across countries and between urban and rural areas. In Tanzania, for example, almost no one living on under $1 a day reported owning a television, while 57% of those living on the same (adjusted) income in Hyderabad, India owned one.

 

For me, this is a fine illustration of the lack of connection between reality and data. How on Earth would someone earning less than $1/day own a tv, and why would he want one, if the the phrase "living on under $1/day" has any resemblance to the real situation? I have never been living on under $1/day, or anything like that, even in 1960 collars, and there were times that I could not afford a tv. So what does it all mean? barmar can speak for himself but I expect this is the sort of thing he had in mind when he said "I never know how to understand statements like 'Workers in country X make only $2 a day' ". It's not being unsy[pathetic to the plight of the poor to look skeptically at some of the assertions.

 

 

Kris Kristofferson, and of course Janis Joplin, can sing about being Busted Flat in Baton Rouge. Roger Miller can sing about being King of the Road. To my mind the more authentic is Josh White: "He looked the menu through and through / to see what fifteen cents would do." One meatball, and that was sixty or seventy years ago. A tv set was not in the equation.

 

But what do we really know? Living on under $1 a day and owning a tv just doesn't compute for me.

[kenberg]

This TED Talk has some interesting data on poverty and population http://www.ted.com/t...ion_growth.html

 

I like his characterization of himself as a "possibilist". I think an attempt to see what is, and isn't, possible can be very useful.Whether his thoughts fall into the realm of the possible is far from clear, but it's a useful approach.I guess one way to look at it is that it had better be possible or else we are in serious trouble.

[Winstonm]

From Winston's post:

 

 

 

For me, this is a fine illustration of the lack of connection between reality and data. How on Earth would someone earning less than $1/day own a tv, and why would he want one, if the the phrase "living on under $1/day" has any resemblance to the real situation? I have never been living on under $1/day, or anything like that, even in 1960 collars, and there were times that I could not afford a tv. So what does it all mean? barmar can speak for himself but I expect this is the sort of thing he had in mind when he said "I never know how to understand statements like 'Workers in country X make only $2 a day' ". It's not being unsy[pathetic to the plight of the poor to look skeptically at some of the assertions.

 

 

Kris Kristofferson, and of course Janis Joplin, can sing about being Busted Flat in Baton Rouge. Roger Miller can sing about being King of the Road. To my mind the more authentic is Josh White: "He looked the menu through and through / to see what fifteen cents would do." One meatball, and that was sixty or seventy years ago. A tv set was not in the equation.

 

But what do we really know? Living on under $1 a day and owning a tv just doesn't compute for me.

 

A used t.v. doesn't have much value. The thing to remember is that $1 or $2 a day is not a salary but an average - the earnings usually come in clusters. Most of us splurge a bit when we feel flush, no matter how temporary that condition may be.

[kenberg]

A used t.v. doesn't have much value. The thing to remember is that $1 or $2 a day is not a salary but an average - the earnings usually come in clusters. Most of us splurge a bit when we feel flush, no matter how temporary that condition may be.

 

Myself, living on $1/day, if i had a little extra money I might buy an apple. Or some meat. Not a tv.

 

Suppose a guy goes out on the lake in the morning and brings home some fish. Enough to trade an extra bass for a sweater for his kid. In the afternoon he picks some wild berries and then works in the garden. In the evening he gathers some branches for heat for his shack. Not a bad day. His income is $0 is it not? might he have a tv? I suppose, but it seems low priority. Maybe he trades a pig for the electricity. No income there either.

 

If someone says that life is tough for many in the world, very tough, I agree at once. If someone says that many people who are living on less than $1/day have a television set, I wonder just how they are coming by their numbers. Statistics can be very misleading, even when everyone is trying to play it straight. And, often, they aren't.

 

The real problem with such data is that it is irrelevant. Virtually no one disagrees with the statement that there is a lot of poverty in the world. So why jazz it up with a lot of (in my view phony) data? It's a distraction. If we want data to measure progress, keep track of malnutrition. Lowering it indicates success.

[mycroft]

TV = education. No, not the edutainment we all gripe about, but University of the Air and the Indian (or Ugandan) equivalent. So the children in the families living on $2/day are shut out of that opportuinity to break free.

 

And yeah, I could (well, pre-digital everything) get a TV for $10, even here. It wouldn't be perfect, but I could get picture and sound. If it were a week's wages investment in my children's future...would I?

[kenberg]

Ok. It is possible that there are a lot of Indians making $1 (it was $1 in the Winston article that spoke of the tvs) a day, somehow feeding their families and saving money for a tv so that their kids can get a good education. I'll believe it when I see it, but I am not in a position to say it is false. It does not really go against my main objection to the under $2/day figure: In many places, most of what is done to stay alive involves no transfer of money. People farm, fish, pick berries etc. I am not at all saying that their life is not hard, I am sure that it is very hard. But if we think of a person in the state making $2/day who for whatever reason is cut off from SNAP and other support services, we are thinking of someone who is probably dead in the near future unless he turns to theft. Of course someone here does have SNAP, he has various charities, and so on. And so he can live. But on $2/day, with no other means of support, he cannot live, not here. If this picture comes to mind when it is said that people around the world are living on $2/day, it may be not at all accurate. If he goes out and catches fish, do we include a fair market value of the fish when we count his income? If not, we are tossing out numbers that have very limited use in assessing his actual living conditions.

 

Much more useful, it seems to me, is the number of people who cannot manage food and shelter for themselves and family. I am sure that in some places a person making $10/day would find this virtually impossible. In other places, the land will still provide. This "living on less than $2/day" is an emotional hook. I doubt that it stands up well as a useful tool for evaluating the true severity of a person's situation.

[32519]

I agree that data can be misleading. How many of these guys are earning, say $10 per day, but he has a wife and 3 young children? Now the $10 equates to $2 for each of them. At the current exchange rate, $10 is equal to R120 South African Rands. My government has made it law that the minimum daily wage is R105, which is equal to $9.375 at the current exchange rate. The poor here live in shacks made of corrugated iron, more often than not, donated by the government. These shacks don't attract any property rates and taxes. A central water point and toilet is provided which services a whole cluster of these shacks. These people have learned how to survive on $10 per day. The cost of living in South Africa is much lower than the USA.

 

Again, data can be misleading.

[blackshoe]

it's not just the tv. you have to have a place to plug it in - and you have to be able to pay for electricity. Unless you're affiliated with "Magic, Incorporated".

[kenberg]

it's not just the tv. you have to have a place to plug it in - and you have to be able to pay for electricity. Unless you're affiliated with "Magic, Incorporated".

 

And for starters, you have to live in a dwelling where connecting to electricity is an option.

 

I mentioned early in this thread about the book King Peggy. She was able to help the village, or region, that made her king. Part of this was arranging for proper sources of water. Children had been walking some number of miles to get water in a container that they brought back home. It took some money, but closer sources of water could be developed. She helped by setting up a bank account for the finances of the village. Previously a lot of the collective money for the village had disappeared into the pockets of the elders. As best I can recall, the wage structure of the workers was never discussed. No doubt money changed hands in some activities, but I think much of daily survival depended on fishing and farming, and that was not recorded as income. There were exports of fish to other communities, so there was a cash flow there.

 

My point, and maybe I am beating it to death, is that the daily wage of the villagers was not seen by the locals as the main issue and would not seem to me either to be a useful measure of progress or lack of progress.

 

Many people seem to hate math but love numbers. Numbers without a careful analysis of their meaning are a trap.

[blackshoe]

I love math. It's numbers I can't stand! :D

[Winstonm]

And for starters, you have to live in a dwelling where connecting to electricity is an option.

 

I mentioned early in this thread about the book King Peggy. She was able to help the village, or region, that made her king. Part of this was arranging for proper sources of water. Children had been walking some number of miles to get water in a container that they brought back home. It took some money, but closer sources of water could be developed. She helped by setting up a bank account for the finances of the village. Previously a lot of the collective money for the village had disappeared into the pockets of the elders. As best I can recall, the wage structure of the workers was never discussed. No doubt money changed hands in some activities, but I think much of daily survival depended on fishing and farming, and that was not recorded as income. There were exports of fish to other communities, so there was a cash flow there.

 

My point, and maybe I am beating it to death, is that the daily wage of the villagers was not seen by the locals as the main issue and would not seem to me either to be a useful measure of progress or lack of progress.

 

Many people seem to hate math but love numbers. Numbers without a careful analysis of their meaning are a trap.

 

Agreed, but it is deeper than even that. One must also take into account the meaning of the usage within the data:

A US dollar does go quite a long way in some developing countries.

 

Instead, the economists calculated a specially-adjusted dollar using something called Purchasing Power Parity, or PPP.

 

They looked at the price of hundreds of goods in developing countries. And then with reference to national accounts, household surveys and census data, they calculated how much money you would need in each country to buy a comparable basket of goods that would cost you $1 in the USA.

 

You were under the global poverty line if you couldn't afford that basket

.

 

It seems this article supports my earlier claim that odd or even bad decision-making is a property of humankind regardless of economic status:

 

 

And surprisingly perhaps, people who live on $1 a day do not spend all of it on that basket of food - on staying alive. They typically spend about 40 cents on other things, says Professor Abhijit Banerjee of MIT.

 

The first UN Millennium Development Goal focused on halving the number of people living on $1 a day

"Even though they could actually buy enough calories, the fact is they don't. If you look at the people especially in South Asia who live on $1 a day - huge malnutrition.

 

"They sacrifice calories to buy some entertainment, some pleasure.

 

"It's a balance between survivalist behaviour and pleasure-seeking behaviour. I think as human beings we need both."

[mike777]

His argument is taking 1 million immigrants from poor countries into the USA not only does not help poor countries it hurts them because we take the best and brightest and they return nothing or close to nothing to the old country.

 

He offers no proof.

 

Of course there is proof that immigrants and the children of immigrants to the usa in fact helped their old poor countries. That is stronger proof for more immigrants not less.

 

Perhaps a better argument is that we do a very poor job of measuring the effectiveness of aid in all forms to poor countries and to the poor in the usa.

[kenberg]

It seems this article supports my earlier claim that odd or even bad decision-making is a property of humankind regardless of economic status:

 

You get no argument from me on this, and I definitely include myself..

 

 

Agreed, but it is deeper than even that. One must also take into account the meaning of the usage within the data:

 

The article has many intersting bits. If I cherry-pick to find agreement with my views I find:

 

But it's a lot more complicated, and controversial, than it at first appears.

 

and

 

It's a wildly successful PR device that I think has been a failure in terms of achieving the objectives of improving human well-being in the world,

 

 

But far more interesting is the discussion of the success:

 

But one major reason the number took off and gained a life of its own, was the adoption as the first UN Millennium Development goal to "halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day". This high-profile target was agreed by the UN General Assembly and embraced by most of the world's development institutions.

 

Ten days ago, the World Bank declared the goal had been met early.

 

 

 

It appears that there is some serious discussion going on. I applaud it. As I get it, we could look at two extreme cases. One would be that you go around and give a small amount of money to many people, enough to bring their income up to $1.05/day and then declare the program a great success because you have cut in half the number of people living on less that $1/day. At the other extreme you build in some regional economic growth that, as a natural consequence, brings many people above that threshold and perhaps some of them a good deal above the threshold. Let's hope it is more of the latter than of the former that is going on.

 

In the meantime, I had no idea that there was enough progress being made that would generate such a discussion and I am pleased to hear it.

[Winstonm]

You get no argument from me on this, and I definitely include myself..

 

 

 

 

The article has many intersting bits. If I cherry-pick to find agreement with my views I find:

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

But far more interesting is the discussion of the success:

 

 

 

 

It appears that there is some serious discussion going on. I applaud it. As I get it, we could look at two extreme cases. One would be that you go around and give a small amount of money to many people, enough to bring their income up to $1.05/day and then declare the program a great success because you have cut in half the number of people living on less that $1/day. At the other extreme you build in some regional economic growth that, as a natural consequence, brings many people above that threshold and perhaps some of them a good deal above the threshold. Let's hope it is more of the latter than of the former that is going on.

 

In the meantime, I had no idea that there was enough progress being made that would generate such a discussion and I am pleased to hear it.

 

I hope you understand that I was not being critical as I had no idea either about the meanings of 1 and 2-dollars a day. I was only posting what I found out through investigation.

 

Although I still don't know how beneficial it is, placing some kind of number assignment to buying power does provide a method to quantify, but how valid those numbers are is still confusing to me.

 

At the same time, I am pretty certain that someone who earns per day in buying power the equivalent of what $2 would buy in the U.S.A. is broke, regardless of where he lives.

 

I do find it interesting that during our discussion this was came out in the Huffington Post, quoting an op-ed piece from the Wall Street Journal:

 

Venture capitalist Thomas Perkins wrote a letter to the editors at the Wall Street Journal, comparing the plight of the rich to the Holocaust, called "Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?"... and the WSJ published it.

 

"I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich,'" Perkins writes. Thomas Perkins, one of the founders of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, was comparing taxes on the super rich to the slaughter of millions in the Holocaust

 

That has a rather French flair to it, does it not? ;)

[kenberg]

I dunno about French, i don't get that, but the analogy with kristallnacht seems extremely strained. I do think though that the fundamental problem is that many people are very poor rather than that some people are very rich.

 

There was a piece in the NYT today speculating about success in overcoming poverty here in the USA:

http://www.nytimes.c...h_20140126&_r=0

 

They speak of a Triple Package: A feeling of superiority coupled with worries of inferiority, all supported by impulse control. I particularly liked learning that

"Thomas Jefferson sent a giant moose carcass to Paris to prove that America's animals were bigger than Europe's"

 

 

I don't recognize this Triple Package, at least not fundamentally, in my own gestalt but then again I am neither rich nor famous so perhaps there is something to their explanation.

[Winstonm]

He reminds me of the French aristocracy prior to the revolution.

[barmar]

His argument is taking 1 million immigrants from poor countries into the USA not only does not help poor countries it hurts them because we take the best and brightest and they return nothing or close to nothing to the old country.

 

He offers no proof.

I think his proof is simply a reference to our immigration laws, and the criteria they have for granting work visas; he didn't go into detail in the talk because he seemed to assume the audience was familiar with them. Most visas are only available for skilled workers. The Statue of Liberty may still have the words "Give us your tired, your poor, etc." but that sentiment is not reflected in our immigration laws these days.

[kenberg]

I think his proof is simply a reference to our immigration laws, and the criteria they have for granting work visas; he didn't go into detail in the talk because he seemed to assume the audience was familiar with them. Most visas are only available for skilled workers. The Statue of Liberty may still have the words "Give us your tired, your poor, etc." but that sentiment is not reflected in our immigration laws these days.

 

This speaks to a long held view of mine. My father came to this country in 1910.That was about 24 years after Miss Liberty, and fifty some years after Minnesota, where i grew up, became a state. New Mexico and Arizona were not yet states, I believe..We had a lot of land and not that many people. My father, age 10, came with his brother, age 16. They became Americans and good citizens. That's what was needed then. Our immigration policy was a "build the country" plan, not a "save the world" plan. Every country has myths and these myths can serve as useful ideals. But we need to keep myths in check. Our immigration policy then was intended to serve the interests of the nation. This is natural and, if done wisely, it is a good thing. Our cities may be overcrowded but the country as a whole is not, and a wise immigration policy, attuned to our needs, will serve us well.

[mike777]

I think his proof is simply a reference to our immigration laws, and the criteria they have for granting work visas; he didn't go into detail in the talk because he seemed to assume the audience was familiar with them. Most visas are only available for skilled workers. The Statue of Liberty may still have the words "Give us your tired, your poor, etc." but that sentiment is not reflected in our immigration laws these days.

 

 

Again he offers no proof that they don't help the old country.

 

But even if we assume they don't..so what.

 

He seems to desire a Rousseau view of the world.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

 

He rejects Hobbes philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

 

He advocates not letting them leave the old poor country because it will hurt the old country. That is fascist. That is like saying Ken should not be allowed to leave MD or Winston OK because they must stay and help the state.

 

It is enough that it may help the individual and it may help the new country.

[barmar]

Again he offers no proof that they don't help the old country.

 

But even if we assume they don't..so what.

 

He seems to desire a Rousseau view of the world.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

 

He rejects Hobbes philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

 

He advocates not letting them leave the old poor country because it will hurt the old country. That is fascist. That is like saying Ken should not be allowed to leave MD or Winston OK because they must stay and help the state.

 

It is enough that it may help the individual and it may help the new country.

I think you may be misunderstanding the point of the talk (or maybe I was).

 

He's not advocating closing our borders. He's only responding to people who say "We should keep our borders open, because it will reduce worldwide poverty". We might want to keep our borders open, but we should not delude ourselves into thinking it will serve that particular purpose. Immigration will help a negligible fraction of people in those poor countries, like spitting into the ocean. If your goal is to reduce worldwide poverty, there are more effective ways to go about it.

[mike777]

I think you may be misunderstanding the point of the talk (or maybe I was).

 

He's not advocating closing our borders. He's only responding to people who say "We should keep our borders open, because it will reduce worldwide poverty". We might want to keep our borders open, but we should not delude ourselves into thinking it will serve that particular purpose. Immigration will help a negligible fraction of people in those poor countries, like spitting into the ocean. If your goal is to reduce worldwide poverty, there are more effective ways to go about it.

 

 

Ok clearly we disagree. I think open immigration around the world, free movement of labor, is a very important factor in reducing world wide poverty. Not the only factor but a really big one.

 

He is advocating closing the borders of poor countries to stop the flight of the best and brightest. He wants these 1M-2m-5M Immigrants to stay home. His basic premise is just wrong. to stop, to not encourage, a free flow of labor hurts poverty it does not help it.

 

 

The thesis is really pretty basic, more immigration free flow of labor leads to more innovation, more innovation leads to more world wide growth and a reduction of worldwide poverty.

 

 

1M-2M per year over 2 generations=80M. Now add in another 100M or more immigrant children. That is a lot of human capital to create innovation which will increase world wide growth and productivity. Now add in other countries not just the USA.

 

---

 

This whole overpopulation thesis rests on 1) lack of innovation, 2) limited earth based resources.

 

So that means we need more innovation and we need to look at space based resources. That mankinds future lies in the universe not just planet Earth. One future hope is to somehow use the Sun to help create food, cheap energy, wood for houses, etc. But so many think looking to space based resources and more innovation is a death spiral dream. This guys whole thesis is that USA or other rich countries based innovation cannot be more than a spit in the ocean to helping the poorest of the poor.

[barmar]

He is advocating closing the borders of poor countries to stop the flight of the best and brightest. He wants these 1M-2m-5M Immigrants to stay home. His basic premise is just wrong. to stop, to not encourage, a free flow of labor hurts poverty it does not help it.

 

The thesis is really pretty basic, more immigration free flow of labor leads to more innovation, more innovation leads to more world wide growth and a reduction of worldwide poverty.

I see your point. The issue isn't America's immigration policy, it's the emigration policy of the poor countries. If they try to hold on to all their best and brightest, these people will not achieve as much as if they were allowed to leave. They won't have the resources to achieve their full potential, and their morale will be worse.

 

Although from their country's perspective, it may be a lesser-of-evils choice. If these people leave, they might achieve greatness, but it won't necessarily help their country of origin. By keeping them at home, they might not achieve as much as if they'd left, but at least it will be for the benefit of that country.

 

But this misses the "rising tide lifts all boats" point. If these people are able to solve worldwide problems, it should benefit everyone, including their homeland. And who will be more sympathetic to the poor countries' needs than researchers who grew in them.