I'm not sure how much this documentary pertains to people "skeptical about the welfare state", since those people, typically libertarians, still want to help the poorest individuals, but through different means like private charity and fully in cash welfare benefits like a negative income tax. So I do think the welfare state skepticism is well-founded.
Also, do you have any thoughts on the swap line with Argentina?
What amazed me….and made me had to stop watching, was that a few of them had multiple kids at such a young age. Like seeing a toddler eat saltines and chili broke me.
There is a lot of evidence that poor people generally don't exactly know how poor they are.
From the personal post-Soviet experience, I just didn't really know how poor we were.
I was sometimes hungry, didn’t have any allowances for anything, was wearing clothes of my grandfather, we did a lot of physical work, people around me killed each other and died extremely early but I thought that it was fine until the early 20s.
Partly, because I didn’t really think about my lack of ability to buy physical stuff or go out because people were wearing work clothes and my place just didn’t have anything hence your mind couldn’t produce something about rich people having good life because everyone looked like a hobo and had drinking themselves to death as a main hobby (there was a big Soviet “palace of culture” but my uncle burned it quite early in timeline).
It's kinda weird. In the end, it's a measure of inequality. I have very weird attitude toward relative poverty and inequality measures, both qualitative and quantitive.
As known Auten vs Zucman you can have a very wide dispersion of estimates in income inequality (wealth is even more arbitrary) while having quite sane methodological choices.
Around 1/3-1/4 of post-socialist states have ginis similar to ginis they had during the late Soviet Union from the World Bank surveys. I'm not even sure what to conclude from it in a real sense.
It’s not so much a measure of equality as much as it is a measure of what we think to be a reasonable minimum. Reasonable minimums can change over time as technology develops and our literal standard of living increase.
I'm not sure how much this documentary pertains to people "skeptical about the welfare state", since those people, typically libertarians, still want to help the poorest individuals, but through different means like private charity and fully in cash welfare benefits like a negative income tax. So I do think the welfare state skepticism is well-founded.
Also, do you have any thoughts on the swap line with Argentina?
You will adopt juche welfare statism one day.
Also I don’t have many thoughts on the swap line. It’s probably won’t make a huge deal for the average American either way.
I think most Democrats would be happy to see an even further expanded Child Tax Credit.
What amazed me….and made me had to stop watching, was that a few of them had multiple kids at such a young age. Like seeing a toddler eat saltines and chili broke me.
There is a lot of evidence that poor people generally don't exactly know how poor they are.
From the personal post-Soviet experience, I just didn't really know how poor we were.
I was sometimes hungry, didn’t have any allowances for anything, was wearing clothes of my grandfather, we did a lot of physical work, people around me killed each other and died extremely early but I thought that it was fine until the early 20s.
Partly, because I didn’t really think about my lack of ability to buy physical stuff or go out because people were wearing work clothes and my place just didn’t have anything hence your mind couldn’t produce something about rich people having good life because everyone looked like a hobo and had drinking themselves to death as a main hobby (there was a big Soviet “palace of culture” but my uncle burned it quite early in timeline).
This is part of the reason why relative poverty measures make the most sense! People relate to their surroundings first and foremost.
It's kinda weird. In the end, it's a measure of inequality. I have very weird attitude toward relative poverty and inequality measures, both qualitative and quantitive.
As known Auten vs Zucman you can have a very wide dispersion of estimates in income inequality (wealth is even more arbitrary) while having quite sane methodological choices.
Around 1/3-1/4 of post-socialist states have ginis similar to ginis they had during the late Soviet Union from the World Bank surveys. I'm not even sure what to conclude from it in a real sense.
It’s not so much a measure of equality as much as it is a measure of what we think to be a reasonable minimum. Reasonable minimums can change over time as technology develops and our literal standard of living increase.
I talk about this in a more in-depth way here if interested -> https://substack.com/@econoboi/p-153943846