What If Everything You Knew About Poverty Was Wrong?

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Oct 25, 2016 9:58:43 GMT -5 milee said:

The same correlation can be shown between abortion and crime as well.   That hypothesis - that crime rates are tied to the availability of abortion - was one of the main points in Freakonomics. 

I'm not arguing lead isn't poisonous or that it isn't a factor, just pointing out that there are so many factors involved in most of these cases that it's tough to see that lead is the primary one.  Even in the Freddie Gray example, how the heck would you ever know if his issues were due to the lead or the fact that he was born a premature twin to a heroin addict that continued to have even more children she couldn't support or nurture?  Was it the lead in his tiny system or the heroin?  Was it a physical poison or the toxic environment?  Who knows? 

I think pointing at lead is appealing because it's something we feel the government could "do something" about even if the addicted, neglectful parents don't choose to do anything, but I'm extremely skeptical that removing all lead will significantly decrease future poverty or crime.  The environmental and family factors are too ingrained and powerful an influence. 

I think that, as with all complex issues, one peels off and solves layers of factors and then reveals the core.  So, rather than questioning whether eliminating one factor will solve the larger problem, we should attack each and every cause we have solutions for and see what's left, and then attack that.  

Solving poverty and crime will be a huge job.  So, let's tear apart the problems and get to solving them, even if the attack is piecemeal.  Otherwise, the alternative is to allow our inaction -- while waiting for the perfect, and/or complete, solution -- to simply perpetuate the status quo, which no one -- wealthy, middle class, welfare class -- wants.    

[milee]

Oct 25, 2016 10:31:14 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

Oct 25, 2016 9:58:43 GMT -5 milee said:

The same correlation can be shown between abortion and crime as well.   That hypothesis - that crime rates are tied to the availability of abortion - was one of the main points in Freakonomics. 

I'm not arguing lead isn't poisonous or that it isn't a factor, just pointing out that there are so many factors involved in most of these cases that it's tough to see that lead is the primary one.  Even in the Freddie Gray example, how the heck would you ever know if his issues were due to the lead or the fact that he was born a premature twin to a heroin addict that continued to have even more children she couldn't support or nurture?  Was it the lead in his tiny system or the heroin?  Was it a physical poison or the toxic environment?  Who knows? 

I think pointing at lead is appealing because it's something we feel the government could "do something" about even if the addicted, neglectful parents don't choose to do anything, but I'm extremely skeptical that removing all lead will significantly decrease future poverty or crime.  The environmental and family factors are too ingrained and powerful an influence. 

I think that, as with all complex issues, one peels off and solves layers of factors and then reveals the core.  So, rather than questioning whether eliminating one factor will solve the larger problem, we should attack each and every cause we have solutions for and see what's left, and then attack that.  

Solving poverty and crime will be a huge job.  So, let's tear apart the problems and get to solving them, even if the attack is piecemeal.  Otherwise, the alternative is to allow our inaction -- while waiting for the perfect, and/or complete, solution -- to simply perpetuate the status quo, which no one -- wealthy, middle class, welfare class -- wants.    

You are assuming things I do not assume or agree with... that poverty can be "solved", that trying to solve poverty is something that government should be in charge of, and that government has a clue how best to invest funds in a solution.

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Oct 25, 2016 10:49:41 GMT -5 milee said:

Oct 25, 2016 10:31:14 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

I think that, as with all complex issues, one peels off and solves layers of factors and then reveals the core.  So, rather than questioning whether eliminating one factor will solve the larger problem, we should attack each and every cause we have solutions for and see what's left, and then attack that.  

Solving poverty and crime will be a huge job.  So, let's tear apart the problems and get to solving them, even if the attack is piecemeal.  Otherwise, the alternative is to allow our inaction -- while waiting for the perfect, and/or complete, solution -- to simply perpetuate the status quo, which no one -- wealthy, middle class, welfare class -- wants.    

You are assuming a couple of things I do not assume or agree with... that poverty can be "solved", that trying to solve poverty is something that government should be in charge of, and that government has a clue how best to invest funds in a solution.

And you are assuming that I was assuming that I was clear when I was clear as mud, LOL.

I do believe that poverty can be greatly resolved, but not necessarily completely solved.  I don't think we should give up just because there will always be some core group in poverty (through intractible behaviors, or overwhelming disability, or extenuating circumstances).  Why not solve what we are able to solve?

I also don't believe that government alone is responsible for solving poverty and crime.  There are a lot of players who contribute to the persistence of a poverty class -- government, politics, market forces, social strata, etc. -- that all must contribute to reducing poverty.  I'm not necessarily suggesting we move toward socialism, but capitalism is only at its most effective level when poverty is at its bare minimum.  I don't think we, as a species, are even close to the bare minimum of poverty.  There is much we can, and should, do there.  

[milee]

Oct 25, 2016 11:03:44 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

Oct 25, 2016 10:49:41 GMT -5 milee said:

You are assuming a couple of things I do not assume or agree with... that poverty can be "solved", that trying to solve poverty is something that government should be in charge of, and that government has a clue how best to invest funds in a solution.

And you are assuming that I was assuming that I was clear when I was clear as mud, LOL.

I do believe that poverty can be greatly resolved, but not necessarily completely solved.  I don't think we should give up just because there will always be some core group in poverty (through intractible behaviors, or overwhelming disability, or extenuating circumstances).  Why not solve what we are able to solve?

I also don't believe that government alone is responsible for solving poverty and crime.  There are a lot of players who contribute to the persistence of a poverty class -- government, politics, market forces, social strata, etc. -- that all must contribute to reducing poverty.  I'm not necessarily suggesting we move toward socialism, but capitalism is only at its most effective level when poverty is at its bare minimum.  I don't think we, as a species, are even close to the bare minimum of poverty.  There is much we can, and should, do there.  

Why not solve what we are able to solve? Because there are many, many needs out there and a finite amount of money and time available to address them. We need to be smart about how we choose to invest not only money but public awareness campaigns. We can only spend so much and people can only absorb so much info before it becomes meaningless.

So it's important we understand what the biggest bang for the buck - both money and time - will be before we start spending huge amounts on things that may or may not make a dent in the issue.

[milee]

BTW, I would LOVE it if we could significantly reduce poverty and crime by eliminating lead and providing free birth control and abortions. It would be fantastic because those are definable issues that can be addressed just by directing large amounts of money at them. Directing large amounts of money at something is much, much easier than trying to change the behavior and choices of people who may or may not have any interest in changing. 

But my guess is that not only will those two "solutions" not significantly change poverty, that all the time and money invested in something like lead remediation will be somewhat wasted as the people involved simply move on to making other poor choices that keep them in their situation.  An example of this is being seen right now in Chicago.  The local and federal government has identified that the West Calumet Housing Development is too contaminated with lead for it to be safe to live in.  Funds are available to move the residents to other housing - including paying for their moving expenses and new housing costs - yet most of the residents are refusing to move.  Even the ones that have children who have tested high for lead exposure.  Only 29 of 332 families have moved so far, even though the deadline to move is only a month away.  Oh, and they still allow their children to play in the contaminated dirt.  www.wsj.com/articles/public-housing-residents-fight-eviction-after-lead-contamination-1477329909

So the money is there to pay for getting these families and their children away from lead, but the families won't move.  They won't even stop their children from playing in the dirt that they know - and is clearly posted with big huge warning signs - is contaminated.  This type of decision making shows there is more to their poverty than a problem with lead... poor decision making is playing a role and will continue to play a role even if all traces of lead are removed.  So do we spend billions of dollars and most of our time convincing these families to move away from the lead or do we instead try to figure out why they make such incredibly bad decisions and try to address that instead?   

[billisonboard]

Oct 25, 2016 11:50:50 GMT -5 milee said:

... This type of decision making shows there is more to their poverty than a problem with lead... ...

Unless lead poisoning in the brain is the cause of poor decision making.

[973beachbum]

I construct a panel of state-year observations by linking crime rates in a state in a given
year to childhood lead exposure in that state 20 or 30 years earlier. I evaluate this link for all 51
states (including the District of Columbia) for crime in the years 1985 to 2002.
The link between lead and crime is thus identified off of the variation of lead exposure and crime over time within each state. Lead exposure is measured both as lead in gasoline and lead in the air, and these lead
exposure measures are tested against individual-level blood data on
children’s lead exposure. I test the robustness of the crime results in various ways, including robustness to sample restrictions, alternate specifications, and alternate methods of measuring childhood lead exposure.
Overall, the sensitivity testing confirms the strength of the main results.
The elasticity of violent crime with respect to childhood lead exposure is estimated to be
approximately 0.8. This implies that, between 1992 and 2002, the phase-out of lead from gasoline
was responsible for approximately a 56% decline in violent crime. Results for murder are not
robust if New York and the District of Columbia are included, but suggest a substantial elasticity
as well. No significant effects are found for property crime. The effect of legalized abortion
reported by Donohue and Levitt [2001] is largely unaffected, so that abortion accounts for a 29%
decline in violent crime (elasticity 0.23), and similar declines in murder and property crime.
Overall, the phase-out of lead and the legalization of abortion appear to have been responsible for significant reductions in violent crime rates.

www.nber.org/papers/w13097.pdf

[milee]

Oct 25, 2016 11:58:32 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Oct 25, 2016 11:50:50 GMT -5 milee said:

... This type of decision making shows there is more to their poverty than a problem with lead... ...

Unless lead poisoning in the brain is the cause of poor decision making.

Could be for the people that were born and raised there. And if that's the case then we need to start talking about third rail, nuclear solutions... if a group of people are so intellectually compromised by this damage they are rendered incapable of making basic, logical decisions about child care then the ugly, awful discussion about if they should be allowed to be parents might needs to be had. And it's horrifying to even think about because right now our system is such that there are no good alternatives, but if there really is an entire population that is this intellectually compromised then removing lead isn't enough, we'll need to figure out how to remove and protect children.

[973beachbum]

Here's what we'd expect. Lead paint use rose in the early 20th century, peaking in the teens and then dropping. Then, in the late 40s, gasoline lead started to rise, peaking in the 70s and then dropping. Since lead primarily affects small children, you'd expect that kids exposed to lead paint would grow up and become more violent in the 30s, then taper off, and then become more violent again in the 60s. It should be a double-humped curve.

And guess what? That's exactly what we see in the data:

As usual, I want to caution everyone about trying to infer too much from this. Lead isn't the only cause of crime, and getting rid of it won't necessarily return us to the crime rates of a century ago. Crime is driven by culture, by guns, by poverty, by race, by drug use, by demographics, by policing tactics, by incarceration, and more. Nevertheless, the close match between two unusual curves like this is striking. We don't have much data going back before World War II, but what data we do have offers yet more confirmation of the link between lead and crime.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/01/does-lead-paint-produce-more-crime-too

This article examines lead exposure to the early twentieth century.  I think the problem with this is people think of lead poisoning like they do the flu.  Your kid gets it and then gets over it.  Or maybe they have to take medicine to get over it. 

Lead isn't like that.  The damage is life long.  There is no cure.  That is actually why the papers all use a twenty to thirty year lag from lead exposure to crime rate increases or decreases.  That is how long it took the poisoned kids to grow up and commit the crimes.  Everyone feels bad for the kids but those kids grow up and NEVER grow out of the effects.

That is actually why it is so hard to get rid of.  In a weird way it is "sticky".  Everything that has it in it would have to be removed totally.   The estimates for cleaning up just the pipes in Flint's water system is at $15 billion.  I cant imagine how much the entire country would take.  What comes after trillions?

[MJ2.0]

Oct 25, 2016 12:06:50 GMT -5 milee said:

Oct 25, 2016 11:58:32 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Unless lead poisoning in the brain is the cause of poor decision making.

Could be for the people that were born and raised there. And if that's the case then we need to start talking about third rail, nuclear solutions... if a group of people are so intellectually compromised by this damage they are rendered incapable of making basic, logical decisions about child care then the ugly, awful discussion about if they should be allowed to be parents might needs to be had. And it's horrifying to even think about because right now our system is such that there are no good alternatives, but if there really is an entire population that is this intellectually compromised then removing lead isn't enough, we'll need to figure out how to remove and protect children.

So we're back to "welfare recipients should have their kids taken away?"

[milee]

Oct 25, 2016 16:09:02 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Oct 25, 2016 12:06:50 GMT -5 milee said:

Could be for the people that were born and raised there. And if that's the case then we need to start talking about third rail, nuclear solutions... if a group of people are so intellectually compromised by this damage they are rendered incapable of making basic, logical decisions about child care then the ugly, awful discussion about if they should be allowed to be parents might needs to be had. And it's horrifying to even think about because right now our system is such that there are no good alternatives, but if there really is an entire population that is this intellectually compromised then removing lead isn't enough, we'll need to figure out how to remove and protect children.

So we're back to "welfare recipients should have their kids taken away?"

No, that's something I don't believe is helpful or possible. We're discussing a group of people that some other people are claiming are so irreparably brain damaged that they are not mentally capable of caring for themselves or children. It's more comparable to the debate over whether mentally impaired parents are capable of independently caring for their children. Issue is mental capacity not money.

[MJ2.0]

Oct 25, 2016 16:15:24 GMT -5 milee said:

Oct 25, 2016 16:09:02 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

So we're back to "welfare recipients should have their kids taken away?"

No, that's something I don't believe is helpful or possible. We're discussing a group of people that some other people are claiming are so irreparably brain damaged that they are not mentally capable of caring for themselves or children. It's more comparable to the debate over whether mentally impaired parents are capable of independently caring for their children. Issue is mental capacity not money.

Yeah but I thought we institutionalize those people....

[milee]

Oct 25, 2016 16:18:08 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Oct 25, 2016 16:15:24 GMT -5 milee said:

No, that's something I don't believe is helpful or possible. We're discussing a group of people that some other people are claiming are so irreparably brain damaged that they are not mentally capable of caring for themselves or children. It's more comparable to the debate over whether mentally impaired parents are capable of independently caring for their children. Issue is mental capacity not money.

Yeah but I thought we institutionalize those people....

Not currently we don't. We alternate between completely ignoring them and picking out some of their random issues to throw ridiculous, random amounts of money at (hoping that will "fix" everything.). Or we just wait for the police to shoot them and then get outraged at the injustice.