Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

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Very often if you diff "poor successful immigrant" stories to the stories of poor people who grew up in the same city, the key difference was they relied on bonds of trust between them and other immigrants from their country that helped give them a leg up.

I was pretty shocked to discover that one of my friends (2nd gen asian immigrant in amsterdam) had parents who even tapped large interest free loans, and that the community largely expected this kind of help to be given freely.

>I find it off for poverty-advocates to get indignant when poverty education comes up

Yeah, coz it's well known to be ineffective (by design, pretty much), and is almost universally used by banks and politicians fronting for banks to try and get the heat off their backs and let them keep raking in profits unimpeded.

Stuff like interest rate caps and banning payday lending, on the other hand, is very effective but impedes profits. The goal of corporate lobbyists is to present solutions (usually faux) that appear genuine but don't impede profits.

Lower socioeconomic class stay in the neighborhood that they grew up in and are much more likely to be close to parents and siblings. This is a much stronger network than some immigrant community of strangers based on country of origin.

And if the benefits of networks based on country of origin were so powerful you'd expect places with a large percent of South American or Caribbean countries to be wealthy. But if you look at small Haitian or Dominican you don't see the same kind of upward mobility compared to asian neighborhoods.

>Lower socioeconomic class stay in the neighborhood that they grew up in and are much more likely to be close to parents and siblings. This is a much stronger network than some immigrant community of strangers based on country of origin.

Are you equating the economic potential of being able to tap a large interest free loan from your community and having an equally poor sibling?

I'm an immigrant to the US. My parents had a network of people from the same country (European). It was a good resource of friends and babysitting for my parents, but i never heard of anyone giving large interest free loans to a poor stranger just because they came from the same country. But maybe that's the norm for asian communities.

Btw i wouldn't discount free childcare and is honestly worth more than an interest free loan. If you can help share childcare you can work many more hours

Forget the name for it, but there is community based loan concept where everyone pitches in a little money to give one individual a loan based on luck of the draw with the pretext that in future prior past contributors have better odds of winning.

Needless to say, frequently is a scam.

EDIT: Here are examples:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:wikipedia.org+informal+...

As a single counter experience, I have repeatedly witnessed established immigrants exploit new immigrants from the same cultural backgrounds. Yes, some people get lucky and find meaningfully help, but others don’t.

Of course. Rags to riches and "pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps" anecdotes are mired in survivorship bias almost by definition.

// Yeah, coz it's well known to be ineffective

Hmm, the argument I always hear is "the poor don't need to be taught, they need (some short term thing that won't scale)"

If you want to argue the effectiveness of various education methods, I am not down to that level of nuance. Obviously if the education is ineffective, that's a problem, it's still necessary.

In the case of the Netherlands, interest rate caps are already in place and payday loans don't exist. Furthermore, it's relatively easy to get help (but not fun) when you're bankrupt and to get out of this bankruptcy with a clean sheet after 5 years. Currently there is a law in the works vetted by the House of Representative to reduce this period.

Perhaps not but the Netherlands has ridiculous levels of wealth inequality. On paper it's worse than the US.

All the same I would much, much, MUCH rather be poor in the Netherlands than the US. Just not having to operate a car would save tons.

Also, not sure but this comment may be a reference to:

How The Dutch Economy Shows We Can't Reduce Wealth Inequality With Taxes | Economics Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4qdCs54ZE

and if you watch that it's well worth watching this Dutch economist's rebuttal

The Dutch Economy is NOT the Most Unequal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW_kw6OPXc0

You have never been to the Netherlands, have you? Because those statistics you hint at are misleading at best.

Well it's sorta true, but the important difference is that the bottom poverty line is higher than in the US, and we do have better social security. Still, the gap is growing. Though recent changes in real-estate legislation are putting a stop to that. Yes, there are the mega rich, entrepreneurs and whatnot. Like it or not, they do participate in society in a way that moves the needle.

Means for the slightly-better-off middle class to exploit the lower class through rent are being thwarted, thankfully. They just allow one half of the population to exploit the other half without providing any tangible benefit in return.

Source: I'm born in, and living in, the Netherlands.

No, the statement is mostly false. The famous Economics Explained video is debunked. Of course, there is inequality and maybe it is too much but is not of a ridiculous level compared to the rest of the world.

I alluded to the figure not being the whole story by saying "on paper". Perhaps you skimmed that part. Nonetheless not the whole story is miles away from "not a problem". It IS a problem.

I actually lived there for a period, not that it's relevant.

By omitting the rest of the story what remained 'on paper' became false. That was my point.

> You have never been to the Netherlands, have you?

How does merely visiting Netherlands tell a person that inequality stats are misleading ?

You walk around and see how people live and that the difference between the worst neighborhoods is much smaller than the US or even France. Another data point is that you will also see relatively little homeless people (compared to San Francisco for example).

Some of the organizations I've seen in the US to provide "life coaching" for people in poverty are trying to create those types of relationships. Their logic is that the culture surrounding people in poverty tends to make it harder to do the types of things that would help them get out of poverty.

Banks don’t conduct payday loans and make very little from the poor. The payday loan industry != banking industry.

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