5/30 (Sat.) Poverty (Host: John)

[JohnH]

Session I The nature of poverty
The poverty trap is seen as an “S-shaped” curve: the poor are stuck on the left side of the graph below the diagonal line, wherein future income is lower than present income, and it continues to decrease over time.


1. What is poverty in your opinion and your metric by which to measure it?
2. Do you know anyone who lives in extreme poverty? Could you please describe what his or her life is like?
3. What's your reflection on the quote by Bill Gates which goes "If you are born poor it's not your fault but if you die poor it's your mistake".
4. If one day a mysterious power switches the spirit of you and a poor man living in the poorest region of India, with all the knowledge, skills, and life experienced that you’ve learnt so far how confident you are of bringing yourself out of poverty?
5. What is the moral ground to view poverty? Is it our obligation to fight poverty? What's the benefit or positive feedback in this act?


Session II Poverty

1. Discuss with your groupmates and list out what you agree upon and think of as common characteristics of the developing countries. How many of them do you think contribute to poverty? Why?
2. Do you believe in the existence of the poverty trap? Why? Is there anything that you also regard as poverty trap? Please share.
3. Study shows that people’s sense of well-being results from their relative wealth level in comparison to their peers, but not how wealthy they are. Given that, which should take higher priority to tackle – wealth inequality or poverty?
4. What can be done to alleviate poverty and wealth inequality from your standpoint?


********************************************************************************************************************************************
Agenda:
3:45 ~ 4:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
4:00 ~ 4:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
4:10 ~ 4:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
4:50 ~ 5:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
5:10 ~ 5:15pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
5:15 ~ 5:55pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
6:00 ~ 6:20pm Summarization (20 mins)
6:20 ~ 6:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements ********************************************************************************************************************************************
聚會日期：列於該貼文主題內
聚會時間：請準時 4:00 pm 到 ~ 約 6:30 pm 左右結束
星期六聚會地點：丹堤濟南店
地址、電話：台北市濟南路三段25號 地圖 (02) 2740-2350
捷運站：板南線 忠孝新生站 3 號出口
走法：出忠孝新生站 3 號出口後，沿著巷子(忠孝東路三段10巷)走約 2 分鐘，到了濟南路口，左轉走約 2 分鐘即可看到。
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[Rock]

I know poverty. I have been there.

When I was 7, my pocket money was no more than 5 a week. I had to steal from my mom to buy lucky draws in the local shop. When my mom found out,she beat the crap out of me. I swore that I'd never steal again no matter how poor I am.

This mindset may not be as good as it looks, though.

[Luis Ko]

i'm poor, and my family used to be poor too. though i think i'm poor, or my family used to, it's still far from being called poverty, because my sister and i could still manage to finish our classes, and have a normal life. guess poverty is when you don't even have time to think you are poor. all you can think about is how to survive today..

[Luis Ko]

This mindset may not be as good as it looks, though.

it's still good. you have practiced and know about "learn your lesson" stuff, at least.

[Michael-liu]

guess poverty is when you don't even have time to think you are poor. all you can think about is how to survive today..

Agree. There is a big difference between poor and poverty.

My significant other and I have the poor look, as mentioned in the first video, not well-dressed and not well-groomed. So, sometimes we got discriminated by the staff at department stores.

As mentioned in the Chinese speaking video, it is understandable that people living in a slum would save money to buy a TV. But I don't think they would buy luxury brands such as LV bags or Apple iphone, as the speaker said.

[Rock]

it's still good. you have practiced and know about "learn your lesson" stuff, at least.

But I was thinking, maybe this no stealing mindset holds me back from some things that I could have got. That's not always a good thing.

[Luis Ko]

right, you are right. this mindset might have stopped you from doing some things. one of them for sure is to be a politician, since a smart person like you is well qualified for being one i would say.

then again, what you meant might be some others haa~

ok, maybe see you tomorrow.. maybe lo~

[Rock]

Yeah, let's fight tomorrow.

[Kooper]

OMG, here comes two challenging topics at one time - I am totally swamped and in over my head.

John, how about I smuggle one of the topics to next week? That will hit two birds with one stone. For one, I am going to host next week. Your topics have a lot to discuss; using either of them will be a load off my mind. For the other, I am more capable of preparing for one serious topic a time.

[Iris Wu]

Nowadays, it’s like a fashion to make much of one’s humble origins. Take a look at the presidential candidates, and you will find that they all claimed they grow up poor.

But poverty is far worse than being poor. Poverty is a living condition that lacks basic human needs of life. Broadly speaking, human needs include mental side (love, safety, etc.) and physical side (food, shelter, health care, etc.)
So, theoretically, “poverty” can be the lack of basic mental needs or physical necessities of life. But here I guess we should just focus on conventional definition of poverty since it’s easier to measure and quantify.

Based on the 4-level income grouping in “Factfulness” (a best-selling book by Hans Rosling), majority population have moved up to “Level 2 and Level 3” living condition, but I do believe “poverty trap” theory. When major crisis like COVID-19 occurs, it hits the poor much harder than the rich. The impact on the poor is usually disproportionate. I need the numbers to support this, but I believe many Level 2 families are likely to fall back to Level 1 due to the lack of rainy day savings.

[Iris Wu]

As for tackling the poverty, conventional wisdom is to give fishing rod instead of fish directly.
Lately I have been asking “Is universal basic income a fishing rod or is it a fish?” Will food, safe shelter, clean water and basic health care become something like air that we are entitled to have someday? Will the UBI release people from “hunger games” and become more productive in human progress?

[Kooper]

Interestingly, the more I Google the book “Poor Economics,” the more confusing it looks to me. There are many YouTubers, bloggers, and press reports who have introduced the gist of the book, possibly because it was written by winners of the Nobel prize in economics. Their summaries or conclusions, however, are a far cry from each other. It’s like the story of the blind men and the elephant: every blind man touched only a part of an elephant and visualize it totally differently.

Why is it this way? My wild guess is that the book may be super rich in information; It’s so informative that different people conclude it diversely. I feel compelled to read the book myself to lift the veil.
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Below are other introductions of the book:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=238P1vaMUBw

Press:
https://www.chainnews.com/zh-hant/artic ... 479845.htm, https://finance.sina.com/bg/usstock/uss ... 6454.shtml
https://www.thenewslens.com/article/131163, https://www.thenewslens.com/article/131165

Blogger: https://louisiskiller.wordpress.com/202 ... economics/