[REVIEW] Poor Economics: My Three Takeaways \ stacker news ~BooksAndArticles

My Three Takeaways

The example about the soap opera TV changing the behavior of Brazilian women and its impact on fertility. Brazilian women in the 1980s went from having six children down to about two due to a telenovela called Rede Globo with ran from the 1970s to the 1990s. Crazy to see culture have such a huge impact. The women saw women on the show over 50 with one or no kids living a high quality life. This was mentioned as the author tired to determine if poverty is caused by people having too many kids.
Savings and access to credit really makes it hard to escape poverty. They mentioned the early success they had with microcredit but the same issue came up with non payment. The book even mentioned Citibank (I think in India or Indonesia a lot of the book referenced these two countries) hiring local goons to scare the populace into paying back their unsecured loans. But just like the middle class one bad thing can completely wreck you. Many examples include a small business going well and a check bounces and now they are paying so much to right that wrong or a family member gets sick and all the money that is needed to get them care keeps them from getting above the poor doomloop.
This book comes off as very socialist/progressive to find somewhat decent solutions to the poverty problem.

More women in power and more monitoring of institutions and policies to help bootstrap the poor out of poverty

He acknowledges that freedom is one of the most important aspects of a society that reaches prosperity but quickly trashes the idea of using the free market to solve everything stating that bribes and scams would cause progress to stagnate or stifle. The author does critique politics and the troubles with corruption but the solution seems to be a bit misleading for me.

My major takeaway from this book is human action is at the root of all poverty

The more I read this book the more I thought the poor really work against their best interests all the time. The middle class and rich do it as well but since so many social nets are in place to stop the big downfall (bank bailouts, local charities, farm subsidies) the fall down the economic ladder isn’t so drastic compared to a country that doesn’t have these in place.

The book almost gets to an Austrian school of economics solution by recognizing the lack of smart decisions (people buying more food and spending on vices when income goes up and not on savings) but then falls way short by asking for more government involvement stating the government exists to solve problems the free market can’t/wont have an interest in. Which I think is BS! If that were true bitcoin never would have been discovered (yes I think Bitcoin was discovered not invented).

Overall this was a great book thanks to @undisciplined for suggesting I read this book. I now have a new perspective on poverty and the solution is much more than air dropping money or letting them fend for themselves. It will take more time and understanding of the human psyche to really get rid of poverty if we ever can.

At the end of the book the author provided 5 key lessons

5 key lessons

Poor lack critical pieces of information and believe things that are not true. “Citizen who vote in the dark are more than likely to vote for someone of their ethnic group at the cost of bigotry and corruption”
The poor bear responsibility for too many aspects of their lives. (i.e. Piped water the rich don’t have to think about it turn on faucet the water is safe to drink while the poor have to purify it for themselves and if they don’t know how it ends badly for them). Another example is building savings. For the rich savings accounts make it easier and thoughtless to save but for the poor it is very hard to access a savings account that doesn’t eat into your earnings.
Some markets are missing for the poor or poor face steep prices in them. (Interest rates , health insurance)
Poor countries are not doomed to fail due to an unfortunate history or that they are poor now.
The expectations about what people are able or unable to do all too often end up turning into a self fulfilling prophecies.

153 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 3h

Yeah, the authors are fairly typical market liberals, so the solutions they offer are dumb and uncompelling, but the descriptions of how the poor behave was great.

128 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3h

I've never read it, but have a lot of questions

When they say "poor", do they mean the poor people within a rich society, or just poor societies in general?

I think within any society there's always going to be a distribution, and there will always be people who are poor, whose actions are correlated with bad decision making. That's neither surprising, nor possible to eliminate. And the harder you try to eliminate this natural consequence of freedom, the more distortionary and authoritarian you're gonna get

I'm more interested in the possibility of moving the society's average upwards over time, through education and market driven economies

72 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB OP 2h

Poor societies in general mostly in developing countries.

Yeah at the end of the book he said on average most people live on $0.99 cents a day if we can get to an inflation adjusted $5 a day in the next 50 or 100 years that would be a massive improvement.

Back in 1000 I wonder what people lived on per day? Probably a lot less than $0.99 a day (adjusted for inflation of course)

81 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2h

This book, or at least the parts I remember, is largely about how people live in extreme poverty: i.e. what kinds of financial strategies they employ and what keeps them from advancing economically.

I'm pretty sure it was from this book that I realized the immense value of steady income to the very poor and why they will often take a lower average compensation if it pays reliably.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB OP 2h

Agreed thanks for the recommendation! I really liked the examples they give especially how everyone can’t be an entrepreneur

550 sats \ 3 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 3h

... due to a telenovela called Rede Globo ...

Pretty sure 'Rede Globo' isn't the name of the 'telenovela'. 'Rede Globo' is the TV channel and content producer.

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @BlokchainB OP 2h

I would have to double check but I think this is what the book called it

140 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 2h

I'm pretty sure that's the name of some big TV content company. Gemini mentioned that the book Poor Economics (A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty) uses the Brazilian telenovela, 'Senhora do Destino,' as an example.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB OP 25m

Here is the exact passage

From the 1970s through the 1990s, access to the Rede Globo channel expanded dramatically, and with it the viewership of the telenovelas. At the telenovelas'

I apologize for my error!

56 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 2h

This book comes off as very socialist/progressive to find somewhat decent solutions to the poverty problem.

pretty much all I've understood their research agenda be about as well

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB OP 23m

I had turned a side eye once I was read giving women more influence in the decision making produced better outcomes like one example the book mentioned was how women wanted to invest more in water infrastructure while men wanted better roads

47 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 1h

Great review. Thanks

51 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 1h

Free markets can mostly provide the best outcomes but there are exceptions to this. It is these exceptions that Libertarians seem blind to. But these exceptions are incredibly important.