Correlation != causation isn’t dogma.
You are, as ever, a moron.
Regards,
Shodan
I am not David Hume.
I think you have raised a a good basis for debate with “there is an extremely strong correlation between (the four factors I mentioned) and escaping poverty” but the point remains in that these points do not equal causation (i.e., correlation is not causation). So telling people to follow those points in the hopes of escaping poverty is incorrect (and either misguided or cruel, in varying degrees).
I can only hope that you are in the category of misguided, rather than cruel.
Beyond that, do you have any argument that can point to a proven causation of poverty? That would really be helpful.
Got any cites that show married folks share the same levels of poverty as singles? I thought it was pretty much universally accepted that a stable marriage is a big factor in financial independance. Maybe it’s just my own personal experience with almost everyone I’ve ever known.
And can we drop the racism shit from the discussion of poverty? If the rules state that any mention of poverty and blacks is strictly limited to institutionalized racism and nary a word of culture, then it’s pointless to bring it up in any context. We’ve been fighting poverty for 40 years now, and from the sound of it, we’re no further along than we were in 1964.
You want racism? Talk to a Native American. I wonder if he’d agree with Kanye’s millionaire-ass bitching.
The reason I brought up the negative stereotype of West Indians that white Canadian racists have, is that it negates the stereotype that West Indians are hard working but American black people are lazy. It’s all just made up baloney that racists pretend is some kind of fact. How someone views a culture depends where they are sitting and people can imagine a lot of things about a culture if they have a racial bias about it. Even contradictory things. It all sounds good when you don’t know what you’re talking about. West Indians are lazy because it’s hot there and they love weed and there isn’t really much work to be done there anyway. Okay sounds good to me. West Indians are hard working and law abiding because island law is so strict they are terrified of doing wrong! Okay, sounds good to me. People can make up whatever they like about a culture. It’s how racist people cope with being giant dickheads. They say, “I’m not racist or anything but I have really noticed this cultural difference where almost all the black people I know do this thing I hate and I think it’s how they were raised or something.”
Shodan, let me explain things one more time.
I was prepared and willing to enter into a stable, long-term marriage with a gentleman who was also prepared and willing. One of the many things we had in common is both of us consider divorce to be immoral. The main reason we did not marry was the very poverty you claim marriage would have enabled us to escape. Our joint income was not enough to afford even a one-bedroom apartment where we lived. During our engagement, I was living in a studio apartment which measured 12 feet by 14 feet, was locked with a padlock rather than a conventional lock, and had repairs on the stove dating to the 1930’s. For those palatial accomodations, I was paying, if memory and math serve, about $400 per month, plus utilities, which amounted to approximately half my take-home pay. My fiance was living with his parents because he, too couldn’t afford adequate housing on his income.
I read George Will’s column this morning, too. What he wrote made a lot of sense. In a sense, I followed those steps when I moved back to my home city after giving up on Hawaii’s economy and I went from a $6.00 per hour data entry clerk to a programmer and Y2K expert in about 5 years. I suffered a set back a few years ago when I was laid off and had to go back to clerking for a while, thus breaking the cycle of moving on to steadily higher paying jobs, but nevertheless, ten years after leaving Hawaii, while I’m not making as much as I once was, I am reasonably successful and even own my own home. However, to suggest that all one needs to do to escape poverty is do four simple things is vastly simplifying matters.
CJ
Again, you are using correlation as if it is causation. And that is simply not so.
Again, I’m asking for a cite that married people have the same % of poverty as singles. Try to keep up.
You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?
The pity expressed for you earlier still applies. Perhaps someone who knows you or cares about you will step in right about now. Otherwise, you have my own sympathies to add to your cache.
By the way, Shodan, I actually agree with you that getting a high school diploma, or, better yet, a college degree, getting a series of increasingly higher paying jobs, having a stable, long-term marriage, and only having children within the confines of a stable long-term marriage will go a long way towards helping a person avoid or get out of poverty. I’ve done my best to live by those standards myself, in my own way. I’m having a hard time sharing a coworker’s joy over becoming a grandmother for the first time, because her daughter, a bright, ambitious young woman by all accounts, gave birth during her senior year of college and isn’t married to the father. I wish them luck, but it looks to me like a good way to make one’s life a lot harder. I also have a cousin who has a baby but no husband and who seems determined to spend herself into penury, despite her middle class origins.
The thing is, having those things, even if one can achieve them (I think the series of higher paying jobs is the most difficult) is no guarantee of avoiding poverty. A good friend of mine had all those a few years ago and had worked his way up to a nice home in the country, complete with a hot tub. He and his wife had been married for nearly forty years when she had a stroke, and then decided to divorce him. He’s now struggling to make ends meet.
There are different peer pressures and cultural factors in different classes. My father grew up working class, English poor. He was told repeatedly he would never make anything else, and there wasn’t a chance of his parents paying for college because they didn’t have the money and besides, it wouldn’t do him any good. Nevertheless, my father worked his way through college, became an engineer, and, as I mentioned earlier, is quite happily and comfortably well off. He’s one of his few schoolmates who did such a thing. When I first moved back to town, I worked in a manufacturing plant which paid educational benefits. Because of my background and upbringing, I used those benefits to go back to school and get an Associates degree in Computer Science which led to the profitable career I have now. I think, of all my coworkers, I was the only one it occured to to do that. If the idea of using those benefits ever occured to them, I suspect a lot of them thought it might not do them any good. I was raised in an atmosphere where academic success was expected and rewarded. That’s a lot different from a kid who’s just counting the days until he or she no longer has to go to school and figures that a blue collar, manufacturing job will serve him, just like it served his family. That plant was shutting down as I was finishing my degree. One of the people who was laid off before me was a skilled press operator with a wife and 6 kids. The job at the plant paid decently and had good benefits. I’m sure he intended to follow Mr. Will’s plan, too.
The plan you and Mr. Will outlined is lovely in theory, and I do wish it were that simple. As I said, I agree with it in principle, although finding the series of higher paying jobs in a dodgy economy can be difficult. It’s just that, to me, it’s like to many other lovely theories that don’t work 100% of the time in reality. By all means, try them, but don’t try to tell me it’s all I need to do. It’s been my experience that life is a lot more complicated than that.
CJ
Nope, guess I don’t. Thanks for the sympathies, I have quite the stockpile building up here. Anyway, care to provide some data on this one issue? The nuber of married people below poverty vs. singles? It may not be the answer to the problem, but it may be a part of the solution.
Of course, you don’t want to look at things that mey contribute to helping out people long-term. I can only question your reluctance to look beyond blame and toward solution. But by all means, keep giving me your pity. The energy you expend doing that keeps you from fucking everything up even worse.
None of my business, but:
If you know this person in real life, you should probably correspond in private.
If you don’t know this person in real life, you could consider why they have been so accurate in ‘striking a nerve’, but at the same time should disregard what they have to say to you on an immediate personal level.
You seem like a nice person, but this exceeds the level of gullibility I feel comfortable ignoring in my own internet trawling.
Consider that it might not be about you at all, and might be all about the person you are posting to. If you don’t know them personally - take it with a big grain of salt.
Sorry if I’ve overstepped here. You don’t know me either, so consider that too.
The energy expended on pity for you is quite minimal. You’re not a total idiot, you are internet capable, and you can (and will, if you haven’t already) look up what I have posted already, to wit: ‘correlation does not equal causation’.
Go ahead, you know you want to.
Your cite does not have a link. What is your source and what studies were done on dual income households for unmarried couples.
Most white people aren’t married, you know.
You stilll haven’t answered my questions as to WHY you think that “black culture” enourages black people to be so lazy and immoral in your view.
The only correspondence I can detect between marriage and poverty is that people living together can share expenses. I can see where that could make a difference. Two can live as cheaply as one.
Which isn’t to say Shodan is “right.” It’s a case where correlation is definitely not causality. But what do you expect from people who look for truth in the right-wing think tanks? The places exist purely to manipulate public opinion, to create evidence for their foregone conclusions. Citing a right-wing think tank is like citing an advertisement. “See, coke DOES add life.” You’ve got to be incurious as a goddamned brick to take that shit without a grain of salt.
Well, you are improving. I’ll give you that much. Apparently you have opted to offer a meaningless concession before dismissing an argument as “right-wing” instead of arguing a point, rather than just slinging “Conservative Bad! OG Smash!” It’s an improvement, in some ways.
Here’s a twist. Can anyone cite a percentage of whites in any given urban area below the poverty line with blacks? Also, in the interest of fairness, can anyone include the percentages of hispanics, natives, asians and any other “sub-group” used by a special interest group?
Are we talking race or poverty? I suspect it will come down to a blend of both. Giving no real question, and therefore no chance of ever getting a real answer to the problem. Blame is the way to go. At least for those that want to complain about the “system”.
By the way, whom do the whites blame for being in poverty? You know there are whites living in poverty. What happened to them?
Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump up and get down!
They blame affirmative action.
I would propose that the stronger correlation between the two is a negative correlation. Financial stressors can be exceptionally hard on marriage.
Siege, you don’t seem to notice that what you say does not prove your point - just the opposite, in fact.
I mention that being in a stable marriage correlates with not being poor, and you mention the fact that you have never been married (and a friend of yours who got divorced) as if this disproved my point. I cite that a stable work history also correlates with escaping poverty, and you mention that you own your own home as if that were evidence of poverty.
You aren’t making a lot of sense.
zeeny - what sort of proof are you requesting? If it were always only coincidental that poor people married less often than non-poor, then encouraging marriage among the poor would have no effect on poverty rates. Correct?
This PDF disagrees with that notion.
Or is this simply a Tobacco Institute way of refusing to consider the evidence? “There is no evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer; it just correlates with it.” That sort of thing? If you want to play that game, OK, but be aware that it is equally easy to dismiss this:
as lacking in any evidence of causation. So poverty simply correlates with higher divorce rates, and doesn’t cause it.
Although I find it interesting that Askia and critetus are willing to accept causation for one or two of the factors I cited, but not the others - not because of any less evidence for any of them, but apparently merely because they like or dislike most of the factors and therefore don’t wish to believe.
Regards,
Shodan