Thursday, September 13, 2007

The Art of Economics

Many studies examine "risk factors" of poverty which ask, "who is likely to be poor?" Some studies examine impoverished regions and ask, "where are the poor?" A recent book went around the world asking people essentially, "Hey, you're poor! How come?" The researcher's condescending tone led many of those asked to deny the presumption and refused to speculate on the question. The problem with these approaches is that they begin with the assumption that poverty is a condition precipitated solely by decisions made by individuals for themselves. While personal behavior has some bearing on one's economic condition, there are many factors which exceed the scope of individual decision-making and which encroach on individuals' abilities to make self-interested or community, or socially interested decisions.

I'm proposing here a list of mechanisms and conditions which contribute to poverty. I propose to list them without, at first categorizing them into how directly or indirectly they create poverty, how deliberate or how diffuse they are, nor how individual or social, private or public the decision-making is. Importantly, I will list factors without, for the moment proposing solutions. What I am proposing here, is, for the time being, to "brainstorm" possible causes and correlations. This list is evolving and I intend to add and refine it over time. Some items on the list may be too general at first and will require some specific examples. Some causes will be more relevant in some regions than in others. The list will also serve to open our minds about what constitutes "quality of life" and what degrades it. We must ask, "what is an economy for?" Our relations with and management of our economy, society, and culture are an art-not primarily a scientific or technical field. Though we cringe a the thought of "social engineering," we need not recoil from the art of the good life . The unexamined culture is not worth living in.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO POVERTY: A STARTING LIST ....
  • unemployment
  • underemployment
  • unsatisfactory employment
  • unable to work
  • labor as commodity
  • pensions discontinued
  • health care costs
  • insurance shortfalls
  • pay/housing shortfalls
  • personal credit debt (connected to being underpaid?)
  • high interest loans, mortgages with variable interest rates
  • predatory lending: "payday loans," exorbitant interest rates
  • personal deficit spending
  • personal investment in depreciating goods
  • personal investment in erosive financial institutions ie: when bank fees exceed interest paid, etc.
  • renting housing
  • low-income persons not perceived as a "market" for homes and housing
  • rental density
  • cities divided by barriers and roads requiring automobile dependence
  • ghetto formation
  • insurmountable difference between rent rates and mortgage payment rates
  • bias and discrimination in lending or mortgages; ie: "redlining" racism and neighborhood discrimination by lenders
  • over-investment in employer stock
  • compulsive and/or impulsive purchases
  • gambling
  • lack of personal interests or worthwhile activities
  • menial, repetitive, physical, and restrictive jobs
  • forced displacement to find work
  • trapped in a zone without employment
  • homelessness
  • dangerous buildings
  • malfunctioning resources
  • unsanitary conditions
  • ugliness-shabbiness, junk, hazards, vermin, tagging, grunginess, commercial tawdriness
  • crime-ambient or personal engagement
  • fear-limiting access
  • limited access to resources
  • incarceration
  • drug and alcohol abuse ambient or personal
  • low educational attainment
  • lack of public transportation
  • unpaid commuting time and resources
  • dependence on foreign and non-local resources
  • privatization of utilities or other public resources and necessities
  • lack of public resources
  • weak unions
  • pollution
  • poor nutrition
  • starvation
  • untreated mental illness
  • untreated disease and injury
  • death -ambient and personal-there ARE ultimate costs and how death and dying are experienced and ritualized are contributions as well
  • absent prenatal care
  • when necessities are highly priced-inflation
  • predatory (temporarily sub-cost) pricing that drives out competition to win monopoly
  • corporate monopolies
  • regressive taxation
  • political ignorance, apathy, lack of social or political participation
  • illiteracy
  • Cultural illiteracy
  • lack of social skills or social graces
  • bias and discrimination by prospective employers
  • poorly negotiated trade policies
  • when U.S. financial system is unpredictable due to poor regulation, foreign investment looks elsewhere resulting in a falling dollar value-deflation
  • Poor or absent oversight of stock and bond rating agencies, background investigation of mortgages, fraud in the financial system
  • investing in homes beyond one's means and beyond the means of anyone else to buy it
  • Loss of common gathering spaces
  • pyramid scheme economics
  • ignorance of self-sufficiency skills
  • lack of self-sufficiency products
  • land confiscation
  • commodity auctions
  • displacement and property destruction from natural disaster, war, famine
  • protection by copyrights and patents, but these must be neither overly restrictive nor overreaching into public domain
  • protection of private property, but this in balance with public resources and commons
  • lack of democracy
  • adverse contracts
  • lack of legal recourse
  • slave or child labor, sex-trade- human commodities
  • social stigmas
  • repressive government, lack of free speech or press, persecution, terror
  • human rights abuses
  • environmental degradation
  • species loss
  • global warming
  • IMF-World Bank "structural adjustment" loans (Predatory lending to Third World Governments reducing their ability to provide social services and protections for their poor)
  • self-sacrifice for the betterment of others
Your comments welcome.

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