Habits of the Wealthiest People

[Morgan]

I think the multiverse argument is reasonable, but I don't think you need it to posit life.  If the universe has been around for an infinite period of time and there's a close to infinite or infinite number of stars and planets, a one in a trillion chance is going to happen eventually.

 

A second way of refuting your argument is to take a million numbers.  Randomly select 50 of those numbers.  What's the odds that those numbers came up in that particular order?  Well, it's incredibly small, much smaller than your 1 in a trillion. 

 

So is that a miracle?  I don't think so.  The problem is that you can't argue some outcome like that after it's happened, and say, "because that outcome has a low probability, something special must have happened".

 

Basically, outcomes are constantly happening. Each one always has an almost infinitely small chance of it happening, yet it does because some outcome has to happen.

 

An interesting book about the subject is Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos. It's a short and easy read. He talks about this pervasive error in judgement in the book as well as other errors.

[Kraven]

Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friends.  There's a lot of newer members here so I think it's time to bring back a story I told from last year.  Just please remember, we're all value investors here.

 

 

People, people.  Please can we have some civility here.  A story might be of assistance.  A number of years ago I found myself at a Matzo Ball Christmas Eve Event at the old Palladium in NYC.  For those not in the Tribe, these events were essentially big parties for Jews who didn't want to feel left out on Christmas Eve and felt like just eating Chinese food and going to the movies wasn't enough.  There was a mixer aspect to it as well. 

 

Anyway, the Palladium was a massive club.  Thousands were there which I know is surprising for NYC.  After a long night of festivities and answering the question "Doctor?  lawyer?  banker?" from the fairer sex, I found myself in the coat room.  For such a large club, the coat room was surprisingly small.  It became very crowded and people started to push and some small fights broke out.  Although these were of the slap and push variety, it was still terrifying.  From the back of the room, over the din of the crowd, a lone voice of reason could be heard.  It said, "People, please stop.  We're all Jews here!"  And you know what?  Nothing really stopped, but still it was helpful.

 

So I say to you, people, please stop, we're all value investors here.

[rkbabang]

A second way of refuting your argument is to take a million numbers.  Randomly select 50 of those numbers.  What's the odds that those numbers came up in that particular order?  Well, it's incredibly small, much smaller than your 1 in a trillion. 

 

So is that a miracle?  I don't think so.  The problem is that you can't argue some outcome like that after it's happened, and say, "because that outcome has a low probability, something special must have happened".

 

Basically, outcomes are constantly happening. Each one always has an almost infinitely small chance of it happening, yet it does because some outcome has to happen.

so, are you saying people getting hit by lightning aren't actually cursed?

 

No they are not cursed, that's absurd.  People get struck by lightning because they angered Zeus.

 

[writser]

I think the multiverse argument is reasonable, but I don't think you need it to posit life.  If the universe has been around for an infinite period of time and there's a close to infinite or infinite number of stars and planets, a one in a trillion chance is going to happen eventually.

 

A second way of refuting your argument is to take a million numbers.  Randomly select 50 of those numbers.  What's the odds that those numbers came up in that particular order?  Well, it's incredibly small, much smaller than your 1 in a trillion. 

 

So is that a miracle?  I don't think so.  The problem is that you can't argue some outcome like that after it's happened, and say, "because that outcome has a low probability, something special must have happened".

 

Basically, outcomes are constantly happening. Each one always has an almost infinitely small chance of it happening, yet it does because some outcome has to happen.

 

An interesting book about the subject is Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos. It's a short and easy read. He talks about this pervasive error in judgement in the book as well as other errors.

 

Yeah, that's a great book.

 

About the chance of sentient beings evolving from nothing: also we suffer from a horrible case of selection bias. No matter how small that chance would be: we can only philosophize about it because we exist. The argument: the chance is extremely small yet we exist -> this is a miracle isn't valid.

[randomep]

Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friends.  There's a lot of newer members here so I think it's time to bring back a story I told from last year.  Just please remember, we're all value investors here.

 

 

People, people.  Please can we have some civility here.  A story might be of assistance.  A number of years ago I found myself at a Matzo Ball Christmas Eve Event at the old Palladium in NYC.  For those not in the Tribe, these events were essentially big parties for Jews who didn't want to feel left out on Christmas Eve and felt like just eating Chinese food and going to the movies wasn't enough.  There was a mixer aspect to it as well. 

 

Anyway, the Palladium was a massive club.  Thousands were there which I know is surprising for NYC.  After a long night of festivities and answering the question "Doctor?  lawyer?  banker?" from the fairer sex, I found myself in the coat room.  For such a large club, the coat room was surprisingly small.  It became very crowded and people started to push and some small fights broke out.  Although these were of the slap and push variety, it was still terrifying.  From the back of the room, over the din of the crowd, a lone voice of reason could be heard.  It said, "People, please stop.  We're all Jews here!"  And you know what?  Nothing really stopped, but still it was helpful.

 

So I say to you, people, please stop, we're all value investors here.

 

Funny story, first time I saw it.

 

And you know what, nothing really stopped.......

 

 

[jschembs]

Uncle Sam needs to stop subsidizing single motherhood for that to even begin to happen.

 

Yeah, because all the single mothers I know do it for the money and life of leisure. If we made that life less attractive, maybe they would stop consciously choosing to become single mothers; heck, maybe it would even force them to stay in bad relationships and be financially dependent on abusive men, like in the good old days...

 

LOL!  Couldn't agree with you more Liberty.  I don't think single mothers go out of their way to be single mothers, but more so because they are naive, run into loser men, not enough education, or never fully understood the consequences and repercussions. 

 

Not to say there may not be a certain niche that get pregnant simply for welfare payments, but I would say that percentage is far smaller than those simply falling into single motherhood due to circumstance, than making it a lifestyle choice.

 

Buffett says that the children growing up today, will live better than his generation, and those after them will live even better.  I'm not sure that isn't the case, regardless of the huge gap in wealth, income and opportunity. 

 

You have a black president in the United States today...how can that not be more advantageous for the millions of underprivileged black youth, than 50 years ago when segregation still existed!  Cheers!

 

Great points by Liberty and Parsad. Does anyone honestly think teenage women get pregnant so they can get on welfare? These kinds of polls are toxic, as they further the view that poor people are poor because of their life choices. Of course there are folks who make bad decisions that lead them to a harder life. I grew up in the Seattle suburbs, and remember plenty of folks from junior high and high school who had an easy path laid out for a upper middle income life, but threw it away with a number of poor decisions in their youth. Those folks deserve no pity.

 

But to imply that poor people - particularly those born into poor circumstances - remain there because of conscious decisions is, in my humble opinion, either ignorant or self-serving.

[LC]

Great points by Liberty and Parsad. Does anyone honestly think teenage women get pregnant so they can get on welfare? These kinds of polls are toxic, as they further the view that poor people are poor because of their life choices. Of course there are folks who make bad decisions that lead them to a harder life. I grew up in the Seattle suburbs, and remember plenty of folks from junior high and high school who had an easy path laid out for a upper middle income life, but threw it away with a number of poor decisions in their youth. Those folks deserve no pity.

 

But to imply that poor people - particularly those born into poor circumstances - remain there because of conscious decisions is, in my humble opinion, either ignorant or self-serving.

 

Heh. So, just an anecdotal story for you. My daily commute used to be the 4 train in Manhattan up thru harlem and the bronx. And it's rush hour one summer evening, and everyone is standing. The proximity to other warm bodies oppressive, everyone is exhausted and wants to get home, and there are these two spanish women, overweight, from the south bronx (based on where they got off to "go home"), and they are loudly having a conversation. The topic of which is LITERALLY how to (1) trick men into impregnating them so they can collect both welfare and child support (2) exactly how many children to have which is the optimal amount to collect the most from city/state/federal welfare programs and (3) how to use various monies given to them for the sake of their kids to buy, well, stuff (cable tv, cell phones etc). One girl was telling the other how she actually accomplished this. I mean, it was detailed and everything: the specific programs, filing processes, how long it takes to process, where to go buy things afterwards, etc. At some point I knew it wasn't just hot air. And I could not believe what I was hearing! I almost burst out laughing because it seemed so ridiculous once I knew they was completely serious. And the looks of the other passengers was equally incredulous.

 

So maybe it's not everyone, maybe it's not a majority, maybe those were the only two people in the entire country who consciously made that choice. But to say something like "But to imply that poor people - particularly those born into poor circumstances - remain there because of conscious decisions is, in my humble opinion, either ignorant or self-serving." is in some cases factually wrong and (in my mind) frankly is a very middle/upper class thing to say! The reality is that you, and I, simply do not know the thought processes of some of these people, so we can opine all we want about why we think they are in their situation, but we really have absolutely no clue.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[rkbabang]

Great points by Liberty and Parsad. Does anyone honestly think teenage women get pregnant so they can get on welfare? These kinds of polls are toxic, as they further the view that poor people are poor because of their life choices. Of course there are folks who make bad decisions that lead them to a harder life. I grew up in the Seattle suburbs, and remember plenty of folks from junior high and high school who had an easy path laid out for a upper middle income life, but threw it away with a number of poor decisions in their youth. Those folks deserve no pity.

 

But to imply that poor people - particularly those born into poor circumstances - remain there because of conscious decisions is, in my humble opinion, either ignorant or self-serving.

 

Heh. So, just an anecdotal story for you. My daily commute used to be the 4 train in Manhattan up thru harlem and the bronx. And it's rush hour one summer evening, and everyone is standing. The proximity to other warm bodies oppressive, everyone is exhausted and wants to get home, and there are these two spanish women, overweight, from the south bronx (based on where they got off to "go home"), and they are loudly having a conversation. The topic of which is LITERALLY how to (1) trick men into impregnating them so they can collect both welfare and child support (2) exactly how many children to have which is the optimal amount to collect the most from city/state/federal welfare programs and (3) how to use various monies given to them for the sake of their kids to buy, well, stuff (cable tv, cell phones etc). One girl was telling the other how she actually accomplished this. I mean, it was detailed and everything: the specific programs, filing processes, how long it takes to process, where to go buy things afterwards, etc. At some point I knew it wasn't just hot air. And I could not believe what I was hearing! I almost burst out laughing because it seemed so ridiculous once I knew they was completely serious. And the looks of the other passengers was equally incredulous.

 

So maybe it's not everyone, maybe it's not a majority, maybe those were the only two people in the entire country who consciously made that choice. But to say something like "But to imply that poor people - particularly those born into poor circumstances - remain there because of conscious decisions is, in my humble opinion, either ignorant or self-serving." is in some cases factually wrong and (in my mind) frankly is a very middle/upper class thing to say! The reality is that you, and I, simply do not know the thought processes of some of these people, so we can opine all we want about why we think they are in their situation, but we really have absolutely no clue.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

I personally know women like this.  I'm glad people on this forum have lives free of such scumbags, but you should move to Massachusetts, where I lived most of my life (the Fall River or Worcester areas would be best) and you will certainly run into such women.  I can only imagine what it is like in some parts of NYC or LA.

 

Anyway I've said enough on this topic, I'll let the rest of you get back to your own world where you watch unicorns jump over rainbows.

 

[merkhet]

 

Not to say there may not be a certain niche that get pregnant simply for welfare payments, but I would say that percentage is far smaller than those simply falling into single motherhood due to circumstance, than making it a lifestyle choice.

 

 

Reading comprehension is important, people. (See quote.)

 

I think that it's unlikely that all single mothers are incentivized by what one poster deemed "Uncle Sam's subsidies" for single motherhood. I think it's also unlikely that no single mothers are taking advantage of the system for subsidies. My sense is that the vast majority are not getting knocked up for welfare. Correlation here is probably not causation.

 

As for poor people, it's also not nearly as black and white as people indicate. Many poor people are there as a result of terrible life decisions and/or life habits. It's unclear to what extent those life decisions can be attributed to their personal decision-making or to their circumstances. I suspect that where you lean politically will determine how you see this -- or perhaps vice versa.

 

About a decade ago, when I was living in Washington, DC, I tutored some inner city kids at a charter school where attendance was based on a lottery. These were some bright kids, and they probably could have done well in life had they been given a chance. Unfortunately, some of those kids had single mothers that depended on them to work so that the family as a whole could eat. Some of those kids dropped out of the charter school -- now, on the one hand, dropping out can be seen as personal decision-making. On the other hand, dropping out of school can be seen as a result of the circumstance of needing to fulfill the very bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy. Once the kids drop out, there is some path dependency that sets in.

 

Things aren't exactly black and white when it comes to things like this. Thinking that they are black and white makes your System 1 happy, but if you put on your System 2 hat, it's pretty easy to see that things aren't so simple.

 

At least we're no longer talking about religion... :P

[RichardGibbons]

I found this video pretty revealing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9odAuzz6kB0

 

It's unclear how representative it is, since it's effectively anecdotal evidence.  But I believe it happened, and I believe that the people passing by in the video don't think they are judging people by their skin color.

 

It must be tough living in a world where, because of your appearance or your background, life is skewed against you.  It must be tiring and frustrating. 

 

So, I could see why a certain subset of the population would try to take advantage of the system, since the system effectively constantly screws them.  It doesn't justify it, but understanding the holes in the system make it easier to patch them up.  (Being a single parent would be freaking hard.  If that's considered a good outcome, it shows that their options basically suck.)

 

It reminds me of John Scalzi's analogy -- being a white male is basically like playing a video game on the easy level.  It doesn't mean that there aren't difficulties and it also doesn't meant that some playing on the hard level can't win.  But many things are just easier.

[jschembs]

Great points by Liberty and Parsad. Does anyone honestly think teenage women get pregnant so they can get on welfare? These kinds of polls are toxic, as they further the view that poor people are poor because of their life choices. Of course there are folks who make bad decisions that lead them to a harder life. I grew up in the Seattle suburbs, and remember plenty of folks from junior high and high school who had an easy path laid out for a upper middle income life, but threw it away with a number of poor decisions in their youth. Those folks deserve no pity.

 

But to imply that poor people - particularly those born into poor circumstances - remain there because of conscious decisions is, in my humble opinion, either ignorant or self-serving.

 

Heh. So, just an anecdotal story for you. My daily commute used to be the 4 train in Manhattan up thru harlem and the bronx. And it's rush hour one summer evening, and everyone is standing. The proximity to other warm bodies oppressive, everyone is exhausted and wants to get home, and there are these two spanish women, overweight, from the south bronx (based on where they got off to "go home"), and they are loudly having a conversation. The topic of which is LITERALLY how to (1) trick men into impregnating them so they can collect both welfare and child support (2) exactly how many children to have which is the optimal amount to collect the most from city/state/federal welfare programs and (3) how to use various monies given to them for the sake of their kids to buy, well, stuff (cable tv, cell phones etc). One girl was telling the other how she actually accomplished this. I mean, it was detailed and everything: the specific programs, filing processes, how long it takes to process, where to go buy things afterwards, etc. At some point I knew it wasn't just hot air. And I could not believe what I was hearing! I almost burst out laughing because it seemed so ridiculous once I knew they was completely serious. And the looks of the other passengers was equally incredulous.

 

So maybe it's not everyone, maybe it's not a majority, maybe those were the only two people in the entire country who consciously made that choice. But to say something like "But to imply that poor people - particularly those born into poor circumstances - remain there because of conscious decisions is, in my humble opinion, either ignorant or self-serving." is in some cases factually wrong and (in my mind) frankly is a very middle/upper class thing to say! The reality is that you, and I, simply do not know the thought processes of some of these people, so we can opine all we want about why we think they are in their situation, but we really have absolutely no clue.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Duly noted, thanks for the story! I probably should've qualified that a bit...

[LC]

take it with a grain of salt! just one story and i definitely concede the real problem is not people 'gaming' the welfare system!

[Guest hellsten]

Mr. Frog lost the election after Mr. Donkey convinced everyone that if Mr. Frog became the school dean, soon enough, the entire university would be run by frogs.

 

Sorry, the rules just changed, only true pigs can come in.

 

https://bookofbadarguments.com/

[rkbabang]

take it with a grain of salt! just one story and i definitely concede the real problem is not people 'gaming' the welfare system!

 

Which "real problem"?  I agree compared to things like the US's foreign policy feeding the military industrial complex the welfare system is a very tiny problem.  But my original comment was in response to someone who mentioned single parent households.  There are two major causes of single parent households, which are the primary reasons that there are a lot of them now and were not many of them say 80 years ago.  1) is the welfare system (you get more of what you subsidize) and 2) is the war on drugs.  So when you are talking about single parent households as "the problem" then yes, the welfare system is a major cause of it.

 

[LC]

take it with a grain of salt! just one story and i definitely concede the real problem is not people 'gaming' the welfare system!

 

Which "real problem"?  I agree compared to things like the US's foreign policy feeding the military industrial complex the welfare system is a very tiny problem.  But my original comment was in response to someone who mentioned single parent households.  There are two major causes of single parent households, which are the primary reasons that there are a lot of them now and were not many of them say 80 years ago.  1) is the welfare system (you get more of what you subsidize) and 2) is the war on drugs.  So when you are talking about single parent households as "the problem" then yes, the welfare system is a major cause of it.

 

Sorry I was really unspecific...I was just speaking of poverty in general, not single parent households, or even poverty in the USA.

[merkhet]

take it with a grain of salt! just one story and i definitely concede the real problem is not people 'gaming' the welfare system!

 

Which "real problem"?  I agree compared to things like the US's foreign policy feeding the military industrial complex the welfare system is a very tiny problem.  But my original comment was in response to someone who mentioned single parent households.  There are two major causes of single parent households, which are the primary reasons that there are a lot of them now and were not many of them say 80 years ago.  1) is the welfare system (you get more of what you subsidize) and 2) is the war on drugs.  So when you are talking about single parent households as "the problem" then yes, the welfare system is a major cause of it.

 

Can you cite data for this?

[rkbabang]

take it with a grain of salt! just one story and i definitely concede the real problem is not people 'gaming' the welfare system!

 

Which "real problem"?  I agree compared to things like the US's foreign policy feeding the military industrial complex the welfare system is a very tiny problem.  But my original comment was in response to someone who mentioned single parent households.  There are two major causes of single parent households, which are the primary reasons that there are a lot of them now and were not many of them say 80 years ago.  1) is the welfare system (you get more of what you subsidize) and 2) is the war on drugs.  So when you are talking about single parent households as "the problem" then yes, the welfare system is a major cause of it.

 

Can you cite data for this?

 

 

For the drug war it is easy:  from(http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet

 

• African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
  
• African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
  
• Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up  approximately one quarter of the US population
  
• According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail populations would decline by approximately 50%
  
• One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime
  
• About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug
  
• 5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites
  
• African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.
  
• African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months).  (Sentencing Project)
  

 

If you are in jail, you are not being a father to your children.  If you have served time in jail you are less likely to be able to support your children and welfare is often a better option for the mother(s).  Since the drug war targets young black and Hispanic men almost exclusively these communities are devastated by fatherlessness.  It is very easy for rich white folk to put their fingers in their ears and say "la, la, la, I can't hear you" and pretend that this isn't happening, but, sorry, it is.

 

As far as welfare goes I'm not going to look up the statistic now, if I get a chance I will. But from memory, the black community in the US had no fatherlessness problem (compared with today) in the 1950s and black poverty was decreasing at a rate of about 1%/year right up until Johnson's so called "war on poverty", when the statistics for black fatherlessness and poverty immediately took a turn in the other direction and has never recovered.  Nixon's war on drugs starting in the early 70's only exacerbated both problems and continues to this day.

 

 

[merkhet]

If you are in jail, you are not being a father to your children.  If you have served time in jail you are less likely to be able to support your children and welfare is often a better option for the mother(s).  Since the drug war targets young black and Hispanic men almost exclusively these communities are devastated by fatherlessness.  It is very easy for rich white folk to put their fingers in their ears and say "la, la, la, I can't hear you" and pretend that this isn't happening, but, sorry, it is.

 

As far as welfare goes I'm not going to look up the statistic now, if I get a chance I will. But from memory, the black community in the US had no fatherlessness problem (compared with today) in the 1950s and black poverty was decreasing at a rate of about 1%/year right up until Johnson's so called "war on poverty", when the statistics for black fatherlessness and poverty immediately took a turn in the other direction and has never recovered.  Nixon's war on drugs starting in the early 70's only exacerbated both problems and continues to this day.

 

So... I'm not white. And I haven't said that it isn't happening.

 

You have provided data that African Americans are disparately impacted by the war on drugs. I agree with you on this. However, what you wrote is that this is a major cause of single parent households.

 

You wrote the following:

 

If you are in jail, you are not being a father to your children.  If you have served time in jail you are less likely to be able to support your children and welfare is often a better option for the mother(s).

 

Where is that data that the people who are locked up necessarily have children? And/or that they are a major cause of single parenthood? This seems to be an assumption -- if the vast majority of them do not have children, then they're not a major cause. Btw, I'm not saying one way or the other -- I don't have the data for it -- which is why I asked for data. Because otherwise, we are just talking out of our asses here.

 

Do you see what I'm getting at here? (Like I said earlier, reading comprehension is important.)

 

Additionally, assuming arguendo that what you say is true, then welfare is not exacerbating this trend but rather a way for people to survive while their husbands and/or lovers are in jail. People in that case are not getting knocked up to get welfare -- they are getting knocked up, their providers are going to jail and then they end up on welfare.

 

Open question whether welfare is a better option than working for a single mother, but in that case, you can hardly make the argument that those mothers are getting knocked up to collect welfare checks.

[DTEJD1997]

Hey all:

 

I'll "chime in" on this discussion...

 

I'm originally from Detroit, and spend quiet a bit of my time there now...

 

Detroit is a city absolutely DEVASTATED by poverty, drugs, single parent households, etc.  It is FAR WORSE than what is even commonly portrayed in the media. 

 

I can assure you that the figures cited in the original article are probably OPTIMISTIC when you look at poor people in inner city Detroit.  i would doubt very much that 2% of inner city Detroit's population reads recreationally .  I do not think the figure would be that high.  It is ADMITTED to that 40% of Detroit's population is functionally illiterate.  The VAST majority of it's citizens do not graduate from high school.  It is estimated that the GRADUATION rate is lower than 25%....there are rumors that the majority of graduates are female...

 

So yes, there are some bad habits being picked up.  It is also exacerbated by single parent households and welfare.  Whole generations are "lost" and it has been this way for generations now.  There are generations of people in Detroit who have never held "regular" jobs.  Welfare is the biggest industry.

 

I could go on and on and on...but suffice to say there are hundreds of thousands of poor people who are completely broken down here...There is not a doubt in my mind that drugs, welfare, and the breakdown of the traditional family are responsible for a vast majority of the misery in Detroit.

 

Very sad, very unfortunate.