QuoteThere’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous:
It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households....
In addition, Mr. Obamza goes drinking several times a week at a village bar, spending about $1 an evening on moonshine. By his calculation, that adds up to about $12 a month â€" almost as much as the family rent and school fees combined.
I asked Mr. Obamza why he prioritizes alcohol over educating his kids. He looked pained....
Two M.I.T. economists, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, found that the world’s poor typically spend about 2 percent of their income educating their children, and often larger percentages on alcohol and tobacco: 4 percent in rural Papua New Guinea, 6 percent in Indonesia, 8 percent in Mexico. The indigent also spend significant sums on soft drinks, prostitution and extravagant festivals.
link (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23kristof.html?_r=0)
Quote from: zarus tathra on May 07, 2014, 05:50:37 PM
There’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous:
It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes manufactured by electronic cigarettes manufacturers (http://www.ecigfiend.com/products/) and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households....
In addition, Mr. Obamza goes drinking several times a week at a village bar, spending about $1 an evening on moonshine. By his calculation, that adds up to about $12 a month â€" almost as much as the family rent and school fees combined.
I asked Mr. Obamza why he prioritizes alcohol over educating his kids. He looked pained....
Two M.I.T. economists, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, found that the world’s poor typically spend about 2 percent of their income educating their children, and often larger percentages on alcohol and tobacco: 4 percent in rural Papua New Guinea, 6 percent in Indonesia, 8 percent in Mexico. The indigent also spend significant sums on soft drinks, prostitution and extravagant festivals.
Not good at all..Young generation is getting addicted to bad things which is really not nice..We need to guide them well to live better life..
I suppose the next conclusion would be to outlaw drinking and smoking for poor families making it the sole domain of the rich..
How would anyone know how much people spend on their children's education? Does this economist work for the government? :biggrin2: Solitary
Maybe we should read the primary source--Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo's paper--instead of relying on an OP-ED:
QuoteThis low level of expenditure on education is not because the children are out of school. In 12 of the 13 countries in our sample, with the exception of Cote d’Ivoire, at least 50 percent of both boys and girls aged 7 to 12 in extremely poor households are in school. In about half the countries, the proportion enrolled is greater than 75 per cent among girls, and more than 80 percent among boys.
The reason spending is low is that children in poor households typically attend public schools or other schools that do not charge a fee. In countries where poor households spend more on education, it is typically because government schools have fees (as in Indonesia and Cote d’Ivoire). What they are doing might therefore be perfectly sensible, given that this is the reason why public education exists. The one concern comes from the mounting evidence, reported below, that public schools are often dysfunctional: This could be the reason why even very poor parents in Pakistan are pulling their children out of public schools and spending money to send them to private schools.
QuoteOne reason is that poor parents, who may often be illiterate themselves, may have a hard time recognizing that their children are not learning much. One survey shows that poor parents in Eastern Uttar Pradesh in India have limited success in predicting whether their school-age children can read (Banerjee et al., 2005). Moreover, how can parents be confident that a private school would offer a better education, given that the teacher there is usually less qualified than the public school teachers? After all, researchers have only discovered this pattern in the last few years. As for putting pressure on the government, it is not clear that the average villager would know how to organize and do so.
So the question becomes: given that a significant percentage of these children are attending school (many for free), the poor quality of (and, presumably, often lack of access to) private for-fee schools, the poor ability of uneducated poor parents to assess the quality of education their children receive or organize to pressure the government to improve education, would a poor family saving less than an extra nickle a day (to potentially spend on education instead of alcohol and tobacco) make any meaningful difference in educating their six children?
It may also be of interest to note that, according to January 2012's CPI report (http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid1201.pdf) the average American household only spend 3.2% on education/child care
Certainly poor people only drink and smoke so their kids won't have a future. It couldn't have anything to do with forgetting they're poor. Remember, the meek shall inherit the earth.
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on July 30, 2014, 03:08:36 PM
Certainly poor people only drink and smoke so their kids won't have a future. It couldn't have anything to do with forgetting they're poor. Remember, the meek shall inherit the earth.
Where i live there's quite a few people on benefits, (welfare, u americans would call it)and they wouldnt consider themselves poor, ok they mite not work for a living and have not much money to live on but they get by and sometimes they can even afford a lottery ticket :biggrin: :biggrin:
Some of them mite even sell dope to supplement their incomes an there's fkall wrong wi that eh ?
Anyway to be serious for a wee minute if i can...........Fuck The Rich.. :pidu:
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on July 30, 2014, 04:10:57 AM
I suppose the next conclusion would be to outlaw drinking and smoking for poor families making it the sole domain of the rich..
One day you'll find an issue that you won't be able to relate to your resentment towards the rich. One day.
So temperance movement lives on into the 21st century! I am so glad someone acknowledges my moral superiority. I don't drink alcoholic beverages, I have never used an illicit drug, I don't use tobacco and I have never procured the services of prostitute, I don't use profanity and I have not contributed to the problem of uneducated children by not having any!
Nothing makes me feel better about myself than criticizing the unfortunate.
Quote from: GSOgymrat on August 02, 2014, 10:20:08 AM
So temperance movement lives on into the 21st century! I am so glad someone acknowledges my moral superiority. I don't drink alcoholic beverages, I have never used an illicit drug, I don't use tobacco and I have never procured the services of prostitute, I don't use profanity and I have not contributed to the problem of uneducated children by not having any!
Nothing makes me feel better about myself than criticizing the unfortunate.
Lol GSO, you are about 8/10ths of a Mormon. Other than the no kids and the gay thing....... :biggrin:
Quote from: stromboli on August 02, 2014, 11:03:57 AM
Lol GSO, you are about 8/10ths of a Mormon. Other than the no kids and the gay thing....... :biggrin:
I know! If I was heterosexual and Mormon I would be completely insufferable!
If you have nothing to say that isn't emotionally-charged whining, then I think we're done here.
It is "emotionally-charged whining" to point out that the study cited by the OP's article blames low* educational spending not on parents boozing and smoking away their children's future but on free public schools? It is "emotionally-charged whining" to wonder if these "children’s prospects would [really] be transformed" by their parents spending money to send them to schools with less qualified teachers?
*although not really that much lower then in America as a percentage of income spent
There are enough "developing" countries with school fees that are lower than the alcohol and prostitution budget that this is a problem. It doesn't have to be something that affects EVERY poor country for it to be a problem.
So tell me, what percent of income should households making under $2 dollars a day and under $1 dollar a day be spending on education for optimal results? 3%, 4%, 6%?
More than what they spend for alcohol and prostitution, obviously. Try to keep up.
Just how much do these families spend on prostitutes?
But taking just tobacco and alcohol, why should educational spending in Mexico be over 8% of income for the poor and extremely poor while less then 1% in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Peru? This seems like a bizarre way to determine target spending.
It's just a measure of how deserving someone is. If you don't like it pay for their vices yourself
Quote from: zarus tathra on August 07, 2014, 06:24:39 PM
It's just a measure of how deserving someone is. If you don't like it pay for their vices yourself
(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2727748211/c3d0981ae770f926eedf4eda7505b006.jpeg)
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on July 30, 2014, 04:10:57 AM
I suppose the next conclusion would be to outlaw drinking and smoking for poor families making it the sole domain of the rich..
thats what I thought to, the usual 1% crap from ignorant rich fuckers who have no idea the roughness of living poor.
Quote from: Poison Tree on August 07, 2014, 10:24:47 PM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2727748211/c3d0981ae770f926eedf4eda7505b006.jpeg)
Go on, send them some money. There are like 50 sites that accept paypal for exactly this kind of poor but deserving African family.
I don't see how your replies defend your apparent position, which seems bizarre to me, that the amount of out of pocket education spending by the poor and extremely poor in any country should be tied directly to, and only to, their spending on tobacco and alcohol.
Education of poor people is free in India, what moonshine affects is the food for the family. The male do not eat enough because they are drunk, there is less money for food for the family. As a result the health of all members is affected.
Quote from: Aupmanyav on August 11, 2014, 10:47:18 AM
Education of poor people is free in India, what moonshine affects is the food for the family. The male do not eat enough because they are drunk, there is less money for food for the family. As a result the health of all members is affected.
And we have someone who knows what they're talking about! Good.
Quote from: zarus tathra on August 07, 2014, 06:24:39 PM
It's just a measure of how deserving someone is. If you don't like it pay for their vices yourself
Blah blah blah I'm a fucking dipshit who thinks that human worth can be boiled down to numbers.
If you can pay for vices then you can pay for a semi-decent standard of living. Drugs and prostitutes aren't cheap.
(http://image.spreadshirt.com/image-server/v1/compositions/15306909/views/1,width=280,height=280,appearanceId=70.png/hookers-n-blow_design.png)
TSA, I'm disappointed in the quality of your response.
He's trying to intimidate people on the Internet. That only works on the kinds of people who think cameras steal your soul.