Saturday, August 03, 2019

Causa-efeito entre problemas económicos e estilos de vida desestruturados (II)

Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty, por Noah Smith (Bloomberg):

In Japan, people work hard, few abuse drugs, crime is minimal and single mothers are rare. The country still has lots of poverty.
What Noah Smith Gets Wrong about Poverty, por Kevin Williamson (National Review):
Noah Smith has offered a stale slab of conventional wisdom under the hectoring headline: “Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty.” The essay compounds sloppy thinking with tedious writing, but it reflects a common line of thinking, the defects of which are worth taking the time to understand.
Why Kevin Williamson is wrong about poverty and bad behavior, por Noah Smith (Noahpinion):
Kevin Williamson of the National Review took issue with my post. In a strongly worded rebuttal, he calls my piece "a stale slab of conventional wisdom", "sloppy thinking", "tedious writing", a "mishmash of tendentious platitudes and misunderstood truisms", and "sloppy analysis, if it counts as analysis at all." Yet despite this vitriol, Williamson fails to substantively rebut any of the points I made. In some cases, his arguments contain logical errors; in others, he simply misunderstands my argument.
Beyond victims and villains, por Scott Sumner (Econlog):
I would suggest replacing the victims and villains approach to poverty with a utilitarian approach. One implication might be to adopt low wage subsidies, which both encourage people to work and also boost the welfare of those who do work. This type of economic policy can make the economy more productive by encouraging employment, and also make it more equitable by boosting the incomes of the poor. I believe that both the US and Japan could benefit from this approach.

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