The hunger based poverty trap is the idea that when a person is starving so badly that the calories they do consume go to just keeping them alive. Because they are barely staying alive they can never build up the strength to work more, get more money and buy more/better food. This leaves them in a trap that they can never seem to get out of. Living on just enough food to survive, but never being comfortable and not having the strength to do a better job, or work longer hours to make more money. Those who already have money and food are able to work harder and more because they have the ability to do so, they were never caught in the trap. The authors provide real numbers as to where money is going and how much it costs to do certain things, deworming was the example provided. I believe the authors because when you logically think about it, it makes perfect sense. How can people ever get out of poverty if they are only eating enough food to barely stay alive? They can't.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Assignment #2
The book provides an insight on the poor that I had never thought of. Specifically the idea that more money does not necessarily mean more food. It may mean better tasting food, but that better food may not give them anymore strength. The authors presents their argument in a way that is rather easy to grasp. They have firsthand accounts from the poor specifically with Pak Solhin, they use descriptions from him in order to convey their argument. I would say that they are fairly convincing, they provide insight that I had never thought of before and they do so from someone who lives it everyday. In the book I would like to see some graphs, specifically in chapter 2. The authors throw a lot of numbers out and they do not put it in visual form, a graph showing income in relation to calories consumed would leave a deeper impression on the reader. From the book I've learned about the little income that people have to survive on in third world countries, I obviously knew they were poor I just did not really fathom just how so.
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I'm on the same page with you in terms that the authors of Poor Economics provided an insight into hunger and poverty that I haven't been exposed to. I thought it was interesting that people who do live in poverty-stricken areas will splurge for a TV and cable when they are struggling to eat enough each day. But they make a great point- how else can you survive such an awful situation but provide yourself something to at least be entertained by? Yeah, maybe that money could have been better invested in some nutritious food to build up strength in the long run, but if you don't trust the results which path would you choose? I think this is where education would play a good role, if people were aware of the impact of nutritious foods on their health, maybe they'd be more willing to put more of their budget towards that long-term goal.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that graphs would have been effective to include in these chapters. Usually I wind up skipping over graphs in Econ reading but I think this is a really interesting and actually shocking subject that a graphs would have made a big impact on readers.
Matt it seems that both Kelly, you and I were able to grasp what the poverty trap was. The authors did a great job of explaining it and also brought in real people as examples. I would have appreciated more variety with who they interviewed, possibly a teenager a mother and a father would all be different perspectives and very interesting points of view. I agree that adding graphs would have been helpful and was surprised that the authors did not choose to do so. Another interesting graph would have been the relationship between calorie intake and energy exertion. Although this would be incredibly difficult to do and would be different for every one, I think it would be a particularly useful study and could potentially be used to educate the people that are stuck in a poverty trap.
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