My Three Takeaways

The example about the soap opera TV changing the behavior of Brazilian women and its impact on fertility. Brazilian women in the 1980s went from having six children down to about two due to a telenovela called Rede Globo with ran from the 1970s to the 1990s. Crazy to see culture have such a huge impact. The women saw women on the show over 50 with one or no kids living a high quality life. This was mentioned as the author tired to determine if poverty is caused by people having too many kids. 1.

Savings and access to credit really makes it hard to escape poverty. They mentioned the early success they had with microcredit but the same issue came up with non payment. The book even mentioned Citibank (I think in India or Indonesia a lot of the book referenced these two countries) hiring local goons to scare the populace into paying back their unsecured loans. But just like the middle class one bad thing can completely wreck you. Many examples include a small business going well and a check bounces and now they are paying so much to right that wrong or a family member gets sick and all the money that is needed to get them care keeps them from getting above the poor doomloop. 1.

This book comes off as very socialist/progressive to find somewhat decent solutions to the poverty problem.

More women in power and more monitoring of institutions and policies to help bootstrap the poor out of poverty

He acknowledges that freedom is one of the most important aspects of a society that reaches prosperity but quickly trashes the idea of using the free market to solve everything stating that bribes and scams would cause progress to stagnate or stifle. The author does critique politics and the troubles with corruption but the solution seems to be a bit misleading for me.

My major takeaway from this book is human action is at the root of all poverty

The more I read this book the more I thought the poor really work against their best interests all the time. The middle class and rich do it as well but since so many social nets are in place to stop the big downfall (bank bailouts, local charities, farm subsidies) the fall down the economic ladder isn’t so drastic compared to a country that doesn’t have these in place.

The book almost gets to an Austrian school of economics solution by recognizing the lack of smart decisions (people buying more food and spending on vices when income goes up and not on savings) but then falls way short by asking for more government involvement stating the government exists to solve problems the free market can’t/wont have an interest in. Which I think is BS! If that were true bitcoin never would have been discovered (yes I think Bitcoin was discovered not invented).

Overall this was a great book thanks to @undisciplined for suggesting I read this book. I now have a new perspective on poverty and the solution is much more than air dropping money or letting them fend for themselves. It will take more time and understanding of the human psyche to really get rid of poverty if we ever can.

At the end of the book the author provided 5 key lessons

5 key lessons

Poor lack critical pieces of information and believe things that are not true. “Citizen who vote in the dark are more than likely to vote for someone of their ethnic group at the cost of bigotry and corruption” 1.

The poor bear responsibility for too many aspects of their lives. (i.e. Piped water the rich don’t have to think about it turn on faucet the water is safe to drink while the poor have to purify it for themselves and if they don’t know how it ends badly for them). Another example is building savings. For the rich savings accounts make it easier and thoughtless to save but for the poor it is very hard to access a savings account that doesn’t eat into your earnings. 1.

Some markets are missing for the poor or poor face steep prices in them. (Interest rates , health insurance) 1.

Poor countries are not doomed to fail due to an unfortunate history or that they are poor now. 1.

The expectations about what people are able or unable to do all too often end up turning into a self fulfilling prophecies.