The Busy Person’s Lies

Post by da02 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 9:34 PM UTC

krisroadruck wrote: post #72

faceyspacey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That view that it it's "terribly depressing to be broke" and all the despair the poor in America feel because they can create no value could only be thought up by us smug hacker news software creators. I know first hand that much of the poor are content to live off the government, never had any aspirations and ultimately don't need much to survive and be content enough. They don't know what they don't know and theref…

... I barely know how to respond to this. If you think the most poor people are content being poor it's hard for me to craft a rebuttal given how out of touch you are with reality. I grew up poor myself. Like lived on the streets for 2 years, spent time in the state grouphome system, had shoes held together by safety-pins level of poor and I now make six figures. On my way from there to here I spent a lot of time wit…

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 9:43 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #36

cmdrfred wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from poverty. There is a big difference between poor and working poor. The poor get handouts, the working poor get fines because they can't afford Obamacare. Then people wonder why the poor don't struggle their way to working poor.

Whoever downvoted this comment doesn't understand it at all. The working poor are a revenue source. By keeping people indebted, they remain predictable consumers and fixed-income assets, like a human bond. The impoverished are effectively trapped by the welfare system itself, because it reduces benefits as incomes rise at a faster rate than can be made up by the equivalent amount of work. If the minimum wage was a li…

Post by coolstorydude89 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 9:47 PM UTC

andruby wrote: post #79

SilasX wrote: post #64

Reminds me of the WSJ's infographic of tax-hike impacts and the forlorn expressions on their faces. http://i.huffpost.com/gen/944732/original.jpg

Wow, those income numebers are insane. Was that a sarcastic infographic or was it serious one?

Post by SilasX » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 9:50 PM UTC

coolstorydude89 wrote: post #96

andruby wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, those income numebers are insane. Was that a sarcastic infographic or was it serious one?

The original article was talking about specifically how this tax increase would affect higher earner families. It was not the intent of the story to describe these as typical of the general population.

Post by sedachv » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #18

JPKab wrote: post #9

The author is clearly well into the upper-middle class financially, talking about nannies and "solo beach days" on both coasts. Wow, how out of touch is the typical New York Times writer these days. Poor and working class people have truly busy lives compared to professionals. We should all remember that.

I think it depends a lot on the specifics. Of course, there are certainly lots of Americans who are both poorer than the author and work harder. But in the US, the very poorest people tend to be those who don't work at all, or only work part-time. People who live their whole life in a small town with one or two big employers, which move away when the economy crashes; people whose skills go out-of-date, and can't affo…