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How poverty changes your mindset

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461–470 of 559 posts

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read a bunch of personal finance books and I found that they recommend 3-6 months of expenses in savings as an "emergency fund." Of course, they usually mean in a bank, I don't know how literally you mean "cash." But if you have less than 3 months worth of expenses stashed, you're living somewhat precariously. The general population is absolutely terrible with money, so I would recommend taking random peoples' o…

> I don't think FEMA has a reputation for having borderline paranoia. If anything, FEMA tends to grossly underestimate the impact of the incidents they may respond to; the public tends to grossly overestimate FEMA's capacity and interests in doing what is ultimately, for every animal and man since the dawn of time, their own job and no one else's.

> doing what is ultimately, for every animal and man since the dawn of time, their own job and no one else's.

I think that's a bit harsh. Civilization gives us infrastructure to live safely in very densely populated areas. When that infrastructure fails it doesn't seem fair to just say: "Now it's up to you like it was up to your ancestors. It doesn't matter that they didn't live in a spot where they had 100k other homo sapience specimens within half an hour walk, now competing for resources that stopped flowing in."

It's so insanely densely populated that even leaving this place in a car could take you days.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against people having kids.

No, you just want to punish them for doing so.

That's dishonest arguing. I said no such thing, and I don't want to. By and large parents seem to be pretty happy with their kids, and I say more power to 'em.

Quite the opposite. I'm interested in people changing their decisions in such ways that children have better lives. Simultaneously, I'm am very much against my tax bill and my city's crime rate being higher because of completely avoidable problems.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#463
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, I will not deny that it's probably very cost efficient, but 7k is only a cheap car relative to a new car. A cheap early 2000's late 1990's civic that runs is somewhere around 5 times less than that.

Yeah but this car was three years old and was certified pre-owned, with low mileage. You're suggesting one that is pushing two decades of service. We looked at those kind of cars too and it was obviously a worse choice unless you love rust and frequent repairs.

I'm not suggesting either. I drive a car from 2001 that has spent most of its life in the US north-east. Rust can be an issue but you would be surprised how many cars don't have major rust problems. However, if I had an option of getting a more expensive car (7k was out of my budget) when I was looking for one, I would have gone with something more like what you mentioned. I'm just throwing out the idea that 7k isn't necessarily in the same price range as an old civic. It's definitely rolling the dice with an old car but I have only had to pay for one battery and one alternator (notice I said pay for... in all actuality I received a free battery and had to have an extra alternator replaced as the shop I went to was garbage but owned up to it).

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#464
post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

I've been watching a lot of Jordan Peterson lately, and your story sounds exactly like part a lecture he'd give. It's sad that you figured it out the hard way.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I grew up during the tail years of communism I'm a bit confused; is China not still communist?

I’m not sure how it would be considered communist today. It’s ruled by a “communist” party but its economic system is nowhere near communist.

That's the true sign of a communist regime: after the revolution stagnates, the communist pary elites start to take personal control over the state-controlled industries while keeping the populace under theit heel.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're angry already. Can you explain what's fueling your indignation?

How about offering to help someone and then people acting like you are a bad person? How about that? I've got nothing for or against either poster, but so many assumptions were made about someone who may have been just trying to help. Why is that fair? Why try to help anyone if you're gonna get treated like that?

I did not make assumptions about them. I talked about my experience with how this typically goes and the fact that I find this sort of comment very problematic.

It puts me in an incredibly awkward position because there is absolutely no good way for me to respond to it. If I publicly say yes and they actually help, there is a danger that this will become a running theme on the site. This would be a serious problem for me and for the moderators.

It's an inherently disrespectful way to handle the problem. The lack of real respect is one of the things that keeps certain classes of people trapped in poverty.

I have been commenting on my poverty on this site for years. I get lots of compliments on my writing here. I also get consistently told that trying to make a middle class income from my writing is a batshit insane deluded unrealistic desire.

If people genuinely respected me and genuinely cared, they could help me figure out how to turn my writing skill into a middle class income. I am not asking for charity here. I am asking to be taken seriously as someone who has a valuable skill that I would like to make a career out of. I can get no traction on finding a means to turn that into a middle class income. I have zero desire for my participation here to turn into some circus of me begging for money publicly. I see that as counter to my goal to get taken seriously and establish a career.

I also see that as a development that the mods would be fools to not ban me over. I have spent time as a moderator. That's a shitshow I would not tolerate in a community under my care.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#467

I hate seeing people's comments on stories around this topic. I grew up in poverty and food stamps from time to time. My dad was a roughneck and when the oil bust happened in the 80's there was a time we lived out of our car -- my whole family. here was literally nothing to do in the oil patch during that bust. There was literally no work. But people don't understand true hopelessness. My dad did everything he could…

I grew up in poverty as well and my reaction to money is the total opposite. I never felt connected to it all. I want to be a good saver, but my understanding of the green stuff is nearly nil. It's just sort of there and I try not to think about it. I think it's just the opposite problem. I simply don't know what to spend money on. I feel like I spend a lot of money, but somehow everyone is in deeper debt than I am.…

I identify with this so much. I grew up a single child to a single mom. She did her best but there was never any "saving". She didn't have a savings account, she had nothing. So now that I'm older my first priority is saving money, which is why I'm in less debt in comparison to my peers I think. I spend a lot, but I do it in intervals, and my goal is to eventually learn how to invest. I think most people my age take to the importance of investing too much, and abstract away the savings because they think they will be investing in the future.

I don't think about money at all either. I realize it's important, but it's importance has never consumed me. If I don't think about it, I actually spend less. If I think about it, I totally panic. I've saved money by not thinking about it.

I also have trouble eating! I just buy a week's worth of food at a time, twice a month, so typically I have only two week's worth of food per month, and that results in about 2 meals per day-- small ones. Sometimes I don't eat at all because of my appetite issues. I just take multivitamins to supplement those days, as well as extra Vitamin D3 and Magnesium.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe don't choose to have kids when you're making $9/hour or have a chaotic domestic life? Most children aren't actually planned. They occur because mother nature has spent millions of years perfecting the art of tricking people into liking sex. Or, as I sometimes say, our genes are like virii: They don't care how miserable they make you in their quest to reproduce themselves. Coincidentally, genes and viruses are b…

Oh, I'm totally with you on the root causes. I'm just resentful that I pay more in taxes to support kids when the parents don't care enough to ensure they have a stable life prior to bringing them into the world. And while I agree with you that evolution is powerful, reliable birth control is recent enough that we haven't adapted to it. It's quite possible to control when you have kids via abstinence, birth control,…

I consider such questions to fall under the purview of sexual morality. As such, they are complicated questions that are very poorly served by draconian policies that people who can't afford a kid just should not have one.

Taken to its logical conclusion, I see no reason why that would not lead to a society where murdering kids up to a certain age is the expected norm when the family falls on hard times. If there is a god, I would hope he/she/it would go all Sodom and Gomorrah on it.

When we make public policies, we need to start from a baseline assumption that human sexuality exists and sometimes babies happen and those policies need to respect the privacy of the couple whose coupling created that child and their right to make a hard and complicated decision balancing multiple different interests. Sweeping policies of "just don't have kids" go horrendous places, including forced abortions of late stage pregnancies which are essentially murder because the baby is developed enough it would be viable outside the womb if the mother went into labor.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#469
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but this car was three years old and was certified pre-owned, with low mileage. You're suggesting one that is pushing two decades of service. We looked at those kind of cars too and it was obviously a worse choice unless you love rust and frequent repairs.

I'm not suggesting either. I drive a car from 2001 that has spent most of its life in the US north-east. Rust can be an issue but you would be surprised how many cars don't have major rust problems. However, if I had an option of getting a more expensive car (7k was out of my budget) when I was looking for one, I would have gone with something more like what you mentioned. I'm just throwing out the idea that 7k isn't…

Yeah, the competitors were about the same price but in sorry shape.

Anyway, the prices kind of scale together. If you bought a twenty-year-old Spark/Matiz it would be cheaper than the comparable Civic. Also, I don't know where the OP lives, but the US has pretty lax regulations that let people drive around old cars for longer than many countries.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#470
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you listed a bunch of advantages of wealth that I dont think anyone would dispute. and you talk about taking that away. how is this supposed to help people who are already impoverished? it seems like you want there to be more people in poverty, not fewer. > http://www.templetons.com/brad/billg.html riddled with fallacies and calculated to produce envy. totally irrelevant to our discussion.

> and you talk about taking that away. how is this supposed to help people who are already impoverished? it seems like you want there to be more people in poverty, not fewer. It's about income distribution. It's true that the economy is not a cake you can split in several parts, so it's not a zero sum game, but I think that inequalities should be reduced, and that means taking from the ones who have, to give to those…

> It's about income distribution.

so you've got some people who (for whatever reason) are prevented from making a decent income. how are you proposing to solve that problem by routing an income that is contingent on their inability to generate their own? We have tried that for 3 generations and poverty is worse than ever, inequality is worse than ever, the food stamps go to buy drugs, and the only solution you people have is to take more money from "the rich" and pour it into the same failed social programs.

> I think that inequalities should be reduced, and that means taking from the ones who have, to give to those who have less.

people who generate their own income are going to have whatever they generate less whatever you take. people who cannot generate their own income are going to have whatever you take less your operating costs, and spend it on non-discretionary consumption items like food, rent, healthcare. which are provided by people who don't need your welfare. so you're simultaneously creating a dependent class or poor people and a guaranteed income stream for the wealthy. this is why your idea has always failed.

>And if you take from the ones who have the most, you are not creating poor people, you are just improving the balance.

you'll observe that the ones who have the most are the ones who write the tax code. good luck taking from them.

>I don't understand how taking from the rich to give to the poor would be a bad thing.

1. creates a class of poor people who are dependent on social programs for survival.

2. "Taking from the rich" happens through a political system that is designed to protect the interests of a subset of rich people. so the rules are manipulated to take a lot from rich people without political connections, and route money towards rich people with political connections.

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