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Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

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Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#91

Post by M0T0K0 »

AlexB138 wrote: post #51
RangerScience wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am in no way poor, but if I lost my job and couldn't pay my bills, I'd be in trouble very quickly Sounds like if you lost your job you could pay the bills. You're running into the difference between what is - for you - a hypothetical and what is for others a reality. > That's no one's fault but my own Bu-bu-bu-bullshit! This is completely discounting the role the entire rest of civilization has in producing the c…

> "Bu-bu-bu-bullshit! " Is this really necessary, or the best way to make your point? It really takes away from an otherwise decent post.

I sympathize with RangerScience on this one; the schism between successful individuals who refuse to acknowledge society's role in aiding their success (subsidies, infrastructure, taxes, etc.), versus the less successful who continually get steamrolled over for the former's further advantage.

Its obviously more complex than that, but I've met a few who don't help much in the former's depiction.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#92

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jhayward wrote: post #56
FakeComments wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, everyone's quality of life has improved across the board but relative poverty is the important metric. I completely disagree — the total standard of living is the only one that matters. If you’re better off than you used to be, you’ll keep buying into society and things will keep getting better. I think there’s four factors: 1. It’s hard to view your status in absolute instead of relative terms, because it re…

> extort wealth until they’re forced back into absolute poverty — which there are signs of happening. ~~It is hardly sufficient to simply say that this outrageous claim requires enormous proof. Please, show me the billionaires who have been forced in to poverty by social program. Please.~~ Edit: I was misreading the above in exactly the wrong direction, wealth-wise. There is indeed quite a bit of evidence that the ec…

I believe you're misreading that line. I believe the claim is that The Rich will extort wealth from the Becoming Better Off until The Becoming Better Off no longer are becoming better off - until they are forced back to absolute poverty.

I still think it's fair to ask for evidence on the "signs of happening" part...

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#93

Post by flukus »

savanaly wrote: post #76
post_break wrote: post #62

People cannot buy a phone outright. It's that bad. We're literally financing a $500-1000 device because they can't take the hit up front. Now I'm sure most people here could swing a phone tomorrow if they needed to say theirs was stolen, but you gotta think about how many people just can't. How about tires, there are places to rent tires. Financing a car? Common. 8 payments to put two front tires on your car? Seems i…

A phone of that cost is a luxury item. Now I'm in the category of people who can afford that and I want to make sure I'm not just living in a bubble when I dismiss what you said, so I opened up a tab and typed in "cheap phone" to google. The first result is a $20 phone from best buy. It appears to do calls, take pictures and video, do web browsing and have some library of available apps. So I don't think "People cann…

You're not wrong, people that can't pay cash for a phone shouldn't be buying one. But there are a lot of expenses in that range that are more of a necessity, car tyres that OP mentioned, other car expenses, removalists fees and bond payments, a fridge breaking down. There's some even bigger ones you can't put off like funeral expenses or missing work for medical reasons.

A $500 phone gets used as an example because it's something people here will buy somewhat often and without much thought but it's missing the point to argue that there are cheaper phones.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#94

Post by pathseeker »

coliveira wrote: post #68
justaman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wanted to point out that racism like that is on its last leg. I used to live in a rural, very conservative, upper class area. While they do watch fox news, they are not racist. Its close minded to call fox news racist or cnn socialist.

Conservatism tries to maintain the existing structures of society and, in a country like USA, these structures are racially determined - it is just part of the history of the country. Therefore, conservative policies will tend to maintain racial discrimination, even when this is not the stated goal of the policy maker.

>Conservatism tries to maintain the existing structures of society

Only in a loose, meaningless sense of the word that doesn't really tie to most conservatives in the US. Many conservatives in the US want to change structures of society, particularly WRT how much the government is involved.

>these structures are racially determined - it is just part of the history of the country

Not really. A poor white immigrant is just as disadvantaged by current laws as a poor black immigrant. Money is the #1 indicator of how hard you are going to have it in the US.

>Therefore, conservative policies will tend to maintain racial discrimination

No, they will tend to discriminate against low-income people. A larger portion of black people are low-income so people who are into identity-politics will intentionally confuse this and claim the policy is designed to hurt black people.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#95

Post by pathseeker »

afpx wrote: post #74
User23 wrote: post #32

Poverty is not a disease. It's not a malady that can be treated or cured. It is a consequence of many factors, but above all it is primarily a consequence, not a cause. What causes poverty? Well like any other widespread social phenomenon, the causes are varied. Crime is an obvious one. Poor decision making is another. For example, a seemingly absurd 70% of windfall recipients go broke[1]. It's evident that the major…

This is a tough subject because it’s an emotional one, and lots of people do make knee jerk reactions. I know plenty of people who feel that they know the causes or consequences or solutions, but yet few of them seem to take a long, deep analysis. For example, the opinion that successful people make decisions X, Y, and Z and unsuccessful people don’t is a very attractive intuition. Yet, it’s very difficult to support…

>So, consider your observation that poor people are worse and rich people better (at making decisions).

Did you read the part of the comment about people going broke who are high-income or receive windfalls?

Poor money-management exists across all income bands and starting savings levels.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#96

Post by refurb »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #26
chrisco255 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the availability of cheap credit has made me worry a bit less about getting slammed with some unexpected expense. That's not to say that I don't put money away for retirement and rainy days...but credit cards do make it easier to float if you suddenly find yourself unemployed.

I’ve never heard anyone refer to 20%+ interest as cheap credit until now.

Get an unsecured line of credit at your bank for a lot less than 20%.

Or find one of those credit cards with 0% APR for the first 12 months.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#97

Post by flukus »

wolfram74 wrote: post #17
kryogen1c wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more, lost interest here: >Psychologist Abraham Maslow believed that safety ranked second only to food and shelter as a basic human need. Someone who has food and a roof over their head today, but doesn’t know whether they will tomorrow, should be considered poor. I find this premise extremely unsatisfying and non-obvious to say the least. Life is dangerous. There's no such thing as safety. Everyone's…

If you live in an 'at will employment' aka 'no fault fire' state you could very easily be fired because of no fault on your part.

If you live anywhere you can be fired through no fault of your own through downsizing company mergers and the like. My company is being bought out at the moment so I don't know if my job will exist in 3 months.

The only difference in countries with strong Labor laws is that it can't happen arbitrarily and a certain amount of runway is paid out.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#98

Post by soared »

pitaj wrote: post #75
soared wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In short, (gov) assistance does __not__ decrease poverty Source? I feel as though the equal housing act and low-income housing decrease this definition of poverty by making housing secure.

Funny you use low-income housing as an example. Housing projects have made many things worse, because they concentrate poverty and therefore crime. It's one of the four columns of the poverty-cycle: - drug war - justice system - housing projects - welfare gap

My view is probably biased since I live in Denver. Every new building with more than a certain number of units (I couldn't find the year it started) is required to have some percentage of units dedicated to low-income / low-rent tenants. So we don't have the problem of concentrated poverty or crime.

It is based off of earning a percentage of median income by county (or maybe zip code).

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#99

Post by gdix »

xadhominemx wrote: post #29
chrisco255 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from a very conservative family. Nobody's insecure about non-whites having the ability to vote. They might be worried about the fact that some demographics vote like 95% Democrat, but that's just a concern about blind loyalty to party and identity politics. But agree with your sentiment. Insecurity in general is a very loose term. Some people are prone to believe the sky is falling and there's little that gove…

> Nobody's insecure about non-whites having the ability to vote Actually they are, and go so far as to pass laws specifically to suppress non-white votes https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1051657219899617280

To me it's not clear if the court is leaving out some context here. "The State" may have mentioned that the counties were disproportionately democratic and disproportionately black in their justification but to say that WAS their justification could easily be editorialization on the part of the judge who wrote this.

Re: Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate

#100

Post by jhayward »

FakeComments wrote: post #82
jhayward wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extort wealth until they’re forced back into absolute poverty — which there are signs of happening. ~~It is hardly sufficient to simply say that this outrageous claim requires enormous proof. Please, show me the billionaires who have been forced in to poverty by social program. Please.~~ Edit: I was misreading the above in exactly the wrong direction, wealth-wise. There is indeed quite a bit of evidence that the ec…

I think I was unclear — I meant people who are relatively poor, but wealthier in absolute terms being extorted by the relatively extremely wealthy until they’re also poor in absolute terms.

Ah, I was absolutely misreading it. Thanks for the clarification.
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