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Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

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Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#51

Post by shove »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #40
Decathect wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's many examples of people who have survived cancer and lived another decade, even five decades. I highly doubt they’d spread the advice that having cancer is a hopeless disease. The commonality is it was out of their control, they absolutely needed outside help just to survive, and that their odds were terrible. The existence of rare exceptions only highlights the fatality rate. Unlike cancer, however, there's…

GDP has no relation to average wage, so not sure you can make an argument for ... giving people more money? If if I make a candy bar and sell it for $1, GDP would be $1, but my personal profit may only be 10 cents. Further, if I sold it to a convenience store who sells it for $2, then GDP is $3, and total profitability may only be 20 cents.

a much better argument would be to imagine a scenario in which the total profit was divided amongst the workers and show that despite exploitation via low wages being the source of huge corporate profits, it still wouldn’t be nearly enough to lift the employees into the middle class.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#52

Post by H1Supreme »

seibelj wrote: post #30
ddingus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor people do not buy $20k Civics. For about half the nations labor force, that purchase could be half a year worth of income. Given housing and other costs, financing that purchase is difficult. What they do is get $500 to $2000 cars. And those do break down frequently. They may or may not have resources, skill and or time to repair them.

A long time ago I worked at a pizza shop as a delivery boy and cook. Multiple coworkers had luxury cars, including one Cadillac sporty sedan. They just seemed to put every possible spare dollar they had towards the most expensive car possible. Made no sense, but buying too much car is a common phenomenon in America.

That mentality is absolutely puzzling to me. A friend of mine is/was exactly that way. He would rather live at home and drive a Jaguar or a BMW, then move out and drive something more affordable.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#53

Post by Decathect »

brianpgordon wrote: post #44
bluedevil2k wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP has no relation to average wage, so not sure you can make an argument for ... giving people more money? If if I make a candy bar and sell it for $1, GDP would be $1, but my personal profit may only be 10 cents. Further, if I sold it to a convenience store who sells it for $2, then GDP is $3, and total profitability may only be 20 cents.

That's not how GDP is calculated. It's roughly the total value added along each step of the production/sales chain. If every person were equally productive and were paid exactly the value they added, and there were no taxes or government spending, then GDP per capita would indeed be the same as the national wage, though of course this situation is idealized to a ridiculous degree.

If everyone was paid exactly the value they added GDP per worker would be the average wage, with no caveats required.

Equal productivity would just mean the average and median wages would be the same.

Government spending, funded by taxes, contributes to the GDP like any other spending.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#54

Post by Decathect »

shove wrote: post #51
bluedevil2k wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP has no relation to average wage, so not sure you can make an argument for ... giving people more money? If if I make a candy bar and sell it for $1, GDP would be $1, but my personal profit may only be 10 cents. Further, if I sold it to a convenience store who sells it for $2, then GDP is $3, and total profitability may only be 20 cents.

a much better argument would be to imagine a scenario in which the total profit was divided amongst the workers and show that despite exploitation via low wages being the source of huge corporate profits, it still wouldn’t be nearly enough to lift the employees into the middle class.

Amazon famously avoids turning a profit and yet its CEO is the richest person in the world.

Its market cap divided evenly among its half million full and part time workers would make all of them millionaires.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#55

Post by brianpgordon »

Decathect wrote: post #53
brianpgordon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how GDP is calculated. It's roughly the total value added along each step of the production/sales chain. If every person were equally productive and were paid exactly the value they added, and there were no taxes or government spending, then GDP per capita would indeed be the same as the national wage, though of course this situation is idealized to a ridiculous degree.

If everyone was paid exactly the value they added GDP per worker would be the average wage, with no caveats required. Equal productivity would just mean the average and median wages would be the same. Government spending, funded by taxes, contributes to the GDP like any other spending.

> Government spending, funded by taxes, contributes to the GDP like any other spending.

That's exactly the problem. You're thinking of Gross Value Added (GVA), which strictly talks about value added through normal economic activity. Once you start "removing" productivity through taxation and "adding" productivity back through spending/subsidies you have a new variable- the presence of that variable is the difference between GVA and GDP. That variable doesn't necessarily net out to 0 either, or even close, if the government runs a surplus or deficit as the United States does.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#56

Post by [deleted] »

pasta wrote: post #16
aw3c2 wrote: post #2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_soci... > The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. > Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the card…

I don't think this applies anymore. Cheap is getting better and better. And the rich just buy new because they like to go with the trend spending hundreds of dollars on boots. Most people I know (Netherlands) who are not wealthy have mental issues or don't know how to manage money. Edit: I don't want to sound like I think the author belongs to those 2 groups. There are many more reasons why someone is poor.

[deleted]

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#57

Post by chrisco255 »

ddingus wrote: post #18
chrisco255 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that always holds up or is that an unreasonable extrapolation? There are plenty of high dollar products that don't last. And spending $100K on a car isn't going to give you a more affordable or longer lasting vehicle than a $20K Honda Civic. It's far more likely that you can buy a $20K Civic and it will last longer than the luxury vehicle with lower maintenance costs.

The poor people do not buy $20k Civics. For about half the nations labor force, that purchase could be half a year worth of income. Given housing and other costs, financing that purchase is difficult. What they do is get $500 to $2000 cars. And those do break down frequently. They may or may not have resources, skill and or time to repair them.

I was one of those poor people, buying $3000 cars to get by 10 years ago, when gas was hitting $4 a gallon while the economy was absolute shit. Truth is, you can find even used Civics for like $4K (although the idiotic Cash-For-Clunkers program caused a lot of lower end inventory to disappear...hurting poor people like me at the time)...and you can still squeeze 100K miles out of them with minimal repairs.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#58

Post by chrisco255 »

tarboreus wrote: post #23
pasta wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this applies anymore. Cheap is getting better and better. And the rich just buy new because they like to go with the trend spending hundreds of dollars on boots. Most people I know (Netherlands) who are not wealthy have mental issues or don't know how to manage money. Edit: I don't want to sound like I think the author belongs to those 2 groups. There are many more reasons why someone is poor.

I think it's fair to say that this is less true in America, where we have essentially no social safety net.

We also have a HUGE, far more diverse, far more spread out population that's an order of magnitude larger than the Netherlands.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#59

Post by jotm »

EliRivers wrote: post #6
jotm wrote: post #3

What a terrible article. Sure, yeah, you're poor, own it, give up. Go buy that fast food shit, get fat and damage your health. Buy all that alcohol that helps you get through life, that will definitely help . FFS. No, you try, fail, try again, fail, try some more - to save up, and start making more. All that advice glosses over just how hard it actually is (not that it can even convey it properly), and it takes time,…

This advice seems pretty irrelevant. She just said that these people do not have any spare money to save up, but this advice is "save up".

The article's conclusion is "yeah, forget trying, get that fast food, indulge in what makes you feel better about your shit circumstances"

Which is the worst thing one can say. It's just a short term relief. If you plan on living, you need to NOT waste money AND always look for better opportunities.

At the core, there's really three options: Advance (save more, learn more, to ultimately earn more), survive hoping there's no major personal disasters, or die. If you plan on living, it's best not to give into the easy choice.

Also typical HN, discuss poverty and pat yourselves on the back for thinking about the poor (unlike those other cunts), while downvoting people with actual experience because it makes you feel bad. Waah, waah. Just fucking ban this account already, I don't even know why I'm here. Upvotes for everyone.

Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor

#60

Post by rue »

tomcam wrote: post #45
rue wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, all immigrants can’t do that either. And other “others” do just fine. You have what’s called “survivor bias”, and you need to get past it to understand systemic issues.

Did the parent say all immigrants? Read the post a couple of times and couldn’t find that wording

Try looking between the lines.
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