The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’ • Hacker News Board

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#181

Post by golergka » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 11:51 PM UTC

13415 wrote: post #76

hopler wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common everywhere I've traveled in USA to use "poor" to mean unable to afford something. That's the dictionary definition of the word.

Not really. Cambridge Dictionary: 1. having little money and/or few possessions 2. to have very little of a particular substance or quality Google: 1. lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society 2. of a low or inferior standard or quality Dictionary.com: 1.having little or no money, goods, or other means of support: a poor family living on welfare. 2. Law. dependent up…

Meaning of the word is defined by it's use, not by a dictionary.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#182

Post by Frondo » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 11:51 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #111

malvosenior wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the ACA (Obamacare) was extra bad (for me and others in my situation). Not only do I have to subsidize the poor through taxes but now I have to subsidize higher risk individuals through my own increased premiums. I also make enough money to get zero tax breaks on any of it and the "marketplace" has removed all competition and downward price pressure. EDIT: People seem to think I'm being flippant or cruel…

You were always subsidizing the poor. Hospitals must treat anyone who comes to the emergency room whether they could afford to pay or not. The costs were recouped by charging those with insurance more - raising your cost of private insurance or through some government sponsored hospital. On top of that, if you are under group insurance through an employer, they have always been required to insure everyone at the same…

One more fucked-up data point about the for-profit health care system:

before the ACA, I was also unable to purchase health insurance from anyone at any price.

Why? Because, in 2004, I had my gallbladder out. Then I moved overseas for a year and a half, and didn't have an American-based health insurance plan. I came back, and boom, I have a "lapse in insurance" and a "pre-existing condition".

The ACA at least let me buy health insurance, although the plan is so expensive and so shitty I can't really use it for anything.

American health care is garbage, and we desperately need a radical change in how we care for people here.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#183

Post by Frondo » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 11:53 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #150

coldtea wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about society gave you nothing then, and left you to live like an animal? Not in a city -- because cities are established and built collectively, with infrastructure, and roads, and so on. Not allowed to use and own money, because that's a public good. Not allowed to have a citizenship (because a country is about people working together). No protection from thugs (because the police is a social good), and so on?…

Things aren’t as black and white as that. There’s a difference between paying a reasonable amount of taxes and having everyone share some of the burden versus a lawless Mad Max style society. The current system is setup to punish the group that I (and probably a lot of developers) belong to. We pay a huge portion of our income in taxes and for me at least, an additional massive chunk of income to insurance post-ACA.…

It's not a punishment; that sort of language is tantamount to sophistry. The tax structure in the US sucks, especially with how, the more you have, the more you can dodge supporting the country that obviously made you so very rich.

But, it's not a punishment. It's just a shitty set of laws -- fortunately, laws can change.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#184

Post by jlokier » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 12:19 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #170

thow16161 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any unexpected expense can knock you down when you're on the edge. Unexpected expenses are how people become homeless. I am friends with a camgirl who is a prime example of this. In her case, she made a go of full-time camming, and thought she was doing well. What she didn't understand is that the site she worked for paid her as a contractor and withheld nothing. She never thought much about taxes, and all her previo…

I feel like crowdfunding someone's taxes is pretty weird and doesn't sit right with me. Assuming her income is rather steady I think a loan is precisely what someone should get in this situation.

I agree, if you can get it.

But credit rating counts for a lot.

Even if they can prove sufficient steady income, if they don't have a good credit rating, there's a good chance they are unable to get a bank loan, credit card (or additional credit if they have a card already), and perhaps not even a small overdraft.

I can't speak for the US, but in the UK, even "payday lenders" who charge >1000% APR rates will no longer lend to someone with a poor credit rating.

On top of that, for someone who isn't used to it, and who already lives on the edge of what they can afford, "thousands", probably at high interest, is a big loan they may reasonably worry would put them into an unrecoverable debt spiral.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#185

Post by gscott » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 1:02 AM UTC

david-gpu wrote: post #134

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all have to do our part to extend safety nets to those in our spheres of influence. I have done very well in life, mostly through what I attribute to luck and being at the right place at the right time. In return, I treat checking in and providing a helping hand (temporary housing, an extra line on my cellphone plan, or in some cases plain old cash) to extended family, friends, and others I encounter as a second j…

> We all have to do our part to extend safety nets to those in our spheres of influence ...or we can collect taxes and provide goods and services to those that need it the most, even when they are not lucky enough to be in the "sphere of influence" of somebody that is (a) well-off and (b) willing to share their wealth with them.

Easier then that, join a church. No need to wait for the Government to provide for you.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#186

Post by roel_v » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 1:05 AM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #2

Poverty especially sucks when you're all alone like it seems this person was. Where I grew up, most of the people were poor, but we had rich lives for the most part. Lots of family dinners and outings. The people with more would let you take the leftovers home. You can't really train this and we all definitely need a social safety net, but I do think our closed off society prevents us from helping each other too.

Not only is she alone (as in 'single' - not to equate 'single' with 'alone' or 'lonely'...), she adopted three special needs children, too (I got this from following the link to her blog and then the 'about' section). From reading between the lines, it also seems she moved from the British countryside to a big Canadian city, likely leaving behind most of her social support network.

Of course it's easy for me to 'judge' (I mean, I'm not really - to each their own) from my position as a software developer with a working spouse and a traditional family in a Western European country, but still - when you're already not in a very stable position, why take huge risks like adopting three special needs children?

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#187

Post by dang » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC

WoodenChair wrote: post #120

loblollyboy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - I’m from upper middle class and while this meant I was lucky enough to go back home when unemployed, all my peers were just career oriented and it’s very lonely to be ‘a loser’ - I recently moved in w some old coworkers/friends in a diff city who are from a diff socioeconomic background. At first they just let me stay in the apt, now I make more than them (though not a lot). We share like family and look af…

I’m surprised you would even think your experience is comparable enough to the person in the original article to post in this thread. She was sick, had a disabled child, and no safety net. It sounds like you were single, healthy, with no dependents and an upper middle class family as a safety net. Perhaps there are other hardships you didn’t explain? How is your anecdote relevant to a discussion surrounding the issue…

This crosses into personal attack, which is not allowed here. It also breaks this guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here? We'd be grateful.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#188

Post by dang » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 1:40 AM UTC

pertymcpert wrote: post #143

WoodenChair wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m surprised you would even think your experience is comparable enough to the person in the original article to post in this thread. She was sick, had a disabled child, and no safety net. It sounds like you were single, healthy, with no dependents and an upper middle class family as a safety net. Perhaps there are other hardships you didn’t explain? How is your anecdote relevant to a discussion surrounding the issue…

How is this kind of narrow minded comment allowed on HN mods?

Please don't take HN threads further off topic. If you see an egregious comment, flag it, as requested in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and explained in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. You're also welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com. Venting about it here doesn't help; we don't see most of the posts. All it does is lower the signal/noise ratio of a thread even further.

The reason I know about this subthread is that another user flagged the GP comment. Had you added a flag of your own it would have killed it as well.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#189

Post by stillbourne » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 2:03 AM UTC

I came up from poverty and its a trap. I grew up in a trailer park with parents that didn't care how well I did in school, who I hung out with, what I did away from home, where I was most of the time or when I came back. They treated me like a burden not a part of the family. At least not the TV families I saw growing up. Started smoking with the neighbor kids when I was 15, started drinking shortly after. There were no examples to me of life outside of that, I couldn't comprehend what life was outside of being a fuck up. Until I met my uncle. He was a former cop turned SysAdmin @ TCI he introduced me to a side of computers I didn't know existed. I envied what he had, I daresay I coveted his gear and his lab and his stuff. I had been a run-away about 4 or 5 times from the time I was 10 well when I saw that life could be different I decided to run away one last time. I moved in to his house and he taught me a lot of what I learned, not about computers specifically but about learning how to learn. How to teach myself.

I eventually got fed up with him being a bit of a strict hardass about everything. I mean, dude was a cop. Everything I did had to be by the book in terms of life outside the house. I ended up just kind of traveling around the country with my gypsy blooded estranged mother, started a pretty serious drug habit for a bit. But all the time I kept thinking about computer stuff. I kept learning, and eventually I got fed up with my situation. I took a look at my mom's boyfriend and at the time I thought he was pretty cool but one day I was smoking pot with him and I looked at him, like really for the first time. I saw a dude that paid child support to 3 different women, who, if he wasn't dating my mom, basically lived on other peoples couches. He worked at a winery and made less than I made @ McD's. I looked at him and then I asked myself, do want to be this dude when I'm 45? I stopped all drug use except the occasional drink, spent all my free time learning the stuff that my uncle had been trying to teach me and moved back to my old home town. These days I'm actually a Developer which I never thought I could be. I'm content that I made it out, but I know that my case is unusual.

I've driven through that trailer park occasionally and I still see familiar faces more than 20 years out. The truth is we're all poor. If your not making $300k a year you are no better than a generation away from trailer trash. I mean look, here they were, two brothers, grew up in the same house with the same opportunities and I was born to the crappy one. I made it out basically on accident. The difference between being rich and being poor these days is generational, not situational. I disagree with this article, its not that you are broke, it is that you are poor, unless you're filthy stinking rich, you are still one generation away from trailer trash.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#190

Post by samcodes » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #186

xeromal wrote: post #2

Poverty especially sucks when you're all alone like it seems this person was. Where I grew up, most of the people were poor, but we had rich lives for the most part. Lots of family dinners and outings. The people with more would let you take the leftovers home. You can't really train this and we all definitely need a social safety net, but I do think our closed off society prevents us from helping each other too.

Not only is she alone (as in 'single' - not to equate 'single' with 'alone' or 'lonely'...), she adopted three special needs children, too (I got this from following the link to her blog and then the 'about' section). From reading between the lines, it also seems she moved from the British countryside to a big Canadian city, likely leaving behind most of her social support network. Of course it's easy for me to 'judg…

Raising children is the primary function of society. Someone going beyond their means in order to raise more, harder to raise children should be celebrated. That we would see any fault is damning evidence that our society is malfunctioning.