When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo • Hacker News Board

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#71

Post by c0nsilienc3 » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:19 PM UTC

rangeofmotion wrote: post #41

What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. But also a few other things. My god, I know so many people who are struggling that it seems like everyone is struggling. I know people making six figures who are worried about losing their homes. In fact, I've known so many people…

I would add medical bills to that as well. Some emergency room bills have asinine charges, and many aren't itemized very well. For example, you could have a bill that says:

Emergency room: $5,000 ECG: $300 Radiology: $600 Laboratory: $750

And maybe you just went in with chest pain from asthma where they took some quick labs and an x-ray, sent you home after breathing treatment and no prescriptions for anything, and now you have a $7,000+ bill after spending 13 hours in the ER. Most of that time was spent sitting around staring at a wall.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#72

Post by UncleMeat » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:21 PM UTC

DiffEq wrote: post #51

rangeofmotion wrote: post #41

What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. But also a few other things. My god, I know so many people who are struggling that it seems like everyone is struggling. I know people making six figures who are worried about losing their homes. In fact, I've known so many people…

Perhaps it could start with, yeah I don't need that unreasonable brand new car with a 72 month payment plan, or I can take these college courses for 1/10 the cost at a community college rather than a more unreasonable expensive school, or I don't need that unreasonable 5500 square foot McMansion in that fancy neighborhood, or I don't need that unreasonable 10th pair of jeans, that unreasonable new iphone, etc. People…

Surely you'd agree that there are people who are struggling financially that don't have a lease on a $40,000 car and a mortgage on a 6BR home.

"Just don't buy expensive shit" isn't an option when rent is increasing faster than wages.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#73

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #63

sp332 wrote: post #15

"millennial culture is just passing around the same $20 to whoever needs it at the time forever." I see this a lot on my Twitter feed. Recently, a guy with metabolic issues and chronic pain (whose own GoFundMe was "trending" for a while) is setting up a charity livestream for someone else's surgery. https://twitter.com/docsquiddy/status/1148022827917938695

Latin Americans have been doing this for a long time: >A tanda is formed between ten friends and family. Each member gives $100 USD every two weeks to the group's organizer. At the end of the month, one participant gets the "pot", $2000. This continues until each member has received the pot.[4] >Tandas are formed for many reasons, but often because at least one member is in need of money to pay a debt right away, or…

[deleted]

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#74

Post by biql » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:34 PM UTC

rangeofmotion wrote: post #41

What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. But also a few other things. My god, I know so many people who are struggling that it seems like everyone is struggling. I know people making six figures who are worried about losing their homes. In fact, I've known so many people…

> Did we forget somewhere along the line that a home is just a patch of dirt with four walls and roof thrown on it?

The cost of home is largely the right to live in a certain location and have timely access to certain places. That's what everyone wants. No only walls but clean water, air, safety, culture, groceries, jobs, parks, entertainments, infrastructure, government protection, good schools, and so on. There are probably thousand little things that make the cost of a home, all of which are highly desirable everyone.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#75

Post by ryanmercer » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:40 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #7

ryanmercer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The larger theme is "Technology makes it easier for individuals to beg strangers for money". I can't open social media without seeing kickstarter/indiegogo this, gofundme that, need money quick, can someone paypal/venmo me money for thing, etc. Then a day, week, month later you see pictures of their brand new cabinets or of their vacation or they are hitting people up for money again for something else because people…

I'm having trouble figuring what you're actually saying here. Do you not like that people can beg? Or that they have to at all?

>I'm having trouble figuring what you're actually saying here.

I'm saying the internet, specifically social media and payment apps/crowd funding sites, allow people to unabashedly give their (true or otherwise) sob story and beg complete strangers for money, I imagine the vast majority of people on sites like gofundme would hesitate to even phone family for financial assistance and I suspect nearly all of the people begging on social media simply wouldn't ask if they had to walk up to random strangers in person and ask.

Keep in mind, I say this while my nephew currently has a gofundme trying to raise 260,000 USD (!!!) for his mother for some experimental, questionable (cryotherapy for her kidney cancer, when it's usually used for skin cancer for example), cancer treatment in China.

I think these sites/methods serve a useful purpose, I think however trying to get gas money to give to your mother to go see your undocumented step-father in another state because he was drink driving and is likely to be deported or remain incarcerated... or hitting people up for beer money... is not a valid use of such sites/methods.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#76

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #2

Their title is... ehhhh, I initially thought "oh a bunch of kids with heavy student loan debt for their liberal arts degrees are finding out adulating is hard" but in reality it is: (paraphrasing) my step-father was arrested for a DUI, can't prove citizenship, and my mom needs money to drive to another state to visit him in custody (/) This isn't novel, I've been hit up dozens of times on the street outside of shows,…

[deleted]

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#77

Post by Terr_ » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #35

gowld wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what Social Security / safety net / charity is -- sharing with people in need.

No? SS is literally a forced pay-in retirement account.

No, that's a common misconception, which I suspect is spread partly by right-leaning finance-industry lobbyists, as their companies salivate over the thought of busting open the piggy-bank and collecting a percentage-fee on the flood of money that would be wildly thrown into the stock-market.

SS is INSURANCE policy. Quite literally, "insurance" in the name of the law. Oh, sure, there are lots of extra quirks, but fundamentally it's insurance, you can tell because you don't get a "refund" when the insured-against event (alive + disabled + broke) fails to occur. Instead, your payments will go to the other people who got hit by disaster, the same way others' premiums could have gone to your disaster. That's normal in insurance.

In contrast, using a retirement account is an investment, its total value is part of your estate when you die and goes to your heirs, but if the stock market tanks you shit out of luck and will still starve on the street. (The thing SS is supposed to prevent.)

When you keep this "insurance, not investment" distinction in mind, a whole ton of "weird" things about SS suddenly make a lot more sense.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#78

Post by zaphirplane » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:51 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #62

tomjakubowski wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of a great anecdote from Graeber's Debt: "The anthropologist Keith Hart once told me a story about his brother, who in the '50s was a British soldier stationed in Hong Kong. Soldiers used to pay their bar tabs by writing checks on accounts back in England. Local merchants would often simply endorse them over to each other and pass them around as currency: once, he saw one of his own checks, written si…

I forget what book I read it in, but there was a story about Moshe Dayan, the Israeli military leader. He apparently liked to shop for stuff in the various bazaars. He would pay for his purchase by check. The seller, instead of cashing the check, would frame it, and sell it to tourists as an authentic check with Moshe Dayan's signature for much higher than the value of the check. This resulted in a win-win situation.…

> the tourist got to have an authentic check

What a simple time to live in when you can go to a bazaar and buy something with just the sellers word that it is genuine

Everyone knows scams only started in the late 2000

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#79

Post by Smithalicious » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:56 PM UTC

rangeofmotion wrote: post #41

What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. But also a few other things. My god, I know so many people who are struggling that it seems like everyone is struggling. I know people making six figures who are worried about losing their homes. In fact, I've known so many people…

Also known as, you know, theft.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#80

Post by Terr_ » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 11:58 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #40

eanzenberg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? SS is literally a forced pay-in retirement account.

Social Security also covers adult disability and even survivors benefits for the depends of those who die. Making us a vital safety net for those under retirement age. See: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/ and https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/survivors/ PS: This also makes the ROI for retirement seem much worse than it is as retirees only get ~72% of what is being paid into the program,

Right, because SS isn't a retirement account, it's a "you get disabled and broke" insurance policy.

It just so happens that it's very hard and expensive to verify all citizens' age-related disabilities in different job-fields, so the "retirement age" is like a "we might as well trust them when they say they can't work and they're this old" cutoff.