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This is Real, That's Not

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Re: This is Real, That's Not

#111

Post by legulere »

jakeva wrote: post #7

What a great read. This resonates with me. At one point in my life I was desperately close to homelessness. At the time I was lucky to still be enrolled at a university and could therefore easily take out as many loans as I needed. It was a horribly risky gamble I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but without going into more details of my life story I barely managed to graduate and find a successful career. I was able to pay…

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#112

Post by nrp »

pksebben wrote: post #102
jlawson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco spends over $40,000 per year on each homeless person in the city.

if this is true, why on earth wouldn't they just use that money to, I dunno, rent them an apartment?

They do. The majority of San Francisco’s budget around homelessness actually goes into keeping people housed, not to services for people who are unhoused. Mission Local has consistently interesting (though highly opinionated) reporting around this: https://missionlocal.org/2018/10/prop-c-in-liberal-san-franc...

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#113

Post by nicbou »

timeeater wrote: post #95
vecinu wrote: post #78

I hope my comment doesn't sound tone-deaf or ignorant but this is something I have thought about for a while. As I was watching @lisper's movie "grace of god"[1] and heard the phrase "convince myself that it could never happen to me" (becoming homeless), I started thinking, is this a more American-centric problem? What I mean by that is, can the lack of a social safety net in the US cause a much higher rate of homele…

Here in Germany we have homeless people, and Romania wouldn't come to mind as a place where they don't. More likely I would expect people from Romania to be homeless in Germany. I think some homeless here are (possibly illegal) immigrants who don't have access to the same social security measures. But there are also homeless Germans, despite of safety nets existing in theory. I think it is often associated with menta…

I vaguely remember a police report that said that a very large number of Berlin's homeless are Polish.

I vividly remember that just across the Romanian border, there are numerous Roma villages that look quite like Skid Row.

I can't compare European homelessness to its American variant, but I can say it certainly exists. Safety nets have holes in them, particularly for those who aren't in the system. Freelancers are not that well-protected either.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#114

Post by jacobush »

twblalock wrote: post #91
Iv wrote: post #75

> She tried to insist that my offer to point her in the direction of gig work was unhelpful as she had some minimum income requirements to pay her student loans etc. Someone who is homeless and has no possession is poor. Someone who has nothing and debts is poorer than that. Don't get into debts as an individual. Just don't. Debt can be a tool for businesses, countries, can be part of an investment plan, you take ins…

> But that whole "I'll get a loan to get a degree" is a tool for servitude. US really needs to get out of that. You might be surprised to learn that the average student loan balance on graduation in the US is about $30k. That is actually a bit less than the average price of a new car sold last year, which is about $37k. That is not a life-crushing amount of debt. It represents 4 years of college education for the pri…

People are not average. How big is the spread?

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#115

Post by kstenerud »

timeeater wrote: post #95
vecinu wrote: post #78

I hope my comment doesn't sound tone-deaf or ignorant but this is something I have thought about for a while. As I was watching @lisper's movie "grace of god"[1] and heard the phrase "convince myself that it could never happen to me" (becoming homeless), I started thinking, is this a more American-centric problem? What I mean by that is, can the lack of a social safety net in the US cause a much higher rate of homele…

Here in Germany we have homeless people, and Romania wouldn't come to mind as a place where they don't. More likely I would expect people from Romania to be homeless in Germany. I think some homeless here are (possibly illegal) immigrants who don't have access to the same social security measures. But there are also homeless Germans, despite of safety nets existing in theory. I think it is often associated with menta…

I've lived and worked in many different countries (including America and Germany), and there seem to be two main causes of homelessness: economic hardship and mental illness.

In Germany, I've only seen homelessness due to mental illness, because the bureaucracy in the social programs causes too much friction for them to use it with decent success. There are organizations that help people navigate the mazes and paperwork, but it's still too much friction.

In America, it's both, but primarily economic. The levels of economic inequality in America is something I'd only seen in third world countries before. TBH I'm surprised at how low the corruption level in government jobs is given how dire peoples circumstances have become. It is much worse than in other first world countries, but not as bad as in places like Mexico or India. The higher the inequality, the more the proportion pushed towards mental illness in the homeless people living there. San Francisco was particularly bleak...

In Japan, it's also primarily economic, but I suspect that's mainly due to their tendency to hide mental illness away since it's a source of shame. The "tent cities" in the parks were a sight to behold...

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#117

Post by AmericanChopper »

nullc wrote: post #73
AmericanChopper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top 1% net worth and the top 1% income are different things, and I’m pretty sure the linked source is only talking about the net worth group (though it’s not exactly clear). Net worth is not necessarily linked to your income in any given year, so I don’t think it’s especially surprising that the income for that group averages out to around 5% of their net worth.

> The top 1% net worth and the top 1% income are different things, Obviously. But if the figure is exclusive of their primary residence their return on investments isn't especially impressive-- e.g. it's sub index fund rates even assuming they have no other income than gains. :)

I would presume this is taxable income, which would be different from gross return on investment in any given year (depending on how you plan your taxable events). The other thing to consider is that index funds are essentially the best performing strategy over any significant period of time. For people who derive a significant portion of their income from investment returns, you’d expect some of them would have their income to trending closer towards the risk free rate than average market returns. Index fund returns would be the upper bound for a lot of people in this group.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#118

Post by iddan »

legulere wrote: post #111
jakeva wrote: post #7

What a great read. This resonates with me. At one point in my life I was desperately close to homelessness. At the time I was lucky to still be enrolled at a university and could therefore easily take out as many loans as I needed. It was a horribly risky gamble I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but without going into more details of my life story I barely managed to graduate and find a successful career. I was able to pay…

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

Unlike in Europe, in the US going to university or college requires huge amounts of money and usually require students to take loans. And unlike other types of loans it is nearly impossible to declare bankruptcy for student loans. There is a great summarising it: https://youtu.be/pVKEsiNMPNc

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#119

Post by DubiousPusher »

ggm wrote: post #105

Under the medically justified urgency of covid, Victoria took a significant number of homeless rough sleeping people (as they are called here in australia) into some kind of housing. Queensland did the same using surplus student purpose built dense housing. I'm not going to pretend this "solved the problems" but I am told a number of the less intractable cases got put into a better situation,simply having secure shel…

We have it over and over and over again that housing first is the approach that works. Yet it is very hard for society to stomach the idea of giving someone a handout "no matter what they have done or will do".

I don't know why but this seems to be the primary psychic barrier to doing this thing we know works and which can in some cases even be cheaper than services first aid.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#120

Post by [deleted] »

mapgrep wrote: post #108
twblalock wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that whole "I'll get a loan to get a degree" is a tool for servitude. US really needs to get out of that. You might be surprised to learn that the average student loan balance on graduation in the US is about $30k. That is actually a bit less than the average price of a new car sold last year, which is about $37k. That is not a life-crushing amount of debt. It represents 4 years of college education for the pri…

You have argued that the average student loan debt is not “life crushing”. This is a bit absurd. No one would argue that buying a brand new car for $30k fresh out of school is wise financially for the typical college graduate. Whether it crushes your life or not, it is very ill advised. You have also not addressed the half of debtors who owe more than the average. If the average is so high just think of the figures i…

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