On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't • Hacker News Board

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#741

Post by throwaway2a02 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

> Anyway, people think I'm 'privileged' now because I earn a lot of money

Any they are right thinking that,aren't they? That kind of money and wealth gives you a huge safety blanket and insulates you from most of the stresses described in the article. That's the whole point of the article, that this is a huge privilege that's overlooked by the well off.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#742

Post by dahfizz » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:26 PM UTC

overlords wrote: post #696

criticaljudge wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that children don't deserve the spoils of their parents is really crazy to me. Parents work so that they can give their children a better life. Heck, they even choose their partners to maximize odds for a better life for their offspring (wealth, good genes, and so on - it does not even depend on capitalism). To take that away from people is truly dehumanizing, but sounds like a typical socialist scheme (de…

1 rich person saving his money so his 3 children never have to work is bad for the economy. It's better the 1 rich person is forced to consume that in his lifetime. By doing so that money is redistributed back to the economy, and his 3 kids are also productive. In scenario 1 only 1 out 4 people work. In scenario 2, 4 out of 4 people work. Also - it's hypocritical for 'pull yourself by your bootstraps' for children bo…

Its hard for me to imagine being so full of envy that you would like to see the children of rich people stripped of everything they have. Equality means nothing if you achieve it by pulling everyone down to the lowest level.

> 1 rich person saving his money so his 3 children never have to work is bad for the economy.

"Your rights are bad for the economy, we are taking everything from you. Back to work, pleb".

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#743

Post by mandmandam » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #601

35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lie. The world has enough resources to feed, clothe, and house everyone. We've chose to build a system that does not. Perhaps you find that defensible, perhaps you find that appalling, but argue that position, not one that isn't true.

We only have that much because of the incentive to produce. Redistribute, by compulsion, the fruits of one’s labors and most will soon stop laboring. I may be able to support >10, but compel me to and my productivity will plummet.

"compel me to and my productivity will plummet."

What you call incentive is really compulsion, just of a more extreme form.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#744

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #548

dahfizz wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 of the 5 factors you list boil down to "OP made good decisions and worked hard". I'm not sure how that is a counter argument to "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy". From their description, it doesn't sound like living with his Aunt was a tremendous boon either. I don't mean to argue against a social safety net (free college in this example was certainly a good thing). I jus…

> "OP made good decisions and worked hard" On a national or even global scale I try to avoid generalizations like this because trivially they don't lead to good policy outcomes. It's almost a little like stock picking. If 5/100 hedge funds make a positive return over the year, my first thought isn't "the other 95 refused to work to better themselves". It's easy to understand this with hedge funds, but people commonly…

Judging from the folks I know in the finance industry, they would probably say 'those hedge funds lost money because "they refused to work hard"'. Bloomberg built a massive business off the idea that finance professionals need to be constantly informed about everything that goes on in the markets or else they'll be one of the losers.

Perhaps there are some fund managers out there that are just like "Yep, it's a rigged system, I'm going to be the one getting rich off rigging it", but I haven't met one personally yet.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#745

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #697

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state could put the same deal to the rapist as it does to everyone else: work if you want to eat. It does not. Calling the unemployed lazy is a lie untill you offered them a job and they refused.

> The state could put the same deal to the rapist as it does to everyone else: work if you want to eat. It does not. And you would be okay with that? You're advocating for actual slavery of inmates?

Not at all, I am just pointing out that the previous ethics argument does not seem to make sence

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#746

Post by tmnvix » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

woah wrote: post #600

pmiller2 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "systematic housing shortage." There are 59 vacant housing units for every homeless person in the US. [0] Even California has more than 9 empty housing units per homeless person. [ ibid ] --- [0]: https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/

This is known as “vacancy trutherism”, and it has about as much truth to it as q-anon. The vacancy rate is in the low single digits, and the less vacancy there is, the less affordable the market is. The vast majority of vacancies are units that are in the process of being rented or sold. The idea that there is some Illuminati cabal of housing speculators holding vast numbers of units off the market is a crazy fantasy…

Reported vacancy rates (the ones you’ll hear quoted in the media) are usually discovered by asking real estate agencies how many of the properties on their books are currently available to rent. It doesn't include houses otherwise unavailable for rent such as holiday homes or those being 'land banked'.

For some data on Low Use Properties (LUP's) and speculative vacancies in the UK and Australia respectively, see [1] and [2].

Also worth checking out official government statistics for NZ where the difference between the number of households and the number of residences is about 7.5% nationally. That compares with almost half that rate 25 years ago. This change has occurred amidst a property boom purportedly driven by a shortage of properties (really it is a speculative boom driven by a shortage of investment opportunities in the form of residential property).

[1] https://theodi.org/event/friday-lunchtime-lecture-empty-home...

[2] https://www.prosper.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Specul...

The solution to this in my opinion is to remove the privileged tax status of property investors and introduce a wealth tax in the form of a Land Value Tax. Political suicide unfortunately.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#747

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

covidthrow wrote: post #692

whimsicalism wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half of all private wealth is inherited, not earned through work, by the wealthiest 5% of households. In that context, why focus on giving small portions of wealth to those in poverty (even if they aren't working as hard as you think they ought to)?

If one were to redistribute all of the top 5%'s wealth at once: - it wouldn't be liquid, so you'd be giving part ownership in assets - the value would be slightly less than median yearly income per recipient. At a pretty sizeable 5% average return, the individuals would net about $2,000 a year. - if they chose to sell the assets, they would end up with about one year's median income and then it's gone I'm not sure ho…

> For groups that preach so frequently about global and ecological sustainability, there's a disturbing blind spot for economic sustainability

What you've done is described a position ("redistributing all of the top 5%'s wealth at once"), described the problems with it, and then criticized my obvious blind spots due to this oversight. Forgotten in this tale is that I never held that position in the first place! You are criticizing your own invented argument.

Also, even if I did favor redistributing all wealth in the top 5% of families, a simple back-of-napkin calculation shows that your argument is wrong.

107 * 10^12 (total networth of US households [0]) * 0.619 (share owned by top 5% [0]) * 0.05 (rate of return) / (315*10^6 (population of US)) = $10k/yr for every person in the US just off of the returns from that wealth, which is 5x your estimate. The US Census poverty threshold is making below $13k/yr. If that wealth was held for you until you were 18, that would be every young person starting their life with $180k in savings, which is another $9k/yr with 0.05 rate of return.

Obviously, there's a whole host of issues with this, including some of the ones you mentioned, and (of course) price inflation, but I am not sure how you calculated your numbers.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#748

Post by gizmondo » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

overlords wrote: post #696

criticaljudge wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that children don't deserve the spoils of their parents is really crazy to me. Parents work so that they can give their children a better life. Heck, they even choose their partners to maximize odds for a better life for their offspring (wealth, good genes, and so on - it does not even depend on capitalism). To take that away from people is truly dehumanizing, but sounds like a typical socialist scheme (de…

1 rich person saving his money so his 3 children never have to work is bad for the economy. It's better the 1 rich person is forced to consume that in his lifetime. By doing so that money is redistributed back to the economy, and his 3 kids are also productive. In scenario 1 only 1 out 4 people work. In scenario 2, 4 out of 4 people work. Also - it's hypocritical for 'pull yourself by your bootstraps' for children bo…

When rich person pays others to, let's say, build a luxurious castle, the money is both redistributed back to the economy AND the castle is there to use, for a few centuries at least. That's how investing* makes the society wealthier over time, and promoting consumption instead is nuts.

* There is a caveat that it should be a new investment rather than a purchase of the existing one, the latter is zero-sum.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#749

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

sorisos wrote: post #706

whimsicalism wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't want poor people living in sub-optimal housing, so instead they force them to sleep outside or live with abusive people. People don't want poor people to live near them. That is the root of most of the zoning issues, it's not because they are actually worried about the quality of the housing stock that the people would live in.

I've seen some research on "relative income happiness" that suggest having poor(er) people nearby should increase happiness. Perhaps it doesn't apply if the income cap is to large...

Or perhaps people aren't actually rational utility maximizing machines and might not properly anticipate the utility benefits from the change.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#750

Post by dahfizz » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #659

criticaljudge wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the only reason those homeless people don't get their houses is that nobody wants to give them to them? I rather doubt that number. More likely those empty houses are in places where nobody wants to live, or that are unsuitable for homeless (because the environment to support them is missing in the location).

The empty houses in UK and especially London is a well-known and researched problem, they are prime real estate where the owner decided that renting them out is not worth the trouble, they are just land-banking and waiting for their 'investment' to grow. Many (of those) owners don't even live in UK. We had a 'homeless' guy build his house in a forest, but ofcourse the government showed up to remove him. Many people w…

> By growing inequality and pushing people into poverty

I am sick of hearing about poverty as a growing problem. It simply isn't.

Median income, and the lowest income quintile, have grown steadily. The percent of Americans living in poverty has been declining. Median wealth is still lower than it was before the 2008 crisis, but it was growing strongly before and has grown strongly since the Great Recession.

All trends are upwards. Do not confuse growing inequality with growing poverty. Some are getting richer faster than others, but statistically everyone is getting richer.

Is there a specific metric in mind when you say people are being pushed into poverty? Or is it something you have just heard elsewhere?