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Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

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Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#201

Post by mindslight »

dsr_ wrote: post #110
zpeti wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see a parallel universe where in 2008 no one is bailed out and bankers are either on the hook for the risks they took or actually are sent to prison. Taking it further back, what if the tech bubble of the 90s is allowed to collapse, interests aren't set at almost 0, and a housing bubble isn't blown by exploiting minorities. And last year airlines, and other corporations who didn't account for black sw…

[flagged]

The comment you're responding to is actually a conservative perspective, one which I agree with - make big business and banksters suffer the preexisting rules, rather than changing the rules for some larger overall goal after they run into trouble.

The desire to narrow the scope of government comes from a place of wanting to help all people, believe it or not. The big picture is that both professional political parties have been captured by entrenched interests. You, empathizing with the grassroots left, naturally look at the intentions of your political allies, while giving a pass where the higher level falls short. But at this point, those higher level "failings" are fundamental to the system.

The more recent development is that the rightist party has seemingly gone batshit crazy - after decades of being frustrated by their moral prescriptions becoming irrelevant, they've turned down the path of destructive spite. But this doesn't invalidate conservative thinking altogether, and we still need the sane bits from both philosophical frameworks / modes of thinking.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#202

Post by DangitBobby »

gruez wrote: post #80
christophilus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a babysitter recently charge us $21 for 3 hours. It blew my mind. I insisted that we paid her $40, which still seemed insane. Someone earning $7/hr makes $280/week. I can’t imagine trying to get by on that even with no dependents.

Isn't the thinking that these jobs are supposed to be for teenagers, which has their income supplemented by their parents?

For a babysitter, that seems fair. For most minimum wage jobs, though, no. They are not just filled by teenagers until they can get a "real job." If you look at charts 1 & 7, you'll see most people working at or below minimum wage are 25+.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#203

Post by selectodude »

readams wrote: post #165
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an excellent comment. What makes me very sad is that during the past 14 months the divide between those who own assets and those who don't has reached gargantuan proportions. I mean, in my raging inferno of a housing market, over the past couple of years home prices have easily doubled. So a 400k house from 2018 now sells for 800k. Yes, if I want to move to another house in my area I'll pay similarly…

Except you have to pay capital gains tax when you move after 250k or 500k for married. So it's not a wash. Especially if you're talking about more expensive markets.

Only if you don't buy a new house within the year.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#204

Post by flavius29663 »

bachmeier wrote: post #123

There are a couple things to understand about being poor. It's not about lack of money (though obviously having lots of money means you're not poor). It's about insecurity. I grew up in farm country in the 1980s. Nobody had money, but I didn't feel poor. When I moved to other parts of the country, that's when I encountered poor people. They had to worry about crime, schools for their kids, and being homeless. When yo…

Growing up poor affects your brain for life and you will be less resilient to stress, you'll make worse financial decisions. This has been studied and it's proven. I guess it's an effect of living under constant stress, worrying about basic needs while your brain is very receptive and malleable.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#205

Post by usrusr »

FriedrichN wrote: post #3

A more distant but very wealthy family member once said that people wouldn't be so poor if they just saved up money. That perfectly illustrated the difficulty rich people have understanding poor people to me. I was really young, but that really stuck with me.

There's some truth in it though, which is that there's a common pattern where formerly poor people, upon achieving higher income, keep their habit of spending every last cent that's coming in, just now also on nice things in additon to necessities, never accumulating any reserves. Their buying decisions seem to be locked in an algorithm "do I have the money, yes or no?" where someone with saving ability would ask themselves "do I want to spend that amount of money?"

But I suspect that this might be more common amongst those that rose from low but not very low income, I could imagine that the group of people who rose from extreme poverty contains a considerable number of people very much able to save. It's certainly not the only reason for poverty to exist. But if the poorest person you know is the high(ish) income/spend it all kind, I can easily see how you'd come to the wrong conclusions.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#206

Post by encoderer »

readams wrote: post #165
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an excellent comment. What makes me very sad is that during the past 14 months the divide between those who own assets and those who don't has reached gargantuan proportions. I mean, in my raging inferno of a housing market, over the past couple of years home prices have easily doubled. So a 400k house from 2018 now sells for 800k. Yes, if I want to move to another house in my area I'll pay similarly…

Except you have to pay capital gains tax when you move after 250k or 500k for married. So it's not a wash. Especially if you're talking about more expensive markets.

Yes that’s true but the $500k goes pretty far. You add all previous home improvements to your cost basis and then deduct real estate agent fees. You can have a million of paper appreciation and not pay very much cap gains tax on it.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#207

Post by Miner49er »

portemonnaie wrote: post #114

I miss the part where they show that the rich people's "choice mindset" is wrong? Are we just going to accept at face value that poor people have no choices whatsoever and are simply victims of society (and of course capitalism, I guess)? To me, that sounds a lot like religion. Of course you can not assume that everybody could be equally rich, and only their choices are to blame if they are not. But the other extreme…

The article doesn't say they have no choices it says they have less/limited choices. And this is simply a common sense fact. The more resources/power you have the more options you have.

I can buy so many more things and combinations of things with $100 vs $1, for example.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#208

Post by proc0 »

Poor people in the U.S. are not really poor. This is the irony in the article and a lot of comments I see. You are acting out the same headline, but in perspective of real poverty.

Did you grow up in a town with dirt roads? Did your neighbors live in cardboard and aluminum self-made housing? Did your family struggle to eat and everyone around you is so skinny that fat people are a rare sight? These are some markers of being poor, and most "poor" people in the U.S. cannot imagine this life. People talking how they are poor because of their stock wealth... poor people won't even have this on their horizon.

Also, yes, my family was very poor in Latin America, and that is why I had no childhood and worked literally all my life, having little friends and romantic life. There are just not enough resources to even do what "poor" people in America take for granted.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#209

Post by 74d-fe6-2c6 »

I don't think its about trouble understanding but rather that most rich people don't care about poor people. Is that a bold statement? Not so sure, because it seems to me that also a majority of poor people don't care about other poor people. We live in rather unempathetic society were unemployed are never considered to be depressed or having an alternative take on the merit of work but instead are seen as lazy or dumb. Where fat or ugly people are considered a cosmetic liability rather than a natural part of the community. We are a bunch of egotistic, self-obsessed maniacs. And yes, there are excpetions among rich as well as among the poor. But they are few and most think of them as weak or suffering from helper syndrome rather than being blessed with altruistic and empathetic abilities.

Re: Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor

#210

Post by BeetleB »

dsr_ wrote: post #110
zpeti wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see a parallel universe where in 2008 no one is bailed out and bankers are either on the hook for the risks they took or actually are sent to prison. Taking it further back, what if the tech bubble of the 90s is allowed to collapse, interests aren't set at almost 0, and a housing bubble isn't blown by exploiting minorities. And last year airlines, and other corporations who didn't account for black sw…

[flagged]

> The only wrong thing you've said here is "I'm not a leftie".

> Why do you reject that generally accurate label?

Because most of what he wrote aligns with libertarianism, which is generally not considered left.

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