Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by godfreyantonell » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #96

mynameishere wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay...but on /r/personalfinance, people show up all the time with a litany of complaints and a litany of awful, awful budget mistakes they have no interest in fixing. 120/month cellphone, 400/month doordash, Dodge Charger with a 600/month note. And so on. each case was a frustrating puzzle What puzzled you? The necessities should never be a puzzle. If the rent, the food, the utilities, the insurance, and the day car…

And what if they already have a second and third job, have already started cutting back necessities. What do they do then? Starve?

Yes.

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

#242

Post by godfreyantonell » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #226

mcguire wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean they're poor and they think they're real human beings!? /s

I know people to whom the /s doesn't apply...

Sad but true.

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

#243

Post by atatatat » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #52

atatatat wrote: post #33

The financial planning bit is meant to come before one has a list of expenses to "figure out" (like home+leased car+children).

"Just don't have kids" is, IMO, one of the most incredibly insensitive approaches to this problem. It reminds me of all the people telling gay people to "just don't have a relationship". Having an entire class of people who work hard but are too poor to raise children is a failure of society - not a failure of financial planning.

Sorry — everyone unfortunately does not have the human right to have a family of 5 in Manhattan.

Everyone does (IMO) have the human right to live off of the land without destroying it permanently for the next family.

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

#244

Post by skybrian » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #65

nanis wrote: post #36

Wealth is a stock measure, income is flow. You accumulate wealth out of what you can set aside out of the flow. Some of us immigrants do not come to this country with an existing stock of wealth either back home or here. We are also not in the favored group of immigrants. We have human capital which we are trying to convert to financial capital for the next generation. Then, when we sort of "make it" here, people who…

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…

Tech stocks are a similar story.

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

#245

Post by mrcode007 » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #196

throwaway3699 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand that the American definition for socialism completely different than Europeans. Those words evoke memories of communism and Cold War rhetoric.

On the other hand, the European definition seems to be “social democracy” at most. Marx would have thought the name of today’s French “Socialist” Party was ridiculous.

The socialism is all about nationalized means of production and lack of private enterprise. Everything is revolving around eliminating owners of capital as a social class.

The often repeated American "socialism" whenever "free education" or "free healthcare" are mentioned has nothing to do with actual socialism and is a misnomer. It has nothing to do with social policies.

Source: I come from a former soviet block country

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

#246

Post by atatatat » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #170

refurb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Not raising kids in poverty is a matter of social responsibility. I would also argue that most people don’t want kids until they have a certain level of financial security. . That’s why family planning was so successful in decreasing birth rates.

So what do you recommend to people who are in a poverty cycle but want to feel they’re free humans, not economic slaves?

Run, don't walk, to a farm community, and away from expensive fancy cities.

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

#247

Post by sangnoir » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #185

nanis wrote: post #36

Wealth is a stock measure, income is flow. You accumulate wealth out of what you can set aside out of the flow. Some of us immigrants do not come to this country with an existing stock of wealth either back home or here. We are also not in the favored group of immigrants. We have human capital which we are trying to convert to financial capital for the next generation. Then, when we sort of "make it" here, people who…

If you somehow have a high income which is guaranteed never to go away, you don't need to accumulate anything, yet live a wealthy lifestyle. In an electronic circuit, if you have an unlimited supply of current, you don't need to hoard electrons in big capacitors.

All things bwing equal, if you're wealthy, your income is guaranteed by the state and the law - it will take the collapse of civilization to wipe you out. Whereas if you have a salary, your income is a matter of your luck holding - not being in a major accident, or your employer/industry/ economy imploding for 18+ months

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

#248

Post by atatatat » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

hnfong wrote: post #93

gruez wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the kid free couples out there beg to differ.

It may be optional for individuals, but as a society, if a significant portion of people cannot afford to have children, that society will go "extinct" very quickly.

Yes, humans being too sparse is headline news weekly.

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

#249

Post by epistasis » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #222

throwaway3699 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free market would mean no zoning regulations. Housing is not a free market whatsoever (for a good reason, in some cases).

I don't see how that follows. Free market must have rules to be free - market with no rules undergoes self-destruction quite efficiently, just like free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want without consequences. Just mention zoning regulations explicitly.

Tight downzoning took all the unfairness of the existing market for real estate and amplified it hugely. Today, housing market is driven by rentierism, which is pretty much the opposite of "free". I agree 100% that regulations create and drive markets, but the regulations have been put in place to ensure a steady transfer of wealth from those with less to those with land.

The downzoning trend that started in the 1970s, driven by the twin forces of 1) racism (not wanting to allow non-whites into white neighborhoods after the civil rights movement tried to allow integration), and 2) Malthusian thinking (keep the population down by letting fewer people live near me), led to a transformation of real estate, making it even worse.

They aren't making any more land, as they say. Which is what drives the value of it up so much in certain locations, the locations where people want to be. But by downzoning so that no more people can use the same bits of land, the structures themselves acquire the really insidious property of land that makes it a really bad for for markets.

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

#250

Post by cryptica » Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

They think that you can just get out of it if you're smart and hard working. This is completely false. Intelligence is almost worthless nowadays. Stupidity is more valuable. Just look at Dogecoin millionaires. The only necessary ingredient to escape poverty these days is luck.

I'm certain that if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos started their careers 10 years ago, today they would be moderately poor engineers/developers struggling to pay their rents.

When you start out as as poor or middle-class, the number of bad things which can happen to you on any given day is unfathomable. There are glass ceilings everywhere and monopolistic forces to suppress your voice and to spread misinformation which harms you in many different ways; all of it done to maintain the status quo.

On the other hand, good luck compounds.