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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

#391

Post by dralley »

prepend wrote: post #334
dralley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when US Reps worth millions were mocking AOC for not being able to simultaneously afford an apartment in DC and NYC prior to receiving her congressional paycheck.

Congress reps make $170k. It’s not super wealthy, but certainly possible to afford two rents outright. Not to mention if you sublet/etc since I wouldn’t need to literally stay in two places at once. I think no matter how much you make, higher salaries always seem so much easier. People can either budget or can’t, I don’t think it matters the actual amount. I’ve met people who were budgeted and running a family on $30…

"Prior to receiving her congressional paycheck"

This was right after she was first elected, before she took office.

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

#392

Post by refurb »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #389
refurb wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gini is a relative, not absolute measure. You could have a higher Gini coefficient but your poor are better off.

Ok, so what is your counter-metric (or reasoning) for why the United States is a better place to be poor in than other developed countries?

Whoa. Who said better? I just said the poverty in the US isn’t unique among developed countries.

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

#393

Post by refurb »

baq wrote: post #305
refurb wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one. Having a companion animal is also something a free human does. Should we tell people to get pets they can’t take care of? You premise that people are owed the opportunity to have children is a silly one. It’s not the parent that is the priority but the child.

I don't see why it is silly. I believe an opportunity to have children is an opportunity to have a purpose (not the purpose, note). I'm not saying that people who can't support children should have them - I'm saying that the society (i.e. other people) should help individuals to find their purpose. If making money and being rich is it for some, fine, no issue with that.

My purpose in life is fighting for 2nd amendment rights. Should the government pay me to that too?

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

#394

Post by throwaway6734 »

c22 wrote: post #381
the_only_law wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand Baltimore has insanely cheap housing for its size, but I’ve always imagined it as a Detroit like situation, where yeah the housing is often cheap, but not areas you want to live. It may not actually be as bad as I think though.

Last time I was in Baltimore was probably 15 years ago, but from the terrible street/traffic design to my general feelings of personal safety it was, holistically, the worst city I have ever visited.

what about the street design?

>general feelings of personal safety

ymmv depending on your level of comfort around lower income black people

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

#395

Post by Juntu »

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…

Its a political refugees when the economy starts a business down poor mens the ones who will exceed maximum altitude in life until death in heaven mid people don’t make it anywhere and the rich starts to envy when it comes to wealth and stock measure the ability of taking risks is absolute zero in the mind of low poor people high power is always nice but their is no ending to legends that live its dreams that is why living in good financial state and poor income is good when the government judge itself so the rich suffers and the rich also in humility. It does not go 3 ways living the freedom and equity will consider a much better wave. Help/set no threads

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

#396

Post by phobosanomaly »

refurb wrote: post #392
phobosanomaly wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so what is your counter-metric (or reasoning) for why the United States is a better place to be poor in than other developed countries?

Whoa. Who said better? I just said the poverty in the US isn’t unique among developed countries.

You provided the example of the First Nations in Canada, which would be taken by any reasonable person as an implication that the United States is a better country to be impoverished in.

When combined with your refutation of the earlier poster's comments regarding the similarity of the poor in the United States to those in the developing world and your statement that the poor in the United States aren't worse off than the poor in other developed countries, it paints an argument that the poor in the United States are somehow in a better position than in other developed countries.

The totality of your statements would be interpreted by a reasonable person as implying that the poor in the United States are better off than in other developed countries.

If your point is simply that the poor in all developed countries are in the same position, and that the poor in the United States are in the same position as the poor in Denmark, that's an interesting take. I mean, you could have just dropped "poverty in the US isn’t unique among developed countries" in the first post where you brought up the First Nations.

I'm just out here trying to have a productive debate with strangers on the internet.

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

#397

Post by calibas »

zepto wrote: post #316
calibas wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd, because when I suggest that money and power stays within a handful of wealthy families, nobody seems to disagree. When I call that a "class-based system" or use words like aristocracy, then people disagree... There's a ruling class that people are born into, same as how the old Indian caste system works, at best it's a "democratic aristocracy" because you get your choice of elite. Of course, that's just sem…

It’s not just semantics. Yes, wealth tends to remain with the wealthy. That is a consequence of economic processes, and to the extent that it limits what is possible, it would be good to alter those processes. Analyzing society into ‘classes’ of people has nothing to do with it. They aren’t real things. That analysis is a political tool whose value is to divide society and leverage ignorance for political gain. The a…

So economic processes and analysis create the illusion of a wealthy elite who run everything, but there's not really a ruling class...

I disagree, and the fact that "wealth tends to remain with the wealthy" combined with some nepotism doesn't just create the illusion, it creates a system functionally the same.

Your implication of some nefarious plot to convince the ignorant that there is a ruling class sounds a bit delusional to me. A little ironic in the context of you accusing me of seeing things that aren't there...

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

#398

Post by c22 »

atatatat wrote: post #248
hnfong wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are 8 billion people on the planet, but if we stop having kids the situation is unlikely to sustain itself for more than 100 years or so (just stopping for 40 or 50 years is long enough to pass the point no return).

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

#399

Post by c22 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #140

I have both my father and my uncle who became dirt poor just by making terribly poor life choices so I've got a very different take on this. They had good jobs but couldn't help screwing it up by: gambling, buying sportcars, overall trying to bite more than they could swallow (houses too big, with monthly mortgage too expensive), etc. In both cases it ended up with foreclosures / lawyers etc. My brother and I are now…

I know a woman with no teeth who lives in a shed in a friendly neighbor's garden. After her husband skipped the country in the 90's and left her with a sizable pile of terrible credit, highly leveraged "assets", and fraudulent tax returns she was left homeless for a period but eventually managed to find a new fulfilling career as a social worker and worked diligently for almost 20 years before giving up her apartment and "retiring" to the shed in her 60s with debilitating health issues.

How can we build a system that punishes people like your father but not people like my neighbor and should we even try? Does our current system try?

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

#400

Post by c22 »

Jiro wrote: post #270
notacoward wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anything you actually said is actually wrong, but it's adjacent to what many rich people do say - that the poor shouldn't have or do anything that just makes them happier until they're not poor. No treats, no recreation, just work at the best-paying job available as many hours as possible and save every penny. And I do have a problem with that. It's a deeply punitive and judgmental attitude, as though b…

This sounds like sour grapes to me. If side effects like being exposed to true diversity, being empathetic, etc. are so good for you that they're better than escaping poverty, that means that poverty is something to be applauded. Nobody believes that. Poverty is bad. If you have a chance to escape poverty, and it doesn't have serious, straightforward , downsides like working 12 hours a day, or leaving your family, or…

I think wealthy people should marry poor people more often so kids can grow up with the benefits of both types of influence.
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