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Once poor, always poor?

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Re: Once poor, always poor?

#241

Post by angrais »

throwaway55421 wrote: post #197
vpilcx wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another discussion, someone tried to make the argument that Buffet was a real-life rags to riches story. Like, my guy, his father worked as a stock broker, and he used to hang out at his dad's office when he was a kid, and his dad eventually became a Congressman. I don't know why people think that's "rags to riches". I might be misinterpreting the facts but Gates got the deal to sell DOS to IBM because his Mom kne…

They're not saying that he was poor. They're saying that he didn't start a billionaire. He multiplied his wealth by a factor of a thousand or more.

Yes, but the point is that they started with wealth. Multiplying 1 mil to 1 billion is more reasonable possible than 1k to 1 mil.

Simply because if you've such wealth already you're most likely in a position to take risks, etc.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#242

Post by marcosdumay »

throwaway55421 wrote: post #197
vpilcx wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another discussion, someone tried to make the argument that Buffet was a real-life rags to riches story. Like, my guy, his father worked as a stock broker, and he used to hang out at his dad's office when he was a kid, and his dad eventually became a Congressman. I don't know why people think that's "rags to riches". I might be misinterpreting the facts but Gates got the deal to sell DOS to IBM because his Mom kne…

They're not saying that he was poor. They're saying that he didn't start a billionaire. He multiplied his wealth by a factor of a thousand or more.

Some did. Most started as multimillionaire.

The ways one can use to multiply millions by a thousand aren't open to people that only owns thousands. And you really don't want to multiply your possessions by a thousand if they are negative.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#243

Post by wobblybubble »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #189
vpilcx wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those people living in poverty that distrusts school institutions. My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdl…

> Now, obviously, that's not the case with all education, but my next gripe with it is the seemingly insurmountable debt that said education brings. Literally, all of my friends that have gone to college are no where near paying their debt off and I'm in my late 30s. I grew up lower middle class - not poor - took on a healthy amount of debt to get a CS degree from a crappy college in West Virginia. Most of my classma…

What are you doing to make the world more fair?

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#244

Post by dragonwriter »

duxup wrote: post #64
sh4un wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people are used to being victims so it's hard to trust other people. When you look at it deeper, if these are poor minorities in a white mans world, no matter what there will never be trust. Hard to trust the same people who are oppressing you. Many policy maker are born well off, so it's hard to relate. When the social workers are driving in BMW's and talking to you like you're retarded... It's ongoing. I have…

> When the social workers are driving in BMW's and talking to you like you're retarded... Man what social workers get BMWs?

> Man what social workers get BMWs?

well, BMWs tend to last a while and very old ones are often affordable but reasonably functional used cars, so probably quite a few.

If you mean new BMWs, then ones that are wealthy from some other source and doing social work for self-fulfillment.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#245

Post by thatfrenchguy »

pjerem wrote: post #188

That’s where I can see the efficiency of free education. I live in France and I come from about the median class. I didn’t struggle in my education. But while I was a student, I saw quite a lot of people, who came from poor family being able to catch the opportunity to leave this poverty. Of course they still struggled more than me to pay their day to day expenses while I had the chance to be backed by my parents. So…

There is a sample bias: you only see the poor people that made it to university, not the ones that didn’t (also went to uni in France). You also don’t see a lot of lower/middle class folks in prestigious schools in France.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#246

Post by wobblybubble »

inglor_cz wrote: post #181
sh4un wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people are used to being victims so it's hard to trust other people. When you look at it deeper, if these are poor minorities in a white mans world, no matter what there will never be trust. Hard to trust the same people who are oppressing you. Many policy maker are born well off, so it's hard to relate. When the social workers are driving in BMW's and talking to you like you're retarded... It's ongoing. I have…

As usual in the American racial discourse, this argument entirely ignores the huge gaping hole in its side that is the Asian community. Casual racism against Asians is pretty strong, not just in the US, in Europe, too. (My own country has a significant Vietnamese community and casual racism against them was absolutely shocking in the 1990s. It has since become less pronounced, but is still there.) And yet they thrive…

It isn’t surprising that groups like descendants of chattel slavery who have had the same legal rights as white people for about half a century are systematically worse off than groups like middle class immigrants from East Asia.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#247

Post by [deleted] »

vpilcx wrote: post #155
bko wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. Can't you just hack this by going to school for pretty much anything you're interested in and being able to work in an unrelated field? > my next gripe with it is the seemingly insurmountable debt that said education brings You've established that education is a good investment. So why not find an affordable college? It's not a…

> You've established that education is a good investment. My friend often comes to me and says, "Hey, man, how come you don't invest your money in ?" Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest. > So why not find an affordable college? So I did a quick calculation. Affordable, meaning junior college and public state college, would come out to roughly $23k for a bachelor. Maybe…

[deleted]

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#248

Post by [deleted] »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #31
difosfor wrote: post #23

Given the generally accepted ideal of equality in the rich and educated world it strikes me as crazy that we continue to work hard to keep refugees out of our islands of wealth instead of structurally working on improving the chances of all people on earth. We seem to just turn a blind eye to this huge inequality or even increase and abuse it when it suits us. For example: Why don't we apply our minimum wage laws to…

> Why don't we spend a significant part of our riches The idea is noble and tempting, but the specifics of implementation (id est, who are "we", what is "a significant part" and how exactly should we spend it) are hard to decide.

[deleted]

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#249

Post by wobblybubble »

difosfor wrote: post #23

Given the generally accepted ideal of equality in the rich and educated world it strikes me as crazy that we continue to work hard to keep refugees out of our islands of wealth instead of structurally working on improving the chances of all people on earth. We seem to just turn a blind eye to this huge inequality or even increase and abuse it when it suits us. For example: Why don't we apply our minimum wage laws to…

> Given the generally accepted ideal of equality in the rich and educated world

It isn’t a generally accepted ideal in the West.

And where it is accepted it might just be (if you read the fine print) some kind of equality like "equal opportunity to participate in the rat race".

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#250

Post by hallway_monitor »

eadmund wrote: post #238
vpilcx wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those people living in poverty that distrusts school institutions. My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdl…

> My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdles for poor people to jump through. In the U.S., this is due to the fact tha…

Thank you for pointing out what the consequences would be of allowing student loans to be discharged by bankruptcy. It's obvious this would happen a lot if allowed - I would have done it and would tell my kids to do the same. It turns out being held accountable for the debts you incur is usually a good thing.
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