301–310 of 478 posts
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There were many brilliant Cracked articles in their day.
Was this formerly a good site? I remember running into cracked periodically in the last few years and it always looked like the absolute worst of clickbait spam, but these articles are rather decent
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I promise you, Canada and Germany and Chile and France also have MRI machines and blood pressure cuffs.
Canada doesn't have enough MRI machines. Wait times are long and increasing. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wa... All healthcare systems impose some sort of rationing. Canada rations care by imposing long queues for non-emergency cases, with significant variations between provinces. Affluent Canadians frequently travel to the US as medical tourists and pay for treatment out of pocket in ord…
This is exacerbated in the US itself, where only the top 10% have access to expensive and timely medical treatment.
I would argue that, at the very least, Canada does offer medical treatment to everyone.
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I'm looking at moving to a significantly nicer [edit: than where I am now, that is], coastal region with excellent schools and within occasional-but-not-daily commute distance of two top-tier US cities, including by rail (some of you may be be able to guess the area, at this point), and the housing prices (4-bedroom with some land, even) are surprisingly affordable. Nothing like that, certainly. Houses within daily c…
Where
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My wife grew up very close to the poverty line, with her parents always just about to lose the house. And she has this anxiety. (Edit: to be clear, she's a successful civil engineer, considered one of the best in her field locally and makes great money- she has nothing to worry about.) In order to help with it, we have a bank account that our bills come out of that has a little more than 6 months worth of all our bil…
Having a solid emergency fund is actually pretty wise. Maybe split some of that into something low risk like I-bonds. My wife has similar anxiety, and it took years of financial education to get her comfortable with the idea that we only need a month of backup, and can float the rest on CC until we liquidate other assets.
As someone who went through two recessions, survived multiple layoffs, and had a few medical things, this seems like crazy talk. The general rule of thumb is 6 months of savings. I've known many that didn't follow this rule, and ended up in very bad debt.
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My grandma did this. Never left a penny on the sidewalk, always took the bread from a breadbasket home. Even my parents absorbed some of that behavior despite being born in the next generation.
We were surprised to discover after her death (in the late 80's) that my great grandmother kept $1,000 in a pouch in her bra. I can understand not trusting the banks and wanting to always have some sort of cash on your person.
I worked in a grocery store in the late '90s, and the older customers (who grew up in the Great Depression) always carried penny pouches, because they remembered a time when one had to keep track of cents to survive. This is how I know that, even if we miraculously fixed our medical system tomorrow and outlawed private health insurance by a constitutional amendment, we'll still have, thirty years from now, 60-year-ol…
Even after I graduated and got a series of increasingly high-paying engineering jobs, I couldn't shake the scarcity mindset, and I would scrimp and save (although I didn't skip meals any longer!). In time (with a whole lot of help and encouragement with my wife), I was able to largely overcome it. We're still very conservative with our money--we're probably in the top 10% of Americans with respect to income, but we spend like we're median (or lower) Americans and save the difference. However, now it's because we want to retire early or pursue other loftier goals (some combination of traveling the world, buying a hobby farm, and/or starting a small business) rather than my debilitating anxiety.
(Since we're getting a little political) It also makes it hard to sympathize with my peers who didn't work, skipped class, lived in the dorms, paid for meal plans and still went out to eat several times a week, bought daily $7 lattes, and majored in some art history or leisure services or (non-teaching) English Literature when they insist that the government should forgive their enormous student loan debt (I'm fine with universal education, but no one should be surprised that they have to repay the debt that financed their unsustainable lifestyle or demand that society foot the bill).
I worked in a grocery store in the late '90s, and the older customers (who grew up in the Great Depression) always carried penny pouches, because they remembered a time when one had to keep track of cents to survive. This is how I know that, even if we miraculously fixed our medical system tomorrow and outlawed private health insurance by a constitutional amendment, we'll still have, thirty years from now, 60-year-ol…
"always carried penny pouches, because they remembered a time when one had to keep track of cents to survive." Sure. But you also have to realize that a loaf a bread cost a nickle and that cards didn't exist. People carried around change because you could actually buy meaningful stuff with it and there wasn't really an alternative to cash (sure someplaces give credit but much different than using a card today).
Being poor in general, during your childhood, scars you for life. It makes you penny wise and pound foolish, adverse to taking risks in your career and investments, can destroy your confidence in yourself, while always having to look over your shoulder monetarily speaking. Habits that even after you remove poverty from your live, you still feel the the anxiety and triggers in your head.
you can make the same argument (in reverse) about being rich. it is like saying: ohhh my mommy was so bad to me and now i have issues, ohhh my mommy was so good to me and now i have issues. victim mentality
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It's being poor, that scars you. As with everything, during childhood impressions are stronger and effect your life more, but being really poor in your 20s has quite a similar effect.
That's true, I grew up during the 2008 recession so I constantly have that at the back of my mind. Massive layoffs, housing crash, breaking news everyday, everyone in just constant worry for an extended period of time. Now in 2022 I find myself reliving these memories a little, and I have observed my behavior to be extremely risk-averse these days.