Why do you think people are poor? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#241

Post by greedo » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:20 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #158

greedo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a magnificent job of stereotyping you've got going there. I can think of lots of "rich people" who have done quite well; Bill Gates springs to mind. I'd love to see some evidence showing that middle class folks aren't financially mobile. I mean seriously? Rich people (oh you qualified it with a "most") are stupid, unmotivated, and boring. I should know not to feed the trolls, but on HN, I can't let this type o…

I said most of them are boring and many are stupid. Just like poor people; just like average people. I was simply replying to the commenter who said that most poor people he grew up with were boring and didn't want to learn. He then made the implicit or even explicit claim that if only poor people were less boring or more eager to learn, more of them would succeed. While perhaps true (though there are forces at work…

I learned once that when you're in a hole, further digging does little to help you extricate yourself.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#242

Post by mnl » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:25 PM UTC

ismarc wrote: post #206

It's hard to write this, and my opinion is probably biased because of it, but this article is nothing but a giant load of horse shit and is a carefully constructed as "feel good" to reinforce the preconceived notions the author had going into it. A little bit of background; I grew up poor, people randomly leaving food on our doorstep poor, my parents giving the bike I had bought with my own earned money to my brother…

I love you man. You speak the truth, some people won't be able to get it, because it's against their DNA. I'm growing sick of this herd of pompous self-satisfied kids pretending to understand everything without actually listening and helping anybody but themselves.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#243

Post by omgsean » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:39 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #205

omgsean wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It only takes a generation and some common thinking for a family to stick together and get ahead, and ensure their children never need to borrow money from a bank to get an education, or buy a house. You don't have to be rich... but why can't we live, you know, a generation ahead? I know a guy who told me his parents paid for all his stuff, his house, etc, and therefore all his work and all that (good tech guy) was…

I know a ton of people who were "working poor" either just post-WWII or as immigrants, who nonetheless have managed to acquire some pretty good sums of wealth. Most of them don't go as far as being "a generation ahead", but their hard work and sacrifices put their kids and grandkids in position to be successful without going through the sorts of financial dire straits that others treat as normal.

Immigrants from where? How many of them were black and living in the inner city? Or white and living in rural poverty?

Post WWII saw the rise of the middle class, it's not really fair to compare it to now and tell poor people "hey, just do that!"

Bootstrapping is for websites, it's not a solution to widespread poverty.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#244

Post by Daniel_Newby » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 2:08 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #156

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Variety is selected for, as with parasite defenses in the immune system, and frequency dependent selection of social specializations.

Can you explain further?

Your body system has something called the major histocompatibility complex. The MHC collects proteins from parasites and shows them to the immune system to start a counterattack. If everybody had the same MHC, a virus that figured out how to evade it would be able to attack with impunity. So the MHC genes are under tremendous selective pressure to to evolve variety, and there are a huge number of mutants out there in the population.

Consider a genetic variation that if you inherit one copy you communicate well but if you inherit two copies you stutter. Communicating well will be selected for, but stuttering will be selected against. If the probability of having one copy is P, then the probability of having two copies is P squared. For example, if 5% of people have one copy, then 0.25% will have two. The variation will be selected for until it is so common that the gain in fitness for one-copy people is balanced by the loss in fitness two-copy people. (The real situation is more complicated, since variations in many genes interact to affect each other's fitness.)

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#245

Post by natep » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 2:13 PM UTC

Produce wrote: post #210

natep wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much wrong with this statement and way of thinking that I don't even know where to start. I'm upvoting, because I don't want this comment to disappear, but it's still wrong-headed. 1. Answering the first quesiton directly: No, that's not the solution proposed by the article. The goal was to get the poor involved in politics, in the largest sense of the word. At the end, he reported that almost everyone in…

Whoa there. I merely questioned the notion that simply educating everyone will solve all of our problems. I was implying that there's a lot more to it than that. Look at the media industry, for example - we have developed technology which makes information freely accessible to everyone yet we have a considerable amount of resources being thrown at locking that down, which makes no sense in the grand scheme of things.…

Please forgive me for misinterpreting, since at the only clarification you had at the time of my comment was

> And the implication of everybody being well educated is that everyone will have white collar jobs or prestigious blue collar jobs. If everyone is well educated then who will want to take a job as a street cleaner when they've just spent $80k on their education? The solution is clearly not limited to just educating everyone, is it?

While the latter part of your statement is the same as the beginning of what you just said, I took the former to mean that educating everybody would cause additional problems, not that it wouldn't solve all the problems we have. If you didn't mean to imply this line of thinking, or if you have abandoned it, then great.

To address this new point, did you see anything in my comment that suggests I want to keep our current social structure? The very act of empowering the poor into participating in politics (again, not just in the election sense) on a large scale will change the structure of society. And then, instead of the privileged deciding what the poor need and pushing potential solutions, we would probably start to see the poor creating their own solutions, and further changing our societal structure. I imagine that their solutions would work better than those that came from outside, and they might even be highly resistant to recommendations from a model society (some didn't even trust that this education would help, since "the white man wouldn’t let you up no matter what.").

It's like the various Housing First problems out there. Most of the homeless have a host of other problems (addiction, mental illness/disorder, lack of education, etc) but these programs get them an apartment first, and merely make the other services available. And from what I've read, they work. People stay off the streets and clean themselves up, for the most part.

That said, there is _no_ reason we can't educate everyone in the humanities and do other things, too.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#246

Post by soc88 » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 2:21 PM UTC

ismarc wrote: post #206

It's hard to write this, and my opinion is probably biased because of it, but this article is nothing but a giant load of horse shit and is a carefully constructed as "feel good" to reinforce the preconceived notions the author had going into it. A little bit of background; I grew up poor, people randomly leaving food on our doorstep poor, my parents giving the bike I had bought with my own earned money to my brother…

Isn't this exactly what the article said?

> I escaped from poverty because I am significantly above the average intelligence level and I managed to make the right decision at the right time.

LOL. Dunning-Kruger comes to mind.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#247

Post by thematt » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 2:29 PM UTC

celer wrote: post #229

thematt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it does matter to the outcome, if you consider the outcome to be more than just GPA. GPA is not the best indicator of whether it's a worthwhile investment. The selection of a private school takes in to account additional factors like the environment you learn in, the connections you make, the college prospects you get and also the mere existence of religion.

Could you expand on the "mere existence of religion?"

Private schools are often affiliated with religious groups (Catholic, Jewish, etc.) For many people who choose private education, the existence of religion classes in school is a large factor.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#248

Post by dedward » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 3:16 PM UTC

omgsean wrote: post #185

dedward wrote: post #178

I see lots of people blaming "the system" and whatnot for not teaching you to be rich..... and getting you into debt. And to be sure, the financial industry has been given too much rope to hand out credit without enough risk. But I seem to recall seeing many other forums about university, mortgages, etc, where people who's parents paid for their education, helped with a house, etc, are ridiculed - and I don't mean su…

>It only takes a generation and some common thinking for a family to stick together and get ahead, and ensure their children never need to borrow money from a bank to get an education, or buy a house. You don't have to be rich... but why can't we live, you know, a generation ahead? I know a guy who told me his parents paid for all his stuff, his house, etc, and therefore all his work and all that (good tech guy) was…

I can see your point, given the audience here - but I'm in no way unbelievably rich. I'm not working poor, but I'm still freaked out at how I'm going to retire and pay for my kids education, etc.

BUT

People who live cheque to cheque, if given double the salary, would very shortly still end up living cheque to cheque. Triple it, same thing.

I'm not dismissing problems with the system - but I've seen people who make in a month what I make in a day (more because of where I live, only a little becuase I make a good wage - it's not something that would impress anyone on this forum, let me assure you) who still manage to save money slowly, raise kids, buy a house eventually, etc....).

It's about your attitude towards money, not the amount.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#249

Post by dedward » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 3:21 PM UTC

soc88 wrote: post #246

ismarc wrote: post #206

It's hard to write this, and my opinion is probably biased because of it, but this article is nothing but a giant load of horse shit and is a carefully constructed as "feel good" to reinforce the preconceived notions the author had going into it. A little bit of background; I grew up poor, people randomly leaving food on our doorstep poor, my parents giving the bike I had bought with my own earned money to my brother…

Isn't this exactly what the article said? > I escaped from poverty because I am significantly above the average intelligence level and I managed to make the right decision at the right time. LOL. Dunning-Kruger comes to mind.

To be honest I read Rich Dad/Poor Dad, stuck with cash because I was too lazy to manage a portfolio (which worked out well stress-wise) and didn't bow to pressure to borrow for cars and houses when my peers were because I'm stubborn and don't like debt- it's looking back that I can put it into advice.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#250

Post by astrodust » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 3:24 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #151

sparkie wrote: post #148

Because the system makes sure people stay poor. How many of you were taught in school that if you pay yourself a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend/bonus you can avoid paying a significant amount of tax (legally)? Or how many of you were taught how to become "employable" so that you can earn the same amount of money and pay considerably more tax, unavoidably - because you aren't in control of your own fi…

There's a lot to be said for that. If somebody had really sat down and hammered me on the power of compound interest and taught me a little bit about the capital markets, when I was, say, 14 or so... I think I would have made a lot of decisions differently and would probably be better off today. Although, to be fair on this point, I'm not sure it would have helped, because I can't - in retrospect - say that my 14 yea…

Compound interest only works when the interest paid exceeds inflation. Your money is simply rotting otherwise and would be better invested in something that's appreciating at a more rapid rate. Maybe that's wine or stocks or a house.

Your parent's generation had savings accounts that paid actual interest. Today you get a token 0.25% on a good day. With the prime rate being so low there's not much to be made by leaving your money sitting around.

As much as it's important to save money, it's also important to not save too much. Living a life of frugality in the hope of having a happy future is the deferred life plan and for many it never pans out.

Spend what you need to have an enjoyable life now and if you can save, by all means. Life within your means and spend wisely, but don't be such a cheapskate in the hopes that your accumulated pennies will somehow make you a billionaire some day.