I "like" when ppl talk about UBI and say "but ppl on UBI are not happy and lack purpose". Compare with being poor.
Being poor vs. being broke
41–50 of 732 posts
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#42The post does a good job of describing a phenomenological difference between being broke and being poor, and its account seems plausible to me. But what I'm curious about is the causal difference between the two. I've known working class folks who seem like they're getting by fine, even if they're occasionally "broke", and I've known working class folks who are constantly in financial crisis, and definitely fit in th…
> I wonder why folks who start with roughly the same skills, intelligence and opportunities (and bank account balance!) can nevertheless end up in very different places?
External factors (aka luck), perhaps? Someone gets their resume into a job just after they made the last hire for that position. Or the car they can't afford to fix breaks down on the way to the interview.
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#43It's way more nuanced than this. Ultimately poverty comes down to an individual's ability to be self-sustaining. Take a software engineer, take away their house, job, and all of their money so they are homeless and have literally nothing ("broke"): how quickly can they reach a stable self-sustaining state again? Probably pretty quickly: - Ask family for help (they are anchored in a higher place to help bootstrap you…
I see the steps. What if they have no family members or they do not give a damn?
Start again please from the state of being homeless but assume this person has no family members, or has relatives, but they do not give a damn.
It crumbles, IMO.
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#44I have poor friends, they spend more on Netflix, Gym, Starbucks, IPhones, steam games etc then me, and they are poor for atleast last 10-20 years. I almost never have any of these and I have given them that classic suggestions like the cancelling the gym membership that he/she rarely or never uses, and it doesnt work, they keep spending money on garbage with money they don't have.
Ah all you had to do was mention avocados and we had boomer bingo.
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps you could elaborate, because I read the article and the About page too, and I don't understand what you're getting at.
”It would appear from the about page and the article that he has the requisite skills to earn an income that should move him out of the "poor" category: - auto mechanic - digital tech - landscaping” cf. ”The other mindset is poor people are lazy. Quit complaining and do it yourself! Just get a better job! Get a second job! There’s money out there, you just have to go get it.”
So is it your belief that the author currently considers himself poor? (FWIW, I don't think he does.)
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read every word of the article and the about page.
Then why did you present fallacious arguments which were already discussed over several paragraphs?
What was fallacious about my OP?
He asserts that being poor is different from being broke. The former being tied to a permanent state.
But, if you have the skills and opportunity to make better-than-poor money, then in most cases, I presume, you aren't really poor. It's only a matter of time until you can make additional money. And if you need to charge the $300 of parts to your credit card, on the presumption that if you have a running vehicle you can go to an interview of do the next landscaping job, you have a reasonable expectation of being able to pay it off. It's an investment in that case.
There are all kinds of reasons why you might find yourself poor anyway for reasons outside your control. Health issues, weird economic situations, whatever. I'm not discounting them. And maybe they apply here.
I just feel like there is a disconnect between the earning potential of the skills he has and being truly "permanently" poor. I'm not arguing there isn't a legitimate reason, just that it wasn't clear to me what that reason would be.
You may not like the reasoning or think I'm being too critical, but it's hardly fallacious.
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#47I have poor friends, they spend more on Netflix, Gym, Starbucks, IPhones, steam games etc then me, and they are poor for atleast last 10-20 years. I almost never have any of these and I have given them that classic suggestions like the cancelling the gym membership that he/she rarely or never uses, and it doesnt work, they keep spending money on garbage with money they don't have.
This argument is baseless.
All those things add up to a couple hundred a month, let's be extreme and say it's $1,000 USD/month. That amount will never move you up in the socioeconomic ladder. You're two-three orders of magnitude away(!).
"But it adds up" could argue the midwit, "why don't you just get a job that pays you more", "just invest", "why didn't you buy bitcoin in 2010", "why don't you just buy the winning lottery ticket". I wrote all those in order of increasing stupidity. Not aimed at you @merth, it's just stuff that I've actually heard.
Nobody who is wealthy these days got there by skipping Starbucks and instead throwing that dollar in a jar. Nobody.
You need to cross a threshold of (income/purchasing power) to be able to start building things that matter. It's extremely difficult these days because the denominator there is almost zero.
As TFA states, people who have not experienced poverty have ZERO idea of what it is like.
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#48The post does a good job of describing a phenomenological difference between being broke and being poor, and its account seems plausible to me. But what I'm curious about is the causal difference between the two. I've known working class folks who seem like they're getting by fine, even if they're occasionally "broke", and I've known working class folks who are constantly in financial crisis, and definitely fit in th…
> But what I'm curious about is the causal difference between the two
A majority of personal bankruptcies in the US being caused by medical expenses might be a good place to start looking. You can be "broke" living paycheck to paycheck and "making it", but you're on even more of a razors edge than most. One medical emergency, one car accident, one removal of work hours etc and you start to fall behind, and that's when late fees and compounding interest work to make sure you never get out of the hole.
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#49It's also owning lower quality goods, that plague you by breaking all the time. So the maintenance cost (time and energy) is quite high. It's almost better not to have things when you're poor, because the things you have are just a big headache. I think it's also that increasingly working people are living in old houses that were never built properly, and now have lots of problems. And even new things you buy, are ju…
I've heard it described that being poor is expensive. The poorer you are the more expensive it is. Being poor in a poor country is the most expensive. You can't just buy coffee, you can only afford a sachet of coffee. So per gram you're paying double. You can't afford medical care, so the condition gets worse and thus more expensive to do something about. You're in debt most of the time, which is expensive. You have…
When I think of so many people who can least afford to do so buying everyday items at dollar stores, CVS, gas stations, and other convenience stores with such high unit prices it bums me out.
Re: Being poor vs. being broke
#50I don't understand what am I supposed to do with this information. Now that I know what it means to be poor what should I do?
This information should inform your political and personal decisions relating to poverty going forward.