Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Being poor vs. being broke

blog.ctms.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 732 posts

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#141

Post by dotnet00 »

netsharc wrote: post #72
hexator wrote: post #37

Understanding poverty starts with empathy. People thinking that "poor is a mindset" are lacking in that. It's not that simple! You can't just mind your way out of poverty! This isn't a math problem.

Too many people buy the American dream of "If you just work hard enough, you'll be successful.". If you believe this, then you'd have to believe the opposite: "If you're poor and unsucessful, that means you didn't work hard enough, you must be lazy.". And too many trust-fund kids or kids from rich parents who could afford to send them to expensive schools (or rich enough to live in a district with a well-funded schoo…

I think an aspect of a lot of those luckier kids is that they think being told they were lucky invalidates the hard work they feel they did, turning it into a nonsensical contest of comparing apples to oranges.

My siblings have a similar complaint when my Dad essentially implies that they were lucky in having the successes they have had. They do still somewhat understand what he means, but they dislike it because they think he's dismissing the hard work they put in. Of course, they don't see that he applies the same to those experiencing extreme poverty.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#142

Post by magicalist »

JohnMakin wrote: post #55

I understand the sentiment. I grew up lower middle class but with financially illiterate and neglectful parents and had a great deal of food scarcity and other things that caused me to leave home at 17. It was really difficult. The first place I managed to get, was a room for $750 a month and I took home $900. I had no car and had to take the bus everywhere. It's true - everything just piles up when you are stretched…

Really great comment.

> The first place I managed to get, was a room for $750 a month and I took home $900. I had no car and had to take the bus everywhere. It's true - everything just piles up when you are stretched thin.

After I got my first job in tech that honestly felt at the time like it paid too much, it was crazy to find just how expensive and stressful it was just to exist before that point and how so much of that just evaporated the second I had even just enough money.

And then on top of that, so often I'd get access to free things or services just from shopping somewhere, or being a subscriber to something, things I often didn't need at all, but sure I'll take it.

Besides the other scars like you mention, I feel like the experience burned the idea of diminishing marginal utility of money into my soul, and unless you've been on that side of the curve, it may just be really hard to understand how much it falls off. So it may be easy for someone to think they understand because they didn't have much money for going out all the time after they got out of college or whatever, and so it makes sense to suggest that other people can just better budget their money and they can be successful too.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#143

Post by fredgrott »

One of the common myths is...

If repairing auto at shop costs $1000 one should op out to spend $300 in parts and own labor.....

Paying for the wrong utility makes you remain poor as the down car repair has a very low utility to you earning that higher wage while the shop repairs your car.

It would only make high value utility sense if you did that several times and then open your own car repair shop as business owner.

Warren Buffet implies this obliquely in his writing about the choices he has made.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#144

Post by nyeah »

billfor wrote: post #117
rsyring wrote: post #2

https://blog.ctms.me/about/ 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 I'm not trying to dismiss the difficult realities associated with being poor. But if you have the skills to make more money and bring your family out of the "poor" category, why wouldn't you do t…

- Cancel Netflix - Make food at home - Stop going to Starbucks - Fix it yourself - Don’t upgrade your phone I have money and I do all of these things. It's got nothing to do with being poor. More of just a best practice imho.

In the article he says those things are not really relevant, because he's already been doing them at 100% for a long time.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#145

Post by silvestrov »

sgarland wrote: post #124

As a child, I went from firmly middle-class (dad was a firefighter in San Diego, CA) to pretty damn poor (we moved to the middle of nowhere in Nebraska). I joined the U.S. Navy, and got a B.S. while I was in, then an M.S. in SWE afterwards on the government’s dime thanks to the GI Bill. I did the latter while working nights. I now make more money than I ever thought would be possible. I said all of that to say, I am…

> I crawled my way out of poverty, so you can too

Sounds for me like "I could do it on my own, so nobody should have to help you".

I really hate this mentality of not helping others. Everybody gets better when everybody gets help.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#146

Post by dukeofdoom »

mc32 wrote: post #61
dukeofdoom wrote: post #7

It'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…

Poor people also can use a washboard and line dry their clothing. Not as convenient as having machines but just about everyone did it like this till the ‘40s & ‘50s.

I remember an interview with some billionaire talking about how people should grow their own food. He underpays his workers. One the surface great idea. Aside for the fact that it's hugely inefficient and why we have massive farms to take care of the inefficiency problem. Innovation was supposed to take care of this so poor people don't have to substance farm in cities. I mean by all means do that as a hobby. But keep im mind many cities have contaminated soil. People doing their own laundry also had a stay at home parent back than yo do these chores. Now 2 people need to work jobs to pay a mortgage. So don't feel its really a viable alternative

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#147

Post by vorpalhex »

sgarland wrote: post #70
reaperducer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some places in the US, that have that kind of poverty, but I have not seen them, with my own eyes. Americans are very often blind to the poverty in their own backyards. There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people in America who do not have electricity or even running water in their homes. I'm always reminded of a photograph from a few years ago in the Navajo Times showing a handful of children sit…

There are Americans who have open sewage in their yards [0], because their counties are predominantly Black or Latino, and their state deprioritizes any infrastructure work. It’s structural racism. Even better, the Trump administration canceled [1] an attempt to right that wrong, citing that it was “DEI.” 0: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sanitation-open-sewers-black-... 1: https://apnews.com/article/justice-departme…

What the Trump administration canceled didn't right that wrong. What the Trump administration canceled was an agreement for the local county to stop issuing fines, which had already been in effect for over two years. And within those two years, the local county built zero sewers, zero hookups. They literally built nothing in two years.

The original agreement under the Biden admin, which to be clear, the President doesn't personally oversee these kinds of agreements, this is sort of all within the DOJ, but the original agreement doesn't even require them to build the sewers. It literally just requires them to run a public health campaign and not issue fines.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#149

Post by webdood90 »

blizdiddy wrote: post #110
webdood90 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? I am answering this question. Perhaps you could reply with something useful instead of attacking my comment.

You should feel embarrassed for “thinking” so callously and uncritically. Do you need everything handed to you? Family issues, natural disasters, medical events, house fires, abuse, wage theft, fate. I’ve worked with the destitute, there is no safety net.

I'm not disputing those things happen or that luck plays a big part. I'm commenting on what people have control over.

I'm not sure what is compelling you to be so rude to a complete stranger on the internet. I'm here to discuss, have my ideas challenged, and learn.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#150

Post by vaidhy »

I do not remember where I read this, but it has struck with me for the last 35+ years - "Poverty is a crime, but the poor are not guilty of it".

I have seen abject poverty growing up in India.. It is right in your face most of the times. I have friends from the other side of the street and pretty much, you live in very different realities.

Post reply on HN