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Being poor vs. being broke

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Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#181

Post by dukeofdoom »

energy123 wrote: post #26
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…

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…

I think its some sort of decline thats happening Some of is dumb environmental policy. Showerheads that don't spray enough water. Dishwashers that don't wash properly so you need to wash dishes before you put them in and after you take them out. Time of use pricing that means you need to cook at inconvenient times, and even still most of the bill is fixed charges. It's just going on. The decline in Canada seems like its mostly targeted towards poor people. I know a family friend that has a broken bone leg is waiting months for a specialist when anytime he could get an infection and die from infection. Totally preventable even in a third world country, yet it is what it is. My mom also know somone thats waiting for a proecdure too, and they asked hime multiple times if he wants to do Maid. It's almost cynical.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#182

Post by ModernMech »

carlosjobim wrote: post #165
ModernMech wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone is wondering why solving homelessness and poverty is so hard, this sibling reply is dead but I think people need to see that this opinion exists, and we need to contemplate the richest and most powerful people in this country share this sentiment: "we're not blind to it, half of us are sick of paying for it for multiple generations, accruing interest. we're paying for poor people from 20 years ago still. le…

It's nobody's fault for becoming poor. But if you're staying poor (dirt poor) for decades, then there is something you're doing wrong. The other commenter puts it in a rude way, but there's something to it. If you evidently can't take care of yourself, then you shouldn't be given more money. You should be in some kind of institution which takes care of your basic needs.

> It's nobody's fault

Sure, but it's the system's fault, and we can point at the people who are keeping the system the way it is. The system is what it does, and what it does is syphon money from everyone else and pumps it upward to a few individuals. That's not an accident, people are responsible for that, they like the way it works, and they're intent on keeping it that way.

Remember, in this system you get paid money for having money and you get charged a fee if you don't have enough. You get taxed more for working with capital than for owning capital. You pay more the less you buy. People always say "The hardest million was the first million". This is by design!

> You should be in some kind of institution which takes care of your basic needs.

Maybe, but we refuse to fund those because they're too expensive to operate.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#183

Post by sgarland »

silvestrov wrote: post #145
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.

I absolutely agree, and if my words didn’t convey that sentiment, I apologize.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#184

Post by thewebguyd »

webdood90 wrote: post #60
smithkl42 wrote: post #13

The 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? I actually think a lot of it comes down to self control. Can you resist the allure of consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses? Are you buying liabilities that actually make your life harder? Are you living outside of your means? IMO it matters li…

What consumerism? Someone falling into the "poor" category the OP describes has already forgone all of that out of necessity. There is no money for consumerism.

Has nothing to do with self control and "maybe don't go buy a coffee." They weren't doing that in the first place.

There are places in this country where the minimum wage is still a paltry $10/hour or less and rent for a family is $2800+. The math doesn't work. There's a systemic affordability problem

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#185

Post by jibe »

reaperducer wrote: post #40
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #15

I like this guy’s backstory[0]. I grew up in Africa. The poverty I saw, as a child, was foundational in my own personal development. There are some places in the US, that have that kind of poverty, but I have not seen them, with my own eyes. I have family that dedicated most of their life to fighting poverty (with very limited success). They believe that poverty is probably the single biggest problem in the world, to…

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…

This is what Cottonwood Day School on the Navajo reservation actually looks like.

https://cds.bie.edu/

Clean modern buildings, desks, air conditioning, running water, very nice. You were fooled by that photo into making a bigger assumption about the full school and situation.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#186

Post by raldu »

peterspath wrote: post #140
pixl97 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're poor and unsucessful, that means you didn't work hard enough, you must be lazy.". Calvinism. Your poor because you're bad. Interestingly enough Calvinism serves as a lot of the basis for what became Capitalism.

where can I read more about it? I don't see the connection, but I could be wrong, so interested in some reading on this topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...

It's one of the classic subjects in sociology,

https://oyc.yale.edu/sociology/socy-151/lecture-16

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#187

Post by pavel_lishin »

peterspath wrote: post #140
pixl97 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're poor and unsucessful, that means you didn't work hard enough, you must be lazy.". Calvinism. Your poor because you're bad. Interestingly enough Calvinism serves as a lot of the basis for what became Capitalism.

where can I read more about it? I don't see the connection, but I could be wrong, so interested in some reading on this topic.

I assume they're talking about this, which was mentioned elsewhere on HN yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#188

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

One way to imagine being poor: imagine lots of slow leaks. Your bank account leaks, your car's engine leaks, your mental health leaks. Everything is slowly getting worse, and you know it. Every time you try to fix one leak, the other leaks start leaking more.

You might think, hooray, I fixed the engine leak! And then suddenly your wife is leaving you and taking the kids. So you rush to court to deal with that, and park in the wrong place, and your car gets impounded; getting it out costs money you don't have. In trying to deal with all that, your mental health suffers, so you're rude at work, and now your job is at risk. So then you work on being more positive at work, you finally get dual custody of the kids, and pay for the car to be returned... and then the transmission dies.

It's that, but your entire life.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#189

Post by Terr_ »

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.

> starts with empathy

I imagine there's an even "earlier" starting point most people don't have to begin at, which goes:

"My own circumstances are too different to truly empathize and understand, and I'm not too proud/delusional to admit it. The presence of that gap in comprehension is itself a reason for action."

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#190

Post by pavel_lishin »

barbazoo wrote: post #90
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.

> People thinking that "poor is a mindset" are lacking in that. I have never even considered people thinking like that. Is that real? Early in life I realized that the biggest factor of how you end up seems to be luck, where you're born, what's in your genes, how did parents raise you. Later in life I realized that most of the rest is mental health which you also don't have the greatest influence over the first 2 dec…

You can see it elsewhere in the comments on this post!
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