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Being poor vs. being broke

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Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#491

Post by kstrauser »

dwedge wrote: post #364
dijit wrote: post #125

Even this does a poor job of explaining being poor. The constant open loop on everything you own, terrified to discard anything even if its broken because there are components that might be useful to fix something else; the constant churn of second-hand (and cheap/disposable) things that are already close to death before they come into your possession and- crucially: the crushing weight of knowing that any financial…

> its not uncommon to have the few worthwhile items you own being seized by bailifs to recoup debts, treasured heirlooms that cannot be replaced and have little monetary value so they do no impact to your debt. The hoarding of canned goods to avoid being unable to eat. As a teenager I worked at a bailiffs in the office typing up the paperwork. One case that stuck was me was where the debtor owed somewhere around £400…

I don’t make it a habit to curse out loud at my phone as I read things, but this did it for me.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#492

Post by 9rx »

simoncion wrote: post #428
9rx wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One guy can totally make butter, lard, and harvest fatty meat by themselves. Theoretically it is possible that one person could, on their own, produce enough calories with cattle to feed around two people. So in a vacuum it is true that you could gain excessive weight. But it still isn't actually possible in reality. The time commitment to produce that much is expansive. There isn't enough time in the day for you a…

> Theoretically it is possible that one person could, on their own, produce enough calories with cattle to feed around two people. Right. This is the same species as the "birthing in olden times was fatal 50% of the time" assertion. Anyway, I see what you're driving at. Yes. I agree that a lone, naked, unarmed human surrounded by a couple dozen wolves looking to eat him right now is almost certainly going to be eaten…

> Though, what that has to do with a lone farmer getting fat off his own produce, I have no idea.

Me neither as it has never happened. Said farmer was typically burning around 4-6,000 calories per day. If eating butter and fatty meats as suggested, we're talking a pretty significant time commitment just for maintenance, never mind pushing yourself over the time. You can't exactly guzzle down a slab of meat like it is a Coca-Cola. If you wanted to start packing on the pounds, ignoring the challenge of even just getting that much food down your gullet in the first place, when would you actually find time raise the animals in order to provide that much food?

It has always been possible if you have a lot of help, sure. Even the aforementioned bag of chips was made from scratch by a group of people — unless we're counting the need to invent the universe, I suppose. That's probably not what earlier comments were talking about, though.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#493

Post by otterley »

bwhiting2356 wrote: post #463
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he is. That's sort of his point.

am i misreading the article? > I have a van that is falling apart. It needs a lot of work that we cannot afford to do. In the mindset that poor people are unskilled, it appears that I should watch some YouTube videos, get the parts, and do it myself I’m not saying running a small business is easy. But they previously worked a corporate job and chose to start a landscaping business partly for lifestyle reasons.

It's not as well written as it could be. He's using the first person, but he's not actually referring to himself. It's a hypothetical. Pretend he put the word "Suppose" in front of the first word, as in "Suppose I have a van that's falling apart."

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#494

Post by Exoristos »

I grew up poor, but with two competing narratives about poverty filling our ears at home. You see, my mother came from a well-off upper middle class ("prep") family, and my father came from generational poverty in Appalachia ("trailer trash"). They met in D.C. where he was a soldier and she worked at the Treasury.

Due to my mother's urging, he ended up being the first of his family line to graduate from college -- however, he didn't perform well in his profession, became more or less unemployable, and we ended up back in Appalachia. Here Mother refused to work in protest, while Dad bartered, bargain-hunted, salvaged, gardened, and begged to keep us in food and shelter.

His narrative was that poverty isn't so bad, he'd enjoyed a dirt-floor lifestyle as a kid, if you get sick or someone dies it's not worth dwelling on. Keep your chin up, argue with the bank, eat junk food, tell jokes before bed till everyone cries laughing. "What you going to do about it? There's nothing you can do about it." Her narrative was that anyone can be rich with enough effort. One has to work with complete dedication, sleep little, constantly increase one's education, one's social network, personal abilities -- it's an endless fight that should be taken on with zeal. "There's always room at the top."

I've pushed to realize my mother's doctrine, with very mixed success, and I've often been glad to have my dad's absolution to fall back on.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#495

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

tracker1 wrote: post #226
tracker1 wrote: post #83

While I get it, I disagree with some of the premise... especially the idea of working two jobs. My dad has worked multiple jobs at a time when I was growing up... I've worked multiple jobs at a time as recently as this year. Now, I'm getting old (50yo) and really couldn't handle it as well as I could in my 20s, but I still did it. It's not a permanent solution, but it's not a bad thing to do when you need to in order…

I know the above may not be a popular opinion... maybe it comes from me being older than a lot of people here (50yo) and having grandparents that lived through the Great Depression. I just don't see the point in being defeatist.

The first mention I've seen of The Great Depression.

I guess most folks are too young to have had direct contact with people who lived through it.

It caused decades of collective trauma. Almost the entire nation became devastatingly poor, overnight. Many folks that lived through it became compulsive hoarders.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#496

Post by lotyrin »

rsyring wrote: post #73
philipwhiuk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was unconvinced he was writing about his current state, but a prior state / maybe his family background.

I hadn't considered that until reading comments like this. It's possible...probable even. In that case, was he really poor? His whole argument is that being poor is a permanent state. If he's not poor now, was he ever?

System thinking please. Can every person in poverty become IT employed? Start a landscaping business? If they did would that likely cause a whole brand new set of problems? What jobs are these people currently doing? Don't those jobs need to be done? Can our society afford them to be done? Shouldn't anyone contributing to society (or legitimately unable to) be permitted to thrive? What could we do that would permit that? What do we do currently which harms it?

If there are jobs are legitimately not worth doing or paying someone to thrive while doing, why do those jobs exist? If these people aren't capable (or even willing) to do these jobs (or better jobs), why? How can we motivate or train people. (Lots of education, healthcare and especially psychotherapy are missing, I can tell you that.)

We can't solve poverty by thinking "well, some individuals might be able to solve theirs". It's a whole population, we have to solve for the whole population.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#497

Post by seba_dos1 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #410
seba_dos1 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because human mind is famously known for being extraordinarily good at getting out of self-destructive spiraling without external help, and that help is famously known for being provided to everyone who needs it regardless of their economic status. Also, chronic lack of money has absolutely no way to contribute to that occurring in the first place. /s

I get it. Everybody gets it. For some months, even years. But after a decade or so in such a situation, you must arrive at some sort of epiphany, look at your life and say "what the fuck?". And I don't think anybody is arguing that people shouldn't get help to get back on their feet. Rather that some people refuse to get back on their feet.

Looks like you don't.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#498

Post by mgraczyk »

Why is it that the 50 year old Pakistani man who just moved here and doesn't speak English seems to be doing so much better than "poor" Americans who complain online all the time. Or the 23 year old dishwasher from Mexico who speaks no English and stopped going to school at age 13 with two kids he's supporting in a small apartment

Sure they struggle but they seem to do a lot better than a lot of the 25 year old college educated Americans I see constantly complaining about "living wages" and the like

The cases where I've spent time with people like this, I generally find that they spend a lot of money on alcohol/drugs and work very little or not at all

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#499

Post by inamberclad »

physicsguy wrote: post #407
dijit wrote: post #125

Even this does a poor job of explaining being poor. The constant open loop on everything you own, terrified to discard anything even if its broken because there are components that might be useful to fix something else; the constant churn of second-hand (and cheap/disposable) things that are already close to death before they come into your possession and- crucially: the crushing weight of knowing that any financial…

I remember watching something on BBC about minimalism years ago when I was doing my PhD and earning £13k a year and thinking that I just couldn’t do it because it relies on you having the money to repurchase something you need that you threw away

Absolutely. Our disposable society is a privilege for those who can afford it and an absolute curse for those who can't.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#500

Post by mc32 »

Paradigm2020 wrote: post #487
mc32 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is —but there are also the Amish and others like them who do lots of things manually and try to avoid many modern conveniences. I don’t think they live poor lives. Definitely better than the poor in the countryside who don’t have the same ingrained customs who often need government help.

97% of amish use washing machines... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish There is a reason See also Ted talk about best invention ever by factfulness guy

That is higher than I thought --however, they are not using modern ones, they use the wringer type where you have to wring the water from the washed clothes a couple of times.
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