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Being poor vs. being broke

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Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#551

Post by phplovesong »

atomicthumbs wrote: post #327
phplovesong wrote: post #213

Im not rich, but i get by, and can say i live a decent life (in terms of what i can get "with fiat"). Im from a totally normal middle class-ish family. I always worked (since like 14-15) and got my own savings started when i was young. I really cant think of why you could not get out of beeing poor, IF you have the wits and willpower. If you grind some shithole job for 6 bucks/hour you should think really hard on you…

"Im from a totally normal middle class-ish family." Maybe that's why you can't comprehend the idea of being poor in a fashion that doesn't let you escape, even working as hard as you possibly can and making all the right choices.

I have seen kids from poor families make it. Many have been highly successful in life, even we should not measure it by pay-check.

It usually boils down to alcohol/drugs, idiotic credit card debts and/or living way beyond your actual capability to sustain that lifestyle, and having zero savings, and possibly having children way too young.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#552

Post by card_zero »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #219
carlosjobim wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. So far as I know, every single UBI trial has had consistently positive outcomes. People get jobs, get training, get a roof over their heads. Giving people money does in fact give people more choices, and helps make the poor less poor.

Which UBI trials do you know about? There's a list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots

But only six of the listed pilots mention the results.

1970s NIT pilots: no noticeable improvements.

Mincome: significant reduction in hospitalization. Slight decrease in work?

Tribal profit sharing: better homelife for children, parents on the booze less.

Madhya Pradesh: great success.

Netherlands: increased employment slightly, not health.

Finland: improved health slightly, not employment (employment was the goal).

So, I don't know. I suppose it helps, but mostly in Madhya Pradesh.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#553

Post by y0eswddl »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #504
dwedge wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It’s like a bunch of apes took over our society and worked as hard as possible to make everything as cruel as possible for no particular reason.

you can convince people to give up anything as long as it's in service of punishing "the bad ones"

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#554

Post by y0eswddl »

patrick451 wrote: post #531
roxolotl wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea my partner grew up genuinely poor and it’s interesting seeing how it impacts their mentality. The simplest but clear example is they never finish low-perishable food they like until they have more of it. There is always a few potato chips left in the bag. One cookie left waiting till it’s necessary to get through a rough day or more are purchased. They are the best saver I’ve ever met. But it wasn’t until they go…

I wonder how much of this is "I'm saving it for a rainy day" vs "I was conditioned that eating the last one of a treat leads to conflict".

Yes.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#555

Post by bradlys »

wredcoll wrote: post #320
bradlys wrote: post #203

The semantics here really suck. I grew up lower middle class because for most of my life my parents both had full-time jobs. (By the definition, you are not "poor" in the US if you have a full-time job) However, we grew up what I would call educationally poor. My parents struggled with financial woes constantly. In my mind, we were broke due to their ineptness but they were poor as far as this writer is concerned. Th…

I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that what you did is impossible, merely unlikely. You, presumably, worked extremely hard at things you thought would help you long term. You also, presumably, got lucky at some points. One does not diminish the other. And more to the point, now that you're "successful", do you think society should pay for more/better systems to help people like you achieve what you did?

> And more to the point, now that you're "successful", do you think society should pay for more/better systems to help people like you achieve what you did?

Yes. I'm very far left. Landlords going under the guillotine wouldn't be a bad thing in my book.

> I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that what you did is impossible, merely unlikely.

In some woke circles, a lot will say it's impossible. Also, I don't know anyone who has managed something similar as to what I've done, especially from where I grew up or similar. I hear of random stories online but random stories online come with a lot of missing details.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#556

Post by Redoubts »

MangoToupe wrote: post #539
cryptonector wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have family that dedicated most of their life to fighting poverty (with very limited success). Yes, it's very difficult to defeat poverty. But it has been happening world-wide. Poverty has been going down world-wide for 200 years. It's not so much through the efforts of individuals or even governments, just a network effect of technological advancements and opportunity creation (made possible by those advancement…

Only by some definitions of poverty—crucially, definitions that beg the question of rational wealth distribution. I would never, personally, defend such worldviews.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Global_c...

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#557

Post by neilv »

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

Exactly. And there's a complicating related situation that, if you have housing instability, there can also be pressure not to own anything more than you need, in terms of difficulty and cost having to move it or lose it on short notice.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#558

Post by bccdee »

hippo22 wrote: post #545
dwedge wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[flagged]

I don't think you've even thought about this for 30 seconds.

> If it could easily fetch more money, it would have been bid higher than £50.

Have you ever been to one of these auctions? I haven't. If I want a used vehicle, I go to a trusted dealership. Few people attend auctions, hence demand is low, hence prices are low. When there's no incentive to sell something for what it's worth, the seller will put in less effort and sell it below market price.

> Then did the debtor not sell the motorbike to pay the debt?

They probably needed it. You try doing food deliveries without a vehicle. Now their job's gone.

> it seems that people always assume they're totally incapable of helping themselves.

Well obviously. Being poor is excruciating; nobody would choose to be poor. The ones who are capable of helping themselves do—in fact, they help themselves when they're broke, and they never become truly poor in the first place (per the article's definitions).

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#559

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

seattle_spring wrote: post #525
mgraczyk wrote: post #498

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 colle…

I've seen the sentiment several times right here on HN that $250k is "basically poverty" in San Francisco. It's unbelievable to me how out of touch and spoiled one would have to be to reach that conclusion.

To my ears that just sounds like a mind trick.

If you convince yourselves $250k is practically nothing, you might be able to psychologically push yourself that extra bit harder to get to $500k.

But if you look around and say "Gee, objectively speaking I am one of the richest people who has ever lived" you might be inclined to actually enjoy that money, which involves spending more time enjoying the money and less time working, which lowers your chances of eventually getting to $500k.

I imagine similar strats are employed by relative high earners in e.g. Albania, trying to go from $25k to $50k, or Pakistan trying to go from $2.5k to $5.0k.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#560

Post by bccdee »

wagwang wrote: post #133
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…

My parents grew up poor in manner that is more extreme than anything OP described in the post and they always remind me that its just hard work and grit.

I think that's a comforting lie people like to tell themselves. Lots of hard-working people never get their due. In reality, people who escape bad circumstances often just get lucky. That's hard to accept, because nobody "deserves" to get lucky. We want to believe we earned what we have, and that, if we had to do it all over again, we'd still end up succeeding. But often that's not true.
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