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How poverty changes your mindset

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Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#111

Post by sjg007 »

haZard_OS wrote: post #97
bojackstorkman wrote: post #30

I love how when this comes up, it's people either saying "Here was my experience when I was poor in the past." or "Here is what I think about economics or the wording of this article." Don't get me wrong, I know what website I'm on. But in all seriousness, is there room for currently poor people in this discussion?

Without going into too much detail: I am exactly one semester away from a degree in the natural sciences but can no longer afford to attend classes - I am a single father with 3 children (two of which live with me) and I pay child support every month to my ex-wife who makes ~$80K per annum. I played her way through graduate school but she left and we divorced very soon after she finished school. I am almost 40 years…

Sorry to hear that. If you are in the US, I am guessing that you can't take out any (more) student loans? They come with a 6 month grace period. Might get you through the semester to get your degree. Maybe you already know that and have done so. You might be able to talk to your school administrators and see if there is any chance of a tuition waiver as well. They should have resources to help. Good luck.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#112

Post by Buge »

keenerd wrote: post #56
tylerhou wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rational answer is that if you would drive 30 minutes to save $50 off a $300 tablet, then you should also drive 30 minutes to save $50 off a $1000 tablet. You've described the psychology of why a wealthy person might not drive the 30 minutes for the $1000 tablet well (but still will spend the time to save money on the $300 tablet), but that choice is still irrational.

It can still be rational, but you need to look at shopping as an aggregate of probabilities. Let's make it more extreme. A $50 item for free or $50 off a $5000 purchase. Discounts as big as 100% off don't come every day. Maybe you'll never see that deal again in your life. You should jump on it. Where as a 1% discount is something you see every day at dozens of stores. There will probably be a bigger discount next we…

You're thinking that the question is "should I this item or not", or "should I buy this item now or wait a while". Then it could be logical to prefer the higher percent discount.

But that's not what the study asked. The study said "you need to buy this item now, where will you buy it?" In this case it is illogical to prefer the higher percent discount, dollar value is the only thing that matters.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#113

Post by scarface74 »

sjg007 wrote: post #101
charlesdm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people think about a dollar as a dollar. They don't realise it's not worth focusing on saving a dollar here and there, if they then move ahead and overpay for a house or a car (e.g. by not negotiating). Half the battle is getting a good (or great) deal on expensive, one off purchases, if possible (say everything above $2k). Don't worry about the rest. As with everything: 20% of the "work" gets you 80% of the way…

A house has to appraise at the sales price or else you can't get a mortgage. You can, technically, "over pay" but that would be from savings which most people don't have. Also most first time buyers don't put 20% down so it's even harder to overpay. As for cars you should buy a new car at a low interest rate and hold it or buy a decent used car. You have to figure out the math here b/c after cash for clunkers used ca…

Things might be stricter now, but back when I dabbled in real estate, the appraisal was a farce. The appraiser, the real estate agents, and the loan appraiser could always magically make the numbers work.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#114

Post by chrisbennet »

kccqzy wrote: post #86
NegativeLatency wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone needs college, there are trade schools and the like that can help you get a better job. Why can’t minimum wage be raised to provide a better standard of living?

Minimum wage only really encourages businesses to hire fewer people and train those fewer people to do more and be more productive, if not to raise prices. There are many small bookstores and mom-and-pop stores that are going to be closed when the minimum wage is raised because they literally can’t raise prices any more or hire fewer people. That’s why in some other countries, instead of a minimum wage, which is the…

The government in the US already subsidizes businesses that can’t or won’t pay a living wage - with food stamps and such for their workers. Perhaps having government make up the difference in pay, as you say they do in other countries, would be better.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#115

Post by maxxxxx »

sparkie wrote: post #76
NegativeLatency wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone needs college, there are trade schools and the like that can help you get a better job. Why can’t minimum wage be raised to provide a better standard of living?

Because when you raise minimum wage, that means employers of the minimum wage earners need to push up their prices so that they're still making the same profits. (Actually, the same is not good enough, the profits need to exceed the previous years). The price of everything ends up inflating and minimum wage earners end up getting less for their money, despite having "more of it".

That would only be true if the goods minimum wage workers produce are being bought only by minimum wage workers. In reality the price also goes up for incomes above minimum wage so in a sense raising the minimum wage is a transfer of money from higher earners to lower earners.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#116

Post by Buge »

eftychis wrote: post #11
scandox wrote: post #2

> That’s the correct financial decision, according to traditional economics—to drive the extra distance no matter the original cost. Saving $50 is the same regardless of the amount of the item in question. But wealthier participants saw the savings in relative terms, noticing the percentage savings. By contrast, poorer participants thought in absolute terms. To them, $50 saved was $50 to spend on groceries or the ele…

Not really. There is the notion of opportunity cost. 30' might be worth your time, unless investing that time, either working, or even resting, paid you back e.g. > $50. If you expect yourself to make less than $50 an hour (assuming you have to drive back (?), otherwise $100) then that would be a good deal. It depends on your model of course. After some point spending 30' to get $50 off is crazy, if you are strugglin…

You are misunderstanding the article.

The study asked some rich people "would you spend 30 minutes to save $50 on a $300 item". Some rich people said yes. Then they asked "would you spend 30 minutes to save $50 on a $1000 item". Some of the previous "yes" answers changed to "no". That is illogical, logically no one should have changed their answer.

Poor people didn't make this illogical answer change.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#117

Post by bojackstorkman »

haZard_OS wrote: post #97
bojackstorkman wrote: post #30

I love how when this comes up, it's people either saying "Here was my experience when I was poor in the past." or "Here is what I think about economics or the wording of this article." Don't get me wrong, I know what website I'm on. But in all seriousness, is there room for currently poor people in this discussion?

Without going into too much detail: I am exactly one semester away from a degree in the natural sciences but can no longer afford to attend classes - I am a single father with 3 children (two of which live with me) and I pay child support every month to my ex-wife who makes ~$80K per annum. I played her way through graduate school but she left and we divorced very soon after she finished school. I am almost 40 years…

I have also lost access to education because of resources multiple times. I cannot stress how much this has impacted me materially and in terms of morale, both in the short and long term.

The amount of inertia that the self-perpetuating condition, as you aptly put it, is staggering to many that aren't actively experiencing it.

It is difficult to know what aspects of being poor are seen as urgent --or even actionable at all-- by others. Communicating this is complicated, and I haven't been satisfied by the general discourse on the subject, personally.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#118

Post by chaostheory »

braderhart wrote: post #82
kraig911 wrote: post #69

I hate seeing people's comments on stories around this topic. I grew up in poverty and food stamps from time to time. My dad was a roughneck and when the oil bust happened in the 80's there was a time we lived out of our car -- my whole family. here was literally nothing to do in the oil patch during that bust. There was literally no work. But people don't understand true hopelessness. My dad did everything he could…

Thank you for sharing your story. I feel so much empathy towards you and your family, and I'm sorry to hear about your father feeling so bitter towards the system afterwards. I don't blame him. When I see people screaming and walking down the streets talking to themselves, I see people that need love. I see people that need to be taken in, not just for a night, but for a year or longer... so they can stop stressing a…

> When I see people screaming and walking down the streets talking to themselves, I see people that need love

If they're talking to themselves, they need more than that. They probably need to be cared for in a mental institution. Unfortunately the overall national trend has been funding cuts, with the irony being that it doesn't save money overall; since the costs are just shifted over to hospitals and other emergency services.

This isn't a new subject. For those without severe mental issues, the end result is the same when we provide housing: it costs less

https://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764096/its-three-times-cheape...

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#119

Post by scarface74 »

dijit wrote: post #28
MrLeap wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar situation. Lived with my mother, constantly stressed about survival until she kicked me out at 14. Moved in with my upper middle class father (who should have had full custody from the beginning, courts don't always do it right eh?) For a while (my mind says 'for now'), I'm able to make about 100k in 6 months in the midwest. My formative memory combined with the local prices make this a nearly unimaginable su…

The "not enough lines of credit" thing bit me too, if you don't take debt you can't have debt, it's so bizarre. Regarding your AWS lambda aversion, I am also guilty of aggressively avoiding lock-in with cloud vendors... Now I wonder if that is related to my upbringing.

I don’t get the aversion to lambda. A lambda function is just a regular function that takes in a few parameters and outputs something. I always separate out the lambda interface from the main logic. Lambda is just another interface for business logic. Correctly structured, it is pretty easy to convert the core of your code to use any interface - a command line, pub sub, rest APIs etc.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#120

Post by nitwit005 »

linkmotif wrote: post #99
kraig911 wrote: post #69

I hate seeing people's comments on stories around this topic. I grew up in poverty and food stamps from time to time. My dad was a roughneck and when the oil bust happened in the 80's there was a time we lived out of our car -- my whole family. here was literally nothing to do in the oil patch during that bust. There was literally no work. But people don't understand true hopelessness. My dad did everything he could…

I don’t think there’s necessarily a conflict between having empathy for people unconditionally while still asking questions like: if times were at one point good or OK but you’ve fallen into hard times now, why did you not have savings? People ask these questions because being miserly to save is hard and unpleasant, and then when others seemingly haven’t saved, it’s emotionally difficult helping them. I see people us…

It's a fairly common phenomenon to see immigrant households doing better than the American-born population, despite the obvious hurdles of no savings and not speaking English. Every time the census data gets published, you tend to see a few articles pop up about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/nyregion/01census.html
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