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How poverty changes your mindset

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Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#131

Post by King-Aaron »

Jedd wrote: post #100
King-Aaron wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this adds anything to the discussion except for a facetious tone. The OP explained exactly why he doesn't like reading the comments literally in the next breath from what you selectively quoted.

Not being facetious. I can't see the explanation you say exists. I suspect that there's a missing qualifier to parent's comment --something like 'from people who haven't lived what I have lived' -- but absent that it sounds like other people's experiences are of no or negative value.

I find it hard to believe that you are unintentionally missing the context behind the original post, but so be it

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#132

Post by ams6110 »

scarface74 wrote: post #113
sjg007 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I've bought and sold a few houses and the appraisals without fail always came back an slightly more than the agreed purchase price.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#133

Post by jancsika »

jeffmould wrote: post #13
dijit wrote: post #3

This is not the first time this article has come up, and as usual I'll give my 2c. What qualifies me to talk about this issue? I was raised in the UK on income support, single mother, social housing, low income city etc; Now the situation has changed somewhat in the UK; back then in the UK it was possible to get by without going into debt if you were smart about things and I believe this no longer to be the case, but…

she will treat her time as unlimited in finding similar quality goods for less money It is interesting you say this. I have a friend who struggles to get by. Single mom, two kids, a father who does the absolute bare minimum to provide support to his kids, and she is unemployed. She does get support from the state (rent assistance, energy assistance, SNAP), but it is barely enough to squeak by and what little money is…

> It is not far-fetched for her to spend 2-3 hours to save a $1 on something.

That's not a far-fetched thing for a poor person to do. $1 can buy a can of beans and add nutrition to an otherwise hungry day.

> Meaning that she needs to evaluate the opportunity cost of saving a dollar versus spending 2-3 hours to save that dollar.

Opportunities aren't unlimited, and the closer to poverty one is the shorter their term.

So she needs short term opportunities that beat $1 savings for the 2-3 hour period. Short term here means the amount of time it would take her to spend the saved $1-- let's be optimistic and say two days.

What do you have for her that beats the $1 savings and beats it with the same (or better)predictability of success as searching for deals?

edit: clarification

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#134

Post by wildmusings »

chaostheory wrote: post #118
braderhart wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 emergenc…

Those living on the streets with severe mental issues probably don’t want to be in a mental institution. And unless they’re a danger to themselves or others (and not just in the sense of making bad life decisions), they can’t be held against their will. This is a free country.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#135

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#136

Post by xor1 »

povertyworld wrote: post #122
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?

I usually just skim HN for links, but I this article and had to make an account. I've been making about 15k a year about the last five years. I live in a major metropolitan area. The section I live in is finally getting hit hard and fast with gentrification, and it's terrifying. Right now I can ride a bike to work, but if I'm forced to move somewhere that I have to pay to commute, my job won't even make financial sen…

Finding a job as a junior iOS dev is so hard right now. I would look for an entry-level iOS QA Automation Engineer position, or SDET if they use that title instead, even though I think the positions are usually distinct. You will still be using Xcode and writing Objective C/Swift, even if you're not making contributions to the source itself.

It's extremely difficult to fill those positions because people looking for their first tech job don't want to start off in QA, and they'd rather just be unemployed for months or years instead. There's not enough experienced people to go around if you don't want to overpay significantly to poach them.

They pay very well, easily on par with developer positions in many cases. Average where I live for entry level seems to be over $70k, and I've seen postings for $200k+ for people with experience.

You could probably spend a week or two messing around with UI Automation and XCTest (if you don't already use them) and be more qualified than most of the people applying to those positions with prior QA experience but no prior iOS experience.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#137

Post by ams6110 »

mikeash wrote: post #121
adrr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% of society can't be brought out of poverty. Here's an example: If we motivated everyone to get a college education, we would have people flipping burgers who are college educated making min wage and living in poverty while struggling to put food on the table.

Why is it necessary that burger flippers be poor?

The work they do is of low value because almost anybody can do it. Morally they may not deserve to be poor, but nobody is going to pay them a lot of money to perform that work.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#138

Post by nicoburns »

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…

If you live somewhere with a social safety net (I'm from the UK) then there isn't the same social imperative to save: saving becomes a luxury for those who are not the poorest in society (which in reality it is anyway)

This works because we end up sharing the disproportionate costs which sometimes fall on those who are unfortunate (they lose their job, they get sick, etc). It's much more efficient than everyone having to have individual savings.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#139

Post by AaronFriel »

wildmusings wrote: post #134
chaostheory wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 emergenc…

Those living on the streets with severe mental issues probably don’t want to be in a mental institution. And unless they’re a danger to themselves or others (and not just in the sense of making bad life decisions), they can’t be held against their will. This is a free country.

It seems you think that either mental institutions are unfixable, or you have a very poor sense of the harms of say, untreated schizophrenia.

This may be a free country, but we shouldn't use that to neglect our duty to our neighbors.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#140

Post by ams6110 »

megy wrote: post #128
kccqzy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Minimum wage only really encourages No, it also means those people are paid a liveable wage, as opposed to a pittance.

Depends on one's definition of "livable wage." Minimum wage and "decent standard of living" are often conflated but minimum wage was not imposed and has never been intended to provide that. It's always been a wage that was at or slightly above the federal poverty line.

The lowest minimum wage I remember hearing about as a kid was $1.50/hr. I thought that sounded like a lot of money at the time, but I probably was not even 10 years old.

That would have been in the first half of the 1970's when the federal poverty line was around $2,500. So working full time, you'd make $3,000 or about 120% of the poverty level.

Today, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and the poverty level (2016) is $12,200. So still, a full-time minimum wage worker earns nearly 120% of the poverty level.

Source: Table 1, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p....

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