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Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

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Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#181
post #127
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It took years to shed some of the residual behaviours, even after I started earning decent money. Despite having savings and reliable income I would still let bills run until they were overdue. You wouldn't believe how many "wealthy" people do the exact same thing including not paying their subcontractors etc. My dad used to do electric installations in new built homes. Usually the larger the house and the wealthier…

The key question is whether fees are levied. If you can drag your feet for 89 days and pay not one extra cent, then why wouldn't you?

Because you agreed to pay it at a date before that? Because you don't want to be the person that's known for making things harder on others than they should be? Because not everything is about eeking every single penny you can from every single transaction?

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#182
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of those people (I didn't go to Stanford, but I did move a few rungs up the socioeconomic ladder), I take issue with your point. It's not helpful. There is definitely a culture of anti-intellectualism and escapism among the poor in the US (my background). Sure, the rich kids have it easy and it's super easy to sit around feeling bad about that but in many, many cases people could better themselves with a modic…

I'm a bit like you. I'm very much so a self starter (maybe I'm assuming a bit there), an avid reader, and I grew up in a situation I wouldn't wish on anyone. I turned out more than alright, but like you said, it's due to a massive amount of hard work. I figured I'd offer a different point of view for you to consider. First off, I want to make it clear I respect that you likely feel like the parent comment takes away…

Of course people do better with more resources (at least in theory). My life is still far behind what it could have been had I access to technology at an earlier age or inheritance or a healthy home life. Would I have had the same drive if those things were all handed to me? Impossible to tell.

The thing is, dwelling on that is not healthy or actionable. We can't go rewrite the past. My point is that there's great social inertia in the lower classes to pressure individuals into lifestyles that are harmful to their chances of success. There's actually zero downside in trying to change the culture to be less anti-intellectual.

There's a lot of harm created by the inequality in our society but there are also self defeating properties of culture independent of that. Changing the culture seems like a prerequisite to capture any gains created via any other systemic change. After all, what good is opportunity if you don't want to take it.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only a fraction of us will do well, and the rest are going to really struggle and that is unnecessary. I'm not entirely sure it's unnecessary. Not everyone can live an upper middle class lifestyle. My main message is that there's culture changes that can and must be enacted within those communities or individuals that will provide opportunity.

Yes, and the system we live under selects away from that. A majority are struggling today. Unnecessary.

I think you'll find it's not just "today". The majority have always struggled.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is defined as poverty? If you have internet and food, are you still in poverty?

I'd say if you have food, internet and roof over your head and can get treatment when you get sick you are not in poverty. There are some official definitions though.

I would also access to further learning, be it trade school college, a library etc

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#185
post #181
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key question is whether fees are levied. If you can drag your feet for 89 days and pay not one extra cent, then why wouldn't you?

Because you agreed to pay it at a date before that? Because you don't want to be the person that's known for making things harder on others than they should be? Because not everything is about eeking every single penny you can from every single transaction?

That isn't how violators think about it though.

They either can't afford it right away so they stall, or they CAN afford it, it's just that everything else in their life takes priority over sitting down to pay the bill. Pure negligence.

Any experienced contractor should have a clause that charges interest after some point. You can be "nice" about it by reducing the interest rate or extending the deadline on the next job after the client has made clear they can pay on time.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as a young person in your early 20's this is all bad enough, but I am going to read into it a little more and infer you were single. Now imagine if you had children to feed, the additional stress and additional expense probably would have broke you (financially, which happened anyway, and mentally). Not to mention knowing the effect of all this stress on your children and their developing minds. This study is an…

>Not to mention knowing the effect of all this stress on your children and their developing minds. I believe Gabor Mate talks in depth on this particular topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9B5mYfBPlY is one interview, which references https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/2/e460?ss...

Yeah I used to do legal work in dependency court (abuse, abandonment and neglect of children), and so I have read countless psychological report...traumas are bad enough (so bad I had to leave that area of the law behind) but instability essentially guarantees the persons mind will never recover. Its like the Mohammad Ali quote, its not the mountain ahead that wears you out, its the pebble in your shoe.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#187
post #178
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key question is whether fees are levied. If you can drag your feet for 89 days and pay not one extra cent, then why wouldn't you?

Because the few dollars of interest you could make are not at all worth the hardship you place on someone who needs the principal.

You assume that wealthy people aren't sociopaths when it comes to the well-being of the people who work for them.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#188
post #3

The article acknowledges that the study does not show causation and it seems a little strange to think a causal arrow in this direction is more plausible than the other direction. It seems like people who do better at thinking and memory tasks should also do better at their jobs and interviews and therefore be less likely to experience an income drop. To speculate on income drop's effect on mental acumen one would wa…

The cognitive impact of wealth has been pretty well studied, and there is already a very good population being studied for this - farmers in some places are pretty well off immediately after harvest/sale, and just before the next harvest, are usually back to a baseline state, or even struggling to pay bills again. Not only do they exhibit better long-term thinking when they are flush with cash, they tend be overall m…

But farmers also have a self-selection bias in them. The average person is not a farmer.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#189
Study summary opens with a political objective then summarizes a mass population correlation study, and ends up strongly promoting that correlation as causative and in support of the author's pet political program objective.

Wouldn't call this science.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#190
post #23
post #8

Poverty harms children. It's possible it harms young adults as well. The sooner we dismiss the notion that we need the poverty to motivate us to work and adopt some form of basic income, the better. It might be cheaper too than current system when you consider all the harm that poverty does to economy and workers.

Malnourishment harms anyone, and severe malnourishment at childhood harms a lot https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/child-nutrition... but mostly in poor countries. A nice variant of basic income is minimal tax return when everyone gets tax return proportional to a small percentage of the total tax collected past year. This would allow to gradually reduce other forms of social payments, without introducing a…

Is malnourishment a problem among the poor in the US? Looking around, it seems the problem of the poor in the US is obesity.
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