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After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

washingtonpost.com

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Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#241

Post by grzm »

sctb wrote: post #212
grzm wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the comments are [dead] but not [flagged][dead], the account is banned. If a past commenter has been egregious enough, the mods will ban not only the main account but also put in some checks to prevent a user from creating new accounts to otherwise circumvent the ban--comments from such new accounts are also marked [dead]. As others have pointed out, if the comments are worthwhile, they can be vouched. There are d…

> If the comments are [dead] but not [flagged][dead], the account is banned. That's not quite right. These comments were killed by anti-spam software. When this happens to legitimate accounts we rely on the community to vouch for them or email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

Cheers. Thanks for filling in the blanks!

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#242

Post by mmirate »

nate_meurer wrote: post #63
hpcjoe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is replicated all over the rust belt. One of the saddest portrayals of this is the photo essay, The Ruins of Detroit[1]. These once mighty economic engines have been silenced: manufacturing, coal, etc. What happens next is that the people who depend upon these industries to make a living, and live ... do less well of a job of this. Some argue that unions would help (they wouldn't), or anti-globalism would stop f…

> "Coal is evil as I've heard. And the people who mine it? They are the ones now suffering because, you know, its evil, and coal must die." That's a strawman. Coal isn't dying because it's evil. Thermal coal is dying because it can't compete with cheaper, more efficient natural gas generation.

Coal ostensibly has a rather high rate of deaths caused per joule of energy produced, compared to some other non-renewables (e.g. nuclear, iirc?).

To the extent that that is true; to the extent that these deaths aren't solely of coal workers (who therefore ought to be aware of the risks and to have bargained for commensurate wages+benefits); and to the extent that this is indeed an externality (i.e. neither the coal companies nor their customers pay anything for deaths caused by coal) ... then (a) coal is indeed evil, and (b) the industry ought to be politically pressured out of business, and when it goes out of business we all ought to say "good riddance".

Come to think of it, externalization of costs is, in general, a singularly evil state of affairs, even outside the coal industry. Perhaps humanity should work on fixing it.

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#243

Post by fencepost »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #165
24gttghh wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking makes you feel better in the short term because your body is jonesing for that nicotine, and dopamine gets released when you give your body the nicotine. Then you don't smoke, and you feel shitty until the next nicotine hit. You give a poor justification for an addiction, and the happiness is merely a result of the feedback loop of nicotine > dopamine > no nicotine > dopamine crash > nicotine > dopamine > etc…

> Not drinking soda/eating junk food every day and walking are quite free if I recall... Even if we ignore for a moment that healthy food can be more expensive than soda and junk food, you have to take into account the necessary time investment. Those things take more time and time is money. One might reasonably argue that someone on disability payments should have more time than money, but habits like smoking and ea…

Don't forget economies of scale (or lack thereof). Many of these folks are in small towns shopping in small stores and paying high prices.

If I have the storage space and cash, I can buy a 20 pound bag of rice on sale for $7 or less and use it over time - or I can go to Costco and get a 50 pound bag and maybe even make a little money dividing it up and selling it to my neighbors. If I'm living in a tiny shack with $1.50 to spend, I can instead pay $1+ for a pound bag of rice. A lot of other staples are like that - if you can get a little bit ahead just for a little while it can start a cycle that lets you keep getting a little bit better off as time goes by. That'll last until the emergency, which will put you right back down there gathering roots for $0.20/your. Oh, and the emergency that started this for some folks is birth, and there's no place they can even get to that has bulk items like that to start with.

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#244

Post by EADGBE »

curun1r wrote: post #129
ggm wrote: post #80

I cannot find it in my heart to admire the people who comment here proscriptively, without any attempt to signal empathy. Its understood few of us (myself included) will be doing anything to ameliorate this situation, and that empathy signalling is at best chest beating, but I still find the lack of compassion in the responses chilling. Yes, not smoking would reduce health risks and spend. so what? If you haven't tri…

I don't disagree with you, but I think there's a lot of people see the kind of people in the article as the opposition to progressive social issues like #BLM, acceptance of immigrants and the very same socialist policies that they survive off of and need to be expanded if these people are to see their lot in life improve. Rural communities overwhelmingly voted for Trump and they form the core of the Fox News constitu…

I didn't get that from this article.

I didn't see as much of a political problem as I saw a human problem.

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#245

Post by simonsarris »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #237
jrs95 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who recently moved to this city, he's not entirely wrong...in 2 years and without ever going to the "bad" parts of mine, I've been mugged in broad daylight, my roommate was assaulted randomly for no reason after his car broke down, I've had a guy threaten to kill me and follow me around when he sees me, and I get a postcard in the mail every other week or so telling me about another one of the homeless guy…

Well I've been living in Chicago for almost 20 years now and I've only been murdered a couple times. Happens to millions of people in this city every day don't you know?

Hm.

http://heyjackass.com/

Certainly not millions, but that's not something I'd be proud of.

Nowhere in New Hampshire do people say "don't worry, its just certain parts that have all the violence."

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#246

Post by alexanderstears »

KekDemaga wrote: post #224
alexanderstears wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself, I care deeply about the less fortunate - I just don't think that the social safety net is well designed or cost effective and I think pouring more money into it will just incentivize preying on the people caught in the net. I think there are solid ways to help people but that usually means investment in them, rather than increased dependence on the system. I'd gladly chip in for this lady to get a…

I considered myself poor up until a couple years ago. The biggest kick in the balls each year was the vehicle inspection. If you live in a place without public transit you can't just go without a car. So I would be paying thousands of dollars to replace sensors that did little to improve the actually functionality of the car all in the name of getting rid of that check engine light. Most of the time I couldn't afford…

+1.

Most of the time, the issues aren't making the car pollute an illegal amount (or at least not usually), they're just making the car pollute more than it was certified to pollute (or the issues make it impossible for the car to verify that it's polluting the right amount).

And there's no Cost-Benefit analysis done for people. My grandma had to pay $3k to get her car fixed, she drives 20 miles/wk. IT would have been much cheaper for her just to buy offsets but that's not permissible. However, when Jeep builds gas guzzlers, they can just buy credits from Tesla and Toyota so the DOT doesn't fine them.

Even if her car is polluting more, it's polluting as much as I was when I was commuting 100 mi/day.

I live in a city that despises car pollution, but the traffic light timing really stinks and I"m sure that there'd be less pollution if they made the system work better. They want me to drive a hybrid, I want them to do the job I"m paying them to do: take care of the fundamental infrastructure.

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#247

Post by Retric »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #217
pavel_lishin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forget the name of the book, but after reading Ehrenreich's book, I read one by a college-aged kid who went from literally having no money to having some sort of relatively good job. It wasn't particularly well written, but it got a fair amount of press - because it reaffirmed people's "gumption and bootstraps" American philosophy, where hard work is the solution to everything, regardless of context or circumstance…

>Of course a white 20 year old can get hired. Of course he has the time to walk an hour to his job and work there for 12 hours since he has no children or elderly relatives to take care of. Of course he can move furniture, since he's young and healthy. Of course he can get a job without a criminal record. Is it unreasonable to expect this level of effort out of any 20yo who's options are "be poor" or do this? Not bei…

The starting point is not a collage degree. The starting point is 14 when many people drop out of school, get sick, get pregnant, etc. If you make it to 20 without anything bad happening including a clean record and good credit then sure the next 12 months is not hard.

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#248

Post by vuln »

riot504 wrote: post #178
Caveman_Coder wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I view smoking as a kind of break from life. It has a calming effect. Many people smoked during my deployments to Iraq for the same reason - it calms you and allows a simple break otherwise not found. .." I found this to be the same reason why many of my fellow shipmates smoked during my time in the Navy. It was a kind of pre-watch "bonding" session of sorts...We'd smoke our cigs, grab a quick bite from the galley…

I did air traffic control at Balad. At that time it was considered one of the most complex and busiest air-spaces in the world, paraphrased from the president of O'Hare. Obviously, we didn't see combat or deal with life altering experiences but it was balls to the wall intense for 8 hours a day. At the time I even smoked a few Camels during breaks. Certainly a way to bond with a fellow controller during a break.

Thank you for your service. I did some time at good ol JBB in 08-09.

This is when I first started smoking. First I was bumming here and there, then in order to not feel like a bum I bought a pack and slowly the pack would disappear faster and faster... I smoked for four years (At peak a pack a day) and gave it up cold turkey. Lots of wasted money.

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#249

Post by MrFantastic »

reaperducer wrote: post #70

Not sure why this is an article. This is just normal life in many parts of rural America from Pennsylvania to Washington to Arizona. When I lived in West Virginia, I did note that the Washington Post had a weird fascination with the place. Whenever things got slow, you could expect some big exposé about what a bunch of uneducated, dirty bumpkins we were. WaPo even once held a contest to come up with a new slogan for…

West Virginia border is 106 miles from Washington DC. One of the poorest areas of the country is next door to the Nations Capital, that makes good press.

Re: After the check is gone: The underground economy of rural America

#250

Post by pavel_lishin »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #217
pavel_lishin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forget the name of the book, but after reading Ehrenreich's book, I read one by a college-aged kid who went from literally having no money to having some sort of relatively good job. It wasn't particularly well written, but it got a fair amount of press - because it reaffirmed people's "gumption and bootstraps" American philosophy, where hard work is the solution to everything, regardless of context or circumstance…

>Of course a white 20 year old can get hired. Of course he has the time to walk an hour to his job and work there for 12 hours since he has no children or elderly relatives to take care of. Of course he can move furniture, since he's young and healthy. Of course he can get a job without a criminal record. Is it unreasonable to expect this level of effort out of any 20yo who's options are "be poor" or do this? Not bei…

> Is it unreasonable to expect this level of effort out of any 20yo who's options are "be poor" or do this?

It's totally not, but the book presented him as a ambitious go-getter who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. I wish I remembered the damn book's name.

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