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Being poor vs. being broke

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Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#241

Post by dugidugout »

carlosjobim wrote: post #194
fullshark wrote: post #38

It's interesting how many comments here are knee jerk annoyance at this blogpost, which in my mind does a good job outlining two different financial situations and how flippant suggested solutions for escaping poverty don't make sense. The fact that many of us here have so much compared to others in our community however you define it is disturbing and not helpful information for our day to day lives so we do what we…

I guess because the ratio of people complaining about poverty is 10 000 to 1 compared to people who give solutions to poverty. There are solutions to poverty, which the individual person can follow, but nobody wants to talk about those. It has always amazed me, because poverty is hell. Who wouldn't want to get out of that, and who wouldn't want his fellow brother to get out of that? I could talk about it here, but I…

While I understand the sentiment, you stated it yourself, "It has always amazed me, because poverty is hell. Who wouldn't want to get out of that, and who wouldn't want his fellow brother to get out of that?". This is a puzzling question to ask and it shouldn't stop there. The post is very much trying to add some depth here, however it isn't targeting solutions for "poor" people, it is hoping to provoke those who are not to take the problem more seriously.

> I could talk about it here, but I would just get down voted [dead], [flagged] and so on.

Go ahead and just talk about it, I want to hear it. This isn't so easy a problem, even on an individual level as you put it.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#242

Post by bigstrat2003 »

rectang wrote: post #78
webdood90 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why folks who start with roughly the same skills, intelligence and opportunities (and bank account balance!) can nevertheless end up in very different places? I actually think a lot of it comes down to self control. Can you resist the allure of consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses? Are you buying liabilities that actually make your life harder? Are you living outside of your means? IMO it matters li…

From the article: > Being poor is you already did all those things. You cancelled all your streaming services years ago. You make all your food from scratch all the time. You never go to fucking Starbucks. You fix everything yourself. You already stretch everything to the limit. That is how you have to live every day of your life, for eternity, with no relief in sight.

Yes, the article says that, but I have direct experience which says the article is not telling the whole story. Some people are making all the right decisions and are still poor due to bad luck trapping them in a cycle of financial ruin. But also, some people really are poor due to their own crappy decisions. I've known them! They exist and must be accounted for in any productive discussion about poverty.

Many, many people try to act like only one of these two groups of poor people exists. For some people, that means they claim that if you're poor it's only because of your own bad decisions. For some people (including, to be frank, most of the commenters in this thread), it means they claim that if you're poor it's only because of systemic issues. Both claims are wrong, however, and both hamper us from finding effective solutions.

Whether one is poor due to external causes or their own bad decisions, they deserve to be treated with compassion and for us to try to help them. But the solutions for those two failure modes look very different and helping one group isn't going to do anything to help the other. Thus, trying to effectively solve problems of poverty in our society must include a balanced view, recognizing that both causes of poverty (systemic issues and bad personal decision making) are quite real.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#243

Post by webdood90 »

thewebguyd wrote: post #184
webdood90 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why folks who start with roughly the same skills, intelligence and opportunities (and bank account balance!) can nevertheless end up in very different places? I actually think a lot of it comes down to self control. Can you resist the allure of consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses? Are you buying liabilities that actually make your life harder? Are you living outside of your means? IMO it matters li…

What consumerism? Someone falling into the "poor" category the OP describes has already forgone all of that out of necessity. There is no money for consumerism. Has nothing to do with self control and "maybe don't go buy a coffee." They weren't doing that in the first place. There are places in this country where the minimum wage is still a paltry $10/hour or less and rent for a family is $2800+. The math doesn't wor…

Is the discussion about only one particular kind of poor person?

The system is a trap to keep people poor. A lot of people make the wrong decisions that keep them there. Can we not talk about that? It doesn't belittle the subset of folks that it doesn't apply to.

I grew up this way and saw it first-hand. A dead-beat step dad who didn't work for literally _years_. A mother with the only income of less than $40k/year for 3.

Cigarettes and beer every night. Fancy, financed cars with ridiculous interest rates because their credit scores were shit. Rent-a-center furniture payments. The newest phones and other bullshit that they couldn't truly afford.

So many people in our circles lived this way or worse. And I'm not trying to come forward and say "I got out of it so everyone can!" - just that people have a small amount of control and they regularly make the wrong decisions.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#244

Post by reaperducer »

Den_VR wrote: post #201
jibe wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what Cottonwood Day School on the Navajo reservation actually looks like. https://cds.bie.edu/ Clean modern buildings, desks, air conditioning, running water, very nice. You were fooled by that photo into making a bigger assumption about the full school and situation.

I can’t imagine why anyone would be deliberately misled to believe Cottonwood Day School on the Navajo reservation is not very nice. Oh wait

I can’t imagine why anyone would be deliberately misled to believe Cottonwood Day School on the Navajo reservation is not very nice. Oh wait

The real world isn't TV. Not everything is a grand conspiracy.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#245

Post by wahern »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #234
wagwang wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That, and an environmnet that allows folks "from the wrong side of the tracks," to get ahead. For all its faults, the US is just such a place. I suspect that many other nations are starting to improve. At one time, the UK was a nation that you couldn't get ahead, unless you were of a certain class. I think that it is much more like the US, nowadays. You can hear lots of cockney accents in Harrods.

> I think that it is much more like the US, nowadays.

IIRC, mobility indexes crossed quite a few years ago. IOW, UK is better than the US in this respect. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index, though it's a claim I've read based on other data and before that particular index was compiled.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#246

Post by msm_ »

carlosjobim wrote: post #194
fullshark wrote: post #38

It's interesting how many comments here are knee jerk annoyance at this blogpost, which in my mind does a good job outlining two different financial situations and how flippant suggested solutions for escaping poverty don't make sense. The fact that many of us here have so much compared to others in our community however you define it is disturbing and not helpful information for our day to day lives so we do what we…

I guess because the ratio of people complaining about poverty is 10 000 to 1 compared to people who give solutions to poverty. There are solutions to poverty, which the individual person can follow, but nobody wants to talk about those. It has always amazed me, because poverty is hell. Who wouldn't want to get out of that, and who wouldn't want his fellow brother to get out of that? I could talk about it here, but I…

Occam's razor. Either:

* There are solutions to poverty, which the individual person can follow, but (even though poverty is hell) people ignore them and prefer to stay poor

* The solutions to poverty you think about actually aren't. The money-deprived people already know about them and (having much more knowledge about poor people's world) know they don't work.

Since you - like almost everyone here - are a smart person with a scientific mind, I'm sure you can see that the first explanation is more likely.

If you get downvoted (as a matter of fact, I didn't) it's only because you declare that there is a miraculous solution to poverty, that would help people, that nobody talks about, and then you well, don't talk about it.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#247

Post by d_silin »

carlosjobim wrote: post #165
ModernMech wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone is wondering why solving homelessness and poverty is so hard, this sibling reply is dead but I think people need to see that this opinion exists, and we need to contemplate the richest and most powerful people in this country share this sentiment: "we're not blind to it, half of us are sick of paying for it for multiple generations, accruing interest. we're paying for poor people from 20 years ago still. le…

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.

You are one major sickness and one layoff away from getting into the same situation, often to the point of no return.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#248

Post by carlosjobim »

ModernMech wrote: post #182
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.

> It's nobody's fault Sure, but it's the system's fault, and we can point at the people who are keeping the system the way it is. The system is what it does, and what it does is syphon money from everyone else and pumps it upward to a few individuals. That's not an accident, people are responsible for that, they like the way it works, and they're intent on keeping it that way. Remember, in this system you get paid mo…

Have you seen "the system" sleeping on the streets, starving, or not having enough clothes?

No matter who or what is to blame, the individual is who is paying the price and who should have the strongest interest to get out of that situation. Which means, if you're staying in that situation for years on end you have to admit to yourself you are doing something which isn't working.

Thats why people have more sympathy for somebody who is poor because they are temporarily down on their luck or born into poverty, and less sympathy for somebody who has been poor as an adult for decades.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#249

Post by thewebguyd »

webdood90 wrote: post #243
thewebguyd wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What consumerism? Someone falling into the "poor" category the OP describes has already forgone all of that out of necessity. There is no money for consumerism. Has nothing to do with self control and "maybe don't go buy a coffee." They weren't doing that in the first place. There are places in this country where the minimum wage is still a paltry $10/hour or less and rent for a family is $2800+. The math doesn't wor…

Is the discussion about only one particular kind of poor person? The system is a trap to keep people poor. A lot of people make the wrong decisions that keep them there. Can we not talk about that? It doesn't belittle the subset of folks that it doesn't apply to. I grew up this way and saw it first-hand. A dead-beat step dad who didn't work for literally _years_. A mother with the only income of less than $40k/year f…

> Is the discussion about only one particular kind of poor person?

Yes, according to the OP. The article already describes the people you are talking about as "broke," not "poor." We already know that those in the broke category can, in most cases, make better decisions and reduce their spending and possibly get ahead.

The ones not in that category can't, which is who the article is about. The discussion is how do we address and help eliminate poverty, not how do we help educate people who are broke because they make bad choices.

Re: Being poor vs. being broke

#250

Post by tome »

dugidugout wrote: post #206
tome wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it your belief that the author currently considers himself poor? (FWIW, I don't think he does.)

Why is anyone assuming this? It was the GP of this chain who was providing this assumption. The OP was commenting on the condition of being poor and the meaningful difference between the commonly experienced condition of being "broke". This entire digression is likely a reflection of what motivated OP to put this post together.

I don't know, but it seems that rsyring and cluckindan are both assuming it, and at odds about a counterfactual.
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