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“Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

theguardian.com

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Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#51

Post by joelhooks »

morgante wrote: post #40
joelhooks wrote: post #16

When our first son was born 17 years ago I was making $10/h. My wife got WIC, and used medicaid. We told the government that she lived with her mom and that I was a deadbeat. We needed the help, and my low-wage job would have been prohibitive. $10/h actually wasn't too bad in '98 for a single dude. I had an apartment, ate, had utilities paid, with enough left over for beer, weed and cigarettes. It was rough, but defi…

> I had an apartment, ate, had utilities paid, with enough left over for beer, weed and cigarettes. That actually sounds pretty great. You covered your necessities and had a few luxuries. Heck, I make an order of magnitude more than minimum wage, but my life doesn't sound much more glamorous than that. If poor people are able to afford food, housing, and small luxuries (cigarettes), is life really so bad?

It wasn't terrible. I was stuck in that job with no escape for 5 years. That kind of sucked, but on the scale of global suffering, mine has been minimal.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#52

Post by Retra »

[deleted] wrote: post #47
nitrogen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people lack mobility and flexibility, though. The poor life, at least as I lived it, was not excessively austere, but it was stifling and the slightest disruption could bring it all crashing down.

[deleted]

You cannot save money you don't have.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#53

Post by [deleted] »

falcolas wrote: post #17

I feel stupidly lucky that I got to where I am today. I was living in a friend's apartment with about $100 in "savings" and no job prospects in a town where I knew one person. Now, I own a house, work as a software developer and get paid nearly stupid amounts of money. Luck, a few good people (Brian, we still appreciate the $100!), and a natural affinity for computers are all that separate me from working those same…

[deleted]

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#54

Post by morgante »

rcoder wrote: post #48
morgante wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had an apartment, ate, had utilities paid, with enough left over for beer, weed and cigarettes. That actually sounds pretty great. You covered your necessities and had a few luxuries. Heck, I make an order of magnitude more than minimum wage, but my life doesn't sound much more glamorous than that. If poor people are able to afford food, housing, and small luxuries (cigarettes), is life really so bad?

If you're making an order of magnitude more than minimum wage that puts you at $72.50 per hour, or about $145k per year. That might not sound like a lot to the regulars on this site, but it's almost triple the median US household income ($52k) and should put you comfortably in the middle class in almost any developed part of the world. You also probably don't have to worry about getting sick or injured (health insura…

To be clear, I'm well aware that what I make places me comfortably into the upper middle class.

My point was simply that my life generally doesn't seem much/any better than joelhooks's ostensibly "poor" life.

I might have health insurance, but I haven't used it once. Even though I have sick leave at work, I'd probably never take it (preferring to work remotely).

I guess my main point is that we shouldn't lose sight of the advances which centuries of development have brought us. An order of magnitude income differential no longer connotes an order of magnitude difference in lifestyle. At least for young single men, it seems like there's almost no difference in lifestyle based on salary.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#55

Post by mjfl »

gargarplex wrote: post #39
dchest wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a loaded question. Where is injustice?

Social inequality without serving a conscious purpose

I think there's a disease that infects modern thought that attributes any success to "dumb luck". It makes the pursuit of a better life seem pointless and social inequality seem like an injustice we must point the government at to remedy. I don't think this is a new thought, just the modern flavor of a cycle that repeats itself every century or so. Find the rich man, the jew, the doctor. Sack his residence and take all of his belongings.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#56

Post by morgante »

Retra wrote: post #49
morgante wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had an apartment, ate, had utilities paid, with enough left over for beer, weed and cigarettes. That actually sounds pretty great. You covered your necessities and had a few luxuries. Heck, I make an order of magnitude more than minimum wage, but my life doesn't sound much more glamorous than that. If poor people are able to afford food, housing, and small luxuries (cigarettes), is life really so bad?

Food, housing, and small luxuries are necessities. They are not a recipe for a good life unless you are pacified by trite platitudes. Wealth is relative, but progress is not. What happens when you get old? What happens why somebody else needs your help? What happens if you have a good idea and nobody to listen to it?

> small luxuries are necessities

By definition luxuries are not necessities. If people can do without them fine (millions of people don't drink or smoke), they are not necessities.

> They are not a recipe for a good life unless you are pacified by trite platitudes.

Then what is, which money could buy? I make a lot more money than that, but my life doesn't sound any better.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#57

Post by tormeh »

shaftoe wrote: post #37
swatow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's the point of saving? One car crash and it's wiped out. You save and delay the gratification, but it never comes. You save and save and save, then some bad luck wipes it out. You lose a job. A vet bill. A friend needs a room and some food. That is ridiculous. If you hadn't saved and you had the car crash, then you would have been carless. Instead you were able to use to car >Poor people aren't stupid. You seem…

I'm amused that your comment is getting voted down, ostensibly by people who don't agree. I'll go much farther than you did and say defeatism is for losers. I don't mean that as a judgement, but as a statement of fact. You'll never get ahead when you don't see a point. Life is mostly a mental game. A serious problem for a lot of people (beyond the poor) is that they spend far more cognitive time thinking about how to…

Beyond the poor that's a feature, not a bug. If you hate your life and you're not having it objectively terrible then it's your mind that's the problem. Objectively improving your life will do nothing.

And defeatism may well be unreasonable, but who claimed otherwise? That it's bad is obvious, and stating it helps nobody. Even the author of the article knows it's bad and wrong but does it anyway.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#58

Post by stegosaurus »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #26
twisties wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel the need to remedy this injustice, when, as you claim, the difference between you and a poor person is luck?

Across a population this kind of 'bad luck' can have huge economic costs, and is a massive drag on innovation and productivity. It's not just about personal stories. Falcolas might not have been able to borrow $100, and would likely have ended up somewhere very different. And the startup economy would have been down by one potential developer. You might think 'There are others' - and you'd be right. But the effects s…

'And the startup economy would have been down by one potential developer.'

Not only the startup economy.

Brief thought experiment:

Imagine two people. Person A is a car mechanic. Person B is a software developer. Neither are employed but both are more skilled and likely more efficient than each other in their respective fields.

Despite the fact that A needs a website and B needs an oil change, A and B will likely end up performing the work themselves, not because they enjoy it, but because they can't afford to pay each other.

This is a vast oversimplification (in this case, they could just directly barter and exchange no funds, or even if they did exchange funds $50 would flow one way and right back the other).

But the economy dies with the middle class. When no-one can afford to partake in services, we all suffer.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#59

Post by dizzystar »

bdcravens wrote: post #11
swatow wrote: post #3

>I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ev…

I grew up in a roach-infested, food stamp family. My dad was a janitor. Mom didn't work; she has (undiagnosed) mental issues. Home experience was filth and cigarette smoke. We had no car. Sent home dozens of times for head lice while in school. Today I'm a developer and am upper middle-class, some years making what my dad made in 10-15 years. That said, I still fight feelings of being poor. It's a mindset, not a bank…

That said, I still fight feelings of being poor. It's a mindset, not a bank account balance.

This is very true. Even though I have money these days, I still own very little. I just don't recognize the need to own anything valuable, have no desire to own property, nor feel the need to eat at a fine restaurant. Even though I can afford Starbucks with no problems, I still feel like it is an "expensive" place.

The last time I made a lot of money, I went off the deep end, told myself I don't deserve it, and blew all of my success. Growing up around the mantra "The root of all evil is money" had a long-term effect on me and generated a ton of issues that I wasn't prepared to face the first time around. I feel like I'm over those issues now, but it always lurks and I feel like I'm standing on the edge of an icy cliff back into the world of poverty.

Re: “Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken”

#60

Post by tomp »

[deleted] wrote: post #53
falcolas wrote: post #17

I feel stupidly lucky that I got to where I am today. I was living in a friend's apartment with about $100 in "savings" and no job prospects in a town where I knew one person. Now, I own a house, work as a software developer and get paid nearly stupid amounts of money. Luck, a few good people (Brian, we still appreciate the $100!), and a natural affinity for computers are all that separate me from working those same…

[deleted]

> But the 23,000+ hours I've invested into becoming skilled at my work also play a huge part

It's not like the poor people don't work; it's just that their skills aren't additive in the same way as a programmer's are. Serving in McDonalds for 23,000 hours doesn't make you a better server. For them, it's just a job, not a career.

I can't imagine what hell my life would be if I didn't have a feeling I was building towards a better future (also, my present is pretty sweet already).

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