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On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

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Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#621

Post by you_know_the_ »

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

I don’t think we ever can overcome the fear of being poor again. I struggle with it as well.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#622

Post by criticaljudge »

whimsicalism wrote: post #514
dahfizz wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some definition of "deserving", I would agree. Certainly, everyone should have the tools and opportunities they need to build the life they want. Society has limited resources. Until we manage the post-scarcity utopia, I would prefer my tax dollars go to someone who will use them to build a better life.

Half of all private wealth is inherited, not earned through work, by the wealthiest 5% of households. In that context, why focus on giving small portions of wealth to those in poverty (even if they aren't working as hard as you think they ought to)?

The notion that children don't deserve the spoils of their parents is really crazy to me. Parents work so that they can give their children a better life. Heck, they even choose their partners to maximize odds for a better life for their offspring (wealth, good genes, and so on - it does not even depend on capitalism).

To take that away from people is truly dehumanizing, but sounds like a typical socialist scheme (destroy the family, destroy individualism, everything has to be the same).

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#623

Post by mattbk1 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #570
criticaljudge wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people quickly tire of it when they have to take care of those lazy people directly. I'm not saying nothing should be done. Just that it is a fallacy to think the government simply has infinite money to spend.

When your friend Steve comes to you to "borrow" $100 (that he'll never return), because he's short on rent, and he blew last of his cash on hookers and booze, it seems pretty reasonable and perfectly morally justified to either refuse outright, or condition your help on requirement that Steve gets a job, and quits his hookers and booze habit. Certainly, nobody would ever suggest that you have any obligation to enable…

To add to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26307485, the government may be in a position to turn that $100 directly into food or housing for Steve.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#624

Post by bzbarsky »

LocalH wrote: post #331
throwaway846 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar story I'm now late 30s; father left when i was 2 died of aids when I was 6 Mother washed dishes then was unemployed from age 12-now and we bounced around her boyfriends houses My metric (edit: for myself) "have you been poor" is gathering extra condiments from a gas station and having mustard on bread for a meal. We had food stamps, and a small social security check. I always had a bed, and food, but barely a…

Equity should operate just as much, if not more so, by boosting people up than by cutting people down. It should also favor the individual and small business over large megacorporations. I fear that the concept of equity presents a real possibility of a race to the bottom if we're not careful to prevent a Harrison Bergeron situation. That doesn't mean I think we should avoid equity, just that we should be cognizant o…

This is a very reasonable thing to fear. The concept of "уравниловка" in Russian exists precisely because the government tried to do just that in many cases. Making everyone the same (in terms of equality of outcomes) is a lot easier to do by making all the outcomes bad.

I should note that "equity" need not mean "equality of outcomes", but when pressed for how one evaluates "equity" far too many proponents fall back to "equality (and proportionality) of outcomes" in practice....

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#625

Post by ClumsyPilot »

criticaljudge wrote: post #608
dv_dt wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am confused by this. The comment is against taking care of lazy people directly, but also hits on government spending which would be the way to make direct personal care of lazy people indirect. As to the infinite money - we have more than enough productive capacity to supply basics of life to everyone without trying to somehow further weigh if their laziness needs to be punitively motivated for basic living suppor…

I was replying to an absolute statement, "every lazy person deserves x". My point is that there are probably more aspects to consider in general. Your claims that we have "more than enough" are unproven, imo. Let's take housing. Is your claim that there is enough good housing around for everybody, or that it could be built quickly? How quickly - how many houses are needed, by your estimate? How many building workers…

Its actually quite a good claim, for example if we examine UK: we have more empty houses than we have homeless people, and we have more food thrown away as waste than what would be needed to feed said homeless people.

Furthermore, suppose you were to budget 3000 calories of basic food for every person in Uk, you'd find it's a tiny fraction of national budget.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#626

Post by treis »

Barracoon wrote: post #535
treis wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is no affordable housing or transportation in 95% of the North American land area This just isn't true. The majority of the US has cheap housing. The person who wrote the article lives in Pheonix where you can get houses for 200k or under. Like this perfectly good 3 bed 2 br for 200k: https://www.redfin.com/AZ/Phoenix/8520-W-Palm-Ln-85037/unit-... Housing costs are out of control in a handful of places in the…

The author of the submitted article spent multiple paragraphs describing how it is not pretty easy to accumulate enough money to break the cycle of poverty, so if you want to maybe write a long form explaining how to effectively and realistically do so for people in this situation, that’d be great.

The author spent multiple paragraphs giving excuses why it's hard. The way out doesn't take that long to explain. Say we have someone netting 2k a month or 24k a year:

For a month:

Room - $500 Food - $200 Health Insurance - $0 w/ Obamacare subsidies Other Necessities - $200 Entertainment - $100

So we have $1,000 left over and have to deal with transportation. Our target is something like this 2009 Toyota Matrix with 100k miles for $3,900:

https://phoenix.craigslist.org/wvl/cto/d/peoria-2009-toyota-...

If we have $3,900 in the bank great. If not, life is going to suck for the next ~6 months while we save every penny and rely on the bus until we have the cash to afford it. Once we have it then we will have reliable transportation and can budget about $500 a month for car expenses including replacing this one when it breaks down. Leaving us:

Room - $500 Food - $200 Health Insurance - $0 w/ Obamacare subsidies Other Necessities - $200 Entertainment - $100 Car- $500

For a total of $1,500. $500 left over to accumulate some savings and/or pay for stuff we missed.

Next goal would be to use one of the many down payment assistance programs (https://www.arizonadownpaymentassistance.com/down-payment-pr...) to buy a home like the one I linked to. Then we rent out a room or two for ~$500 reducing our housing expenses while building equity.

As long as we don't get sick, don't have a kid, and don't start doing drugs we're going to be sitting pretty nice after a few years.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#627

Post by xyzzyz »

mattbk1 wrote: post #623
xyzzyz wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your friend Steve comes to you to "borrow" $100 (that he'll never return), because he's short on rent, and he blew last of his cash on hookers and booze, it seems pretty reasonable and perfectly morally justified to either refuse outright, or condition your help on requirement that Steve gets a job, and quits his hookers and booze habit. Certainly, nobody would ever suggest that you have any obligation to enable…

To add to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26307485 , the government may be in a position to turn that $100 directly into food or housing for Steve.

The $100 Steve asked me to borrow will also turn directly into housing. He said that he needs it to meet his rent, and he's not lying: he will use it to pay his rent. Nevertheless, that just enables him to continue his hookers and booze habit.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#628

Post by criticaljudge »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #589
criticaljudge wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people quickly tire of it when they have to take care of those lazy people directly. I'm not saying nothing should be done. Just that it is a fallacy to think the government simply has infinite money to spend.

I don’t think they are lazy. Many have emotional problems. Most people complain about their jobs, or multiple jobs, but know it provides so much more than money. Half the people I know would have 0 friends, O social life, if not for those lousy jobs. It’s ironic you say the government doesn’t have infinite money to spend. We are about to throw close to two trillion out of a helicopter. There is not a person, well one…

The OP was specifically a bout "lazy people", so your claim that they are not lazy does not make any sense at all.

You can argue that there may be no actual lazy people, but that is another discussion.

"We are about to throw close to two trillion out of a helicopter."

Are you really not aware that the bill for that will simply come later (as it is a debt taken out on behalf of the population), and in the process of creating those two trillion, existing money has already been devalued?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#629

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

sct202 wrote: post #431
nerdponx wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very much the trend I saw over the 2000s-2010s. Most of the people in my personal cohort - with university degrees and good careers - have no problem living a good life in the US. But with the rapid inflation of the cost of healthcare, higher education and housing, I wonder how that lifestyle can possibly become accessible to people who weren't essentially born into it. I know many people who were born into a…

In my peer group people are focusing on the monthly payments, rather than the loan amount. And mortgage rates are like half what they were in the last housing bubble https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US

Leaving them with no room to refinance in future, since rates practically cannot drop further for mortgage lending to be viable.

People taking loans in 2021 sure better hope for the continued devaluation of the dollar. It's the only way to keep the debt burden manageable.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#630

Post by pmiller2 »

woah wrote: post #600
pmiller2 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "systematic housing shortage." There are 59 vacant housing units for every homeless person in the US. [0] Even California has more than 9 empty housing units per homeless person. [ ibid ] --- [0]: https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/

This is known as “vacancy trutherism”, and it has about as much truth to it as q-anon. The vacancy rate is in the low single digits, and the less vacancy there is, the less affordable the market is. The vast majority of vacancies are units that are in the process of being rented or sold. The idea that there is some Illuminati cabal of housing speculators holding vast numbers of units off the market is a crazy fantasy…

Citations very much needed. A 59:1 ratio of available units to those in need of housing, which has been increasing over the years, prima facie shows there is no housing shortage. Moreover, with that high of a ratio, everyone looking for housing could have it, with plenty left over for those who have none.

I've offered facts. You offer nothing concrete. Which of our comments is more like the drivel Q-Anon spreads?

Edit: I should add that yes, homelessness has been on a general decline for some time, but not enough to account for the increased ratio of available units to homeless people. See https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-...

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