The Brutal Math Of Poverty

[Alceste]

Alright, but Cisco and Smoke, surely you can see that the issue you're going on about is the journalist's choice of examples, not the basic principle. Yes it's true I didn't get my food at the corner store (when I could afford food). But I didn't get it at Costco either. I got it at the cheapest shop I could walk to, because I had no car and couldn't afford the bus. And I didn't browse around for specials either, because usually I had less than ten bucks to work with. It's not like I was filling up a cart and could stock up on bacon just because it was half price.

You DO pay more for things when you're poor. Not because you're stupid and lazy, but because you run into issues like the bank charging service fees only to people who can't keep a balance of a couple grand in the bank, and phone companies charging hundreds of dollars for a "deposit" to get connected because you have no credit. Or you need something expensive, like glasses, but can't pay, so you take advantage of a "no payments for 6 months" deal, only to discover that when the payments come due, the interest is 20 %. Sure, maybe you should have read the fine print, but with the clerk hovering over you and laying on the pressure, and a line forming behind you, you were embarrassed to spend half an hour squinting at the contract. Or, if you have the misfortune to have a credit card, you use it to buy food or take out a cash advance in a moment of weakness and can't pay it off. You pay 20 to 40 bucks for a bounced cheque.

Anyway, the list is endless, and I think that harping on about chicken wings is totally missing the point. That issue has everything to do with the writer's bad writing, and nothing to do with poverty. Nobody's out on the street because they bought too many chicken wings.

BTW, for those who are picking on the DMV guy, what makes you think he's telling the truth (the whole truth, and nothing but the truth) about the DL issue? Maybe he was overdrawn or something and didn't want to get into the details. "They won't treat me like a human" sounds like he's ****** off at the bank for some reason. I know that when I was ****** off at the bank, it was because they kept whopping me with fees. Once it was because they took a few more bucks than I was expecting on service fees, which made my rent check bounce, which made me have to pay the charge for that, plus the charge for a money order because the landlord wouldn't take my checks any more. I know, I know, that would NEVER have happened to you, right? You always know EXACTLY how much the service fee is for each transaction and make a mental note every time they hike it. But my point is, the banks are no better than the check-cashing places, and sometimes they are worse. IF you are poor. In the UK, they've been taken to court for bleeding the poor dry with service fees. I know people who have been squeezed to the tune of 800 to 1000 pounds over the course of a few years. This is because they were charging up to 40 pounds every time a person exceeds their overdraft, even by as much as a penny. This was their policy, instead of just making the card stop working when you run out of money like they do over here.

 

[Smoke]

Alright, but Cisco and Smoke, surely you can see that the issue you're going on about is the journalist's choice of examples, not the basic principle.

I agree, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

 

[Ciscokid]

Alright, but Cisco and Smoke, surely you can see that the issue you're going on about is the journalist's choice of examples, not the basic principle. Yes it's true I didn't get my food at the corner store (when I could afford food). But I didn't get it at Costco either. I got it at the cheapest shop I could walk to, because I had no car and couldn't afford the bus. And I didn't browse around for specials either, because usually I had less than ten bucks to work with. It's not like I was filling up a cart and could stock up on bacon just because it was half price.

This I agree on, I think while the writer was trying to show cases of how the poor are taken advantage of, she also showed how they shoot themselves in the foot at no fault but their own.

You DO pay more for things when you're poor. Not because you're stupid and lazy, but because you run into issues like the bank charging service fees only to people who can't keep a balance of a couple grand in the bank, and phone companies charging hundreds of dollars for a "deposit" to get connected because you have no credit.

I'm familiar with banks requiring balances for higher end accounts but I have a checking account that has no fees unless I bounce checks or whatever. What I have learned is that some banks won't operate in poor areas because they won't make the money they desire so therefore check-n-go type places show up instead.

Anyway, the list is endless, and I think that harping on about chicken wings is totally missing the point. That issue has everything to do with the writer's bad writing, and nothing to do with poverty. Nobody's out on the street because they bought too many chicken wings.

Again I agree I think the writer is a moron.

BTW, for those who are picking on the DMV guy, what makes you think he's telling the truth (the whole truth, and nothing but the truth) about the DL issue? Maybe he was overdrawn or something and didn't want to get into the details. "They won't treat me like a human" sounds like he's ****** off at the bank for some reason. I know that when I was ****** off at the bank, it was because they kept whopping me with fees.

I'm sure the guy wasn't being honest to some degree I mean his story didn't make sense.

Once it was because they took a few more bucks than I was expecting on service fees, which made my rent check bounce, which made me have to pay the charge for that, plus the charge for a money order because the landlord wouldn't take my checks any more. I know, I know, that would NEVER have happened to you, right? You always know EXACTLY how much the service fee is for each transaction and make a mental note every time they hike it. But my point is, the banks are no better than the check-cashing places, and sometimes they are worse. IF you are poor. In the UK, they've been taken to court for bleeding the poor dry with service fees. I know people who have been squeezed to the tune of 800 to 1000 pounds over the course of a few years. This is because they were charging up to 40 pounds every time a person exceeds their overdraft, even by as much as a penny. This was their policy, instead of just making the card stop working when you run out of money like they do over here.

You won't get an argument from me that financial institutions are often taking advantage of people and imposing absurd fee's.

I bounced a couple checks one time early this year because I wasn't paying attention and they charged me $36 per instance. I was pretty ticked off because it was the first time this happened since I've been a customer of a couple years and for god's sake why does the fee have to be $36, its seems unnecessarily high.

 

[Dunemeister]

Well obviously there are multiple views on this story and of course it's not fun reading about people who hardly make enough to survive. The bottom line is that I believe in being accountable for my choice and my actions so therefore I do the same to others.

It appears to me that man in the story was accountable. He put the most expensive and least nutritious items back. Beyond wagging a finger at him and berating him like Bill O'Reilly, what should we do to help this man and others like him?

As Smoke pointed out there are clearly incredibly bad choice these guys are making that while they certainly wouldn't be middle class if they corrected them, they wouldn't be as poor either.

No doubt the choices of the individuals are playing a role. But can't you see that there are a good many poor who, despite what choices they might make, are trapped being poor and there is literally no way out (and as a result, give up trying and therefore appear irresponsible)? And don't you see how the way we organize our economic and political systems contributes to, even causes this situation? And in the end, isn't THAT something we can do something about? After all, if the poor are making a few bad decisions, there's nothing we can do about that. But we CAN do something about the way our society functions.

But it's easier to shame people, so maybe we'd just leave it at that, eh?

 

[Ciscokid]

It appears to me that man in the story was accountable. He put the most expensive and least nutritious items back. Beyond wagging a finger at him and berating him like Bill O'Reilly, what should we do to help this man and others like him?

So if by chance he had just enough money to cover the costs he would have been 'accountable'? NO, he was not acting responsibly the very second he put chicken wings and whatever that wasn't necessary in his cart.

It comes down to two things [over simplifying I know] in my mind...education and personal responsibility. I dated a social worker for over a year...she spent a lot of time educating poor folks on how to write a resume, read / write, how to get jobs at factories and so forth where they can earn a wage much higher than minimum etc.

I would fund workshops and educational events to guide people on how to get the help they need. We are seeing in the ariticle that part of the problem is ignorance...education fights that.

No doubt the choices of the individuals are playing a role. But can't you see that there are a good many poor who, despite what choices they might make, are trapped being poor and there is literally no way out (and as a result, give up trying and therefore appear irresponsible)? And don't you see how the way we organize our economic and political systems contributes to, even causes this situation? And in the end, isn't THAT something we can do something about? After all, if the poor are making a few bad decisions, there's nothing we can do about that. But we CAN do something about the way our society functions.

I agree for the most part, I just don't believe in the "there's nothing I can do" mentality. It's a defeatist mindset and it's harmful. I do agree that we can do something to help, again I really think a lot of it comes down to education not necessarily hand outs or pity.

But it's easier to shame people, so maybe we'd just leave it at that, eh?

I never said there was no reason to be poor or that all poor folks were poor because of something they did. What I was focusing on was that clearly, the decisions we make in life [not forced on us] will impact us later on....whether those impacts are positive or negative are up to us.

It is still my opinion that while perhaps those gentlemen are originally poor for good reasons, they aren't helping themselves with some of their bad decisions. I mean the one guy paid his bill at the loan shark shop because "he didn't have time to mail it". Sorry dude, that's a bunch a BS and you know it.

 

[Dunemeister]

So if by chance he had just enough money to cover the costs he would have been 'accountable'? NO, he was not acting responsibly the very second he put chicken wings and whatever that wasn't necessary in his cart.

I see. So berating is the answer. Check.

It comes down to two things [over simplifying I know] in my mind...education and personal responsibility. I dated a social worker for over a year...she spent a lot of time educating poor folks on how to write a resume, read / write, how to get jobs at factories and so forth where they can earn a wage much higher than minimum etc.

Well, at least you acknowledge that you are oversimplifying. But if you acknowledge that, why do you stick to your admittedly oversimplistic analysis and "solution"?

However, at this point I should say that I DO agree with you that education is a small part of the overall answer. Unfortunately, it's not the whole answer. It's not even the whole answer when conjoined with the poor person being responsible. But then, you admit that thinking so is overly simplistic.

I would fund workshops and educational events to guide people on how to get the help they need. We are seeing in the ariticle that part of the problem is ignorance...education fights that.

What help? There's actually very little in the United States. Compare our situation with western Europe, where there is comparatively little poverty.

I agree for the most part, I just don't believe in the "there's nothing I can do" mentality. It's a defeatist mindset and it's harmful. I do agree that we can do something to help, again I really think a lot of it comes down to education not necessarily hand outs or pity.

First, the situation can and does get to the point where there's nothing you can do. It's not defeatest necessarily; it could be a sober judgment. But you'd have to actually live among and serve the poor to realize that. And not from the comfort of a bureaucrat's desk, either. I mean to live among them.

Second, why make a false dilemma of (a) do nothing or (b) educate them or (c) handouts/pity? Surely there are other options. Those other options, though, involve making large-scale systemic change, literally changing how we do business. But again, that sort of change is harder than berating (or educating) the poor.

I never said there was no reason to be poor or that all poor folks were poor because of something they did. What I was focusing on was that clearly, the decisions we make in life [not forced on us] will impact us later on....whether those impacts are positive or negative are up to us.

That's so not true I don't even know where to begin. The chips fall, my friend, and you have no control over where they fall. Period. Nadda. Zip. That's why it doesn't come down to individual decisions, it comes down to community life.

It is still my opinion that while perhaps those gentlemen are originally poor for good reasons, they aren't helping themselves with some of their bad decisions. I mean the one guy paid his bill at the loan shark shop because "he didn't have time to mail it". Sorry dude, that's a bunch a BS and you know it.

No, I don't. The poor have things to do. They have doctor's appointments (or more likely, visits to public health clinics that have long lineups), they have jobs to get to, they have children to care for, they have lives. So I don't know it's BS, and niether do you.

I point out once again that all your comments betray a lack of familiarity with the lives of people outside your socioeconomic class. You're behaving exactly like an old-fashioned aristocrat or nineteenth century capitalist. "Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?"

 

[Magic Man]

If you tell yourself you are going to fail, you probably will. If you tell yourself, "I have this obstacle ahead of me but it's no use, I can't make it" then welcome to failure.

Do you really think those who have been very poor have always stayed that way no matter what they did? There are immigrants who have made it in this country, talk about having the odds against you.

You just don't get it, do you? Of course, a lot of people don't keep that attitude. There's a reason they don't. It's because it doesn't usually work. Sometimes, lots of hard work can pay off, but not only because of the hard work, but also because of dumb luck. you simply can't get out of poverty without some luck. It's that simple. Sure, some immigrants make it, but many times it's because they have 3+ people helping pay the bills for a tiny apartment and when they start a business, they have their family as their employees, cutting down on their costs.

There are also plenty of immigrants who don't make it, as well as plenty of natives who don't. The difference is not hard work. The difference is luck.

 

[Ciscokid]

I see. So berating is the answer. Check.

Wait this is going way beyond making excuses for him, you're essentially telling me this guy is beyond reproach. I didn't realize his last name was Christ. Fine, this man is doing exactly what anyone would do, he's a model citizen...I beg forigveness for asking Him to be accountable for his actions. How can I live with myself now?

Well, at least you acknowledge that you are oversimplifying. But if you acknowledge that, why do you stick to your admittedly oversimplistic analysis and "solution"?

However, at this point I should say that I DO agree with you that education is a small part of the overall answer. Unfortunately, it's not the whole answer. It's not even the whole answer when conjoined with the poor person being responsible. But then, you admit that thinking so is overly simplistic.

Well it's a complex topic, there isn't a magic bullet that is going to fix everything, I just happen to favor starting with education.

What help? There's actually very little in the United States. Compare our situation with western Europe, where there is comparatively little poverty.

Help such as where I live if you don't make much your childrens medical needs are taken care of. Food stamps are pretty much everywhere if you qualify. I don't know what all the programs are in all areas but I know they're out there. For Christs sakes in Massachusetts they were [or maybe still are] handing out free used cars to people so they could get to work....if they decided they wanted back on welfare or whatever they KEPT THE CAR!

I guess if it were me I wouldn't wait around for others to figure things out for me, I get my *** on the street talking to a social worker finding out what services were available and how I could improve my life.

It sounds like somewhere in life the wind was really taken out of your sails...I'm sorry to hear that but don't act as if this is the case for everyone else as well.

You attack my thoughts but let's hear yours. What solutions do you see as viable? I'm going to wager it has to do with government programs am I right? Is there ANY onus on the people?

First, the situation can and does get to the point where there's nothing you can do.

Please don't ever take a position of leadership over young people.

That's so not true I don't even know where to begin. The chips fall, my friend, and you have no control over where they fall. Period. Nadda. Zip. That's why it doesn't come down to individual decisions, it comes down to community life.

Again, please don't ever take a position of authority or leadership over young minds.

No, I don't. The poor have things to do. They have doctor's appointments (or more likely, visits to public health clinics that have long lineups), they have jobs to get to, they have children to care for, they have lives. So I don't know it's BS, and niether do you.

Public health clinics? You mean clinics they don't have to pay for? I thought there wasn't any help out there!

If you can't mail an evelope [assuming a functioning body] you are INCOMPETENT. Tom Whittaker, an amputee, almost climbed the entire height of Mt. Everest and this guy can't mail a ****ing letter?

I point out once again that all your comments betray a lack of familiarity with the lives of people outside your socioeconomic class. You're behaving exactly like an old-fashioned aristocrat or nineteenth century capitalist. "Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?"

Whatever dude.

 

[Ciscokid]

You just don't get it, do you? Of course, a lot of people don't keep that attitude. There's a reason they don't. It's because it doesn't usually work. Sometimes, lots of hard work can pay off, but not only because of the hard work, but also because of dumb luck. you simply can't get out of poverty without some luck. It's that simple.

But what are you saying then? Are you going to work your *** off getting out of poverty or wait around for "luck"? Sitting on your sofa feeling sorry for yourself and saying "It's just bad luck I'm here" is NOT going to get you anywhere.

Sure, some immigrants make it, but many times it's because they have 3+ people helping pay the bills for a tiny apartment and when they start a business, they have their family as their employees, cutting down on their costs.

There are also plenty of immigrants who don't make it, as well as plenty of natives who don't. The difference is not hard work. The difference is luck.

Please don't ever take a position of authority or leadership over young people. This forum scares the **** out of me sometimes. I really can't believe I just read that.

 

[Alceste]

This I agree on, I think while the writer was trying to show cases of how the poor are taken advantage of, she also showed how they shoot themselves in the foot at no fault but their own.

I don't agree. You can't make that kind of generalization. She looked for people who appeared to be having a difficult time, from her middle-class, never-been-poor point of view. How did she spot them? Because they were trying to buy 50 bucks worth of groceries with 40 bucks at supermarket check-outs, or because they were wearing weird colour combinations in thrift stores. In other words, she's got just as many prejudices and makes as many assumptions about poverty as you do, and she failed to overcome them to get her point across. Frankly it would have been a better article if she'd just stuck with talking to sociologists at universities and not bothered with the whole "woman-on-the-street" schtick. She failed. Instead of telling a meaningful story about poverty she gave middle class people who have never been poor, like yourself, (and think they're too smart to ever be poor themselves) ammunition to blame the poor for their own struggles.

I'm familiar with banks requiring balances for higher end accounts but I have a checking account that has no fees unless I bounce checks or whatever. What I have learned is that some banks won't operate in poor areas because they won't make the money they desire so therefore check-n-go type places show up instead.

Yeah. "Unless you bounce checks".

I'm sure the guy wasn't being honest to some degree I mean his story didn't make sense.

I figured that out on my way to the train this morning. Assuming the ID story is true, he had already been to the bank, obviously, and they wouldn't cash his check. How else could he know the bank wouldn't accept his ID? Who knows why? Maybe the teller just didn't like the look of him, or of the check, so she found some reason to reject the ID he happened to have. That might sound implausible to you, but I've been turned away from the welfare office without a check because my passport had expired the week before. There's no rule about that, it was entirely her call, and she felt like being a punitive, difficult ***** that day. I know this, because I've since been an ID-checking bureaucrat myself. Not that I've ever sent someone away to starve because I decided ID that expired mere moments ago could no longer serve as proof of ID, but I know you have to make a judgment call sometimes and there's quite a lot of leeway.

You won't get an argument from me that financial institutions are often taking advantage of people and imposing absurd fee's.

Well, there you go. That's one thing we can change. They've had great success taking UK banks to the Office of Fair Trading to recover the extortionate fees they have been charging the poor for becoming overdrawn.

 

[Zephyr]

If you are poor it's probably your own fault and you deserve it.

 

[Reverend Rick]

The difference is not hard work. The difference is luck.

You make your own luck.

 

[Magic Man]

But what are you saying then? Are you going to work your *** off getting out of poverty or wait around for "luck"? Sitting on your sofa feeling sorry for yourself and saying "It's just bad luck I'm here" is NOT going to get you anywhere.

What does that have to do with anything? Sure, working hard is important if you're trying to get out of poverty. The point is that hard work in and of itself isn't the end all be all of getting out of poverty.

Please don't ever take a position of authority or leadership over young people. This forum scares the **** out of me sometimes.

That's funny. This would be my advice to you and my reaction. The difference is in my case, it's warranted.

I really can't believe I just read that.

I can't believe I just read this. Maybe you could explain why so many people who work hard and are smart about it don't get out of poverty. The difference, whether or not you want to see it, is luck. It's like getting into certain exclusive industries. you can be extremely good at what you do and work hard every day, but you don't get that one break you need.

Again, it's just like the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. Sure, Will Smith worked hard, but without a guy being nice and giving him a shot, he wouldn't have made it to where he did.

What do all of the people who have gotten out of poverty have in common? They got a break somewhere along the way. For many of them, it was a combination of that and hard work, but for others, it was just the break. What do all of the people who haven't gotten out of poverty have in common? They didn't catch a break. Many of them work hard, but still can't get ahead, and, yes, many of them don't work hard, which also factors in for them. Basically, you have two groups: one that made it out of poverty and one that didn't. The only single thing the one group doesn't have in common with the other is luck.

 

[Magic Man]

You make your own luck.

Keep telling yourself that. I'm sure it makes you feel better. It's not true, but at least you feel superior.

 

[Enlighten]

In the UK, they've been taken to court for bleeding the poor dry with service fees. I know people who have been squeezed to the tune of 800 to 1000 pounds over the course of a few years. This is because they were charging up to 40 pounds every time a person exceeds their overdraft, even by as much as a penny. This was their policy, instead of just making the card stop working when you run out of money like they do over here.

I can identify with this, I took on the bank and managed to get over 4,000 back in compensation for charges over a 3 year period, now I dont seem to get such charges to my account, unless I dont have sufficient funds but in this case it is my fault.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Some folks don't get a break in life until they are in their 40's. Some folks work hard without reward for 20 years. The problem with youth in America is, they think everything should come to them instantly. "I mean I have been fry cook for two weeks now, where is my break?"

 

[Magic Man]

Some folks don't get a break in life until they are in their 40's. Some folks work hard without reward for 20 years. The problem with youth in America is, they think everything should come to them instantly. "I mean I have been fry cook for two weeks now, where is my break?"

Yes, that's true. That's the problem with everyone other than you. You're right. No need to look at it except with broad generalizations. No need to realize that some people just don't get a break in life at all.

 

[Quagmire]

If you are poor it's probably your own fault and you deserve it.

So the people who just lost their 401ks, and/or got layed off, and/or lost their medical/dental benefits, and/or had their pensions suspended, and/or got evicted because their landlaords went into foreclosure,...these people had all this coming?

 

[Quagmire]

You make your own luck.

I believe that too, but I also believe this;

Ecclesiastes 9:11
I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

 

[Alceste]

But what are you saying then? Are you going to work your *** off getting out of poverty or wait around for "luck"? Sitting on your sofa feeling sorry for yourself and saying "It's just bad luck I'm here" is NOT going to get you anywhere.

Wow, do you ever not get it. What's wrong with being poor? I mean, who's to say the poor sit around feeling sorry for themselves any more often than the rich do? Any more often than you? I sure didn't. I was too busy writing books. My broke friends didn't either. They were busy painting, writing music and poetry, going to university, practicing flamenco guitar for 6 hours a day, putting on shows, making films. For me, and for all the rest of us, being broke kind of sucked, but it didn't suck half as much as working in MacDonalds would have sucked.

It's wildly arrogant of you to opine that me and my friends needed more education, or help with our CVs from people like you and your friends. We considered the option of spending our lives being told what to do for 40 hours of every week, and we rejected it. We had better things to do.

Idyllic as it all was for me, none of it in any way detracts from the observation that the cost of living is unfairly weighted against the poor. That's just a statement of fact. I don't see what the character and intelligence of individual poor people has to do with anything.

People like you and the writer of that article, want the poor to be miserable and depressed, so you can get a buzz off of your pity or contempt, depending on your inclinations. In those bohemian days, we felt pity and contempt for people like you. We rejected the materialism you unquestioningly embrace. We thought of you as a slave, and thought of ourselves as free. I'm not saying who really should be pitying who, just telling you how it was.

But so what? What does any of that have to do with the price of butter at the corner store, or the cost of bouncing a check? In a country less obsessed with material wealth, we'd each have had our own cave and a handful of devotees. In America, we have people like you shaking your heads and going "tsk tsk tsk - if only they weren't so stupid and lazy, they could have a mortgage and a student loan and a mind-numbing office job just like me".

FYI, I do have a mind-numbing office job, and to tell you the truth I'd rather be broke and working. By which I mean working on the unpaid work I was born to do, rather than wasting my time with this crap. I was right to pity people who live their whole lives like this, as far as I can see.