delet... Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 Delet: The margin of error would not be that slim if people realized they just can't afford things like other people around them (America seems to be afflicted with this "keeping up with the Joneses attitude" where everyone thinks they can afford what they see their neighbors possessing and/or doing This is a cliché that becons to the just aboves. The idea of mcmansions sits well with those just above that. Reality puts paid to this foul disease of the mind. Over the past 35 years, economic growth has only benifited the top 10%. Lately the top 1%. Wages have remained stagnent. Jobs available have transitioned from Full time with benefits, to casual with none. And whenever you hear about job growth, it's usually a casual employee taking on a second (or third) job. Or it's after the christmas quarter (i love it when they drag out this lie). Most people are the same as they have ever been, and live within their means. But unfortunately life intercedes and they have medical bills and kids, and rent. ! Hence credit card bills etc. Have some sympathy or join the devil. good ol delete spewing delusional bullshit all around: and also this: http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/USA.html inequality is on the rise as well and it's a tricky beast, but it doesn't mean that the quality/standard of life of the low classes is decreasing or stagnant. lol you just proved my point dorklord. Not that i expect you to understnad how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugene Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 do you even understand what these graphs mean, what hdi consists of ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goDel Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 i don't understand how we do it either. [youtubehd]QPKKQnijnsM[/youtubehd] Incredible. Tearjerking incredible. That graph needs an atom bomb to be reconfigured to where it should be. Or just kill off the 1% entirely or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmanyo Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Being poor isn't so bad so long as you can afford to eat and get healthcare. That second one is the biggest problem for the poor in the United States. When I was young, my parents were pretty well off, upper middle class, but when my sister started to get consistent headaches my father was afraid to take her to the hospital because if she had something bad it would have destroyed our whole family because at the time we were in some weird insurance situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adieu Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Medical bills = bankruptcy. I told my mom if I ever get sick to let me die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyrex Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 I think you misunderstood me - I don't think the poor in general are the problem, but rather those who abuse the welfare system are. Undoubtedly the top 1% and the gross inequality in their wealth vs. what they pay back to society is the real issue - the problem is, the people with the gold are making the rules, and until we get more leaders that are not part of the elite, society (anywhere) will never change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoA Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Redistribute the wealth and land every fifty years and forgive all debts every seven years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimpyLoo Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 I think you misunderstood me - I don't think the poor in general are the problem, but rather those who abuse the welfare system are. Undoubtedly the top 1% and the gross inequality in their wealth vs. what they pay back to society is the real issue - the problem is, the people with the gold are making the rules, and until we get more leaders that are not part of the elite, society (anywhere) will never change. Sounds good to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awesomeperson Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Being poor in america is being rich elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 I'd like to believe that it's not so much the 1% but what people refer to as the 'super rich' which would be closer to the .1 or .01% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
essines Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 I love union bashing. I'd be fucked if i had to understand it but i do think it is hilarious. Also very annoying. I've managed to secure a good job after dropping out of university. I make more now than i would have if i had finished my degree and went on to get a job in the appropriate field. I'm as happy as I could hope to be with my job but I am unable to compare it to anything I may want to be doing for work as I have never done it and I don't know what it is. I have no debt and I have healthcare (thank fuck for that). My union gets me benefits so I can take a holiday and cover the cost of my insulin. I also lived in a city where my rent, for a couple hundred square feet of room, was $800 and the only job i could find was the same ol' "not enough hours to qualify for full time employment" deal. I had to pay (very little, thankfully) for medical supplies. I was grossly underpaid and under appreciated for my work. There are cities around with cheaper rent but once one becomes less fruitful (especially due to life circumstance) the possibility of moving from one town to another diminishes significantly. I wasn't being lazy, i was not completely unqualified, i didn't use welfare assistance. I just tried to get a job and work it to pay the bills. I was starving and had to borrow money. this is in canada. our system is fucked. i have no idea about the states. i am lucky i managed to fall in to the job i have now. I guess my point is that people can try as hard as they fucking want and sometimes it doesn't fucking matter. sometimes you get lucky. mostly you're just fucked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YO303 Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Warning: What I'm about to say is not bragging, i'm just going to say what i'm going say for the purpose of this thread. I make 10.50 an hour, i have a macbook pro, x-box 360 and pay 30 dollars a month gym membership, i live comfortably and i consider myself poor (i have debts, cant go to college and i'm barely able to save money ). There is a way to live comfortably as a poor person but you have to sacrifice having a family and taking loans to buy cars and houses, under my current financial situation i would never have a kid or buy a house because i know it will sink me into an even deeper hole. You gotta be smart and you have to understand your situation, analyze it and make calculated and smart decisions. Edit: Totally unrelated advice, make your part-time job to figure out how not to be poor (and if possible not to be poor by doing the thing you love) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraveGlitcher Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 this is in canada. our system is fucked. i have no idea about the states. this and also this There is a way to live comfortably as a poor person but you have to sacrifice having a family and taking loans to buy cars and houses, under my current financial situation i would never have a kid or buy a house because i know it will sink me into an even deeper hole. You gotta be smart and you have to understand your situation, analyze it and make calculated and smart decisions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimpyLoo Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Warning: What I'm about to say is not bragging, i'm just going to say what i'm going say for the purpose of this thread. I make 10.50 an hour, i have a macbook pro, x-box 360 and pay 30 dollars a month gym membership, i live comfortably and i consider myself poor (i have debts, cant go to college and i'm barely able to save money ). There is a way to live comfortably as a poor person but you have to sacrifice having a family and taking loans to buy cars and houses, under my current financial situation i would never have a kid or buy a house because i know it will sink me into an even deeper hole. You gotta be smart and you have to understand your situation, analyze it and make calculated and smart decisions. Edit: Totally unrelated advice, make your part-time job to figure out how not to be poor (and if possible not to be poor by doing the thing you love) Or you could take a look at the system that is subjugating you. Just a thought. Maybe livable wages is the real concern, and not people "living beyond their means" (e.g. trying to have a family). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuatxuk Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 I'd like to believe that it's not so much the 1% but what people refer to as the 'super rich' which would be closer to the .1 or .01% This. Also, perhaps it's amplified in America, but so much dumbed-down economic rhetoric is based off generalizations and resentment to certain groups - whether it be unions versus "right-to-work" laws, the claim that all people on welfare are lazy versus the claim all well-off people are greedy. It perpetually stands in the way of any substantive and remotely steady progress being made by our government. As long as people feel like they can blame one group with very simplified thinking they ignore the big picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goDel Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Deer, thanks for speaking up, but i'm afraid I have going to be a bit blunt. It's great you've managed to find a balance within your current means, but if having a family, or some other stuff you'd expect a middle class household to have and be like, is not an option, there is a problem. Even though it might not be urgent in your situation, there comes a moment where people/ you want to have a family. And that desire might be big enough to skip you xbox360 and your gym (even if it doesnt feel like right now). And although it might not look rational to you now, there comes a moment where these family-needs make it seem rational to start a family even though you are not financially safe to have one. Perhaps I'm choosing my words poorly, but the point is that stuff like raising a family is such a fundamental part of life, and a drive to have one can grow so strong, odds are that there will be a point people in general start one even though they rationally know they couldnt keep up the finances. (at that point in their life it will look like it might add up even if the math doesn't actually add up, btw. Or as people say, love makes blind) And this is one of the points which makes me cringe a bit every time someone says people trying to live a life beyond their means (and needing welfare) are part of the problem. They reason from a place safe from those primal desires with a "rational" state of mind. And from that "rational" state, those problematic welfare people can look pretty fucking stupid, even if there's some intrinsic human drive at work. Looking at those graphs the conclusion is, imo, that the us society does not allow everyone to have a - supposedly - normal life where they can have a decent job and raise a family in some decent way (look at the % of people below the poverty line). And to people thinking other people living in some distant 3rd world country, raising a family with less money, can be an valid argument to put the "poor" in the US still ahead of those people, I 'd warn you not to compare apples with oranges. Living in the us just takes more money. In a "rich" society everything costs more. And if that richness is defined by the average, which it tends to be, and if the median is well below the average, which is obviously the case in the US, there is a serious problem because a lot of people are not able to pay what having a relatively normal life costs in the US. ( point being the costs of having a normal life - raising a family - of a 3rd world country will be well below that of the US, so a direct comparison can't be drawn) Sorry for stating the obvious here, but some of the posts seem to ignore those points, I guess. So I'm throwing them out here anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guyd Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Being poor in the US is highly based on your location. For me, living in NYC completely drains me of my income. Between rent, utilities, loans, and other bills, I barely have enough dough to spend on myself. I think one of the main issues is for people to sacrifice what they "want" over what they "need." I make an OK salary (in NYC, it is shit), but I am still able to pay rent, have good credit, and have a little extra to go out maybe once or twice a month. However, I am working a full time job, have a part time gig bouncing twice a month, and go to school part time, so my free time is extremely limited. While I could sit here and bitch about it, I'd rather accept the fact that I choose to live in this city and be busy, and this is what it takes to get by around here. I know my friend who lives in the mid-west has a nice ass one bedroom that he live in by himself and lives a hell of that lot more comfortable then I do. While i envy this, I would probably go on a killing spree if i lived in the midwest, thus, i choose to live a less luxurious life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goDel Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Afterthought: if you'd want to make international/interregional comparisons a good indicator would be the % of kids living below povertyline. Where the level of the povertyline is calculated for each individual region (instead of some aggregated average interregional level) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azatoth Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Warning: What I'm about to say is not bragging, i'm just going to say what i'm going say for the purpose of this thread. I make 10.50 an hour, i have a macbook pro, x-box 360 and pay 30 dollars a month gym membership, i live comfortably and i consider myself poor (i have debts, cant go to college and i'm barely able to save money ). There is a way to live comfortably as a poor person but you have to sacrifice having a family and taking loans to buy cars and houses, under my current financial situation i would never have a kid or buy a house because i know it will sink me into an even deeper hole. You gotta be smart and you have to understand your situation, analyze it and make calculated and smart decisions. Edit: Totally unrelated advice, make your part-time job to figure out how not to be poor (and if possible not to be poor by doing the thing you love) What would happen if you would end up in an accident that would require an extended hospital stay and perhaps surgery? Or that you would get chronic disease requiring medication for the rest of your life or cancer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YO303 Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 @azatoth: I would be fucked, i have the option to apply charity care but an illness that would keep me not able to work would probably make my life even more miserable. I already have medical debt but i cant pay it so when the bill comes in the mail i just rip it in half and trow it away (i know its a stupid thing to do but i cant pay those bills) Thats why i said make it your part time job to find ways to better yourself, i dont expect to be this way my whole life. With my post i didnt meant you could be poor (and live comfortable) your whole life, i think what i was saying is that while you figure stuff out you could live comfortably if you make the right decisions. Warning: What I'm about to say is not bragging, i'm just going to say what i'm going say for the purpose of this thread. I make 10.50 an hour, i have a macbook pro, x-box 360 and pay 30 dollars a month gym membership, i live comfortably and i consider myself poor (i have debts, cant go to college and i'm barely able to save money ). There is a way to live comfortably as a poor person but you have to sacrifice having a family and taking loans to buy cars and houses, under my current financial situation i would never have a kid or buy a house because i know it will sink me into an even deeper hole. You gotta be smart and you have to understand your situation, analyze it and make calculated and smart decisions. Edit: Totally unrelated advice, make your part-time job to figure out how not to be poor (and if possible not to be poor by doing the thing you love) Or you could take a look at the system that is subjugating you. Just a thought. Maybe livable wages is the real concern, and not people "living beyond their means" (e.g. trying to have a family). And what do you want me to do vote another fucking cunt into office? I can't spend my whole life fighting this god damn system, i want to make the best of it and try to enjoy life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichieBees Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 poor people (or women, or minotiries or whoever) stop complaining! being [whoever] in [developed country] is nowhere near as bad as it would be for [whoever] in [shithole country] so stop complaiing jesus ! BOOTSTRAPS PPL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friendly Foil Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 People are starving in Africa, so you're not allowed to complain about anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichieBees Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 People are starving in Africa, so you're not allowed to complain about anything. fuck u mom im not eating this bullshit mac and cheese /goes to room and listens to linkin park Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyrex Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Redistribute the wealth and land every fifty years and forgive all debts every seven years. That wouldn't work, because people would just live care-free and irresponsibly every seven years, and the wash their hands of it, whereas society would be left holding the bag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyrex Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 @azatoth: I would be fucked, i have the option to apply charity care but an illness that would keep me not able to work would probably make my life even more miserable. I already have medical debt but i cant pay it so when the bill comes in the mail i just rip it in half and trow it away (i know its a stupid thing to do but i cant pay those bills) Thats why i said make it your part time job to find ways to better yourself, i dont expect to be this way my whole life. With my post i didnt meant you could be poor (and live comfortable) your whole life, i think what i was saying is that while you figure stuff out you could live comfortably if you make the right decisions. Warning: What I'm about to say is not bragging, i'm just going to say what i'm going say for the purpose of this thread. I make 10.50 an hour, i have a macbook pro, x-box 360 and pay 30 dollars a month gym membership, i live comfortably and i consider myself poor (i have debts, cant go to college and i'm barely able to save money ). There is a way to live comfortably as a poor person but you have to sacrifice having a family and taking loans to buy cars and houses, under my current financial situation i would never have a kid or buy a house because i know it will sink me into an even deeper hole. You gotta be smart and you have to understand your situation, analyze it and make calculated and smart decisions. Edit: Totally unrelated advice, make your part-time job to figure out how not to be poor (and if possible not to be poor by doing the thing you love) Or you could take a look at the system that is subjugating you. Just a thought. Maybe livable wages is the real concern, and not people "living beyond their means" (e.g. trying to have a family). And what do you want me to do vote another fucking cunt into office? I can't spend my whole life fighting this god damn system, i want to make the best of it and try to enjoy life. RE: Medical debt - as long as you show you're willing to pay something (even 5 dollars a month), they really can't touch you - I don't know if they can affect your credit (I don't think so since it's not non-payment if you at least try and pay something) or not, but you might look into it. Certainly don't ignore those bills - you're setting yourself up for headaches down the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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