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I wasn't disputing that the poor might pay more as a fraction of income, merely that they pay more in absolute terms. It would be surprising if that weren't tru

I wasn't disputing that the poor might pay more as a fraction of income, merely that they pay more in absolute terms. It would be surprising if that weren't true, given all the people with consumption >> income. You are probably right about lending, however. The poor tend to not pay their debts and that will drive up the cost of lending to them.

bane 11y ago
Well of course they pay less in absolute terms, they have less money. They absolutely pay more for an equal amount of equal quality items. Let's say a pack of cigarettes is $7. In poor areas you can often find "singles" or "loosys" for sale at $.50-$1. They're exactly what they sound like, single cigarettes. Usually the store owner just opens up a pack and sells each cigarette individually. Poor people with little money will buy the singles and thus 20 singles will cost $10-$20. This isn't something I'm making up, this actually happens in poor areas. Often times there's not even a store owner and it's just an individual trying to make some quick money and turn a profit (this is what Eric Garner was trying to do, sell loosies at a markup). You can go on endlessly with this kind of thing. If you can imagine a packaged product, it's probably being split up and sold as singles at a higher price with respect to the packaged price, and almost always in poor areas. I've even seen stores that seem to make a racket out of buying stuff in bulk from Costco, breaking up the package and selling singles for 2-5x the original price. Shelf after shelf of Kirkland signature bottled water, toilet paper, detergent etc. Poor people don't have Costco memberships even if getting the membership and just buying non-perishables in bulk would save them money in aggregate. The store had a whole repackaging operation in back where the singles would be rewrapped in new shrinkwrap, but they didn't bother removing the label.

bane 11y ago

Well of course they pay less in absolute terms, they have less money. They absolutely pay more for an equal amount of equal quality items. Let's say a pack of cigarettes is $7. In poor areas you can often find "singles" or "loosys" for sale at $.50-$1. They're exactly what they sound like, single cigarettes. Usually the store owner just opens up a pack and sells each cigarette individually. Poor people with little money will buy the singles and thus 20 singles will cost $10-$20. This isn't something I'm making up, this actually happens in poor areas. Often times there's not even a store owner and it's just an individual trying to make some quick money and turn a profit (this is what Eric Garner was trying to do, sell loosies at a markup). You can go on endlessly with this kind of thing. If you can imagine a packaged product, it's probably being split up and sold as singles at a higher price with respect to the packaged price, and almost always in poor areas. I've even seen stores that seem to make a racket out of buying stuff in bulk from Costco, breaking up the package and selling singles for 2-5x the original price. Shelf after shelf of Kirkland signature bottled water, toilet paper, detergent etc. Poor people don't have Costco memberships even if getting the membership and just buying non-perishables in bulk would save them money in aggregate. The store had a whole repackaging operation in back where the singles would be rewrapped in new shrinkwrap, but they didn't bother removing the label.