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> It is not far-fetched for her to spend 2-3 hours to save a $1 on something. That's not a far-fetched thing for a poor person to do. $1 can buy a can of beans

> It is not far-fetched for her to spend 2-3 hours to save a $1 on something. That's not a far-fetched thing for a poor person to do. $1 can buy a can of beans and add nutrition to an otherwise hungry day. > Meaning that she needs to evaluate the opportunity cost of saving a dollar versus spending 2-3 hours to save that dollar. Opportunities aren't unlimited, and the closer to poverty one is the shorter their term. So she needs short term opportunities that beat $1 savings for the 2-3 hour period. Short term here means the amount of time it would take her to spend the saved $1-- let's be optimistic and say two days. What do you have for her that beats the $1 savings and beats it with the same (or better)predictability of success as searching for deals? edit: clarification

lighttower 9y ago
Your comment is good. The relevant question is what can I do right now to make money? Maybe Mechanical Turk? (can you make $1 in 2 hours?). The abundance of human potential sitting idle agonizes me.
- jancsika 9y ago
  Yes, I think you're right-- MT might be a better use of that time. But then, how many other opportunities look very similar to MT but turn out to be scams? What damage can be done by taking out a payday loan? I think another way to put what I wrote is that opportunity costs are a luxury one can afford once one has saved enough to move on from focusing solely on catastrophic costs like losing food, shelter, electricity, etc. OP's friend probably started searching for deals because it returned predictable savings and-- most importantly-- carried very little risk. The fact that she's filling lots of idle time with the same behavior is evidence of her poverty as she is probably not able to take on any greater risk for fear of catastrophic failure. Thus it is suspicious when the OP analyzes only in terms of opportunity costs. It would be more persuasive to convey ideas in terms of catastrophic risk. But that's a more difficult problem to address and an area where the OP-- like most people-- has little expertise.

lighttower 9y ago

Your comment is good. The relevant question is what can I do right now to make money? Maybe Mechanical Turk? (can you make $1 in 2 hours?). The abundance of human potential sitting idle agonizes me.

jancsika 9y ago
Yes, I think you're right-- MT might be a better use of that time. But then, how many other opportunities look very similar to MT but turn out to be scams? What damage can be done by taking out a payday loan? I think another way to put what I wrote is that opportunity costs are a luxury one can afford once one has saved enough to move on from focusing solely on catastrophic costs like losing food, shelter, electricity, etc. OP's friend probably started searching for deals because it returned predictable savings and-- most importantly-- carried very little risk. The fact that she's filling lots of idle time with the same behavior is evidence of her poverty as she is probably not able to take on any greater risk for fear of catastrophic failure. Thus it is suspicious when the OP analyzes only in terms of opportunity costs. It would be more persuasive to convey ideas in terms of catastrophic risk. But that's a more difficult problem to address and an area where the OP-- like most people-- has little expertise.