9 ms·
The Gentle Art of Poverty
- sorbus 16y agoFrom 1977, it's worth noting (or perhaps 1969, depending on whether you look at the text or the url).
- olalonde 16y agoI wish people would mention this when they submit. The text makes much more sense now!
- amadiver 16y agoSorry -- I'd thought of including it in the link title, but I'd had the realization that this was an old article about midway through, and for some reason it increased my satisfaction in reading it. The clues are all there - the prices are what gave it away for me.
- AngryParsley 16y agoThat explains why everything seemed so cheap. Adjusting for inflation, $2,000 in the early 70's is around $10,000 today.
- niels_olson 16y ago$7,205.02 http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
- gommm 16y agoAccording to this http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/the-gentle-art-of-poverty/64112/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/the-gent... it's from 1977 Edit: Interestingly, changing the year in the url still return the same page. So: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1977/10/the-gentle-art-of-poverty/8241/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1977/10/the-gent... http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1954/10/the-gentle-art-of-poverty/8241/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1954/10/the-gent... Both point to the same article
- gort 16y agoIn fact, much of the URL is meaningless: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1666/09/great-fire-of-london/8241/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1666/09/great-fire...
- russellallen 16y agoThe personal observations remind me of Orwell, but without his perspective - this author observes himself but does not rise above his observations as Orwell did in his similar descriptions of personal poverty.
- barrkel 16y agoThe unreliable narrator is its own observation for the reader. I can see him trapped in his pretensions, and it seems to me that it's clear to him too, but that he's unwilling to acknowledge it, and wallows in a form of cynical self-pity as a self-defense mechanism.
- sireat 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Aspidistra_Flying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Aspidistra_Flying was a book disowned by Orwell in later years (mostly because of editorial changes he was forced to make). Still, it is a good book to read on trappings of wealth and poverty.
- mbenjaminsmith 16y agoDown and Out in Paris and London is his best work on poverty in my opinion (also his first book). You live through every embarrassment, stolen meal and shitty job like they are your own.
- pigbucket 16y agoEvery once in a while a discussion of poverty comes up on HN and provokes typically two kinds of responses: The poor are deserving of their lot, lacking the necessary wherewithal to get up off their asses and take responsibility for their lives; or, the poor are trapped by circumstances in a life not of their choosing and deserve whatever assistance we can give them to help them cope with their lot. This article tells the kind of unexpected story that, when you think about it, should have been expected all along. The poor, like the rich, and everyone in between, are not a homogeneous bunch of people that fit neatly into any predetermined category. This is a story of how a smart person learned how to be a smart poor person, learned, in effect, how to hack the life of poverty, and in a way that demands from me a certain amount of respect for the sheer skill and will involved, if not for the ethical character of all the actions such "hacking" entails; but it is also the story of a person who became disillusioned with his way of life. At that point, reading the story, considering how eloquently written, if how poorly edited, it was, I expected a tale of redemption, a tale of a man finding a new job as a writer, lifting himself up by his bootstraps, returning to the American dream, a tale that would end with a predictable heartfelt plea for understanding and compassion. Instead, the story ends with his being still depressed, but in a situation all the more unsure just for his proud refusal to play the system. I don't know that I have a point here, except to say that the story brings home more clearly than any other I have read on this matter that the poor are a many-colored, heterogeneous group, and stock responses, of whatever stamp, and of a type all too common on HN, are almost sure to fail to be answerable to the complexities of poverty.
- kiba 16y agoI recalled from my history class that the Georgia colony was originally founded for the "worthy" poor. So they made distinction between the kind of poor. There are some poor who deserve their lot in life and those who don't. However, I think being poor is not alway as simple as people like to make it. Sometime, growing up poor meant adopting ideas and values that make it much harder to rise out of poverty. I recalled a book that for example said that middle class women read much more to their children and emphasize effort over "rightness", ask questions to their children about what they read. The poor were more likely to be authoritarian in character, less likely to do the kind of educational reading that a middle class woman did, and so on. The effect is so large, that it even persists over generations. If you have poor parents that did everything in their power to educate you as an autodidact, than you and your family would rise out of poverty quick. However, it is probable that all our families face bottleneck. We aren't exactly optimized to make our children the most ambitious, smartest, and autodidact as we can. I myself have parents that didn't exactly encourage the kind of ambitious and curiosity that I have right now. It was my own innate and the computer that I used. During the time when I still used AOL, I would look up encyclopedia article and educate myself about the various topics that interests me. Eventually I would learn programming and a fair amount about certain obscure subjects, IP and innovation theory being one of them. Oddly enough, I recalled my past IQ to be around 90, below average. I tested myself at a few IQ site several weeks ago and it returns somewhat above average. I supposed I am not so smart as much as I am innately curious. Apart from the real and likely accurate probability that human memory are easily corrupted, my curiosity probably drive my IQ above average.
- WildUtah 16y agoHoly cow that is a well written little piece on depression and poverty. And inflation. Look at those prices. More interestingly, imagine that there was a a time when basic nutrition in San Diego cost about twice as much as a cheap apartment. Today, the cheapest possible apartment would cost $500+ a month and you can still feed yourself comfortably (without ripping off senior centers) for $150-200 a month in San Diego. So the price of housing as compared to food has risen ten-fold. That says a lot about the changes in values and industry over the past 40 years. I'm glad to see it recommended here.
- dhyasama 16y agoHow do you feed yourself for 50 cents a day with anything approaching a balanced diet? You'd have to be incredible frugal to make one nutritious meal for 50 cents, let alone three. I know beans and rice are cheap, especially in bulk, but if that's all you eat then your health will surely suffer.
- tinotopia 16y agoYou have a decimal-point problem. $150/30 is $5 a day; it's entirely possible to eat quite well on that.
- krschultz 16y agoI think a lot of people don't realize how cheap food can be. I average $400 - $500 a month on food, and I buy for myself and my girlfriend. We eat steak, fish, chicken, meatballs, something good every single night. I never even look at prices in the grocery store, I just buy whatever it is I want to buy and it comes out to that amount. If I could spend $800 on food at the grocery store in a month I wouldn't mind, I just don't know what I'm missing out on. The only thing we don't do is go out to eat, or drink much. We went out for our anniversary the other night and blew $100 on a dinner for two, for a meal I probably could have made myself if I had put my mind to it. That was the first time we ate at a restaurent in probably 3 months, and it was 20-25% of our monthly food budget for 1 dinner. I enjoyed my food but I couldn't help but think, I could eat filet mignon every single night this week and it would be just as good for this same amount of money. Not to mention the $10.50 martini that cost them $1 to make, or the beer I had that cost more than a six pack of nice local beer. So don't eat out, learn how to cook, and suddenly $5-15 a day is plenty to eat like a king.
- ccollins 16y agoI was really curious to know the amounts of money the author was talking about in 2010 terms. His annual income was $1980 + $168.75 = $2148.75, which was 6% of "what I earned in my prime..." So, 100 / 6 * 2148.75 = $35,812.5 annual income The article was written in either 1977 or 1969 (see comment by sorbus), so let's guess his highest salary was earned in either 1965 or 1975. Using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation calculator (http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm), income during his prime in 2010 dollars was somewhere between $145,321.53 (1975) and $248,199.95 (1965) Depending on when he wrote this article, his retirement income was somewhere between $7,740.89 (1977) and $12,781.96 (1969) Long story short, the author took a 95% hit to his income in "retirement" (~$200k -> ~$10k in 2010 dollars)
- corin_ 16y agoHang on... You read that his retirement left him with 94% of his old income... then you did some loose maths to inflate the two amounts to today's money... then you wrote a conclusion to your comment saying that he took a hit of 95%. Errr, what? Thanks for giving a rough idea of what his money was in modern terms, but your "long story short" was actually a longer version of what he had already said, and somehow less accurate.
- barrkel 16y agoThe contribution of the grandparent was putting some kind of real dollars on the income extremes.
- gaius 16y agoDon't forget the divorce - his ex-wife probably got the property, the savings, etc, leaving him destitute.
- gagi 16y agoNotice how, more than once, the man refuses a well paying job because it is difficult to do, but also does so with the understanding that enduring that hardship would lift him out of poverty. Notice how, instead of honorable thriftiness and hard work, the man relies on taking advantage of the system and other peoples' hard work. It's not romantic to acknowledge this, but it is the truth. I'm hard pressed to find some thing which I can learn from this man.
- barrkel 16y agoTo what end? Why would he do that? To die marginally wealthier than he is now?
- abcxyz 16y agoTo not be a parasite on society. Unless you seriously believe that morality has no value?
- barrkel 16y agoI don't think being poor and availing oneself of charity is immoral, no. I also suspect that this guy has paid a fair share of taxes in his better years; I doubt he's actually a parasite on net.
- krschultz 16y agoSo you are saying he has a moral obligation to not make use of the charity offered that he spent his entire life paying into? Most people would argue everyone else has a moral obligation to not let our veterans starve to death after they paid taxes their whole lives, especially when you consider how little his existence actually costs us.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoAnd that, right there, is the cause of poverty in America, both for this guy and for most present day poor. The poor have their needs met. Once you reach that level, why spend precious leisure time just to become marginally wealthier?
- hardik 16y agoI would be really interested to know what happened to him
- johnaspden 16y agohe died
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Maro 16y agoThe main message of this post to me was that if you're above 60 you can live off gov't welfare if you know where to go, and this is enough to keep you off the streets (not sleep in a box). I wonder what this story would have been like if he were 45 years old.
- ido 16y agoAssuming he didn't have a disability not recognized by the welfare system (living with a recognized disability presumably grants similar opportunities to being old), if he was 45 years old he would have probably found a (perhaps menial) job.
- durbin 16y agoWritten October 1977
- lelele 16y agoWhy does the URL of the archive at the bottom of the page shows "1969", then?
- hackermom 16y agoIs he claiming that he actually has, in his own words, an ANNUAL TOTAL of $1980+$168.75 ($179/mo), with no wellfare in the picture, or is it implied that these are the monthly pension payouts?
- maxawaytoolong 16y agoThat is the annual total. The article is from 1979.
- bhavin 16y agoPerhaps, it won't make sense to many of you, but I am really curious as to what happened to this person afterwards he wrote this article. What path in life he followed... any body can help finding out? Googling his name didnt yield anything relevant yet.
- dhyasama 16y agoIt's important to remember that some people are poor by choice, e.g., dropped out or just lazy, some are poor by circumstance, e.g., mental illness, addiction, disabled, and some are poor by a combination of the two and everything in between. I used to have a different view of the world. It seemed if someone like me, from a lower middle class family could go to college and pay for it myself without much trouble then why can't everyone? Stop complaining and just do it, right? My girlfriend of seven years has spent most of her adult life working with the homeless. Long talks with her, events at homeless centers, and the occasional talk with one of her clients has changed my views. Yes, there are some people who are pretty rotten and all to happy to work the system. Most people are not like that though. Imagine trying to study if you're bat shit crazy. I've met people who will only sleep in chairs because they think beds are where "they" shoot you with lasers. Ever been addicted to meth or heroin? Try finding the fortitude to enroll in school while fighting that battle. Fractured your spine in a car accident while you where unemployed? Try gutting out that pain and getting a job. Parents beat you, sexually abused you, told you you're shit every day? Well buck up and get on with your life son! This is the land of opportunity! I can only imagine how difficult life is for many people. I come from a privileged world, one without endless money, but endless love and encouragement, where going to college was never questioned, just assumed. That type of upbringing opens doors. It's important to remember that.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoEver been addicted to meth or heroin? I've managed to avoid that by not actively going out, asking friends where I can get meth/heroin from, approaching a person I believe to be a meth/heroin dealer, trading money for meth/heroin, putting it into a bong, lighting it, inhaling, and repeating until addicted. I have great sympathy for the disabled and mentally ill. While we do a tolerable job of taking care of the disabled, our mental health system sucks. But you really undermine your point by including people who deliberately went out of their way to fuck up their life.
- imfallingapart 16y agoSome "fucks up" their life with drugs because at some poit they tried to evade some things. You do not always deliberately fuck your life with drugs sometime you think your life is so fucked up that drugs can't make things worse even if indeed they do but you're past beyond reason
- ngvrnd 16y agoA wrenching story of bad memes and their long term outcomes? Not sure what to make of it. Poor bastard seems to end up making a profoundly nihilistic statement -- life is pointless and the only thing to do is get off the bus.
- thyrsus 16y agoI wonder at the many comments here that missed or ignored that the article's author was diagnosed with depression. That's a chronic and debilitating disease, only marginally better medicated now than in 1977. It does not deprive the sufferer of wit, interest, intelligence, craft or any other human value, as the article amply demonstrates.