4 ms·

This is an extremely reductive view of rich-vs.-poor. By "reductive" I don't mean wrong, per se -- just that there can be an awful lot more to how much wealth o

This is an extremely reductive view of rich-vs.-poor. By "reductive" I don't mean wrong, per se -- just that there can be an awful lot more to how much wealth one has than one's beliefs about What To Do With Money. For years of my life I was, if not precisely "poor," simply not making enough to save a material amount of money. I was nearly 30 before I got the first job that paid me $25K a year. I was not, IIRC, in serious debt then, but savings had never been an option before then -- and what I used those newfound riches to do was move out of the apartment I'd been living in, in an area of Tampa known as "Suitcase City" due to its transient population. (It was also known for high levels of crime.) I still wasn't able to save until that same job's salary was "readjusted for the market" to a whopping $36K. There are things I didn't know then, sure; the company I was at had a 401(k) plan and I contributed to it, but I wasn't contributing at any higher level than the company matched. When my salary hit (gasp) $50K, that was almost certainly a mistake, but I didn't know that. When I was laid off I had maybe $10K in savings and another ~$15K in investment. By some standards I was still poor, but it was not because I "saw money as something to be spent buying more things" -- it was in part because I didn't know much about the best ways to save for retirement, but in part because I just wasn't making a whole lot of money. Rich people certainly "see money as capital to create more opportunities with," but heartwarming anecdotes about grocery baggers who became multimillionaires notwithstanding, statistically speaking, rich people also tend to hit relatively high incomes pretty quickly in life. (They also are likely to come from similarly rich families, which matters more than we often like to admit.)

hello_moto 7y ago
His "reductive view" of rich vs poor is an answer to a very specific statement regarding Lottery winner and Sports Athletes which has been discussed many times with the same conclusion: they're just not good at managing money.
- umvi 7y ago
  Right, and how can you expect them to be? If you throw a bunch of money into a poor person's lap, it's not like they magically have the knowledge and know how to invest it. This is one argument against UBI - money increase alone isn't enough, the knowledge increase needs to come from somewhere as well, and that's not something you can get in the mail.
  - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
    That's actually argument _for_ UBI -- knowledge at managing money comes from having any money to manage. (Unless you teach that in school, but that would be way too sensible)
    - umvi 7y ago
      There is a certain amount of knowledge that comes from the experience of managing money, yes. But also, the financial world has a lot of jargon and pitfalls that are aren't exactly easy to learn, especially as a high school dropout with no math background and no educated parents to turn to for help. The _truth_ about UBI is that a lot of poor people's UBI is going to get completely eaten by predatory opportunists and then they will be in the same situation they are in. What they lack is mentorship. Without mentorship from people good at managing money, UBI (I predict) will not help the poor as much as you think - it will mainly help the educated middle class. For example, there is a (poor, uneducated) lady in my church receiving the equivalent of UBI from the state of Maryland. However, despite "having money to manage" she has not spontaneously gained knowledge in managing money. I sat down with her once to help see if there was something more she could be doing to stop being in crisis mode all the time, and it was insane how many "bills" she was paying that weren't even real bills. There's this dark network of predators out there that send out mail with a red stamp that says "Payment Due by 1/22/2020". It looks like a bill. But if you read closely, it's actually not a bill but some home security service they are trying to trick you into buying. An educated person tears it up and throws it away. An uneducated person thinks it's a bill to pay and loses a fraction of their UBI. Another fraction of her UBI was going toward utilities she wasn't even using. One bill was nearly $70 from Comcast for cable TV, but I pointed out that she didn't even own a TV. We freed up nearly $200/month that day just by cancelling services she wasn't using and throwing away fake bills. > Unless you teach that in school, but that would be way too sensible Schools didn't used to have to teach you every basic skill needed to thrive in society. You could pick those up on your own if you are motivated, or through your parents.
      - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
        But I expect a lot will not, and if a certain percentage of people in your network have a not horrible money management skill, chances you can find somebody to help. Or even just hear casual mentions of some of the things you did for that lady. Eventually most of the people will be ok. That lady was lucky she knew you. But what should have happened is her sister, or friend, or neighbor, or grocery store cashier, should have been able to smack some sense into her long ago. Some protections will be necessary for sure. I think there are some anti-gouging laws on the books already, and that fake bill should be classified as fraud if it is not already. Bigger potential money stream for organised crime will motivate enforcement, I'm sure. Schools teach about traffic lights and using microsoft word. Somewhere between those some budgeting and compound interest lessons would fit right in. Society change and will keep changing, schools might as well keep up.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Being bad at managing money is why someone would burn through a lottery windfall. It's probably not why they're poor in the first place!

hello_moto 7y ago

His "reductive view" of rich vs poor is an answer to a very specific statement regarding Lottery winner and Sports Athletes which has been discussed many times with the same conclusion: they're just not good at managing money.

umvi 7y ago
Right, and how can you expect them to be? If you throw a bunch of money into a poor person's lap, it's not like they magically have the knowledge and know how to invest it. This is one argument against UBI - money increase alone isn't enough, the knowledge increase needs to come from somewhere as well, and that's not something you can get in the mail.
- UnFleshedOne 7y ago
  That's actually argument _for_ UBI -- knowledge at managing money comes from having any money to manage. (Unless you teach that in school, but that would be way too sensible)
  - umvi 7y ago
    There is a certain amount of knowledge that comes from the experience of managing money, yes. But also, the financial world has a lot of jargon and pitfalls that are aren't exactly easy to learn, especially as a high school dropout with no math background and no educated parents to turn to for help. The _truth_ about UBI is that a lot of poor people's UBI is going to get completely eaten by predatory opportunists and then they will be in the same situation they are in. What they lack is mentorship. Without mentorship from people good at managing money, UBI (I predict) will not help the poor as much as you think - it will mainly help the educated middle class. For example, there is a (poor, uneducated) lady in my church receiving the equivalent of UBI from the state of Maryland. However, despite "having money to manage" she has not spontaneously gained knowledge in managing money. I sat down with her once to help see if there was something more she could be doing to stop being in crisis mode all the time, and it was insane how many "bills" she was paying that weren't even real bills. There's this dark network of predators out there that send out mail with a red stamp that says "Payment Due by 1/22/2020". It looks like a bill. But if you read closely, it's actually not a bill but some home security service they are trying to trick you into buying. An educated person tears it up and throws it away. An uneducated person thinks it's a bill to pay and loses a fraction of their UBI. Another fraction of her UBI was going toward utilities she wasn't even using. One bill was nearly $70 from Comcast for cable TV, but I pointed out that she didn't even own a TV. We freed up nearly $200/month that day just by cancelling services she wasn't using and throwing away fake bills. > Unless you teach that in school, but that would be way too sensible Schools didn't used to have to teach you every basic skill needed to thrive in society. You could pick those up on your own if you are motivated, or through your parents.
    - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
      But I expect a lot will not, and if a certain percentage of people in your network have a not horrible money management skill, chances you can find somebody to help. Or even just hear casual mentions of some of the things you did for that lady. Eventually most of the people will be ok. That lady was lucky she knew you. But what should have happened is her sister, or friend, or neighbor, or grocery store cashier, should have been able to smack some sense into her long ago. Some protections will be necessary for sure. I think there are some anti-gouging laws on the books already, and that fake bill should be classified as fraud if it is not already. Bigger potential money stream for organised crime will motivate enforcement, I'm sure. Schools teach about traffic lights and using microsoft word. Somewhere between those some budgeting and compound interest lessons would fit right in. Society change and will keep changing, schools might as well keep up.
Dylan16807 7y ago
Being bad at managing money is why someone would burn through a lottery windfall. It's probably not why they're poor in the first place!