5 ms·

The government has won. I say that because the majority of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck and they cannot afford any hiccup or else

The government has won. I say that because the majority of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck and they cannot afford any hiccup or else they will be underwater. From there it is an easy spiral down to the bottom. They cannot afford good counsel or even afford to take time off to fight this. This is the perfect environment for a population that will not fight back. The only hope is that people who are able to fight back do fight back for the rest of us. However we have seen that many people who are able to do this benefit from the current situation. Effectively 80% of this country live to serve the other 20% and thats why I believe we don't see as much progression of many areas as we should.

effingwewt 5y ago
A huge imbalance is money, specifically enough to have a lawyer appear on your behalf ASAP. Those with means usually won't ever see the inside of a holding/processing cell because there lawyers are there before they are booked. This means they need to bail hearing, since the lawyers will even demand immediate bail based on charges. No jail time, not even 24 hours. No dealing with bail bondsmen. That is huge. Most jails only offer free calls within their area code. Not being in jail means their life continues uninterrupted, as does their job/income. A poor person will likely lose their job if they can't afford bail, as they are stuck an inmate until their hearing. If their public defender is backed up, which they always are, they will likely push thw court date back for more time. It's just a complete nightmare. The rich have straight up taken control of everything, including the government.
- finnh 5y ago
  I'd more say that "the US hates poor people". It doesn't help me, as a rich person, that poor people get screwed by the government regularly & repeatedly. In fact it makes my life much worse in a bunch of ways.
kodah 5y ago
Agreed. From my perception people knew the system is and always will be imperfect, and relied heavily on the idea that not all people can afford to fight the government, but that at some point the government will mess with someone who can. Democracy in the US is like standing on the shoulders of giants who bravely carved the way ahead for us. One of my favorite examples is Larry Flint who lost his ability to walk, much less his representation as human among other humans, for the principles of free speech. Although you may not agree morally with Larry Flint, you likely stand in his shadow when you say things other people and the government don't like. That said, when the middle, and upper middle class are so squeezed that they cannot fight the government anymore -- then who is left to? When economic (or class, whatever your favorite rhetoric) mobility has chilled, who will rise to the ranks of those who can fight who have memories of the time when they could not? Anyway, this is the way these problems are postured in my mind.
WalterBright 5y ago
> the majority of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck and they cannot afford any hiccup or else they will be underwater While possibly true, that doesn't necessarily mean they are poor. Plenty of middle class people operate on see-money-spend-money. There were plenty of them at Boeing when I worked there - the paychecks were distributed on Thursday morning, and at noon a flood of engineers would run to the parking lot to deposit the paycheck before the checks they wrote bounced.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  That sounds like spending money before seeing money.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  About 15% of the US population (50 million people) are at or below the Federal poverty rate. About 6% of the US population (20 million people) are at or below half the Federal poverty rate. http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/imagecache/medium/main-images/poverty_rate_historical_0.jpg http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/imagecache/mediu... No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of people. More than the populaton of California.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    My point was that living paycheck to paycheck is not a proxy for being poor.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      I think there's a compelling case that it is. This number is probably the truest measure of a person’s real wealth: What is the largest unexpected financial shock you could sustain without the cost of that to you suddenly becoming ten times the original cost or more? That number isn’t something easy to calculate; it depends on whether you have a family that can help you out, on your income, on whether that shock involves losing your job (and thus your health insurance, if you live in the US), on whether you have access to any other sources of security (including public assistance). From Yonatan Zunger's "Your 'Financial Shock' Wealth". https://medium.com/newco/your-financial-shock-wealth-4845e6dc1d2f https://medium.com/newco/your-financial-shock-wealth-4845e6d... Other commentators have similar arguments. Economist Emma Rothschild makes the explicit point that Adam Smith's "liberal philosophy" was one of material liberty, that is, of an abundance of material wealth at the individual level, which allows for a freedom of actions without catastrophic consequence.[1] Several recent modern commentators have noted that the chief characteristic of poverty is a lack of choice: if there's only one way to do things right, without consequence, you have no freedom. Among Zunger's references is the point that very nearly a majority of US households, 47%, cannot sustain an unexpected $400 expense. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secr... Whether or not living paycheck-to-paycheck is necessarily a characteristic of poverty is of course debatable in specific instances. But one cannot look broadly at the population of the US and claim both that market economics succeeds on the basis of individuals making intelligent and rational economic decisions and that many millions of those people, very nearly if not majority of those same people fail to do so. Something is very rotten in the "free market". ________________________________ Notes: 1. I'm trying to track down the Emma Rothschild reference, though I suspect it may be in Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment.
BobbyJo 5y ago
Most people everywhere on the planet are either living on today's wages or are dependent on the government itself. In a sense, even if you have financial freedom, you're still dependent on the government ensuring that freedom continues. Money is paper without the body behind it. If you require a safety-net to speak up for your rights, be prepared to lose them.
OneEyedRobot 5y ago
>The government has won. Also consider that now the system has perfect memory. Moving to another county or state, waiting a few years, it doesn't matter.

effingwewt 5y ago

A huge imbalance is money, specifically enough to have a lawyer appear on your behalf ASAP. Those with means usually won't ever see the inside of a holding/processing cell because there lawyers are there before they are booked. This means they need to bail hearing, since the lawyers will even demand immediate bail based on charges. No jail time, not even 24 hours. No dealing with bail bondsmen. That is huge. Most jails only offer free calls within their area code. Not being in jail means their life continues uninterrupted, as does their job/income. A poor person will likely lose their job if they can't afford bail, as they are stuck an inmate until their hearing. If their public defender is backed up, which they always are, they will likely push thw court date back for more time. It's just a complete nightmare. The rich have straight up taken control of everything, including the government.

finnh 5y ago
I'd more say that "the US hates poor people". It doesn't help me, as a rich person, that poor people get screwed by the government regularly & repeatedly. In fact it makes my life much worse in a bunch of ways.

kodah 5y ago

Agreed. From my perception people knew the system is and always will be imperfect, and relied heavily on the idea that not all people can afford to fight the government, but that at some point the government will mess with someone who can. Democracy in the US is like standing on the shoulders of giants who bravely carved the way ahead for us. One of my favorite examples is Larry Flint who lost his ability to walk, much less his representation as human among other humans, for the principles of free speech. Although you may not agree morally with Larry Flint, you likely stand in his shadow when you say things other people and the government don't like. That said, when the middle, and upper middle class are so squeezed that they cannot fight the government anymore -- then who is left to? When economic (or class, whatever your favorite rhetoric) mobility has chilled, who will rise to the ranks of those who can fight who have memories of the time when they could not? Anyway, this is the way these problems are postured in my mind.

WalterBright 5y ago

> the majority of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck and they cannot afford any hiccup or else they will be underwater While possibly true, that doesn't necessarily mean they are poor. Plenty of middle class people operate on see-money-spend-money. There were plenty of them at Boeing when I worked there - the paychecks were distributed on Thursday morning, and at noon a flood of engineers would run to the parking lot to deposit the paycheck before the checks they wrote bounced.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
That sounds like spending money before seeing money.
dredmorbius 5y ago
About 15% of the US population (50 million people) are at or below the Federal poverty rate. About 6% of the US population (20 million people) are at or below half the Federal poverty rate. http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/imagecache/medium/main-images/poverty_rate_historical_0.jpg http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/imagecache/mediu... No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of people. More than the populaton of California.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  My point was that living paycheck to paycheck is not a proxy for being poor.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I think there's a compelling case that it is. This number is probably the truest measure of a person’s real wealth: What is the largest unexpected financial shock you could sustain without the cost of that to you suddenly becoming ten times the original cost or more? That number isn’t something easy to calculate; it depends on whether you have a family that can help you out, on your income, on whether that shock involves losing your job (and thus your health insurance, if you live in the US), on whether you have access to any other sources of security (including public assistance). From Yonatan Zunger's "Your 'Financial Shock' Wealth". https://medium.com/newco/your-financial-shock-wealth-4845e6dc1d2f https://medium.com/newco/your-financial-shock-wealth-4845e6d... Other commentators have similar arguments. Economist Emma Rothschild makes the explicit point that Adam Smith's "liberal philosophy" was one of material liberty, that is, of an abundance of material wealth at the individual level, which allows for a freedom of actions without catastrophic consequence.[1] Several recent modern commentators have noted that the chief characteristic of poverty is a lack of choice: if there's only one way to do things right, without consequence, you have no freedom. Among Zunger's references is the point that very nearly a majority of US households, 47%, cannot sustain an unexpected $400 expense. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secr... Whether or not living paycheck-to-paycheck is necessarily a characteristic of poverty is of course debatable in specific instances. But one cannot look broadly at the population of the US and claim both that market economics succeeds on the basis of individuals making intelligent and rational economic decisions and that many millions of those people, very nearly if not majority of those same people fail to do so. Something is very rotten in the "free market". ________________________________ Notes: 1. I'm trying to track down the Emma Rothschild reference, though I suspect it may be in Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment.

BobbyJo 5y ago

Most people everywhere on the planet are either living on today's wages or are dependent on the government itself. In a sense, even if you have financial freedom, you're still dependent on the government ensuring that freedom continues. Money is paper without the body behind it. If you require a safety-net to speak up for your rights, be prepared to lose them.

OneEyedRobot 5y ago

>The government has won. Also consider that now the system has perfect memory. Moving to another county or state, waiting a few years, it doesn't matter.