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No one is getting rich by diverting that $13.99/mo Netflix subscription -- that's $168 a year -- into asset purchases. As a nearby comment said better than I c

by Frondo 5y ago

No one is getting rich by diverting that $13.99/mo Netflix subscription -- that's $168 a year -- into asset purchases. As a nearby comment said better than I could (thanks whakim! for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28907429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28907429 ), the "culture of poverty" idea has been discredited for decades, yet it persists because it's certainly easier to blame individuals than change a system that so severely disfavors them.

collegeburner 5y ago
No but somebody might get less poor by not having to less stuff on a creditcard then pay high interest on it. Or not making minimum payments then getting a higher interest rate later. Compound interest is a bitch and a small debt can blow up real fast. Your link just says "most economists and socioligists agree" btw, it didnt source it. Also it said the point of taxes is to redistribute resources which us heavily contested and a lot of ppl disagree, stating that as fact not opinion makes the other stuff it says look less credible because clearly it has an agenda.
- Frondo 5y ago
  > clearly it has an agenda. So does suggesting that a poor person could join the moneyed elite by foregoing their $13.99/mo Netflix to purchase assets -- if that isn't an agenda, I don't know what is. Why, by saving that $168 a year, they could easily afford a single share of Alphabet (currently at 2,846.31) in, what, 16 years?
  - baremetal 5y ago
    i think its more of a mentality thing than anything.
  - collegeburner 5y ago
    Bruh. I didnt say "join the moneyd elite". It doesnt matter if some ppl have more, only if some dont have enough, this is why I hate the "inequality" talking point, bc its not an inherent problem. Im saying that some people who dont have enough could be in a better spot with better choices and that some personal finance education might help. Not everybody privileged enough to have parents who can teach them to be financially savvy. So high schools probably should.
    - medvezhenok 5y ago
      The netflix subscription is a distraction. So are the lattes and everything else people keep harping on about for personal consumption. Salary, salary, salary. If you're making $200K, none of the above even register (saving $200 a year? or even 2K by forgoing a latte every day - who cares? it won't make an iota of difference). If you're making $30K / year, you could do all of the above, forgo every single pleasure in life and you've still got a huge uphill battle.
      - comp_throw7 5y ago
        The idea that saving and investing 2k/year "wouldn't make a difference" is pretty funny, since investing 2k/year gets you ~300-400k (inflation-adjusted!) after 40 years (roughly the length of a typical working career). But that's not really the point, I think. The idea that (most) people remain poor for reasons _other_ than their choices is difficult to credit. Obviously their choices are only the _proximate_ cause; there may be structural factors causing those choices in the first place, but most people who are poor (as in, do not have assets) are not poor because they are being literally robbed at gunpoint. Imagine two people living in the same neighborhood: Person A makes $30k/year and saves nothing. Person B makes $35k/year and saves nothing. Person B is _making choices_ that are different from Person A - they are spending an additional ~5k/year on _something_. You can come up with all sorts of reasons why those choices are reasonable - I sure as heck understand not spending the bare minimum on life's necessities - this isn't a moral judgment! But those choices are being made and they have fairly predictable long-term consequences. If it's possible to live on 30k/year in some set of circumstances, anyone who then occupies comparable circumstances and earns more than 30k/year has a choice to either live below their means... or to not do that. You don't need to call them "bad choices" for this to be true. Certainly there is a non-trivial number of people whose starting circumstances were such that they truly had no good options, but that's not most people who could reasonably be described as "poor".

by Frondo 5y ago

collegeburner 5y ago

No but somebody might get less poor by not having to less stuff on a creditcard then pay high interest on it. Or not making minimum payments then getting a higher interest rate later. Compound interest is a bitch and a small debt can blow up real fast. Your link just says "most economists and socioligists agree" btw, it didnt source it. Also it said the point of taxes is to redistribute resources which us heavily contested and a lot of ppl disagree, stating that as fact not opinion makes the other stuff it says look less credible because clearly it has an agenda.

Frondo 5y ago
> clearly it has an agenda. So does suggesting that a poor person could join the moneyed elite by foregoing their $13.99/mo Netflix to purchase assets -- if that isn't an agenda, I don't know what is. Why, by saving that $168 a year, they could easily afford a single share of Alphabet (currently at 2,846.31) in, what, 16 years?
- baremetal 5y ago
  i think its more of a mentality thing than anything.
- collegeburner 5y ago
  Bruh. I didnt say "join the moneyd elite". It doesnt matter if some ppl have more, only if some dont have enough, this is why I hate the "inequality" talking point, bc its not an inherent problem. Im saying that some people who dont have enough could be in a better spot with better choices and that some personal finance education might help. Not everybody privileged enough to have parents who can teach them to be financially savvy. So high schools probably should.
  - medvezhenok 5y ago
    The netflix subscription is a distraction. So are the lattes and everything else people keep harping on about for personal consumption. Salary, salary, salary. If you're making $200K, none of the above even register (saving $200 a year? or even 2K by forgoing a latte every day - who cares? it won't make an iota of difference). If you're making $30K / year, you could do all of the above, forgo every single pleasure in life and you've still got a huge uphill battle.
    - comp_throw7 5y ago
      The idea that saving and investing 2k/year "wouldn't make a difference" is pretty funny, since investing 2k/year gets you ~300-400k (inflation-adjusted!) after 40 years (roughly the length of a typical working career). But that's not really the point, I think. The idea that (most) people remain poor for reasons _other_ than their choices is difficult to credit. Obviously their choices are only the _proximate_ cause; there may be structural factors causing those choices in the first place, but most people who are poor (as in, do not have assets) are not poor because they are being literally robbed at gunpoint. Imagine two people living in the same neighborhood: Person A makes $30k/year and saves nothing. Person B makes $35k/year and saves nothing. Person B is _making choices_ that are different from Person A - they are spending an additional ~5k/year on _something_. You can come up with all sorts of reasons why those choices are reasonable - I sure as heck understand not spending the bare minimum on life's necessities - this isn't a moral judgment! But those choices are being made and they have fairly predictable long-term consequences. If it's possible to live on 30k/year in some set of circumstances, anyone who then occupies comparable circumstances and earns more than 30k/year has a choice to either live below their means... or to not do that. You don't need to call them "bad choices" for this to be true. Certainly there is a non-trivial number of people whose starting circumstances were such that they truly had no good options, but that's not most people who could reasonably be described as "poor".