16 ms·

On Being Broke

107 points by vitabenes 5y ago

jelliclesfarm 5y ago
Basically what I got from the article is that nobody notices that they are poor until they see someone richer than them. I don’t know if this kind of ‘poverty’ can ever be solved.
h2odragon 5y ago
Toilets are not mystical mechanisms; the flush is simply pouring water into the bowl. When the tank's empty, or (as is common now with "low flow" toilets) insufficient to the job, pouring more water into the bowl from a bucket or jug will work. I submit that that aint "broke". You're "broke" when you have to decide whether to repair the car so you can get to work, or repair the heater so you can sleep and shower and stuff, or buy food. "Broke" is when you know all the places you can hit for free crackers on your way to somewhere else.
- gruez 5y ago
  >pouring more water into the bowl from a bucket or jug will work. Isn't that exactly what the article describes? >after each us did our business we filled a mop-bucket with bathwater and flung it down the toilet pan.
- solarmist 5y ago
  Agreed about the toilet, but don't be a gatekeeper. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Like everything else there's a spectrum. And there are plenty of problems that start well before worrying about your next meal.
- axiolite 5y ago
  > pouring more water into the bowl from a bucket or jug will work. Which is what they did, so I fail to see the point of your comment.
- ravloony 5y ago
  Ah, but that is not what he wrote. He never claimed the toilet was broken because he was broke, but due to bad organisational skills. He then used the story to illustrate the fact that such things can become fond memories, and related _that_ fact to poverty. At least, that is how I understand the text.
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
  I was also struck by this behavior. Toilets are pretty simple mechanisms. You can just directly look at how all the parts work (as long as the toilet isn't built into the wall; normal residential toilets in North America are not built into the wall). I know the author reflects on this aspect, but it still struck me. What kind of person doesn't fix this situation, and then proceeds to do this laughable hack every time they want to use the bathroom. A hack that might "flood" the place?
sigmaprimus 5y ago
This was a well written article. Having gone through over a decade of hard times, I agree that a feeling of worthlessness and self loathing can easily set in. I would also agree with the point that when someone who has not had money for a long time that finally has a stroke of luck and gets some will find it easy to devil it away and end up broke in a short time...A fool and his money? It is easy to get money but hard to keep? There is a book called "The Richest Man in Babylon" written by George S. Clason that touches on this matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_(bo... Not to be too critical about the article because as I said it was well written, but I felt as though it might be a little too intellectual for the common reader such as myself. Sometimes elegant words make an author look smart but can create a barrier to getting the intended message out. I may be way off saying this but personally felt the vocabulary was challenging at some times.
- Falkon1313 5y ago
  >I would also agree with the point that when someone who has not had money for a long time that finally has a stroke of luck and gets some will find it easy to devil it away and end up broke in a short time...A fool and his money? From my experience and what I saw when I was poor - when you're poor you never have money, and you *can't* save money - there's always something. A broken down car, an unexpected medical bill, floor collapses and you need stuff to fix it, electric bill comes due before your paycheck because this month has a different number of weeks. Always something that drains your savings right back down to zero. Poor is never being able to get ahead of that. So that one time you get some money - like tax refund time - you spend it. Use it or lose it. You spend it on something that will at least hopefully bring you some happiness until next year. Because that's the only chance you'll have. And if you don't use it, if you diligently save it, it will be gone by next month anyway and you'll have nothing to show for the last year. That's not foolish. That's not "deviling it away". That's just taking the rare opportunity while you have it for something, anything.
  - sigmaprimus 5y ago
    I can't argue to your situation and didn't mean to offend you. Hopefully you are out of that trap now and are not living hand to mouth anymore. Everyone's circumstances are different and I was making a comment in regards to myself not you. For me at my lowest there was no tax return as you don't get that if you don't have a job and any government rebate was seized before I saw it. I didn't have an electricity bill or car either. I will agree that when I was broke it didn't seem to matter that much if I was minus 30K or 35K and the collection agents eventually gave up on me. The few times I managed to pick up an odd job for cash, or through some other fortunate circumstances I happened upon some money, the last thing I thought of doing was getting in touch with a credit councilor and handing that cash to them...until I did.
spzb 5y ago
British author, chef and campaigner Jack Monroe's been saying some interesting things recently regarding poverty and food price inflation [0]. She argues that those at the bottom of the income spectrum suffer a far higher percentage rate of inflation, in part because supermarkets just withdraw their cheapest priced ranges forcing the less well-off to spend more, even if the next highest price product has remained roughly the same price. She's working on a new measure of food price inflation named in honour of Terry Pratchett and with the blessing of his estate [1] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/were-pricing-the-poor-out-of-food-in-the-uk-thats-why-im-launching-my-own-price-index https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/were-pricing... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchet...
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  The irony is that Ghrelin the hunger hormone increases intelligence. Its nature's way of helping mammals become innovative in obtaining food. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805706/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805706/ "Ghrelin also promotes rapid reorganization of synaptic terminals in the hypothalamus28, and in the hippocampus it promotes synapse formation in dendritic spines and LTP, which are paralleled by enhanced spatial learning and memory formation29." I am amazed at how much the financial system imitates what life would be like living in the wild 1000's of years ago.
  - cptaj 5y ago
    While that may be true, I would caution about thinking that hunger promotes intelligence in the long term in any way. I'm not an expert but I would confidently bet that the effects of malnutrition on cognitive ability FAR outweigh this hormonal effect.
    - __s 5y ago
      Note that they're talking about a hormone that gives the feeling of hunger, rather than hunger as a result of malnutrition
throw8932894 5y ago
brudgers 5y ago
Some Roman Catholic orders have drawn a useful distinction between poverty and misery. Poverty is “what you eat.” Misery is “whether you eat.” Ordinary political discourse benefits from conflating both within poverty since this allows using misery counter-examples against poverty mitigation (these people have it worse) and poverty counter examples against misery mitigation (it’s not so bad they have color TV’s). And of course poverty is the better case scenario and misery sounds like what it is. Related, Scalzi’s Being Poor: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/?amp https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/?amp
max_ 5y ago
>Having found the work, most other things beside the work fall by the way side. And whatever your current financial situation I hope the same becomes true for you. The economic reality that came to me in my mid 20's was that you have to work to stay alive, society has no room for pets. (not if your already rich of course.) If someone emphasized this more strongly for me when growing up, it would have helped a lot.
- alar44 5y ago
jackyinger 5y ago
If this is interesting to you, I would absolutely recommend you read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. It is a very engaging account of a period of destitution in his life.
- misiti3780 5y ago
  Great book!
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  “Hunger” by Knut Hamsun is another one.
- kergonath 5y ago
  I remember reading that as a (not exactly wealthy) student just arrived in London. I felt lucky living on £5/day. It also shows very convincingly how the presumably fair enforcement of unjust laws and norms can be a weapon in a context of class warfare. It was then that I realised that things I had internalised as normal (like rules to prevent rough sleeping) were in fact reactionary weapons to punish a group of people who were in that state mostly through tough luck of mental health issues. As Anatole France wrote, “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
throwingawayyou 5y ago
Poor people have more 45% more leisure time than wealthy. Society as a whole has more leisure time than any time of history before. We still bitch day after day, minute after minute. source... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JLaF_4Tz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JLaF_4Tz8
- WriterGuy2021 5y ago
  More unqualified leisure time isn't what most people want. Most people want meaningful connections to others. Watching T.V. for eight hours isn't going to make people feel good. Feeling connected and maintaining a sense of belonging is what is lacking in the modern world.
- floe 5y ago
  Damn, I guess I should become poor
tibbar 5y ago
I grew up fairly poor in a large family. One of the constants was that something important was always broken but we couldn’t afford to fix it just then - a car, the washing machine, the computer; a couple times, the electricity. We went on DIY camping vacations. There was always a vague notion that we were on the brink of insolvency. (But through some supreme act of will my parents always found money for music lessons.) As kids we learned that if we wanted something, we had to find the money. The clever siblings would win contests with cash prizes, $100, $250. The rest of us had various side hustles like neighborhood snow shoveling and leaf blowing… This process was short-circuited immediately for those of us who went into tech. It’s the new gold rush; you really can go west and seek your fortune. Remarkable times.
- clove 5y ago
  Perhaps your parents were never really poor but just wanted you to be self reliant. Maybe they were gaslighting you with all the broken electronics.
- dijit 5y ago
  Agree completely. It’s absolutely insane how much I earn today, and this is in Europe which falls behind US in a tremendous way. My mum raised me on £50 a week at most, I spend more than that on food a week, let alone any of the other essentials. Sometimes I get this kind of impotent rage, that I should boil in my gut and write out exactly how life was like and how it’s completely unfair to those still trapped in that life who weren’t lucky enough to adore computers. In some ways it’s worse for them now than it was for my mum… that’s unimaginable honestly, there were times we chose between electricity and food… But all my baying on a personal blog is going to do nothing. Another sob story in a sea of thousands, and deafening silence from the “haves” of our society- unwilling or unable to relate to another human being in torrid inescapable misery. And they wonder why poverty and alcohol abuse are linked.
  - stu432 5y ago
    Alcohol abuse is rampant in the well to do classes as well, they just buy better stuff that won't kill you as quickly. See Boris Johnson.
vmception 5y ago
> the amount of sheer will, determination and delayed gratification needed to stay on the path for long enough to leave penury is beyond the realm of most peoples ability. I don't think it is just delayed gratification that is a challenge, I think it is how a little bit of saved or scrounged up money can't change your circumstances. When you're behind on rent two months, about to get an eviction court mark on your record, have collections hounding you or an impending bankruptcy proceeding, doing things like buying a pleasurable consumer electronic or pricy clothes doesn't change that, it doesn't make a dent in that. Your money either goes in a black hole of interest payments and mounting obligations, or it goes into a nice escape that even the bankruptcy judge can't take from you. They probably won't even bother with your consumer goods. So until the utility of the money amounts changes, along with the speed the money amounts come in, there is no point in pretending that the circumstance will change due to your own discipline. People are going to be just as apathetic and critical of your circumstance either way if you have blemishes on your credit or have trouble keeping a lease for a home. It doesn't matter whether you saved marvelously or spent frivolously.
- tibbar 5y ago
  Yes. It is true that some people just need to live within their means. But for people who are poor in the traditional sense, the cash flow is just too low. There’s no way to live well on that income. Finding ways to save cash isn’t really an endgame, other than perhaps tactically preventing going bankrupt from an extra medical expense, etc. What you need is more income. The most reliable vehicle to this is to go to college and make plans to go into a healthcare/engineering/accounting etc career, but that’s a really hard plan to pivot to at a certain point in life.
  - MaximumYComb 5y ago
    I started my pivot from a trade background into tech by going to university when I was 30. I'm 36 now and about to graduate while I've also been working in the field now for over two years. I've done this while being a single father to two young children (they were 1 and 3 when I started night univeristy). It was certainly not easy. I nearly burnt out hard multiple times.
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
Silly question, but what typically causes prolonged poverty? Apart from illnesses (including mental illnesses and addiction), isn't it mostly a matter of finding a reasonably paid job eventually? I have known times when I had little money, but it was in part also because I did not want a job and tried other things. But at least when I was younger, I think falling back onto a job would have been an option. Wouldn't it for most people? I mean even if you have to look for two years, wouldn't most "normal" people be able to get a job eventually?
- another_story 5y ago
  Where does one live in those two years while they are looking for this job? With no income they may end up in a shelter or their car, sleeping half on and off, mentally and physically exhausted. They then have a host of problems that come with being homeless. How many jobs hire homeless people?
- vestrigi 5y ago
  Some job types just die out and the workers can‘t catch on because they did very specific work that isn‘t required anymore and they don‘t have much experience in other tasks. Yes, there are ways to relearn another trade or a similar one but it gets harder the older you get. Often the case with parents who have taken a longer break from working because they‘re taking care of their children or even people taking care of an ill family member.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    OK, but in the timeframe of two years for finding another job?
- lozenge 5y ago
  Make a list of the jobs that aren't "reasonably paid" then note that our society runs on a certain percentage of people being in those jobs at all times. US govt has a detailed breakdown if you're interested. I would say falling out with your parents is a common cause of poverty. Which can be due to homophobia, alcohol abuse, abuse, any number of things. But the parent's issues have a knock on effect on the child. Once you're in poverty it's difficult to get out. You lack a car (which makes everything more expensive and time consuming), lose confidence, get hungry and can no longer think straight... instead of up skilling it is difficult enough just to balance food and the bills.
VictorPath 5y ago
Karl Marx said there was no such thing as poverty, and of course he was right. People do not have a relationship with things, other than perhaps possessions (not property) like the shirt on your back. There are no signs pointing down from the heavens that someone owns this office building or factory or mine or IP rights to a 1927 film or book. People have relationships with one another. There is an idle class of heirs and there is a working class. Being broke is in the context of these social relations. Pointing to material items like federal reserve notes in a bank under some account number is a fetishism ignoring what is obvious, these basic relations between classes - heirs and workers.
- Comevius 5y ago
  Do you have a relationship with your teeth, gut or brain? Because poverty tend to be bad for your physical and mental health. There is a large gap in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest, not to mention the quality of that life. Poverty is not just a deprivation of possessions, it is a deprivation of housing, education, employment and health care. Increasingly it is a deprivation of clean air, water, healthy food and physical safety. Poverty is a ruinous gravity well that chews you up and spits you out as a twisted shadow. It traps people in vicious cycles that can last for generations. You can escape it alive, but you can't escape it unscathed.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- misslibby 5y ago
  Are there seriously people who believe this bullshit? You think everybody who works only works for "heirs", and if there were no heirs, nobody would have to work? If nobody would work, billions of people would starve within weeks. The only relationship to other people that would prolong ones life would perhaps the ability to eat some of your peers.
  - VictorPath 5y ago
    > Are there seriously people who believe this bullshit? You think everybody who works only works for "heirs", and if there were no heirs, nobody would have to work? Well that does sound like "bullshit" as you put it, but it bears no relation to what I said.
Atlas667 5y ago
This is a very romantic account of poverty. Poverty, in general, in the abstract form, is not due the lack of philosophical questions on purpose, meaning or goals, or even bad spending. Poverty in the here and now is a part of our social system. It will not be eradicated while capital rules societies because it depends on it. Loved ones killing themselves with crack cocaine can not be remembered fondly. Shitty emotional lives for children because of stressed out, alienated parents isn't either. Living in decay and not having basic necessities like a functioning sink met are not hot. The effects of poverty on self esteem are downright harrowing and saddening to even see.
- misslibby 5y ago
  Capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty.
  - Atlas667 5y ago
    Yes, objectively the managing of production for profit has benefited the world in some very real ways, but there are irremediable contradictions in this system that harm the world in other ways. Production should not be for profit anymore and for that to happen production must be in control of the producers not the profiteers. Its about going forward, not back.
    - misslibby 5y ago
      Why should production not be for profit? Anybody who produces something useful should be rewarded for it.
  - danny_codes 5y ago
    Of course. Capitalism is a useful tool, because markets are the best known tool for facilitating economic growth. However, capitalism is in itself an inherently broken system: because of the nature of capital, a perfectly capitalist society will approach a state where one actor owns everything, and everyone else owns nothing. As such, all countries practice a form of mediated capitalism: market functioning is limited by governmental action. Certain markets are not allowed to exist, while others are managed via regulation. There is no inherent reason why capitalism cannot be adapted to preserve the utility of markets while simultaneously eliminating poverty.
Traster 5y ago
One thing that gave me hope recently is seeing Jack Monroe campaigning for the Vimes index. I wont try and word it as well as the man himself[1]: > “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money, Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.” And to some extent, people focus on the economics, but I think it's just as important to point out - how good would your day be if you had wet feet. [1]Monroe is a female poverty campaigner who does fantastic work, the Vimes index is based on Terry Pratchett's fiction, endorsed by his estate.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I believe Monroe has since come out as non-binary.

107 points by vitabenes 5y ago

Basically what I got from the article is that nobody notices that they are poor until they see someone richer than them. I don’t know if this kind of ‘poverty’ can ever be solved.

h2odragon 5y ago

Toilets are not mystical mechanisms; the flush is simply pouring water into the bowl. When the tank's empty, or (as is common now with "low flow" toilets) insufficient to the job, pouring more water into the bowl from a bucket or jug will work. I submit that that aint "broke". You're "broke" when you have to decide whether to repair the car so you can get to work, or repair the heater so you can sleep and shower and stuff, or buy food. "Broke" is when you know all the places you can hit for free crackers on your way to somewhere else.

gruez 5y ago
>pouring more water into the bowl from a bucket or jug will work. Isn't that exactly what the article describes? >after each us did our business we filled a mop-bucket with bathwater and flung it down the toilet pan.
solarmist 5y ago
Agreed about the toilet, but don't be a gatekeeper. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Like everything else there's a spectrum. And there are plenty of problems that start well before worrying about your next meal.
axiolite 5y ago
> pouring more water into the bowl from a bucket or jug will work. Which is what they did, so I fail to see the point of your comment.
ravloony 5y ago
Ah, but that is not what he wrote. He never claimed the toilet was broken because he was broke, but due to bad organisational skills. He then used the story to illustrate the fact that such things can become fond memories, and related _that_ fact to poverty. At least, that is how I understand the text.
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
I was also struck by this behavior. Toilets are pretty simple mechanisms. You can just directly look at how all the parts work (as long as the toilet isn't built into the wall; normal residential toilets in North America are not built into the wall). I know the author reflects on this aspect, but it still struck me. What kind of person doesn't fix this situation, and then proceeds to do this laughable hack every time they want to use the bathroom. A hack that might "flood" the place?

sigmaprimus 5y ago

This was a well written article. Having gone through over a decade of hard times, I agree that a feeling of worthlessness and self loathing can easily set in. I would also agree with the point that when someone who has not had money for a long time that finally has a stroke of luck and gets some will find it easy to devil it away and end up broke in a short time...A fool and his money? It is easy to get money but hard to keep? There is a book called "The Richest Man in Babylon" written by George S. Clason that touches on this matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_(bo... Not to be too critical about the article because as I said it was well written, but I felt as though it might be a little too intellectual for the common reader such as myself. Sometimes elegant words make an author look smart but can create a barrier to getting the intended message out. I may be way off saying this but personally felt the vocabulary was challenging at some times.

Falkon1313 5y ago
>I would also agree with the point that when someone who has not had money for a long time that finally has a stroke of luck and gets some will find it easy to devil it away and end up broke in a short time...A fool and his money? From my experience and what I saw when I was poor - when you're poor you never have money, and you *can't* save money - there's always something. A broken down car, an unexpected medical bill, floor collapses and you need stuff to fix it, electric bill comes due before your paycheck because this month has a different number of weeks. Always something that drains your savings right back down to zero. Poor is never being able to get ahead of that. So that one time you get some money - like tax refund time - you spend it. Use it or lose it. You spend it on something that will at least hopefully bring you some happiness until next year. Because that's the only chance you'll have. And if you don't use it, if you diligently save it, it will be gone by next month anyway and you'll have nothing to show for the last year. That's not foolish. That's not "deviling it away". That's just taking the rare opportunity while you have it for something, anything.
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  I can't argue to your situation and didn't mean to offend you. Hopefully you are out of that trap now and are not living hand to mouth anymore. Everyone's circumstances are different and I was making a comment in regards to myself not you. For me at my lowest there was no tax return as you don't get that if you don't have a job and any government rebate was seized before I saw it. I didn't have an electricity bill or car either. I will agree that when I was broke it didn't seem to matter that much if I was minus 30K or 35K and the collection agents eventually gave up on me. The few times I managed to pick up an odd job for cash, or through some other fortunate circumstances I happened upon some money, the last thing I thought of doing was getting in touch with a credit councilor and handing that cash to them...until I did.

spzb 5y ago

British author, chef and campaigner Jack Monroe's been saying some interesting things recently regarding poverty and food price inflation [0]. She argues that those at the bottom of the income spectrum suffer a far higher percentage rate of inflation, in part because supermarkets just withdraw their cheapest priced ranges forcing the less well-off to spend more, even if the next highest price product has remained roughly the same price. She's working on a new measure of food price inflation named in honour of Terry Pratchett and with the blessing of his estate [1] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/were-pricing-the-poor-out-of-food-in-the-uk-thats-why-im-launching-my-own-price-index https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/were-pricing... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchet...

Terry_Roll 5y ago
The irony is that Ghrelin the hunger hormone increases intelligence. Its nature's way of helping mammals become innovative in obtaining food. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805706/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805706/ "Ghrelin also promotes rapid reorganization of synaptic terminals in the hypothalamus28, and in the hippocampus it promotes synapse formation in dendritic spines and LTP, which are paralleled by enhanced spatial learning and memory formation29." I am amazed at how much the financial system imitates what life would be like living in the wild 1000's of years ago.
- cptaj 5y ago
  While that may be true, I would caution about thinking that hunger promotes intelligence in the long term in any way. I'm not an expert but I would confidently bet that the effects of malnutrition on cognitive ability FAR outweigh this hormonal effect.
  - __s 5y ago
    Note that they're talking about a hormone that gives the feeling of hunger, rather than hunger as a result of malnutrition

throw8932894 5y ago

brudgers 5y ago

Some Roman Catholic orders have drawn a useful distinction between poverty and misery. Poverty is “what you eat.” Misery is “whether you eat.” Ordinary political discourse benefits from conflating both within poverty since this allows using misery counter-examples against poverty mitigation (these people have it worse) and poverty counter examples against misery mitigation (it’s not so bad they have color TV’s). And of course poverty is the better case scenario and misery sounds like what it is. Related, Scalzi’s Being Poor: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/?amp https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/?amp

max_ 5y ago

>Having found the work, most other things beside the work fall by the way side. And whatever your current financial situation I hope the same becomes true for you. The economic reality that came to me in my mid 20's was that you have to work to stay alive, society has no room for pets. (not if your already rich of course.) If someone emphasized this more strongly for me when growing up, it would have helped a lot.

alar44 5y ago

jackyinger 5y ago

If this is interesting to you, I would absolutely recommend you read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. It is a very engaging account of a period of destitution in his life.

misiti3780 5y ago
Great book!
germinalphrase 5y ago
“Hunger” by Knut Hamsun is another one.
kergonath 5y ago
I remember reading that as a (not exactly wealthy) student just arrived in London. I felt lucky living on £5/day. It also shows very convincingly how the presumably fair enforcement of unjust laws and norms can be a weapon in a context of class warfare. It was then that I realised that things I had internalised as normal (like rules to prevent rough sleeping) were in fact reactionary weapons to punish a group of people who were in that state mostly through tough luck of mental health issues. As Anatole France wrote, “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

throwingawayyou 5y ago

Poor people have more 45% more leisure time than wealthy. Society as a whole has more leisure time than any time of history before. We still bitch day after day, minute after minute. source... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JLaF_4Tz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JLaF_4Tz8

WriterGuy2021 5y ago
More unqualified leisure time isn't what most people want. Most people want meaningful connections to others. Watching T.V. for eight hours isn't going to make people feel good. Feeling connected and maintaining a sense of belonging is what is lacking in the modern world.
floe 5y ago
Damn, I guess I should become poor

tibbar 5y ago

I grew up fairly poor in a large family. One of the constants was that something important was always broken but we couldn’t afford to fix it just then - a car, the washing machine, the computer; a couple times, the electricity. We went on DIY camping vacations. There was always a vague notion that we were on the brink of insolvency. (But through some supreme act of will my parents always found money for music lessons.) As kids we learned that if we wanted something, we had to find the money. The clever siblings would win contests with cash prizes, $100, $250. The rest of us had various side hustles like neighborhood snow shoveling and leaf blowing… This process was short-circuited immediately for those of us who went into tech. It’s the new gold rush; you really can go west and seek your fortune. Remarkable times.

clove 5y ago
Perhaps your parents were never really poor but just wanted you to be self reliant. Maybe they were gaslighting you with all the broken electronics.
dijit 5y ago
Agree completely. It’s absolutely insane how much I earn today, and this is in Europe which falls behind US in a tremendous way. My mum raised me on £50 a week at most, I spend more than that on food a week, let alone any of the other essentials. Sometimes I get this kind of impotent rage, that I should boil in my gut and write out exactly how life was like and how it’s completely unfair to those still trapped in that life who weren’t lucky enough to adore computers. In some ways it’s worse for them now than it was for my mum… that’s unimaginable honestly, there were times we chose between electricity and food… But all my baying on a personal blog is going to do nothing. Another sob story in a sea of thousands, and deafening silence from the “haves” of our society- unwilling or unable to relate to another human being in torrid inescapable misery. And they wonder why poverty and alcohol abuse are linked.
- stu432 5y ago
  Alcohol abuse is rampant in the well to do classes as well, they just buy better stuff that won't kill you as quickly. See Boris Johnson.

vmception 5y ago

> the amount of sheer will, determination and delayed gratification needed to stay on the path for long enough to leave penury is beyond the realm of most peoples ability. I don't think it is just delayed gratification that is a challenge, I think it is how a little bit of saved or scrounged up money can't change your circumstances. When you're behind on rent two months, about to get an eviction court mark on your record, have collections hounding you or an impending bankruptcy proceeding, doing things like buying a pleasurable consumer electronic or pricy clothes doesn't change that, it doesn't make a dent in that. Your money either goes in a black hole of interest payments and mounting obligations, or it goes into a nice escape that even the bankruptcy judge can't take from you. They probably won't even bother with your consumer goods. So until the utility of the money amounts changes, along with the speed the money amounts come in, there is no point in pretending that the circumstance will change due to your own discipline. People are going to be just as apathetic and critical of your circumstance either way if you have blemishes on your credit or have trouble keeping a lease for a home. It doesn't matter whether you saved marvelously or spent frivolously.

tibbar 5y ago
Yes. It is true that some people just need to live within their means. But for people who are poor in the traditional sense, the cash flow is just too low. There’s no way to live well on that income. Finding ways to save cash isn’t really an endgame, other than perhaps tactically preventing going bankrupt from an extra medical expense, etc. What you need is more income. The most reliable vehicle to this is to go to college and make plans to go into a healthcare/engineering/accounting etc career, but that’s a really hard plan to pivot to at a certain point in life.
- MaximumYComb 5y ago
  I started my pivot from a trade background into tech by going to university when I was 30. I'm 36 now and about to graduate while I've also been working in the field now for over two years. I've done this while being a single father to two young children (they were 1 and 3 when I started night univeristy). It was certainly not easy. I nearly burnt out hard multiple times.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

Silly question, but what typically causes prolonged poverty? Apart from illnesses (including mental illnesses and addiction), isn't it mostly a matter of finding a reasonably paid job eventually? I have known times when I had little money, but it was in part also because I did not want a job and tried other things. But at least when I was younger, I think falling back onto a job would have been an option. Wouldn't it for most people? I mean even if you have to look for two years, wouldn't most "normal" people be able to get a job eventually?

another_story 5y ago
Where does one live in those two years while they are looking for this job? With no income they may end up in a shelter or their car, sleeping half on and off, mentally and physically exhausted. They then have a host of problems that come with being homeless. How many jobs hire homeless people?
vestrigi 5y ago
Some job types just die out and the workers can‘t catch on because they did very specific work that isn‘t required anymore and they don‘t have much experience in other tasks. Yes, there are ways to relearn another trade or a similar one but it gets harder the older you get. Often the case with parents who have taken a longer break from working because they‘re taking care of their children or even people taking care of an ill family member.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  OK, but in the timeframe of two years for finding another job?
lozenge 5y ago
Make a list of the jobs that aren't "reasonably paid" then note that our society runs on a certain percentage of people being in those jobs at all times. US govt has a detailed breakdown if you're interested. I would say falling out with your parents is a common cause of poverty. Which can be due to homophobia, alcohol abuse, abuse, any number of things. But the parent's issues have a knock on effect on the child. Once you're in poverty it's difficult to get out. You lack a car (which makes everything more expensive and time consuming), lose confidence, get hungry and can no longer think straight... instead of up skilling it is difficult enough just to balance food and the bills.

VictorPath 5y ago

Karl Marx said there was no such thing as poverty, and of course he was right. People do not have a relationship with things, other than perhaps possessions (not property) like the shirt on your back. There are no signs pointing down from the heavens that someone owns this office building or factory or mine or IP rights to a 1927 film or book. People have relationships with one another. There is an idle class of heirs and there is a working class. Being broke is in the context of these social relations. Pointing to material items like federal reserve notes in a bank under some account number is a fetishism ignoring what is obvious, these basic relations between classes - heirs and workers.

Comevius 5y ago
Do you have a relationship with your teeth, gut or brain? Because poverty tend to be bad for your physical and mental health. There is a large gap in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest, not to mention the quality of that life. Poverty is not just a deprivation of possessions, it is a deprivation of housing, education, employment and health care. Increasingly it is a deprivation of clean air, water, healthy food and physical safety. Poverty is a ruinous gravity well that chews you up and spits you out as a twisted shadow. It traps people in vicious cycles that can last for generations. You can escape it alive, but you can't escape it unscathed.
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misslibby 5y ago
Are there seriously people who believe this bullshit? You think everybody who works only works for "heirs", and if there were no heirs, nobody would have to work? If nobody would work, billions of people would starve within weeks. The only relationship to other people that would prolong ones life would perhaps the ability to eat some of your peers.
- VictorPath 5y ago
  > Are there seriously people who believe this bullshit? You think everybody who works only works for "heirs", and if there were no heirs, nobody would have to work? Well that does sound like "bullshit" as you put it, but it bears no relation to what I said.

Atlas667 5y ago

This is a very romantic account of poverty. Poverty, in general, in the abstract form, is not due the lack of philosophical questions on purpose, meaning or goals, or even bad spending. Poverty in the here and now is a part of our social system. It will not be eradicated while capital rules societies because it depends on it. Loved ones killing themselves with crack cocaine can not be remembered fondly. Shitty emotional lives for children because of stressed out, alienated parents isn't either. Living in decay and not having basic necessities like a functioning sink met are not hot. The effects of poverty on self esteem are downright harrowing and saddening to even see.

misslibby 5y ago
Capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty.
- Atlas667 5y ago
  Yes, objectively the managing of production for profit has benefited the world in some very real ways, but there are irremediable contradictions in this system that harm the world in other ways. Production should not be for profit anymore and for that to happen production must be in control of the producers not the profiteers. Its about going forward, not back.
  - misslibby 5y ago
    Why should production not be for profit? Anybody who produces something useful should be rewarded for it.
- danny_codes 5y ago
  Of course. Capitalism is a useful tool, because markets are the best known tool for facilitating economic growth. However, capitalism is in itself an inherently broken system: because of the nature of capital, a perfectly capitalist society will approach a state where one actor owns everything, and everyone else owns nothing. As such, all countries practice a form of mediated capitalism: market functioning is limited by governmental action. Certain markets are not allowed to exist, while others are managed via regulation. There is no inherent reason why capitalism cannot be adapted to preserve the utility of markets while simultaneously eliminating poverty.

Traster 5y ago

One thing that gave me hope recently is seeing Jack Monroe campaigning for the Vimes index. I wont try and word it as well as the man himself[1]: > “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money, Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.” And to some extent, people focus on the economics, but I think it's just as important to point out - how good would your day be if you had wet feet. [1]Monroe is a female poverty campaigner who does fantastic work, the Vimes index is based on Terry Pratchett's fiction, endorsed by his estate.

selimthegrim 5y ago
I believe Monroe has since come out as non-binary.