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If you're that poor, drink tap water and don't buy beer and soda. You'll save way more that way than you could possibly make recycling. Here's another idea, do

If you're that poor, drink tap water and don't buy beer and soda. You'll save way more that way than you could possibly make recycling. Here's another idea, don't accept it. Don't settle for poverty. One of the main problems I have with welfare systems is that it causes people who don't have to, to settle for being poor. If you just accept it, you'll stay that way. (I realize the improbability that someone so poor is reading this.)

pault 13y ago
You are a 40 year old mother of three children that has just been divorced and has been out of the labor market for 15 years. You have only a high school diploma and no marketable job skills. To make matters worse, you don't live near any major population centers, and without savings you can't afford to move. What do you do? It's important to recognize the extremely difficult situations people get stuck in when every disadvantage is compounding. There's only so much a stiff upper lip can do. The competition for regular employment at this level is fierce, and compensation is just enough to keep you from improving your situation. You can reasonably argue that this person has made a lifetime of poor decisions, but suggesting that people should simply "not settle for it" is not a solution.
- frogpelt 13y ago
  It's neat how you picked an example that doesn't apply to my point. I fully understand the difficult situation people get "stuck" in. The reason people are "stuck" is many times because no one is telling or showing them that there are ways out. They are simply mailing them a check to hold them over until the next check. But I know more than a handful of people who got out of the ghetto and welfare situations and it wasn't a government program that pulled them out. There was community help, like churches, for instance. But in almost every case they bootstrapped their way out. They started by deciding to be honest. They accepted responsibility. They listened to good advice. When flat broke, what are you going to lose by moving? What do you have to move? Not much. Try something, anything. My overarching point is that welfare handouts hurt more people than they help in the long term. They create reliance instead of independence. EDIT: As I thought about this a bit more, I realized your scenario and my point are not that far apart. The 40 year old woman with a high school diploma and 3 kids in your example may not be able to change her own circumstances that easily but she has three little minds that she can mold day after day about rising above those circumstances. Instead, what we usually see is poverty passed on to the next generation. If she accepts poverty as a way of life she is more likely to pass the mindset on to her kids.
steveklabnik 13y ago
> If you're that poor, drink tap water and don't buy beer and soda. You'll save way more that way than you could possibly make recycling. Uh, they have to dig through the trash and go out and collect bottles because they're not their bottles...
- frogpelt 13y ago
  I was referencing this part of the post: "Low income families return their own empty beer bottles and soda cans for several hundred dollars of crucial income per year."

pault 13y ago

You are a 40 year old mother of three children that has just been divorced and has been out of the labor market for 15 years. You have only a high school diploma and no marketable job skills. To make matters worse, you don't live near any major population centers, and without savings you can't afford to move. What do you do? It's important to recognize the extremely difficult situations people get stuck in when every disadvantage is compounding. There's only so much a stiff upper lip can do. The competition for regular employment at this level is fierce, and compensation is just enough to keep you from improving your situation. You can reasonably argue that this person has made a lifetime of poor decisions, but suggesting that people should simply "not settle for it" is not a solution.

frogpelt 13y ago
It's neat how you picked an example that doesn't apply to my point. I fully understand the difficult situation people get "stuck" in. The reason people are "stuck" is many times because no one is telling or showing them that there are ways out. They are simply mailing them a check to hold them over until the next check. But I know more than a handful of people who got out of the ghetto and welfare situations and it wasn't a government program that pulled them out. There was community help, like churches, for instance. But in almost every case they bootstrapped their way out. They started by deciding to be honest. They accepted responsibility. They listened to good advice. When flat broke, what are you going to lose by moving? What do you have to move? Not much. Try something, anything. My overarching point is that welfare handouts hurt more people than they help in the long term. They create reliance instead of independence. EDIT: As I thought about this a bit more, I realized your scenario and my point are not that far apart. The 40 year old woman with a high school diploma and 3 kids in your example may not be able to change her own circumstances that easily but she has three little minds that she can mold day after day about rising above those circumstances. Instead, what we usually see is poverty passed on to the next generation. If she accepts poverty as a way of life she is more likely to pass the mindset on to her kids.

steveklabnik 13y ago

> If you're that poor, drink tap water and don't buy beer and soda. You'll save way more that way than you could possibly make recycling. Uh, they have to dig through the trash and go out and collect bottles because they're not their bottles...

frogpelt 13y ago
I was referencing this part of the post: "Low income families return their own empty beer bottles and soda cans for several hundred dollars of crucial income per year."