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Part of the reason they squander the money is similar to many from former Soviet countries. The Soviets took wealth from people to redistribute it. Especially t

• gexla 13y ago
  I think it's more simple than that. The idea of "nobody thinks about tomorrow" is common in the Philippines as well. I think it's more a lack of education. When you haven't had money and your parents haven't had money, then you don't really know how to handle it. It's the same with family planning. Since having lots of kids is the norm, people don't think much of it (not to mention that birth control is an extra expense for people already tight on cash.) It's not until someone can break out numbers, charts, graphs and help these people understand the basics of thriving in a modern economy that they will begin to make better choices. Also, are people in the U.S. really that much different? How many people have the skills and discipline to properly plan for retirement or an emergency? Sure, many people are just scraping by. For many people in the middle class, their monthly budget just swells to eat up their pay. I remember a lot of friends right out of high school landing well paying labor jobs (while everyone else was poor and going to college) and blowing it all on trucks and big boy toys. This is an extreme example, but what percentage of high paid pro athletes go broke within 5 years after they quit playing? Big lotto winners? Budgeting is one of those life tasks which can be very simple, but still difficult for many people. Time management is another. The brain sometimes has difficulty dealing with these abstract things. These people don't do well unless you constrain them. Their budgets are constrained by what they bring home. Their time management is constrained by punching a clock and given specific tasks to do within certain times. Show up at X time. Take a lunch at X time. Leave at X time. In between, stand in X spot and deal with customers. Give them a vague job like running a business where they have to plan their own day and they would probably fall apart.
  • vidarh 13y ago
    > It's not until someone can break out numbers, charts, graphs and help these people understand the basics of thriving in a modern economy that they will begin to make better choices. You are assuming that they don't make good choices for their situation. In many poor countries, having many children is a cultural norm borne out of necessity: Someone without many children becomes a burden on the rest of the community when they grow old and/or sick, or is left to die. Blowing your money on other stuff and having children is often two very different things - for many in the developing world, stretching their economy to the breaking point to raise more children is exercising discipline to plan for retirement or an emergency.
  • yardie 13y ago
    I grew up poor, well educated, and knew how to budget. I just chose not to when I was younger. When you're relatively rich it's very easy to convey wealth. You only have to look at the well educated, trust funded hipsters to see they will be alright. When you're poor your means to convey success are limited to material things. I was involved with a program to get poor people bank accounts. In the end the bank (American) slowly bled them dry with charges and fees. One thing I do have to give credit to the poor, at least they recognize money is fleeting and bullshit. It's the personal connections that will help you along. I have many upper middle class friends who can't change a tire, can't snake a toilet, and don't know how to do physical labour. One dropped a coffee meet last week because it conflicted with his tennis match.
• olalonde 13y ago
  I would speculate that "cam girls" simply have on average a lower control for delayed gratification (i.e. they failed the Stanford marshmallow experiment). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment