I've read The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged - the latter many times and the first time in my early 30s after getting my MBA. I've also read 50+ other works of philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and so on). Rand is not the greatest of philosophers that I've read, but I have yet to read a legitimate criticism of her on this board - this time or any other time she comes up in discussion.
Why Poor People Stay Poor
- Thread starter crimsonaudio
- Start date
I've read The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged - the latter many times and the first time in my early 30s after getting my MBA. I've also read 50+ other works of philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and so on). Rand is not the greatest of philosophers that I've read, but I have yet to read a legitimate criticism of her on this board - this time or any other time she comes up in discussion.
Absolutely agree on Tolkien. Read The Hobbit and LOTR in high school and many times since then, including as recently as a couple of years ago. Fantastic works.
The disconnect is coming from the expectation (from both sides) of "if I do this, the outcome will be...."
You can do all the right things, and still end up broke. You can do all the wrong things, and still hit the PowerBall. Of course, you'll probably be broke 10 years later, but that's another discussion for another day.
But if you avoid the life-changing blunder, especially between the ages of 15 and 25, your odds of being spiritually content and financially comfortable at age 65 are exponentially better. Not perfect....better.
The three main things are really what not to do. As in, if you don't do them, you've made a real good start:
3. Don't get into drugs (including alcohol) to the extent that it affects your academic or work performance,
2. Don't borrow money to buy things that either depreciate or have no value once you've incurred the liability.
2A. Don't ever, ever incur long-term debt to finance short-term consumption.
And #1 with a bullet:
1. Don't become a teen-aged parent
1A, If you're already out of your teens, don't have children with people who haven't demonstrated reliability that lasts through good times and bad.
I know, I know... there are dozens of reasons you can get into any of these, especially #3 and #2. But #1 is 100% a choice. And given the free availability of birth control, there is no reason in the world to create a child who is not planned, wanted, and welcomed from the instant of conception.
All of these obstacles can be overcome. And there are inspiring stories of people who have. But Holy Moly, you can dig yourself a hole if you run afoul. The sad stories far and away outnumber the happy endings.
The deal is, if you don't make the life-altering mistake between 15 and 25, the last 50-75 years of your life are infinitely easier.
Don't drop out of school to marry the swashbuckler. For goodness sake, don't make a baby with him until he proves he'll be around when it doesn't feel so good.
Don't borrow money to buy the fancy car. If you have no choice other than to borrow for a car, buy a beater and pay it off as quickly as you can.
Don't ever borrow money to buy a night out on the town or clothes or household goods.
Don't buy a house the instant you qualify for a mortgage (3% down, no points, 30 years, payment is over a quarter of your gross income, therefore 40%+ of your take-home). Work your way through your state school. If you have to take six years to graduate, or four with student loans, take six years.
Don't drink (or smoke or shoot) yourself blind and expect to be worth anything to an employer the next day. If you're not worth anything to the employer, don't expect to get paid. Or whine when the promotion goes to somebody else.
For the record, I have enough things in my personal and professional background that would indicate (1) he's going to top out flipping burgers, or (2) end up on the board of directors.
I've known good times and bad. For the most part, good things happened when I did right, and bad things happened when I didn't.
Luck came into play both ways -- I deserved some things I didn't get. I also didn't pay the price that could have been extracted for some other misdeeds.
But luck was far from the deciding factor in whether I got dope-slapped into driving a Yugo, or was flying Business Class. Making the right choices was.
You can do all the right things, and still end up broke. You can do all the wrong things, and still hit the PowerBall. Of course, you'll probably be broke 10 years later, but that's another discussion for another day.
But if you avoid the life-changing blunder, especially between the ages of 15 and 25, your odds of being spiritually content and financially comfortable at age 65 are exponentially better. Not perfect....better.
The three main things are really what not to do. As in, if you don't do them, you've made a real good start:
3. Don't get into drugs (including alcohol) to the extent that it affects your academic or work performance,
2. Don't borrow money to buy things that either depreciate or have no value once you've incurred the liability.
2A. Don't ever, ever incur long-term debt to finance short-term consumption.
And #1 with a bullet:
1. Don't become a teen-aged parent
1A, If you're already out of your teens, don't have children with people who haven't demonstrated reliability that lasts through good times and bad.
I know, I know... there are dozens of reasons you can get into any of these, especially #3 and #2. But #1 is 100% a choice. And given the free availability of birth control, there is no reason in the world to create a child who is not planned, wanted, and welcomed from the instant of conception.
All of these obstacles can be overcome. And there are inspiring stories of people who have. But Holy Moly, you can dig yourself a hole if you run afoul. The sad stories far and away outnumber the happy endings.
The deal is, if you don't make the life-altering mistake between 15 and 25, the last 50-75 years of your life are infinitely easier.
Don't drop out of school to marry the swashbuckler. For goodness sake, don't make a baby with him until he proves he'll be around when it doesn't feel so good.
Don't borrow money to buy the fancy car. If you have no choice other than to borrow for a car, buy a beater and pay it off as quickly as you can.
Don't ever borrow money to buy a night out on the town or clothes or household goods.
Don't buy a house the instant you qualify for a mortgage (3% down, no points, 30 years, payment is over a quarter of your gross income, therefore 40%+ of your take-home). Work your way through your state school. If you have to take six years to graduate, or four with student loans, take six years.
Don't drink (or smoke or shoot) yourself blind and expect to be worth anything to an employer the next day. If you're not worth anything to the employer, don't expect to get paid. Or whine when the promotion goes to somebody else.
For the record, I have enough things in my personal and professional background that would indicate (1) he's going to top out flipping burgers, or (2) end up on the board of directors.
I've known good times and bad. For the most part, good things happened when I did right, and bad things happened when I didn't.
Luck came into play both ways -- I deserved some things I didn't get. I also didn't pay the price that could have been extracted for some other misdeeds.
But luck was far from the deciding factor in whether I got dope-slapped into driving a Yugo, or was flying Business Class. Making the right choices was.
Last edited:
Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love, and other such Heinlein books can blow the mind of a bookish 14 year old.
Good recs. I enjoy his work, and got into it after first watching Starship Troopers. The book was better.
I loved the old sci if writers, and remain an Ellison fan as he was my earliest foray into the genre. Have a copy of The Essential Ellison from my dad's bookshelf.
_eek:
Stephen King had a good Sci-fi short in the same vein as those old writers, The Jaunt. Think it was free to read online and I would give it a look if you haven't already.
Hyperspace is a scary place.
Last edited:
Good recs. I enjoy his work, and got into it after first watching Starship Troopers. The book was better.
I loved the old sci if writers, and remain Ellison fan as he was my earliest foray into the genre. Have a copy of The Essential Ellison from my dad's bookshelf.
Stephen King had a good Sci-fi short in the same vein as those old writers, The Jaunt. Think it was free to read online and I would give it a look if you haven't already.
Hyperspace is a scary place.
Of all the sci fi I've read over the years, I've never read Ellison.
Start with I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. It's pretty short. That's where those talkfields came from. About scarred me for life when I read it in my youth but some good SciFi.
And yet, when Tolkien was asked about it his answer was: "All I did was dress up the old myths." (Or words to that general effect.)
Frank Herbert similarly created an expansive universe with Dune etc. As an aside, one of my favorite Herbert books is Helstrom's Hive. Chilling.
That's what Lincoln replied when asked about his religion, "when I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad.'"
Brilliant post, imo.
I think there are variables beyond one's control that have an effect one way or the other (agreeing with your first few sentences), but the reality is the much of the time, results are due to decisions.
But there are those who do everything right and still struggle - the long-term effects of which can be even more detrimental...
I first read that in HS as part of Skeleton Crew, fantastic collection, but that story is one of the few that truly haunt me.
I've been rereading King lately. He still holds up well. Ellison is fantastic; back when I was still reviewing DVDs, I got a nice little note from him after I trashed the DVD release of The Starlost--he really liked my review.Good recs. I enjoy his work, and got into it after first watching Starship Troopers. The book was better.
I loved the old sci if writers, and remain Ellison fan as he was my earliest foray into the genre. Have a copy of The Essential Ellison from my dad's bookshelf.
Stephen King had a good Sci-fi short in the same vein as those old writers, The Jaunt. Think it was free to read online and I would give it a look if you haven't already.
Hyperspace is a scary place.
Sent from my LG G3
"While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions". Coach Saban made a very similar comment in one of his earlier PCs.
All I'll say is this, too many times (certainly not all the time by any means) being poor in the US is the result of making poor decisions and continuing to make more. Thats not to imply that making better decisions will make your rich either.
It was a good post. The margins are still razor thin for the poor, as parents with means can and often do bail their kids out of bad decisions.
Boy, I remember living like that for a few years after my wife and I got married - being way too young and stupid. Most of it was my fault, suffering from bipolar disorder but too arrogant and too much in denial to seek proper treatment. I had to quit school, partially because I was about to flunk out anyway due to attendance problems - the work was never an issue, academia was always elementary for me - and partially because we were about to be homeless and it was important to both of us for my wife to finish her degree. Our housing situation was rough because there was a waiting list for married housing at her school and the married housing in which we were living at my school was very limited - much more so after our neighbor did something stupid and burnt half the place down. Fortunately, we didn't lose anything but the roof over our heads. We could have been going into enormous debt by living off of student loans but, even then, that was a trap we knew better than to fall into and sacrifice even more of our future.
For some reason, we were also hesitant to pursue government assistance - excepting utilizing the free clinic for illness and birth control - for some odd reason, probably somewhat irrationally thinking that it was really for people worse off than we. We were also, due mostly to my arrogance, reluctant to accept help from my parents who, to be honest, have never been in a financial situation to where they could really afford to support anyone but themselves. Even so, they've always been good with money and lived comfortably. If they could do it, then we could do it.
Our next apartment was a veritable crap-hole and we were only able to live there for a few months. Apparently our neighbors there were running some sort of prostitution / drug den out of their apartment and the building owners were looking the other way for a cut of the profits. As a result, the police eventually stepped in, arrested everyone, and we were left again without a place to stay.
I had been pretty lucky in high school and early on in college with good, relatively well-paying jobs - able to work and get experience in my chosen secular field of IT. Unfortunately, we had taken that for granted and spent our extra money on stuff rather than saving for the future. When my boss decided to close up shop, I suddenly found myself looking for employment in an overly saturated field - at least in this area - with seemingly no one hiring. As a result, I ended up working two or three part time jobs at a time - usually in some sort of crappy food service position - until I flaked out the next time I hit a bipolar-depression cycle.
Ironically enough, those good jobs I had early on then came back to bite me in the rear. I was trying to get anything as close to a good job as I could in any field, including trying to get a shift manager position at both McDonald's and Burger King. Both places turned me down for the same reason: the managers looked at my application, saw those previous jobs, and decided that I would get bored with that position and quit and/or jump at the first chance I had to get an IT job once the job market picked back up. As a result, I always seemed to be stuck getting the kind of jobs where they expect high turnover and don't care too much how long you'll stay. Crappy, low-paying job after crappy, low-paying job.
The car maintenance thing is a real issue, too. Keep putting in the cheapest oil you can find and stretching the time between oil changes for too long and you end up with a blown main seal and a seized engine.
Meanwhile, my wife was able to finish her degree plus the necessary amount of graduate work to sit for and get her CPA license. Unfortunately, the best thing she could find was a part-time job in her field. Now that school was finished, though, she was able to take on that job and still work a few hours as a cashier, so our money issues were starting to look up, just a bit.
Eventually, her hard work was rewarded with a full-time position and, after almost five years of marriage, we finally had health insurance. About a year later, I got a lucky break and was able to get a position in my field, as well. We were able to turn the corner and get what was, for us, a good apartment.
We've never looked back. Today, money isn't an issue for us and we're able to regularly help others each month avoid many of the issues we faced. It's very rewarding to have someone come to you with a car problem that's going to leave them without transportation for a couple weeks - or until they can manage to scrape together enough money to pay for the repairs - asking if you know of someone who could lend them a car for a few weeks so they don't lose their job and be able to simply give them the money to fix their car and provide them with a rental while it's being repaired.
Of course, another big part of the problem - in our society as a whole - is that it's often far more expensive to work your way out of poverty, especially if you have kids, than it is to stay there. There's a fairly large no-man's-land in terms of household income where assistance stops but you've still got a ways to go before you can really provide for the household.
Travelling to work costs money; car payment, car insurance, car maintenance, and gas add up to quite a bit out of each paycheck when you're working from one to the next. Heck, even working costs money; clothing, extra food costs, and daycare take chunks out of those paychecks, as well. Add in the fact that, all of sudden, you start owing taxes because you're now making too much to qualify for all of those tax cuts and that last raise somehow left you with less money out of each paycheck.
It's much easier to work just a few hours a week at the closest fast-food joint, sit at home on your butt most of the time, collect government assistance, and not have to spend all that money on transportation costs, work clothes, and daycare.
Our welfare programs seem to reward those who choose to remain in poverty and make it more difficult for those who try to work their way out of it.
For some reason, we were also hesitant to pursue government assistance - excepting utilizing the free clinic for illness and birth control - for some odd reason, probably somewhat irrationally thinking that it was really for people worse off than we. We were also, due mostly to my arrogance, reluctant to accept help from my parents who, to be honest, have never been in a financial situation to where they could really afford to support anyone but themselves. Even so, they've always been good with money and lived comfortably. If they could do it, then we could do it.
Our next apartment was a veritable crap-hole and we were only able to live there for a few months. Apparently our neighbors there were running some sort of prostitution / drug den out of their apartment and the building owners were looking the other way for a cut of the profits. As a result, the police eventually stepped in, arrested everyone, and we were left again without a place to stay.
I had been pretty lucky in high school and early on in college with good, relatively well-paying jobs - able to work and get experience in my chosen secular field of IT. Unfortunately, we had taken that for granted and spent our extra money on stuff rather than saving for the future. When my boss decided to close up shop, I suddenly found myself looking for employment in an overly saturated field - at least in this area - with seemingly no one hiring. As a result, I ended up working two or three part time jobs at a time - usually in some sort of crappy food service position - until I flaked out the next time I hit a bipolar-depression cycle.
Ironically enough, those good jobs I had early on then came back to bite me in the rear. I was trying to get anything as close to a good job as I could in any field, including trying to get a shift manager position at both McDonald's and Burger King. Both places turned me down for the same reason: the managers looked at my application, saw those previous jobs, and decided that I would get bored with that position and quit and/or jump at the first chance I had to get an IT job once the job market picked back up. As a result, I always seemed to be stuck getting the kind of jobs where they expect high turnover and don't care too much how long you'll stay. Crappy, low-paying job after crappy, low-paying job.
The car maintenance thing is a real issue, too. Keep putting in the cheapest oil you can find and stretching the time between oil changes for too long and you end up with a blown main seal and a seized engine.
Meanwhile, my wife was able to finish her degree plus the necessary amount of graduate work to sit for and get her CPA license. Unfortunately, the best thing she could find was a part-time job in her field. Now that school was finished, though, she was able to take on that job and still work a few hours as a cashier, so our money issues were starting to look up, just a bit.
Eventually, her hard work was rewarded with a full-time position and, after almost five years of marriage, we finally had health insurance. About a year later, I got a lucky break and was able to get a position in my field, as well. We were able to turn the corner and get what was, for us, a good apartment.
We've never looked back. Today, money isn't an issue for us and we're able to regularly help others each month avoid many of the issues we faced. It's very rewarding to have someone come to you with a car problem that's going to leave them without transportation for a couple weeks - or until they can manage to scrape together enough money to pay for the repairs - asking if you know of someone who could lend them a car for a few weeks so they don't lose their job and be able to simply give them the money to fix their car and provide them with a rental while it's being repaired.
Of course, another big part of the problem - in our society as a whole - is that it's often far more expensive to work your way out of poverty, especially if you have kids, than it is to stay there. There's a fairly large no-man's-land in terms of household income where assistance stops but you've still got a ways to go before you can really provide for the household.
Travelling to work costs money; car payment, car insurance, car maintenance, and gas add up to quite a bit out of each paycheck when you're working from one to the next. Heck, even working costs money; clothing, extra food costs, and daycare take chunks out of those paychecks, as well. Add in the fact that, all of sudden, you start owing taxes because you're now making too much to qualify for all of those tax cuts and that last raise somehow left you with less money out of each paycheck.
It's much easier to work just a few hours a week at the closest fast-food joint, sit at home on your butt most of the time, collect government assistance, and not have to spend all that money on transportation costs, work clothes, and daycare.
Our welfare programs seem to reward those who choose to remain in poverty and make it more difficult for those who try to work their way out of it.
For the most part, yes. At the same time, situations arise, many involving catastrophic events, medical situations, family members, etc., that make us have to make decision contrary to our better judgement. Those can have detrimental effects that remain for many years, or possibly for the rest of our lives.
In many such situations, we have no choice. We do what is best for ourselves and/or our family members.
Essentially though, Life happens. There's not a single one among us that knows what's going to happen to us or those we know and love today, tomorrow, next week or years down the road. We take life as it comes and we do with it the best we can, regardless of whether we think it's in the best interest of our own financial future.
Trending content
-
-
-
-
-
Thread 'Good luck dealing with a pandemic, depending on this administration...'
- TIDE-HSV
Replies: 8K -
-
-
Latest threads
-
ESPN: Skydiver crashes into Hokies' scoreboard, rescued- Started by TideFans Reporter
- Replies: 0
-
ESPN: IU transfer Mendoza 'the guy' in Ga. Tech QB fight
- Started by TideFans Reporter
- Replies: 0
-
Keelon Russell A-Day Film Study by JD Pickell - Me? I see Tua Flashbacks???
- Started by BamaMoon
- Replies: 5
-
-
ESPN: Riddick's favorite players in the NFL draft class, from first-round locks to exciting sleepers
- Started by TideFans Reporter
- Replies: 0
-
ESPN: 10 NFL scouts predict the first 10 draft picks
- Started by TideFans Reporter
- Replies: 0