Why is "money management" always brought up and used against the poor?
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Anonymous
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I'm not down on the poor. I think a lot of poverty is just bad luck - being born into a poor family, bad schools, having bad health, addiction, being physically or mentally non-gifted.
But the thing I do blame people for is having kids they can't afford. Kids are so expensive. But it seems like many poor people make the situation worse with a bunch of kids. |
Anonymous
The reason that poor people are suckers for luxury "brands" has to do with low self esteem. A poor dude in $250 shoes feels pretty good about himself (instead he should feel like a chump that got tricked out of what limited money he has. A poor woman who has talon blingy fingernails and designer clothes feels as attractive and wealthy, even thought it's false facade. But they feel better, if only for the moment. |
Anonymous
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I have some relatives who live in Appalachia. We visited them earlier this summer. We met in a city about 2 hours from where they live, and 7 hours from where we live. We took them out to lunch and caught up.
Then we each start driving back. About 45 minutes into our drive, I get a tearful call from the mother (it was mother in her 50's and daughter in her late 20's) that she lost her debit card, and is at the gas station and can't buy gas to make the drive home. Between the two of them, they had $4 in cash. No credit cards since neither would qualify. One works a part-time job, and the other works a factory job on the night shift. So we drove back and gave them cash to buy gas to get home. What burned me up about this 1.5 hour detour is that the daughter was drinking a freshly-purchased Mountain Dew (I mention the brand only because MD is super-popular there.. no idea why, but almost everyone drinks it). Now, if you're low on cash, why pay convenience store prices for a drink, instead of buying a 12-pack at home and throw it in a cooler? That's how we were traveling -- cooler in car with drinks we bought at home from the grocery store. Turns out the mother had $72 on her debit card, and had stopped at an ATM at home to check her balance, and forgot the card in the machine. Of course, both she and her daughter smoke and I have no idea how much cigarettes cost, but it can't be that cheap. |
Anonymous
NP. I don't know about "hordes," but I will never forget the Post story in the last two years about the 18yo (or maybe he was 17) who was expecting a baby with his GF. His grandma was proud of him (for being responsible) and gave him $200 to buy shoes (or bought them for him). In any event, she knew the money was going toward shoes. That same week he was killed for his shoes. Heartbreaking, and questionable. Why didn't his grandma give his GF the $200 to buy baby supplies? The GF was holding down a job at Starbucks and had one or two other kids. She was busting her butt, yet the grandma didn't acknowledge this woman. And - I also remember that our big-law partner friend asked what we'd do with the tax rebate from Bush (wasn't it like $200?). We answered and he said he was going to use it to pay down cc debt. So, it's on both ends. Read Elizabeth Warren's The Two Income Trap to understand how people can't cut out an expensive coffee now to make ends meet. Our housing, health insurance, and taxes are way too high in this country, whereas 30 years ago, they were a small percentage of the American budget. Consumer goods was the biggest piece of the pie then - so you could not buy a washing machine the year you got laid off and that would make a difference to your bottom line. |