This is a spawn of the "The other kind of preparedness" thread, which touched on financial preparedness. We're doing very well over in that thread on a knife edge of political, without anyone getting cut.

Here's something I'd like to add to the discussion about the paths to poverty and out again in America, and it's based on some observations and the fact that I've been working at an ad agency that has a credit card company as a client for almost four years, so I have a lot of data about how/when/why people get into debt.

We touched on payday loans and we touched on "irresponsible buying" in the other thread, but I think there's this deep-set conviction for many people that being poor is a choice, and with simple persistence and determination, anyone can overcome poverty, or at least be poor with some level of dignity.

However, I think that in the last 25 years, there have been some massive changes in America - changes that have made it much harder to simply fight your way out of a hole, and changes that have made it much harder to stop sliding down if you do fall.

Here are some examples of what I mean.

You need internet access if you want to find a job.
Newspapers are an ever-smaller source of job listings. You need to get access to the internet (and you pay with time or with money) to find most job listings these days. Not only that, but dialup access isn't really practical for most job listing sites, so you need broadband (if you can get it).

You have increased telecommunications costs if you want to work.
While a prepaid mobile phone is the cheapest way to get telephone service in the USA, it is still an expensive way to communicate. In the USA we have a double-cost system for mobile calls - the caller pays AND the recipient pays. This adds up.

There are limited housing options.
All around the USA, the cost of housing is very, very high compared to the cost of housing in 1980. In urban situations - where the jobs are - it's even worse. The eradication of the SRO - single room occupancy - was a huge factor in displacing people with low incomes from places where the jobs are.

Salaries have not kept up with inflation.
The value of a minimum wage dollar is less now than ever. Minimum wage work used to be for a minimal standard of living where you could afford simple food, simple housing and you could afford to get to work and back, and not much else. It does not - and can not - do that anymore.

We moved a couple years out of an older neighborhood where a lot of the houses were rented out under the section 8 program (gov rent assistance). So we were right in the middle of "poor" people. The majority of those "poor" had cell phones, had cars (usually with nice stereos), had big screen tv's (rent a center), kids had health care (nurse would drive to their house) so its no wonder they remained "poor". I'm sure there are those who really couldn't do any better but I'd say that even estimating conservatively still more than half were "poor" by choice.
Some of it is the housing issue. Section 8 looks at the income and says you can pay x amount so the .gov will pay the rest. So then you get to rent a place and as soon as you get a better job section 8 says now you can pay more so they adjust the rent and you can't get ahead. The couple that with the fact that costs as much if not more to rent than buy. Even in the nicer place we moved to there is an apartment complex near buy and a co-worker pays $900 a month for his small apartment and I pay $1200 a month for my 1600sq ft house. He had to move up here when they closed the branch office in TX but he plans to move back when he can. I told him for what he's paying in rent he couple get one of the smaller houses and then sell it when he moves back.

You need internet access if you want to find a job.
Or you could walk around looking for "Help Wanted" signs, stand with the other day laborers at Home Depot, ask friends to tell you of any job openings they know of... been there, done that. The internet isn't the only place to find a job.

You have increased telecommunications costs if you want to work.
I don't know why an employee at the bottom rung of McDonald's would need a phone. Or the bottom rung of any other place, either. BT,DT

There are limited housing options.
It's been shown that rent controls kills affordable housing because it removes any incentive to build more homes/apartments/condos. Sometimes you just need to move in with someone else or multiple someones even if you don't like them. Been there, done that.

Salaries have not kept up with inflation.
The value of a minimum wage dollar is less now than ever. Minimum wage work used to be for a minimal standard of living where you could afford simple food, simple housing and you could afford to get to work and back, and not much else. It does not - and can not - do that anymore.
Minimum wage has never been considered a "living wage" or meant to be. It was ment to be the base pay for an unskilled laborer. Think of it this way, a bagboy makes minimum wage when he first starts out. No one expects the bagboy to earn enough to support a family. I'm really curious to know why you think it was.

Just as big of a problem is the feeling that you must have lots of "goodies" in your life. Every weekend I'm down in the 5th Ward of Houston (poorest section of the city) working among the dilapidated shacks...and each one of these shacks has a satellite tv dish mounted on the roof, the kids are wearing gold chains, and the cars have fancy wheels. Single motherhood is the norm. No wonder they can't escape poverty.


-Blast

I actually think minimum wage is a problem rather than a solution in some cases. I live in WA state where the minimum wage is set at $8.55 per hour, with a slight decrease for 14 and 15 year old kids. I have friends who own a couple of feed stores and they just aren’t hiring kids anymore-- as most kids just aren’t worth that kind of money as they don’t know how to work in the first place. How are kids going to learn the value of hard work and how to be productive if they can’t get a job?

I'm w/rebwa. It sucks, but I think minimum wage is the problem.

Also - I posted something about living out of your car in around the campfire in the last couple weeks, check it out, it tackles the cost of housing and internet access head on.

Re phones and communication - Google Voice. If you had two hundreds bucks to spend on an Ipod Touch or you already own a laptop you could have a phone with unlimited calls and text messages to any number in the united states for free WHEREVER THERE IS WIFI. That stuff in caps is the catch. So yeah, you have to park your car outside a macdonals, library, or other place to use your free phone, but it is free.

If you don't have the money to invest in a laptop, post an add on craiglist, I bet you get get a free old one quickly. Put Ubuntu on it, it has everything you need in terms of software to get google voice up and running. Set it all up from a free computer at a library.

I'm at a library using free internet as I type by the way! Being poor is definitely hard, but one might leverage the free time of having limited employment to overcome some of the difficulties.

I wrote a huge rant, but instead I decided to address the actual content of the OP.

Martin, I think that those massive changes in America actually make it easier!

Con: You need internet access if you want to find a job.
Pro: You can find a job using the internet! No buying newspapers every day. You can look everywhere. You don't have to get your resume printed on expensive paper and mail it. You can fill out an application without going anywhere. If you have a junk laptop you can use a free hotspot. My rinky-dink little library has a bunch of computers and even fee wifi.

You have increased telecommunications costs if you want to work.
Huh?

Salaries have not kept up with inflation.
I can't understand the notion that simply having a job - just any job - should guarantee you are able to support a family. Instead of asking "How can anyone raise a family on minimum wage?", ask "Why would anyone try to raise a family on minimum wage?" You need a better plan than that.

If anything, minimum wage laws help to keep people at the bottom.

Dang! Got sidetracked and forgot the most important thing I was going to say:

Today you can start a business with practically nothing. You have to start small, work hard and grow slowly, but it can be done - and no one can stop you.

Also!

I feel a little strange, because I'm about so say something I don't think I've ever said before in my entire life:
"It's not all black and white." Yuck, what a bad taste in my mouth.

We know that all poor people are not lazy. We also know that all poor people are not incapable of bettering themselves.

And with practically nothing, how do cover your living costs, whilst the business actually brings in an income, which not only provides a profit but covers the simple basic business operating costs such as transportation, communications, banking costs etc. Most businesses will have credit and payment terms for their customers. There are issues called cash flow, break even analysis and taxation. The only businesses which cost practically nothing to startup generally are on the wrong side of the law or will very soon be. Do you go for a Limited Liability Company (greater taxation benefits and loop holes) or just a self employed trader (pays a higher rate of personal taxation, with less opportunity to grow). Even preparing a business plan successfully takes time, research and expertise (all of which have a real cost even if it is your own time). There is also always the risk of failure (cash flow, failure to pay tax etc), which would have many more times the consequences of NOT escaping the poverty trap. There are many hard working individuals running small businesses out there right now, wishing that the Government was partly paying the mortgage or the rent, many of them living in real poverty.

If you think that all it takes is a ladder, a wash bucket and some cloths to even start a simple window cleaning business then you had better invest in a baseball bat as well.

I seriously believe that the worst part about being poor it that it rips away the mental dedication required to break out of the poverty well. Being able to support yourself and your family is the key to self respect. Take away the job and very few of us will keep the self respect - and the dedication to improve your situation erodes very quickly.


Have I been there, done that? Only partial, I have just scratched a tiny speckle of the surface of these effects. I moved to a different part of the country on a whim, thinking I was cool enough to whip up a cool job within a few months. I had to cave in and find that job in another town after about 9 months. I will never forget how degrading and mentally challenging it was to motivate myself to keep looking, making phone calls and all the other stuff required to find the job you want.


Mind you, we had zero financial troubles living on my wife's income during that period. We have a very supportive and resourceful family and friends. I had no trouble what so ever finding and doing alternative jobs (manual factory work, part-time teacher and such). It was just that my cool university-degree work that would be my path to self realization never seemed to materialize in the town I very much wanted to live in. After 9 months I finally came to my senses and found the job I wanted elsewhere... I will never forget how I felt at the last part of that time period.


I can't really imagine what it is like to being trapped in poverty, except that it must be A LOT tougher mentally than my little misadventure.


If you manage the mental bit you can manage anything. Lots of suggestion above - keep the mental part and you will find a way. It is all about accepting your situation, realizing you can't have a high material standard of living right now and being creative of exploiting the options available to you. There's always something. Something's better than nothing. Exploit that and you're a bit better off tomorrow than yesterday.

Here's a book about how you could deal with it. It is all about improving self esteem and life situation with very small incremental steps at a time.
Change your life in 7 steps


EDIT: About people in poverty always finding money for fancy phones and bling for their car... I think that is their little escape from reality, having a bit of fun in an otherwise harsh world. Probably not the wisest choice of investment, but who am I to blame them?

After having watched a young man who I've been a sort of mentor to for over a decade I think that expectations of what's normal raise the bar too high. Even though his parents are hard-working frugal folks, his peers seem to set him up for trouble.

My young friend has had his (too expensive for him) car repossessed, had his (constantly yakking) cell phone shut off and so forth.
He drives a truck when he has a job. (Rolled one truck at 0mph in a case of bad luck tipover).

He can't afford the lifestyle that he thinks is roughing it.
He's not a bad kid and isn't working the system - he just doesn't know that he has to set his living standard even lower because of his pay scale!

What has happened to writing a letter instead of yakking?
What has happened to sharing a place with a bunch of other guys?
What has happened to choosing a place to live so you can walk to work?
How about packing your lunch?

etc, etc

I'm sure my parents said the same stuff about my generation. And that was true too! Escalating expectations cause a lot of trouble.

You are thinking the old way, my friend! I said "Today, you can start a business with practically nothing."

Granted, you need to cover your living costs with a regular job or whatever. I assume that you've been eating since you were born and can manage to continue that for a little while longer. Now lessee...

"simple basic business operating costs such as transportation, communications, banking costs etc"
With the possible exception of communications so that you don't have to walk over to Starbucks, why would you bother with any of that?

"Most businesses will have credit and payment terms for their customers."
Again, soooo last century.

As for LLCs, Corporations, etc., in the US the only advantage is that you can shield your personal assets from your business debtors. You don't have any personal assets, and you probably can't get credit, and you aren't going to use debt anyhow.

You need a glossy business plan if you are trying to get investors. A mental one will do if you are investing $100 of your own money.

The risk of failure is you lose your $100 and keep your day job. If you don't make any money, what tax do you have to pay?


That sounds like way too much money tied up in capital equipment to me.

I should have noted that my examples above are urban poor. I also grew up in rural poor, hills of WV. Our church is doing a big outreach program there now, truckloads of food and supplies. I grew up with a lot of cousins, some of which were on welfare, always had the name brand clothes, went to every nascar race, the first in the area to get video games, etc. Now a couple of them are grown up as well, always in poverty but with 25 cars in their yard.
Life is about choices, if your in the inner city and can't find a job there, then get on the bus and ride to where there is a job, yea your going to have to get up early and get home late, you have to make the choice to sacrifice.
Same as rural, I had to make the choice to leave, would love to live there now but there are no jobs so I live in the city. I had to take out loans, get up early and go to school, get out of school and go to my job, get home late and get a couple hours of sleep and do it again the next day. I planned to drive home every couple weekends but had to work extra and maybe only made it once every couple months. I lived off $.19/loaf bread, $.69/dozen eggs and a $.99 gallon of orange juice, had to teach myself how to cook and eggs and toast were simple enough so I made myself that for breakfast everyday for 4 years. I bagged groceries, pushed shopping carts, cleaned bathrooms, was looked down on by mercedes owning people and cussed at by bmw owning snobs, had smoke blown at me by volvo driving jerks. I'd get paid every friday, top off my gas tank, buy my one bag of groceries for the week and store the rest for my 1/3 of the rent and utilities for the two bedroom apartment three of us in the school rented in the ghetto (we couldn't afford the school housing. I had to make sacrifices, make the choice to live like that. Again, I'd love to be back on the farm in WV but I make the choice to not live in poverty, sometimes thats what people have to do.
I was out on the edge of the parking lot of the big grocery store one day picking up trash when standing by the entrance was a man holding a sign that said "will work for food". I said "dude look" and pointed at the big sign on the front of the grocery store that said "now hiring, immediate start". He folded up his sign and walked away.
Thats how I know that the majority of people who live in poverty do so by choice.

now I should add that I'm not down on everyone, I've helped people out in the past, if people truly had a hard time I have no problem helping them out, if they are some who chooses and tries to help themselves. We've given away computers, we've fixed computers, we've made and printed resumes, we've helped people with broken down cars, we've offered people to stay in our home, given people food, etc.

Mostly, you have summed up my points as I wanted to say them. I am poor, I will not deny it. My mom is laid-off and has been since December 2008, My dad has notbeen able to find a job in his field of profession in the St.Louis area anymore. I am 16 as some of you know, and I am searching desperately to find a job, I cant anymore! I have applied at all fast food chains within 5 miles of my house, nothing! I have appied at car dealerships, forklift operating jobs, auto repair shops! Everywhere, I can think of! All turned up nothing! I have a laptop that cost $500, I share it with the entire family. I am using my polite neighbors wireless internet, He knows our situation. I have one 27" T.V., no cable. I have no games, game systems, or anything to that effect! I live in the worst part of Granite City, I have had 2 bikes stolen and several attempted break-ins. I have, in another thread, told you about my forms of self defense so, I have safety covered! I have had to work, Hard for what I have. I have had to push myself carrying 200 5 gallon buckets full of dirt, sand, concrete, clay you name it! I hated it, but it managed to get me money, a whopping $30. I have spent that money on stuff for my B.O.B. that would suffice to help us out if we become homeless. Our house is about to go into forclosure and we can do nothing! We have no money to do anything, I absolutely hate being poor, but believe me Everyone, being poor can also be the best thing that happens to you! I have a friend who is Middle-class, He doesnt pay the insurance on his H3, He didnt even pay for his H3, his parents did! He has never paid for a gallon of gas, His parents always have. He has been raised around money, when that money disappears, he is... well nothing but F'ed! His parents dont have a trust fund set up or even a will, they want there "hard earned" money now! I do, but I dont want to see him hit that bump in life that separates a fool and his money, In this case his parents. He doesnt work, never applied to work and he's 18! He thinks that minimum wage is over $17 an hour because his mom and dad make more than that! He is in for a hard road called "Life"!

I can't believe that I'm going to post this. I struggled with the idea of writing this because some of it is embarrassing while other parts aren't anyone else's business. However, I felt I might be able to help with some misconceptions and that is what overrode my apprehensions. I hope a few people will read it.

I grew up poor, the kind of poor that the blogger wrote about in the article linked in the post that started this alternate thread. My mother worked about 50 to 60 hours a week and my father worked even longer. Because both of my parents worked full time my sisters and I where what people today would call latchkey kids. In any case, I respect both of my parents because it wasn't a lack of effort that kept us poor. They worked very hard to make us feel anything but poor. Still, that's what we were, poor.

I managed to make it into a small regional college where I worked hard, made the Dean's List every semester and was able to then attend a fairly prestigious school; a school that was beyond my means. Several times during my years in that school several other students and I lived together in houses where we couldn't afford heating oil in the dead of a New England winter. There were times when I had eat Ramen every day if I ate and worse when I had to dumpster dive for something to eat. There were nights I turned in "overnight forms" for various classes and labs so that I could sleep in a warm school building instead of an old drafty below freezing house. In the end I couldn't keep up with the curriculum, do the expected out of class work, work a more than full time job, and live in one of the most expensive cities on the east coast. I ended up having to leave before I got a degree. That was my excursion with "living beyond my means", the dream that I could have ever afforded the college I attended.

After college I worked hard for 20 years, never living beyond my means, but never making enough to secure any kind of long term existence should things get bad. I've only ever had a loan for a car and that has been paid off. I only ever had one credit card that I charged $200 on, payed off and then dropped. I made plans, worked hard to accomplish goals and tried to climb the ladder of success over those years with varying successes and failures. Then things got really bad when the economy crashed. The crash took my business with it. I managed to get work here and there and was able to delay the inevitable as my savings dwindled over the course of the last few years. During those years I freelanced while trying to find a full time job in my field. When I failed to do so, I tried to find a job anywhere that would at least allow me to work even though it most likely wouldn't be enough to live on.

Before I secured a job I became sick. I thought I had contracted the the flu. Information on the hospital website informed the general public not to come in to the emergency room if anyone thought they had the flu because they were swamped. Heeding this advice I stayed at home. After being sick for at least a week with a temperature that progressively got higher, finally reaching 104º, and at a point where I fell in and out of wild hallucinations I thought in a moment of lucidity that I should go to the ER. It turned out that I had gotten a staph infection and had to spend days in ICU while they monitored me and pumped me full of heavy antibiotics. They later removed more than 2 liters of puss from my back in two bedside surgeries and more in an operating room surgery.

I'm poor again.

Currently I live with family, and if not for them I'd be on the street there is no doubt.

I'm working hard again to change my situation. Maybe it will work and maybe it won't.

Neither my family nor I have ever taken any form of public assistance as a matter of pride. However, I must admit that I recently had to go to a mission clinic just to get a doctor to write me some prescriptions. I hope that none of you never know how devastating it is to pride and ego to be in such a place.

I'm not sharing this story for any kind of pity for myself. Life happens, and that's just what happened in my life. I can't say that I've got it worse than everyone else in the world by any stretch of the imagination. I'm only sharing a brief history so that you may get the idea that I know a little of what I'm talking about when I share the following thoughts.

At three different times in my life I've been the level of poor that the writer described in that blog post from the original thread, not had brushes with that level, but lived it. In my youth it was in the country, in college it was in one large city and in the latest adventure in another. In each of these instances I've known good people who were in similar situations if not worse, people that were working as hard as a human possibly could just to survive, to keep families alive and trying to better their situations. A few of them were able to improve their lives through hard work, but others haven't managed no matter how hard they tried. Beyond these people I've known others that were mentally ill who were unable to find a normal steady job for obvious reasons. I also have to admit that during those times I also met the lazy and the scammers. They are out there, inhabiting the worst parts of town and the highest offices, but the thing that you should know is that these vile people were far outnumbered by good hardworking folks. The numbers weren't even close.

I guess that what I am saying is that while it's easy to hold the ideal that hard work always results in success, in reality equal amounts of hard work don't result in equal amounts of success. If it did, I know a lot of people who would be millionaires by the effort they've given and a few millionaires who would be destitute by the same measure. Even so, sometimes life just happens and all of the reward for effort can be gone in an instant if it ever came in the first place. From what I've seen, there's no vast conspiracy of scammers out there trying to get everything for nothing and I've lived in some of the worst areas imaginable. There's not a huge number of people out there trying to take what people who are better off have, just people trying to do the best that they can in circumstances that aren't always capable of being fixed by pulling on bootstraps. I'm just asking that you take it easy on your fellow human beings.

The harshest thing I'm going to say in this thread is that this country would crumble if the hardworking poor decided the effort wasn't worth their lot. The social safety nets currently in place would fail if so much as half of the people who were eligible to take full advantage of them decided to do so. This country would crash in days if all those people walked away from their pride, misplaced or not.

That's just my view from what I've witnessed, I could be wrong.

This is not true in the US. It is quite a bit easier, and much more common, to start a small business here than it seems to be in Europe. You do need some skill others seek in order to be successful, as well as a drive to succeed in the face of competition.

This is where plumbers, electricians, air-conditioning repairmen, garage door door installers, come from, to name a few "sole-proprietors" I've hired recently. I've also hired an independent as a helicopter pilot for aerial photography and (sigh) a tow truck driver. All of these areas also have the advantage that they can't be outsourced to the far east and are, to an extent, recession resistant.

These *do* require some training and effort to get started. You can't just decide one morning to start a plumbing business - you need training, licensing, etc, before going out on your own. But the path from nowhere to somewhere is well trod and need not go through a university or large multinational. But you do need an inner drive, an inner "go".

Agreed, and there are even businesses that require even less licensing and capital, like selling other people's junk on ebay. There are whole blogs dedicated to starting non-scam home businesses, but they do take a lot of hard work, drive, and yes, you need to be able to float yourself somehow while you attempt to turn to profit and cash flow.

A heck of a lot more people think they know something about the causes, cures and experiences of being poor than actually do. If you haven't been poor yourself, or at least lived and worked with the poor extensively, believe me, you have no clue.

I used to get so angry in law school, listening to silver-spoon frat boys and always-sheltered suburban girls pontificate on poverty and often condemn the poor, while having known only security and comfort themselves, with a secure social safety net of at least modestly wealthy families, good connections and privilege, and utterly oblivious to the fact that they had no experience of the deprivation, humiliation and fear that real poverty entails.

To me, perhaps the worst part of being poor is the continuous, soul-eating fear and worry. If anything, anything at all, goes wrong, a relatively minor illness, a broken down car, or any other unexpected emergency, you're toast, because you have no margin for error. Being poor means facing potential disaster every day.

Suffice it to say, the working poor have it very tough in this country, and it is extremely hard for them to work themselves up a socio-economic ladder when they keep getting knocked off. The young and healthy can withstand and maybe eventually overcome such setbacks, but add some years, a disability, a mental illness or other chronic health problem, a child, or any sort of criminal record, and their odds of ever making it into our shrinking middle class diminish rapidly. They'll likely stay poor for the remainder of their lives, no matter what they do.

For every person that claws their way up into the middle class, another one, or more, gets knocked down into the ranks of the poor, and many of them are darned surprised to find themselves there, let me tell you. It's a real eye opener. Divorce is a leading cause of poverty for middle-aged, middle class women, and medical expenses bankrupt and impoverish many formerly secure families including those with health insurance. We also seem to have forgotten that, before Medicare, MOST seniors were living in poverty. The poor are very much like us. It is psychologically comforting, but misleading, to think otherwise.

Alvin Lee from the Band -Ten years After sings this topic,Very Well,The song:I'd Love to Change The World! Eric Clapton said he Cried,When he first heard it!

The lower classes know their place...

Although it does seem that atitudes to the Working poor or class still haven't changed too much even after 80 years.

Jeff - Were you poor in law school?

Nicely stated, Jeff M.

I dont buy the internet argument for a number of reasons. Pretty much every major big box store I go in has a computer kiosk in it near the customer service desk that says something like "career opportunities" or the like. Meaning that if you are looking for a job and cant fill it out online you can fill it out on the computer provided by the store for job ops.

Outside of that most fast food places still hand out and take paper applications.

Most small businesses dont post only online they post on radio stations and the sign in the front window.

When I hear people talk about wages and how they are too low I get a little frustrated. Labor is a product and the cost of a product is set by what the market will bear. If a wage is set too low a place will have difficulty filling the position(s). This is what kills me about people who protest against big box stores and how they take advantage of employees by paying low wages. If that job wont pay your bills you either need to review your bills OR not take the job. If you have no other job you should take it and continue looking for a better job while putting a few dollars in your pocket or paying down some of your debt.


The housing issue and rent vs. own: You pay higher or high rent for the advantage of mobility. At most it is a 12 month expense/investment whereas a house can be a 10-30 year expense/investment. Not everyone should be a homeowner. If you dont know if you will have a job in a year you shouldnt be buying a house unless you can pay cash and have a surplus.

I hear a lot of responses saying that poor people are not stupid or lazy. You can be smart and not know how to manage money, you can be motivated and make bad choices. Most people are a product of their environment. Either you are motivated to change because of your environment or you buy into the lifestyle that it is easier to get $X from the government check than it is to get $X+10% from a 30 hour/week job or that getting a job will cause you to have to pay more for rent so why bother or that $250 today is what I need and I will worry about the $300 I have to pay back next week/month then.

If it isn't by choice than what is it? If one person can make it out of poverty and another cant why is that?

Yes, and before, too. Not now.

In my previous post I made the comment that while it's easy to hold the ideal that hard work always results in success, in reality equal amounts of hard work don't result in equal amounts of success.

An inequality in success could be due to any number of reasons from bad decisions to bad luck, from internal factors or external factors.

I can only imagine how difficult law school would be having no money. I've worked throughout school and I'm not poor (though I'm not one of the countless people driving a BMW/Mercedes/Lexus/Convertible muscle car either) and just the burden of books and rent is not easy task on a part time student's wage.

I would agree, that ideal is incorrect. A guy shoveling gravel may not make as much money as a guy driving a delivery truck. What separates the two if it isnt choices along the line?

One guy invested in himself (getting his CDL, keeping a clean driving record, etc) and the other possibly did not OR chose not to take a job driving a truck because the hours are too long, the commute too far, or anything else.

What I am saying is that there is more than just the choice to work hard on the clock. There is the choice of doing your homework when you are a kid, going to school and getting good grades, learning for yourself what right from wrong is, taking advantage of opportunities afforded you (the library is free, a television isnt). Investing in yourself instead of relying on someone else, amazing concept. If you continuously rely on someone else for your day to day, what happens when they cant do it any more?

I worked in EMS and saw homes that were trashed, it doesnt cost a dollar to put all the trash that is in the floor in a grocery bag and toss it in the dumpster of your trailer park or apartment complex, in fact it would save you money if you ever moved out. Or calling 911 for emergency birth control and demanding a ride to the hospital, medicare will pay for it.

I teach for a local college and it is frustrating to hear some of the students complain about the grades they get but they refuse to do the homework that I dont even grade for correct answers but simply if they answered all the questions or made an attempt. The answers are in the back of the workbook.

My wife is a medical student (after 10 years of working EMS) in her third year and spends her days working under a physician. She tells me of patients complaining that they cant afford multiple subsidized $4 prescriptions so they only get the pain meds and not the antibiotics that would actually cure the infection causing the pain. OR they admit to smoking yet they say the gov needs to buy the $4 meds for them on top of the rest of the subsidized medical care they get.

Do we say it is bad luck when a hiker goes out into the woods unprepared (mentally, physically, spiritually, logistically) and dies or is injured? But we look at someone who smokes a pack a day and gets cancer and say he was unlucky? Then we complain that he cant afford healthcare but his pack a day habit probably would have paid for all of his healthcare bills if he put it into a bank account instead of his ashtray.

My long overdue point is that generations are not being taught values that keep them out of poverty because it has become really easy to be impoverished with so many systems in place to help those below the poverty line. Values like do the right thing even if someone isnt looking, always have a back up plan, be prepared, be responsible for yourself, etc.

Bad luck could be reading a want ad for a delivery driver job because you were shoveling rocks late the day the ad ran in the paper in an attempt to make a few more dollars. Bad luck could be not getting the job when it was a toss up between you and another applicant that was equally qualified for the job. Bad luck could be the idea that there are just so many jobs to be had and it's not always a case of room for one more at the next level. You can say that there is no such thing as bad luck if you like, but there are things that are beyond our control that impact our lives in a negative manner.

Another thought is the idea that our society desires that a large segment of the population be paid low wages if not directly, by our spending habits. We want cheaper so we can have more, and that impacts the number of decent well paying jobs that can be had. This idea, mixed with the fact that business is always driven by more profit for the same amount, if not less, expenditure works against the capability of everyone being able to rise socioeconomically.

Regarding the idea that we aren't teaching solid morals to the next generation, and that is causing poverty, it could well be part of the problem not only at the bottom, but at the top as well, passed on by unethical business practices that ensure a lower class.

Those examples dont really pan out, get up 5 min earlier and read the paper in the morning, invest in yourself so you are the better candidate even if it is borrowing a button up shirt from your buddy or family member so you look more presentable during the interview. Go the extra step so you look eager in your actions and not your words.

Sure there are things outside of our control, I will give you that but more times then not confidence lends to our luck. We gain confidence by working to better ourselves. As long as you believe that whatever is holding you back is out of your hands you will be correct.

We could knitpick the concepts to death providing point and counterpoint on an example if you like.

I used to get up and go to work at a hard labor job before the morning paper came and there are a lot of people that do the same. I also worked a third shift at another job and didn't get the paper until almost noon.

You assume that one of the people didn't get the job because they were underdressed or not chipper enough. They were equally qualified. Perhaps one of the applicants was the same color as the employer and that made the decision as to whether they were hired or not.

As for the concept that "As long as you believe that whatever is holding you back is out of your hands you will be correct." It's nice to apply a rule of thumb to concepts, but it doesn't always make them true. I'd like to run the Boston Marathon in 2 hours and 15 minutes, and no matter whether I believe I can or not, my physiology says it isn't going to happen.

You believe the reason for the majority of the cases of people remaining in poverty is choice, I don't. Having been there 3 different times in my life, from what I've seen I disagree. Your experiences lead you to believe something different from mine.

I think it's safe to say that we're not going to agree on this subject.

I had a big long response but suffice to say in the grand scheme of things it doesnt matter. You have your view and life experience, I have mine. I am where I am and you are where you are. I will keep on my path to survival and you on yours.

Not a lot of big box stores or fast food restaurants in inner cities or poor, rural areas; it's pretty much a suburban, middle class thing. Best Buy isn't exactly known for staffing up with middle-aged black ladies, and can you imagine trying to get any sort of retail or customer service job with a couple of teeth visibly missing? Dental care is hideously expensive, and it is not covered by public assistance. It's a catch-22. Things aren't always as easy, simple, or clear-cut as they seem.




Usually, you're forced to rent because you have no hope of buying, and thereby building equity. No choice is involved.




Many poor people have made and continue to make very bad choices that keep them in poverty, it's true. But for every one who finds it "easier to get $X from the government check" than get a job, there's another who will immediately will lose medicaid for a chronically ill child if they earn too much, or will lose the public assistance they depend on if they enroll in college. It's a stacked deck.

Some use payday (vampire) loans irresponsibly, it's true, but others use them simply to forestall eviction or buy needed medicine and basic groceries. The fees alone are staggering, and the APR can be 500-1000%. Yet the default rate isn't much higher than on credit cards, with APRs of 18-22%. In either case, It's just another example of predation on the poor.

I guess Walmart would never consider hiring the people you described, or the local grocery store?

Building equity at a high risk of default, that is a good plan?

So permanent and multi-generational social assistant is good and acceptable?

Payday loans: At that rate how does anyone who enters into that agreement ever expect to get out, looking at it with any level of reasoning they wouldnt use the service.

On the contrary, WalMart employs lots of these people, often not full-time, or with any benefits, but it's a start.

Home ownership carries risks, but it helps build personal financial and community stability, the current popped housing bubble notwithstanding.

If I wanted to design a system to destroy lives, families and communities, and perpetuate poverty, I doubt I could do better than the current welfare system.

Payday lenders are predatory, but some form of credit is often essential. Even if a $200 car repair ends up costing you $500, it often beats losing your job or having to drop out of school. The better alternative for low-income people is a pawn shop; the rates, while still high, are better than vampire loans, and the downside risk is worlds better.

My larger points are:

I'm not willing to blame the poor for being poor. Sometimes they're blameworthy, but sometimes they're not, so don't make sweeping judgments.

Escaping poverty is not as simple and easy as it seems to some. Often the deck is stacked against the poor in many ways that are not so obvious.

Being responsible, intelligent, willing to work hard and having good character is not always enough to lift you out of poverty. Also, not being poor is not proof of being responsible, intelligent, willing to work hard and having good character.

Social mobility works both ways. Almost anyone can unexpectedly fall on hard times, so don't judge too harshly. It could be you who is getting judged one day.

OK. I guess it's time for me to chime in with the life story that leads me to think that poverty is almost never a choice.

I will compress hy hard luck story as much as i can. I had a great job in manhattan, i had a cool apartment in TriBeCa I had a lot of money and spent a lot of money. I got fired. I started a business. I got involved with a crazy woman. The business failed. I was broke beyond broke, in debt for tens of thousands of dollars. Ended up moving into my grandmothers basement. I lived there for a while - I turned 30 living in grandmas basement with no car, no money, no job, no work.
I borrowed money from my parents and went into new york city every week and visited people who i thought would hire me. My grandmother cooked me meals. Eventually i found work, I met my future wife while still living in the basement, I saved my money, we got married, we moved into a tiny cottage, we saved our money, my job got better, I ended up at a dot com, it went public, i cashed out, we bought a small house and a minivan, I started my own company, the dot com craze crashed, we lived off of savings for two years, i did construction work, i shoveled mud, I put on a tie and did internet consulting and took off the tie at night and hauled rocks out of a hole at a construction site, i got a job lead in cyprus, worked there and the bills rolled in at home and we were down to our last few dollars and i came home and managed to land a job, and another, and a better one and now i am a director level here and that's the short version.

Never, once in that story was i ever up against the hardships that lead people to poverty. Never. I had family with money. They could afford to give me some. I had access to my mom's car. I had a telephone so i could at least pretend to my consulting clients i was in an office. I had decent clothes that were clean. I had a community network of friends in various industries and i had people willing to hire me to shovel mud, lift rocks, whatever and i was able to get to those jobs even though they were far from home. Even though we didn't have health insurance, and we had a baby born and surgery on my son and various other stuff we had savings to pay the bills. When the savings ran out, we had a house to live in that we could have sold. The "see how hard i worked for what i have" story is - in my case - total bs. I had every advantage crawing out of the holes i found myself in in life. I don't know what it means to be poor and to live in a place where there are no jobs to be had, where a $20 bus ticket is too much to spend, and to be in a situation where nobody you know can help you find work.

Now, I am not a mush-head love and granola type. I encounter poor folks who aren't really poor. Whenever i encounter someone in new York city asking me for money for food, my response is ALWAYS the same - I point to the nearest food place (in new York, that's never far) and I tell them I will buy them ANYTHING they want to eat, in any quantity. 7 times out of 10 they reject my offer. I'm no fool, i know that many are hustling money for nonfood purchases, but until you look into the eyes of someone who accepts your offer of food, and you watch them eat, you don't know poverty. The last guy who took me up on my offer of food got an egg salad sandwich, chips, and bag after bag of trail mix and nuts and four jars of peanut butter. He kept asking if it was ok for him to take so much. I could see he was picking correct foods for storage and energy. He asked me if I needed an assistant if i needed anything done at all. I didn't but he said that it was ok and he was going to find something. That was February. He was living on the streets, trying to stay clean, and trying to find a job. He had a cell phone and gave me his number in case i ever had anything for him. That's poverty.

Jeff and Martin,

I dont have issue with the legitimate hard luck cases that are trying to improve themselves the problem is they are the deep deep exception. As I said before, those that disagree are the few that worked hard, made good decisions, and still got dinged. Just as Martin said 7/10 reject the offer for intelligent assistance.

At this point I am not even sure what we are going back and fourth over.

My contention is the ongoing support system for those that see no purpose in trying to excel in life OR those that perpetually make bad decisions and fall back into the social safety net. It's like telling someone they need to lose weight while I bring them a whopper value meal. I fully agree with your dislike for the welfare system not because I feel like we need more but because I feel like it is being used in a shotgun approach instead of sniper rifle approach.

A huge theme of this discussion has been the ability to get a job. Imagine for a minute if the fedgov didnt have to spend all the money it does on widespread safety nets and could reduce the tax rate. More people like me, a small business owner, could hire employees with what I spend in taxes and consumer would have more money to save and spend. Yeah, I just jumped two feet first into the political realm, feel free to delete but I cant help to believe that the majority of our issues could be resolved by teaching more personal responsibility and conceptual preparedness for life and reduce the burden on the economy of social entitlement funding.

These are very true words of wisdom, Jeff. I won't pretend to know all the many ways that poverty--which unfortunately is intimately intertwined with racism in many cases--keep people down, but I'm smart enough to know that poverty is complicated.

It's unusual to have so much personal disclosure here on ETS, but I think it reflects both a sense of trust that many of us feel with other members we've known for a while now, and also a reflection of the severity of the times we are living in and how polarizing that hard times can be. Heaven help us all.

A trick WalMart does to keep its prices low is to pay low wages. WalMart knows the slack will be picked up by welfare and other public assistance from taxpayer dollars.

In effect, the taxpayer is subsidizing WalMart's low wages. Meanwhile, your corner hardware store may be paying an almost livable wage to its employees - that is until WalMarts lower prices drive them out of business.

Ah, capitalism at its finest.

I've noticed that they don't really have lower prices. They will have a few loss leaders at the door but the rest of the stuff is the same as other stores. We actually ended up spending more at walmart because of all the other stuff we didn't need. They have the occasional exclusive product but thats it.

I had heard somewhere that the products large chains, such as Walmart, put on their shelves, although may have the same name as the product in another, smaller store-they are, in fact, seconds. To the average consumer, we wouldnt know-it could be simply that the dye used to color cereal was a little off. This allows them to sell it cheaper. Now, I havent confirmed this-in fact, it doesnt really matter to me one way or the other, as I shop where its convenient-but, it is something else to think about.

I think you'll find most large chain retailers only pay minimum wage. I don't see that as a problem, since the skill set required to clerk in a store is minimal.

Here in Washington, the minimum wage is $8.55. I believe that is about twice as much as some jobs are worth nowadays.

Note: minimum wage is not a living wage, it is a minimum threshold set by the government for doing any type of work. Some jobs simply do not contribute enough to the economy to merit a living wage. However, the market is required to pay no less than a certain rate no matter what the value of the work really is.

I know business owners who made less than minimum wage for a number of years. When the husband and wife are each putting in 80 to 100 hours a week to build their business, how would that be quantified? Commission sales work can be just as tough in a sagging economy.

Anytime the government has to step in to artifically inflate the value of a product or service, it devalues the rest of the market and you get inflation. In the 47 years I've been around, the minimum wage has never gone down. I wonder why?

Ummm ... the cost of living has been going up. Would you work for what you did 47 years ago?

If and when the COL goes down a significant amount and for a significant amount of time you might have an argument.

It also has to be noted that while labor is constantly subjected to what amounts to a reverse auction, who will work for the least amount of money, the higher paying jobs are never subject to the same pressures. They get to claim that if you pay CEOs less money you get "less skill and talent". Common sense would tell you that the janitor could do better than some of those CEOs, the ones who lose billions, but the compensation packages seldom go down.

It also has to be noted that while a person building a business may work 100 hours a week and their income might, for a time, amount to less than minimum wage the simple fact is that the lower pay is, presumably, compensated for by ownership of the company. Hourly workers get a minimum wage but enjoy no potential payoff from ownership.

I hate where this thread is headed. I am a person of long term unemployment and inspite of access to the Internet and a cell phone and a place to live, I am still pissed at my inability to find suitable work and see my skilled wife work part time for only minimum wage with no benefits. From a survival stand point and being past the better part of my life, I wonder if it is time to Break-Bad and go Dillinger, and to hell with anyone who gets in my way. I would rather go out shooting than to die slowly of starvation and exposure.

I wonder if a lot of people aren't getting to the same point.

Stay strong, if not for yourself, then family!

IMO the simple, and inevitable, fact is that demographics are on a collision course with technology and industrialization, and the industrial model of employment. Bottom line is that computerization, automation and industrial design all point toward far more being produced in less time by fewer people.

The question is: What do you do with excess populations?


Combine all this with the cultural contempt for manual labor, which keep people out of menial jobs, even as illegal aliens take them, and a cost of living that is so high a low wage job is simply not practical if you're not willing to sleep a dozen in a walk-up efficiency and working off the books.

Even education can be a dead end because you just don't need that many PhDs. At least three of my friends with PhDs, have had long stretches of unemployment. All three have told me they don't report their education simply because it keeps them from getting lower level jobs. It is a recipe for frustration and anger.

This rings so true.

Currently where I'm working the management have decided to ensure that everyone is to get an NVQ Qualification (UK National Vocational Qualification which is aimed at basic literacy and numeracy) simply because the management (Business Studies Graduates again, from the old school boy network upper classes i.e. the natural leaders ) feel that all their internal memo's circulated via email are not being implemented (yes apparently simple email memo's will get everyone singing to the same hymnsheet) and the business, which is a direct customer communications orientated business, will become efficient and successful. The fact is that many who have to read and decipher their management speak email rantings (the company Acronym Server has been down for a few week now, so its now much more difficult) have undeclared postgraduate qualification and any feedback to improve business processes is completely ignored (the technically illiterate management have a difficult time understanding what these undeclared Masters and Phds in Computing and Engineering are telling them). The business is a communications company, whose management cannot even effectively communicate to its workforce and resent any positive feedback as to where they are going wrong to improve business efficiency, i.e. the IT systems are appalling and unworkable and have to rely on the skills of those the management feel are not even literate!! to make the business processes work and function even in a basic sense.

An example of the incompetence of the management is that I have not even been issued a PIN number for my security pass to allow access to the building even after 4 months working there, after being reassigned to this different company address (apparently I don't exist on the company security server). The management are very strict on building security, according to their email memos, as to who can access the building.

I hope this is not too much of a thread hi-jack, but my observation in my job is that sending e-mails is now considered an acceptable substitute for actual, productive action. Our company is now turning into a self-spamming operation, where managers are sending each other and employees so many emails that they have little or no time to actually do their work.

My manager actually is trying to do his job, and told me the other day that he deleted 1000+ unread corporate generated e-mails that had accumulated in less than 2 days.

The drag on corporate productivity and costs must be enormous.

If I recall my history, our British friends managed to build and administer an Empire on which the sun never set without having either e-mail or cell phones.

This probably had more to do with Messrs Enfield and Vickers and no health and safety legislation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7rrIlPu-Ao

But anyway I digress. Here are a few examples of the plainly stupid levels of management leadership I have come across. Extremely well paid business leaders and executives who really just don't have a clue.

1) An IT executive manager of a well known merchant bank (the one that went bankrupt and precipated the whole financial crisis) who didn't know what an IP address was.

2) An executive for a one of the largest communication companies in the world, who screamed at me to get her Internet working. Yep she hadn't had her router turned on the previous 3 days, 'Try turning it on'.

3) A systems developer executive who had lost all of his emails from his web mail. 'Try looking in your Outlook client'.

So it doesn't really surprise me that the Chief Executive of the RBS (Fred the Shred, who had no banking qualifications. If only someone had let him take up Lion Taming instead ) didn't know that his bank was effectively insolvent. I really wouldn't be surprised if he had been reading the accounts and not realising that the entries were for thousands and not the actual amount. i.e. a Billion pound entry was in fact a Trillion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0uE1qi2A68

High levels of renumeration and actual ability or competence are not necessarily mutually inclusive.

BTW Jack Bauer always calling his IT support at OCU is so far fetched as to be laughable.

I wonder who exactly did the SEC executives/employees called when the porn stopped working on their computers.

I can confirm this directly. They aren't "seconds"- they are specifically designed and sold to the big-box stores.

I had a relative who was a salesman for a maker of power tools. There were too versions of what appeared to be the identical tool - but if you opened one up, you would find lower cost components (plastic gears, lower torque motors, thinner housings) as compared to the versions you might buy from a place like Grainger or Mc Master.

The model numbers are identical, but the serial numbers give it away - things like an "H" at the beginning or end of the serial number for "Home Depot".

Stihl will not change their tooling to meet big-box pricing, which is why you only see brands like Poulan and Black and Decker at WalMart - but you'll never see the pro version of Black and Decker (Dewalt). But even brands like Milwaukee are suspect - if you buy a Sawzall from a hardware store vs. a Home Depot, there's almost no way to tell - until you look at the warranty.

Martin touched on one explanation--that stores like Wal-Mart sell so much volume that they can actually force manufacturers to make their products cheapers (usually inferior quality).

But I don't believe Wal-Mart actually sells "seconds" although there are stores with such business models--selling discontinued models, production overruns, products with a tiny labeling defect, etc. I can't think of the names of supermarket-type stores like this off the top of my head, but Big Lots is an example of a general merchandise company like this.

And who knows that Black and Decker makes DeWalt? In the same factories in fact, just different specifications and models. And prices.

Rigid is the house brand of HD, but that some stuff with the Husky label, the other house brand, is made by the same companies?

And finally, unless you are talking hand tools, most warranties "for life" are pretty much useless. They change the products and "don't make that model anymore" as I have found out trying to get a "warrantied for life" battery replaced. Grrr.

Yes, I was wage slave at HD.

(Phone call from irate customer - "This here air gun doesn't work." "Well sir, what type of compressor do you have it hooked up to?" "Compressor??" True story)

(And on the IT side - sigh, worked for a hosting company - "My email won't work" So I shadow him typing it..."Uh sir, your email address is you@JoeBlow.com. You typed you@JoeBlows.com" Why should that matter? If my mail is sent to Smiths street instead of Smith street, I still get it!!?? Yikes)

“… perhaps the worst part of being poor is the continuous, soul-eating fear and worry. If anything, anything at all, goes wrong, a relatively minor illness, a broken down car, or any other unexpected emergency, you're toast, because you have no margin for error. Being poor means facing potential disaster every day.”

I’ve never seen it described better, Jeff.

Coming in late to this thread, it’s really fascinating to see all the opinions from people who have never been poor, who simply don’t have a clue. They don’t understand the domino effect of poverty, either. You can’t afford the internet to find a job, but you can’t afford the gas to go to individual businesses, and you can’t afford to do blind mailings at $0.44 per envelope, even if you could afford to get a new printer cartridge for $75. The car is still running (barely), but you can’t afford insurance on it; it gets you to your low-pay driving job, but if you have an accident, your license will be revoked for not having insurance, and lack of a license will also cause you to lose your job.

Employers just want young, dumb and cheap, and then complain that they can’t/don’t do anything. Some want trained and cheap, and then complain that nobody has those two particular assets.

So you think you don’t need a phone? Well, in the real world, employers won’t hire you if they can’t get in touch with you. Even a fast-food joint wants people who will be available on short notice when someone else is sick or quits or is fired.

Want to get a CDL? How do you intend to pay for it? Check with the trucking companies first – nobody is hiring, most of their rigs are parked, some companies are going under. If they aren’t hiring, they’re not giving away free training.

Start your own company? State license, county license, city license, register the name. Insurance? Bond? Business bank account? All cost money. Going to start a business without money? You need money to sell drugs on the street, why should anything else be different?

Got a line on a job? The competition can easily be 300-500 or more. Got long hair, big boobs and a cute butt? Maybe you’ve got a chance. Is the guy doing the hiring the 26-yr-old manager, and you’re 40? Forget it, because he sees you as a threat: you probably know more than he does, or he’s afraid you’ll try to tell him what to do. Back to young, dumb and cheap – they’re less threatening.

Got a line on a job out of town, but your car is pretty decrepit? You can’t get it repaired until you have some money coming in, and you can’t make the money if it breaks down.

A black man I once met said welfare is designed not to help, but to keep people in their place. He said the illusion of getting something for nothing is very powerful. I’ve never seen any indications that he was wrong. Native Americans mouthing tribal pride with their hands out are no threat to the government. Black people on welfare demanding their rights are just hot air, also no threat. Whites breeding like rabbits to increase their monthly assistance checks are hardly anything that government is going to worry about. Raise taxes a little and give them an extra five bucks and pat them on their little heads, and they’ll shut up.

But we don’t give welfare just to individuals. We have an enormous amount of money being paid out to businesses that don’t need it, but they’re getting it. It’s often referred to as “corporate welfare” ($92 billion in 2006, you know how much in 2009). We are subsidizing the growing of corn, wheat, sugar, milk, cotton, rice, and soybeans. We subsidize the tobacco industry and the tobacco-damage industry. We subsidize the oil/gasoline industry and paper mills. We subsidize Amtrak, Boeing, Xerox, Archer Daniels Midland, IBM, Motorola, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, General Electric and others. Despite the fact that all those companies are making record profits, money is still being taken from low- and mid-income people and given to these huge companies.

The little people aren't poor enough yet, raise the taxes so the funds can be passed on to big business.

Isn’t it great to have “cheap” food (heavily subsidized) that is paid for at the grocery store and again through federal taxes? Isn’t it great to shop for “cheap” goods that are paid for with outsourced jobs and slave labor? Isn’t great to have “free” education that doesn’t really educate?

Cheap and free, aren’t.

Sue

A bunch of years back I got a Rigid cordless drill. After a time one of the batteries died. Taking it to HD I was told I had to take it to an "authorized service center". The service center wanted to see the receipt, and really wanted me to bring the entire drill/batteries/charger in for service. I didn't know about that later part and they let me slide. They had to order the battery but I got a new one. So the 'lifetime warranty' isn't entirely useless.

A few months later other original battery died. Problem is the receipt has faded to a blank white sheet of paper. I will have to see what hey can do for me. Worse case I think I can get a duplicate receipt from HD or the CC company.

But my advice is that if you buy anything which might potentially need service photocopy your receipts because the thermal paper ones fade.

Actually a common misconception but not true. The same parent company owns both as well as Porter Cable and Delta but the parts are different, and made on different lines and factories.
There is a little overlap, the battery case for the new PC cordless is the same as the B&D with a small tab to prevent putting them in the wrong brand, but also the pinout is different and if you open them up the cells that make up the battery packs are different. I was hoping to use the nicer chargers and batteries from my PC drill set with the B&D lawn tools which hang on a simple trickle charger but I'd have to do a lot of rewiring to make it happen even though they look very much the same on the outside and filing off the tabs they will plug in.

Credit Card companies usually don't get an itemized receipt, they get a much simpler receipt. Some stores you get two receipts, NAPA auto parts for example, go buy wiper blades or something and you get the itemized receipt printed on the dot matrix printer and a tiny credit card receipt stapled to it. The credit card company only gets the info on the smaller receipt and therefore can't tell what you bought. Granted there are exceptions to the rule, some banks do get more detail but don't count on it.

Part of my preps include scanning any receipt for durable items so I have them inventoried and the original receipt goes in my 'Blasts survival binder so that if I ever had to leave home and make an insurance claim I have the documentation.

Well said Susan.

I've been poor, not desperately poor, but poor. Many a day I skipped lunch and worried that the gas in the car might not get me to work near the end of the month. I've put off repairs on the car, medical care (I've dug glass out and stitched up my own lacerations), dental care (I once installed my own temporary filling), and patched holes in boots and clothing. I've got by without heat when it was freezing out, and AC when it was over 100F. But no, I've never been really poor.

The fact being that educated and knowledgeable enough to know what I needed to do get by and being able to scrape enough cash together to buy needles and thread, filling and suturing supplies I was lucky. Far better off than many others.

Fortunately without kids I was always able to slide by. If I had kids. Or if my luck had failed, I would have been in desperate straits.

Money is freedom. Having money in the bank means you have options. The poor always pay more.

I don't think we will ever eliminate poverty. I'm not sure we should even try. I do think that as Americans and human beings we should do whatever is practical to knock the worse of the rough edges off extreme poverty. IMO there will always be poor, but poverty needn't involve suffering and degradation.

It is interesting to see how different people think about poverty. Some people see it is primarily a moral failing. A lack of will and drive. Others, particularly those who have been poor, or near poor, don't see morality and drive making much difference.

For those interested in how conceptual thinking about poverty and wealth, success and failure, shape the arguments and policies one of the better books covering how the two main communities think:
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Politics-Lib...1687&sr=8-1

I agree that poverty probably won't be eliminated under any social or political system we can envision today. The best we can do is, as you say, take the rough edges off. While I don't think we need to ensure every poor person has a plasma TV and a Wii, I think we should try to make sure no one starves to death or has to sleep with their children in the rain or under an overpass. Any system that allows an individual to amass a $50 billion fortune while children starve across town- well, that system has some bugs that need to be worked out.

BTW, major kudos to the 2 American gentlemen who have that much money, namely Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Both of them use massive amounts of their wealth for philanthropic endeavors. Good on them!

I agree with you 100%!

Now it just comes down to the most prudent and effective way to accomplish that.

I am reminded of a great experience from my youth. We were doing a hiking expedition and were told to bring the supplies we would need to get by on for a week. Coming from a background where I was understanding of what such an endeavor might require, I assembled a cache of supplies and equipment that, while spartan, would allow me to make the expedition in relative comfort.

Our leaders for the expedition were not prudent enough to check everyone's outfit, and so after we set off for our little hike, we discovered that a few of the members were not as prepared as they should be. Instead of packing appropriate gear and consumables, they brought things like books to read, canned foods, and walkman steros with cassettes to listen to. As the journey progressed to what would be the more rugged parts of the trail, those who were improperly equipped began to complain about the weight of the packs, the cold from the rain that was soaking them, how thirsty they were getting, etc. About half way into the week, they were unable to continue at the pace we needed to keep, and so our leaders decided we needed to reallocate our loads. Those of us who had planned properly would have to take some of the canned food and books in our packs and give the others some of our backpack grub to carry instead. We would also have to give up some of our raingear because the others' packs were getting waterlogged. We would also have to take turns sharing sleeping bags because some of the less prepared didn't have warm enough bags and were getting too cold at night.

So I went from a pack that was just right to one that was too heavy, giving up a spare poncho that was later ruined by the recipient because they didn't know or didn't care how to use it properly, and spending a night with a thin, soaked sleeping bag while someone else slept in mine. It also turned out that the people we "shared" our supplies with preferred to eat the food we had put in their packs as well, so I ended up eating a cold can of tomato soup and wet, crumbled crackers instead of a freeze dried stroganoff because the leaders said we all had to eat enough to keep going, and if the others only ate what they brought, they wouldn't make it. By the fifth night, I was ready to quit and go home, but we were stuck on the trail and the shortest way out was to finish the hike. To top it off, the people who had come unprepared and to whom our stuff had been given were still complaining!

Charity is a great thing. Forced redistribution, in any form, and for whatever reason, creates resentment and destroys motivation. You cannot achieve anything durable by taking from those who will and giving to those who won't or can't. Asking is one thing, demanding is another, but misappropriation is just plain evil. Any leadership that imposes a collection for one reason, then uses that resource for another purpose without consent are thieves. What our leadership should have done was to make sure that everyone knew up front what was needed and expected of them. Some people might not be able to make such a trip, but at least they won't be a problem for those who are willing and able. Not everyone can. That is the facts of life. Others can help them, but they should never be forced to do it.

Well said Ben. The leaders did nothing to teach or prepare the primary lesson of the hike: be responsible and prepared. The leaders showed absolutely no forethought and leadership. Brings to mind this: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Not a popular outlook, but true all the same.

Sounds like your expedition leaders weren't competent to run that trip, Ben. You must have had a crappy time.

In a manner of speaking, I still am. However, I will finish the trip, even if others may not!

Choosing good leaders that have proven their ability to lead is perhaps the most important part of any endeavor. How can anyone be expected to follow someone they can't trust?

Don't let those things ruin your life! You can still make your own luck, so far at least.

This is beginning to sound like a parable, but if so, it's a good one!

There was a good article in Fast Company a few years ago about Snapper lawnmowers and Walmart. It talks about the pressure Walmart applies to keep reducing cost every year and Snapper finally walking away from Walmart.

http://www.fastcompany.com/node/54763/print

I don't remember where I read it, but another good article I saw about Walmart talked about how the like to offer a range of models, like lawn mowers, where the lowest-priced one is clearly inferior quality. That convinces you that the second-cheapest model is a great value in comparison. I saw this a while ago in their DVD player lineup. The $29 model was all-plastic and didn't even have the weights manufacturers stick in products to fool you about the quality. The $59 model was just average quality but clearly looked and felt much better than the $29 model.