Why You're Screwed If You're Low Income

L'éléphant

1. If you're low income, you could only afford to buy used, old car. If you try to take out a loan, you pay higher interest rate if you buy an old car. You pay less interest if you buy a new car, which is expensive for you cause...you're low income.

2. You try to buy cheap foods which are low in nutritional value but high in harmful effects on your health.

3. You look like you're low income when you actually are low income.

4. You get poor quality services provided by poor quality establishments. Apparently, discrimination against low income people runs rampant in poor quality establishments.

5. You don't ever try Michelin star chefs' foods cause you can't afford it. So you miss out on quality service and quality food. Btw, Michelin star chefs do not discriminate against who can and can't afford. Visit their restaurant once every 5 years.

6. You face more inconveniences -- late for work because car is broken, babysitter not available, toilet clogged and plumbing sucks.

7. You live in undesirable areas.

8. Your boss acts haughty because they think you don't have a choice of employment.

Outlander

1. Cars are bad for the environment. You like oxygen right? You know that thing that lets you breathe and type this drivel?

2. Rice is cheap. Does good for a major world power.

3. You can get pretty good bargains at the right place. Even new a nice or average "first world" outfit is little more than $50 including shoes. At a thrift shop, even less.

4. Lawsuits galore! I came in for a $50 job and left with $5 million. Not too shabby.

5. Half the people who eat there wouldn't know how to grow a single potato if they ever had to. Lack of luxury = excess of knowledge. Just watch a zombie movie to discover the worth of said knowledge.

6. You face more opportunities to learn how to do things without relying on others. That's priceless.

7. A society is only as good as its most vulnerable. Perhaps we're there to help.

8. That's just you projecting. They act above you because according to your willing agreement to be part of whatever organization or service, at least for the hours of your work, they are. Grow up.

L'éléphant

1. Cars are bad for the environment. You like oxygen right? You know that thing that lets you breathe and type this drivel? — Outlander

Can you drive oxygen to work?

Outlander

Can you drive oxygen to work? — L'éléphant

What is work. Something you do to live. Can you live without oxygen? It's a few dollars, sometimes less for a reasonable enough distance to walk after using public transport.

L'éléphant

Can you live without oxygen? — Outlander

I don't know. I haven't tried it yet. Maybe some people can.

It's a few dollars, sometimes less for a reasonable enough distance to walk after using public transport. — Outlander

So a public transport doesn't pollute the oxygen?

Agent Smith

What an interesting coincidence. I was just thinking about poverty and how the poor, in terms of possessions (assets, money, and so on), are like monks in a monastery but the poor, unlike monks, resent their condition. In essence the poor are forced/unwilling monks! To put it another way, monks are voluntarily poor.

Is being a monk the same thing as getting screwed? I guess for monks, it's consensual screwing but in the case of the poor, it's not (rape)! :chin:

Outlander

So a public transport doesn't pollute the oxygen? — L'éléphant

In a region where the people work in eco-friendly jobs that offset their carbon outputs, no, it does not. In fact, it does the opposite. Fool.

Nils Loc

↪Outlander

There are other kinds of pollution besides carbon dioxide gas. The folks who work in region with eco-friendly jobs are often exporting pollution elsewhere. It might suck to be stuck in a place that manufactures public infrastructure supplies for rich "eco-friendly" regions.

The solar industry, like other electronic industries, relies on many well-known toxic chemicals. For solar, these include arsenic, cadmium telluride, gallium arsenide, hexafluoroethane, hydrofluoric acid, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride, putting frontline workers and communities at risk to toxic chemical exposure. — https://www.corebuffalo.org/impact-of-solar-panel-manufacturing

180 Proof

↪L'éléphant

Were you raised in poverty? Are you poor now? Do you have family or old friends who are poor? Many of the rural poor are more content and less stressed than the suburban & urban 'working poor' or 'lower middle-class'.

L'éléphant

It might suck to be stuck in a place that manufactures public infrastructure supplies for rich "eco-friendly" regions. — Nils Loc

I was going to ask that this thread be deleted. But your comment deserves a reply. Yes, this is what I'm getting at. There are jobs that sacrifice health so that others could live in an eco-friendly environment.

L'éléphant

6. You face more opportunities to learn how to do things without relying on others. That's priceless. — Outlander

I think my no. 6 has a different meaning than your no. 6.

There are inconveniences that build up to work-related stress.

L'éléphant

Many of the rural poor are more content and less stressed than the suburban & urban 'working poor' or 'lower middle-class'. — 180 Proof

Okay. But that doesn't negate what I said.

L'éléphant

In essence the poor are forced/unwilling monks! To put it another way, monks are voluntarily poor.

Is being a monk the same thing as getting screwed? I guess for monks, it's consensual screwing but in the case of the poor, it's not (rape)! :chin: — Agent Smith

Okay, this is one good way to put it. Why I missed this comment earlier is beyond me.
It's one thing to voluntarily give up income and benefits to live like a monk. It's another when you try to make a life and you're just screwed. You feel frustrated, tired, helpless.

Really, low income-ness is thrust upon people.

180 Proof

↪L'éléphant

I'm sure the questions of mine you have ignored would do just that – negate the OP.

Agent Smith

↪L'éléphant

Religion is, if you will allow me to say so, obsessed with the weak (the poor & the sick, covers everything, no?). It's some kind of odd relationship between an omnipotent force (God) and the utterly powerless. Opposites attract I suppose. Rather anti-Darwinian (vide Nietzsche) if you ask me. Old news I guess.

Anyway, Yuval Noah Harari (Israeli historian) has an interesting theory which he writes about in his book Spaiens. It seems that back when religion was in heydays, it was impossible to get rich without, at the same time, making someone else poor (the economy didn't permit anything else). That's why the Church, he says, institutionalized poverty/austerity and was dead against money-lenders who charged exorbitant interests.

Book273

↪L'éléphant

That captures the "I am defeated" perspective quite well. Low income, not really, but definitely defeated.

Book273

Can you live without oxygen?
— Outlander
I don't know. I haven't tried it yet. Maybe some people can — L'éléphant

I am kind of leaning toward you operating at an oxygen deficient level currently. Don't write self help books eh. Maybe read a few, talk to a counsellor. Your responses strongly imply a deep depression state.

Book273

↪Goldyluck

So stop working for the ruling corporations. Just stop working entirely. See how that works out. I have worked 70 hour work weeks, making shitty wages. I looked around at the other guys doing the same thing, only difference was, at the end of the day, they got drunk, or got stoned, and bitched about the unfairness of it all while I went to school and worked my ass off to become more. The ones that are still alive are still drunk, or stoned, after work. I do other things now and am well paid for my time. I also continue to go to school and continue to work to become more. But don't do that, don't improve yourself, just keep bitching about your lot in life and blaming the company you work for. Damned cowardly, but hey, stick with what you know eh! And remember, it's not the person in the mirror keeping you down, it's the corporation!

Agent Smith

↪Goldyluck

↪Book273

Now, now, ladies! Please.

Book273

and you'll understand what he bought that long rope for... — Goldyluck

Sure, but just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand. We all make what we feel is the best move.

Agent Smith

↪Goldyluck

:smile: Sorry for the intrusion. Carry on!

Agent Smith

↪Goldyluck

:ok:

Cheshire

1. You can refinance a loan on a used car and get the interest rate pretty close to what you'd see on a new car. If you're paying high interest now I'd look into it.
2. Produce is subsidized in the US, so all the veggies you can eat so long as you don't shop for them in high markup stores.
3. A shirts a shirt. If it's clean and not damaged it's sort of hard to gauge low versus mid income levels.
4. You learn how to make genuine connections with people and overtime they'll look out for you if you look out for them.
5. If this is your number 5 then you ain't been broke.
6. Life does require more planning when you can't just throw money at problems.
7. What? Generally, you don't call them that when you are the one living there.
8. Again, haughty acting isn't really what I'd say defines the struggle. Get one with a solid personality disorder and let me know how that goes.

It comes across as someone offended at making entry level pay and wanting to identify as being oppressed. I'm just stating my impression of how it reads. Been wrong before.

Astrophel

Were you raised in poverty? Are you poor now? Do you have family or old friends who are poor? Many of the rural poor are more content and less stressed than the suburban & urban 'working poor' or 'lower middle-class'. — 180 Proof

That is a wonderful rationalization for the perversions of capitalize. Next thing you'll be telling me is that Jeff Bezos actually deserves a quadrillion dollars, making sure the the most wretched in society are not spoiled by health care and education.

180 Proof

↪Astrophel

Your "irony" is lost on me, Astro. (What are you talking about?)

Constance

\

(What are you talking about?) — 180 Proof

While it may be true that being poor in the country is less stressful than the city, at least it sounds intuitive true, you still sight the virtues of being poor. Listen to the hyper wealthy talk casually about poverty, and you will find exactly that kind of dismissiveness. Jeff Bezos and his ilk are especially flippant about what is in fact a living nightmare, being poor that is.
However, putting aside how this kind of thinking plays into the hands of a wealthy person's rationalization, my happiest days were when I was, well, free of the bondage of possessions.

L'éléphant

Anyway, Yuval Noah Harari (Israeli historian) has an interesting theory which he writes about in his book Spaiens. It seems that back when religion was in heydays, it was impossible to get rich without, at the same time, making someone else poor (the economy didn't permit anything else). That's why the Church, he says, institutionalized poverty/austerity and was dead against money-lenders who charged exorbitant interests. — Agent Smith

Okay, thank you for a bit of history. But yes, that's a zero sum game. Which is also true today. People argue that it's no longer true. But they fail to see the big picture. It's not just satisfying the basic needs of a person.

Your "irony" is lost on me, Astro. — 180 Proof

Not on me. I can't answer your question, that's why I skipped it. I can't answer it cause my answer is irrelevant to what I said in the OP. If I answered one way, you'd have more criticisms.

180 Proof

... you still sight the virtues of being poor. — Constance

Quote me, I've no idea what you're talking about.

Listen to the hyper wealthy talk casually about poverty, and you will find exactly that kind of dismissiveness.

My first post was in reply to the dismissive smugness of the OP. I am trying to ascertain whether or not s/he has any firsthand experience being poor. I do.

Agent Smith

Okay, thank you for a bit of history. But yes, that's a zero sum game. Which is also true today. People argue that it's no longer true. But they fail to see the big picture. It's not just satisfying the basic needs of a person. — L'éléphant

:up: I hadn't thought of it that way. A lesson learned. Thanks.

180 Proof

I can't answer your question, that's why I skipped it. I can't answer it cause my answer is irrelevant to what I said in the OP — L'éléphant

That's answer enough. :shade:

L'éléphant

It comes across as someone offended at making entry level pay and wanting to identify as being oppressed. I'm just stating my impression of how it reads. Been wrong before. — Cheshire

Try harder. That's a cheap shot.

Why You're Screwed If You're Low Income

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions