Some Workers Are Turning To Pay-Advance Apps for Basic Expenses (nytimes.com) 159
An anonymous reader shares a report: Pay-advance apps are marketed as a way to help workers living paycheck to paycheck pay for unexpected expenses, but workers are often using the apps to manage basic expenses like groceries, rent and other needs, a new report found. The tools, consumer advocates say, can carry costs akin to those of traditional payday loans.
An analysis of anonymous data found worrisome behavior among users of the apps, including quick increases in the number of advances, advances from multiple apps at the same time and more frequent bank overdraft fees. "These findings reveal persistent patterns of financial strain that raise serious concerns about the long-term effects of these loans," said the report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. The group analyzed data from SaverLife, a nonprofit that promotes saving and sound financial practices among people with low or moderate incomes. The analysis found that heavy users of the apps paid $421, on average, in total loan and overdraft fees over a year, or almost triple the average paid by moderate users.
An analysis of anonymous data found worrisome behavior among users of the apps, including quick increases in the number of advances, advances from multiple apps at the same time and more frequent bank overdraft fees. "These findings reveal persistent patterns of financial strain that raise serious concerns about the long-term effects of these loans," said the report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. The group analyzed data from SaverLife, a nonprofit that promotes saving and sound financial practices among people with low or moderate incomes. The analysis found that heavy users of the apps paid $421, on average, in total loan and overdraft fees over a year, or almost triple the average paid by moderate users.
And this is different from credit card abuse how? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the end you still have to pay with interests, or else.
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It's a trap. If you don't pay the rent you become homeless, which is worse than taking out a loan. Of course it's expensive, but then being poor is.
Things like this should be seen as a failure of society to offer a living wage to members. Borderline modern slavery.
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Why are those traps seen as a viable option? Fuck you for implying the issue is with the people and not with the environment they live in.
uh no (Score:5, Insightful)
"These findings reveal persistent patterns of financial strain that raise serious concerns about the long-term effects of these loans"
No, these are the long term effects of crony capitalism. The loans are more symptom than problem. The people taking them out to meet basic needs are already facing the real problem. They are broke in a society that is happy to let you die if you are poor.
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And unfortunately usury seems to be the most widely accepted solution.
I've only faced financial security once in my life, I was young (was I even 21 yet?), I had just been laid-off as the doctom bubble burst, and that weekend my vehicle was stolen and per my folks' advice I only had liability coverage. Filing for unemployment covered my rent, my lack of vehicle meant I could cancel my auto insurance since obviously I didn't need it anymore, and my parents loaned me a car and covered food and utilities unti
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More often than not you'll find the politician-mandated auditing costs more (often FAR more) than the fraudulently gained abuses ever did. The exception of course is the Pentagram, where the situation is reversed.
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They are broke in a society that is happy to let you die if you are poor.
This is exactly why we have obesity epidemic, including among poor.
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Here's a fun experiment, try living on whatever the minimum wage is in your area for a month. I've been daring conservatives to try it for most of two decades, only two have attempted it. Neither one lasted a week. Just try grocery shopping on that budget, what can you buy? Super-processed fat, starch and sugar, and not much else. That's why there's an obesity problem among the poor, the garbage they're consigned to buying is making them sick.
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No, these are long term effects of not knowing how to handle one's economy. And that has a strong correlation with low IQ. Stupid people shouldn't breed.
Re:uh no (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.usich.gov/guidance... [usich.gov]
Re: uh no (Score:2)
"You could outlaw those payday loan companies and it would not make any of the people who do business with them less poor."
Yes, that's one way to paraphrase what I wrote.
In the state where I live (Score:5, Interesting)
Your employer has to give a cost of living pay increase of 2.5% a year, by law
So by law, there's going to be 10.5% discrepancy between the money going out to keep a roof over your head, and the money coming in if you live in the same place (and that's just accounting for your roof. And god forbid you have to move, as rents go up much more than 13% per year)
And yet, people being broke is news to some (or worse, blamed on the broke people themselves)
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Yeah, I call bullshit on legally mandated COLA for private employers.
It will remain bullshit until proven otherwise.
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What jurisdiction are these laws you're talking about? Because they are absolutely not universal.
Which is probably why I made the subject "In the state where I live" rather than "In the universe where I live"
In the state of New York USA there are caps on rent increases, and if your employer doesn't raise wage to match cost of living you can quit with cause/collect unemployment insurance/etc, whether it makes you laugh or not (usually employers don't find it so humorous as their tax increase is more than the payroll would had been if they complied)
Not sure what happens in some of the Scandi countries
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Next time if you need a hand, just ask. You don't have to get pissy,
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What happens is that they are ALLOWED to increase the rent by max 13 %/year, in case an area suddenly becomes very popular and the market rent therefore suddenly soar to much more than an 13 % increase. In other words, people living there will get a couple of years to adjust rather than overnight get their rent raised by 100 % because that's the new market rate.
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In the state where I live, rent rates are going down, not up. https://www.apartments.com/ren... [apartments.com].
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In San Diego, when I renewed my lease earlier this year, I didn't get an increase at all. I imagine I could of moved and found a cheaper place to live, but the hassle and expense probably wouldn't of netted me anything anyway.
I also got a raise this year AND my auto insurance has been decreasing as well. Life's really not so bad and I didn't even clearly 70k last year. Maybe people should try living within their means or *gasps* below them so they can save money.
I must be the only American that isn't a vict
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For sure. By following your advice (living below our means) we have managed to pay off not only our cars, but our house. I've never owned a *new* car, mind you, but I haven't had a car payment in 25 years.
There are, to be sure, people who are truly unfortunate and can't quite make it on their income. But this is not the norm in America.
Whimpy (Score:2)
I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today
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Whimpy never comes around on Tuesday
WINNING (Score:2)
Grocery loan (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually nothing new but the food banks used to be better funded so those people could get enough food to get by without going into debt for it.
There is of course in abundance of food.
"Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth."
About 1/3 of Americans like the thought of other Americans and other people in general going hungry. They will tell themselves it builds character but what it really does is make them feel Superior.
I remember a buddy of mine getting angry that minimum wage was going up because he made slightly more than minimum wage and he felt that it devalued his hard work.
People will ask who's going to pay for it but feeding people pays for itself. Unless you're going to kill those people out right. Which frankly a good portion of that 1/3 would love to do.
Re:Grocery loan (Score:4, Funny)
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When I lived in Florida people were dumpster diving behind the Safeway near where I lived. Safeway got annoyed and started dumping insecticide into the dumpster.
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What a fucking hell of a world we live in. Back when I was a kid food was much cheaper because although on paper it cost more you had these discounted foods that were close to expiration. I grew up on these giant bags of cheap donuts for a dollar because they were stale. Wasn't exactly healthy but when you're a kid calories are calories
Thanks to that shit I n
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Grocery stores aren't a charity. Do you work for free? Yeah, I don't either.
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Better to pay to guard it than give it away?
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The ones who dumpster dive are generally the ones who can't afford to buy it. I'm not sure how you can't figure that part out. Sometimes I wonder if most people who have never been poor are just unable to understand what life is like for the global majority, if it's just something too alien to their experience to comprehend or something. I don't get it.
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Did you volunteer to come clean up the mess left behind? We lock our trash area up specifically for this reason. I work at Vons (part of Albertson's and Safeway). Doesn't your area have food banks? San Diego does. No reason to be taking everything out of the dumpster and leaving a huge mess for a minimum wager to clean up.
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When I worked at the produce market we left produce that we couldn't sell next to the dumpster for people to come get. Why pay the dumpster fee to get rid of it when people need it? More often we'd tell customers, "Half that box of oranges is bad, give me a buck and it's yours." No big box store would do that, of course.
Shitty advertising also doesn't help (Score:3)
Now, if he's really that poor, he can spend 3 years paying it back at 500% interest.
same article 20 years earlier: (Score:2)
Workers are turning to credit cards to buy groceries.
same article 40 years earlier:
Workers are turning to payday loans to buy groceries
How is this a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there some reason why we would have expected "payday loan apps" to be less predatory and damaging than all the payday loan services that came before? We know, without a doubt, that payday loan services like Money Tree preferentially prey on lower income and struggling individuals who cannot access more traditional and lower rate loans. But did someone actually think that just because it was an app that somehow this would not be an issue?
"No, no, we all know heroin is bad but hear me out...what if instead of having to buy it from a dealer it's dispensed from a vending machine? That makes it better, right?"
There it goes... rhyming away. (Score:2)
If you think the 2008 credit scam crash was bad, wait til the bottom drops out of this one.
Gonna be a whole lotta broke people on the streets.
Lot of talk about bad financial choices here (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why capitalism always breaks down. It assume not just a rational actor but also a rational actor with perfect information.
Right now liberal arts majors have lower unemployment than computer science majors.
So 4 years ago you start your computer science degree and you work your ass off and you get your CS degree.
Then you find 4 years after you start that the entire job market has been systematically dismantled by technocratic psychopaths who spent that entire time telling you this was the right career choice.
Or a better example. You apply for three jobs. You pick what you think is the best option and against All odds get hired.
3 weeks into your new job your boss tells you that your entire department got axed and now you're out of work again. Meanwhile the other two jobs have already hired someone else.
This one isn't a hypothetical I have watched this happen in actuality. I've seen people take what should be promotions only to have the role they promoted into eliminate it. One guy ended up spending a few years stuck in his dad's carpeting business. He didn't have a college degree and if you don't have that degree then even if you licked into a nice job if you lose it you're starting over from scratch. Nobody gives a rat's ass how much experience you have.
I know that people who like to go on about quote unquote Financial choices are really just bitter angry people that want to take that anger out on somebody else and have somebody beneath them on the totem pole.
But it's infuriating that people who aren't like that fall for the nonsense propaganda about all the choices we are supposed to make with the crappy information we have.
Root Cause? Life choices or circumstances? (Score:2)
I struggle with articles like this. I have 7 children. They live in some of the largest cities in the U.S. I have helped them all find housing at some point or another. Here is what I have found.
1) I have found apartments for all of them for under $1000/month in safe/secure areas, many with pools and gyms included. This is for independent living. However, one son lives in a 4 bed/4 bath with a shared kitchen for only $650/month with full amenities, in a top 10 city.
2) Utilities are generally under $200/mont
America protects the wealthy more than the poor (Score:2)
I don't understand why that's acceptable to Americans.
Americans, your Lady of Liberty says ""Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"
I wondered if the reasoning was if I am anti wealthy I am anti aspiration. They have been selling that shit in the UK for years.
The wealthy horde money in assets, like property, driving up their prices, and take money out of a economy that could be innovating and employing.
The wealthy are the enemies of aspiration, not friends.
Re:Do you hate poor people? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you do, ban services like this one.
If not, don't ban such services.
These services exist to prey on those who have less income to begin with. Maybe the solution isn't to continue cracking down on ways poorer folks try to survive, but instead find a way to prevent people from feeling so desperate to make ends meet that they go to the legally sanctioned loan sharks just to make it paycheck to paycheck. I know, crazy talk in a capitalist utopia, but maybe we can turn our crazy from outright hatred to something a little more long-term practical? Just as a thought experiment at the very least.
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The country has no problems paying $100k for ICE agents to snatch people into rental vans. The country has money to build camps to house these people. When it comes to citizens that need help it’s fuck you.
Re:Do you hate poor people? (Score:5, Insightful)
The country has no problems paying $100k for ICE agents to snatch people into rental vans. The country has money to build camps to house these people. When it comes to citizens that need help it’s fuck you.
Lest we forget: There's also always plenty for another tax cut for businesses and billionaires.
Re: Do you hate poor people? (Score:3)
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You aren't "paying" into a pool. You are literally sending money to the government so they can turn around and send it to a current pensioner. The reason the system is fucked can directly be correlated to the fact that when the program started, we had roughly 50 people per pensioner paying into it. Now, we are down to about 3 people per pensioner paying into it. See a problem?
The entire thing is a pyramid scheme and the bottom of the pyramid isn't growing fast enough to keep up.
Eventually, a generation is g
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You are literally sending money to the government so they can turn around and send it to a current pensioner
This is exactly how all insurance works. Everyone pays in, those with liabilities (such as a cancer or a death) get paid with the money that is getting paid in. Now, insurance companies are required to maintain a certain level of financial health (such as a certain amount of cash on hand to guarantee ability to pay out benefits should a disaster occur, but even then sometimes they need a bailout), but the U.S. government doesn't really have any such statutory requirements. Well. At least no such requirement
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Now we start asking real questions. How does that figure compare to other countries? How about per capita?
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Dear shithead... social security is NOT part of the federal budget. It's a completely separate account that WE PAID INTO OUR ENTIRE WORKING LIVES.
Deduct that bullshit. Add in the welfare for the billionaires.
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There is no magic "account". It doesn't work that way. They track your earnings over your lifetime to decide how much you get. You aren't putting money into an interest baring account, letting is accumulate for 40+ years and then getting access to it. That's not how it works at all.
Re:Do you hate poor people? (Score:4)
You could always start a business to lend money to these people on less predatory terms. I'm certain that these people would be glad to take advantage of the much more generous terms. Not only would you put these legal Lon sharks out of business, but you'd be helping these people at the same time. In a free market you don't require anyone else's permission to engage in commerce. If you lack the initial capital yourself you could always find other like-minded individuals (judging by some other posts there are few in this very thread) and form a corporation with your combined assets.
Coyness aside, we both know that neither you or any of the others here will do that for what I think are reasons obvious to everyone even some are remiss to admit to them. The experiment is doomed to remain squarely in the realm of thought. But as they say, it's the thought that counts, even though it does nothing.
Re:Do you hate poor people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have an examples of what these long-term practical solutions might be or is it just wishful thinking? Some people can certainly be taught the financial planning skills that they might lack which are putting them in this position, but if there were effective methods of addressing poor impulse control, addiction, and many other underlying causes that put people in this position someone would have found them by now. You could always start a business to lend money to these people on less predatory terms. I'm certain that these people would be glad to take advantage of the much more generous terms. Not only would you put these legal Lon sharks out of business, but you'd be helping these people at the same time. In a free market you don't require anyone else's permission to engage in commerce. If you lack the initial capital yourself you could always find other like-minded individuals (judging by some other posts there are few in this very thread) and form a corporation with your combined assets. Coyness aside, we both know that neither you or any of the others here will do that for what I think are reasons obvious to everyone even some are remiss to admit to them. The experiment is doomed to remain squarely in the realm of thought. But as they say, it's the thought that counts, even though it does nothing.
For a start, there are coop banks that do precisely what you're stating, and I've got some money in a savings account with one that I'm certain does loans. The problem though, is that in a society that creates billionaires and even is edging up to trillionaires, there's really no excuse for people trying to scrape by to the point where they need loans to cover their basics.
Yes, I know, there's this fantasy that every person stuck in a financial rut has created that situation themselves, and it's all entirely their fault, but I've known people that work their asses off, do not have every new cellphone model, and every new gadget, making due and scraping by through hard work, yet these folks can't afford to live. Our society seems hell bent on doing everything it can to hurt these people, while handing more and more money upward. My solution would involve wealth redistribution in the form of actual taxes, along the lines as the higher tax brackets paid back in the 1950s that so many "conservatives" seem to believe was a golden age, and using the funds collected to give tax breaks to those who actually need the tax break, rather than those who have plenty and then some.
And why people not in those higher tax brackets will scream bloody murder about daring to talk about taxing those upper tax brackets at a fair rate is beyond me. When rich people make more money we hear, "A rising tide raises all boats," but when someone suggests we do the opposite and hand money to the poor they turn into rabid fetishists screaming idiocy about how you can't help poor people and expect anything good to come of it. We've done the feeding the rich thing for forty years. How about we just *TRY* the other way around? Especially since actual studies have shown that poor people given more money inject it directly into the economy by spending it, while rich folks may just sit on it rather than throw it into other parts of the economy right away.
If you work 40 hours a week (Score:3, Insightful)
Then a roof over your head, food in your fridge, and lights in your home should be possible. When that isn't possible, then the society is malfunctioning.
Yes, I know, there's this fantasy that every person stuck in a financial rut has created that situation themselves,
There is even a religious angle to it. Reformed Protestants (famously, Calvinists) and some Evangelicals have these ideas that God rewards and punishes people financially based on their value as a person, either past acts or future acts (predestination). The general idea is that people who are wealthy would, assuming that God is just, must deserve that wea
Re:Do you hate poor people? (Score:4, Informative)
Our society seems hell bent on doing everything it can to hurt these people
Main character syndrome there bud. Nobody (or at least very few) are actively trying to hurt those people. The issue is that those people do not matter and nobody is looking out for them so the machinery of society ends up recycling them. It is not intentional, it is just that money matters and people do not.
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Prevent stupid people from breeding. Problem solved. IQ is at least 80 % genetic.
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> Always the same solution: give people free money.
Yeah, and it's not working very well, we've been moving more and more money upwards for the last half century and wealth disparity has only increased.
As nightflameauto wrote:
My solution would involve wealth redistribution in the form of actual taxes, along the lines as the higher tax brackets paid back in the 1950s that so many "conservatives" seem to believe was a golden age, and using the funds collected to give tax breaks to those who actually need the tax break, rather than those who have plenty and then some.
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People do not matter, only money matters. We are an completely psychopathic society who are mutating into another place where people are 'processed' industrially in the name of money.
Processed means murdered, the same as almost 100 years ago. The rest of the world is not going to be kind to us when they are dismantling us.
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They can try and come for us. We could of course hold the entire world hostage with our nuclear arsenal. Good times!
I doubt that I hate poor people (Score:2)
Can we provide better public services, as well as imporve banking and rental regulation, then ban money lending or advance services that have unfair rates?
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I wouldn't ban the businesses, just cap their fees and the exorbitant interest rates that they (and the payday loan places) are allowed to charge. Of course when you have congresscritters and high party execs personally invested in that industry we all know that it's not going to happen.
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Then these sharks won't be able to make the campaign contributions necessary to get complying elected officials re-elected.
Can't have that.
Spank people who can't pay their bills for whatever reason? Childcare, healthcare costs, inflexible employment traps, maybe we change more for those. Usurious alimony? Car financing deals from the seventh level of hell? Hey-- don't touch that stuff!
Alter bankruptcy laws to make them easier? NO WAY!
What we need are more student loans at the drop of a hat, for any degree,
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If you don't pay back payday loans, you ruin your credit. If you don't pay back a loan shark, you get your legs broken.
broader issue of what we should expect from societ (Score:2)
No amount of careful budgeting changes that everywhere you look, some business is trying to pick your pocket. They poorer, busier, or less educated then the more of a target you are for these parasite businesses.
Offering the legal status of incorportation is a priviledge. If a whole industry is abusive then what is the benefit to society in letting them to continue to exist?
Re:Is basic personal finance still taught in schoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there are those who make good decisions but are ruined by health care costs because one family member is diagnosed with cancer.
If our government wasn't so hell bent on siphoning even more wealth to the top, maybe we could re-create the middle class.
I don't care how bad your financial choices are (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you're an atheist it's in your best interest. Hungry kids grow up to be a drain on society and a constant threat against you. Your government is not going to protect you from them forever because as your civilization collapses the police go unfunded. Go look up what's happening in Russia right now. They have stopped maintaining the police force outside of Moscow and St Petersburg.
So whether or not it's practical or moral letting people go hungry is bad news. You might end up burning in hell for all eternity or you might just end up getting a slug in your gut from an angry and hungry young man with nothing to lose. Or you might find your taxes going up to put that young man in prison for as long as prisons still exist.
Either way it's just not worth that feeling of vicarious superiority you get knowing you got a full belly tonight and somebody else didn't.
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Somehow... I fail to see how religion (and I'm a Pagan) has anything to do with pay-day loans... I could be wrong, anyone (other than rsilvergun) is welcome to chime in... unless the fat guy in a powered chair preaching that 'I should take care of my body' (when I go outside for a cig) is a good example.
Aren't the "payday loan" places illegal?
My way of always looking at it: rent and bills (for me, just rent and internet) first, food and pop and stuff (gas in car if you have one), everything else (beer, liq
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You haven't met the Prosperity Preachers. el Bunko had one as his "spiritual advisor" during el Bunko I, some blond telegenic thing (as anyone would have guessed).
The scene, la Presidenta goes tits up and reaches the Pearly Gates:
St. Pete: Who the Hell are you?
la Presidenta: But you know me!! I'm the Baby Christian, or whatever that gormless preacher creature called me. Surely he told you I was coming?
St. Pete: Hang on a minute.
St. Pete ducks behind the Gates, pulls out iPhone, and dials God.
God (Na na na n
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In 2025 you shouldn't be without food and shelter.
It is 2025 and you should be either generating wealth or dying trying to create wealth for someone else. The dying is a feature.
And Jesus was crystal fucking clear
Wealth doesn't give the slightest fuck for ancient religions.
And if you're an atheist it's in your best interest. Hungry kids grow up to be a drain on society and a constant threat against you.
Hungry kids give the chance at more wealth by creating and owning prisons.
So whether or not it's practical or moral letting people go hungry is bad news.
Why? What are the downsides to wealth over people starving?
Either way it's just not worth that feeling of vicarious superiority you get knowing you got a full belly tonight and somebody else didn't.
Wealth doesn't care. You are stupid for thinking it does. They got theirs, why should they care about anything else? There will be no guillotines this time.
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a large number of people out there that work hard and can never get ahead because wages have not kept up with inflation in a very long time
I'd be interested in seeing a source for this. Pew Research, a highly reputable research organization (and not at all right-wing), says:
Households in all income tiers had much higher incomes in 2022 than in 1970, after adjusting for inflation
https://www.pewresearch.org/ra... [pewresearch.org]
And also (same source), the percentage of people considered "middle class" shrank from 61% to 51% because...7% moved UP to the upper class, while 3% moved DOWN to the lower class. It's not great that the lower class is 3 percentage points higher (in 50 years), but it's not the catastrophe many make it out to be.
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But it also says that wage growth in the middle class has died.
No, it did not say that. What it said was:
Households in all income tiers had much higher incomes in 2022 than in 1970, after adjusting for inflation.
The only negative thing it said about middle income growth was this:
But the gains for middle- and lower-income households were less than the gains for upper-income households.
So ALL income groups made big gains, but the upper income group made the biggest gains.
You said:
So unless you are in the upper class now then you probably will never make it there
The research said the opposite:
Notably, the increase in the share who are upper income was greater than the increase in the share who are lower income. In that sense, these changes are also a sign of economic progress overall.
What it's saying is that the middle class has shrunk mainly because so many of them have moved into the upper class.
Reading is hard, I know, especially when your opinion doesn't match the facts.
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How exactly does the "gap" between the wealthiest and the poorest cause problems?
Elon Musk's income has zero impact on my personal quality of life, or yours, or on the quality of life of those in the lower income group.
The increase in the upper class in this poll could easily be Musk's and Zuckerberg's wealth pulling everything up.
No. The percentages in the Pew Research are not the percentages of the total amount of wealth, but on the *number of people* in each income category. So when it says that more people moved from the middle class to the upper class, Zuckerberg's wealth has nothing to do with that number.
Re: Is basic personal finance still taught in scho (Score:2)
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Indeed. What that means is (quoting from your link):
today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago.
That's a lot different from the above post from Ogive17 above that claimed:
there are also a large number of people out there that work hard and can never get ahead because wages have not kept up with inflation in a very long time
Based on your Pew link, wages have in fact kept up with inflation, for a very long time.
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The problem is that things like housing has gone up much faster then inflation. Basically luxuries have become cheaper and cheaper while necessities have become more expensive. The poor spend most of their money on necessities.
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The way the CPI works, is that it takes into account all of the types of things a person buys, including housing, food, electronics, and everything else. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/overvi... [bls.gov] You can't just cherry-pick one element of the CPI and say "See, this one component inflated at greater than the rate of inflation!" It's true, but it also ignores that other elements of inflation actually deflated.
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When are you going to understand that only money matters. People do not matter. People last maybe a hundred years, wealth is forever. Enjoying wealth is what most people want, so that is why societies end up like this.
Or in other words, "fuck you, i want it all"
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Your "basic personal finance" hasn't been taught in most schools in the Untied States since at least the 1970s, the only place where I ever saw it when I was in school ('79 grad) was in 'Home Economics' class. Even our accounting classes didn't teach about budgeting except as a mandate which would be given to you by management.
IMNSHO a certain share of the blame goes to our current reliance on credit cards, and that their usage starts so young. Any time I've been poor I've always relied strictly on cash.
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I agree about the cash advantage for keeping within budget - when the wallet is empty you ran out of budget. Part of the reason why all the big money people are pushing for a cashless society.
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There's also a feeling of disgust as you watch that cash go into a till to balance out the pleasure of receiving something. With a card, you get the pleasure right away and the disgust at the end of the month.
Re:Is basic personal finance still taught in schoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh you’re absolutely right I quit buying $5 daily avocado and now I have no problems paying $2k a month for an apartment or $300k McMansion.
But I like best about that avocado nonsense (Score:2)
Seriously there 50 cents a piece after 5 years of runway infl
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It's absolutely possible for it to be the cause. But it's not always the cause.
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The person you're responding to doesn't seem to believe it, is why I mentioned it.
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Poor decisions can certainly lead to poor people. Bad luck can too, though.
Re:Is basic personal finance still taught in schoo (Score:4, Insightful)
When rents are going up at a much higher rate than incomes, no amount of budgeting will help.
Searching by your comment no (Score:5, Informative)
You can't squeeze blood from a stone and you can't magically budget your way out of late stage capitalism.
The people you are indulging in looking down on have guns and they can't get to guys actually causing the problem but what they can do is get the guys like you (and me). People who still have something to take.
You'll probably kill the first batch of them with your assault rifle. Maybe even you'll get the second batch. By the third batch they'll have gotten off a few shots and gotten one of them into your leg and or arm. Maybe they'll have taken out your wife and one of your kids.
People encouraging you to indulge in looking down on hungry Americans are happy to let you descrnd in the violence. Russia for example has stopped maintaining police forces outside of the two major cities because frankly they don't care.
And here's the thing you got to understand about a hoard. You can kill hundreds of them and they keep coming but if they kill you once it's all over.
This is a rather blunt way for me to say it's cheaper to be a good person.
Also if you happen to be a Christian, and most of the people who expressed the thoughts you are expressing are, then you are ignoring what your God told you to do and he was very clear that you will be going to hell for that. The same goes for most major religions.
If you're an atheist I suppose I can't fall back on threats of hell. But then there's that hoard again armed to the teeth and sooner or later the cops stop getting funded so that somebody else can pocket that money. Can you imagine how much quicker Elon Musk can become the first trillionaire if he takes your city's police budget?
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This is not late stage Capitalism. It is late stage Mercantilism. For a long time the GOP has been screaming about capitalism when they meant something else.
But Trump changed that. Mercantalism is when the government cares more about the country's wealth than about the people. It is signified by two main concepts: "Balance of Trade" and "Tariffs".
Capitalism is about free markets - so no tariffs. Easy, clear distinguishing features come directly from the definitions.
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It is signified by two main concepts: "Balance of Trade" and "Tariffs".
Except for the 40% tariff on goods from Brazil, with whom the U.S. has a trade surplus -- apparently enacted to punish Brazil for its prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro (and friend of Trump) for attempting a coup. Can't have presidents who lost their election and attempted to stay in power go to jail, 'cause that would set a bad precedent. /s
No true scotsman! (Score:2)
Frankly I'm all for it. People have been programmed to be terrified of socialism using the 4 to 14 trick. Basically they cram it in your skull when you're too young to know better because you don't have critical thinking skills yet.
It is possible to figure out that you've been lied to when you were a kid but it requires a process called deconstruction. It is slow, painful and very few pe
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No,there are lots of fair versions of capitalism. Part of the problem is that you do no know what socialism.
Here are the approximate definitions
Feudalism: Elite own land. Everyone else works the land. You can trade anything. (They were crap at food - 90% of pop worked to make food).
Mercantilism: Balance of trade is key to national wealth. Use Tariffs to maintain it.
Capitalism: Free market works - requires fair information and willing business. No gun to the head.
Communism: Government should own e
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This is a rather blunt way for me to say it's cheaper to be a good person.
Wealth doesn't care if you are a good or bad person, only that you can't touch wealth. I suppose you are giving 'good' advice to the non-wealthy, but it doesn't matter. Only wealth matters. The non-wealthy can do whatever they want as long as they don't get in the way of wealth and die without being too difficult.
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No. It's not. Also, half the country thinks we can just take all the 1%'s money and everything will just magically work out. It's delusional.