Homestead forum diaspora

Poor

Itemize the things you covet

As you squander through your life

Bigger cars, bigger houses

Term insurance for your wife....

Wealthy

Did you see your children growing up today

And did you hear the music of their laughter

As they set about to play

Did you catch the fragrance of those roses in your garden

Did the morning sunlight warm your soul,

Brighten up your day

Do you qualify to be alive

Or is the limit of your senses so as only to survive....

Ray Stevens

Awesome

"

Do you qualify to be alive

Or is the limit of your senses so as only to survive...."

If you were in new york with a low paying job.... Would you be alive? or would you just survive?

If you lived on land in a small town or in the country with a low paying job.... Would you be alive? or would you just survive?

This is not negative, I'm pointing out that one must live were they can enjoy the previous list and say F-you to the new breed of employers that are trying to return to the 80+ hour weeks of employees.

The search for money as produced "hard workers" to "get ahead" at the expense of job numbers. Unemployment rate is way higher then it needs to be.

Squeezing labor is the Joy of the Capitalist. Get as much out of people as you can for as little money as you can.

Minimum Wages are Starvation Wages as it is.

I know some dumb people who are rich and I know some dumb people who are poor.  The dumb people who are poor have harder lives because they often make choices that make their lives harder.  They have kids they can't support, they party and vacation on money their families need for food and shelter. Dumb rich people might make bad decisions too, but the consequences aren't as bad for them and theirr kids.  

Max at January 3, 2014 at 7:20 PM

Are you poor because you have made some bad financial decisions?

Or, are you making bad financial decisions because you are poor?

 

While poverty is a complex issue, recent research  suggests that poverty can result in an individual making poorer financial decisions than the

SAME PERSON would if he/she were not in poverty:   

 

 

“..The poor often behave in less capable ways, which can further perpetuate poverty. We hypothesize that poverty directly impedes cognitive function and present two studies that test this hypothesis. First, we experimentally induced thoughts about finances and found that this reduces cognitive performance among poor but not in well-off participants. Second, we examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. We found that the same farmer shows diminished cognitive performance before harvest, when poor, as compared with after harvest, when rich. This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort. Nor can it be explained with stress: Although farmers do show more stress before harvest, that does not account for diminished cognitive performance. Instead, it appears that poverty itself reduces cognitive capacity. We suggest that this is because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks. These data provide a previously unexamined perspective and help explain a spectrum of behaviors among the poor. We discuss some implications for poverty policy…”

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976.abstract

 

 

 

Some additional reading on the subject:

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people- seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/

 

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/08/how-poverty-taxes-brain/6716/

 

http://killermartinis.kinja.com/why-i-make-terrible-decisions-or-poverty-thoughts-14501235 58

 

 

 

 

Bottom line:  if you consider yourself to be poor, you may need to be doubly careful when you make financial decisions, because research suggests that you may be predisposed to making bad financial decisions simply because you are poor. 

 

And always be wary of others who try to profit from those bad decisions, such as pay-day lenders, rent-to-own, and  other businesses  offering “easy financing” (easy does not mean cheap)

Max

 

 

Adding to Max's remarks about the article, I think the need for instant gratification is a central factor in poverty.  People decide to take the kids to Disneyland and never think to anticipate the potential emergency or the balloon payment  on the horizon.  Many middle class Americans are drifting into poverty because the house has a couple big screen televisions and the  driveway is full of boats and vehicles they bought on credit.