patrick.net

Deport all illegals andEnd welfare of all forms and I bet thenumber drops.

4/10 American's should move. Country is cheaper than cities, heartland is cheaper than coasts. No one forces your budget on you.

I'm trying to imagine a full time employed person, who isn't a complete idiot financially, that couldn't come up with $400 for an emergency expense that would represent this "40% of all adults."

It's really, really hard.

Maybe they should take tips from the homeless. They ALWAYS have money for cigarettes.

I remember this argument from a few years ago.

*It's Simply Not True That Most Americans Don't Have $1,000 In Emergency Savings*
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/01/14/its-simply-not-true-that-most-americans-dont-have-1000-in-emergency-savings/#49f5b9329019

If you can whisper from the bushes at truck stops, there is no reason for you not to always have money in your pockets.

socal2 says

*It's Simply Not True That Most Americans Don't Have $1,000 In Emergency Savings*
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/01/14/its-simply-not-true-that-most-americans-dont-have-1000-in-emergency-savings/#49f5b9329019

From this article: "if we're honest about it credit and savings are economically the same thing.".
Just a tad disingenuous...

Plus the assertion was "or a credit-card charge that could be quickly paid off". So I guess that leaves: "Ok we'll add those $400 to the thousands of credit card debt at 14% rates that is slowly eating us. Not great, but at least we're still middle class.".
Nope. sorry. Such people are not middle class.

It's the opposite: the debt access is part of the reason people are so poor.

Goran_K says

I'm trying to imagine a full time employed person, who isn't a complete idiot financially, that couldn't come up with $400 for an emergency expense that would represent this "40% of all adults."

It's really, really hard.

Yeah.... well, remember we're not talking of a few inadequate lunatics with IQs below room temperature.
4 in 10.
It's makes it really hard to argue this is not a characteristic of the system vs a characteristic of the 40% in question.

Heraclitusstudent says

It's makes it really hard to argue this is not a characteristic of the system vs a characteristic of the 40% in question.

Can you describe this person? According to your article, 40% of the adult population fit in that category, but I can't imagine any full time employed person, who isn't a complete idiot financially, that actually fits in that group you're painting out for us.

Before we claim "the system is broken reeeeeeeeeeeeee", can we actually confirm it's actually broken?

Goran_K says

Can you describe this person?

Family of 4, income $40K/yr, 18K of that goes in rent, 7K in health insurance. Lives pay check to pay check, or slightly negative. Has $5K credit card debt.

Heraclitusstudent says

Family of 4, income $40K/yr, 18K of that goes in rent, 7K in health insurance. Lives pay check to pay check, or slightly negative. Has $5K credit card debt.

The median household income is $60K year. So sure, if parents are trying to raise a family on a single earner (or single parent) making $19/hour - they are going to be poor and will likely qualify for some welfare. But cheap access to easy credit can be a godsend to the poor if used responsibly for emergencies.

Also, I think you have a pretty high assumption on rent ($1,500/month) outside high cost areas like California and some other big urban areas around the country. I think the national median for a 2 bedroom apartment is closer to $1,000/month.

I'd like to see the breakdown of this 40% by race.

I know people who on paper make 40k or less. In reality it’s closer to 80. A lot off the books stuff.

Heraclitusstudent says

Goran_K says

Can you describe this person?

Family of 4, income $40K/yr, 18K of that goes in rent, 7K in health insurance. Lives pay check to pay check, or slightly negative. Has $5K credit card debt.

Yup. Financial idiocy. Someone who makes $40,000 a year having 4 kids and racking up $5k in credit card debt living in a high rent area. Lunacy and stupidity.

There is literally no way to describe this 40% of people without literally exposing how stupid and ridiculous their life choices are and how it has lead to their own financial troubles.

But I guess if you call financial stupidity “systemic”, it makes people feel better about their own personal failures.

Goran_K says

There is literally no way to describe this 40% of people without literally exposing how stupid and ridiculous their life choices are and how it has lead to their own financial troubles.

There's plenty of these on that Red Pill reddit.

My favorite is the chick who gets knocked up by a drug addict musician, loses a decent job for stealing a few bucks a day from the till, abandons her kids to go clubbing, eventually fakes a back injury to live on Soc Sec disability, ends up losing her possessions to a gambling addiction, and near the end of her lonely, self-inflicted horrible existence:

"Life handed ME a lot of lemons..."

I just learned that San Francisco has opened a homeless camp in Pleasanton to export some of their homeless, apparently on some of the land it owns still in Tri Valley through it's utility commission. The homeless camp started a fire and nearly burned down a storage facility.

So, not only do all new housing construction have their insta-ghetto-transplant requirements, now San Francisco is shitting their homeless problems on the suburbs. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more unbelievable in Cali.

Why don't they dump their homeless camps inside Nancy Pelosi's and Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco mansions?

Heraclitusstudent says

socal2 says

*It's Simply Not True That Most Americans Don't Have $1,000 In Emergency Savings*
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/01/14/its-simply-not-true-that-most-americans-dont-have-1000-in-emergency-savings/#49f5b9329019

From this article: "if we're honest about it credit and savings are economically the same thing.".
Just a tad disingenuous...

Plus the assertion was "or a credit-card charge that could be quickly paid off". So I guess that leaves: "Ok we'll add those $400 to the thousands of credit card debt at 14% rates that is slowly eating us. Not great, but at least we're still middle class.".
Nope. sorry. Such people are not middle class.

It's the opposite: the debt access is part of the reason people are so poor.

Bingo.

Let's imagine an alternate plan. Make it dead easy for people in this category (or anyone) to put $30/mo. into an interest-bearing account. $1 per day. At current competitive savings rates, with the magic of monthly compound interest, that's about $400 for the unplanned expense at the end of one year.

Trouble is... it needs to be simple and easy. The usual easy options available are bank savings accounts, which typically have a much lower interest rate. There's an opportunity here for an enterprise to offer an accessible product that gets a huge number of Americans on the right side of compound interest.

If the half of America that made less than $50k/year didn't have access to credit cards, a lot of things would be slashed in price, back to 1970s levels.

The last decade when middle Americans didn't have credit cards. You had to buy the TV on a layaway plan.

If you think easy College loans inflate prices, just wait until you pass a law forbidding credit cards to those making less than $50k year --- or capping them at $500 limit.

If a $40,000 a year family of four isn’t allowed to accumulate debt up to their necks that they’ll never escape from needing a new iPhone 11, a 75 inch OLED TV, a new leased car, and season passes to Disneyland, then freedom has no meaning. This is systemic capitalist oppression!!!

Bernie!!!! Bernie!!!! Bernie!!!! Reeeeeeee!!!

Why do think it's luxuries that do them in?
Rents are super high relative to wage inflation.
Healthcare costs are through the roof.
Gas is $4+
The lower half the population has simply not been keeping up with inflation.
I don't know why it's surprising that they don't have money.

Cash in my Starbucks card? Never!!!!!

Goran_K says

If a $40,000 a year family of four isn’t allowed to accumulate debt up to their necks that they’ll never escape from needing a new iPhone 11, a 75 inch OLED TV, a new leased car, and season passes to Disneyland, then freedom has no meaning. This is systemic capitalist oppression!!!

Bernie!!!! Bernie!!!! Bernie!!!! Reeeeeeee!!!

Heraclitusstudent says

Why do think it's luxuries that do them in?
Rents are super high relative to wage inflation.
Healthcare costs are through the roof.
Gas is $4+
The lower half the population has simply not been keeping up with inflation.
I don't know why it's surprising that they don't have money.

It's a combination of both.

Heraclitusstudent says

Why do think it's luxuries that do them in?
Rents are super high relative to wage inflation.
Healthcare costs are through the roof.
Gas is $4+
The lower half the population has simply not been keeping up with inflation.
I don't know why it's surprising that they don't have money.

Democrat policies increase the prices of all of those. Funny thing is the Gas Tax in California passed with overwhelming Democrat support. These people vote for policies that hurt themselves based on partisanship, not logic or reason.

Goran_K says

Heraclitusstudent says

Why do think it's luxuries that do them in?
Rents are super high relative to wage inflation.
Healthcare costs are through the roof.
Gas is $4+
The lower half the population has simply not been keeping up with inflation.
I don't know why it's surprising that they don't have money.

Democrat policies increase the prices of all of those. Funny thing is the Gas Tax in California passed with overwhelming Democrat support. These people vote for policies that hurt themselves based on partisanship, not logic or reason.

Agreed - and then they get stabbed in the back by wealthy elitist leftoids voting against building more housing in mostly single-story areas like the SFBA. Gas is up to $2 more expensive than other parts of the US - what the actual fuck?? Beer cans are routinely $7 in SF bars now, yet the Millenials are out and about drinking galore. Then Ubering home and ordering food and weed via doordash/caviar/grubhub. Reeeeeeeeeee! No money!

mell says

Reeeeeeeeeee! No money!

The under the table slur is "systemic", so it's the system that's fucking them over. No personal choices considered at all.

If it is the system (and I don't think it is), they voted that system upon themselves.

Goran_K says

mell says

Reeeeeeeeeee! No money!

The under the table slur is "systemic", so it's the system that's fucking them over. No personal choices considered at all.

If it is the system (and I don't think it is), they voted that system upon themselves.

Well, a lot of it is upbringing and that is difficult to overcome. The baby boomers prospered then spent it all and fucked the younger generations with Medicare for all and more, felt guilty and raised entitlemented brats which now see socialism as their only way out. Married to an early Millenial (close to the crossover from Gen X) - I mean you gotta keep em young - the differences are astounding. While hardworking (and not spending too much money) the propensity to go out, have fun, travel, drink, paid house cleaning is so accentuated compared to Gen Xers and before. But they had their parents model for them so it's not surprising. Brought up outside the US and with a non-consumerism mindset going out for dinner was a once a month, every two weeks at most type of thing. Mom and friend cleaned house themselves all the way into their 50s despite being solidly upper middle-class. We took public transportation or bikes everywhere, nobody was bussing kids around. You cleaned your parents car and got 50 cents for it and were happy. Today: Reeeeeee! Bernie!!!!! No money!!!!

Heraclitusstudent says

Why do think it's luxuries that do them in?

Because poor people have nicer phones and clothes than I do.

Onvacation says

Heraclitusstudent says

Why do think it's luxuries that do them in?

Because poor people have nicer phones and clothes than I do.

Nobody owning a recent iphone can claim to be poor. Spending $1000 on your apple-fanboy/girl phone when you can get a phone with the same capabilities for $250 or less is insanity. But hey that's what payment plans are for ;)

Ceffer says

I just learned that San Francisco has opened a homeless camp in Pleasanton to export some of their homeless, apparently on some of the land it owns still in Tri Valley through it's utility commission. The homeless camp started a fire and nearly burned down a storage facility.

So it didn't burn completely and the camp is still there?