Why do people with money forget what it's like to have none?

[HEyHEY]

I met this woman tonight. I was explaining to here how I'm apartment hunting. She tells me I should live in Yaletown, I tell her, "No way it's too expensive."
She retorts, "Big deal, live life, just do it."
I say, "That's fine and dandy but when you have students loans and and what not, you'd like to not pay 50 per cent of your income to rent."
I mention if I'm paying that I'd rather mortgage. Then she goes of about that and "Don't worry about money, you'll always be in debt....blah blah blah."
Then she mentions where she lives now, her house is $500,000 minimum. I just felt like saying, "When you have money, it's easy to not worry about it...so shut the FUCK up."
It's like that old saying, "The only people who think about money more than the rich are the poor."

God, I hate when rich people try to tell me not to worry about money.

[XemaSab]

1. You didn't happen to read George F Will today did you?

Jesus Christ on a trailer hitch, I was offended! :o

[HEyHEY]

2. No, I didnt' see it

What did he say?

[XemaSab]

6. Dude....

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/column/georgewill/2006/03/05/188663.html

"Sometimes," says John Edwards, "people need a breather." He is not talking about himself, although surely he needed one after his brief rocket ride through the upper atmosphere of national politics. That ride ended -- or perhaps paused -- when the Kerry-Edwards ticket lost. The people whom Edwards thinks really need a breather from presidential candidates are the voters.

blah blah blah

Edwards has a 1930s paradigm of poverty: Poor people are like everyone else, they just lack certain goods and services (housing, transportation, training, etc.) that government knows how to deliver. Hence he calls for a higher minimum wage and job-creation programs. And because no Democrat with national ambitions will dare to offend the teachers unions, he rejects school choice vouchers and says this: "Give working parents who are poor housing vouchers so they have a chance to move into neighborhoods with better schools."

blah blah blah

The 1930s paradigm has been refuted by four decades of experience. The new paradigm is of behavior-driven poverty that results from individuals' nonmaterial deficits. It results from a scarcity of certain habits and mores -- punctuality, hygiene, industriousness, deferral of gratification, etc. -- that are not developed in disorganized homes.

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

:nuke:

[HEyHEY]

7. What an ass

[XemaSab]

9. No shit

I almost DIED when I read it. Seriously, can anyone be that stupid and still meet the criteria for "alive?"

[jpgray]

10. beeeeerrrkkk

:grr:

[hfojvt]

13. David Brooks wrote much the same thing in March of 2004

Apparently it is the new conservative compassion, but poverty has been blamed on intemperance for a long time, perhaps even pre-dating Will's "1930's paradigm". I wish I had that piece from graduate school which described a woman with alot of "risk factors" her husband cheated on her and died a violent death, etc., etc. She sounded just like a stereotype for a poor person. Only her name was Jackie Kennedy. Here's what I wrote to Mr. Brooks:

""We are moving toward a consensus on how to address the diverse problems that cause poverty. But when you go out on the campaign trail, you find politicians spreading polarizing disinformation."

You probably feel that spreading polarizing disinformation is a job best left to professionals such as yourself. "If people live in an environment that fosters industriousness, sobriety, fidelity, punctuality and dependability, they will thrive." Then logically those who do not thrive in this country must be lazy, drunk, unfaithful, non-punctual, and undependable. Unlike, say Larry Eustachy, George W. Bush at age 38, or drug addict Rush Limbaugh.
I might try to explain to you how the prison industrial complex creates and maintains poverty in order to enhance its profits, but it is clear to me that you are too blinded by your own ideology and moral superiority to understand. The discarded people have moral failings, as do we all, and being discarded can lead to more moral failings, but the fact remains that if our society is going to discard 5% of our population then 5% will be discarded even if everyone is a drug-free, workaholic, dependable anal-retentive with a PhD. From your perch above the median income, you can only see it as a fair and just arrangement. Studs Terkel quoted an old labor song - "I don't mind wearing raggedy britches, because them that succeeds is sons-a-bitches". Not that I have any choice in the matter."

These people cannot understand basic economic fallacies. That is, if one person cleans up their act (and is lucky enough to stay healthy) they might be saved from the discarded class, but it does not work for the entire class because there are simply not enough good-paying jobs. And "punctuality, hygiene, industriousness, deferral of gratification" do not create them.

[XemaSab]

14. Well put.

Some of the most indolent, criminal people I've ever known have been VERY wealthy.

[Katherine Brengle]

15. Right here--the reason why our country is so f*ed up--

"The 1930s paradigm has been refuted by four decades of experience. The new paradigm is of behavior-driven poverty that results from individuals' non-material deficits. It results from a scarcity of certain habits and mores -- punctuality, hygiene, industriousness, deferral of gratification, etc. -- that are not developed in disorganized homes."

PUNCTUALITY?

HYGIENE??

INDUSTRIOUSNESS???

DEFERRAL OF GRATIFICATION????

My message for George Will:

Let me tell you something you neocon blow-hole--

The vast majority of poor Americans can tell time and make it to work ON time--there is no evidence that supports the "punctuality" claim.

The vast majority of poor Americans are capable of bathing themselves--as well as keeping their modest abodes clean (without the assistance of hired help, no less). Come to think of it--I actually showered today, a fact which would apparently shock Mr. Will.

Speaking for myself, from my own experience, my father is the hardest working person I have ever met. He wakes up at 4 am to get ready for a long day at a dead-end job, and saves every penny he can after paying bills each month. He'll work 7 days a week, without vacations, without so much as a lunch break, to make ends meet. He has done this since I can remember, and is now on the brink of his 50s, has diabetes, and continues to work as hard as he always has despite the advice of his doctor, because he is nothing if not industrious. The myth of every American being able to pull him/herself up by the proverbial bootstraps is a thing of the past--not the "1930s paradigm."

My husband is a United States Marine Corps reservist and a police officer. He didn't finish college, because he had to get a job that would pay for our rent and bills while our daughter is still young and I am taking care of her at home (both by choice and due to the exorbitant cost of childcare). Right now, I am raising her on my own while he fights your goddamn war for "Iraqi liberation" and you sit at a desk spewing tripe about the "non-material deficits" of the American poor.

Deferral of gratification? I suppose stalling finishing my own college education in hopes of giving my child a chance to have her mother around during her early years doesn't count. I suppose giving up my husband for a year for a war neither he or I believe in doesn't count. Going without foolish things like time with friends, and dinners out, and movies, and cable, and cell phones and all of the other things many people consider staples of a normal life don't count (btw, I am willing to bet that 'ole Georgie doesn't go without any of these). Wearing clothes that are three sizes too big because it's cheaper than buying a new wardrobe doesn't count.

You wanna hear the kicker George?

My little family lives well above the federal poverty line. We have no credit cards. We have no car. We have a relatively cheap apartment. We work hard, we don't play particularly hard, and we scrape by.

George Will's America is a fantasy-land in which everything bad can be explained by pointing out the imaginary failings of our culture's downtrodden.

[LSdemocrat]

3. What makes you think there was a time that they had none?

[HEyHEY]

4. Yeah, good point

[NMMNG]

8. My thoughts exactly

Many rich people have always been well off, and therefore are clueless about what it is like to scrimp and pinch to get by. :eyes:

[leftstreet]

5. ...

Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand. Jose Marti 1853 - 1895

[jpgray]

11. It's all explained in my new book of friend behavioral logic

It's in a subheading under law #47: "the friend with the least understanding of what your problem is will be the most eager to provide you with advice."

[HEyHEY]

12. haha

[DainBramaged]

16. What makes you think she has money?

Maybe, like her life, it's one big lie.

[Skittles]

17. actually, it sounds like that woman is simply comfortable being in debt

disturbing