Heart of Darkness

[misterno]

Quote from hippie:

You are out of touch with reality. MCD jobs do not pay enough for a simple room in many cities. You live with family or in your vehicle if you do not have other funds and didn't inherited your home.

In any case, not all who wants to work can get work in MCD. lol

Man I love this;

I live in Houston, you work in MCD and say you got paid $7.52/hr with no overtime you will make 7.52*40=$308

4 weeks = 4x308 = $1,242

Because you are low income person because of the tax credits and all that say this $1,242 is after tax.

In Houston you can get a decent 1 bedroom apartment ALL UTILITIES INCLUDED with 24 hr patrolling security (so crime is impossible), 4 miles away from Galleria which is the center of Houston. You got 19 pools and 15 jackuzis and video library and an old fitness center in the apartment complex. These 1 bedrooms are 800 sqft and have carpet in all rooms, have washing machine drying machine and a dishwasher machine and a microwave. THE RENT IS $655/month INCLUDING ALL UTILITIES

Say you got 2 kids and a NON WORKING WIFE. You don't have money for a car but the rest of the money (1242-655)= $587 will be more than enough for food.

Around the apartment complex, you got several supermarkets and believe it or not you can get pretty much any veg or fruit way under $1/lbs. I just got sliced steak for $1.99/lbs 6 grapefruits for 1 dollar and 12 oranges for 1 dollar and so on and so forth

Houston is the 4th largest city in USA and one of the fastest growing one too.

By the way, I see signs on mexican restaurants looking for cashier for $8.50/hr in Houston.

I know this is not a dream life but at least you are not on the street. What I described was a man with no english and WIFE is not working.

Now how the fu!@ a native speaker American can not find a job and homeless on the street or hungry begging for the money on the streets?

Because they are lazy and/or have mental illness. It is impossible for a normal (no debt no mental illness or disability)person to be homeless in USA. Even in this recession.

I think I am out of topic but couldn't help.

 

[nutmeg]

I live in Houston, you work in MCD and say you got paid $7.52/hr with no overtime you will make 7.52*40=$308

4 weeks = 4x308 = $1,242

----------------------------------

Frankly, I can't ever remember working a 40 hour week in my life, you can't get anywhere on 40 hour pay. I can't really think of anyone in my circle of acquanitances who worked 40 hours either.

I run into a few kids or young adults that only can get 28 -30 hours a week, don't cry to me, get a second job. Not being harsh but 6 ten hours days wasn't a biggie or 5 1/2 days with 60 hours worked out well too.

I remember as an employee, bragging rights, once I worked 90 days in a row. Ha I thought that was something. Then when I became self employeed..pfffttttt I went years without a day off. lmao, now that I think about it.

p.s. I guess my last statement reflects the fact I enjoyed my work.

 

[gdtrader]

working at MCD for 4 weeks = 4x308 = $1,242 will not get you laid. This will lead to mentail illness so wala I found the solution. If employers provided quality prostitutes at the work place there would be no problems. Full employment no printing money... motivation

 

[Ghost of Cutten]

People live near poverty because they take bad decisions, whether by instinct or lack of planning, which undermine their ability to be financially successful - I mean just to a normal working/middle-class level.

It is common knowledge what it takes to escape poverty. Work on your skills, market them, put in effort to do work that people are willing to pay for, spend less than you earn, save, invest in a diversified portfolio, eventually buy a house, focus on what steps you need to improve your career, take out and maintain medical, house, and legal insurance etc. And avoid financial disasters like drugs, gambling, heavy drinking, uninformed speculation, marrying unstable or high-spending people etc. If you are out of work for a while, reducing your salary demands until someone employs you in the fields you are skilled or experienced at.

There are a few people who are simply very low IQ or genetically unstable, mentally ill, physically handicapped with no distinguishing talents, but even they can get out of poverty to a moderate or even good existence if they simply follow the steps. In a rich country with opportunities like the USA, poverty is generally the fault of the poor person. Most able-bodied people of sound mind who is poor, have no real excuse, although there are one or two genuine hard-luck stories.

Costs are very high in places like Manhattan for the simple reason that huge numbers of very well-paid and rich people live there, and there isn't much land to go round. An OJ costs so much because the average person buying it is on $100k+, as well as the high land prices. Land prices there are so expensive because the best services in the country are available there, loads of rich people live there, and the land is in limited supply. If Manhattan were in North Dakota then prices would be a lot cheaper (but still not dirt cheap).

Since no one is forced to live in Manhattan, its high prices are not the cause of poverty. Anyone living there can move elsewhere in the USA and get a basic job, rent a small studio apartment somewhere, keep their expenses low, do part-time moonlighting, and start saving money whilst they work their way up the career ladder.

If you take the typical person in the bottom 10% of economic performance and wealth, you will usually find one or more of these traits:

1. Either out of work, or not working much. Often on welfare.
2. Spends a considerable sum each month on smoking, or drinking, or drugs.
3. Bankrupted by medical expenses or business failure.
4. Spends hours a day watching TV, or other unproductive actions.
5. Spends excessively on poor-quality products e.g. fast food/junk food, soda.
6. Divorced single parent.
7. Indebted and paying higher than necessary interest payments.
8. Spends little or no time on career advancement.

Many of these are under the control of the individual to some extent. Avoid them and you reduce your chance of being poor, or improve your chances of escaping poverty.

 

[Ghost of Cutten]

Quote from hippie:

You are out of touch with reality. MCD jobs do not pay enough for a simple room in many cities. You live with family or in your vehicle if you do not have other funds and didn't inherited your home.

In any case, not all who wants to work can get work in MCD. lol

You can buy a tent for $50 or sleeping bag for peanuts, and can rent a space in non-residential areas for peanuts, maybe $20 per week. You then have almost zero living expenses, even on minimum wage you can save $500 a month, that's more than many people on $50k save.

It takes about 2-3 years to learn most skills, you can then teach them for $20 per hour or more in most metro areas, market them online etc. That's 40k a year gross.

 

[T_Geithner]

@Ghost of Cutten

Your statements are not wrong, but they are not right either.

Some believe in Karma, some believe that God has a special plan, others believe that their country maintains a perfect meritocratic system, some believe ...

Why is it that people have to convince themselves that poor people deserve the conditions they are in?

Why is it so hard to accept the fact that life is not just, that random things happen, that humans like animals & beasts try to take away from other living entities as much as they can, that certain paths do not guarantee wealth or success but that they only increase the probability of reaching wealth or success?

I can assume it is only because they want to feel good about themselves.

I personally don't give a fuck about anyone including poor people, I don't care why they are poor and I don't try to falsely convince myself that they deserve to be in the state they are in, I don't pretend to be their mother, father, creator or ... and give guidance on how they can obtain wealth.

And most of all I don't believe in bullshit like, Meritocracy. Hypocrisy is the only thing that pays off the most in America and almost any other country.

 

[Visaria]

The first time I travelled to the USA, I was amazed at seeing people living in caravans (i believe you call them trailers) in rural Florida. There were beggars and homeless people in NYC and in LA. To this day I recall this woman who was collecting 25 cent coins "because she wanted to make a dollar".

I mean, this was supposed to be the richest country in the world!

 

[Mav88]

"Why, in an age of such prosperity, are there so many people desperately in danger of poverty?" I have a theory. In another post somewhere (I would have to dig it up), I broke down our typical expenses. I realized a while later that, a huge percentage of a person's paycheck in a typical city goes to "rent" or mortgage or whatever. I then started to ask, why is housing weighted so, in comparison to say, food, or waste disposal, or water, or any other basic need? Why is it that someone can go into Coach and spend $5k on two purses that look like shit, but someone just outside through bad luck or even stupidity (God forbid we should make mistakes!) is rummaging at MCDs garbage can to eat?

Ok, I said, let's apply economic principles. Land must be a finite resource. There is only so much of it to go around. So I looked up what percentage of the US is actual living land. Something like 7%!!?? Hmmm, that doesn't seem right? Then I thought, well, ok, so it can't be economics, at least not classically. Then I thought to myself, wait a minute, if I go to NYC hotel, and get an orange juice, it costs $7. If I go to Brooklyn, it costs $1.50!?? Hmmm, what can cause the price of OJ to skyrocket from one place to another, only miles away, like this??? (there should be an arbitrage in there somewhere in efficient markets). Then I thought, land!!! Land is far far more expensive in NYC than in Brooklyn. But land can not explain it completely. Then I thought there must be a principle at work here, and I realized that in every single item we buy, there are middle men from the OJ producer and the final consumer. This must be the reason, there must be way more middle men in NYC than in Brooklyn. But then even this could not explain all of it. What else? I finally threw my hands up and realized that it has to be psychology. Why on earth would someone pay $7 for a glass of OJ? It must be that people charge whatever someone is willing to pay for it, and can be abused or "sold to." Of course this is no new insight, brokers try to screw old ladies out of their pensions, so why wouldn't this human principle apply anywhere else?

My point is, a huge portion of the population has to spend 80% of their life towards rent. Communism probably recognized this and disallows private land ownership. I am thinking that this is not a bad idea, no private land ownership. Did we throw out the baby with the bath water in Communism? Would it alleviate this endless inflationary pressures in our most basic needs?

Most everyone on earth dedicates their life to the "lower" pursuits. Not to art, science, etc. I am not saying we should all be wearing bedsheets discussing the finer points of Kant. But is life, in 2011, in the richest nation on earth, 80% (100% for the poor) survival?

We never left the jungle.

You just figured out that economics is psychology and humans are still apes?

To me the mystery is why people demand economic equality of outcomes when everything we observe about people interacting or competing, and nature says that would be impossible. If you try and force it then there will be problems.

Put it another way, how can a trader expect every other endeaveor to produce a flat distribution of outcomes (both within the endeavor and compared with others) while the highly skewed distribution of outcomes in trading is perfectly natural?

To then rephrase your question: Why in an age of trillion dollar markets are there such a few very wealthy traders while there are homeless ex traders right down the street?

I'll give you a hint: it has nothing to do with land, housing, OJ, or finite resources.

 

[NYDreamer]

Quote from Mav88:

To me the mystery is why people demand economic equality of outcomes when everything we observe about people interacting or competing, and nature says that would be impossible. If you try and force it then there will be problems.

To me the mystery is why people mistake (A) improved conditions for the worst-off for (B) equality.

More people towards the bottom ranks means more risks for the well-to-do'ers. No matter how rich you are, you can't isolate yourself from society. A wide wealth distribution is a source of envy and therefore instability and therefore increased risks. So even if you're rich and have purely selfish motives, 'ape society' is a bad deal.

 

[misterno]

Quote from gdtrader:

working at MCD for 4 weeks = 4x308 = $1,242 will not get you laid. This will lead to mentail illness so wala I found the solution. If employers provided quality prostitutes at the work place there would be no problems. Full employment no printing money... motivation

Read my posting

The guy is married. So what getting laid are you talking about?

If you are single then you can work night shifts or work 80 hours a week

Here you go alot of money and you are not on the streets

Since the poverty IMHO is a mental illness problem in USA, the question is howcome there are so many mentally retarded people in USA but not in other countries?

I have lived overseas ina 3rd world country many years, never seen many people begging money or living in tents or wandering on the streets?

So this is USA, how come there are so many mentally ill people? The good eceonomy, even a 0% unemployment rate would not help mentally ill people

So how come there are so many mentally ill people in USA? This is my question.