Being Poor by John Scalzi
- Started
- Last post
- 95 Responses
- jeremy_tai
(via Boing Boing)
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.
Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
- sAvcy0
word
- sAvcy0
I\M POo
r
- Goozebump0
i almost cried, so true
and here some conservatives blaming th mayor of NOLA and vindicating bush saying "We all can see that government is almost totally helpless to take care of things. This is the lesson we all need to learn as we watch people perishing as big government stumbles all over it's incapable feet! However the local government failed it's people! Where was their plan of escape?
Our president is working to take care of the total breakdown of communications and the lawlessness that now seems to reign. "yeah like its ok now 5 days after the fact and totally acceptable yep, sure once again bush is the great leader rising from the ashes.
http://www.theconservativevoice.…
- jeremy_tai0
This video from FOX News is incredibly moving. It's a shame how this whole thing is being handled.
- jeremy_tai0
gooze, so true. here is a break down of where the president was after katarina struck. it's easy to criticize after the fact.
http://news.independent.co.uk/wo…
(on holiday)
- brooke0
Being poor is living without love in your heart.
- jeremy_tai0
The military is frisking little children before rescuing them.
- shaft0
Coming from a country where $600/mo is dream salary for most I have a smile on my face when people from the US who have all the opportunity to achieve something complain about being poor. Being poor in the US is a matter of choice imo.
Not when you're a kid of course.
- bolus0
Coming from a country where $600/mo is dream salary for most I have a smile on my face when people from the US who have all the opportunity to achieve something complain about being poor. Being poor in the US is a matter of choice imo.
Not when you're a kid of course.
shaft
(Sep 4 05, 03:14)of course its all relative, but still, there's poverty in america too. and not everybody has the same high chances of achieving something.......
- shaft0
I've met people in the US who'd came there with a couple of dollars and worked hard to eventually buy their $1m houses.
What was their advantage, why are there so many poor locals who have a better starting position ie. by speaking English by default?
I think it was that by moving to America they changed their lifes entirely so they had a completely fresh start, a new view on everything in life. Being poor is a mental habit, sometimes hard to break. In a way it's a hereditary mental disease.
- bolus0
Being poor is a mental habit, sometimes hard to break.
------------------------------
and can't say i agree with that statement.......
- Goozebump0
omg shaft what rock have yoy and still, live under?
- unfittoprint0
equal rights
don't mean shit
when you don't have
equal opportunities.
you live in a Rio's favelas
100m of the rich condos
you know you'll die poor.
or poorer.
- shaft0
and can't say i agree with that statement.......
bolus
(Sep 4 05, 04:18)
----------------------I'm trying to understand why people living in most of the world's dream destination don't see the opportunities. It's so easy to get stuck in your world and not be able to see what life offers you. This is what I mean by calling being poor a habit.
I am sorry if I'm patronizing, being a wise-ass is a bad habit too.
I'm leaving this thread before I start quoting Tony Robbins
- spl33nidoru0
Wtf are you talking about shaft, you're in Dublin.
Not every city in the US is the same and has the same opportunity, and if i consider my case (NYC) it does offer many opportunities but ALSO requires a lot of $$$ just to live in.
You're talking about $600 dream salary in your country, here you can hardly rent a room with that.
Also, I'm French, the economic situation in France is not so great right now and people are not willing to take much risks, so i didn't have a job there, my parents helped me put some money together and i could also find a banker nice enough to believe in my projects and lend me some money, which allowed me to move to NYC where i'm doing very well now.
BUT I never forget that i can make money "easily" because I'm my own boss and I work in a trendy field (computer graphics / motion works), and always remember I was lucky enough to have computers around during my entire childhood.
What are the odds for people born in a more modest family to get a job like this ?
- JazX0
Being poor is all of those things. Except there's a difference between 3rd World Country poor and Western Euro and US poor for most of us here.
- Goozebump0
its not that different jazx. the cost of living in usa is alot higher than third world countries. in not saying poor ppl in america haave it better off cuz at least we could find something to eat. but this suppose to be amercica, streets paved of gold. msot 3rd world countries have public healthcare. i mean u have to pay for everything in america. dont have health insurance, screw that no doctors gonna see you. i mean poor people are the uderbelly of this country but we never see it television. america loves to cover up its problems by burying it under the rug. outside we are all diverserfied and yada yada but in our homes we are the most hateful ppl in the world.
- spl33nidoru0
true Jazx.
And also shaft the difference between 2 people trying to get themselves out of poverty, one succeeding, the other one failing, is only luck.
Luck to get Mr X or Mr Z at the bank, luck to find people who believe in you, luck to do the right thing at the right time, luck that nothing gets in the way when you really don't need it to.
I've seen people trying 100 times harder than i have with no luck. And i do consider myself very lucky so far.
So don't be so arrogant, there are no rules in life.
- JazX0
I beg to differ my good goozebump
- JazX0
For example, recently you've all must have all come across the flooding in New Orleans. Whether it's on a City, Parish, State or Federal level, those individuals will either be relocated into a different government housing project or income-assisted living or will be found near next to free housing back in a drier NO. The concept of Section 8, etc. doesn't exist in the 3rd world. Nor does most basic welfare for that matter unless it comes from some humanitarian agency. But even they float around and there's always an issue with sustainability.