Comment by fnid2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fnid2 | Hacker News Reader

I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.

Wow, Paul, you really don't understand what it is like to be poor. The poor people don't have a lot of cars in their yard because they can afford lots of cars. They have lots of cars because they never throw them away. Rich people throw lots of fine stuff away, but poor people keep everything forever, because they don't know when they can afford to buy another one.

I've been rich and poor and most of my family is still poor. While they don't have lots of cars in the yard, they are pack rats and worry constantly about a time in the future when they won't have anything anymore.

Poor people keep stuff because there may be a day when they'll need it but won't have the money to buy it. The regret of, "Oh... i had one of those but i got rid of it" is pretty strong when you need something you don't have but once did.

The thing you seem to think I don't understand is in fact one of the main points of the essay. When you're poor you instinctively accumulate stuff. If you read a few more paragraphs on you'll come to that part.

When you're poor you instinctively accumulate stuff.

If that is the case, why is this instinct part of poor people and not rich people? I tend to see it most often in people who have lost a lot, like one of the other comments mentions living through the great depression. I see it in my grandmother and she also lived through the great depression.

However, I know some younger people who are poor and didn't live through a time of loss and do not accumulate a lot. They are minimalists. This seems to indicate to me that accumulating a lot of stuff is a learned behavior rather than an instinctual one.

Also, if it is instinctual in poor people, why is it not also instinctual in rich people, or simply all people? Is there something genetic that predisposes people to being poor? Are you implying that or am I incorrectly inferring it?

I would guess hoarding stuff is an instance of humans' general tendency to become more conservative (in this case in the most literal sense) when they feel resources are scarce. So someone who's poor by choice, like a grad student, would be less likely to. Whereas someone who grew up in an atmosphere of scarcity might be inclined to continue to hoard even if they later became rich.

That is true. My parents were reduced to selling all their crockery for food during the Cultural Revolution, and we were certainly poor after we came to the US. However, we are not poor anymore, are unlikely to be poor again, and there is no longer a reason for my mother to save our used Kleenexes. I wish I were kidding.

My grandfather lived through the great depression. When it came time for my grandparents to move to a smaller house that suited them better my Mum had to throw away so much stuff that he'd accumulated out of not wanting to waste anything.

>My parents were reduced to selling all their crockery for food during the Cultural Revolution

Our crockery is pretty good, it was quite expensive but I doubt we'd get more than say £20 GBP for the lot.

Did you/they then eat from cooking pots or was it cold food only then?

I am from Honduras one of the poorest countries in Latin America, and if you go to poor neighborhoods you will see very cheap and small houses, but in their garage you will see very good cars, they rather have a nice car than live in a nice house or decent neighborhood. It's strange.

South Africa is one of the poorest countries, yet the #1 selling new car is a BMW. Even if they can't afford the rent, somehow people find ways to spend money on their vehicles, buying crap like alloy wheels and pointless spoilers or darkened windows. I know many people like this, it's very counterintuitive.

The logic I've typically seen is that it's a status symbol, and as a nouveau riche (relatively speaking, because relative is all that matters here) nation, status symbols are hugely important because to have something like that BMW before would've meant you were extremely rich and powerful. It's cultural lag.

You can live in your car, but you can't drive in your house ;)

you missed the point completely. It's all about status.

Cant tell if it was a joke. I blame insomnia.

Houses can be about status too. A lot of things that most people spend their money on is, or can be. Cars, houses, gadgets, clothes even holidays can be "sold" based on what your friends will think.

yes but you can't drive them around. You get yourself a cool car, wherver you go people will see a person in a cool car. You get a nice house only people in your neighborhood will know.

Or maybe people with marginal incomes spend themselves into sustained poverty through wasteful consumption. If they saved money instead of buying minimally useful possessions and saving the possessions, maybe they wouldn't have to worry about being able to afford stuff they need. You and I have probably known different sets of poor people, but I've seen cases of this.

That doesn't justify throwing things away once you have them, though, but how does one get them in the first place and were they all really necessary at the time?

you've laid it out nicely, this is the mindset of the poor and average people. I always remember the photo of Jobs's living room in the 80s. When there isn't too much crap around, you can actually focus on what matters.

I wouldn't go that far. It's the mindset of most people, almost everyone who hasn't specifically trained themselves to be minimalist. People with enough income can afford to hoard as long as you don't give them too much easy credit, though, so it doesn't hurt them in the same way it hurts people with less income.

You are right with your correction. I just read again what I wrote - it's quite harsh I see. Should have been in bed long time ago :D

My intention was: The mindset of poor and average people is commonly very affected by this, with least barriers, falling into a rat race, as a cause and a consequence.

STEVE JOBS AT HOME IN 1982 — “This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.” —Steve Jobs

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0712/y_walker08.html

exactly, that is the one I had in my head ;) but still made a correction bellow...

Some time later:

http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2004/07/24/ho_jobs_1.jpg

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0911/gallery.ste...

$3000 Eames lounge chair, hand-made carpet, etc.

I bet Jobs still owns that Eames chair, though.

Wow, that's possibly the most arrogant, yet typically upper-middle class thing I've seen all week on HN.

Unfortunately, the "poor people are poor 'cos they're dumb!" sentiment is way too prevalent just about anywhere you go.

I had the (unexpected and unintended) opportunity to live on the wrong side of the tracks, in an incredibly poor industrial neighbourhood - the reality is far more complex than "poor people have poor impulse spending control". To reduce it to such is incredibly out of touch with reality.

I don't think that was his point.

His point wasn't "poor people are poor because they spend too much", his point was, "maybe spending too much is part of what keeps them poor." Obviously there's a lot of factors reducing economic mobility anyway, but poor spending choices certain don't help.

The best example of this would be addiction. A lot of poor people are addicted to tobacco, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc. This puts a huge damper on any ability to save they might have.

But I'm sure he knows that sub-optimal spending decisions are just one of many reasons that poor people stay poor.

I'm not upper middle class at all. "Upper middle class" implies an income that's an order of magnitude above what my parents ever made. And I don't think spending-and-hoarding is why people are poor. Everyone spends and hoards--it's human nature. Unfortunately it's a bit of human nature that causes more problems the less income you have.

Nor did I say poor people are poor because they're dumb, or that they have poor impulse spending control, just that they might still benefit from a minimalist lifestyle. On the contrary--some that I've known have been bright and very deliberate about spending. But like most people, they still deliberately buy things they don't really need using the same poor justifications that wealthier people use.

I'm not interested in assigning any kind of blame to anyone. You're interpreting a subtext that isn't there.

> poor people have poor impulse spending control

Here in the UK it is broadly true though. It's not necessarily an intelligence or "dumb" thing. It's just that the consumer culture is enticing - and no one has been taught how to control those impulses or to budget adequately.

A lot of the poorest families do budget and consume well due to necessity. The problem is those (I think the vast majority) of people living just above poverty who "splash the cash", spend money they don't have and end up in thousands of pounds of debt.

(and, yes, I've lived in that group for a fair while. Though fortunately my parents managed the money ok)

From what I've read, there is a lot of truth to what he says. Its not that poor people are dumb, but that the short term spending that everyone does has a much bigger effect on them (as its a much bigger proportion of their income).

Caveat: The paper I'm thinking of was referring to incredibly poor people in India, so it might not necessarily carry over to all contexts.

Around my house, the poor sections of town were the ones with ridiculously tricked-out cars, and the siding on their houses was literally falling off, with lots of roof damage. They'd spend thousands on a paint job, but nothing to stop the leaky roof, drafts, and higher energy costs that go with those. I've seen nearly identical things many other places (replace cars with expensive-but-uncomfortable shoes, stereotypically-goth-$100 pants, etc).

From my experiences, it's typically that moderately-poor people spend themselves into further poverty by having poor priorities. Status-buys seem to rank higher than life-improvers.

The poor and lower-middle-class people I know don't do that. They just don't have the education or expertise that offers a job that pays more than 30k a year. There isn't much to save on 30k a year after mortgage/rent/car/insurance/kid-college-loan-payments/food, even if you're very thrifty. And God help you if you end up in that situation with an outstanding credit card balance or two.

Yeah, you can say they should have gotten the education or the expertise, and I or they or both might agree with you, but spending isn't usually the main issue.

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