Hacker News Reader

Comment by _m8fo | Hacker News Reader

tricking people to save paltry sums of money meanwhile using the gains in interest to fund your company's most recent marketing campaign to trick people into buying more useless garbage they don't really need.

what's wrong with this picture? in any case, i suppose this is good -- in the same way a slave owner providing food and shelter is good for the slave. you even have to pay to deposit and withdraw money.

View on HN

I really hate arguments that derive from what a person "needs". Humans need amazingly little. Even when I was living below the poverty line I was bathed in the riches of my civilization, had high-speed internet, ate plentiful food, was clothed and had sheltered.

I've also worked in conditions where I lived in a 1/4th of a trailer with a half-height locker and whatever I could keep in my top bunk with me -- I shared the space with another adult. I had a few sets of clothes, a jacket, no internet or useful entertainment and 3 shipped in boxed cold, marginally nutritious meals per day. I didn't die and I'm sure I could lose many of those "luxuries" and still not die.

Once when my parents made some bad financial bets, we ended up homeless and living in a motel. It turns out a family of four really can live in space not much bigger than a foldaway bed, a small bathroom and a hotplate. Amazingly, even after months of this, none of us died. I'm sure we could have gone even more spartan if we had needed -- maybe share the bathroom with a few other rooms? Combined instant noodle hotplate cooking area with some of our neighbors? Why do we need heat, just wear more clothes! Don't need a/c, just wear less! Don't need heat or a/c, don't need electricity then, use a butane stove instead of a hotplate! I guarantee, we wouldn't die.

Humans need remarkably little. Most humans would get along just fine with two sets of clothes, a marginal blanket and a decent cold meal of daily calories every day. And yes, they'd get along for quite a long time like that. It would be a wretched, terrible existence, but "need" doesn't leave room for pleasantries.

Also, it is pretty arrogant to think you know what somebody else needs are. Furthermore, it can become an attack on the other party's freedom of choice (self-actualization).

Your model of human needs isn't adequate for life in anything resembling a functional society, let alone a developed society.

Defining 'human needs' as 'the minimum set of requirements not to die' isn't just laughable in that it's archaic to the point of being absurd, but it's also undermined by your narratives. Take your blinders off, and in each of your examples given here, you'll find that you were in all situations deeply dependent upon social goods (infrastructures and supply chains) that you've glossed over.

Humans don't need a developed society. That was never a qualification for "need". We got along just fine for hundreds of thousands of years without any sort of civilization at all thank you.

A refrain I've often heard from victims of circumstance.

Assuming you were living in an ostensibly "first world" society, I'd guess most people are unsettled by the sense that your experience was both sadly typical and economically inexcusable, which is the likely context for many criticisms of the article's subject.

Even that 'wretched' existence doesn't have to be wretched - depending upon the external environment. I've been camping for extended periods with little more than that. Its not comfortable, but the experience was way better in many ways that my 'comfortable' cubicle.

Thank you. I too hate that word. Needs are always backed by wants. A man who wants to commit suicide doesn't need to breathe. A man who wants to sing at the opera needs to practice. Needs derive from wants.

A paltry sum of money is the first step to a reasonable sum of money. An interest in saving a paltry sum of money is arguably a useful skill for people earning paltry sums of money, as I'd hazard a guess that it should encourage them to spend less on useless garbage they don't really need. Gamifying this to the benefit of both parties is capitalism at work. Any comparison to slavery is beyond ridiculous.

> Loretta Taylor, who lives in the southern-Illinois town of Mount Vernon, started using a Walmart MoneyCard when her local bank branch closed late last year, forcing her to drive 45 minutes to make a deposit. A registered nurse, she has lately been working as an in-home caregiver, and sometimes gets paid in cash, which she can put onto the card (for a $3 fee) at a nearby Walmart. “I’m not making much money right now,” she told me recently. But in early January she decided to put $23 in the card’s Vault—and won a $25 prize. Taylor has kept her traditional bank account, and she sounds slightly skeptical of Walmart’s motives. Still, she has continued to use the Vault; she had saved $75 when we talked in early February, including the $25 prize.

EDIT: updated comment

one is forced to drive over an hour all in all, or pay $3 (not even counting $1 to get the card, $5 a month fee on low balances and $2.50 to even take money out of the card) and have further dependence on megacorp.

original comment, for integrity (thanks to the child posts, ajdlinux and greeneggs):

   a 45 minute drive and the associated time and money wasted (not to mention car depreciation), on top of a $3 fee. oh, drove 45 minutes? might as well buy something, lest that time be wasted. oh, and you're going to have to drive 45 minutes back. all in all, an hour and a half wasted in addition to $3 (not even counting $1 to get the card, $5 a month fee on low balances and $2.50 to even take money out of the card) and further dependence on megacorp. if you read this and your first thought is: 'hey, most people aren't 45 minutes away from walmart', then my point is already lost on you.

The way I read it, it takes 45 minutes to drive to her old bank branch, whereas the nearby Walmart is much closer.

Another reasoning for joining a credit union — being able to deposit and withdraw from any nearby credit union whether it's your own or not for no fee.

Assuming there is a credit union nearby. The point of that snippet seemed to be that Wal Mart was much more convenient than a bank.

Well not much more convenient than one particular branch of one particular bank, yeah, but I don't think that cashing a check for free is something that other banks do for non-members (compared to credit unions).

You are misreading the quote. Had she stayed with the same bank, she would have had to drive 45 minutes to get to a branch. There is a Walmart in Mount Vernon, so getting there is more like a 10-minute drive.

I'm not 100% clear on your point. Where does this dependence on megacorp come in? Granted I haven't read the terms and conditions for one of these cards, but I would be surprised if anybody's savings should be held at ransom if they decide to leave. A preliminary search certainly doesn't suggest that you can only spend vault money at Walmart [1].

So, you've listed her two options. One is a bank that is far, far away. The other is Walmart. She's chosen Walmart. So what are the downsides to the Walmart thing? There are no fees for most things you might care to do with it [2]. The money stowed in the vault does not accrue interest [1]. How about the upsides? She may be encouraged to save more. She may learn more about managing her money. And when she learns enough about the fees to realise that the $25 prize only covers 5 months worth of fees, she may reconsider. But in the meantime, she's learned more about managing her money, and that's useful. The alternative is that perhaps the prizes may play to an addictive personality, in which case there are bigger issues anyway.

So, she's made a silly decision. But she's made one none-the-less. Walmart is most definitely making more money out of this than she is. But everyone makes decisions based on what they know and what is available to them. If this is her best option now, at least it may be a driver to find a better one in the future.

[1] https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/account/faqs [2] https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/account/legal-info-page?pro...

> $5 a month fee on low balances

The fee is not on low balances. It's on low loading volume.

Indeed you are right! Unfortunately, that's even worse.

If you regularly spend $1000+ / month at Walmart, it's better. Otherwise, yes, it's worse.

I suppose you'd rather overthrow the consumerist system, but isn't that making the perfect the enemy of the good?

People who didn't have savings have some now, and they aren't all going to blow it at WalMart because they saw an advertisement. These people are better off than they were before, and I'm not going to oppose that just because I don't like WalMart.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com