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Comment by frockington | Hacker News Reader

In America it is assumed you will think ahead and financially prepare instead of relying on the government. What actually happens is the more educated will be prepared and relatively unaffected while the less financially educated will go into debt

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This doesn't work, for simple economic reasons. Companies will pay the lowest wage they can so they can reduce operating expenses. The lowest wage in many jobs will therefore tend to be the cost of a healthy, independent individual's living. So, anybody who isn't a healthy, independent individual will not be able to negotiate on an individual basis for enough pay, in the typical case. It's always going to be cheaper for a company to only hire people without kids, and without special needs, so unless you force them to do things differently, that's what they'll do - because it's simply not their responsibility to be nice to single mothers.

If you want to live in a socially darwinistic society, that's your bag. But don't pretend the people suffering it are 'uneducated'. You devalue both these people, and education in general.

Ignoring the role of financial literacy is troubling. If we don't teach people to save and invest they will never be prepared no matter how healthy.

It's often the case that victors feel their successes stem from superior characteristics, even in manifestly unfair games. Medieval nobles called themselves 'aristocrats', aristo meaning 'the best', in greek. Modern winners tend to think themselves very talented and financially prudent. The aristocrats, at least, were measurably better in some ways than their serfs: larger, more healthy, generally stronger, and so on.

> Medieval nobles called themselves 'aristocrats', aristo meaning 'the best'

Interesting, I didn't know that.

Sounds suspiciously similar to today's "meritocracy"...

Three men own the majority of wealth in the US by themselves. It's exactly the same kind of thing. Except instead of "ennoblement", we tell ourselves that we can strike it big and join those at the top.

and instead of trying to strike it big we sit on comment boards and make comments about why these supposed 3 individuals aren’t required to divide up their gains.

These are whole foods workers. they are not rocket surgeons, they can be easily replaced by stepping outside and finding the next person that walks by. These are the types of jobs that will be automated away in the near future due to stuff like this. Your average skillless worker won’t have a job to go to if they keep making themselves more and more expensive.

So the solution is that we just all become the next Steve Jobs?

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