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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

> If saving money causes more bills to appear

Sigh. I'm not sure if this is a comprehension issue or if you're deliberately misrepresenting what I'm saying.

Saving doesn't cause bills to appear. The bills are already there. They've likely been piling up for years, and continue to do so.

If you're $20k in debt, and it keeps growing, and every time you've tried to save up a few dollars to pay it down you've had to spend the couple bucks you managed to accrue on yet another critical bill you can't put off any longer, it starts to feel pointless to save.

> you suggest the solutions seems to be to give the poor less money

What?

I laid out specific, systemic interventions that are necessary, none of which require giving the poor less money.

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>The bills are already there. They've likely been piling up for years, and continue to do so.

>If you're $20k in debt, and it keeps growing, and every time you've tried to save up a few dollars to pay it down you've had to spend the couple bucks you managed to accrue on yet another critical bill you can't put off any longer, it starts to feel pointless to save.

If they have so much debt buying so many lottery tickets? Seems like a bad idea. What if they never bought lottery tickets to begin with? Who keeps extending them credit when they clearly never pay any bills?

Do you extend this same logic to firms like Amazon? Amazon spends virtually every dollar they make, does that mean they are poor? Should the government step in a give them money because of how poor they are?

I don't see why, "You have to stop buying lottery tickets" is a non-starter when talking about Americas poor. First stop buying lottery tickets, then we can talk about money problems you may have.

> Who keeps extending them credit when they clearly never pay any bills?

Predatory lenders, utilities and hospitals that may not be legally permitted to deny service but can still attempt to collect, etc. They're certainly not getting a 2% cash-back credit line from Chase.

They're also not never paying bills. They're juggling them, so the latest and most critical get paid. Squeaky wheel gets the grease - you'll probably pay to get your car out of impound before you'll pay your kid's school lunch debt.

> Do you extend this same logic to firms like Amazon? Amazon spends virtually every dollar they make, does that mean they are poor?

My "I'm being argued with in bad faith" senses are beginning to tingle.

> I don't see why, "You have to stop buying lottery tickets" is a non-starter when talking about Americas poor.

Again, systemic solutions are required here.

Add "get rid of lotteries" to my systemic fixes list, if you like.

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