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Comment by byEngineer | Hacker News Reader

I invite all the downvotes, but my satisfaction comes from the realization that on the bottom of your heart you know this is true:

Why stupid pay $4,150 for a $1,500 sofa?

Because when I was poor I collected one from the street for free. It hasn't even crossed my mind to go to a store when broken.

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According to his biography Steve Jobs spend years in a house with not much more than a mattress and gramophone as furniture. People have been conditioned to buy stuff as a means of "expressing themselves" or "their personality", the were let towards those kinds of thought with the onset of mass production in the 1920s, at least that's the thesis of "The century of the Self" (http://vimeo.com/85948693)

Did you have kids at the time? I don't think you would've been as comfortable picking up a sofa potentially infested with who-knows-what and your kids sleeping on it.

I've been poor too, but I had the distinct advantage of an education, which made it clear that certain choices were better than others. Let's not forget that not everyone enjoys that advantage (whether it's available or not)

Simply don't have kids when you are poor. Also it is perfectly reasonable to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag/on blankets, maybe with some isolation beneath you. It is also much more healthy than to sleep on a couch. I lived most of my university life in a room with a desk, a chair and a mattress on the floor.

Your rationality could save the world, if only you added some pragmatism to it. Here's some things you have not considered:

* religion (the poor are more likely to be religious, most religions frown upon birth control) * abusive relationships (I've seen women go from comfortable living in their on home to being on welfare because after X years, their partners are abusive) * addictions * medical bills * onset of mental illness

Religion and birth control are both a question of indoctrination by the state. The Soviet Union and its satellite states managed to reduce religious belief fairly effectively, in the Czech Republic ~70% are atheist / non-believers, East Germany has similar numbers. They provided free access to birth control, abortions and infant child care. Of course none of this would be possible in most of the world, religious belief is too entrenched and there are no strong ideologies left that are prepared to fight it.

craigslist, you can pick one up for a few hundred, I'm sure. With kids, that's what I would do.

How would you arrange for transportation? When do you have time to look at craigslist if you're working 7 days a week, getting up at 5:30AM to take the bus to your job 1.5 hours away at a factory, and cleaning houses on weekends?

What I'm trying to get at is that being poor is not enough to produce what's seen in this article. You need a combination of poverty, broken family unit, lack of education (just because the school is down the street doesn't mean your parents are going to let you attend!), even craigslist is something that you might never have heard of!

ok, then pick up one from the street for free, but talk to the folks at which house you are picking it up from. Tell them you are going to have for your kid, etc.

Then, if you are working 7 days a week, getting up at 5:30am, and all that stuff - why the heck you need a sofa for $1,500? Safe and invest this $1,500 in your child's education for Goodness sake! This is what poor Jews have been doing in the US since before-ww2 and look how well it worked for them!

And blunt jokes aside -- I would fill much more fulfilled putting this 1500 to my kids college fund/whatever then buying something I don't really need.

Why are you poor? Because you are stupid. Why are you stupid? Because you are poor.

No one will break the vicious circle for them. They have to do it.

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