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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On June 20 2013 03:42 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 03:15 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 02:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller told lawmakers that his agency currently uses drones for surveillance.
"I will tell you that our footprint is very small," Mueller said. "We have very few and have limited use and we're exploring not only the use, but also the necessary guidelines for that use."
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked Mueller if the FBI uses drones on "U.S. soil."
"Yes," Mueller said. "Let me just put it in context. [In a] very, very minimal way. And very seldom." Source Some police forces in Texas were looking to use drones. My first thought was "I wonder how long it'll be before some redneck shoots one out of the sky and the police realize that Texans are as well armed as they are." You realize actual drones fly well out of range right?
Yes I'm aware they fly out of range of a hunting rifle. The drones were going to be equipped with rubber bullets and used during police engagements. They'd have to be significantly closer to the ground than if they were just being used for recon.
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The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it is keeping its massive stimulus program intact for now amid expectations of middling economic growth through next year.
But officials sounded a slightly more optimistic note about the future of the recovery, hinting that they expect the numbers could turn in their favor.
“The Committee sees the downside risks to the outlook for the economy and the labor market as having diminished since the fall,” Fed officials said in a statement issued after its regular policy-setting meeting ended Wednesday morning.
U.S. stock markets dropped on the initial news. Investors had been worried that officials might signal they are preparing to scale back on the $85 billion in bonds the Fed is purchasing each month to prop up the recovery. Treasury bond rates rose after the announcement, after a mild sell-off.
The Fed nodded to strength in the housing market and consumer spending as drivers of the economy. Though it said the job market has improved, it acknowledged that the unemployment rate remains elevated.
The Fed’s characterization of the current state of the economy was almost identical to the what it announced after its last meeting. The lack of a clear direction for the recovery is making it difficult for officials to agree on the next steps for the Fed’s bond purchases. Markets expect that officials will begin to scale back the program this year or early next year, but the Fed has stressed that it is taking a wait-and-see approach. For the second time, officials noted in the statement that they are willing to increase bond buying if the recovery stumbles.
Fed officials updated their economic projections on Wednesday to reflect slightly slower growth through the end of the year. The midpoints of their forecasts now estimate that the economy will expand at an annual rate of between 2.3 percent to 2.6 percent for the year, down from their March forecast of 2.3 to 2.8 percent. But projections for 2014 improved to an annual growth rate of 3 percent to 3.5 percent.
Fed holds steady on stimulus, more upbeat on economy
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On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote: cable/internet + phone. Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap. renters insurance $10-20 per month furnishings bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much. I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations.
Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated.
Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far.
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On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote: cable/internet + phone. Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap. renters insurance $10-20 per month furnishings bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much. I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far.
I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense.
Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat?
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On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote: cable/internet + phone. Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap. renters insurance $10-20 per month furnishings bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much. I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat?
I think this image is of some relevance here.
![[image loading]](http://americannutritionassociation.org/sites/default/files/food-deserts.jpg)
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On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote: cable/internet + phone. Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap. renters insurance $10-20 per month furnishings bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much. I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat?
Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood?
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On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote: cable/internet + phone. Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap. renters insurance $10-20 per month furnishings bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much. I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood?
"Collective personal preference."
When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available.
And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor.
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On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote:
[quote]
Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap.
[quote]
$10-20 per month
[quote]
bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much.
I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available.
I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it.
On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:
And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor.
This is the bigger issue. Eating healthier is more expensive than not, and in poorer neighborhoods, there will be little demand for healthy food for this reason.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
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On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:
[quote]
Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals.
Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it.
These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 5% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals.
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On June 20 2013 04:35 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:
[quote]
As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories.
Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it. These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 10% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals.
In other words, there's not enough demand for a grocery store. The main reason demand is lacking might be because they can't afford healthy food, rather than because they don't want it, but regardless there isn't enough demand.
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On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote: cable/internet + phone. Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap. renters insurance $10-20 per month furnishings bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much. I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat?
Fast food is not about not being able to afford nicer food. I mean, you're not going to be eating lobster every night at the grocery, but if you're willing to cook you can have a healthy diet. I don't see how you can not have time to cook. I know you might say that getting home after 10 hours of work you'll be "too tired to cook" but cooking isn't necessarily exhausting. I could see your point that grocery stores can be too far away for poor people and that map is informative. I guess I should concede that maybe grocery shopping is out of the realm of possibility for many people but realize that in the map the dark areas are 5-10+ %. Not exactly the majority.
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On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote: cable/internet + phone. Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap. renters insurance $10-20 per month furnishings bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much. I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood?
Well, first of all, if you don't have a car, transporting groceries is a huge problem. Especially enough groceries for an entire family.
Second, a lot of poor people aren't unemployed, they're working multiple part time jobs and without a car that means their entire lives revolve around bus schedules and their kids. Finding time to actually cook is extremely difficult. And yes, cooking anything healthy takes a lot of time.
Third, if you live in government subsidized housing with barebones utilities, what do you think the kitchen situation is like? I'm going to guess you'd have a hard time pulling off one of Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals.
Fourth, crime does tend to be more prevalent in poorer neighborhoods. It's super freaking easy to steal from a grocery store. No one's stealing sleeves of taco shells from a Taco Bell.
All these things mean that even if a grocery store did open up in a poor neighborhood it would likely go out of business very quickly.
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On June 20 2013 04:37 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:35 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:
[quote]
Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes.
In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it. These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 10% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals. In other words, there's not enough demand for a grocery store. The main reason demand is lacking might be because they can't afford healthy food, rather than because they don't want it, but regardless there isn't enough demand.
I'm just saying the lack of demand is not necessarily due to the choices of the poor people but rather due to the unfortunate situation they have found themselves in.
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On June 20 2013 04:37 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:35 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:
[quote]
Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes.
In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it. These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 10% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals. In other words, there's not enough demand for a grocery store. The main reason demand is lacking might be because they can't afford healthy food, rather than because they don't want it, but regardless there isn't enough demand.
There are also additional complicating factors. One might notice that many lower income areas are replete with "smaller" commercial establishments like fast food joints, carry outs, and pawn shops, all of which are able to operate with relatively little cash on hand alongside their purveying goods that are on average of negligible individual value (pawn shops are a bit of an outlier, but they also tend to be full of guns). Lack of demand for higher value goods and larger establishments is certainly one of if not the primary motivating factor, but crime and risk avoidance on the part of businesses is definitely mixed in there.
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On June 20 2013 04:40 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:37 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:35 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:
[quote]
In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it. These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 10% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals. In other words, there's not enough demand for a grocery store. The main reason demand is lacking might be because they can't afford healthy food, rather than because they don't want it, but regardless there isn't enough demand. I'm just saying the lack of demand is not necessarily due to the choices of the poor people but rather due to the unfortunate situation they have found themselves in.
I agree.
On June 20 2013 04:45 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:37 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:35 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:
[quote]
In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it. These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 10% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals. In other words, there's not enough demand for a grocery store. The main reason demand is lacking might be because they can't afford healthy food, rather than because they don't want it, but regardless there isn't enough demand. There are also additional complicating factors. One might notice that many lower income areas are replete with "smaller" commercial establishments like fast food joints, carry outs, and pawn shops, all of which are able to operate with relatively little cash on hand alongside their purveying goods that are on average of negligible individual value (pawn shops are a bit of an outlier, but they also tend to be full of guns). Lack of demand for higher value goods and larger establishments is certainly one of if not the primary motivating factor, but crime and risk avoidance on the part of businesses is definitely mixed in there.
Is that actually the case for many of the areas on that map though?
I'm not familiar with all parts of the country, but it looks like grocery stores aren't absent primarily in high-crime rate areas so much as they are absent in areas with less money. Those two areas are associated with each other and overlap, sure, but the trend I'm discussing still appears visible.
I'm most familiar with California, and even the extremely high crime-rate areas like Oakland, Stockton, and Compton don't lack for grocery stores.
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On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:On June 18 2013 14:50 aksfjh wrote:On June 18 2013 14:23 Chocolate wrote:
[quote]
Not necessary. Cable/Internet is a luxury and pay as you go cell phones are very cheap.
[quote]
$10-20 per month
[quote]
bed+ mattress, a refrigerator, a chair, a table, a desk, and a couch doesn't cost much.
I've never paid electric bills so I probably did overestimate them, but keep in mind that it is including heat. Food costs really don't need to be $5-8 per day, and I don't know why it matters if it's a full-time job since you can just bring food for lunch. Also, you can still have variety and healthy food for cheap. Bananas and apples are pretty cheap, and a lot of soup is cheap too. Milk+ oatmeal with a banana is a good breakfast, a good lunch could be a salad with some chicken and some cheap dressing, and for dinner you have lots of options with cheap food like beans, potatoes, bread, rice, corn, soups, noodles, chicken, etc. Multivitamins are like 200 for $10 at Walmart too. I also forgot health insurance, good catch. Still, there was leeway in the budget with over $200 per month unaccounted for, so if you really want to splurge on entertainment (I would do internet+ computer) you could still have money left over. You could also save if you wanted to, but personally if I were a non-university educated, HS degree holding person in the hypothetical situation I would be going to community college in preparation for a transfer to a 4-year university to get a STEM degree. That would take a lot of time and you might not have much time for entertainment. Indeed pay-as-you-go phones are cheap. Probably about ~$30 a month. The food situation comes from personal experience. Last summer I had a factory job working from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. I would wake up at 6:45, get ready for work, get home around 5:00, shower/clean up until 5:30. Entertainment and dinner until ~9:00 pm, and then bed. That gives me 3.5 hours for relaxation and errands daily. Cooking a meal normally takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and prepping a meal that isn't leftovers for lunch takes another 10-15 minutes. If you're cooking, this reduces your free/errand/chore time down to 2-2.5 hours a day (on weekdays), which isn't much. Meanwhile, eating out shrinks that time requirement down to ~15 minutes, and eliminates the "next-day-lunch" prep altogether. Consuming the ~2200-2500 calories for an active job will cost you at least $6 a day if you eat fast food 2-3 times a week. This is where the disconnect on food comes in, as foods that look cheap (like fruit and vegetables) are actually really light on calories as well. Their cost/calorie ratio (which I know isn't the END ALL measurement, but can be a metric) isn't that great or different from a fast food meal. I currently budget myself to <$7 a day on average, and I have plenty of time to cook my own meals. Power for me in my current ~600 sq ft. efficiency is close to $95 a month, water and trash is about $25. I admittedly overpay for rent, but that's because I can afford to do so for now, but I do know of some really shady places you can get for ~$425-450, and any apartment I have found that includes water/gas/trash and/or electricity in the bill are not places you want to be even temporarily. Furniture and home cleaning supplies get expensive really, really fast and easily. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 on 2 weeks of groceries, and another $50 on a month worth of home supplies. While living alone, I have also noticed a tendency for me to have some sort of unexpected expense of ~$200 a month relating to either car trouble, medical expenses, or replacing/fixing something broken at home. As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories. Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor.
Going from calling food a necessity to talking about obesity rates is hinting at the economic reality. The rarity in America is the urgent need for food, the desire for food more often becomes counterproductive and dangerous when we're talking about the poor. Try telling an economist that there is an objective and quantifiable need for this or that.
Armed with choice, they choose fatty fast foods at high enough rates to be a statistically significant part of the obese in America. This is a choice despite all the government's education pushes for healthy eating in many programs. We've seen more and more assistance be tilted to healthy foods, but the second you have a dollar and a choice, the healthy foods by and large are not the choice. May I suggest that if fatty foods from KFC, McDonalds, and others didn't taste so darn good, this would not be a problem? If those carrots and zucchini were akin to adding opium hash to a meal, you'd be seeing a lot more healthy poor walking around (Poor being a relative term in this sense, and not an absolute term, since your average poor person in America has 2 color TV's and satellite/cable)
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On June 20 2013 04:35 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:02 ziggurat wrote:
[quote]
As I read this post I couldn't help thinking what a moving target "poverty" really is. But this is actually a pretty good picture of what is means to be "poor" in a rich country. "Poor" people have TVs, computers, cable, cell phones, cars, and many other things that truly poor people would consider to be absurd luxuries. "Poor" people in the US are often obese because they consume too many calories.
Meanwhile, millions of truly poor people in the 3rd world subsist on less than a dollar a day. It's hard for me to feel sorry for a "poor" person because car insurance in North America is expensive. Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes. In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it. These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 5% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals.
But the fast food joint (particularly if it's a national chain) does see enough business to be worthwhile? That seems absurd, particularly with government subsidies for food.
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On June 20 2013 05:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2013 04:35 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:On June 20 2013 04:32 sunprince wrote:On June 20 2013 04:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 20 2013 04:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 20 2013 04:18 Klondikebar wrote:On June 20 2013 04:14 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 03:12 Shiori wrote:On June 20 2013 02:30 Chocolate wrote:On June 20 2013 02:20 Shiori wrote:
[quote]
Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes.
In many ways this is more due to education and demographics than living conditions. Poor people don't have to eat fast food at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, and fast food in many ways isn't even that cheap. Poor people might also have higher chances of getting involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and use, alcoholism. I would say that poor people typically make poorer choices and/or are less intelligent (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE SO DON'T YELL AT ME) than the rest of the population so poverty correlates with other results of bad choices. Doesn't really matter what it's due to. Lack of education is pretty correlative with poverty for obvious reasons (i.e. education is fucking expensive and requires effort and parental input for optimal reward) whereas demographics are descriptions of existing situations rather than explanations. Well, I'm basically saying that it's still a choice to eat fast food, engage in gang violence, get some sort of addiction (at first obv). We can't say "poor people die too early" and act like they're in some horribly dangerous situation when in reality they have a choice not to do a lot of things that are unhealthy. You can be smart and be poor, but the poor will almost always be made up mostly of the dumbest of society (no marketable or specialized skills), who will of course also make dumb decisions. So I don't think we can say that poverty causes the problem that "Poor people in America die significantly earlier than people of higher classes" but more that it is correlated. Obviously, poor people might not be able to afford the best medical care available but they can still get pretty darned good care. My mom works in a hospital and notes that medicaid money goes quite far. I like how when people blame poor people for being poor they throw around the world choice like it's appropriate in any way other than the most technical sense. Yeah, poor people "choose" to eat fast food but when you can't afford nicer food, there's no grocery store anywhere around your neighborhood, and you don't have time to cook anyway...wtf else are you gonna eat? Why would there be a fast food restaurant but no grocery store nearby other than the collective personal preferences of the neighborhood? "Collective personal preference." When it comes to something like food (a necessity), you take what you can get. The consumer doesn't strictly dictate what is available. And yes, even if there is a grocery store around, it is true that healthier foods tend to be noticeably more expensive than cheaper foods, which is a huge factor when talking about obesity rates among the poor. I believe JonnyBNoHo's argument is that given market forces, a grocery store would likely be established nearby if there was a demand for it. These areas with no grocery store in a mile and where over 5% of people don't have a car to get to the store likely aren't very wealthy. A grocery store may very well see it as not being worth the risk of the store failing just to get a small amount of business from these poor individuals. But the fast food joint (particularly if it's a national chain) does see enough business to be worthwhile? That seems absurd, particularly with government subsidies for food.
I guess you missed my previous post so I'll repost it:
Well, first of all, if you don't have a car, transporting groceries is a huge problem. Especially enough groceries for an entire family.
Second, a lot of poor people aren't unemployed, they're working multiple part time jobs and without a car that means their entire lives revolve around bus schedules and their kids. Finding time to actually cook is extremely difficult. And yes, cooking anything healthy takes a lot of time.
Third, if you live in government subsidized housing with barebones utilities, what do you think the kitchen situation is like? I'm going to guess you'd have a hard time pulling off one of Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals.
Fourth, crime does tend to be more prevalent in poorer neighborhoods. It's super freaking easy to steal from a grocery store. No one's stealing sleeves of taco shells from a Taco Bell. And grocery stores have to have a lot more cash on hand to fill all their registers.
All these things mean that even if a grocery store did open up in a poor neighborhood it would likely go out of business very quickly.
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I think some in this thread underestimate just how big the United States is, this nation wasn't built for walking but for automobiles nor was it built for public transportation.
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