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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

It's an honest question that appears to illustrate the lack of understanding of what it's like to be poor. "There's always the mob" is just tone-deaf IMO.

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I was speaking from personal experience. Borrowing from illegal sources is not out of the question. For example, one of my friends is always borrowing money from the mob so he can buy more coke. He's currently about $20K in debt. Another one of my friends was tied up and threatened with a blowtorch amputation unless he paid back his loan. Another one was dragged into a bush and beaten up outside his apartment at 3am because he was overdue.

If "understanding the poor" is your goal, you'd do well to dispense with the condescending generalizations.

The example consequences you lay out seem significantly worse than being unable to renew a drivers license, so I'm not sure why you're presenting them as viable options.

As long as you pay them back, the mob won't give you a hard time. If you just want the money to get a job, and you're not using it for drugs, you'll be fine.

But, mostly this was just me refuting your claim that I don't understand what it's like to be poor (and desperate). I could go on, in ways that don't have anything to do with organized crime, but I have to go now. It's really infuriating being told by someone that doesn't understand your experience that you don't understand your own experience.

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