>I grew up very poor, this did not make me stupid and implying such is offensive.
It's not that being poor makes you stupid, it's that when you are poor you tend to more carefully consider the consequences of decisions involving finances out of habit, which takes time and effort. That's time and effort your brain could be spending doing other things.
It says nothing about innate ability, only that using more resources for one task leaves less for other tasks. You could be a certified genius and this would still apply to you.
How much the effect has on overall success is a completely different discussion and has no bearing on whether or not the effect exists in the first place.
>it is very obvious that they're unwilling to apply themselves.
>They give in to the easy quick fix, even when actively told not to and shown a better path.
Would you be willing to consider alternate explanations why these things appear to be the way they are?
>The people I know will make just as bad of decisions if given money.
What if making good use of lots of money is a skill? A skill that takes learning to do well? What if certain patterns that affect a poor person result in the creation of habits that are really bad when you have lots of money? If either or both of those are even partly true, it makes a lot more sense why poor people have difficulty when given lots of money without being forced to ascribe it to their inherent goodness of character.
>They are poor because they don't think about the future, they don't not think about the future because they're poor.
Why must this be the only explanation? Is it really fair to generalize your own experiences with a handful of people over the millions of people dealing with poverty?