Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

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> So it seems that today there are greater opportunities to sell expensive hardware, particularly since even the lower classes are (in absolute terms) richer than the middle class of the Apple II era.

What has happened is instead technology allowed some luxury products to be commodized and available to everyone. I doubt multi-billionairs build their own OS-es, cell phone towers, hardware, batteries, support from scratch. They buy an iPhone. Someone on food stamps could concievable save money and still get an iPhone. They both have a luxury product so to speak. But this is a cool anomaly. It doesn't happen with cars, housing, job opportunities, healthcare, clothes, safety, free time, food, etc.

So I think looking what kind of tech products are avaiable to everyone doesn't work as an argument regarding inequality. What about inflation adjusted salary, isn't that a better metric to look at? Or say the cost of healthcare or housing as percentage of wages... defintely not the type of computer and printers people can get.

75% of poor Americans own at least 1 car, and 45% own their own home. Most poor people have copious amounts of free time; only a fraction work.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

Of course, this is tangential to curun1r's claim, which is that somehow an inability for consumers to purchase new technologies would hinder innovation.

Are you sure "own" is the correct word? Those people are completely debt-free with no car liens or mortgages?

I looked at the linked document.

The figures are as follows (all in thousands):

14,157 units below the poverty line (12.7% of all units)

5,566 of those Owner occupied (39.3%)

3,191 of those owned "free and clear" (22%)

So his 45% claim isn't even true to start with. It falls to 22% when you consider full ownership.

Seeing yummyfajitas make factually incorrect claims is disappointing but not surprising.

Sigh, it is hard for me to imagine that this comment was made in good faith.

First of all, owning "free and clear" is hardly the expected meaning of ownership in the context of cars or especially houses in the US. I have a mortgage and I still say I own my house. When I told friends I was buying my house, I expect >90% of them assumed I was getting a mortgage. The government reported "homeownership rate" certainly does not exclude households with mortgages.

Second of all, ignoring semantics, the original context was a conversation about whether a significant number of households being unable to afford technology like a $5K computer would stifle innovation. Innovation probably doesn't care whether customers are in debt or not, so this is still perfectly decent evidence to cite about the spending capacity of poor households.

"Disappointing but not surprising". Sigh.

I did misremember the 45% vs 39% number (my notes on that report transposed two separate stats), but I'm assuming that by "factually incorrect" you mean referring to a mortgage holder as an owner.

If so, do you also consider the Census (whose terminology I used) to be making "factually incorrect claims"?

The document (like most statistical documents published by the US Govt) defines it's terms - why don't you go to section A-1 and check yourself?

What those numbers tell me is that most retirees are considered "poor" as we currently measure such things. Also that they tend to own homes and not work. None of that is surprising.

Citing any sort of statistics like that without at least breaking it down by age band is pretty pointless, in my experience.

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