If you don't have enough saved for retirement maybe you should stop wasting $600 on a new iPhone. Doesn't being judged suck?
And while I was never homeless, I spent most of my life having to pick between rent and food and surrounded by people who were in the same boat. That's where I've seen that situation happen times and times again.
Yes, being judgmental without knowing the whole story isn't a good thing, but that misses the point: people are choosing to spend instead of save-and many times it's on luxuries. He's not just talking about the poor.
It is a fact that an iPhone is a luxury. There are plenty of much cheaper phones that function exactly the same as an iPhone. But through excessive marketing and a digitized world, people are convinced they NEED an iPhone. They're convinced they NEED a $1500 Macbook Pro for school in liberal arts.
It's not good to make judgments on the poor, but this is 69% of Americans, not just the poor (impoverished are closer to 15%), and that's the scary part. Most but the top 30% are spending above their means, and getting credit to do it, in an economy that's probably not going to grow like it did in the 20th century.
If that's true, then people for whom it's difficult/impossible to save are completely screwed, and we need to chance something, because the odds really ARE stacked against them.