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Regarding the hamburger thing--you might be getting enough calories, but you'll be missing out on a lot of important vitamins and minerals that are only available in fruits and vegetables, which tend to be expensive. Vitamin supplements have not been shown to increase health, which is probably because 1. Nutrition is so complicated, we do not 100% know yet what people need to be eating to be healthy, and 2. just because you're eating a vitamin, doesn't mean it's being presented to your body in a way that it can be biochemically processed. A simple example is calcium--if you're deficient in vitamin D, your body won't store it in your bones and you'll just piss it out instead. Eating properly is a difficult skill that even many highly-educated people haven't mastered.

And if you're eating like shit, which poor people are forced to do, it'll be that much harder to make intelligent decisions about your budget, let alone learn how to code. Your brain will not be operating at full capacity when you're feeding it shit.

Regarding your point about the bus--public transit is often quite bad in the United States. There might not even be any public transit available. Okay, fine, so you think someone poor should just move? What makes you think they have enough money saved up to move?

As for organizing with the other "poor"...here's a fun answer about one hacker's encounter while living in a neighborhood full of those "poor" people: http://www.quora.com/Crime/What-should-you-do-if-someone-put...

Also, as for the people living off of $2 a day...come on, their standard of living is much lower. If you're a subsistence farmer, you're also growing your own food and you don't need the intermediary of McDonald's. You are your own boss. Poor people in more developed countries don't have the option of growing their own healthy food.

And considering how even the middle class can fall through no fault of their own, your continued insistence that anyone can make it out of poverty just through personal grit and determination sounds woefully, overly optimistic: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical...

My biggest problem with your answer is that you think "poor" people know better. I'm convinced that if I ever became poor I would work my way out of it, as my father did, but I had some damn good role models growing up who taught me the importance of financial responsibility and independence. I know what to do.

Many people not only do NOT know what to do, they don't even know they're ignorant. I think they could use a little help.

I tend to agree with your attitude. As a teen I saved up around $50 over a year to afford broken components to fix up to assemble my first PC. I learned how to do this from books I got from the library. I used that PC to teach myself a lot more and it catapulted me into a career. I moved from a developing country to a developed one. I now support my mother and grandmother financially.

It's tough being poor, the only way out of it is focus and self discipline, if you're lucky you can focus on something you enjoy. Fortunately we live in a modern world where obtaining information is relatively cheap and we have a market economy that does reward merit, not perfectly but it's certainly the opposite of slavery. The industrialized world is so good that our only real problem is too many options, like alcohol, cigarettes, unhealthy food, online games, consumer bling and consumer debt options. Unfortunately this means we still need self discipline, but there's certainly no lack of opportunity out there.

You are mostly right, and it interesting that the US has a well-funded open access program for instilling focus and discipline. But it puts median-intelligence people to work on violent acts and afflicts them with PTSD, instead of making them health and productive.

Are you sure about the amount of opportunity, though? Maybe ten other people tried what you did but never found the right part or book that made the plan come together.

I wanted to get into electronics first, but my problem was that most of the books I could get my hands on were out of date, mostly dealing with old components like PNP transistors. The broken radios and other gear I could strip for parts had NPN transistors. Computer books were also quite out of date. I did get to learn about a lot of the concepts from the older books. Magazines were more useful, old copies a few years old dealt with hardware I could lay my hands on. It took a lot of hustling to do the rest. I think it helped that I wanted to better my situation, and wanted to create things.

Totally agree with you here (except one thing). The world in this game is binary in nature. If you don't do that, then this will go wrong. Things like that, that is not how I would see it working.

The one thing that I don't agree on is that

So, coming out a couple hundred dollars ahead, I could run this "poverty" scenario for 4 months and have enough to buy a refurbished MacBook Air and join the Apple Developer's Program, with which I could bootstrap an iOS App-writing business. Seems some others played, came out over $1000 ahead, and could jump in to app-writing in one month flat.

You are not coming out a couple hundred buck ahead. Tomorrow the landlord will require rent so minimum $800 in that, even if you are in a good job you have $200+$300, so you owe a little back rent of $300. But I doubt every single month will be so bad. I mean, my pet, friend and grandfather can die only once right?

Fair point (I viewed "game over" as "game over", not "on to next month"). But then again, I'd opted for the 50 mile commute (saves $100/month!) netting cheaper rent (alas, didn't note how much). And as you note, that kind of cumulative badness doesn't happen often, and when it did I got thru with enough cash to carry on.

Conceding the MBA point, I can still keep the basic idea by trading the refub Mac for a dirt-cheap PC and putting that to work likewise.

Can't get into the Apple app store with a PC. It takes money to make money :-/

I'm selling blood to buy a refurb MacBook Air to write apps.

Not kidding.

Well, the big one is the clear assumption that any statistically meaningful portion of the poor population is capable of being a developer of any kind.

Software developers are less than 1% of the US workforce, and it's sure not because the pay sucks.

I referred to myself, not sweeping generality. Under-elaborated point is _anyone_ can find something narrow/unique they can offer[1]. Smart kids can bootstrap a software business from zero. Less-so ones can make stuff or do stuff others want. The comment was an echo of laments that high-tech is too expensive to get into, when the entry to something as high-end as iOS apps is under $1000.

(Eternal problem with discussion-board posts is the difficulty of cramming complete coverage of a point into a couple paragraphs.)

[1] - Had a girlfriend who was a visiting nurse. She had a bedridden (!) patient with no apparent prospects who still managed to run a, um, pharmaceutical distribution operation from his gurney. While not advocating such extra-legal activities, it did convince me anyone can make a good buck if they put their mind to it.

But they can take up other endeavors but we do have to take into account some things beautifully summarized in this "list of n things"[1]. I know cracked.com is not one of your "serious sites" but this is all from the first hand perspective.

[1] http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-...

And HN is at it again, downvotes for linking to the site? Or saying "can take up other endeavors" how did this not add to the conversation? This is a first hand article, very very relevant.

The linked-to list reiterates the same mistakes some here are trying to counter. It complains about one having to do things which are fundamental to financial success. Examples:

"having a checking account while poor doesn't just mean you have to be responsible and good at math -- you have to be perfect. Meticulous, flawless record keeping is the difference between surviving and having the bank seize your next paycheck."

Well, yeah. Don't write checks for money you don't have. Duh.

"A standard 14-day "payday" loan charges $15.50 per $100 borrowed. ... they offer to extend your loan to 180 days. It makes the payments miniscule. Oh, and you'll be paying back $1,275 at 403.10 percent APR."

The offer is there, and you can use or refuse it. If it wasn't there, you wouldn't have the option. Don't like it? pretend it wasn't there.

"having no credit will stop you from getting a loan or an apartment just as fast as having bad credit."

Some of us have learned that loans & renting are a bad idea. Other opportunities are available - yes, they are available - and will get you farther ahead faster.

"making sure to pay your * bills on time."

Well, yeah. Plan ahead, and don't sign up for what you can't afford.

"Your Next Expensive Disaster is Always Around the Corner"

Yup. Plan ahead. Yes, really, you can.

"You're Always in Survival Mode"

Yes, you are - even when you're sitting comfortably on a nice pile of money in a nice paid for home, there are plenty of things that can go utterly horribly wrong. Be ready.

Upshot: author complains bad things X Y & Z happen when he does A B & C. Well, yeah. Don't do A, B, or C, and no you don't have to do them.

>Some of us have learned that loans & renting are a bad idea. Other opportunities are available - yes, they are available - and will get you farther ahead faster.

What are those alternatives? Living in a tent under an underpass?

Well, yeah. Don't write checks for money you don't have. Duh.

It's not quite that simple; there are many stories of banks reordering transactions for the sole purpose of generating bogus overdraft fees. That is, you have $50 in your account, deposit $100 at 1PM, and use your debit card for $25 at 2PM and $75 at 3PM. The bank would process them in reverse order, causing an overdraft for the $75 payment, another overdraft for the $25 payment (because the $75 payment took your balance down to zero), and only then apply the deposit (probably leaving you below zero after the fees). I never understood how that wasn't considered blatant fraud.

Of course, the simple solution is to use a credit card and pay it off every month. (And in a real emergency, it's better to pay interest on the card than get a payday loan).

If you qualify for a credit card. I seem to remember friends from Canada who couldn't even open a bank account when they moved to the US, let alone a Visa.

If you don't have the money upfront to pay for something, you will have to take out a loan. Many people have no goddamn choice but to take out a loan. Sometimes bettering yourself requires taking on the risk of a loan--for example, college students.

> Heck, save the $1 and make two 1.5lb loaves of great bread

Assuming you have the time and the oven, neither of which are guaranteed but both seem to be universally assumed.

(Also assumes you're urban poor and not rural poor. Urban poor has access to Wal-Mart and Albertson's. Rural poor has access to a gas station grocery and hunting/fishing if they're rich enough to afford the accoutrements and the time.)

If you're rural poor and it's better to be urban poor, guess what? Time to move to the city!

Time: there are hours of wiggle room in the recipe. You'll find time; I do. Actual active contact time is about 10 minutes.

Equipment cost: I checked yesterday and found suitable crockery for $5 at Goodwill. Build a fire in the back yard around the pot, drop in dough, take out 45 minutes later. I'll be sure to buy, try, and blog per your concerns.

"Rural poor has access to a gas station grocery and hunting/fishing if they're rich enough to afford the accoutrements and the time."

A week ago I watched the movie "Winter's Bone", which depicted grinding rural poverty. As the protagonist (teen girl) split logs for heat, cooked inexpensive meals, and hunted squirrels, I realized I'd grown up very near the same way - and never considered myself "poor", despite our huge garden, wood stoves, etc.

You say "rich enough" for hunting? Hunting license is $9 here in GA. Gun-show rifle was $30. One 7.62x54R round is $0.25. For under $50 and a weekend morning/evening, you can get several hundred dollars worth of meat. Fishing is similarly cheap if you're so inclined. Just because people spend thousands on a sport doesn't mean you have to for sustenance.

As for other sustenance needs: 50 pound sacks of bread flour are $16 at Costco, 100 packets of food garden seeds are $10 at Dollar Store, chicks are cheap at the local farm supply store, and pots/pans for cooking over a fire are a few dollars at Goodwill.

I've lived very close to that lifestyle. Living on a near-zero income is not unreasonable...quaint even.