Can you explain something to me?
An example is generally a way to solidify or convey an idea.
Why do some people think that attacking the example somehow invalidates the idea?
It's an excerpt from a fantasy book.
An example is generally a way to solidify or convey an idea.
Why do some people think that attacking the example somehow invalidates the idea?
It's an excerpt from a fantasy book.
Usually when you hear an example, even a bad one, you can easily in your head find many other examples.
In this case however, not only is the example flawed. But also, most other things I can think of don't line up with this idea. Cars for example, a 2nd hand Prius from Toyota is more reliable then a BMW. Most clothing is costed based on style, not functionality. Public transit doesn't line up with this concept. Electronics don't really line up with this concept either.
For food concept also doesn't really seem to work, more expensive food doesn't have better nutritional value. Beef and fancy wild rice isn't better for you then chicken and pasta.
So when you use an example, making it a really good example is generally preferable. And boots I don't think are that great of an example. Specially because most richer people don't buy some fancy shoes and then wear them for years and years.
So if your gone have a whole theory of wealth inequality, then I would hope some better examples exist, but so far I have been unable to think of any.
Housing is the only one that might come close, but housing is always somewhat special and doesn't work that well.
Let's imagine you're a poorer person with no access to a car. You can still buy the same beans and the same rice but you're paying corner store prices rather than supermarket and you can't buy in bulk because you can't transport the goods home. This is an example of poor people paying more despite having less and it's common.
So what's cheaper, buying food in bulk while owning a car. Or buying food at the corner store while not owning a car?
Not to mention that with a cheap second hand bicycle you should be able to reach the same super-market chain that most people drive to and pay the same prices.
And you are also ignoring the storage issue. If you buy in bulk you just pay for the storage cost. The same goes for waste, the US has absurd levels of food waste. The reason, people buy in bulk don't consume it and throw it away. That what you get when you have a culture where people make big trips to big box stores.
Also, what about infrastructure cost. How much infrastructure cost is between your house and that big box store, who pays for that?
Also where do you park the car? Free street parking is clearly society subsidizing the rich, and should be abolished. How much does a garage cost?
In your world the ideal society is one where everybody can drive to Cosco once a month and load a car full with ever possible thing?
So you are complaining on the wrong level. People aren't poor because a corner store is slightly more expensive, they are poor because land use patterns for them and society into ineffective way off live.
I know a man who dated a woman in college whose family was so rich she didn't know how to operate a washing machine, the help did that. Her solution to the conundrum was to just buy new clothes. One can imagine that when talking about the "middle class" she probably thinks they're like her except with less money. But you and I can recognize this as existing in an entirely different world than the middle class.
And in that vein, poor is not "middle class but with less money".
We're not talking about buying a corolla off the lot because you can't afford a BMW. We're not talking about buying a 2 year old corolla because you can't afford a BMW either.
We're talking about buying a $300 car that just happens to be a corolla and can't be driven on the highway because it flat doesn't go fast enough to legally do so. We're talking about owning 2 $300 cars to mitigate the risk when one of them inevitably breaks down and the constant repairs as a result causing the TCO of that vehicle to be far greater than the newer model corolla you're comparing it to. We're talking about not being able to afford insurance on one, or both, of those so that you're always in fear of police.
We're talking about the constant need for money for the laundromat because you can't afford to purchase a washer and dryer, or you live in a place where such things aren't even possible.
And if your thought goes anywhere near "well just buy another $300 car when that one breaks down", it means you have zero understanding of what it means to be poor.
If you actually lived in a society where there are cheap apartments in walking or biking distance from reasonable urban infrastructure and all the job that are there. So that you don't have to pay for your commute, or have some very local public transport.
That is what actually safes real money. That is how people in really poor places, like the Eastern block could reasonably approach a decent standard of living with far lower GDP. They lived in apartments, and had most things they needed close to them.
That is how you systematically can even approach to solving these issues.
If your analysis is restricted to, poor people can't utilize economics of scale on an individual bases, then you have a flawed view of poverty.
Consistently housing cost and transportation cost approach almost 50% of total living cost even for the middle class. And more then that for the poor, add food and you are going 90%+.
So if you can systematically so something to reduce housing cost and transportation cost, then you are actually changing lives on a real scale. Far more then buying food in slightly larger quantities, far more then buying slightly higher quality shoes.
Also: If we had a cashless society things would be different, but we don't, so they're not. These what-if's don't actually help the poor.
No idea what cashless has to do with anything ...
70 years of bad urban planning really did hurt the poor and the only way to fix it is to actually fix those issues systematically. Not sure how this is moving the goal post. This is the exact topic we are discussing 'Why it costs so much to be poor'.
And it doesn't actually take that much, a few changes to zoneing law, different usage patterns for existing infrastructure, some extra bus lines and so on. Nothing that is actually crazy or that expensive. These things could have a huge impact already.
Obsessing over minor issues like food bulk buy vs smaller shopping when housing and transportation is the true issue is actually the exact problem.
Nothing completely solves the poor people problem and I have not claimed on doing so. Specially when we talk about thing we do in first world nations, as most people live in places like India and Indonesia and the problems there are actually pretty different.
They lack infrastructure when in the US the problem is actually that there is, to much and it not used effectively.
This articles is about:
> The cost of being poor: Why it costs so much to be poor in America
And I am point out things that are almost universally accepted by urban planning community know-days. It address this specific point, why cost of living are so high in the US for poor people.
Addressing these points would not solve poverty, but it would reduce a huge cost burden from a huge part of the population and would improve living quality substantially.
This was modeled by a famous urban planner for California: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtdFbK4YG4
I have so many car stories from when I was young. Cars that had no floor (you could literally see the street as you drove), to cars that needed 2 people to start (solenoid bolt was stripped so it required someone holding it in place).
I've been driving my current vehicle since 2004 (a corolla, actually) and I plan on driving it for another 15-20 years if I can. The one thing that would convince me to get rid of it is if it started leaking oil. I've just seen too much of that when I was young, constantly putting oil in because it's leaking and it's too expensive to fix.
To this day it feels magical to have a reliable vehicle I know will start when I turn the key. That stuff sticks with you.