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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

Poor people don’t have clutter because they’re too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they have it to reduce risk.

Thats about the best way of putting it I've come across. It can be perceived risk as well. One thing I noticed when clearing out my depression-era grandparents house is that they basically saved everything they had a hard time getting at any point. My grandfather had a garage full of glass jars because there was a time in his life when he literally could not afford/find a simple glass jar when he needed one. The more I think about that, the more it freaks me out. I have a hard disk full of MP3 files...

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The article makes a reasonable point, that hoarding can be motivated by rational frugality. I think it is a little unfair in its criticism of the original article, whose target audience is really people with many options (i.e. they have money).

I would say I have personally seen people who have an irrational tendency to hoard as a means to reduce risk. I have a neighbor with a house packed to the gills with accumulations over the decades. If she would clear it out, she could be renting a room for $800-$1000 a month. She could really use the money, too. Instead, she is being held hostage by ~$2000 of junk in disorganized piles, that would take 50 weekends of yard sales to make a dent.

> Poor people don’t have clutter because they’re too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they have it to reduce risk.

I wish English had better grammatical structure. I had to re-parse that sentence 5 times.

> Poor people have clutter not because they're too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they have it to reduce risk.

FTFY.

EDIT: I parsed it wrong. Fixed.

Thank you, I had the same issue

Actually, the above rephrasing is wrong and completely changes the meaning. The original author wasn't saying poor people have less clutter he was saying they have more, but for a reason. Maybe this wording is clearer:

The reason poor people have clutter isn't because they're too dumb to see the virtue of living simply, they have it to reduce risk.

> Poor people have less clutter

What? This is about poor people having MORE clutter, not less.

I think he's actually saying: "Poor people actually do indeed have a lot of clutter. Not because they don't see how they could live simply and how that would improve their outlook -- but because they have to have the clutter (the junk they've accumulated) because they might need that junk in the future, and the risk of throwing anything away is too great."

This is a textbook example of a garden path sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence.

Another example is "The horse raced past the barn fell"

IMO The actual way to word it (to be correct with the author's intent would be to say something like this:

Poor people hoard items because they cannot afford the risk of buying a replacement. Living simply is a virtue given to the wealthy; when necessary they have the income, knowledge, or time available to meet a given task. The poor have only their physical inventory and cannot rely on other sources.

I think this really resonates. I talked with a homeless guy who was pulling two shopping carts full of 'stuff' and asked him what was up with that. He had stuff that he could barter with other people for things he needed, he had stuff for dealing with different kinds of weather, he had stuff to disguise the stuff he really didn't want to get stolen, and stuff that he might need for a variety of contingencies.

I was really humbled by it because I had been ready to "explain" why carrying all that stuff wasn't helping his cause of living simply. He completely changed my perspective on it. I asked what was the one thing he needed and he said a pocket knife with a can opener. I got him two at a Big Five (which was where he was hanging out), one to use and one to trade for something down the road. More 'stuff', but with a purpose sadly.

The original sentence makes more sense if spoken aloud, because you can foreshadow the last part of the sentence with your tone.

Absolutely correct. But to speak it aloud properly, I need to parse it properly first :p

If this were a podcast, I would have no issue understanding if spoken with the tone you mentioned.

I'm an English teacher, so I'll bite.

That sentence is bursting at the seams. There are too many words between "Poor people have clutter" and "they have it to reduce risk", so the reader loses track of the context.

Maybe a really good writer could make that sentence work. But the rest of us can do just as well by breaking it down into smaller chunks:

> Poor people aren't dumb. They understand the virtue of living simply. But they also know the regret of discarding something, only to find they could have used it. They know the fear of repeating that costly mistake.

(In a later edit you can discard the chunks you don't need, condense the rest and, with any luck, you'll have a much pithier sentence.)

Your suggestion has a nice staccato rhythm, somewhat building pith as it goes. I like the way it flows.

I'd write something like:

> As with carrying, so with owning in general. Poor people aren't too dumb to see the virtue of living with less; they own more to reduce risk.

Keep it focused on ownership (not clutter), with a slight nod back to the original article to which the author is responding.

From my vantage point, 'have clutter' unnecessarily problematizes communicating the core idea--poor people aren't too dumb to appreciate the value of living with fewer possessions. I suggest eschewing 'clutter' altogether, because it implies messiness in addition to more things, increasing the negative tone. This is the only place 'clutter' shows up in the text--a conspicuous word choice in the midst of an article discussing quantity of possessions as a signal of one's wealth (as opposed to the organization and tidiness of one's possessions). A poor person with cleaning compulsions might own more to mitigate risks, but have it neatly tucked away and unobservable, thus making the messy, rich person with fewer possessions look like the one with clutter.

Note: Getting sidetracked by comments on sentence structure may be the signal that I've successfully procrastinated other work long enough.

> Note: Getting sidetracked by comments on sentence structure may be the signal that I've successfully procrastinated other work long enough.

Tell me about it. Anyway, how's this:

> The rich have savings accounts and insurance; the poor stockpile junk.

Nicely done.

I wonder how much longer this will hold true. Irrespective of my financial situation, for quite some time now I've found a rapidly decreasing need to consume stuff. It feels like the internet is all I need now... I moved almost a year ago and have yet to unpack. I actually don't even remember what I own anymore.

Nice. Very pithy.

The entire premise of this blog entry is: "Go out on the street and look, and I bet you’ll see that the richer people are carrying less." Well some guys did that very thing and published is in a book http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/d... where they found that to be not true at all. Millionaire's don't buy the shiny new toy when the one from three years ago. Rather then wasting a grand on a new macbook air they would spend $30 for a new battery. They buy used cars too.

That has very little to do with how much stuff they carry.

the millionaires "next door" that i know do both. suburban california families worth a couple million bucks or more (white and asian tech and biotech industry families), i have seen:

* buy shiny new luxury cars... but drive them for a very long time. they also buy used cars because they have lots of cars (3-4+ per household)

* buy brand new apple products constantly... but also use 10 year old PCs and other old tech

* eat out and buy overpriced organic groceries whole foods ... but also buy bulk stuff at the not-rich-people supermarket because they cook too

* go on expensive vacations.... every 3 years

this stuff is not black and white, and it's really ridiculous to hear stuff like "millionaires don't buy the shiny new toy" .. yes they do.

I know a guy who's family net worth is $2+ billion. When he goes to the movies, he brings pre-popped popcorn in ziploc bags and shares with his friends.

Some might say that's the way to keep your money, when you have 2bn.

Others might say that's the way to keep friends, when you have 2bn.

or just whatever the guy feels like doing, in fact

yeah? if he's like most rich kids i've known he probably does it because it's more fun to flout the rules at the theater than to buy their popcorn.

NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRINK.

lots of rich kids i knew in college dealt drugs. think about that one for a minute. same exact (rule-flouting) behavior as poor folk - but is it because they were poor? or frugal? was it because they didn't want to spend their own money on their own drugs, or because they enjoyed flouting the rules to get free weed/coke/x/whatever?

Maybe it's to get experience running a business. Probably also a good opportunity for networking.

Is it because the theater is inside his house?

To quote the Bill Gates character in The Simpsons, "Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks"

It's not ridiculous because it was the result of the study done by the authors of the book. The fact of the matter is that the typical millionaire--i.e., person with a net worth of at least one million dollars--does not buy tons of shiny new toys. Yes, some millionaires do, typically the ones who are worth 10-100 million rather than 1 million. But the typical one does not.

If you know some millionaires who do, all this means is they are actually not the "typical millionaire," no matter what you might think. You also need to take into account the fact that a lot of people you might think are millionaires actually aren't, because they've spent their money on assets that depreciate rapidly. This means you could have a salary of 1+ million a year and still not be a millionaire if you spend it almost as fast as you make it. Look at many of the sports stars who go broke within two years of retiring--yes, it happens very frequently. They were never millionaires despite what everyone thinks.

Example: my uncle is a marketing executive, lives in a very nice house in an extremely affluent area, only stays in the nicest hotels, etc. Except his family probably has a net worth of maybe $100k at most. They're not even close to being millionaires. Why? Because they spend most of the money they make. If he were to lose his job, their entire lifestyle would grind to an incredible halt and they'd be forced to change everything they do just to not burn through their savings. If a millionaire loses his job, it's not a problem.

You're under the very misconception that the book seeks to correct. In any case, your anecdotes really aren't sufficient to destroy the results of a pretty solid study.

no. you are completely wrong and also fallacious. here is why.

i am not under any sort of misconception. i was refuting an unequivocal claim that "millionaires do not..." with 100% verified fact that yes, they in fact, do. certainly not all of them, but certainly not anywhere near NONE of them.

i never said my anecdotes were typical. you put those words into my mouth. i was refuting an unequivocal claim with specific equivocations. STRAW MAN ALERT.

and i am not fucking naive, obviously i know a lot of people have high incomes and just spend all their money and have bank accounts that look like dog shit. nobody ever said that wasn't the case. STRAW MAN ALERT.

and you know what? that is a perfectly valid way to live. the great thing about money is you get to do whatever the fuck YOU want to do with it and not what some self-righteous cheapskate on the internet tells you.

When the guy said "millionaires do not..." I think it was pretty clear he was not actually making a universal, unequivocal statement. Yes, some do. Many do, in fact--there are a lot of millionaires on this planet. But the typical millionaire, according to surveys, does not. The typical millionaire is self-made and worth between 1 and 2 million and is at least 50 years old. Those assets will typically be used to sustain a comfortable life in early retirement. Someone who makes 10 million at age 30 is not typical at all, even though there are, numerically, a lot of such people. There are simply far more millionaires who had good careers, spent wisely, lived somewhat frugally (at least relative to their salaries), saved up, invested, and now enjoy their retirement.

And yes, of course, you can spend your money however you want. That includes spending so much of it that you aren't even a millionaire, even if you easily could be.

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