Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

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This is accurate. Being poor is expensive (paradoxically?) in a lot of ways. One of them is the amount of attention that you have to give to stupid details, and the amount of stuff you end up lugging around. It clutters your life to be poor.

That NYT article was just douche-tastic. As someone who genuinely detests consumerism, I can't tolerate that whole "I'm rich and enlightened so I've given up stuff" braggadocio. That is consumerism. Only an idiot wouldn't see that. (Of course, there are genuine minimalists out there and I have no problem with that.)

I also hate the people who think travel makes them more interesting and virtuous. Most people, most cases? No, not at all. You might become more interesting if you spend a month in an Indian monastery, or building schools in Africa. However, going to clubs and getting drunk doesn't count. You can do that here. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's recreation, not automatically a promotion of the spirit.

> I also hate the people who think travel makes them more interesting and virtuous

You can think that but you're wrong. Travel opens the mind a hell of a lot. (And no it's not travel if you are in the same country)

What is pretentious BS is if you "spend a month in an Indian monastery, or building schools in Africa"

These are total rubbish, OK sure you'll learn some stuff, it's still travel but Africans earn a dollar or two a day, you've just added $12-$24 to their economy, nice work.

Travel the world and have fun. Don't do the tourist BS like going to monasteries, these are wanabee travel collectors interests. Go to night club, ride a bike, do what you do at home and learn the real stuff.

OK sure you do have to do the tourist stuff, how else do you get to experience a crazy Tut-tut or a packed out bus. But remember it's the journey not the destination.

And lastly not everybody can afford to travel, and that's sad. But just because it's sad there no point trying to pretend travel doesn't make people better. It's like access to school, yes it makes people better, yes not everyone can afford it, but don't just write it off. Work out ways to change this.

Isn't travel (specially foreign and not migration) one of the high marks of consumerism? I.e. it's an expression of disposable time/income. It also entails lots of resource allocation. What's more consumerist, 1,000 bucks worth of travel or 1,000 bucks of stuff off of Amazon?

Experiences consistently rank higher than possessions when it comes to providing happiness. Regarding the term, quoting the Wikipedia page on consumerism: "Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the purchase of goods and services in ever-greater amounts." The page says nothing about travelling or tourism.

Tourism and travel is a consumer industry and you consume various services and goods in order to travel. Travel is heavily consumerist and there are many kinds of travel products and services that are available and advertised heavily. Travel can be a great experience, but you generally have to have some kind of wealth to travel (note I didn't say wealthy).

Tourism is consumption of services.

>"And no it's not travel if you are in the same country"

This is true of most places in the world but I strongly feel that travelling between regions of the USA is very similar to travelling to different countries. The northeast corridor, for instance, is HUGELY different from the southeast "bible belt". The cultures are distinct: food, architecture, dialect, history; I'm not sure how it doesn't count as travel!

Getting from South Carolina to New York is at least 700 miles. You can get from Berlin to Belgrade in that distance. And that's just on the same coast of the states! The west-coast culture is a beast of its own, to say nothing of the vast center of the country.

Suffice to say: seeing your own country can indeed be travel.

There is little worth seeing between South Carolina and the northeast besides DC and the Shenandoah Valley. New York may be hugely different than Charleston but there are few interesting differences between all the suburban areas in between.

> And no it's not travel if you are in the same country

You can think that but you are wrong.

I should have said: I also hate the people who think travel _inherently_ makes them more interesting and virtuous.

Almost everyone with enough money (including me) travels. Some people learn a lot. Most of them don't learn shit.

The ones who think traveling experience makes them inherently superior tend overwhelmingly to be in that sheltered, didn't-learn-shit category.

It's kind of screwed up how poor people end up paying more for the same things than rich people do (for consumables, mainly -- rich people stores tend to price-discriminate for capital goods) -- when I lived in the TL, the local "corner sto" would charge 2x what Safeway 15 blocks away charged for the same item, and 3-4x what Costco or Amazon would charge.

(and of course rich people get given free stuff all the time, whereas places catering to poor people lock up the toilet paper)

Two words: check cashing.

Poor people don't get bank accounts, so they have to give these places a slice of every paycheck.

What? Surely anyone with an address can open a bank account?

You'd think so, but unfortunately it's not the case.

Banks are very effective at excluding poor people through a combination of:

-Minimum initial deposit to open an account

-In the US, much higher minimum initial deposit if you don't have a social security number (this excludes non-wealthy immigrants)

-Monthly maintenance fees if your average daily balance for the month dips below x

-Overdraft fees if your balance ever dips below 0

-Additional fees from the payee if you ever bounce a check when paying a bill

These policies are practically invisible to wealthy customers, but pose insurmountable barriers to entry for the poor.

I was going to say 'what about online banks, they're free', but realized that that requires a computer, internet connection, and tech literacy. Things more likely to be lacking amongst the disadvantaged.

That too.

It's just how banks work. If you keep a lot of money in your account, the bank earns a return on investing your money. If you only keep a little in the bank, then they have to charge you fees to make money off you. If you can't even pay the fees at all, they just won't give you an account.

There are non-profit credit unions, but those usually require a certain type of employment, in which case you probably don't have these problems either.

I worked in a warehouse once with a guy who didn't have a bank account and had to go to check cashing places to cash his paycheck.

He used to have a bank account, but at some point he ran into overdraft fees, so he'd have to pay a couple hundred dollars to settle that out before he can access the banking system. He couldn't afford that.

The painful thing is the "lower interchange fees for debit cards" thing essentially killed free checking and savings accounts for most low-income people (other than at credit unions). Those people don't have $2500 balances, or direct deposit, or linked mortgages, so they end up paying $5-25/mo in fees.

You couldn't be more right.

I've seen brand new Jaguars test driven for a month. $30K Persian rugs lent out. Really nice dinners and trips paid for with full entertainment.

Vendors that cater to the wealthy bend over backwards to please just to get in the door.

If you have no shame about disappointing these sales people you can get freebies that most people wouldn't believe.

There is also a theft problem, both from shop lifting and employees. Given the slim margins in a grocery store it can be the difference between staying around and not.

Not to mention tax-free benefits like healthcare, etc.

Uff, makes too much sense, nobody replies. So I will:

hey, dude, you're right. I'm glad someone writes these things every now and then.

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