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Comment by kolev | Hacker News Reader

Reading the responses here, I think you guys are completely disconnected from the reality, because you (like me) are lucky to have a high-paid high-in-demand profession! There are people in America who go to bed hungry - and not because they overspend or manage finances poorly. Just go over at http://www.feedingamerica.org/ as starters!

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"overspend or manage finances poorly"

The sort of debt that you're talking about goes way further than the narrow perspective that most take on it. It begins before you are even born, and I think we should all ruminate on that.

Let me elaborate a bit, despite consistently getting down mods for expressing this point of view before. The debt begins with the parents that choose to have kids when they are unsure of their financial wellness and security for the years to come of their child's growth to adulthood. i.e. People shouldn't be having kids unless they're damn sure they can take care of them till they're adults and able to take care of themselves.

>>The debt begins with the parents that choose to have kids when they are unsure of their financial wellness and security for the years to come of their child's growth to adulthood.

Having children should not be tied to having X amount of money - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177836

I'm not saying that you should have X amount of money in order to have kids. The statement is "you should have enough money to enable you to take care of your kids into adulthood, because doing so otherwise is negligent". It's not a matter of money, but about lack of negligence and burden.

>>you should have enough money to enable you to take care of your kids into adulthood, because doing so otherwise is negligent

I would phrase this as "Society should be structured such that money isn't a concern because there is a safety net for everyone to be caught in aside from the extreme cases like say that "octo-mom"[1] situation.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadya_Suleman

Huh? How many people in their 20s know for sure that they're going to be financially well off for the rest of their lives and there isn't going to be a stock market crash or some tragic event that substantially changes the economy?

I have friends who were commercial airline captains in 2000. Then 9/11 happened, and they went on furlough for a number of years and had to work places like Best Buy.

You're saying they should've known that their career was about to get upended and shouldn't have kids because of that?

I wouldn't say they have to do anything drastic, but just make sure that they have a reasonable buffer. Individuals that are in those sorts of situations have many more options available to them when unforeseen life events occur. However, much of the ladder below them is fraught with people that would be ruined if even a delicate imbalance in their lives occurred.

Those are the types of people that need to watch their actions, and count their beans carefully. They're the ones I was speaking of specifically.

For many, choosing not to have a kid means choosing not to have an abortion. So you appear to be saying that having an abortion is the moral high ground. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but I am saying that you shouldn't be surprised when people react vehemently

I don't mean to be facetious here, but babies don't just pop out of nowhere. They have to be conceived through sexual intercourse (generally). Not having unprotected sex is the moral high ground, not abortion. Let's not get into that sticky topic as it's a corner case (rape, etc).

I'm not so sure that that is the sole reason they get touchy about the topic. I think somehow people view having children as some sort of inherent "right" of being a human. Sure, of course no one should stop them from doing it. All I'm saying is that it's not very moral or virtuous to bring a child into this world that you can't reasonably take care of till adulthood.

Are you familiar with the rates of birth control failure?

Good point. The guy in the article didn't just go on one vacation after another and then stopped paying when his balance reached $7,000. The article clearly said he lost his job, spent time living at a friend's place, and because he didn't have another job he had to somehow survive, which meant using credit cards.

In 2008, I worked for a startup for free in hopes that it will be compensated at the end. We did achieved our goals, but the owner gave me just $5K and kept the rest for himself (he even screwed up his own bother). It's my mistake, of course, but that's not what I want to talk about here. I've started to accumulate a lot of credit card debt. Not because I was spending a lot (although having a family means paying health insurance, rent, etc. - all adding up to a pretty significant amount, which ate up my savings at the moment), but because my APR went up to well over 30% on all credit cards. I was paying over $5K a month at some point and my balance was ever increasing. I tried talking to the banks, nobody was willing to adjust, of course. I've never had a missed payment in my life till then. At one point, I went to talk to a friend, a very prominent VC in Southern California. He told me: "You're crazy! These credit cards are crooks! What they are doing should be illegal. Stop paying - it's the only way to grab their attention and negotiate!" So, I listened to him, didn't make a payment for over 6 months, then I settled on 50% of the balance and it that was the end of that chapter of my life. My point is, sometimes it's the banks to be blamed. If they've kept my below 10% APR, all would have been fun for everyone. At the end of the they after the settlement, they made the same money, but they put me and my family under so much stress, and some sent me tax documents for the difference between the balance and the settlement that was taxable income! I.e. money I've never actually got, I had to pay income tax on it! It's a big scheme, I just don't how banks get around. I'm sure there are valid use cases, but in many like mine, I was being greatly abused.

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