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Planning for contingencies like job loss and medical issues is definitely within control though. That's why there are such things as emergency funds, insurance and 401K.
I'm an educated, intelligent person and, you know what, nobody ever told me about sound financial planning when I was growing up. Not in schoot. Not in college. Not at home. Not at work. Nowhere. I basically stumbled upon those things later on when I started thinking about ways to protect my money.
I don't think those things are actively taught except among the rich, by themselves to themselves.
I think single parenthood is by far the biggest contributor to poverty in this country. Flat out laziness/looking for a handout/flat out laziness (yes... I said it twice!) is probably number 2, while lack of education (a.k.a. fear of attending college because they barely passed high school) is number 3. Not having ONE SINGLE educated/successful/intelligent/free-thinking person in their entire circle of family and friends to give them any type of guidance, encouragement and/or helpful advice is probably number 4, and "trying to keep up with the Joneses" by living above their means is number 5. Every person I know under the age of 50 who's poor falls into one of these five categories.
I'm an educated, intelligent person and, you know what, nobody ever told me about sound financial planning when I was growing up. Not in schoot. Not in college. Not at home. Not at work. Nowhere. I basically stumbled upon those things later on when I started thinking about ways to protect my money.
I don't think those things are actively taught except among the rich, by themselves to themselves.
That's sort of ironic considering that when non rich people have even less room for errors and greater need for financial planning. Make you wonder if foresight is what makes the difference between poor and non poor in a lot of cases doesn't it?
Personally, I learned financial planning in Common Sense and Risk Aversion 101.
I think peoples' mentalities, goals, and self-discipline play a big role in this question. You also have to account for the element of time. I've been hearing lots of responses from people on here who are pointing to laziness as being the main cause of poverty. So, are you guys saying everyone who lives in those 3rd world countries or even ones who have had generational poverty issues here are all poor from laziness? Some people on here also claim to be from the ghetto or from poor backgrounds and they made it out and don't see why all thier former piers are still poor. Why are they poor? Do you think it's from laziness or were you just that good that you pulled yourself up from poverty on your own? I mean just because you did it, and they haven't does this mean everyone in your old neighborhood or path of life are just lazy people?
Some peoples' mentalities, self-discipline, and goals are different than other peoples' in different times of our lives and various situations account for that. You can't simply say laziness is the cause. All of us had different paths and support systems. Some people 'had' two parents growing up and someone to tell them good spending/work habits, others didn't. Some people are still poor regardless of that, they may have had some bad choices which they learned from, but then health issues came up after they finally changed, or job loss hit just when they were almost on thier way out of the hole. Everyone on this forum comes from different backgrounds, age ranges, social classes ect....
So for anyone to boil things down to one solution or reason for poverty and not knowing the challenges, failures, losses, issues that a person has dealt with throughout the span of this complex life is unrealistic. There are some people who suffer mentally as well, some days they can handle work tasks and some days maybe not and maybe that one day they couldn't the boss comes in and says they have to let them go. We don't know what people go through or have been through.
That's YOUR rule. I don't accept it and don't find it to be valid. And, aside from that, you've missed the point I was making - which was, to put it simply, that some things are within a person's control and are the result of their choices, and other things are not. Every person's life is a mix of these two things and, no matter how masterful or determined a person may be, their life will still be at least partly dictated by things that are quite out of their control. Many people now are fond of saying that EVERYTHING that happens to anyone is entirely their own fault and caused solely by them - as if each person lived in a vacuum and was unaffected by the actions of others or by big events out in the world like, for instance, 9/11. Then others, like you, claim that if YOU survived lost jobs, so can every other person - as if every person's circumstances were exactly like your own. And yes, the person I mentioned squirreled away a LOT of money during his eight years at a Fortune 500 company. Medical bills wiped that money out in less than two years and left his family $76,000 in debt besides. But I suppose an uninsured illness never could happen to you, because so far it hasn't. Therefore no such thing ever does happen. I'm sure you will, again, consider this an "exception" to your self-created rule, but - again - I'm pointing out that there are many things that happen to people that are not the result of anything they could have prevented and, as much as you want to make everything someone's fault, are simply not their fault.
Approximately four years ago, a woman named Nadya Suleman gave birth to the nation's first-known set of live octuplets and has been thenceforth known as "Octomom". She had six kids already whom she could barely afford to feed, and then went to a doctor for fertilization treatments which resulted in her having eight more babies.
Any idiot looking at this situation could have concluded that she had absolutely no earthly business trying to have even ONE more child when she was a single parent barely making it for SIX children.
But yet, oh did the money pour in! She set up a website (or had someone set it up for her) and the donations to her and her family topped the six figures within weeks!
Therefore, I imagine that there would have been ways for this person to get donations to cover the cost of his illness if he was willing to examine all possible channels. If the American public would be so generous toward someone who did something flagrantly stupid, how much more generous would they be toward someone who "did right" to the best of his ability all the time but then ended up in a financial bind due to an unexpected illness?
I'm not saying that people don't have bad circumstances come their way through no fault of their own. I am saying that poor people generally don't exhaust their options for lifting themselves out of poverty.
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Originally Posted by angelo129
I do find that people who hold to this belief in spite of all logic, do so because they would never, under any circumstances, extend a helping hand to another human being and they want to justify this attitude by ridiculously claiming that everything that happens to everyone is entirely their own doing.
Not true. Were I inclined to brag, I would now list all of the things I have done to help the down-and-out, poor, whatever you want to call them.
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Originally Posted by 80skeys
In third world countries, there are people who don't have food to eat or adequate shelter, and there are others who are "poor" by our standard but do not want for food or shelter. Perhaps the definition of poverty in this country should be redefined in that manner.
I imagine the cost of living in such countries is dramatically lower though... for that very reason... so I'm not as likely to judge Americans and people from other countries on the same scale.
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Originally Posted by Upstate Nancy
People psychologically distance themselves from the poor, for fear of it "catching." If you blame someone for their problem, it gives you a sense of control, that it could never happen to you. But, anything in life is possible for any of us.
Not true. People psychologically distance themselves from the poor because they don't like the mentalities frequently espoused by poor people... because way more often than not, it is those mentalities that keep the people poor. It's not often that a poor person's mentality will rub off onto someone who didn't have that mentality... it's more like it'll rub him the wrong way and anger him. Let's face it. If I'm working my butt off to keep the bills paid, why would I have any desire to hang around with someone who has to leech off of the system but still finds a way to afford cigarettes and beer?
That's sort of ironic considering that when non rich people have even less room for errors and greater need for financial planning.
Yes it is.
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Make you wonder if foresight is what makes the difference between poor and non poor in a lot of cases doesn't it?
I see two questions here:
(a) whether lack of foresight is the reason why non-rich people do not learn about financial planning? The answer is no. The reason is that nobody teaches it. It's not a priority. Nobody tells you that those types of financial instruments are available or why they're important.
(b) whether lack of foresight is what keeps poor people poor? (in the U.S.) .... That may have something to do with it in some cases but there's other factors as well and there can be different reasons from one person to the next.
Consider artists. Many artists remain "poor" (by U.S. standards) but can hardly be accused of laziness or lack of foresight. They remain poor because it's very difficult to "sell" art.
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Personally, I learned financial planning in Common Sense and Risk Aversion 101.
And if you figured that out on your own, kudos to you ... but the fact remains that most people, even intelligent people, learn by example. If nobody is showing it, most people won't learn it.
So, are you guys saying everyone who lives in those 3rd world countries or even ones who have had generational poverty issues here are all poor from laziness?
Good questions, Rob. Many Americans do not understand the environment of third world countries and if they saw it up and personal would undoubtedly walk away with a more realistic, balanced view of things.
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Some people on here also claim to be from the ghetto or from poor backgrounds and they made it out and don't see why all thier former piers are still poor. Why are they poor? Do you think it's from laziness or were you just that good that you pulled yourself up from poverty on your own?
Or just plain lucky.
The rest of your post was excellent. Keep it coming.
.... it gives you a sense of control, that it could never happen to you. But, anything in life is possible for any of us.
Pray tell, if you aren't controlling your life....who is???? The little green men? We control every aspect of our life by the choices we make. Nothing "happens" to us buy by our own hand. How absurd to believe that we are hapless victims of some unseen, malevolent force. Hogwash. That is victim mentality.
We choose wrong and we suffer the consequences, we choose right and we reap the benefits. I believe it the bible it says something like.... "What ye sow, surely ye shall reap".
Regarding RazorRob's comment. HIs comment is apples compared to oranges. This discussion clearly is about the "poor" in the United States. His comments, IMHO, are concerning poverty in the 3rd world. That's a totally different discussion. Africa has suffered from very bad governments, lack of resources, and a host of other problems. Most in India are poor, even if they have worked hard. That's a totally different discussion.
Pray tell, if you aren't controlling your life....who is???? The little green men? We control every aspect of our life by the choices we make. Nothing "happens" to us buy by our own hand. How absurd to believe that we are hapless victims of some unseen, malevolent force. Hogwash. That is victim mentality.
We choose wrong and we suffer the consequences, we choose right and we reap the benefits. I believe it the bible it says something like.... "What ye sow, surely ye shall reap".
20yrsinBranson
The people that get sick and lose their insurance are in control? Or, when people get fired through no fault of their own and lose their livlihoods, homes, health insurance--they are in control?
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