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Doesn't one need good credit for a credit card? Last I checked, the only "credit card" one could get with bad credit was one that wasn't a credit card at all, but a deposit card - you deposit your money and then spend it with a card that looks just like a credit card.
To have good credit, you have to meet certain standards. Having no money, making no salary, and showing only welfare checks does not get you a real credit card. However, you CAN get a "deposit" card.
The ones that are advertised on TV for people that have a horrible credit rating? Those that you put $100 into it, and that's all you can "charge?"
You're talking about prepaid charge/debit cards they like to call prepaid credit cards. That is not the same. That's not a credit card.
A secured credit card is the same as a regular credit card. The only difference is that the limit is your deposit.
So if the limit is whatever money you put into it, what's so credit cardish about that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glucorious
You're talking about prepaid charge/debit cards they like to call prepaid credit cards. That is not the same. That's not a credit card.
A secured credit card is the same as a regular credit card. The only difference is that the limit is your deposit.
But I'm not a child. I'm a grown-up. I can't get free breakfast and lunch at a school, nor do I need school sports fees paid, nor do I ride the bus. I have a car, and my health insurance and dental are paid by my employer.
So that STILL won't get me my Air Jordans.
I don't see how giving kids breakfast and lunch can get anyone Air Jordans, particularly when what they're receiving is a welfare check. I looked up an average welfare check is horrifically low. So I'm still utterly confused about the $200 Air Jordans.
But Jordans are cheaply made by slave labor in China. Nothing about the quality or craftsmanship of that slave labor shoe justifies that high price tag. Jordans are not like expensive hand-crafted Italian loafers in which the rich quality and craftsmanship of the shoe make sense of the exorbitant price tag. Jordans cost about $5 to make and were probably assembled by a nine year old child who works 20 hours a day. But I'm a hypocrite because I love Jordans and own many pairs.
How do many people in the hood afford Jordans and other similarly expensive Nikes? Drug dealing of course. This is nothing new. Nike and Air Jordan have tapped into the flow of illegal drug money in every city in America for decades.
Where I live in Maryland, the $200 Nike Foamposite sneakers, which often double and triple in aftermarket price, are known affectionately as the "dope dealers". Why? Because you are probably a drug dealer if you can afford to wear them. If you see someone wearing Foamposites in Baltimore city or DC, chances are they might have weed, or other drugs, for sale. I know the local weedman in my buddy's neighborhood in Baltimore is always wearing a fresh pair.
But overpriced slave labor produced $200 shoes do not magically make the quality of life better in the hood in America. It is an incredibly poor argument that "fresh kicks" somehow increase the quality of life for the ghettoized in America. $200 shoes are an illusion of the good life. Wearing $200 shoes and riding the bus while living around thugs, drugs and wild pitbulls in the projects is not living it up. Last time I checked, the majority of rich and upper middle class White people living in the suburbs and wealthy White areas of big cities never wear these types of gaudy expensive Nikes.
If anything, wearing $200 Nikes makes you a target. Where I live in the DC/Baltimore Area, sneaker robberies, and sometimes even killings over sneakers, are sadly commonplace. The sneaker culture is very popular worldwide. Countries like Japan rival America in terms of their love affair with Nike. However, it is safe to say nothing this gruesome and immoral occurs over a pair of shoes in Japan, ever. But this type of senseless violence over ultimately meaningless ghetto status symbols happens every other week in this area. Although wildly popular, wearing Foamposites is a health hazard and you shouldn't wear them when out walking by yourself or in areas where you are unfamiliar in the suburbs or the city out here:
And these are just incidents in the DC Area. Such incidents occur all over the country. All of this is proof that people in America have been brainwashed to desire things that serve no real necessary purpose. A $20 pair of shoes from Walmart will work just as well as some Jordans. However, Nike has exploited the low self-esteem of poor minorities in the hood by creating status out of thin air and using million dollar budgets to market these shoes aggressively to kids who can't afford it. As a result, you have many cases of senseless violence over cheap plastic shoes that have no real value.
Last edited by goldenchild08; 06-15-2012 at 01:01 AM..
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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^ As I kid I used to be obsessed with basketball and I owned a few pairs of Nike basketball shoes. Most fell apart within a year or so, and these were $120+ shoes...always wondered how Nike got it's reputation. I also had an official Nike T-shirt that started getting holes in it within 2 years...the printed logo frayed and the fabric was super thin. Seriously, a $4 knock-off from Thailand would've lasted longer.
So I'm still utterly confused about the $200 Air Jordans.
Cash changes hands in American low income areas constantly. Many, many poor Americans have a hustle, whatever that hustle may be.
I'm utterly confused that anyone in the U.S could be utterly confused about poor folks wearing expensive shoes or owning a cell phone or having a car.
The fact that the US even made the list, let alone has the most votes, is a joke.
Most poor people in this country have food stamp cards, section 8 housing, disability checks, welfare checks, access to countless food banks, soup kitchens, community college grants/loans and job training, ibrary internet access..etc.
Never in the history of the world have poor people had such a high quality of life as the poor in America today.
The VERY liberal Los Angeles Times recently published this article about the poor in America-
"Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning"
"two-thirds have satellite/cable TV"
"almost 75% have a car"
"vast majority (of homes) are in good repair, with more living space per person than the average non-poor person in Britain, France or Sweden"
Okay, somehow I ended up quoted as having said that the poor have it great in this country, which not only did I not say, but I said the opposite. How on earth did I end up quoted with the wrong quote?
[quote=kevike;24752546]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dport7674
The VERY liberal Los Angeles Times recently published this article about the poor in America-
"Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning"
"two-thirds have satellite/cable TV"
"almost 75% have a car"
"vast majority (of homes) are in good repair, with more living space per person than the average non-poor person in Britain, France or Sweden"
And don't get me started with America's education system! I have known people who finished h.s. earning their diploma who read at a 7 or 8th grade level. I actually met a guy who is now 26 years old, with two kids and made it all the way up to the 10th grade before dropping out! He is illiterate and cannot get his drivers license because he cannot read! How the hell he got up to 10th grade? I wonder! This is the crap education one gets if you are poor in the U.S.
I look back on my education, and while I do admit that I learned some things in school, I am the first to say that a huge amount of what I learned, I learned reading as a child. From elementary school on, I can't recall ever being without a book. Even now, I'm always always reading a book of some sort.
I don't see most kids reading nowadays. I see most kids doing their best to avoid reading. They're on the TV, they're texting, and they're online and playing videos. Of course, when it comes time to doing any homework of any sort, or any school reading, forget that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by helloimage
And don't get me started with America's education system! I have known people who finished h.s. earning their diploma who read at a 7 or 8th grade level. I actually met a guy who is now 26 years old, with two kids and made it all the way up to the 10th grade before dropping out! He is illiterate and cannot get his drivers license because he cannot read! How the hell he got up to 10th grade? I wonder! This is the crap education one gets if you are poor in the U.S.
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