Agreed. Poor people are not stupid, they just have different constraints. They have to do what they can with very little. Gotta be smart to make that work.
Because poor people are not stupid. They're often actually pretty damn rational within their constraints. Smarts alone does not equip one to handle a windfall.
Poor people have less time, and also worse access to good educations. Stupidity is not required.
“Sometimes the value is the amount you can buy”
Sure, but on a systemic level we can still see the issue, i.e. that being poor is expensive.
I've actually helped people out on welfare. One family had a big screen TV, everyone (even the kids) had cellphones, and so on.
Some people are poor, but some are just dumb. I wish I could fix poor, but I can't fix stupid. And there is a lot of stupid around.
I know many people who make a few hundred thousand dollars (in Texas, not silicon valley or NYC), and they live paycheck to paycheck. That's stupid, not poor.
So when I see stats like that (thank you for the links), I always wonder what the real number is - how many are poor, and how many are just stupid.
Being poor isn't a lack of intelligence, it's a lack of money. No doubt a few people will get conned out of their money, but for the majority it would be a net positive to have more money at their disposal.
I’m always leery of “the poors are dumb!” as if that’s self-evident, rather than in poverty the risk-reward trade off is different and they accordingly adapt to that — as a rational choice.
Do you think escaping poverty is as simple as “just save money, dummy!”
The problem we have when thinking about poor people is that we think they're people just like us, but with no money.
That's not the way to think about it.
You would be astonished at their ignorance and, as an effect of that ingnorance, laziness. They literally have no idea what is possible. No idea what effort could achieve.
It's typically not their fault either. Someone with influence in their life has to set an example and show them the way otherwise they'll never understand how to unlock their potential.
From what I've read, there is a lot of truth to what he says. Its not that poor people are dumb, but that the short term spending that everyone does has a much bigger effect on them (as its a much bigger proportion of their income).
Caveat: The paper I'm thinking of was referring to incredibly poor people in India, so it might not necessarily carry over to all contexts.
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