Posted on 08/26/2005 5:55:38 AM PDT by grundle
At one time when a young girl got pregnant in NJ, she was provided with a free apartment, welfare payments, food, day care and health care.
That has now changed and none of those freebies are provided. The girl's family is deemed financially responsible for her and the baby.
I'm still on a 27" CRT.
This reminds me of a story a while back about a woman on welfare complaining how tough it was to get by. In one of the pictures of her in her home, was a 50" or 60" TV.
d53,
Well, at least the kid worked for his $$. That's a positive.
I'd probably be a little irritated too at his short-sightedness. Then I remember that when I got out of the Army after 4 years I had about $400 to my name...I had pissed away most of my $$ on toys I no longer even had and drank the rest!
He might come around yet.
I remember one kid from back in my school days. He lived in a nice house with a pool and they had a satellite system. His father pulled in good money. The problem was that it wasn't steady or something like that. Somehow they got their kid signed up for free school lunches. Everyone knew this kid wasn't poor and every day he had to use that card for his lunch. I really felt sorry for him and couldn't believe that the system would work like that.
Wonder if it was rented. I still see late night ads for renting this kind of stuff.
WTF? I've got a 24" CRT TV from 1985. Still works fine.
I've noticed that convicts get big screens, cable, free meals, free legal advice, free libraries, don't pay taxes, don't have to work, etc.
"We told our teens that purchases like that would lead to a "poverty mentality." "
That mentality is a scary thing.
My best friend, his daughter has embraced the poverty mentality. She's a very bright kid, and my friend and his wife are excellent parents. They had 2 kids, a boy and girl. The girl is the oldest. She attempted college, found it to be too hard, and found a group of losers. She took to them like a duck to water. Now, she's perfectly content to live on welfare, work the system, try to get the maximum for doing the minimum.
Their son? In the Air Force, doing fantastically well in a specialized field.
How does this kind of thing happen? Some people are simply defective, I'm convinced. But, that doesn't mean my taxes should pay for them to be comfortable.
When I was a kid, my father taught me about the poverty mentality by driving me through local ghettos and showing me how poorly the tenants maintained their government subsidized homes.
Today, I drive through the same rundown ghettos and see a satellite dish mounted to the roof or rail of every single unit in the complex.
Technology has advanced, but the mindset stays the same. We just now have beacons in the form of dishes on every roof.
quote "I remember my dad saying that poverty was in many cases the inability of people to postpone gratification..."
Your dad was a very smart man.
That's one of the key lessons in becoming rich.
Wealth isn't determined by how much you make, it's how much you save of what you make that matters. This can only be accomplished by postponing gratification.
The man who earns 50K a year and saves 20K .... is far richer than the man who earns 100K a year and spends 120K.... until a person understands that... they will never be wealthy or happy.
Despite my story I would STRONGLY disagree with you- buy AT LEAST a double, a triple or as big a building as you can find.
It is the easiest road to wealth- 20 years down the road you will be SO THANKFUL that you did.
Just make sure to buy in a good neighborhood, and you will have much lesstrouble.
Those rent-to-own joints are one of the biggest legal scams out there, IMO - it's frankly rather disturbing the way they're permitted to take advantage of folks. If you look at it as a credit purchase, which it really should be, and then crunch the numbers, it turns out that 100-200% interest is not uncommon (no, that's not an extra zero). :(
I had an acquaintance when I lived in LA. This guy was a district manager for the service company I worked for. All the tech made $40-50K. The manager about $60K - back in the 80's it was good money. He drove a 7 series BMW about 18' long or so. His home - on wheels incidentally - was only 3' longer than his car. Never did undersatand that.
I used to do pest control in some section 8 apartments
in Montgomery, AL. In the middle of the day during the week
there were school aged children watching the big screen TV or listening to rap on the huge stereo system. But don't try do get in to their apartment before noon, They're still asleep.
"The man who earns 50K a year and saves 20K .... is far richer than the man who earns 100K a year and spends 120K.... until a person understands that... they will never be wealthy or happy. "
Just as all things in life, there is a balance. I had an uncle who was as thrifty as thrifty can be. Always worried about money and counting every penny. He lived well below his means, and denied himself and his children much.
His widow is very well to do and enjoys buying the things she couldn't when he was around.
Saving is essential, living within your means is the only way to go. But, one should enjoy things as much as possible, no guarantees that you'll be around to spend those savings.
K,
Well that's the tricky bit- there was no matching an affordable (for me) multi to a "good neighborhood". And besides dealing with a$$hole tenants, we'd have to live there too. But your point is well taken.
I'm not against owning property or anything, don't get me wrong. If in the future I have the means to buy a separate building somewhere else, I will do it. I'm just not gonna live in the same structure as the people I'm renting to.
The ability to postpone gratification is a key element of IQ test design for very young children. Apperently it is very predictive of later-life outcomes.
I think your numbers may be out of date. Nevertheless, hundreds of millions of people in India and China who can afford to have their kids finish high school, and can afford a mobile phone, motorbike, and clothes washing machine, think of themselves as middle class. They have the time to read books, watch movies, and surf the Web.
The difference between these people and our poor is that many of our poor are indifferent slobs.
It should hurt to be stupid.
Buying something ie. double triple in a decent neighborhood in today's market would be very expensive, might take you 20 full years to realize a profit.
My landlord finds that to be a very good situation. Bad renters are gone -- FAST. People tend to behave differently when the person living next door has the ability to evict them. :=)
B,
I can see that.
But *I'm* not going to contend with it. We all have more than enough drama in out lives already; why add the ruckus that comes when you try to evict the cracked out gang mommy upstairs?
Besides, in MA it's virtually impossible to evict someone anyway. Can take a year, during which you're of course getting no $$, because the tenant's withholding, because of whatever stupid reason in the first place.
Sure those are worst-case scenarios, but that's often how I frame my interpretations.
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