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‘Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken’
The Guardian ^ | Sunday 21 September 2014 | Linda Tirado

Posted on 01/26/2015 12:46:36 AM PST by CorporateStepsister

In the autumn of 2013 I was in my first term of school in a decade. I had two jobs; my husband, Tom, was working full-time; and we were raising our two small girls. It was the first time in years that we felt like maybe things were looking like they’d be OK for a while.

After a gruelling shift at work, I was unwinding online when I saw a question from someone on a forum I frequented: Why do poor people do things that seem so self-destructive? I thought I could at least explain what I’d seen and how I’d reacted to the pressures of being poor. I wrote my answer to the question, hit post, and didn’t think more about it for at least a few days. This is what it said:

Why I make terrible decisions, or, poverty thoughts

There’s no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it’s rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: academic; business; career; college; economy; husband; jobs; obamaeconomy; obamanomics; online; people; poor; poverty; pressures; rich; selfdestructive; shift; wealth; welfare; work; workingpoor; workplan; workschedule
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An old article, but one that popped up on my Facebook page and it's something I would like to share.
1 posted on 01/26/2015 12:46:37 AM PST by CorporateStepsister
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To: tbpiper

later


2 posted on 01/26/2015 1:00:57 AM PST by tbpiper
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To: CorporateStepsister

If they were capable of planning long-term they wouldn’t be poor; at least not for long. Emotional maturity and self-discipline, of the kind required for long-term planning, are the keys to success and happiness.


3 posted on 01/26/2015 1:27:21 AM PST by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

“Emotional maturity and self-discipline”

Two factors that determine failure or success.


4 posted on 01/26/2015 1:30:32 AM PST by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
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To: CorporateStepsister

I read her article.

Not all poor are like her. My parents were lower middle class as long as they were together, and when they divorced mom and I were poor. Mom didn’t eat junk food. Mom cooked. It was cheaper to cook than waste money on junk food. She didn’t take up drinking. She didn’t take up drugs. She didn’t take up smoking. She didn’t have babies with guys that wouldn’t be around a few days. She didn’t sit around letting depression stop her from living and finding little joys in life. Stressful, yes. Lots of pressure? yes. We had other stable family around so there was a pressure relief, just having family there. Shopping was not priority. Goodwill was where we were. We had food stamps. She found a decent job, that led her to another better decent job, that led her to a third, more fulfilling, decent job. She did get remarried and that guy was stable and had a decent job, and he went on to another decent job. They were married 20 years and their lives did get better. They had kid problems. They had financial issues. They had stress.

If there is one thing different about them than Linda’s explanation of the type of poor she is writing about, my mom and dad and stepdad were from a generation that learned from their parents the concept of delayed gratification. Also that you save whatever you can for rainy days, or for emergency funds. You don’t piss it away on drugs, or booze, or pills. They never developed a self-destructive lifestyle, and never developed the ability to rationalize shitty personal choices away because of their current socio-economic status.

In the past many more poor families lived poor, but lived with dignity. My own parents’ families are examples of it. To a lesser degree my family was an example of it. I remember seeing the way other people lived and being surprised at how much they just let themselves go. Like they had no respect for themselves and what (little) they had.

Linda is telling us how things are for her and those she knows. I am telling you that Linda doesn’t represent every poor person or their experiences. It is possible to get out of it. But it does require you doing things that are very difficult to do if you have not developed the ability to have higher personal standards and delay gratification, and possibly most importantly when you’re poor, not piss away what precious little money you earn on things that are very expensive, relatively speaking, but are not good for you and keep you from saving and building up money to help you move on and up as best you can, where you currently are.

You can’t get out of it if you aren’t trying to get out of it. My mom didn’t want to stay at that level. She did everythign she could to get out. So did the second husband she married, who was financially challenged with kids from his prior marriage too. They had self-control. They didn’t go on vacations for the first 16-17 years they were married. The money went to other priorities. Necessities. You have to have long-term goals. If you are in a crap job you can’t go higher in, you have to have a long term goal to get into a different job that you can have a career path with.


5 posted on 01/26/2015 1:35:14 AM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: CorporateStepsister

For the photographs of herself in the article, Linda is wearing that black tee shirt with a circle slash over a cross and the words above it say “bad religion”. This perfectly describes her bad attitude and a horrible lack of maturity.


6 posted on 01/26/2015 2:00:04 AM PST by Carthego delenda est
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To: Carthego delenda est

Bad Religion is an L.A. Punk Band.


7 posted on 01/26/2015 2:17:35 AM PST by Musket (It's very simple:<i>your quoted text pasted here</i><p> produces Quoted Italic with paragraph break)
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To: CorporateStepsister

Poor people don’t make bad decisions because they are poor. They are poor because they make bad decisions.


8 posted on 01/26/2015 2:37:47 AM PST by Haiku Guy (Every driver with a "Ready For Hillary" bumper sticker had to scrape off a "Obama 12" bumper sticker)
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To: CorporateStepsister

“broccoli is intimidating”

LOL!! what a maroon!


9 posted on 01/26/2015 2:54:03 AM PST by mylife
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

Stress, lack of sleep, prevent logical thinking. Your answer is so in the article. LOL


10 posted on 01/26/2015 3:07:56 AM PST by huldah1776
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

A nonsensical generality that doesn’t specify any of the qualities required to make the judgment you asserted.

Good, responsible people die broke in pursuit of prosperity. Others get it without the respectable effort you intimated.

You’re union, right?


11 posted on 01/26/2015 3:38:09 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: CorporateStepsister

If this woman really wrote this well, she should be a journalist. I sense a lot of doctoring and polishing; it just doesn’t feel as if a poor, uneducated woman wrote this. I teach a lot of students, and their writing and grammar is often much worse than this.


12 posted on 01/26/2015 3:43:57 AM PST by Republicanprofessor
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To: CorporateStepsister

Later


13 posted on 01/26/2015 3:46:39 AM PST by gaijin
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To: CorporateStepsister

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time as the saying goes.

I find that poor people in general fantasize about being well off in the future, but never fill in the steps to get there. Like it’s just going to miraculously occur. These people are on the lottery retirement plan.

We’re now in an age were young adults just starting out are perfectly happy paying 15-20% of their net income on fancy phone service.


14 posted on 01/26/2015 3:56:05 AM PST by Usagi_yo (It's not possible to give success. Only opportunity. Success is earned on it's own right.)
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To: CorporateStepsister

At the bottom of the page I clicked on a link and it is an interview with her. She is doing very well and is selling her book. Read the comments, too. Enlightening.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/21/linda-tirado-poverty-hand-to-mouth-interview

and there is more poverty, or are there more imported poor people in addition to the 92million not on the books,,,

http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/16/us-census-bureau-stagnant-report-figures


15 posted on 01/26/2015 4:04:03 AM PST by huldah1776
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To: Carthego delenda est
This perfectly describes her bad attitude and a horrible lack of maturity.

I clicked the link and read a couple more paragraphs and saw the woman didn't know how to speak without throwing the "F Bomb" around.

16 posted on 01/26/2015 4:09:22 AM PST by Graybeard58 ( For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.)
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To: Musket
I knew right away that the Bad Religion T-shirt was a reference to the rock band. However, grown adults look stupid wearing band names on T-shirts. The last time I wore a T-shirt with a rock band on it was around 1977 and I was about 15 years old.

This woman just reeks of immaturity. Steaming broccoli is a challenge for her? Her inane statement that dishes must be washed or they will attract bugs...okay, what about it? Does she think that only applies to her?

Then she makes the idiotic statement that rest is a luxury for the rich and how she has to get up at 6am in the morning. Well I guess she would consider me rich but I've had to spend 30 years getting up at 4:30 or 5 in the morning to start my workday - and I'm still going strong today.

Then she casually speaks about having babies from different fathers because a man "makes her feel good" for about 15 minutes.

Finally, it's evidently difficult for her to go more than a couple paragraphs without dropping the "f" bomb. Toilet-mouthed women generally don't do so well in life and good men will steer clear of them.

17 posted on 01/26/2015 4:46:47 AM PST by SamAdams76
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To: Usagi_yo

We’re now in an age were young adults just starting out are perfectly happy paying 15-20% of their net income on fancy phone service.

Insane isn’t it?


18 posted on 01/26/2015 4:57:34 AM PST by mylife
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To: Usagi_yo
We’re now in an age were young adults just starting out are perfectly happy paying 15-20% of their net income on fancy phone service.

And another 15-20% for the latest video games and controllers. Then we have Starbucks...Chipotle...Panera Bread expenses...

These are the same young adults who sponge off their parents well into their 20s and 30s.

19 posted on 01/26/2015 5:16:09 AM PST by SamAdams76
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To: Republicanprofessor

That occurred to me, too. If she could actually write this well she should be able to think through stuff better than she describes and talk to HR people more convincingly.


20 posted on 01/26/2015 5:53:55 AM PST by arthurus (It's true!)
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