Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

milo's point is that constantly living hand to mouth with no visible path out of that situation creates a reality which cannot be improved by any financial advice that applies to people with even tiny amounts of discretionary income. anyone who's lived that kind of poverty very long understands this.

map: i agree with everything that you wrote in your posts. it’s true that i’ve never been poor—my income has been below official poverty lines for many years but it wasn’t acute or severe poverty, which i would never claim to have first-hand experience of—but my post wasn’t meant to be prescriptive; i’m bad at personal finances, have a lot of debt and no savings, live paycheck to paycheck. i haven’t been on vacation in years but if i did i would almost surely go deeper into debt in the process. credit provides real value (both psychologically and economically) but is also highly exploitative and regressive, and i do think some of that exploitativeness is derived from the financial illiteracy/irrational economic decisions of borrowers. as you said it’s more about psychology than economics. milo’s posts that i was replying to seemed to me to be saying “sure credit debt is bad how else could you ever afford a vacation” but imo that’s a purely illusory value of credit. the credit card company doesn’t pay for your vacation; *you* pay for it, and then on top of it you also pay them interest. they are profiting off of your impatience, lack of impulse control, poor financial planning skills. i don’t think that’s good. hopefully its possible to think that without denigrating a person who would make that decision. anyways sorry if my post read as victim-blamey or seemed condescending/aloof, that wasn’t my intention

imo there’s a difference between saying “you shouldn’t have spent money on this small pleasure” versus “you shouldn’t buy so much on credit.” my sister is far from poor but spends way too much on credit due to an addiction to online shopping and always has huge debt which she’s paying for out the wazoo in interest fees. she can *afford* everything she’s buying, it’s just the way she’s spaced out the payments/purchases in time that’s costing her more

otm. My parents had this problem, I am sure it contributed to the breakup of their marriage.

owning a house, owning real estate - that is a fucking extravagance.

― ꙮ (map), Saturday, 6 January 2024 12:47 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

An extravagance? It's out of reach for too many people, but it's hardly an extravagance. Owning a home should be within the reach of most of us. I realize that it isn't, but it should be.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 6 January 2024 12:58 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

whether or not you think owning homes is an extravagance or not, housing markets with lower shares of owners (for example in many parts of europe where long term rentals are more common, or in singapore where every residence is technically public housing on a 99-year lease from the government) tend to function much better. when housing is primarily based on home ownership, increasing affordability means decreasing property values of home owners, which puts the two goals in opposition. only one generation can both buy cheap homes and have them be a source of wealth

I guess it depends on what you mean by "function." It's a truism that renters build up no equity.

that’s good though. making money off home equity means house prices are going up, which means housing is becoming less affordable. there are other sources of equity, but there’s only one housing market

If the assumption is that if the US had more renters, rental laws would be stronger, I think that's a pretty bad assumption to make.

They'd definitely be stronger, for landlords.

real chicken and egg situation and it assumes the organization of renters in absence of regulation can happen. you have to be a real piece of shit as a landlord, usually in areas other than that, to face repercussions

agreed. it’s also gross how people with money will latch on to the thing they perceive as an extravagance that someone scraping by owns, when that’s probably someone’s prized possession that they actually value and maintain because they understand that windfall may not come again

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Saturday, January 6, 2024 12:44 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Related pet peeve: people who apparently think that every mobile phone is a iPhone and every personal computer is a Mac. 1) These items are not always as big an extravagance as these critics assume, and 2) try functioning in the world as we know it without reliable online access (especially getting and keeping a job).

just batshit crazy. it’s nearly impossible to do anything without access to a computer of some sort and for the vast majority of the population, that’s a phone

one of the things support groups use to help the unhoused is to help them charge their phones. what are they going to do, sell their phone for exactly zero dollars and then be even worse off?