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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3022 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 10, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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https://www.thecut.com/article/gambling-addiction-casino-world.html

I saw this article this morning, with the online headline "My $5,000 Bender in Casino World"

And my reaction was... Befuddled. $5k? That's it? I'd be modestly interested in hearing a friend tell me about losing $5k gambling. But as the subject of a whole article? Come on. With inflation the way it is, I think you have to lose at least $30,000 before it's interesting. Listing $5k might hurt a lot of people, but the real problem was their prior destitution/poor decision making, not the $5k lost gambling. Just, like, get a job?

I had a similar reaction to would-be academic Kierkegaard's changing his name and moving country to dodge a $10k judgment. Come on, what formidable person can't just pay that off? Tighten your belt for six months and you should be fine.

Maybe it's just seeing the world through privilege, but I feel weird being asked to respect these people. It's an ethos argument: if you don't have your life organized such that you can handle a minor financial setback, you're not a substantial person.

What do you think is, in 2023 first world countries, a large enough financial loss to be interesting, or to force a life change on someone, for a person you would respect?

Maybe I'm not a 'substantial person' but 5k would be a pretty painful loss for me. That said: I don't gamble, it's a mug's game.

Thinking about this has made me curious to what percentage of this forum isn't working in a high paying job/career path. I don't think of myself as stupid or even average intelligence but I've geared my life towards what I find rewarding and until I start my own business in this industry I most likely won't be hitting the big time anyone soon.

Maybe I'm not a 'substantial person' but 5k would be a pretty painful loss for me.

While I am not @FiveHourMarathon and he may feel differently, the part that makes someone utterly disreputable isn't that losing $5K gambling would be a disaster, it's that they would bet $5K that they can't afford to lose.

To be honest though, I generally don't have much respect for people beyond a certain age that would have trouble coming up with $5K. Yes, I know, people have various extenuating circumstances and even many of the people that don't have those circumstances are basically decent people even if they're kind of fuckups financially. I am disinclined to treat them as "substantial" if they're 40 and can't afford to buy a nice watch if they wanted to though. Being broke indicates either a lack of ability or interest in earning a decent wage or a severe inability to exercise financial discipline and planning. The latter is worse than the former; someone that makes $200K/year and lives paycheck to paycheck is much more disreputable in my eyes than a guy that just doesn't really have a marketable skill.

I generally don't have much respect for people beyond a certain age that would have trouble coming up with $5K.

Being broke indicates either a lack of ability or interest in earning a decent wage

You don't have much respect for people who lack the ability to earn a decent wage? What about a hard-working dad whose wife stays home to take care of young kids and who just doesn't happen to have marketable skills beyond $20-25/hr low-skill labor sorts of jobs? In today's economy, I doubt those wages would be enough to escape living from paycheck to paycheck.

The word "generally" is doing a non-trivial amount of work. Life happens, I can find many examples of respectable people that don't earn much money. Nonetheless, the median broke guy in the United States is not actually a particularly hard worker that's making all the right choices and just can't get ahead.

Okay, I appreciate the clarification. I think we're in agreement after all. As a very frugal person in a single-income household that's struggling financially, I am frequently shocked and disgusted by the spending habits of people who make almost twice as much as my household and have the gall to say they can't afford a setback of a few thousand dollars. Motherfucker, you go on two cruises a year, just bought a pool, and go out to eat twice a week.

It's because of people like that - and I think that describes the median person quite well - that, despite my financial struggles, I am so deeply skeptical of government financial assistance programs.

I just lament that a lot of people, and apparently some commenters around here, seem to struggle to imagine common scenarios where someone could genuinely be making sound decisions all around and still struggle.

You don't have much respect for people who lack the ability to earn a decent wage?

Intellectually? Hell yeah. Intelligence and Income correlate up to the point where one reaches a comfortable middle class existence. Cowen discusses the same study here. Both interpretations are focusing on the question of "Are top 1% earners super-geniuses?"; I'm more focused on the question of what does it take to get one to the $40k-$60k income range.

Returning to your hypo, $25/hr is warehouse worker wages in my area at this point, low-no skill involved, and if one holds down a full time job equates to about $50k/yr; I would respect such a man morally, he may be a good man, but not intellectually, he is unlikely to be a man with great insight into the world in the motte-ian sense. For reference a McDonald's manager nationally will make about $65k on average, ranging up towards $84k, and I know from Chamber of Commerce stuff that a lot of Taco Bell and related franchises are aiming to raise managerial salaries towards $100k. And, for that matter, I doubt a man making $50k/yr would change his name and flee the country to dodge a debt under $10k! Which was the original question.

For myself, I've been in the position of "losing everything" professionally, my career completely derailed and only minimal savings. Within eighteen months I had cobbled together two jobs (neither of which had anything to do with my prior skillset) that combined earned me about $75k/yr. So maybe that perspective tends to give me faith that intelligence and talent will out itself over time.

You don't seem to recognize the incoherence of the implication that everyone can be a manager (who are they managing if everyone is a manager?)

Anyway, I would simply suggest that you keep in mind that many people have struggles and limitations that you seemingly don't/can't even fathom. There are lot of physical and mental health issues that can preclude the life path you're sketching out. But even aside from that, people can get stuck in a subsistence trap that's very hard to break out of.

For example, let's say you're currently employed in a contract job with a temp agency and you want to get a better job. That requires physically going to interviews. But those interviews happen during business hours, when you're working. Your contract gives you no paid time off and you're unable to change your shift schedule to get time off during the day to attend interviews. What are you supposed to do? If you take a day off, that's a couple hundred dollars of foregone wages you simply cannot afford because your cashflow is already razor thin. And realistically you'll have to take a lot of days off to take enough job interviews to finally get accepted somewhere else.

Let's just say I speak from experience.

Being broke indicates… a severe inability to exercise financial discipline and planning.

 

young kids

  • -10

This isn't 4chan. If you have something to say, then say it, don't vaguely gesture to it with lazy quoting.

Being broke indicates… a severe inability to exercise financial discipline and planning.

young kids

Perhaps this couple had a higher paying job when the kids were younger but has since been laid off. Perhaps this couple used to be able to afford things but haven't gotten raises despite inflation. Perhaps the female was in her mid 30s and they decided to have kids despite not being financially stable because it was now or never. Should people who don't make enough money be effectively consigned to end their genetic line because you (or the other commenter I was responding to) "don't have much respect" for their decision to have children?

Perhaps this couple had a higher paying job when the kids were younger but has since been laid off. Perhaps this couple used to be able to afford things but haven't gotten raises despite inflation.

"Financial discipline and planning" includes planning for uncertainty.

Perhaps the female was in her mid 30s and they decided to have kids despite not being financially stable because it was now or never. Should people who don't make enough money be effectively consigned to end their genetic line because you (or the other commenter I was responding to) "don't have much respect" for their decision to have children?

Choosing expensive children and a late retirement over cheap living and an early retirement is a valid choice, in the context of the human mind—but calling it a financially-intelligent choice seems a little too much.

Did you mean to add more to these two comments?

No. The juxtaposition of the two quotes concisely points out that the first quote has already addressed the second quote's concern. It's a convenient convention that I first saw on 4chan.

I don't think it does. It leaves it to the reader to guess what you meant, which isn't usually the practice here, and is one of the reasons I prefer this board to 4chan.

My guess would be you're asserting that having young kids when not already wealthy shows a lack of financial discipline and planning. That seems to be, empirically, a belief of many middle class couples, but the cracks in that strategy have been showing for several decades now.

I think you are being obtuse my man, it's plainly obvious he meant you should get your small children to manage your finances.

It's not even that. Imagine a guy, with 3 kids, who's wife homeschools, who bought a house in say, 2021, paid a fortune for an old house needing tons of maintainance but locked in at a good rate. The guy could be making 100k+ and is likely still living so tightly that he couldn't imagine buying luxury jewlery for himself or adjusting his budget by 5k without significant pain.

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