Sorry; I don’t see a way of getting the car to NY. Even if I had confidence that it would make it, travel restrictions.
I understand. I was in a similar situation three years ago when I bought my new car. My old car was eleven years old at the time. I knew my niece would probably appreciate it but I couldn’t see any easy way to transport it from New York to Texas. (I’d be happy now to give that car to my friend if I still had it.)
Then you get a job that supports the lifestyle you wish where you wish to live, or you move to where the jobs and public transportation are. Take your pick. You wanna live in the boonies, there are some conveniences you are going to lack.
The OP’s friend’s problems seem to be more w/ her health, than transportation to work. And that’s a whole nuther discussion.
Ooh, then she’ll be dealing with Bunches O’ Snow for the next few months. Darn. Guess she can’t use the solution I did, when i got a job on the other side of town… I got in shape and biked an hour each way.
Not really an option. My friend’s health problems limit her mobility.
I live in a major city in California and public transport here is horrible. I don’t know why you assume a lack of public transport is only an issue for people in “the boonies”.
I live in Indianapolis, a city of over a million, and public transport here really sucks as well-- and it’s a sprawling, poorly engineered city, as far as getting around at all, even by car. I have lived in NYC, Chicago, Moscow, and Washington, DC, and visited London, Los Angeles, Prague, Athens, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, San Jose, Austin TX, Dallas, and Las Vegas, as well as numerous smaller cities; Indianapolis is an extremely hard city to navigate. It’s something like the third largest capital city in the US (I know it’s behind Phoenix, but I forget what else), and the 14th largest city period (in the US). It’s shameful how hard it is to get around here.
Anyway, I believe anyone who says their public transport sucks.
Funny, isn’t it? Someone can work 20 or 30 years without a break then something calamitous happens - a medical problem, a global pandemic, whatever - and suddenly it’s the fault of the unemployed person for living in the “wrong” place and now, when they no longer have money, they’re supposed to somehow pick up and move to a new place, where they still won’t be able to afford housing and, I guess, live homeless until they have a new job…?
^ And this. As I said, MOST of the US does not have mass transit. It’s not just rural areas.
A lot of this comes down to people who have never faced this sort of hardship and their assumptions about people who do. Also, this weird assumption that people in these circumstances where supposed to somehow foresee, possibly decades ago when they settle somewhere, that down the line they’d have a particular problem, or a career that was secure 20 years ago would be eliminated by technology, or whatever thing put them where they currently are.
Upvote.
My father barely escaped becoming obsolete.
He was an expert on the Soviet Union, and an extremely good Russian speaker. He was actually considered one of the best experts in the nation on the Soviet Union, and was frequently interviewed on TV & radio, and in national periodicals, when some event happened. He literally wrote the book on the Soviet Union-- he wrote the book in English that was used across the US in universities to teach the government and politics of the Soviet Union to undergrads. It was also used in Canada, and apparently in some universities in other English-speaking countries as well.
He had his retirement planned for years, and it was for his 30th year after he had received tenure, and 30+ a few years after he’d started at the university. It also ended up being five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. My father was actually there, in the USSR when it collapsed. He got stuck there, because he couldn’t get out, and had to live off of credit cards and cash advances for 10 weeks.
So for five years he got to teach the collapse of the Soviet Union-- what happened, and the history of the oligarchy. Those courses were still relevant to the modern world at the time, and the first couple of years, there were waitlists for enrollment. But by his last year, enthusiasm had waned.
His retirement was just in the nick of time. He’d been vested for more than 10 years, but he wanted to teach until he was 65, and eligible for social security and medicare, which he did.
But he got lucky. If he’d been 10 years younger-- and there were other people at the school teaching the Soviet Union who were younger than my father-- he would have had to choose between teaching something else, and retiring early.
Developing university classes is intense. He might’ve needed to borrow against future sabbatical time, or use vacation time to take a semester off to develop new curricula. Or talk the school into letting him take a light teaching load while he did so, and teach the freshman Into to Poli Sci classes.
And that’s for someone who has a PhD, tenure, and lots of cred with the institution where he has worked for decades. Someone with a lot less going for her, getting a curve ball that is a global pandemic, as opposed to a collapse of the government she teaches about, is logarithmically worse off.
[quote=“Broomstick, post:37, topic:929327, full:true”]
No disagreement there, but that’s not what you said. This is what you said: “That’s the reality in the US - if you don’t have transportation you don’t have a job…”
The statement is edited, but not taken out of context. Feel free to move your goal posts, though.
mmm
I’m not sure what your problem is with what I said. “If you don’t have transportation, you don’t have a job” means "Either you have a car, or you live in one of the rare places without crappy public transport in order to have a job. Unless you can manage to luck into a neighbor who goes to the same place you want to work, every day at the same time, and doesn’t mind shlepping you, AND IS RELIABLY ON TIME. "
I re-read your post I originally replied to. It seems I read “car” when you wrote “transportation”.
You are correct. Apologies.
mmm
It’s cool. You don’t usually fly off the handle, name notwithstanding, and I figured it was something like that.
Going back to the OP, ISTM the meta-problem is that the OP’s friend is at best only marginally economically viable.
Between health issues and other problems, it seems the person is very hard pressed to hold a job, any job, much less one that meets their economic needs minimally defined. And meeting even modest wants seems out of the question. What public assistance there may be is also inadequate to cover those economic needs, much less wants.
And there are millions of other Americans in this situation.
If indeed she’s borderline economically unviable, or fully unviable, the OP faces a stark choice: let her sink into abject penury and homelessness now, or let her sink into abject penury and homelessness after helping her for some time interval with some number of dollars and other support whether advice, rides, a place to crash, etc.
It’s only if she is potentially economically self-sufficient that the OP’s help can be the bridge, or catalyst, to help carry her over/out of her temporary problem. And even then only if she can use that help wisely.
The payoff question for the OP is where on that spectrum does this person find themselves? And what external resources might be brought to bear to improve that placement?
This is a nasty situation and the fact we have millions trapped in these straits is a national disgrace that someday will be looked back on with the same horror with which we now view the US’s history of slavery or the genocide of the Native Americans.
You aren’t writing her off. You are writing off her car. That’s a huge difference.
Anyway, I would share my concerns with my friend. “Jane, I really want to help you, but I don’t want to contribute if it’s just going to help the finance company and you’re going to lose the car anyway. I’d rather keep the money and maybe be able to help you with something else later.”
Or maybe you aren’t comfortable doing that. Either way, it’s true that you aren’t really doing her much of a favor if you give her money that will be immediately confiscated without helping her situation.
Very well put. Defies simple answers either individually or collectively.
No it isn’t. There’s plenty of people in every country on Earth that get stuck in awful situations due to their own bad decisions and/or life throwing every curve ball at them imaginable.
You’re certainly right that people suffering a shitty situation beyond their ability to manage is a worldwide phenomenon. It’s called “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” for a reason.
Where you and I probably differ is whether the rest of us should avert our eyes, shrug our shoulders, and keep walking. Or instead should use some of our vaunted national wealth to improve the lot of people who can’t (not won’t) improve their own.
I feel that people being driven into poverty by basic health care costs is a problem that is uniquely American.
I was a collector most of my adult life, although now I’m a business analyst. I worked retail credit and collections, as well as commercial. I never worked for a finance company or did medical collections. My theory then, as now, is that if you buy something, you need to pay for it. And if you chose to pay for it over time, that means making ALL the payments your contract requires. If you can’t afford to make the payments, don’t buy it. If shit happens and you can’t pay what’s owed now, then make a payment plan and stick with it. To my mind, if you buy something with no intention of paying for it (like your example further down), you’re stealing.
StG