There’s a Pit thread partly about rent to own companies, and a particular customer who got in deep because of their interest rates. Many posters there derided the customer and/or defended the store, asking whose fault it was that the customer was stupid enough not to think to multiply two numbers and see how much money she was spending. That led to a comment I thought was really interesting:
We, at least in America, seem to tend to think of stupidity as self-inflicted ("If you’d just paid attention in school, you wouldn’t be so dumb), yet the law of averages seem to state that there MUST be a lot of people for whom this is not the case.
Actually, that brings up an interesting facet to the discussion: one reason for anti-intellectualism is that some assume that those of superior intellect just want to control every aspect of their lives paternalistically. But just because one is generally smarter, does that actually necessarily make them equipped to do so?
I would be all for education about topics that affect the poor more than others. Simple finance, budgeting, food shopping, whatever. The problem is, even supposedly smart people know this stuff and STILL make stupid decisions.
Generally not. Both because they can’t afford to spend every moment of their entire life doing so, and because smart people generally aren’t all *that *much smarter than dumb people that they can reliably do a better job making decisions at one or more removes. Not unless we’re talking about outright severely mentally disabled people or animals at least. The smarter can warn or protect the less intelligent, but not competently run their life for them even if the smart folk want to.
Why exactly?
If someone spends $10,000 on lottery tickets and goes broke as a result, why exactly would it be society’s responsibility to fix his situation for him?
I could wish that the world came with more instruction manuals.
How to buy a car. How to bake a cake. etc. But foolish people won’t take the effort to read such manuals, so how can we win?
(Also…a lot of such instruction books are lopsided. They teach how the author would buy a car or bake a cake, but not how I would do it.)
By and large, there are many more places one can go to get help and advice these days than there were 30 years ago, and the quality of the advice is much better.
Meanwhile, yes, with a great sigh, we should bail out the foolish who get themselves in trouble. People cross safety barriers in the National Parks all the damn time, and need rescuing. What’s the alternative? Just let them die? Or bring back debtors’ prisons for people who screw up their finances? Too many are condemned to homelessness already: a “get tough on stupidity” approach would increase those numbers.
I’ve explored the idea that (perhaps) all people should be entitled to the very basics of living, regardless of whether they work hard or make wise decisions or not. These very basics include things like a place to sleep out of the weather, basic food to eat, basic clothing to wear, access to hygiene facilities, and basic health care, but not entertainment, telecommunications, luxuries, etc., or even their own private living space. That probably fits into this discussion.
The criticism of such ideas is that this would reduce the motivation to achieve. For some small minority, it probably would, but I believe most people strive to have more in their lives than dorm/prison style living conditions, and thus most people would still work just as hard as they do now, but would no longer have to take care of layabout relatives, sick relatives, disabled relatives, etc.
It’s better than having him kill you and loot your body so he can eat? It’s not good for anyone to put someone in a position where they have nothing to lose and no reason to care about social order. Or for there to be tens of millions of such desperate people. Plus of course you are ensuring that the wealthiest and most powerful people will be the most predatory, dishonest and ruthless among us.
In other words, you’re talking about setting up the exact type of situation that leads to revolutions like the French Revolution or those of the Communists. “Let them eat cake” stops being a fun sentiment when the people you’ve been sneering at drag you to the guillotine.
I laugh at them. Not to their faces–then I make comforting and supportive noises–but I laugh at them behind their backs. Or online. I’m an asshole like that.
Used to be I was nicer and would offer suggestions regarding how to extricate themselves from bad situations, but I gave up when all they want to do is kvetch. Now I laugh.
Okay, not really, usually. I’m still a Boy Scout who wants to help, but sometimes I also want to laugh.
Self-interest. Because if this person is unable to handle their money to such an extent, they’re likely going to end up in the hole repeatedly, or just continuously. That’s bad for society, as well as Financially Irresponsible Joe. Far better that he be a productive, consuming-but-not-to-foolish-levels member of society, which benefits all of us. Ifs and hows, of course.
I suppose we miss the opportunity to laugh at him though.
One is that the world has shifted to where intelligence is privileged above most other things. Not long ago, strength and endurance were enough to make a living off of. But a lot of the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs have gone away, and there just aren’t many chances for those of us who are not as sharp to make a living.
Another is that families have changed, and people with disabilities no longer have an extended family that can balance some of their challenges. There is an interesting study that schizophrenics had the best outcomes in rural Tanzania, despite the lack for formal health care. In the context of living with a close knit family there are fewer opportunities to get into life-changing trouble, and there are more people to balance your weaknesses, whatever they are. Of course there are trade-offs, but for the disabled (and the elderly and really anyone who needs extra care), the loss of the extended family structure is devestating.
I grew up in a very poor community, and many were recent immigrants or poor mothers temporarily in a bad spot, some were “lifers.” Most of them had very serious issues-- major health problems, metnal illness, uncontrolled drug addiction. What can you do? As much as you want them just to do better, they don’t have the internal resources to do so. You can beg, threaten, plead or cut off aid, but the mentally ill drug addict just isn’t going to be able to hold a nine to five. I really think at that point you need to focus on making sure they can live in safety and dignity, and making sure their kids’ opportunities are stunted. Any society has people left behind. It’s to our credit that we make sure they have their basic needs taken care of and have whatever opportunities they can benefit from.
Anyhoo, one of the columnists at cracked.com has written numerous articles about how poverty is often self-reinforcing. I’d kinda like to see this adapted into a middle-school extra-curricular to try to break some of the cycles. Probably a futile effort, but what can you do?
More seriously, we are our brothers’ keepers. Just because someone is dumb enough to want to send a money order to Nigeria doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make it hard for them to do so, just because someone doesn’t realize that rent to own furniture is ridiculously expensive doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have limits on the fees and interest they can charge, and so on.
If a government were to institute a policy saying, “We will never allow anyone to fall below $5,000 in debt at any point,” that will help many honest folk, but some others would deliberately splurge on debt - say, run up a credit card debt of $60,000, knowing that the government will pay for all but $55,000.
Thank you. The housing mortgage fiasco was due in part to mischief by brokers and bankers, yet the “stupid” victims often get the blame in SDMB discussions. I think this is due to a confused understanding of capitalism. Adam Smith saw profits as the reward for creating value, but today’s hyper-libertarians and right-wingers see greed as an end in itself – exploitation of the stupid is the “market economy” at its finest.
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