
For Many Americans, Nowhere to Go but Down - paulbaumgart
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/03/AR2009080302958.html?hpid=artslot
======
pmichaud
All the responses here have been solidly middle class condemnations. There are
so many forces at work here, I don't even know where to begin.

I grew up in the American middle class, and probably felt the same way many of
you do. I became more sensitive to this sort of thing by:

a) Talking to my wife, who is an immigrant from a lower class, who came here
so she could be something. She's a professor now, so we've seen the whole
spectrum of society.

b) Experiencing first hand what the system does to people, even those who try
really hard to help themselves. It sucks. It's not fair. It's unjust. It
provides perverse incentives. You want to believe that's not true, but it's
true.

You see him buying a few beers out of context, and you feel justified in
thinking he'd better just man up, but you have no /idea/ what that situation
is like, and probably (hopefully?) never will.

I suggest reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed to start to get an inkling of what
goes on: [http://www.amazon.com/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Paulo-
Freire/dp/082...](http://www.amazon.com/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Paulo-
Freire/dp/0826412769)

~~~
profgubler
Before he lost his job they were middle class. He made $53,000 dollars a year
in Northern Indiana. I make considerably less with a wife and kid with one on
the way, in a more expensive part of Indiana. I don't even live pay check to
pay check.

To say we are the middle class condemning the middle class is false. He was
the middle class himself.

~~~
timwiseman
_To say we are the middle class condemning the middle class is false. He was
the middle class himself._

I think you mean "middle class condeming working/lower class..." but excellent
point.

~~~
profgubler
You are correct. Thank you.

------
maukdaddy
"When he lost his job, Scott had no savings, his primary objective always
having been to earn enough to cover the rent, eat an occasional steak, feed
and clothe their children, ride his dirt bike, fish, golf, play poker, buy
lottery tickets, and drink Bud Light."

Um you have to be kidding me.

~~~
potatolicious
They lost me at golf.

Ride his dirt bike? Sure, a fairly inexpensive (and fun!) pasttime. Fishing?
Same deal. Golf? Holy Batman, golf is an _expensive_ sport to get into.

I'm making double what he did at his peak, and I don't feel like a golf club
membership.

~~~
maukdaddy
I don't care how poor you are, or how little you make, 12 months of savings is
a MUST. I simply can't imagine living paycheck-to-paycheck like that.

~~~
timwiseman
I agree with the concept, but it is hard to do when you are on the low end
(and can take time to build up), and if you are on the very low end 12 months
of savings for normal expenses can get wiped out with just a few minor
emergencies.

~~~
abalashov
Yep; that's the thing that people who didn't grow up poor miss. The 'cost' of
being poor (as a percentage of income, not as an absolute figure!) is higher
for poor people than the 'cost' of being well-off is for well-off people. Late
fees, overdraft fees, frequent maintenance expenses stemming from owning
and/or driving crap, higher interest rates, other types of pricing premiums
for things stemming from their being inferior status as a buyer or a borrower
of various goods and services, health, etc.

Add to that the pervasive psychological and physiological pathologies
unavoidably common among poor people - whatever you think of how that reflects
on their "responsibility" - and the external costs of those, and, well, you
get the idea.

------
abalashov
I feel bad for these folks (I myself grew up in South Bend, Ind., right next
door to Elkhart), but, I do have to say that to some extent, this is just a
consequence of tying your career and your fate to a frivolous recreational fad
that is highly dependent on ultra, ultra-cheap and plentiful energy as an
input, and then getting yourself into a highly leveraged financial position on
top of it.

The moment that stops being the case, that economic sector stops being.

You just have to either 1) get the skill set and make a career in something
that seems to be durable and sustainable and for which there is always a
certain level of demand, or 2) take the appropriate risk-mitigation measures
if you want to go work in something more ephemeral.

No, nothing lasts forever, and in capitalism, everything changes. But some
things clearly change more than others, and the change is of a higher
magnitude. Basing your family's fate around a pure-recreational industry is
really no better than playing games as a businessperson with pointless non-
value-added risk-free regulatory arbitrage opportunities (of which there is
MUCH in telecom) or spreads that arise in various loopholes. That's just not a
good way to ensure that there will be a tomorrow.

~~~
abalashov
Why is this being voted down?

------
JanezStupar
Well it's obvious to me why there's nowhere to go but down.

They're not trying to go anywhere else. They're not that bad financially. In
our country a lot of people make less money working - while living expenses
are higher than in USA actually - (we have round 25K $ GDP per capita) with
higher food, fuel and home prices (services are more expensive in USA). It's
not the lack of money that is dragging them down - it's the lack of living
power and motivation.

They are 30+ year olds with mentality of an 8 year.

------
jzdziarski
I feel for the guy, but he is complaining he doesn't have any money left over,
yet he buys 4 packs of cigs a week, pays for some possibly unnecessary K-Mart
layaway merchandise, drinks "beer-after-beer-after-beer", gambles, and eats
donuts. There's a whole lot of money they could be saving - I'm sure even more
thats in the article if these are his normal habits... to make ends meet. If
he is really interested in doing everything he can to save money, these things
should have been gone by now. If he were a buddy of mine, I'd tell him to do
that and then I'd help him out.

------
notirk
This guy worked for 2 decades paycheck-to-paycheck? He had zero savings after
working for 20 years. He never bought a home and has one beat up car and one
that is broken down? Did he spend all his money on smokes, beer, donuts, pepsi
and gambling? Does he expect sympathy? Stop gambling, stop smoking, buy some
cheap healthy food for your family, rice and beans perhaps? If you need beer
(really, 8 in the middle of the day when you have no job?) buy a 6 pack for
home, it's cheaper. Take any job you can get and network/work your ass off.
None of this is complicated or hard to figure out. I feel bad for their
children.

------
paulbaumgart
This is the Freakonomics commentary on the article (by way of which I found
the article in the first place):
[http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/what-
does-t...](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/what-does-this-
sad-story-say-to-you/)

Reading the comments on the Freakonomics page, some of which really are harsh,
makes me wonder about the family's motivations for allowing a reporter to
probe into fairly personal details of their lives- and write about it in a
national newspaper. The article doesn't portray them in a particularly
positive light. Maybe they just figure it's a chance for a little bit of fame
and attention, but it still seems like a brave thing to do.

~~~
jlees
Maybe it's the first smart thing they've done financially; surely a sob story
like this is going to attract _some_ attention from people who may be placed
to help, financially or otherwise.

------
dtap
The general populous of HN has a slightly skewed view of how quickly and
violently the lives of many Americans has changed. I am from Detroit and have
seen thousands of people, including my parents, rise to middle class as an
unskilled laborer. Those jobs are gone, and should have been 25 years ago.
This recession has finally pushed them over the edge and it leaves many people
behind.

It is tough to criticize a man whose way of life, however perverse, vaporised
in a matter of a few years. It existed for so long and lulled many people into
believing it was real. Now they are paying for it.

------
unohoo
"When he lost his job, Scott had no savings, his primary objective always
having been to earn enough to cover the rent, eat an occasional steak, feed
and clothe their children, ride his dirt bike, fish, golf, play poker, buy
lottery tickets, and drink Bud Light."

This is the primary reason for the hardship that majority of the middle
americans are facing in this tough times. There has never been a culture of
'saving'. as an asian immigrant, saving has been deeply rooted into my psyche.
Travel and recreation is one thing, but golf, fish, poker, lottery - when you
have 2 kids and a wife to support ?

all aside, i thoroughly enjoyed reading the comments on HN more than the story
itself.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I have heard (though I have not seen the hard statistics) that the savings
rate in china averages 1/3rd of take home pay. This more than any "analysis"
made me think that china will make good on its economic aspirations. for god's
sake even some PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS in America think that consumption
improves an economy rather than deferred consumption and investment.

~~~
unohoo
I wont be surprised if thats their savings rate - savings rate is similarly
pretty high in india and several other asian countries as well.

however, the advent of capitalism and 'opening the economy' has seen some
recent dwindling of the savings rates.

------
pavel_lishin
I wonder if any families have joined forces and got houses together, instead
of moving across the country to some dingy hell-hole, to live in their
parents' basements.

~~~
potatolicious
I know many - but they are all immigrants who do not have the notion that
owning your own single-family home is a birthright.

Hell, the city where I grew up had to revise the hydro scheme from flat-rate
to metered just because there were so many families combining into what used
to be a single-family home.

I also know many families who invested in a large house and rent out a suite
to another family. The mortgage practically pays itself, and with some
renovations you can preserve your privacy also.

In the words of my parents, who are both Asian immigrants to Canada, who come
from poor backgrounds (well, one of them anyways): some people have had too
good of a life, and can't sacrifice what they need to sacrifice when times get
tough, as they invariably do.

------
edw519
_Only now he's off to collect their unemployment benefits, electronically
delivered to their bank accounts by the state of Indiana: $268 for Kelly..._

 _"It's 28 hours, eight bucks an hour," she says. No benefits, she adds. "You
say, 'Thank you, but -- '?" "Yup," she says. "I make more on unemployment."_

So she turns down a job that pays $224 per week so she can continue to collect
$268 per week unemployment compensation after 9 months.

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture? Has she even
considered:

\- that 28 hours could turn into more

\- that $8 could turn into more

\- that no benefits could turn into benefits

\- that she may meet someone at work who could refer her to a better job (lots
of people pass through a chiropractor's office each day, a lot more than she
meets at home)

\- that she may meet someone at work who could refer Scott to a job

At what point should we expect people dealing with difficulties to try a
little harder to help themselves?

~~~
ShabbyDoo
A friend who is an armchair economist (in a good way), noted that America's
poor apply a much too high discount factor to future cash flow streams. In
other words, they place too much value int today's pleasure and not enough in
the avoidance of future pain. It's this short-sightedness that let them end up
in this situation.

~~~
petewarden
> It's this short-sightedness that let them end up in this situation.

When you're close to the poverty line you've been taught by experience that
saved money will be just eaten up by future crises anyway, so why not enjoy a
little treat while you can? If future pain seems unavoidable, why not take
some pleasure today?

~~~
randallsquared
This attitude seems hard to understand for people who didn't grow up poor. You
need a certain amount of money to get over the threshold of not living
paycheck-to-paycheck. There are several ways you can get it: grow up while
already over this threshold (if you could call your parents and ask them for
10K if you had a real need, you're over it), borrow the money (for example,
for college), get lucky, or live far below your means while saving it up.

The time when you can borrow the money is a limited window, usually, around
17-23. If you don't understand that this is important and possible, the window
vanishes.

Living far below your means while saving up money is not only very difficult
to do, culturally, for Americans, but takes a long time at minimum wage or
some small multiple of it, and you have to resist the urge to do things like
buying business casual clothes in the hopes of getting a better job, or buying
a newer car in the hopes that the maintenance will be lower enough that it
pays for itself, etc. Those things can work, but they fall under "get lucky".
:)

~~~
ShabbyDoo
I sort-of agree with you, but these people were hardly poor a year ago! Their
household income easily exceeded $75K! And, it was obvious that they had
considerable disposable income.

~~~
randallsquared
That's true. It may be that they grew up poor, or it may be that they're just
"poor" psychologically. I dunno. I have a lot of these tendencies, but I got
lucky (I now feel).

------
stuff4ben
geez that was depressing.

~~~
miles
The only depressing thing is how the family is handling their situation:

 _"Scott and Kelly spend much of their time watching TV, or playing games on
their cellphones since they lost their jobs. Every day has become a slow-
motion version of the one before, sitting around the house, each in the same
spot, Kelly in the recliner, and Scott on the couch. Scott has gained 40
pounds since his last day on the job... On Monday, Scott picks up his and
Kelly's unemployment benefits. After paying some bills, he sometimes goes to
the Winners Circle bar, the tan building reflected in the glass, where he
recently won $100 in a NASCAR betting pool."_

Something tells me that is probably not the best approach. I have written to
the reporter for their address so I can send a copy of Napolean Hill's _Think
and Grow Rich_. A single passage from the book lifted me from a deep
depression while stuck penniless in Japan to creating and surpassing my most
cherished goals.

~~~
mrbgty
Can you tell us more about this passage?

~~~
il
Think and Grow Rich is an amazing book.

You should read the book itself, it's not long, but the premise of the book is
basically that most wealthy people got wealthy the same way: 1\. Making a
through, detailed plan on how they will get rich. 2\. Doggedly and
relentlessly following that plan with incredible perseverance and not giving
up.

It's simple. but if you think about it, it could change your life.

Personally, I don't feel bad for these people at all. It's not the economy,
it's mindset. Some people have an entrepreneur mentality, and some people have
a victim mentality. If I sat around all day drinking beer and buying lottery
tickets, I would probably be in the same place he is. Instead, I'm going to
spend the next 12 hours setting up advertising campaigns with the expectation
that 90% of them will fail. I will continue working until I hit that 10% that
will succeed, which enables me to live comfortably and earn more than I could
at a day job running my own business.

My point is that the bad economy often makes an all to convenient scapegoat
for some people. Living paycheck to paycheck is not a good financial strategy
regardless of economy.

~~~
mrbgty
Thanks, maybe I will pick it up.

Just want to make a point on your last paragraph. I agree but at the same time
I don't see any reason why we need to demonize the people who don't know what
to do. Whether what they are doing is right or wrong, we're better off not
placing blame on them either.

~~~
byrneseyeview
_don't see any reason why we need to demonize the people who don't know what
to do._

Maybe if someone had demonized them a little earlier, they wouldn't be so
worthless right now.

~~~
mrbgty
Just my opinion but I think your statement is pretty immature. It seems rather
that for some reason you want to put them down and I don't believe its because
you think it will help them.

Let them be responsible for themselves. It doesn't help you to criticize
others.

~~~
byrneseyeview
_Let them be responsible for themselves._

If they were responsible for themselves, they would be working or starving
right now. However, they are on unemployment. As a taxpayer, I'm partly
subsidizing their donut and lotto habits. That gives me ample reason to
criticize their behavior: if someone is spending your money, you're perfectly
entitled to at least complain about how they spend it.

~~~
mrbgty
So they're forced to pay into the unemployment system through taxation but
once they need to use some of that money, it's not ok?

Please, if you don't like the system, argue for a different system. You aren't
going to change the behavior of these people by putting them down.

------
brianobush
depressing and actually not an isolated case. the story highlights problems in
America: laziness, gluttony, little or no education, and worse... inability to
fix their own problems that do have solutions. of course, the problems are
always someone else's...

------
Lagged2Death
Why do so many people, on reading a piece like this, immediately start to
argue about who's _fault_ it all is? Is that really the most important aspect
of the situation? Is determination of fault likely to lead to a solution?

------
teeja
This is actually the first story I've seen about the unemployed from a major
paper in the last year.

