hollydolly
SF VIP
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- London England
If you can't afford to maintain your property and you are on minimum wage or you live on basic social security/unemployment handouts... , how can you afford £150 trainers? or a £30k car ...simple question
How can they live in such Squalor yet have nice new cars...?
- Thread starter hollydolly
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Great post!I think poverty is complex. Many reasons exist as to why people live as they do. It saddens me when I read statements seemingly pointing fingers of blame, without really understanding the individual’s situation, or what motivates their choices. Why not take a compassionate approach? Kindness is free.
CarolfromTX
Senior Member
- Location
- Central Texas
Puzzles me too. When I was teaching, I’d put kids who I knew were on the free breakfast/lunch program into shiny trucks worth more than I paid for my first house, then drive home in my Honda Civic. 
Yes ... Taking a video after a tornado, or hurricane isn't an assessment of 'how people live'
.... all the debris along the roads in those videos shows the damage/ trash that needs to be picked up.
Judycat
Well-known Member
- Location
- Pennsylvania
Knight
Well-known Member
Anyone want to narrate the video & point out the year make & model of the luxury cars they see. I see cars that have factory clear coat the preserves the "shiny" look. None looked like luxury cars to me.
As for the trash. I didn't see any residents so it's possible those are abandoned. That speaks more to lack of municipal services to pick up trash.
The roads traveled I didn't see any bus stops or signs indicating there was a bus route.
So a car or truck would be needed if for no other reason than for an emergency like leaving when mandatory evacuation is called.
Run down homes- That's what poverty looks like or maybe better said one step above being homeless.
As for how can they afford something. Maybe the same way others afford section 8 housing or buying steak with EBT cards. Society helps those less fortunate.
As for the trash. I didn't see any residents so it's possible those are abandoned. That speaks more to lack of municipal services to pick up trash.
The roads traveled I didn't see any bus stops or signs indicating there was a bus route.
So a car or truck would be needed if for no other reason than for an emergency like leaving when mandatory evacuation is called.
Run down homes- That's what poverty looks like or maybe better said one step above being homeless.
As for how can they afford something. Maybe the same way others afford section 8 housing or buying steak with EBT cards. Society helps those less fortunate.
That is what I was replying to, Holly. I never said EVERY car in the neighborhood belongs somewhere else. I asked how we know that all those cars necessarily belong to the residents of the houses.
Cars can be anywhere for a variety of reasons. Some of them may be owned by the landlord, visiting his property for any number of reasons. Some can be just passing through (not all the vehicles shown were parked, some were moving). I saw lots of pickup trucks,, which are not exactly luxury vehicles. And the cars looked pretty average to me also. Some of those streets had no cars parked in front of the houses at all, or maybe one.
So, it sounds like an attempt to attach the old right-wing "welfare queen" accusation to the poor. "They are using their welfare payments, which WE are providing, to buy themselves luxuries." That may have not been what you meant, but it can certainly be interpreted that way.
And yes, it is possible that rents and home prices are so ridiculously high that the poor can afford a monthly car payment, and little else. Maybe there is little decent housing down there, near the jobs that are available. Maybe there is a racial component to all this; after all it is the deep south! And probably of dozens of additional reasons.
dobielvr
Well-known Member
- Location
- California
Sorry that's not the answer you're looking for, but that's usually how it works in my town.
No judgment here.
Mr. Ed
Be what you is not what you what you ain’t
- Location
- Central NY
helenbacque
Senior Member
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- Central Florida
Racism is part of our national fabric. It is woven into every aspect of life here and is the glue that holds together one of our prominent political parties.
hollydolly
SF VIP
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- London England
Read the OP again. I'm not singling out that town... it's just representative of many towns I've seen in the UK...don't dare try and bring Race into this..it's got nothing to do with race...
hollydolly
SF VIP
- Location
- London England
what part of the OP does it say that Video was after a tornado..?.. nowhere.. but aside from that I have stated sevral times thus isn't about that place per se... I don't even know that place or who lives there, it's just an example of places like that in the UK where the area is a rundown but people can afford expensive vehicles and expenisve trainers, and expensive TV packages..
hollydolly
SF VIP
- Location
- London England
Ok well I'm outta this thread. All of you who are being deliberately obtuse, inventing stuff that's not in the OP, and spoiling for a fight, can do it among yourselves..
Paco Dennis
SF VIP
- Location
- Mid-Missouri
This is a very informative article about
In London’s exclusive enclave of Hampstead, a leafy sprawl of detached houses with U-shaped driveways and neat front gardens, you’ll find luxury cars like Range Rovers, Teslas and the occasional Porsche dotted around, but also more modest vehicles like Minis and Volkswagen Golfs.
Walk just a mile or so further, among the social housing projects of historically poor Harlesden and you’ll be surprised (or unsurprised) to find gleaming high-spec specimens of BMWs, Mercedes and Audis in the shadows of high-rise blocks of compact apartments.
This is no scientific audit, but it would be fairly accurate to guess that there are as many luxury cars in the poor neighbourhoods as there are in the rich ones. It’s obvious that not all poor people drive expensive cars, but that so many economically disadvantaged people do betrays a fundamental problem with society as a whole.
One school of thought on the right of the political spectrum would say that poor people are poor because they are feckless. That is to say they make bad choices which make them — and keep them — poor. What is fundamentally intact is their freedom and autonomy to make choices. By this logic, if you waste your money on things you can’t really afford, you deserve to be poor.
On the left, a school of thought would say that poor people had no choice in being poor, they are exploited and trapped. This school believes that the poor cannot make free choices because they are kept at the level of subsistence by different forms of exploitation and neglect.
A more realistic understanding would be somewhere between those poles. It would go something like this: the poor are exploited as consumers as well as workers."
6 min read...well worth it
https://stevengambardella.medium.com/why-poor-people-drive-expensive-cars-a19083360b05
"Why Poor People Drive Expensive Cars
In London’s exclusive enclave of Hampstead, a leafy sprawl of detached houses with U-shaped driveways and neat front gardens, you’ll find luxury cars like Range Rovers, Teslas and the occasional Porsche dotted around, but also more modest vehicles like Minis and Volkswagen Golfs.
Walk just a mile or so further, among the social housing projects of historically poor Harlesden and you’ll be surprised (or unsurprised) to find gleaming high-spec specimens of BMWs, Mercedes and Audis in the shadows of high-rise blocks of compact apartments.
This is no scientific audit, but it would be fairly accurate to guess that there are as many luxury cars in the poor neighbourhoods as there are in the rich ones. It’s obvious that not all poor people drive expensive cars, but that so many economically disadvantaged people do betrays a fundamental problem with society as a whole.
One school of thought on the right of the political spectrum would say that poor people are poor because they are feckless. That is to say they make bad choices which make them — and keep them — poor. What is fundamentally intact is their freedom and autonomy to make choices. By this logic, if you waste your money on things you can’t really afford, you deserve to be poor.
On the left, a school of thought would say that poor people had no choice in being poor, they are exploited and trapped. This school believes that the poor cannot make free choices because they are kept at the level of subsistence by different forms of exploitation and neglect.
A more realistic understanding would be somewhere between those poles. It would go something like this: the poor are exploited as consumers as well as workers."
6 min read...well worth it
https://stevengambardella.medium.com/why-poor-people-drive-expensive-cars-a19083360b05
My opinion is in agreement with the above posts that it is a matter of priorities. Also, if they are renting, the maintenance (or lack thereof) is on the property owner. It can also be a timeline of life thing, my daughter's boyfriend bought a nice truck right out of college while still living with parents, but now he and my daughter live in a modest rented house that has his nice truck sitting in the driveway.
I read a humorous reply to a question in a horse magazine once - someone had written in saying she didn't have much money but wanted to get a horse, but was always hearing that you have to have money to afford one, yet she knew several 'poor' people who owned horses. And the response by the magazine writer was that the 'poor' people with horses really had money but were appearing to be poor people because they owned horses. I loved that response because it was so true for me, I had a good job and decent income but was living in a very cheap 260 square foot rented apartment in a building populated by what I thought of as 'the redneck class of people' next door to a place with pigs in their yard, but I was the proud possessor of TWO beautiful money sucking horses. Priorities!
I read a humorous reply to a question in a horse magazine once - someone had written in saying she didn't have much money but wanted to get a horse, but was always hearing that you have to have money to afford one, yet she knew several 'poor' people who owned horses. And the response by the magazine writer was that the 'poor' people with horses really had money but were appearing to be poor people because they owned horses. I loved that response because it was so true for me, I had a good job and decent income but was living in a very cheap 260 square foot rented apartment in a building populated by what I thought of as 'the redneck class of people' next door to a place with pigs in their yard, but I was the proud possessor of TWO beautiful money sucking horses. Priorities!
palides2021
Well-known Member
- Location
- MidAtlantic, USA
I looked at the video, and frankly, I don't know if the homes represented poverty. I did see some garbage, though, which means someone was not paying their waste management bill. So from the strewn garbage, I would think there was some poverty.
These are my thoughts -
1) People are renting these homes - so they don't care as much for the property as a home owner (I know, because it happened to me years ago when we rented out our small vacation home and the people trashed it).
2) More than one family could be living in the same house, like parents, children, grandchildren. A lot of people do it when the times are hard and the rent is high, etc. And when many people are living in one house, they might all be borrowing the one car in the driveway...
3) The cars in the driveways could belong to the renter, their children, their grandchildren, their visiting neighbor, etc. It is difficult to presume these vehicles belong to the property owner or renter.
4) If the vehicles belong to the renter or property owner, then we don't know if they are working. If they buy used vehicles because their credit is shot and this is all they could afford, many times, the cars break down and they don't have money to fix them, so they sit in the driveway.
I'd be curious to see if they did this video over a course of a month and how many of these vehicles actually moved!
So there are many scenarios that one can get from the video...and I'm sure I did not cover them all....
These are my thoughts -
1) People are renting these homes - so they don't care as much for the property as a home owner (I know, because it happened to me years ago when we rented out our small vacation home and the people trashed it).
2) More than one family could be living in the same house, like parents, children, grandchildren. A lot of people do it when the times are hard and the rent is high, etc. And when many people are living in one house, they might all be borrowing the one car in the driveway...
3) The cars in the driveways could belong to the renter, their children, their grandchildren, their visiting neighbor, etc. It is difficult to presume these vehicles belong to the property owner or renter.
4) If the vehicles belong to the renter or property owner, then we don't know if they are working. If they buy used vehicles because their credit is shot and this is all they could afford, many times, the cars break down and they don't have money to fix them, so they sit in the driveway.
I'd be curious to see if they did this video over a course of a month and how many of these vehicles actually moved!
So there are many scenarios that one can get from the video...and I'm sure I did not cover them all....
SeniorBen
Senior Member
Those vehicles that looked fairly new could be in good condition but have 200k miles on them, so they weren't expensive.
What I was thinking while watching that video is, considering the cost of housing these days, how long before those houses start getting bought up by people who can telecommute to work and the neighborhood gets gentrified. I would bet that kind of thing will start happening in the Appalachias in the near future. A lot of that region is dirt poor, so the land must be cheap, but it's beautiful country.
What I was thinking while watching that video is, considering the cost of housing these days, how long before those houses start getting bought up by people who can telecommute to work and the neighborhood gets gentrified. I would bet that kind of thing will start happening in the Appalachias in the near future. A lot of that region is dirt poor, so the land must be cheap, but it's beautiful country.
Certainly we all have different priorities.
Many years ago, David Letterman told of being buttonholed by a fella in Vegas. The man told Dave that he needed $200 for his wife's medication. They had enough money when they got to Vegas but his wife had either lost all her cash or it was stolen. She would die without the medication.
Dave asked "How do I know you won't just go in and gamble the money away?"
Reply: "Oh no, Mr Letterman, I got gambling money."
Many years ago, David Letterman told of being buttonholed by a fella in Vegas. The man told Dave that he needed $200 for his wife's medication. They had enough money when they got to Vegas but his wife had either lost all her cash or it was stolen. She would die without the medication.
Dave asked "How do I know you won't just go in and gamble the money away?"
Reply: "Oh no, Mr Letterman, I got gambling money."
Knight
Well-known Member
My reply was about the perception that the video showed expensive vehicles. I didn't see any. The addition of expensive trainers, and expensive TV packages, wasn't in post #1.
Addressing the need for transportation in an obviously poor part of Tallulah IMO should have the focus. Comparing the area toured with the area that these homes are located in highlights the difference.
https://www.zillow.com/tallulah-la/...ue":true}},"isListVisible":true,"mapZoom":12}
And yes that is worldwide.
Whenever you say anything about money or the things it can buy, there will always be people who read things into it, misinterpret it as boasting, feeling superior, use the opportunity to call you "Stuck up" or "You think you're better than everyone else 'cuz you got more money, nicer car, nicer house." Such people feel better when they bring others down a notch. It's their way of saying, "You ain't better 'n anybody."
That especially applies to people who are struggling financially & don't want to hear about people who aren't.
BTW, you know I was kidding in my post. I never miss such an opportunity.
JonSR77
Senior Member
there are all sorts of ways to pretend you have money, when you don't. And cars is a big one. Plenty of ways to run that little scam.
Loaners, financing things various ways....
People do it to impress others. Doesn't mean they aren't actually poor and struggling.
I don't know why people think poor folks are the scammers.
The scammers are the ones WITH the money.....not the ones without....
They have nice suits, they go to nice schools, they have all the appearance of dignity...but they would take your grandmother for every last nickel and not blink an eye.
They are such good scammers, that they scam the public into thinking poor folks are the problems. They are the problem.
Look at all these billionaires...and paying either no taxes or next to nothing. Just scamming the public out of every last dime possible.
You think some welfare cheat, cheating the government out of $300 a month is the problem? The big boys are stealing millions and even billions from the public. Endless scams, Wall St. scams, $100 million dollar deals, bribes and on and on...
Loaners, financing things various ways....
People do it to impress others. Doesn't mean they aren't actually poor and struggling.
I don't know why people think poor folks are the scammers.
The scammers are the ones WITH the money.....not the ones without....
They have nice suits, they go to nice schools, they have all the appearance of dignity...but they would take your grandmother for every last nickel and not blink an eye.
They are such good scammers, that they scam the public into thinking poor folks are the problems. They are the problem.
Look at all these billionaires...and paying either no taxes or next to nothing. Just scamming the public out of every last dime possible.
You think some welfare cheat, cheating the government out of $300 a month is the problem? The big boys are stealing millions and even billions from the public. Endless scams, Wall St. scams, $100 million dollar deals, bribes and on and on...
Remy
Well-known Member
- Location
- California, USA
@JonSR77 brings up some good points. Never, ever judge someone's level or lack of money based on what they look like.
Once I was at the craft store and a woman couldn't get her credit card to go through. Of coarse I was stuck behind her. She was dressed really really nice. I'm in jeans and a t-shirt, pay cash and go.
I was once asked at an open house for a town house if I thought I "could afford a place like this" I'm used to being treated like crap but was stunned. I left. Answer yes. I had 20% + in my savings, excellent credit and a good paying job. What the actual...... was going through that jerks mind?
Once I was at the craft store and a woman couldn't get her credit card to go through. Of coarse I was stuck behind her. She was dressed really really nice. I'm in jeans and a t-shirt, pay cash and go.
I was once asked at an open house for a town house if I thought I "could afford a place like this" I'm used to being treated like crap but was stunned. I left. Answer yes. I had 20% + in my savings, excellent credit and a good paying job. What the actual...... was going through that jerks mind?
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