I mean, say you have a single mother and her two kids. But in her neighborhood is this woman's mother and a few cousins. There are also non familial connections. All of these people, from time to time, do different things for the single mother. A trip to the store here, a fixed toilet there, perhaps some groceries or basic car repair as well.
But here comes the SKFM Spread The Poverty Plan and the single mother and her kids are moved out of the city to a smaller town about an hour, hour and a half drive away. The single mother has now lost that entire safety net and will need to rely on government subsidies more than she already did.
I think the key here is that people SHOULDN'T be needing to lean on family and close friends to make their lives work. A safety net should not be dependant on shit like having your own mother nearby.
This is true, but flies in the face of about 250 million years of human history. People will rely on family before friends and friends before the government.
250 million years of human history where people suffered horribly and had no real safety net.
People will rely on family and friends first. They shouldn't have to if they don't want to/can't.
A nitpick, but 250 million years ago there were no mammals, let alone humans.
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
Thanks for reminding me about Big Brothers thread. Gonna submit an application as soon as I get permission from a reference.
Im not convinced mandatory pro bono work qualifies as charity.
Thats not to say its a bad thing, because its not, but it definitely doesnt give one a view of the positive outcomes other forms of volunteering can provide.
Im not convinced mandatory pro bono work qualifies as charity.
Thats not to say its a bad thing, because its not, but it definitely doesnt give one a view of the positive outcomes other forms of volunteering can provide.
I have never been mandated to do pro bono work. I think there may be a requirement now for young lawyers in NY, but there wasn't when I was staring out.
I think it's worth evaluating why some inner-city neighborhoods end up with a cycle of violence and recidivism, but it's not true for all poor neighborhoods. For example, plenty of poor neighborhoods are extremely safe, despite the fact that they're all braiding salons, nail salons, 99¢ stores, and liquor stores with the counter in front of the bottles. Those are all small businesses and are thriving, because they're providing what the local community wants.
Sure, my girlfriend doesn't want her nails done or her hair braided, and I'd imagine most people in this thread don't visit the typical "urban businesses" that are plentiful in poorer neighborhoods, but those parts aren't the problem. It's when drugs and extreme poverty get involved.
The problem with ignoring poor people, or shipping them somewhere else, is that most people don't understand that money itself is not the problem. Plenty of poor people have housing and eat food. It's that often, people on the edge of poverty are struck with a life-changing event that requires a large sum of money. The healthcare debates have skirted around this issue in the public eye but it's largely why it's been an issue -- if you take someone who's barely making ends meet, and they get sick (through no fault of their own), they could end up owing a hospital tens of thousands of dollars. It just gets worse.
I think gentrification can be a force of good, since you can gentrify a neighborhood and have it help locals who find their streets safer and find it easier to locate services (more grocery stores, better foods). But it's not universal and it's not as easy as sending people away.
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
People should feel free to continue the gentrification discussion (which is probably big enough for its own thread), but I would like to bring it down to the level of personal experience again. I live in a remarkably non-diverse area (90+% white) and I find that people are very quick to write whole towns off as "bad" based on nothing but having 30%+ minorities, or even towns that just have smaller houses. With a couple of exceptions, these are all towns that have good schools, median incomes and home vales above the state medians and very low crime, and yet people react like they are ghettos. Growing up in NJ, I literally encountered the exact same attitudes. Is this some sort of incredible coincidence, or are these attitudes common outside of cities?
I live in an area that's about 70% whites and 30% blacks, with a few other minorities.
When you hit rural there's a huge urban divide. And crime seems to follow the urban areas pretty equally. You encounter a lot more thefts and muggings and murders in areas where the minorities are present in large numbers. You also see a lot of white flight in my area still. Even if the minorities move into a super wealthy area.
I've encountered this myself and I've seriously given thought to up and moving because of the increased crime in my area. It's mostly kids. Kids of wealthy families, because it's definitely not cheap to live where I do. But replacing $500 things every time their broken/stolen is a bit out of my price point that I'd rather spend an extra $100 a month to commute.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I mean, say you have a single mother and her two kids. But in her neighborhood is this woman's mother and a few cousins. There are also non familial connections. All of these people, from time to time, do different things for the single mother. A trip to the store here, a fixed toilet there, perhaps some groceries or basic car repair as well.
But here comes the SKFM Spread The Poverty Plan and the single mother and her kids are moved out of the city to a smaller town about an hour, hour and a half drive away. The single mother has now lost that entire safety net and will need to rely on government subsidies more than she already did.
I think the key here is that people SHOULDN'T be needing to lean on family and close friends to make their lives work. A safety net should not be dependant on shit like having your own mother nearby.
This is true, but flies in the face of about 250 million years of human history. People will rely on family before friends and friends before the government.
250 million years of human history where people suffered horribly and had no real safety net.
People will rely on family and friends first. They shouldn't have to if they don't want to/can't.
A nitpick, but 250 million years ago there were no mammals, let alone humans.
You know what, you're completely right (though I believe there were perhaps smaller mammals) but of course I meant 250,000. Silly me.
I live in a semi-rural area, with small towns of five to six thousand scattered around a larger city of twenty thousand people or so. It's all 95+% white, in my experience. We do live in proximity (less than an hour) to larger cities with larger Asian and Indian populations, and I've never heard anybody speak of those areas negatively for that reason.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
People should feel free to continue the gentrification discussion (which is probably big enough for its own thread), but I would like to bring it down to the level of personal experience again. I live in a remarkably non-diverse area (90+% white) and I find that people are very quick to write whole towns off as "bad" based on nothing but having 30%+ minorities, or even towns that just have smaller houses. With a couple of exceptions, these are all towns that have good schools, median incomes and home vales above the state medians and very low crime, and yet people react like they are ghettos. Growing up in NJ, I literally encountered the exact same attitudes. Is this some sort of incredible coincidence, or are these attitudes common outside of cities?
It's called racism. Some white people feel uncomfortable around minorities, especially ones from the city. It can be a result of ingrained old school Hang the N***** style racism, or the more insidious kind that gets into well off people who don't really engage with minorities or people from outside their social circle very often. My roommate in college was from Orlando, and he would tell us stories of how when the well off schools from the south side came up to his school for football games, the visitor's side was eerily empty and the people who did come were jumpy as shit.
So you get an effect where, because of stereotypes, people believe that a minority majority area is crime ridden or poverty stricken (and it often is because our poverty problem has in many ways co-opted our race problem) just because it isn't full of nice young white professionals.
I find these people often have the same attitudes about poorer neighborhoods that have a white majority as well.
Today poverty is our most pressing problem, it is soaked down into the bones of every other social ill we talk about but very often people ignore this fact.
Yeah speaking from my experience, I avoid teenagers as a matter of fact in my area. There's nothing to do so, obviously, crime and attacks are the norm in teenager filled areas. And if you live on top of a few hundred people, you're bound to have a lot more teenagers. I refuse to even walk around my neighborhood. I bought a gym membership strictly for use of the treadmill.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Today poverty is our most pressing problem, it is soaked down into the bones of every other social ill we talk about but very often people ignore this fact.
Agreed. To make a medical analogy, most of our proposed solutions for social ills are a lot like just giving Tylenol to someone with terminal pneumonia.
Sure, it'll help their fever, for a while. They're still going to die of the infection suffocating their airway.
Since this is a thread dedicated to appreciating the disparities between the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy, and talking about ways to handle things like poverty, what do you guys think of this Strike Debt offshoot group of Occupy Wall Street? There's an NYT article about it here. Essentially they're raising money to buy up debt at pennies on the dollar, then abolishing it. Because bad debts are sold so cheaply, a little bit of funding goes a long way. I believe the number I saw cited elsewhere was that 500$ destroyed around 14,000$ of debt.
Do you guys think this is a good stopgap measure to help redistribute wealth and fight back against a system dedicated to keeping people in debt? I admit that personally, I kind of like the idea.
I think that is a bad idea because we're basically encouraging the behavior of collections and selling debt. If the company is willing to sell the debt, they should be willing to settle with the debtor first.
This means if they're willing to take 25 cents to the dollar from a collections company, they should be willing to take it from the debtor first. We should codify that into law. In conjunction, bankruptcy should be extended to private school debt, it's often predatory and I see no good reason not to.
Also, we should not allow any fee service hit credit unless they report good behavior too. Rental property, utilities, etc.
If you don't report, you can't hit the credit. This would encourage good behavior and lessen really shitty companies trying to make a quick buck.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I live in an area that's about 70% whites and 30% blacks, with a few other minorities.
When you hit rural there's a huge urban divide. And crime seems to follow the urban areas pretty equally. You encounter a lot more thefts and muggings and murders in areas where the minorities are present in large numbers. You also see a lot of white flight in my area still. Even if the minorities move into a super wealthy area.
I've encountered this myself and I've seriously given thought to up and moving because of the increased crime in my area. It's mostly kids. Kids of wealthy families, because it's definitely not cheap to live where I do. But replacing $500 things every time their broken/stolen is a bit out of my price point that I'd rather spend an extra $100 a month to commute.
White flight is a real issue by me too. My in laws (and their whole block) are very upset that a black family recently moved in. This is a family that was able to afford a $700k house, mind you. But still, everyone is very upset. There was also a break in during the black out following the hurricane, so now the area is suddenly being thought of as in decline, when the real decline is actually due to wealthy orthodox jews moving in in large numbers and voting down the school budget each year (since they send their kids to religious schools).
What I've found in my history of dealing with collections is the parent company will sell to a collections (sometimes even owned by them) for pennies on the dollar (not even 25 cents, that's pretty liberal) and then the collections company comes after you for the full amount. That's stupid crazy.
Maybe even codify that if sold to collections, the max that can be recovered is 25% of the principal value outstanding. Makes it even less likely the company will sell it.
Maybe if the company is willing to write off the outstanding debt for 100%, they can get 75% towards reducing their taxable income contribution. This would probably hit all the really shitty areas of lending as it is. School loans, housing loans, medical bills, maybe even better all around.
Certainly beats collections and eventually bankruptcy.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
People should feel free to continue the gentrification discussion (which is probably big enough for its own thread), but I would like to bring it down to the level of personal experience again. I live in a remarkably non-diverse area (90+% white) and I find that people are very quick to write whole towns off as "bad" based on nothing but having 30%+ minorities, or even towns that just have smaller houses. With a couple of exceptions, these are all towns that have good schools, median incomes and home vales above the state medians and very low crime, and yet people react like they are ghettos. Growing up in NJ, I literally encountered the exact same attitudes. Is this some sort of incredible coincidence, or are these attitudes common outside of cities?
It's called racism. Some white people feel uncomfortable around minorities, especially ones from the city. It can be a result of ingrained old school Hang the N***** style racism, or the more insidious kind that gets into well off people who don't really engage with minorities or people from outside their social circle very often. My roommate in college was from Orlando, and he would tell us stories of how when the well off schools from the south side came up to his school for football games, the visitor's side was eerily empty and the people who did come were jumpy as shit.
So you get an effect where, because of stereotypes, people believe that a minority majority area is crime ridden or poverty stricken (and it often is because our poverty problem has in many ways co-opted our race problem) just because it isn't full of nice young white professionals.
I find these people often have the same attitudes about poorer neighborhoods that have a white majority as well.
Today poverty is our most pressing problem, it is soaked down into the bones of every other social ill we talk about but very often people ignore this fact.
I guess the question is more if this is universal. I wouldn't be surprised if in the south west (for example) a wealthy community that was half (nonimmigrant) hispanic and half white was viewed as comparable to an all white community, but I have no idea if that is true.
Edit: I would also think the same may hold true for Asians on the west coast.
spacekungfuman on
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I live in an area that's about 70% whites and 30% blacks, with a few other minorities.
When you hit rural there's a huge urban divide. And crime seems to follow the urban areas pretty equally. You encounter a lot more thefts and muggings and murders in areas where the minorities are present in large numbers. You also see a lot of white flight in my area still. Even if the minorities move into a super wealthy area.
I've encountered this myself and I've seriously given thought to up and moving because of the increased crime in my area. It's mostly kids. Kids of wealthy families, because it's definitely not cheap to live where I do. But replacing $500 things every time their broken/stolen is a bit out of my price point that I'd rather spend an extra $100 a month to commute.
White flight is a real issue by me too. My in laws (and their whole block) are very upset that a black family recently moved in. This is a family that was able to afford a $700k house, mind you. But still, everyone is very upset. There was also a break in during the black out following the hurricane, so now the area is suddenly being thought of as in decline, when the real decline is actually due to wealthy orthodox jews moving in in large numbers and voting down the school budget each year (since they send their kids to religious schools).
Your inlaws fears are founded in racism and I am not too concerned about doing anything to coddle them. Instead, I would hope that by simply getting to know their new neighbors they would loosen their stereotypes.
What I've found in my history of dealing with collections is the parent company will sell to a collections (sometimes even owned by them) for pennies on the dollar (not even 25 cents, that's pretty liberal) and then the collections company comes after you for the full amount. That's stupid crazy.
Maybe even codify that if sold to collections, the max that can be recovered is 25% of the principal value outstanding. Makes it even less likely the company will sell it.
Maybe if the company is willing to write off the outstanding debt for 100%, they can get 75% towards reducing their taxable income contribution. This would probably hit all the really shitty areas of lending as it is. School loans, housing loans, medical bills, maybe even better all around.
Certainly beats collections and eventually bankruptcy.
I would definitely love to see things like this as well. I think that the credit/debt industry has been allowed to run rampant for too long.
However it's the difference between individuals being able to do something meaningful immediately versus lobbying for legislation and the turnaround time that takes. I know that participating in the system gives tacit approval for it, but I'd still rather see something like this happen than waiting years for government to finally listen and make improvements. Provided that they even did.
Also right now the only thing they're pursuing is medical debt, though I believe they'd like to eventually move to student debt and credit card debt.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
People should feel free to continue the gentrification discussion (which is probably big enough for its own thread), but I would like to bring it down to the level of personal experience again. I live in a remarkably non-diverse area (90+% white) and I find that people are very quick to write whole towns off as "bad" based on nothing but having 30%+ minorities, or even towns that just have smaller houses. With a couple of exceptions, these are all towns that have good schools, median incomes and home vales above the state medians and very low crime, and yet people react like they are ghettos. Growing up in NJ, I literally encountered the exact same attitudes. Is this some sort of incredible coincidence, or are these attitudes common outside of cities?
It's called racism. Some white people feel uncomfortable around minorities, especially ones from the city. It can be a result of ingrained old school Hang the N***** style racism, or the more insidious kind that gets into well off people who don't really engage with minorities or people from outside their social circle very often. My roommate in college was from Orlando, and he would tell us stories of how when the well off schools from the south side came up to his school for football games, the visitor's side was eerily empty and the people who did come were jumpy as shit.
So you get an effect where, because of stereotypes, people believe that a minority majority area is crime ridden or poverty stricken (and it often is because our poverty problem has in many ways co-opted our race problem) just because it isn't full of nice young white professionals.
I find these people often have the same attitudes about poorer neighborhoods that have a white majority as well.
Today poverty is our most pressing problem, it is soaked down into the bones of every other social ill we talk about but very often people ignore this fact.
I guess the question is more if this is universal. I wouldn't be surprised if in the south west (for example) a wealthy community that was half (nonimmigrant) hispanic and half white was viewed as comparable to an all white community, but I have no idea if that is true.
Edit: I would also think the same may hold true for Asians on the west coast.
I lived in a border community for a while. The racial tension there at comparable socioeconomic levels is much less severe than further inland. Interracial families are much more common and minority leadership has no taboo around it, but the remarkable thing I found was that the more anglicized and affluent Hispanic community treated illegal immigrants and monolingual Spanish speakers with the same animus as did their White counterparts.
What I've found in my history of dealing with collections is the parent company will sell to a collections (sometimes even owned by them) for pennies on the dollar (not even 25 cents, that's pretty liberal) and then the collections company comes after you for the full amount. That's stupid crazy.
Maybe even codify that if sold to collections, the max that can be recovered is 25% of the principal value outstanding. Makes it even less likely the company will sell it.
Maybe if the company is willing to write off the outstanding debt for 100%, they can get 75% towards reducing their taxable income contribution. This would probably hit all the really shitty areas of lending as it is. School loans, housing loans, medical bills, maybe even better all around.
Certainly beats collections and eventually bankruptcy.
I would definitely love to see things like this as well. I think that the credit/debt industry has been allowed to run rampant for too long.
However it's the difference between individuals being able to do something meaningful immediately versus lobbying for legislation and the turnaround time that takes. I know that participating in the system gives tacit approval for it, but I'd still rather see something like this happen than waiting years for government to finally listen and make improvements. Provided that they even did.
Also right now the only thing they're pursuing is medical debt, though I believe they'd like to eventually move to student debt and credit card debt.
It is certainly a nice gesture and stopgap. They should keep records of the debt they're eliminating so the owners of the debt can know. Wouldn't be unheard of with a collector to keep trying to collect, even after selling the debt.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
People should feel free to continue the gentrification discussion (which is probably big enough for its own thread), but I would like to bring it down to the level of personal experience again. I live in a remarkably non-diverse area (90+% white) and I find that people are very quick to write whole towns off as "bad" based on nothing but having 30%+ minorities, or even towns that just have smaller houses. With a couple of exceptions, these are all towns that have good schools, median incomes and home vales above the state medians and very low crime, and yet people react like they are ghettos. Growing up in NJ, I literally encountered the exact same attitudes. Is this some sort of incredible coincidence, or are these attitudes common outside of cities?
It's called racism. Some white people feel uncomfortable around minorities, especially ones from the city. It can be a result of ingrained old school Hang the N***** style racism, or the more insidious kind that gets into well off people who don't really engage with minorities or people from outside their social circle very often. My roommate in college was from Orlando, and he would tell us stories of how when the well off schools from the south side came up to his school for football games, the visitor's side was eerily empty and the people who did come were jumpy as shit.
So you get an effect where, because of stereotypes, people believe that a minority majority area is crime ridden or poverty stricken (and it often is because our poverty problem has in many ways co-opted our race problem) just because it isn't full of nice young white professionals.
I find these people often have the same attitudes about poorer neighborhoods that have a white majority as well.
Today poverty is our most pressing problem, it is soaked down into the bones of every other social ill we talk about but very often people ignore this fact.
I guess the question is more if this is universal. I wouldn't be surprised if in the south west (for example) a wealthy community that was half (nonimmigrant) hispanic and half white was viewed as comparable to an all white community, but I have no idea if that is true.
Edit: I would also think the same may hold true for Asians on the west coast.
I don't know if I can parse this. Are you asking if communities where hispanics and asians aren't an "immigrant" community anymore, or where they are in the majority, have fewer racial issues? I wouldn't know for sure, as I've only lived in places with high levels of wealth disparity (sometimes down race lines, sometimes not).
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
People should feel free to continue the gentrification discussion (which is probably big enough for its own thread), but I would like to bring it down to the level of personal experience again. I live in a remarkably non-diverse area (90+% white) and I find that people are very quick to write whole towns off as "bad" based on nothing but having 30%+ minorities, or even towns that just have smaller houses. With a couple of exceptions, these are all towns that have good schools, median incomes and home vales above the state medians and very low crime, and yet people react like they are ghettos. Growing up in NJ, I literally encountered the exact same attitudes. Is this some sort of incredible coincidence, or are these attitudes common outside of cities?
It's called racism. Some white people feel uncomfortable around minorities, especially ones from the city. It can be a result of ingrained old school Hang the N***** style racism, or the more insidious kind that gets into well off people who don't really engage with minorities or people from outside their social circle very often. My roommate in college was from Orlando, and he would tell us stories of how when the well off schools from the south side came up to his school for football games, the visitor's side was eerily empty and the people who did come were jumpy as shit.
So you get an effect where, because of stereotypes, people believe that a minority majority area is crime ridden or poverty stricken (and it often is because our poverty problem has in many ways co-opted our race problem) just because it isn't full of nice young white professionals.
I find these people often have the same attitudes about poorer neighborhoods that have a white majority as well.
Today poverty is our most pressing problem, it is soaked down into the bones of every other social ill we talk about but very often people ignore this fact.
I guess the question is more if this is universal. I wouldn't be surprised if in the south west (for example) a wealthy community that was half (nonimmigrant) hispanic and half white was viewed as comparable to an all white community, but I have no idea if that is true.
Edit: I would also think the same may hold true for Asians on the west coast.
I lived in a border community for a while. The racial tension there at comparable socioeconomic levels is much less severe than further inland. Interracial families are much more common and minority leadership has no taboo around it, but the remarkable thing I found was that the more anglicized and affluent Hispanic community treated illegal immigrants and monolingual Spanish speakers with the same animus as did their White counterparts.
I'm not surprised by that. It doesn't really seem any different from how the Italians went from opressed minority in America to mainstream oppressors of the Irish when given the opportunity. Othering other people is an effective way to look more mainstream yourself. Hell, there were emancipated blacks who owned slaves, weren't there?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
What I've found in my history of dealing with collections is the parent company will sell to a collections (sometimes even owned by them) for pennies on the dollar (not even 25 cents, that's pretty liberal) and then the collections company comes after you for the full amount. That's stupid crazy.
Maybe even codify that if sold to collections, the max that can be recovered is 25% of the principal value outstanding. Makes it even less likely the company will sell it.
Maybe if the company is willing to write off the outstanding debt for 100%, they can get 75% towards reducing their taxable income contribution. This would probably hit all the really shitty areas of lending as it is. School loans, housing loans, medical bills, maybe even better all around.
Certainly beats collections and eventually bankruptcy.
I would definitely love to see things like this as well. I think that the credit/debt industry has been allowed to run rampant for too long.
However it's the difference between individuals being able to do something meaningful immediately versus lobbying for legislation and the turnaround time that takes. I know that participating in the system gives tacit approval for it, but I'd still rather see something like this happen than waiting years for government to finally listen and make improvements. Provided that they even did.
Also right now the only thing they're pursuing is medical debt, though I believe they'd like to eventually move to student debt and credit card debt.
I think the scale is important. On a small scale, its a nice gesture and a good way to raise public awareness. On a large enough scale, you don't only tacitly approve of the system, but actually start to increase the incentive for banks to enter into predatory loans in the first place, since you increase the marketability of a loan in default.
What I've found in my history of dealing with collections is the parent company will sell to a collections (sometimes even owned by them) for pennies on the dollar (not even 25 cents, that's pretty liberal) and then the collections company comes after you for the full amount. That's stupid crazy.
Maybe even codify that if sold to collections, the max that can be recovered is 25% of the principal value outstanding. Makes it even less likely the company will sell it.
Maybe if the company is willing to write off the outstanding debt for 100%, they can get 75% towards reducing their taxable income contribution. This would probably hit all the really shitty areas of lending as it is. School loans, housing loans, medical bills, maybe even better all around.
Certainly beats collections and eventually bankruptcy.
I would definitely love to see things like this as well. I think that the credit/debt industry has been allowed to run rampant for too long.
However it's the difference between individuals being able to do something meaningful immediately versus lobbying for legislation and the turnaround time that takes. I know that participating in the system gives tacit approval for it, but I'd still rather see something like this happen than waiting years for government to finally listen and make improvements. Provided that they even did.
Also right now the only thing they're pursuing is medical debt, though I believe they'd like to eventually move to student debt and credit card debt.
It is certainly a nice gesture and stopgap. They should keep records of the debt they're eliminating so the owners of the debt can know. Wouldn't be unheard of with a collector to keep trying to collect, even after selling the debt.
They do. I believe they also send a certified letter to the debtor to let them know the debt has been forgiven.
I live in an area that's about 70% whites and 30% blacks, with a few other minorities.
When you hit rural there's a huge urban divide. And crime seems to follow the urban areas pretty equally. You encounter a lot more thefts and muggings and murders in areas where the minorities are present in large numbers. You also see a lot of white flight in my area still. Even if the minorities move into a super wealthy area.
I've encountered this myself and I've seriously given thought to up and moving because of the increased crime in my area. It's mostly kids. Kids of wealthy families, because it's definitely not cheap to live where I do. But replacing $500 things every time their broken/stolen is a bit out of my price point that I'd rather spend an extra $100 a month to commute.
White flight is a real issue by me too. My in laws (and their whole block) are very upset that a black family recently moved in. This is a family that was able to afford a $700k house, mind you. But still, everyone is very upset. There was also a break in during the black out following the hurricane, so now the area is suddenly being thought of as in decline, when the real decline is actually due to wealthy orthodox jews moving in in large numbers and voting down the school budget each year (since they send their kids to religious schools).
That's incredibly messed up. Is this a topic you can discuss with your inlaws? Or are you in a situation where you appear to accept/share their racism to preserve your own domestic peace?
I've discussed that with people in a similar situation before. Their response was that, sure, the family that can afford a $700K house is probably fine. But that family has more family. And because they are black, that extended family is probably poor and criminal. And their cousins will be over all the time, riding around the neighborhood on bikes looking for houses to break into.
Yar on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I live in an area that's about 70% whites and 30% blacks, with a few other minorities.
When you hit rural there's a huge urban divide. And crime seems to follow the urban areas pretty equally. You encounter a lot more thefts and muggings and murders in areas where the minorities are present in large numbers. You also see a lot of white flight in my area still. Even if the minorities move into a super wealthy area.
I've encountered this myself and I've seriously given thought to up and moving because of the increased crime in my area. It's mostly kids. Kids of wealthy families, because it's definitely not cheap to live where I do. But replacing $500 things every time their broken/stolen is a bit out of my price point that I'd rather spend an extra $100 a month to commute.
White flight is a real issue by me too. My in laws (and their whole block) are very upset that a black family recently moved in. This is a family that was able to afford a $700k house, mind you. But still, everyone is very upset. There was also a break in during the black out following the hurricane, so now the area is suddenly being thought of as in decline, when the real decline is actually due to wealthy orthodox jews moving in in large numbers and voting down the school budget each year (since they send their kids to religious schools).
That's incredibly messed up. Is this a topic you can discuss with your inlaws? Or are you in a situation where you appear to accept/share their racism to preserve your own domestic peace?
I never fight with my inlaws unless it is just to defend my wife if they are being jerks to her. Not worth it otherwise.
Edit: To understand the extent of the racism, you need to just talk to them for five minutes. Back in 2008, my (democrat) mother in law asked me very earnestly if I thought that Obama winning would make black people feel "bolder" or like they could "do anything they want." She also talk about how nice and well behaved the oriental students in her class are. When my wife got her belly button pierced (this was before we met) my mother in law got physically ill and my father in law told her she looked like a mexican with a chandelier on her stomach. . .
I've discussed that with people in a similar situation before. Their response was that, sure, the family that can afford a $700K house is probably fine. But that family has more family. And because they are black, that extended family is probably poor and criminal. And their cousins will be over all the time, riding around the neighborhood on bikes looking for houses to break into.
If they're teenagers, no matter the ethnicity, this is almost 45% true. Triply so if there's not a whole lot to do in the area.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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Sir Landsharkresting shark faceRegistered Userregular
I've discussed that with people in a similar situation before. Their response was that, sure, the family that can afford a $700K house is probably fine. But that family has more family. And because they are black, that extended family is probably poor and criminal. And their cousins will be over all the time, riding around the neighborhood on bikes looking for houses to break into.
If they're teenagers, no matter the ethnicity, this is almost 45% true. Triply so if there's not a whole lot to do in the area.
Teenagers do like to ride around the neighborhood on bikes.
Please consider the environment before printing this post.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I for one hate teenagers congregating anywhere. Especially if they have skate boards. And I think that graffiti or other "petty" vandalism is an absolutely terrible crime, and don't feel at all comfortable with writing it off as the indiscetions of youth. Yes, they are young and dumb, but is that a reason that the owner of a van or building shouldn't have an expectation of having their property left alone?
I've discussed that with people in a similar situation before. Their response was that, sure, the family that can afford a $700K house is probably fine. But that family has more family. And because they are black, that extended family is probably poor and criminal. And their cousins will be over all the time, riding around the neighborhood on bikes looking for houses to break into.
If they're teenagers, no matter the ethnicity, this is almost 45% true. Triply so if there's not a whole lot to do in the area.
Teenagers do like to ride around the neighborhood on bikes.
They also like to do stupid shit for the lawl.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I'm not sure what this thing is you're trying to get SKFM to realize. I don't think there is a universal truth that he must come to accept or be enlightened by. It seems you're expecting him to come to the same conclusions you have, which is not at all the same thing. I, for example, spent years doing relief work in Indian slums (which I assume counts as community service?), and I'm fairly certain I arrived at different conclusions regarding society and humanity than you did.
That to say: it's not what SKFM does, because the actions he takes will probably not add up to the conclusions you want him to reach. Assuming your conclusion on the matter is the valid one is a rather narrow position to take, and pretty much defies most of what we know regarding humanity.
...oh yeah, and huzzah for another post about SKFM! Let's keep the ball rolling!
It can't hurt him any to broaden his experiences. Nor is adjusting the tax code or donating to charities the only thing he can do to help people.
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tuxkamenreally took this picture.Registered Userregular
I live in an area that's about 70% whites and 30% blacks, with a few other minorities.
When you hit rural there's a huge urban divide. And crime seems to follow the urban areas pretty equally. You encounter a lot more thefts and muggings and murders in areas where the minorities are present in large numbers. You also see a lot of white flight in my area still. Even if the minorities move into a super wealthy area.
I've encountered this myself and I've seriously given thought to up and moving because of the increased crime in my area. It's mostly kids. Kids of wealthy families, because it's definitely not cheap to live where I do. But replacing $500 things every time their broken/stolen is a bit out of my price point that I'd rather spend an extra $100 a month to commute.
White flight is a real issue by me too. My in laws (and their whole block) are very upset that a black family recently moved in. This is a family that was able to afford a $700k house, mind you. But still, everyone is very upset. There was also a break in during the black out following the hurricane, so now the area is suddenly being thought of as in decline, when the real decline is actually due to wealthy orthodox jews moving in in large numbers and voting down the school budget each year (since they send their kids to religious schools).
That's incredibly messed up. Is this a topic you can discuss with your inlaws? Or are you in a situation where you appear to accept/share their racism to preserve your own domestic peace?
I never fight with my inlaws unless it is just to defend my wife if they are being jerks to her. Not worth it otherwise.
Edit: To understand the extent of the racism, you need to just talk to them for five minutes. Back in 2008, my (democrat) mother in law asked me very earnestly if I thought that Obama winning would make black people feel "bolder" or like they could "do anything they want." She also talk about how nice and well behaved the oriental students in her class are. When my wife got her belly button pierced (this was before we met) my mother in law got physically ill and my father in law told her she looked like a mexican with a chandelier on her stomach. . .
...your father-in-law has been watching the middle of Desperado too much, I think.
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
The whole point of this thread is that you want to understand other people. It's in the title. It's clear you're still far from reaching that goal IMO.
Harry Dresden on
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I've discussed that with people in a similar situation before. Their response was that, sure, the family that can afford a $700K house is probably fine. But that family has more family. And because they are black, that extended family is probably poor and criminal. And their cousins will be over all the time, riding around the neighborhood on bikes looking for houses to break into.
If they're teenagers, no matter the ethnicity, this is almost 45% true. Triply so if there's not a whole lot to do in the area.
Teenagers do like to ride around the neighborhood on bikes.
They also like to do stupid shit for the lawl.
I too dislike Teenagers.
When house hunting, we look up the demographics of the area first. It's amazing how much detailed information is available. Ave. age, income, education, DINKs, number of children and age of said spawn.
Areas seem to self-segregate along those lines, with the houses better suited to our needs (less, bigger rooms) and the surrounding areas have different parks (walking ones as opposed to fields)
Not sure if this is a chicken-egg situation, however at a guess I'd say schools was probably the instigator?
I worry that this thread may be going in a direction that is less useful, because the current topic is more about us conjecturing than having people actually describe their lives (which has been the life blood of the conversation until this point).
The whole point of this thread is that you want to understand other people. It's in the title. It's clear you're still far from reaching that goal IMO.
I have learned a ton in this thread. I have learned that people with less money shop less, not with the same frequency but in cheaper stores (this was a big surprise to me and my wife). I have learned a lot of other things too about poverty, relative values of goods and services, and perceptions of prices.
The line you just quoted was in reference to the tangent on gentrification and the inner city. Unlike the other discussions we have had in this thread, that discussion seemed to be more about abstract views than personal experiences, which is why I tried to steer in a different direction.
I've discussed that with people in a similar situation before. Their response was that, sure, the family that can afford a $700K house is probably fine. But that family has more family. And because they are black, that extended family is probably poor and criminal. And their cousins will be over all the time, riding around the neighborhood on bikes looking for houses to break into.
If they're teenagers, no matter the ethnicity, this is almost 45% true. Triply so if there's not a whole lot to do in the area.
Teenagers do like to ride around the neighborhood on bikes.
They also like to do stupid shit for the lawl.
I too dislike Teenagers.
When house hunting, we look up the demographics of the area first. It's amazing how much detailed information is available. Ave. age, income, education, DINKs, number of children and age of said spawn.
Areas seem to self-segregate along those lines, with the houses better suited to our needs (less, bigger rooms) and the surrounding areas have different parks (walking ones as opposed to fields)
Not sure if this is a chicken-egg situation, however at a guess I'd say schools was probably the instigator?
Really? I'd love to learn where most DINKs live in my area so I can avoid dealing with teenagers. Sigh.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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Thats not to say its a bad thing, because its not, but it definitely doesnt give one a view of the positive outcomes other forms of volunteering can provide.
I have never been mandated to do pro bono work. I think there may be a requirement now for young lawyers in NY, but there wasn't when I was staring out.
Sure, my girlfriend doesn't want her nails done or her hair braided, and I'd imagine most people in this thread don't visit the typical "urban businesses" that are plentiful in poorer neighborhoods, but those parts aren't the problem. It's when drugs and extreme poverty get involved.
The problem with ignoring poor people, or shipping them somewhere else, is that most people don't understand that money itself is not the problem. Plenty of poor people have housing and eat food. It's that often, people on the edge of poverty are struck with a life-changing event that requires a large sum of money. The healthcare debates have skirted around this issue in the public eye but it's largely why it's been an issue -- if you take someone who's barely making ends meet, and they get sick (through no fault of their own), they could end up owing a hospital tens of thousands of dollars. It just gets worse.
I think gentrification can be a force of good, since you can gentrify a neighborhood and have it help locals who find their streets safer and find it easier to locate services (more grocery stores, better foods). But it's not universal and it's not as easy as sending people away.
People should feel free to continue the gentrification discussion (which is probably big enough for its own thread), but I would like to bring it down to the level of personal experience again. I live in a remarkably non-diverse area (90+% white) and I find that people are very quick to write whole towns off as "bad" based on nothing but having 30%+ minorities, or even towns that just have smaller houses. With a couple of exceptions, these are all towns that have good schools, median incomes and home vales above the state medians and very low crime, and yet people react like they are ghettos. Growing up in NJ, I literally encountered the exact same attitudes. Is this some sort of incredible coincidence, or are these attitudes common outside of cities?
When you hit rural there's a huge urban divide. And crime seems to follow the urban areas pretty equally. You encounter a lot more thefts and muggings and murders in areas where the minorities are present in large numbers. You also see a lot of white flight in my area still. Even if the minorities move into a super wealthy area.
I've encountered this myself and I've seriously given thought to up and moving because of the increased crime in my area. It's mostly kids. Kids of wealthy families, because it's definitely not cheap to live where I do. But replacing $500 things every time their broken/stolen is a bit out of my price point that I'd rather spend an extra $100 a month to commute.
You know what, you're completely right (though I believe there were perhaps smaller mammals) but of course I meant 250,000. Silly me.
It's called racism. Some white people feel uncomfortable around minorities, especially ones from the city. It can be a result of ingrained old school Hang the N***** style racism, or the more insidious kind that gets into well off people who don't really engage with minorities or people from outside their social circle very often. My roommate in college was from Orlando, and he would tell us stories of how when the well off schools from the south side came up to his school for football games, the visitor's side was eerily empty and the people who did come were jumpy as shit.
So you get an effect where, because of stereotypes, people believe that a minority majority area is crime ridden or poverty stricken (and it often is because our poverty problem has in many ways co-opted our race problem) just because it isn't full of nice young white professionals.
I find these people often have the same attitudes about poorer neighborhoods that have a white majority as well.
Today poverty is our most pressing problem, it is soaked down into the bones of every other social ill we talk about but very often people ignore this fact.
Agreed. To make a medical analogy, most of our proposed solutions for social ills are a lot like just giving Tylenol to someone with terminal pneumonia.
Sure, it'll help their fever, for a while. They're still going to die of the infection suffocating their airway.
Do you guys think this is a good stopgap measure to help redistribute wealth and fight back against a system dedicated to keeping people in debt? I admit that personally, I kind of like the idea.
This means if they're willing to take 25 cents to the dollar from a collections company, they should be willing to take it from the debtor first. We should codify that into law. In conjunction, bankruptcy should be extended to private school debt, it's often predatory and I see no good reason not to.
Also, we should not allow any fee service hit credit unless they report good behavior too. Rental property, utilities, etc.
If you don't report, you can't hit the credit. This would encourage good behavior and lessen really shitty companies trying to make a quick buck.
White flight is a real issue by me too. My in laws (and their whole block) are very upset that a black family recently moved in. This is a family that was able to afford a $700k house, mind you. But still, everyone is very upset. There was also a break in during the black out following the hurricane, so now the area is suddenly being thought of as in decline, when the real decline is actually due to wealthy orthodox jews moving in in large numbers and voting down the school budget each year (since they send their kids to religious schools).
Maybe even codify that if sold to collections, the max that can be recovered is 25% of the principal value outstanding. Makes it even less likely the company will sell it.
Maybe if the company is willing to write off the outstanding debt for 100%, they can get 75% towards reducing their taxable income contribution. This would probably hit all the really shitty areas of lending as it is. School loans, housing loans, medical bills, maybe even better all around.
Certainly beats collections and eventually bankruptcy.
I guess the question is more if this is universal. I wouldn't be surprised if in the south west (for example) a wealthy community that was half (nonimmigrant) hispanic and half white was viewed as comparable to an all white community, but I have no idea if that is true.
Edit: I would also think the same may hold true for Asians on the west coast.
Your inlaws fears are founded in racism and I am not too concerned about doing anything to coddle them. Instead, I would hope that by simply getting to know their new neighbors they would loosen their stereotypes.
I would definitely love to see things like this as well. I think that the credit/debt industry has been allowed to run rampant for too long.
However it's the difference between individuals being able to do something meaningful immediately versus lobbying for legislation and the turnaround time that takes. I know that participating in the system gives tacit approval for it, but I'd still rather see something like this happen than waiting years for government to finally listen and make improvements. Provided that they even did.
Also right now the only thing they're pursuing is medical debt, though I believe they'd like to eventually move to student debt and credit card debt.
I lived in a border community for a while. The racial tension there at comparable socioeconomic levels is much less severe than further inland. Interracial families are much more common and minority leadership has no taboo around it, but the remarkable thing I found was that the more anglicized and affluent Hispanic community treated illegal immigrants and monolingual Spanish speakers with the same animus as did their White counterparts.
It is certainly a nice gesture and stopgap. They should keep records of the debt they're eliminating so the owners of the debt can know. Wouldn't be unheard of with a collector to keep trying to collect, even after selling the debt.
I don't know if I can parse this. Are you asking if communities where hispanics and asians aren't an "immigrant" community anymore, or where they are in the majority, have fewer racial issues? I wouldn't know for sure, as I've only lived in places with high levels of wealth disparity (sometimes down race lines, sometimes not).
I'm not surprised by that. It doesn't really seem any different from how the Italians went from opressed minority in America to mainstream oppressors of the Irish when given the opportunity. Othering other people is an effective way to look more mainstream yourself. Hell, there were emancipated blacks who owned slaves, weren't there?
I think the scale is important. On a small scale, its a nice gesture and a good way to raise public awareness. On a large enough scale, you don't only tacitly approve of the system, but actually start to increase the incentive for banks to enter into predatory loans in the first place, since you increase the marketability of a loan in default.
They do. I believe they also send a certified letter to the debtor to let them know the debt has been forgiven.
That's incredibly messed up. Is this a topic you can discuss with your inlaws? Or are you in a situation where you appear to accept/share their racism to preserve your own domestic peace?
I never fight with my inlaws unless it is just to defend my wife if they are being jerks to her. Not worth it otherwise.
Edit: To understand the extent of the racism, you need to just talk to them for five minutes. Back in 2008, my (democrat) mother in law asked me very earnestly if I thought that Obama winning would make black people feel "bolder" or like they could "do anything they want." She also talk about how nice and well behaved the oriental students in her class are. When my wife got her belly button pierced (this was before we met) my mother in law got physically ill and my father in law told her she looked like a mexican with a chandelier on her stomach. . .
If they're teenagers, no matter the ethnicity, this is almost 45% true. Triply so if there's not a whole lot to do in the area.
Teenagers do like to ride around the neighborhood on bikes.
If you provide them a skate park, it's amazing, because almost all your problems go away.
They also like to do stupid shit for the lawl.
It can't hurt him any to broaden his experiences. Nor is adjusting the tax code or donating to charities the only thing he can do to help people.
...your father-in-law has been watching the middle of Desperado too much, I think.
Not that I'd blame him.
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
The whole point of this thread is that you want to understand other people. It's in the title. It's clear you're still far from reaching that goal IMO.
I too dislike Teenagers.
When house hunting, we look up the demographics of the area first. It's amazing how much detailed information is available. Ave. age, income, education, DINKs, number of children and age of said spawn.
Areas seem to self-segregate along those lines, with the houses better suited to our needs (less, bigger rooms) and the surrounding areas have different parks (walking ones as opposed to fields)
Not sure if this is a chicken-egg situation, however at a guess I'd say schools was probably the instigator?
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
I have learned a ton in this thread. I have learned that people with less money shop less, not with the same frequency but in cheaper stores (this was a big surprise to me and my wife). I have learned a lot of other things too about poverty, relative values of goods and services, and perceptions of prices.
The line you just quoted was in reference to the tangent on gentrification and the inner city. Unlike the other discussions we have had in this thread, that discussion seemed to be more about abstract views than personal experiences, which is why I tried to steer in a different direction.
Really? I'd love to learn where most DINKs live in my area so I can avoid dealing with teenagers. Sigh.