So this man posted his hospital bill on Reddit as an example of our flawed healthcare system and apparently, his situation is not completely unheard of. As a 20 year old who is contemplating bankruptcy because I owe 26,000 to a hospital when I was made to retract my 72hr notice several times and kept in conditions that violated my patient rights but was explained to me that I was basically less then human and had no rights several times so apparently that made the treatment ok. It’s funny because the first time I tried to off myself I was just sick of living in this world. The second time was because I was in debt for over three grand from a previous hospital visit and felt like I couldn’t handle the cost of treatment. After the second attempt, I was forced to stay for an extended amount of time because I couldn’t get an address for residency. So now I have several large hospital bills and it’s really hard to just bounce back after something this fiscally devastating. I don’t even know why I am contemplating a huge decision this early in life that will significantly impact my ability to get a car or apartment in the future. I wish I was born in Sweden or Norway, or even Canada, Canada seems awesome. How does one continue to live in a world where the cards are so stacked against you? And boyfriend is the epitome is this kind of mentality “it’s because they don’t work hard enough, it’s absolutely not a reflection on social inequality and circumstance.” Especially working in high end fashion companies there was so much discrimination against the poor, as if they wanted to be poor on purpose and just didn’t care enough to improve themselves. And this is where people get pissy and are like, well they should just go to community college, not a fancy private school. It amazed me that they don’t realize that going to college is a privilege in itself because in order to be able to do so you need a surplus of money to cover tuition AND living expenses since you will not be able to work when you have classes. The reality is that there is so little upward mobility in America, and maybe they have resigned to the fact that to make money you need money. Maybe I am taking the “oh woe is me” stance but the reality is that it truly isn’t an even playing ground and people refuse to recognize that.
My real point in all of this is that it is not uncommon for people to kill themselves because they are way in debt and can not see a way out of it. Even with bankruptcy it is very hard to bounce back. And yet I get all these people telling me that it’s fine and it’ll be ok. They are not the ones dealing with this. It makes me not want to be a part of this world. It’s also a bit of a catch-22 because the more I try to kill myself to escape debt the more I find myself in it.
I hate so many people, and I know that it doesn’t help to hate them, but sometimes I do wish they died or karma intervened because they made very real decisions to make my life much worse.
41 comments
rich people are jerks. Even lower-middle-class people are jerks to the poor.
You’re absolutely right: there is little to no upward mobility for the lower class, and there is no incentive for the wealthy to create a way for the poor to ascend to a decent living standard. They keep the poor poor on purpose, because if they didn’t, no one would do the low-level labor tasks that enable the rich to lead the lives they do. No one would do the shit jobs for shit pay, if they didn’t feel forced to do so, just to survive at all. If there was an easier way to ascend the financial ranks, the low-end jobs would cost more to fill, and the middlemen would lose their only path toward financial ascension.
Idk, i tend to think “fuck ’em.”
You can either try to play their completely rigged-against-you game, or you can try to avoid the game entirely, and create your own wealth acquisition system, by providing some kind of service that gently siphons small amounts of wealth from large numbers of people who have discretionary income.
Poor people only keep going when they feel they have a purpose. Whether that be “faith” or “love” or just being plain ornery, as long as they feel a purpose, they’ll keep going… until there is no more personal fuel to keep them churning as a neglected and oppressed cog, in a system designed to disguise enslavement as “opportunity to work.” Sure, opportunity to work… to make someone else rich, and to barely have enough to survive miserably until you can’t continue. Sounds like an “opportunity” i’d rather avoid altogether.
And here we are.
So true Clevername, you nailed it. Capitalism is nothing but slavery…”they” enslave us so they can live a life of luxury and freedom. They keep us poor to fill the menial, shit jobs nobody really wants to do but are forced to, to survive.
Of course if you manage to become very successful financially then most of life’s problems vanish but it’s very difficult to pull off. In essence capitalism is just one big uncontrolled Ponzi/pyramid scheme. Someone creates something new, like the internet, everyone rushes in to cash in…then move on to something else. The rest of us get left behind in our mediocre positions.
Then we have all these fake titles to give power to scumbags who get the authority to push other people around…make them do all the work while they maximize more leisure time to themselves. It’s actually the situation at my job.
I have no faith or respect for the capitalist system but I do see it as a useful tool, it does get the job done, without the need for lashes or putting guns to peoples heads.
In fact part of the reason I am suicidal is that my education didn’t allow me to go very far in the capitalist system which is geared to actually allow people like me to get further than most. I feel betrayed by it.
But until someone invents something better…this is what we’re stuck with.
Murica
lol
A CEO could skip a couple of days of work and no one would notice but if the city cleaners went on strike it would be mayhem. The most essential jobs are often the ones with the worst compensation. But even if you don’t “play into the system.” There is no way of avoiding it as we are all affected by the policies elected. Just the fact that companies get tax breaks that basically binds up our money compromises the funding for education. There is a CEO who says he makes millions each year and pays 11% to taxes and yet he himself admits there is only so much money a person can spend. Not enough of the money is circulating because it is tied up into stock and investments. On the other hand, these are the same shareholders who force other companies to limit pay and benefits in order to seem profitable.
It doesn’t seem as though there is way to avoid being a part of the system. It affects healthcare, it affects the policies and regulations that are put into play (usually to protect someone’s interest and wealth) and it does affect the people. I can’t have this “fuck’em” attitude when I feel as though I am being completely fucked over.
“…there is only so much money a person can spend.”
I beg to differ. I guarantee i could find a way to spend more money than anyone on the planet currently possess.
“Not enough of the money is circulating…”
And the main reason for this, is not “tied up in stock and investments,” but rather, people make their fortune and then exit the system, which removes that portion of wealth from circulation, to whatever degree they “save” it. They siphon wealth from the system, primarily through banking strategies, and when they feel like they have enough, they extract that wealth and just sit on it. It’s not being used or circulated (minus whatever parts they actually spend, which they minimize), it’s being hoarded.
People get it, make their fortune, then get out, taking that fortune with them.
Where did it come from? Where does it go?
This increases the gap between the ultra-rich and the poor, creates a vacuum in the middle, to facilitate the funneling of wealth from the “masses,” into the middle and upper class, and the poor lose access to any of that wealth, while trading their decreasing time-resource for an ever-decreasingly valued currency, which is intentionally inflated to create the illusion of worth… while in fact, that inflation decreases the worth of that currency, which in turn decreases the perceived value of labor, which subsequently decreases the perceived value of life itself.
We are literally cattle. When we stop producing their profits for them, they let us starve to death, or die of whatever ailment their system has allowed or caused us to develop.
I never liked the ‘sheeple’ reference myself, cows does fit a lot better.
moo
Are you saying you would act differently if you suddenly got rich for whatever reason (inherit from distant relative or whatever)?
I’m pretty sure if you were born in an economically middle or upper class family (I just assume you weren’t) you would do the same thing they do now because you would’ve developed to be a totally different person.
you’re potentially correct, but i can’t confirm it without having been born into a significantly different scenario.
Although… it’s also possible that i would have been very similar, and would have realized that my advantages had colored my perspectives, and it’s unlikely that i would not have encountered hardships along the way, despite being wealthy, or at least sufficiently compatible with the system, so that i would have actually had a life.
Well, no offense, but isn’t it called double standard if you criticize someone for doing something despite the fact that you would (very probably) do the same thing if you were in his situation?
“Although… it’s also possible that i would have been very similar”
Possible, but unlikely if many more rich people are jerks than good human beings (that’s just empirical probability). Unless there is something which defines you and which is indifferent from the family and situation you are born in: But then you couldn’t take the responsibility (or the credit) for anything related to this property of yours because you did not create nor influence nor form this part of your character.
Hmmm…
I see where you’re going with this, and perhaps it’s not fair to say “rich people are jerks.”
But it’s just easier to say rich people are jerks, than to precisely articulate the nature of the problem. Just like it’s easy for them to generalize that all poor people are intentionally poor.
Actually having been on both sides of the spectrum, it is very easy for those who obtain wealth to feel an entitlement to said wealth, and thus minimize the struggles that make said wealth harder to enjoy (easier to blame others for their circumstance). Even if it was just ill-gotten money they have done research that shows (you can look it up, it was done with a simple group study using monopoly of all things) that most people feel as though they inherently deserve money they did not earn, even if it was purely by chance. It is the same reason why clevername pointed out that the rich have a tendency to hoard money, since money is so transient. It’s a survival mentality. I do not think it creates a double standard to point out that some people do recognize their advantage and do advocate change. Does that also make them a hypocrite? Many are starting to recognize that when people have less disposable income they are not able to buy the very products that the wealthy are trying to sell to up their investment market.
“I do not think it creates a double standard to point out that some people do recognize their advantage and do advocate change”
The double standard is not about recognizing some kind of behavior of rich people, it’s about saying that this behavior is morally bad when you would actually behave the very same way if your roles were swapped.
I would have to say from my own experience that no, not all of those who were born in a wealthy families behave in morally inept ways. Having wealthy friends who made upwards of half a million annually (and were born into money) were still cognizant of the social injustice that prevailed. And we label it as morally condemnable because it negatively effects and weakens the infrastructure of our society as a whole. So would we all behave the same way if our roles were swapped? I suppose it depends on your own ethical integrity.
If i behaved that way, i would still be “morally bad,” even if i didn’t realize it.
I thought a little more about this… i’m pretty sure my genetics would still have ended up producing a similarly capable mind, in the more favorable conditions associated with wealth.
It probably would have taken me longer to learn not to be a jerk, but i would have learned it anyway, because of “what” i am, perhaps more than “who.”
If i was that “rich jerk,” i would then deserve all the criticisms levied against rich jerks.
@alum: There is a difference between swapping roles now and pre-birth.
In the first case the person who has witnessed poverty himself and who swaps roles with a rich guy will maybe be more grounded and use his wealth for better things than his own profit (I’m saying maybe because the previously poor guy would still have to be a morally good person, which isn’t necessarily the case). I think we can still say that overall having witnessed poverty yourself has a positive influence on your morality.
In the second case if you were initially born into a rich family you would have never gone through whatever poverty or needs you witnessed in your actual life. You would have been educated and raised by the rich family and their moral concept and if those moral concepts were selfish ones you would probably end up as the “rich jerk” (I’m saying probably because you still have the option to not listen to your parents and with your free will decide to live a better life).
Even if you swapped roles like in the first case and you would actually be a better rich guy than the average; if you would end up a “rich jerk” in the second case with pre-birth swapped roles it is double standard to say what wealthy people are doing is morally bad.
@clever: The question is whether intelligence necessarily leads to morally good behavior. And if that is the case; can you take credit for your morality if it only comes from your intelligence which itself comes from your genes which you cannot influence yourself? If the answer to this question is yes (which imo isn’t the case), then rich guys could take credit for their inherited wealth as well even if they didn’t work for it.
the opportunity comes from the genes; morality comes from what i choose to do with the information i encounter.
The Buddha started out as a prince, saw the “four noble truths,” and rejected his own material wealth. I would say he was a pretty intelligent guy… not because he rejected his wealth, but because he traded it for something that’s still considered valuable today… which he gave freely, when/where he thought it appropriate to do so.
I wish life was something where if you wanted out because it didn’t look good you could just opt out.
But it is, and you can.
Life is in fact something that you can decide not to continue, for any reason you deem acceptable. The only real problem is that there is no alternative, after opting out.
It would be great if it was like a video game, and if you happen to mess up your character, you could just “re-roll,” start over, knowing what you learned, with a much better strategy to make a viable and successful character.
Another problem is that there are indeed ways to opt-out of “the game,” without dying… but unfortunately, it requires a substantial sum of liquid assets, to be able to buy your non-fatal and still sustainable exit from the system.
We’re born into something that requires work we don’t want to do, in order to buy our way out of that system.
If that’s not slavery, i don’t know what is.
You know, my solution is I just kind of do nothing. It’s lazy, irresponsible, and it pisses a LOT of people off. XD
So how do you eat?
Barely.
I saw all this coming when I was young. I developed a fear of ending up in debt, which is probably why I own nothing major. I think my parents always warned me. I seem to remember when I was young, the thought of winding up with debt in relation to suicide. I’m only about 7,000 in debt now. …manageable!
Hell, even low and middle class people will ditch you and leave you to die the moment it’s more profitable for them (i know there are exceptions, but it’s a minority), so i don’t expect better from rich people and it’s no wonder the system is a modern way of slavery (even if some people refuse to see it). At times i think people forget humans are still animals with a bit more of intelligence. And even that bit more of intelligence can make them ruthless and worse than “regular” animals”.
yep.
The only issue i take with that, is that the lower and middle class must necessarily hold a higher value on “profit,” because it’s even more necessary for them, than for the already-wealthy.
Lack of security, including financial security, often creates a painful type of motivation that is simply unavoidable.
I do agree that logically that makes sense, but it’s not the case most of the times, i think it has more to do with the individual values and goals. For example a happy poor guy who won’t compromise his values to get more money vs a rich guy who has more than enough but would betray his friend or co-worker if it benefits him.
Also the idealization of money thanks to society plays a big part there, since there’s hardly anything you can do without money anymore (i’m waiting for the day they make a tax on breathing). I wonder what would happen if the trade system was inserted into society as a replacement for money in today’s world.
@M Complete and utter collapse of society.
@thanatos: Yeah i was thinking something along those lines. It would be fun to watch tho.
lots of people think an utter collapse of social and financial infrastructure is where we’re headed.
Speaking of putting a tax on breathing, there is a video of the CEO of nestle expressing his belief that clean drinking water should not be a human right and that all water should be privatized by larger companies. Yep, certain doom and corporate greed.
I thought we had a chance to restructure the financial system after the last crash but all they did was to prop it up again and then it’s service as usual with all the inherent problems it has so another crash is probable but whether it’ll bring down the whole of society I don’t know but perhaps that’s what we finally need to see sense.
Fucking nestle?!?! Well, I’m not buying nestles goods.
I like to think of it as the modern feudal system.
🙂 Feudal system, larger scale.
I personally know a doctor who was $140,000 in debt by the time he finished earning his undergraduate degree and completed medical school. He only earned around $30k/year during his first couple of years as an intern. He took out student loans to finance eight years of higher education, and he didn’t start earning “real” money until he was thirty. He came from a blue collar background.
Now he’s in his late 40’s and doing quite well financially. He’s paid off all the back debt and he’s sitting comfortably somewhere in the top 5%. Really nice guy. He doesn’t talk about money, although his wife will occasionally reveal some juicy insights about their assets.
Anyway, my point is that there are wealthy people who are genuinely good people. The Doc didn’t lie, steal or cheat his way to the top. He had to take out student loans to pay for his education. The only advantages or privileges he was born with were intelligence, determination, and a steely resolve when it came to pursuing his ambition. He knew as a child that he wanted to live comfortably, and if that meant a decade of sacrifice and hard work in order to achieve his goal, he was willing to do whatever was necessary.
Becoming wealthy is not easy for people who weren’t born into money. But there are a handful of people who do it. “Impossible” isn’t the same as “difficult”.
I understand what you are saying C4 but is it not similar to the idea of racial blindness? Resolving to not see the social inequality makes it more difficult to achieve equality when you refuse to recognize it. When asked about about how people view race, most respond that they would like to see equality. But that means recognizing that equality is not abundant and that change is needed. It is not impossible to achieve success but these stories are also the exception. Recognizing that those at a socio-economic disadvantage have less likelihood to afford the same opportunities allows us to help those that do not have the means to an education to succeed (ei. scholarships).
The mentality that people are poor just because they do not work hard enough is a myth. Plenty of people work extremely hard but few will succeed. And it is simply because it is not an even playing field. Should we look at the few that got lucky, had supportive family members, as a benchmark standard for everyone else? What if we made it easier for dedicated and driven students to contribute something meaningful to the world? Would that not also be a great thing?
one advantage most neglect to list, is the advantage of Lack of Disadvantage.
It’s quite a different picture when one’s parents screw them over in ways that prevent the decision to dedicate a decade of youth to the pursuit of a lofty career.
In my case, that decision was made, but it was akin to deciding that water isn’t wet, and that fire isn’t hot. No matter how much i might “decide” that reality is whatever i insist it should be, that doesn’t change the fact that water is wet, and fire is hot, no matter how dedicated i may try to be, to the contrary.
It’s not all about the individual deciding to work hard and following through. It’s also about the decisions made by the other people in the shared environments (e.g. “socio-economic disadvantage”), and how those decisions limit the opportunities of others who would otherwise succeed, if not forcibly exposed to excess arbitrary requirements.
Most people take baseline stability, or even the ability to manifest it through choices and effort, for granted. Some of us have never had and will never have the opportunity to “just work hard toward your goal.” Some of us are stuck working hard just to not die. Goals and available paths to strive toward them, are a luxury not all of us are afforded.
@clevername; I don’t know your background or what your parents did to impede your progress. All I can say is this: At the age of 18 I determined that my parents were a toxic influence. What they wanted for me was not what I wanted. I could take their advice and be miserable living my life for them, or I could disregard them and do what I felt was best for me.
Walking away from them was a huge relief. It was like dropping a massive turd in the toilet, flushing the handle, washing my hands and feeling rejuvenated. Eliminating an unnecessary source of misery was liberating. I only communicated with them a handful of times for about ten years. (Even now, I only communicate with my mom 4 or 5 times a year. I rarely call her – she calls me).
You don’t owe your parents just because they gave you a life you never asked for. If your parents prevent you from pursuing your goals because your dreams are at odds with what they want for you, you gotta drop ’em and move on (or be miserable living a lie). Your life belongs to you – do what you want and don’t let the naysayers influence you.
(File this one in the Ayn Rand motivational monologue folder).
i was already ruined by the time i turned 18. Before that even. I had several years of trying to make it in the real world on my own, and for a little while, it looked like things might finally work out… but that was bullshit, and it’s been one thing after another ever since. I might have some exceptional qualities, but the lack of disadvantages is what i wasn’t lucky enough to have.
if i had a way to support myself, i wouldn’t be stuck where i am. It has nothing to do with feeling like i owe anyone anything. But that’s not to say i wouldn’t feel at least slightly guilty about not being here for the people who apparently need me a bit more than i ever realized. I personally don’t think there is anything about me to need… so i attribute it to the types of neurosis that my insane family members have imposed upon and around me. It doesn’t just slide right off, either. One of the problems is that i have no way of escaping this place without “living a lie.” There are no jobs i can get and keep, which would pay enough for me to be able to afford to correct the problems stopping me from being able to work.
All i can expect is to fade into insanity until gravity finally pulls me over the edge of the cliff. All i can hope for is to spread my ideas into the human collective, in hopes that anything i learned and was able to express, might help someone else more than any of it ever helped me. Because that’s the one good thing that came from me having a totally fucked life, from the beginning: i had copious amounts of time to Think, and to attempt to communicate the things i thought were worth expressing… even if i didn’t have much of an audience.
Plus, you know… where would i even go? WA/CO isn’t the dream vacation-land it’s currently being hyped up to be. I wouldn’t make it there either, without help. And i don’t think there is anyone with the resources to do so, who would be interested in actually helping me. It’s not that i think anyone owes me anything; they don’t. It’s that i’m in such a deep hole that i need a favor no one’s offering, that would be absurd to even ask for.
So idk. Maybe i’ll think of something… or maybe i won’t be able to use any of the creative solutions i can think of. That’s pretty much how it’s always been for me.
That’s a grim assessment, although I suppose this site isn’t famous for rosy weather forecasts.
Mentioning you in my prayers probably won’t help, especially since I don’t pray. Good luck just the same.