Fun napkin math fact: If we divvied up the top... 5 wealthiest billionaires net worth... that'd get every living man, woman, and child on earth a cool $250 ish.
Sure - its not very much but it certainly does make you think. What if...
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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And that's not at lot...for people in the US, like a month of groceries for 2 adults. Not touching other actual bills.
But in developing countries, $250 could rival a large percentage of their monthly wages.
In Zambia, average monthly wage is 130$.
Most of that would be in stocks you can't sell at once or they immediately lose value.
It's expensive being poor
Being poor is as close to being next to the wilderness that there is, other than homeless. None of the infrastructure we build is usable for them to be safe from the simplest threats of nature, like extreme temperatures, or bad food. Being that close is a struggle just to stay afloat.
Waiting for busses isn't a poverty problem, it's a policy problem.
It's both.
In fact, poverty itself is a policy choice of forced deprivation.
Yes he was a fascist. Also our buddy Epstein was involved in Iran contra https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-iran-contra-planes-leslie-wexner-pottinger-leese-arms-weapons-smuggling
over here it's very common to not be able to afford a personal vehicle. 1 hour commutes each way, while standing in a crowded hot bus is not only normal but even sorta decent.
at least we have shitty broken sidewalks.
Time poverty is a totally real and utterly overlooked hindrance
It's ruinning my friendships. I can't even fully be there for peolle, and they resent that.
One example I can think of is in the woodworking/DIY work I do. A common frustration of DIY projects is you often end up making many many trips to hardware stores. Often they're not even big runs, you just need an item to continue the project. You absolutely need it, and it doesn't matter if you've already been the the store twice today.
One way to reduce this problem is to buy more than you need. I once built a dust collection system out of PVC pipe and fittings. When starting, I went and bought way more parts than I knew I would need. I can afford to do this, and I knew that I would end up returning a good number of them. And I made sure to buy from a place with easy returns. But when working on a big project, I'll happily by 20-50% more of something than I'll need, just to reduce the number of emergency trips back to the hardware store. Saves so much time to just buy way more than you need and then return all the extras at the end of the project.
I enjoy the design aspect so I spend extra time challenging myself to make it in one run. I sketch everything up in detail and treat it like design me is handling the project of to diy’er me. Unexpected things that can’t really be seen don’t count like rotted joists, missing insulating, or other sub surface stuff but if project manager me fails I have to buy contractor me beer, if project manager me nails it then we celebrate with beer.
It makes things more fun for me but being able to afford what you’re talking about is a very valid point it just inspired me to share the mental game I play on myself to make things more enjoyable.
A brief personal report about fried chicken prices in America...
- 2025: $24-$26 dollars for 24 pieces.
- 2026: $26, $28, and now $31 dollars.
Also, I am seeing many items suffering from shrinkflation. Terrific. 😒
If I've learned anything, it's that bad public transportation is a conscious choice by the government.
Okay maybe I missed the Terry Prachett quote, but he wrote (paraphrasing) basically buying an awesome pair of boots that last takes decent coin, the people who need boots to last that long can never afford them so pay more for multiple cheap ones. Again paraphrased, but maybe it'll encourage more people to read him, think I read a few years ago but anytime anyone quotes him sounds worthwhile.
If this was said, I apologize, sort of quickly scrolled to check so may have missed. But seriously why do we make things so expensive to be less well off? Sounds downright stupid, unless you're making the dough I imagine. We should be making sure people can live comfortably especially with multiple jobs (though again not my preferred outcome, why should anyone need to work more than one full time job anyway?)
I just wish people could be comfortable with a single job even as a single parent if they need or would like to raise a kid. Though also think we're a tad overpopulated but that's not this discussion and still think if we allow it as a society then it should be possible as a single parent.
I am no kids person for the record, dated some mothers over the years but currently a dink (dual income no kids) more an 80s term.
The original, excellent passage:
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
That's a marker of the upwardly mobile. At some point they reach a threshold of wealth where they can be paying other people for their time.
Those who stay poor might look at them like they're spending money recklessly to pay for the help. They don't realize the financial crossover that's happening.
You know what’s also wild?
Paying Elon Musk for a blue checkmark.
Another thing about being poor is that once you get a bit of money its like pouring water onto a desert because of all the deferred things. Clothes, car repairs and tires, debt, dentist, medical care, shoes. The hole people get in is deeper than it looks. A few thousand can evaporate disappointingly quickly.
Being poor is super expensive. When you don't have enough money in your bank account they'll charge you a monthly fee. When you're too poor to have an account, you have to go to a check cashing place and pay to get paid. Too poor to have awesome credit? You have to pay higher interest fees and larger deposits.
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The SiFi movie "In Time" staring Justin Timberlake is meh quality wise, but the premise is really interesting... That the currency of that universe is the time someone has left to live. They do an interesting job playing with how wealth inequality changes behavior of people with and without time to spare
Same with being disabled, growing up I thought disabled people just got helped by everyone in society with everything. Turns out most of the time it's "do what you were doing before except harder."
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And the mecical bills one accrues for treatment of the ailments that are brought on by an immune system weakened by constant stress.
This is what I point out whenever someone tries to tell me, "The only fair thing in life is everyone gets 24 hours in a day."
That doesn't mean shit when someone with a private jet can be on a different continent in hours.
"We all have the same 24 hours in a day"
I fucking hate that saying so much. I've started telling people just because you and everyone else at the marathon might have the same 23 miles to go, when 9/10 of you are shackled to a heavy steel ball, and at least half are dragging 2 or 3, then that distance means fuck all.
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Waiting for buses and other public transport especially. In college I had no car and continued working a part time job that I previously borrowed my parents' car to commute to. My options were: spending an hour and a half to commute taking a bus with a reasonable schedule but I'd have to walk over a mile alongside a busy road to my job, or spend three hours to commute due to how two route schedules matched up to drop me off at the entrance to the shopping center.
Each of those options was one way, and this was before smart phones. I wasn't getting anything done in that time besides listening to music and maybe reading a book while on the bus itself.
And then I learned that on Saturdays, over half the time the bus just didn't fucking show up at the stop where I got on, and the support phone line would just fucking lie about it.
Plus, if I had a vehicle, the commute would have been only 20 minutes in bad traffic.
Will say, the regular distance power walking helped keep me in great shape though.
I don't know your distance for commuting. But I consider the bicycle the most superior form of commuting for distances below 10 miles(16km) (personally would even cycle more than double that).
It's even cheaper, keeps you healthy and often is even faster than a car, considering parking, traffic lights/jams etc.. I also enjoy doing that so another advantage.
I wonder how infrastructure would change if companies were required to reimburse valid claims of mileage or time spent (not the bus/train fare, but paying your wage for the time spent to get to work).
This could be a fantastic idea, and maybe a hammer blow to the "return to office" bullshit.
Sure, I'll go into the office. Pay me 25% more to account for the travel time.
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The time theft has a far reach. I’ve worked with kids who’ve gone inpatient for mental health, acting out in school, etc. Why? Because mom isn’t there. It’s not willful neglect. It’s neglect through not neglecting her motherly duties by working 2-3 jobs to keep the lights on and shoes on her child’s feet.
Time is a key reason we need to be paid more, have a much higher minimum wage, though it isn’t often mentioned.
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