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Comment by dagw

7 months ago

You either have to work for a living or you don’t

The words 'have to' are doing a lot of work in that statement. Some people 'have to' work to literally put food on the table, other people 'have to' work to able to making payments on their new yacht. The world is full of people who could probably live out the rest of their lives without working any more, but doing so would require drastic lifestyle changes they're not willing to make.

I personally think the metric should be something along the lines of how long would it take from losing all your income until you're homeless.

17 comments

dagw

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nosianu  7 months ago

> I personally think the metric should be something along the lines of how long would it take from losing all your income until you're homeless.

What income? Income from job, or from capital? A huge difference. Also a lot harder to lose the latter, gross incompetence or a revolution, while the former is much easier.

  • dagw  7 months ago

    Yea, should have been clearer. Income from work (or unemployment benefits) in this case. Someone who works to essentially supplement their income, but could live off their capital, is in a very different position than someone for whom work is their only source of income or wealth.

dgfitz  7 months ago

The sentence works without those two words. “You either work for a living or you don’t.”

Now what?

  • dagw  7 months ago

    Now it comes down to how you define 'for a living'. You still need to differentiate between people who work to survive, people who work to finance their aspirational lifestyle, and people who have all the money they could possibly need and still work because they either see it as a calling or they just seem to like working. Considering all these people in the same 'class' is far too simplistic.

mantas  7 months ago

Homeless or loose current house? Downsizing and/or moving to cheaper places could go a long way. Yet loosing current level of housing is what most people think want to avoid.

  • dagw  7 months ago

    Either work, but homeless is more absolute. For some downsizing means moving into their car and for others it means moving into a 3000 sq ft house, with a smaller pool, in the third nicest neighbourhood in town. But yea, losing your house and being forced to drastically downsize against your will is no doubt traumatic in both cases.

larrled  7 months ago

“from losing all your income until you're homeless.”

I’m willing to bet you haven’t lived long enough to know that’s a more or less a proxy for old age. :) That aside, even homeless people acquire possessions over time. If you have a lot of homeless in your neighborhood, try to observe that. In my area, many homeless have semi functional motor homes. Are they legit homeless, or are they “homeless oligarchs”? I can watch any of the hundreds of YouTube channels devoted to “van life.” Is a 20 year old who skipped college which their family could have afforded, and is instead living in an $80k van and getting money from streaming a “legit homeless”? The world is not so black and white it will turn out in the long run.