Conversely if overextending yourself for whatever reason had no consequences, it would be to your disadvantage not to overextend yourself. How do we determine who should be "bailed out"? Seems the issues that are unavoidable that could cause ruin (illness/disability) should be addressed at a higher level than borrowing money with no recourse.

I have no issues with socialized medicine. In fact the fact remains medicare is actually the one functioning health insurance we have because the govt sets the rates that can be charged.

Unregulated healthcare is silly since people dont have a choice about their health ( not discussing the food choices )

People do have a choice about borrowing money.

Health is going to become a bigger problem once we reach a point in the development of our medicine when we could literally heal anyone.

Right now government-subsidised healtcare works because keeping yourself healthy simply can not be externalised to the government. But what if I could spend the beat of my years being a coke-snorting socialite hoping to meet someone at one of those parties who would make my life?

20-year alcoholic? Let us grow you a liver for the total of $2M of taxpayer’s money.

Bankruptcy is the safety net to bail out individuals. If you find yourself with too much debt to ever escape, regardless of how much it is and (mostly) regardless of how you got it, you get a reset button to wipe out all the debt you can't pay. The only negative consequences of bankruptcy (beyond the fact that it's not free to file) are the ones caused by the fact that it's the safety net; it's embarrassing to be forced to take it and lenders will judge you for needing it.

What are the negative consequences of filing for bankruptcy for the individual? If you're at the point where bankruptcy is recommended, it's only up from there.

They are either discharged of their debt or able to protect a house thru a payment plan.

Might have trouble finding an apartment. The lowered credit score will probably cause increased costs for things like car insurance. Life insurance may be a no-go. Employers in some industries do credit checks, too.

It's a good option in crushing debt, but it's not without significant mid-term downsides.

If they are in the ballpark of bankruptcy, their credit score will already be destroyed. Bankruptcy will actually improve a credit score

Bankruptcy will eventually improve the score. It's not instant, and may substantially worsen it in the short term. Some organizations that do credit checks may also have a "no recent bankruptcy" policy despite accepting lower credit scores.

Not everyone's way behind at the time they declare bankruptcy, either. We did it because six figures worth of medical debt was ceasing to be juggleable, and disability approval (and back pay) looked to be years out still. Credit score was largely fine at the time we filed.

I agree, bankruptcy is an unfortunate solution for unexpected medical debt, as it impacts ones consumer credit score. FWIW the GP comment was referring to "banks who loan money to folks who cannot afford it" which implies baling out consumer debt instead of filing for bankruptcy

Exactly, bankruptcy punishes the creditor which is how the system is designed. They assume the risk instead of passing it on to society.

Yes, people go bankrupt for various reasons. Some reasons are more-or-less outside your control (medical costs being number one), many are at least partially within your control.

When you say the government should bail out individuals, you're saying that I should pay for someone's gambling addiction, someone's lack of effort in finding a job after graduating from university with $150K in loans, someone's inability to manage their credit cards.

It's one thing to help people who are in need, something else entirely to help people who are in a bad place because of their own poor decisions.

> Disagree, You make the choices for life. Accept personal responsibility.

Most people do accept responsibility.

This is the problem:

>In the decade through 2018, average household incomes for those with a high school diploma have risen about 15%, to roughly $46,000, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data available.

>Not only is that less than the 20% increase registered on a broad basket of goods over the span, but key costs that play an outsize role in middle-class budgets have increased much more: home prices are up 26%, medical care 33%, and college costs a whopping 45%.

>To keep up, Americans borrowed. A lot. Unsecured personal loans, as well as mortgage, auto, credit-card and student debt have all steadily climbed over the span.

Companies don't give (adequate) raises. They return money to investors. So, every year, the middle class is losing ground.

These people are desperate. You can mock them all you want, but they're out there building your home, making sure your utilities stay on, deliver your produce to your favorite store. They're trying, but the economy is taking advantage of them.

> but the economy is taking advantage of them.

Interested in hearing how you explain this.

I dont disagree with you but I would like to know what you see as the root cause.

I'm pretty sure it's explained by the description of "Company gets money through directing employee labor, but an uneven portion of it is given back to shareholders instead of employees".

aka being employed is a worse deal than being an investor, disproportionately.

I was hoping for more insight than "my employer doesnt pay enough" ... while true its not really a root cause of the situation IMO

You can always start your own business or simply work for a different company. No one owes you employment.

> You can always start your own business

How is starting your own business an even remotely viable option for people who are so desperate that they're taking these predatory loans?

> What is stopping them from starting the business ?

Resources, obviously. If someone is screwed enough to have to reach for pay-day loans, that indicates they don't have enough resources. Likely their other credit lines are maxed out and their social support nets are either completely dissolved or just as illiquid as the prospective borrower is. So they can't invest any starting capital into the investment.

The second most important resource constraint they're going to be met with is time. Balancing commuting to work, keeping up the household, and full-time work of at least one job leaves you with an amount of time at the end of the day. Maybe they could invest that time into acquiring more marketable skills, but, hey, your lease is up in two months, and you just got the letter that inevitably tells you your rent is going up. Better start driving uber, trying to grab more hours, or doing whatever you need to to cover that new income gap that you'll be facing.

> What is the answer ?

There is no answer. You don't get conclusions when you're living in poverty in modern America. You just wake up every day and it's somehow worse than the day before.

You mean they cant go around cleaning houses / cooking for people or some other service job ?

Why do undocumented workers come here for the opportunity ?

> Why do undocumented workers come here for the opportunity ?

Because the United States has a bad habit of bombing their countries, killing their labor leaders, and destabilizing their economies through forced privatization and resource extraction.

Now you have started talking about the real issue. IMF , world banking , Federal Reserve.

The folks who can p00f money into existence from nothing (QE) then loan it to you so you have to work to pay back something they imagined into existence.

That is a problem. Also, personal responsibility (or the lack thereof) is a problem.

Jebus. Seems like everyone wants one thing to blame. It ain't that simple.

I’m going to assume that you’re young with limited life experience, which allows you to think that life is that clear-cut. I’d argue, but experience tells me I’ll have to wait until life decides its your turn to stand in front of the steam roller.

A much less charitable interpretation has you making convenient answers so that you can conveniently wash your hands of social responsibility. But, man, I hate think that about anyone, even anonymous internet commenters.

Wrong. 5 decades in, started in the trailer park and worked my way up.

Had enough life challenges to understand how this stuff works.

Then I guess option B is all I’m left with.

Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. You did that upthread and then did it more here. That's the wrong way to go. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and eliminate that kind of swipe out of your posts here—regardless of how wrong or annoying you feel another commenter is being. Maybe you don't owe them better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.

OK little story here

Abusive drunk family, plenty of legal issues as a child, ran over by a drunk driver, ( flatlined 3 times in ICU for a month and disabled ), divorced 2 times, 2 kids, married again, adopted 2 kids, worked my way into silicon valley, now I do ok

cliff notes of my life. Judge me all you want but what I have learned is life is a fight to the death. You can lay down and let it run over you complaining about how the deck is stacked against you or you can do the best you can.

Your choice. I have and will continue to help those who I see fighting the good fight but I have no empathy for quitters.

"Everyone should have it as bad as I did!"

This is a bad way to run a society, that everyone is "in a fight to the death," especially for the wealthiest nation in history.

We're sitting on enough resources to feed and house everyone, and the rich would still be fabulously rich.

"I struggled, therefore struggle is okay" is not the answer.

I didn't quit and because of that succeeded in spite of the obstacles.

There is your example.

Trust me... being on disability was an option and quite tempting.

I wanted more out of life than to sit around letting others take care of me.

You know that statement, the plural of anecdote is not data?

Lots of people struggle and what you're describing is just crab bucket. You struggled so you think it's okay if everyone does.

It's not.

Not struggling through life would be what I call privilege. Someone did struggle and gave you that privilege.

No one coasts through life without someone struggling.

What a horrifically uncharitable assumption to make.

Why not just actually argue the point you want to make rather than resorting to not-so-subtle personal attacks?

It’s uncharitable to have a disdain for those without empathy when a large component of success is luck?

If you think success is guaranteed with grit and hard work, you are woefully misinformed. You can do everything right and still fail hard. “Personal responsibility” is a dog whistle for the willful ignorance of the necessity of government regulation and social safety nets.

Granted I only have 5 decades of perspective but I have noticed people who get lucky tend to be the ones who dont quit.

The ones who quit tend to call those who dont quit lucky.

And those who don’t quit and still die in the gutter? “Lack of hustle”?

Your five decades is a drop in the bucket of human experience. I recommend more empathy and introspection on suffering of your fellow human.

I am not the only person with this perspective. Some very accomplished people agree with me.

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

You don't know that dying in a gutter was actually better than the other option for their life.

Emerson received a substantial inheritance from his first wife's estate, which gave him built-in income of about $30k/year (inflation adjusted).

Lucky people often prefer to pretend it was all hard work, but that kind of financial cushion makes a big difference.

You saying he lucked into a marriage ?

Marriage is work. This I do know.

The ones that die from medical conditions because they can't afford treatment you don't "notice" at all, since they are dead and gone.

Just like the rich didn't get rich entirely because of their own abilities, poor people didn't get poor because they chose to. Placing the poor people in an environment where there are better education, better healthcare and better career opportunities always results in better financial decision making. So the society bears most if not all responsibilities.

How can we eliminate poverty if it's entirely personal responsibility? Let me quote Mandela on this:

>Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is manmade, and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.

>Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural.

This is absurd. Man in nature has no house, no car, no money, no tools, no storehouse, he can eat only what he can catch, kill or forage for. Everything we have in civilisation was built by people working hard to escape the poverty and brutality of nature.

Yes. But no one is poor if everyone is poor. Poverty is a relative term. It's basically inequality in disguise.

Man is created with equal rights but not equal talents or intelligence.

If there is any luck in life its the genetic lottery.

We can go into the debate of how much inequality is healthy for a society to encourage innovation and hard work. However in many parts of the world and even U.S. I would say many talented and intelligent people didn't even get the chance to work hard to earn something because the society didn't provide them such a chance. Your personal experience is moving but the reality is many people are rich not because they worked hard and many poor not because they were lazy. Those (extreme) inequalities are a result of injustice. If a society is too unfair, that will surely discourage people to contribute to the society.

When society gets too unfair the poor have a way of equalizing the social status. Typically via violence.

History shows us this.

Financial abuse exists.

Why does this seem to only apply to the poor and not the rich and wealthy? When a company takes illegal action to pollute streams and gets a slap on the wrist, or investor kickbacks result in worse and worse wildfires in California, where's the personal responsibility?

When it comes to loans and bankruptcy we're expecting people to suck it up and live under the thumb of debt for the rest of their lives for the fall of needing money to pay rent, go to college or deal with medical bills.

I've been through enough shit myself that I have plenty of empathy for people with no choice. Calling them 'quitters' (in reference to your other comment') is absolute nonsense and simply a way of rationalizing FGYM.

You started and perpetuated a flamewar in this thread. Those are extremely lame discussions that we try to avoid here. Would you please stop and not do it again on Hacker News?

You also broke the site guidelines in other ways. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

How does your "functioning society" handle the disabled? Into the Soylent Green factory with them?

Their family has that responsibility.

I dont mind society creating allowances but the US has went too far and created barriers to small businesses with all of the disability requirements. I have many friends with small businesses that would like to start their own shop but the toilet requirement alone is almost 100k in up front cost.

Ridiculous.

Ask not what the US can do for you, but what you can do for the US.

Isn't this the exact same scenario you're claiming? Your friends should take personal responsibility instead of asking the government to bend to them. No?

(I'm trying to understand your logic here and how it applies to multiple circumstances. I think they're incongruous here, but I don't understand why.)

You dont need to spend that sort of money to make it so a wheelchair person can use the pooper. Govt regulations require you spend that sort of money.

Therein lies the problem.

They don't, though. Once someone turns 18 they are legally no one's responsibility but their own self's.

So you quit loving your mom and dad at 18 ?

And Im callous ?

What does that have anything to do with what I said?

Your discussion here has been nongenuine and not helpful. Better if you just didn't comment at all.

You're getting it backwards.

Your parents are only legally required to care for you up until your 18th birthday. Their function as a safety net may end at that moment. Plenty of folks have shitty, abusive, or neglectful parents who wash their hands of their children at the first opportunity.

Ah, so you're essentially arguing that people with disability essentially deserve to die if their family can't or won't take care of them.

That's a wonderful way to look at running a society. There's really not much else to say other than it's an incredibly warped viewpoint.

Not everyone has a family to fall back on.

> Their family has that responsibility.

Orphans? Abused children? What happens to them?

I have very few friends. I have a discriminating taste aka standards.

Something society has lost.

I would predict the reason you have few friends has less to do with your standards and more to do with other people's standards.

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