I heard exact same anecdote about boots from my grandfather loooong time ago. It’s possible that author hadn’t had chance to hear in “in the wild”.

I believe it’s one of those wisdoms passed from generation to generation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

If you have a good credit score you can put down a few thousand on a down payment and get a Toyota Corolla with 50k miles for $10-15k that is likely to last for another 200k miles without major repair. If you don’t have a good credit score, the most that downpayment will buy you without a loan is a total crapshoot that can break down and total itself at any time.

You can get really decent pair of stable boots that can last many years for pretty reasonable price. The increase in quality compared to price of some super custom boots isn't actually sensable.

99% of what rich people buy is not of some massively superior quality. Specially in terms of clothing.

Maybe some really good winter clothing is a exception, but even then layering is probably a better solution to stay warm.

So really I don't buy this explanation unless people can give me some better examples.

And if you have a nation where you have lots of apartments buildings, you can actually buy an apartment if you want. And even as a reasonably poor person you might be able to afford mortgage on a cheapish apartment.

And even if you concede this example, housing is a special category and one the largest expanses. The whole 'boots' analogy suggest this is an everyday situation.

Also, taking on 30 years of debt is something, that mathematically might make sense, and many people handle it easily, but it's a huge mental burden to others. You take on the risk above, on the assumption that your income is stable for 30 years, but then you break your leg and get fired during corona. I don't have data on this, but 2/3 of the parents of my sister's classmates were divorced, so how do you smartly assume a stable family income for decades while not being naive about it?

This is all for "poor" people, who can't afford the risks mentioned.

It does happen quite literally in the real world with umbrellas, by the way. I live in a quite rainy area. Around 7 or 8 years ago I spent around €60 on a good Knirps umbrella, haven't needed another at the moment. When I bought cheaper umbrellas (not really due to skimping, but I didn't really know the good ones) they only lasted 1-2 years before totally breaking and becoming unusable.

That's a political choice made in the US not nothing inherent.

And I don't have any idea what most of these other things are.

And determining if something is a 'dip' is just stock speculation.

It's what a poor person would invests in. There is great truth in your comment. We are ignorant of opportunities available to those in higher classes. Tax tricks, off shore businesses, multi million dollar art collections. I have no idea how these things work but I guarantee you it helps wealthy people build more wealth through opportunities not available to the poor.

You don't need to be rich to make reasonableness investment choices with your limited savings.

Tax tricks are less important or impactful if you are poor. However I agree that the tax system is not helping. Moving to a simple tax system would be good for everybody. Payroll taxes are regressive for example.

Most middle class people don't have off-shore accounts, and we are comparing the poor to the middle class, not to the super rich. The same goes for art collections.

Those are things that make the super-rich different form middle class, they don't prevent poor people from becoming more affluent.

That's my point. Just like poor people don't have enough space in their apartments to store bulk goods. The cost of being poor is invariant to your wealth. It's asking the wrong question.

Taking short term opportunity of sales of singular items makes sense. I often buy meat depending on what's for sale, but not months worth.

Maybe once in a while you can buy bulk for dry-store items like pasta or rice.

So I can buy that yes, there some potential places where this theory could potentially apply.

However, if you derive a social theory from these effects, I would like to see some evidence of this effect being really large.

Compare that with the land use situation I keep bringing up, we have prove and had it for a long time that density and walkability does massively reduce the living cost of poor. This was modled in detail for California for example:

This video shows the results of some modeling done for California by a famous urban planner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtdFbK4YG4

Umbrellas often get left behind in bars and are available for cheap second hand, sometimes even free. I have one, that I almost never use but I had it for 5+ years and it was many years old before that and it looks like a really cheap model and its still usable.

So sorry, I don't buy a social theory based on higher quality umbrellas being not affordable. Specially for an item that isn't actually required. A cheap umbrella can still last years.

If you could built a real social theory based on this concept, then it should be easy to list lots of things that are really high impact, not umbrellas that are a vanishingly small portion of spending.

We could paraphrase the above as "the cheap version will last as long as the expensive version if you just don't use the cheap version!".

While technically true, it's also not useful.

However I will agree there are likely more cases where buying the cheaper product is the most economical option even in the long run - obviously true for perishable items, but e.g. when deciding to buy 2nd hand vs new, and yes, even for things like clothes, there are clearly examples of items whose price bears little relation to their likely longevity. Though I would suggest in general that a $100 pair of shoes is likely to last more than 4 times longer than a $25 pair.

There's always a point of diminishing returns, but it doesn't really make much odds where that is if you've not got the money. If you've only got £20, it doesn't really matter that good long lasting boots can be bought for £50 not £300.

If you can buy one pair of shoos for £50 and it will last you for years, then the vast majority of society can afford it.

Those that can't should be on social welfare and that should be a small % of the population.

So the question really is how many % of you society requires welfare to live above the poverty level and how can you reduce that number.

One can argue that this effect is real, but I don't think it works as an explanation for poverty.

An example is generally a way to solidify or convey an idea.

Why do some people think that attacking the example somehow invalidates the idea?

It's an excerpt from a fantasy book.

Usually when you hear an example, even a bad one, you can easily in your head find many other examples.

In this case however, not only is the example flawed. But also, most other things I can think of don't line up with this idea. Cars for example, a 2nd hand Prius from Toyota is more reliable then a BMW. Most clothing is costed based on style, not functionality. Public transit doesn't line up with this concept. Electronics don't really line up with this concept either.

For food concept also doesn't really seem to work, more expensive food doesn't have better nutritional value. Beef and fancy wild rice isn't better for you then chicken and pasta.

So when you use an example, making it a really good example is generally preferable. And boots I don't think are that great of an example. Specially because most richer people don't buy some fancy shoes and then wear them for years and years.

So if your gone have a whole theory of wealth inequality, then I would hope some better examples exist, but so far I have been unable to think of any.

Housing is the only one that might come close, but housing is always somewhat special and doesn't work that well.

Let's imagine you're a poorer person with no access to a car. You can still buy the same beans and the same rice but you're paying corner store prices rather than supermarket and you can't buy in bulk because you can't transport the goods home. This is an example of poor people paying more despite having less and it's common.

So what's cheaper, buying food in bulk while owning a car. Or buying food at the corner store while not owning a car?

Not to mention that with a cheap second hand bicycle you should be able to reach the same super-market chain that most people drive to and pay the same prices.

And you are also ignoring the storage issue. If you buy in bulk you just pay for the storage cost. The same goes for waste, the US has absurd levels of food waste. The reason, people buy in bulk don't consume it and throw it away. That what you get when you have a culture where people make big trips to big box stores.

Also, what about infrastructure cost. How much infrastructure cost is between your house and that big box store, who pays for that?

Also where do you park the car? Free street parking is clearly society subsidizing the rich, and should be abolished. How much does a garage cost?

In your world the ideal society is one where everybody can drive to Cosco once a month and load a car full with ever possible thing?

So you are complaining on the wrong level. People aren't poor because a corner store is slightly more expensive, they are poor because land use patterns for them and society into ineffective way off live.

I know a man who dated a woman in college whose family was so rich she didn't know how to operate a washing machine, the help did that. Her solution to the conundrum was to just buy new clothes. One can imagine that when talking about the "middle class" she probably thinks they're like her except with less money. But you and I can recognize this as existing in an entirely different world than the middle class.

And in that vein, poor is not "middle class but with less money".

We're not talking about buying a corolla off the lot because you can't afford a BMW. We're not talking about buying a 2 year old corolla because you can't afford a BMW either.

We're talking about buying a $300 car that just happens to be a corolla and can't be driven on the highway because it flat doesn't go fast enough to legally do so. We're talking about owning 2 $300 cars to mitigate the risk when one of them inevitably breaks down and the constant repairs as a result causing the TCO of that vehicle to be far greater than the newer model corolla you're comparing it to. We're talking about not being able to afford insurance on one, or both, of those so that you're always in fear of police.

We're talking about the constant need for money for the laundromat because you can't afford to purchase a washer and dryer, or you live in a place where such things aren't even possible.

And if your thought goes anywhere near "well just buy another $300 car when that one breaks down", it means you have zero understanding of what it means to be poor.

If you actually lived in a society where there are cheap apartments in walking or biking distance from reasonable urban infrastructure and all the job that are there. So that you don't have to pay for your commute, or have some very local public transport.

That is what actually safes real money. That is how people in really poor places, like the Eastern block could reasonably approach a decent standard of living with far lower GDP. They lived in apartments, and had most things they needed close to them.

That is how you systematically can even approach to solving these issues.

If your analysis is restricted to, poor people can't utilize economics of scale on an individual bases, then you have a flawed view of poverty.

Consistently housing cost and transportation cost approach almost 50% of total living cost even for the middle class. And more then that for the poor, add food and you are going 90%+.

So if you can systematically so something to reduce housing cost and transportation cost, then you are actually changing lives on a real scale. Far more then buying food in slightly larger quantities, far more then buying slightly higher quality shoes.

Also: If we had a cashless society things would be different, but we don't, so they're not. These what-if's don't actually help the poor.

No idea what cashless has to do with anything ...

70 years of bad urban planning really did hurt the poor and the only way to fix it is to actually fix those issues systematically. Not sure how this is moving the goal post. This is the exact topic we are discussing 'Why it costs so much to be poor'.

And it doesn't actually take that much, a few changes to zoneing law, different usage patterns for existing infrastructure, some extra bus lines and so on. Nothing that is actually crazy or that expensive. These things could have a huge impact already.

Obsessing over minor issues like food bulk buy vs smaller shopping when housing and transportation is the true issue is actually the exact problem.

Nothing completely solves the poor people problem and I have not claimed on doing so. Specially when we talk about thing we do in first world nations, as most people live in places like India and Indonesia and the problems there are actually pretty different.

They lack infrastructure when in the US the problem is actually that there is, to much and it not used effectively.

This articles is about:

> The cost of being poor: Why it costs so much to be poor in America

And I am point out things that are almost universally accepted by urban planning community know-days. It address this specific point, why cost of living are so high in the US for poor people.

Addressing these points would not solve poverty, but it would reduce a huge cost burden from a huge part of the population and would improve living quality substantially.

This was modeled by a famous urban planner for California: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtdFbK4YG4

I have so many car stories from when I was young. Cars that had no floor (you could literally see the street as you drove), to cars that needed 2 people to start (solenoid bolt was stripped so it required someone holding it in place).

I've been driving my current vehicle since 2004 (a corolla, actually) and I plan on driving it for another 15-20 years if I can. The one thing that would convince me to get rid of it is if it started leaking oil. I've just seen too much of that when I was young, constantly putting oil in because it's leaking and it's too expensive to fix.

To this day it feels magical to have a reliable vehicle I know will start when I turn the key. That stuff sticks with you.

Two cases where it can still apply are toys (Lego lasts forever even if some pieces get lost/broken but damn is it spendy) and things like https://saddlebackleather.com/mens-leather-backpacks/ - I have one that has lasted 10+ years so far and none of the previous Walmart specials lasted more than three years. Could a middle ground be found? Sure.

Another example these days might be energy related - if you’re “well off” you can afford to get a well insulated house with solar and such to offset future energy costs.

I still see those quite often. Now it could be that the same model was sold later. I had mine for many years and used it daily. And to be honest I could have continued using it but we were rich enough that my mother simply bought another one.

Cheap backpacks go for 30$, so even replacing them every 3 years isn't a bad deal compared to the 600$ backpack that lasts 10$+.

> Another example these days might be energy related - if you’re “well off” you can afford to get a well insulated house with solar and such to offset future energy costs.

The most effective way to reduce energy cost is to have a smaller living space and not drive a car. Also, instead of lots of heating, you can heat to lower home temperature and wear layers.

Now for the really poor in cold climates heating is certainty an issue sometimes and state welfare should be provided for those that can't afford that.

- Renting in San Francisco and New York. $$$ gets you way bigger and better places than $. It's not thrice the value. It's over 5x the value. This becomes very obvious as you move up the salary ladder.

- To plagiarise a Reddit post on this exact topic (which the OP article was plagirising but...) "poor people can't buy in bulk, so they never get to enjoy the savings of Costco"

- A whole cow costs less than the sum of the prices of its parts. Same applies to poultry and fish. Vegetables seem to have a linear price to amount ratio but that's largely priced in way earlier so it's kind of an illusion.

There is no evil force at work. Simple economics really.

- Economics of scale. This probably applies so widely that it's hard to overstate. e.g. Costco, better boot, whole cow. There are fixed costs to transport, customs, maintaining a store, sales people etc. Cheap stuff has to sacrifice quality so you come back more often - frequent enough to help with the fixed costs.

- Money today > money tomorrow. Not sure if there is an economic principle behind this because it doesn't always hold, but everyone except banks believe it always holds. Maybe because we believe we can invest it real good, or we enjoy the security of it (unless you're better than banks at collecting and/or selling debt). E.g. rent in SF. It takes longer to find tenants for $$$ apartments. And landlords lose more money when they let $$$ apartments sit empty. So, they can't expect to charge 2x the rent for 2x the square footage. Usually 2x the rent offers >= 2x square footage AND more amenities.

Apologies for errors. Had to write this on mobile.

First of all about shoes. Yes, as I wrote in another post, some % of society can not even afford a decent pair of shoes, but those people should be on welfare. The question is, how do you make a society where this applies to very few people.

> - Renting in San Francisco and New York. $$$ gets you way bigger and better places than $.

That is questionable, location is the main benefit. Maybe in terms of space. But in terms of getting access to the local job market, local transportation system and access to the local market this isn't the case.

> - A whole cow costs less than the sum of the prices of its parts.

Yes, but unfortunately I can not store a whole cow in my apartment.

Even the poorest people can usually buy a 5kg bag of rice or something like that. Going beyond that and buying a 100kg pack becomes unpractical.

The reality is most middle class people don't shop at Costco. Specially in urban places this simply doesn't make sense. Most shopping is done at the closest local store, because that safes on time and money (and for lots of people gas).

So the idea that rich people are rich because they can go to Cosco and buy 5 years worth of rice is nonsense.

When I go to the shop I'm walking there, in and out and home within 20min flat. Sure if I had a car and if I had the storage space I could drive across town, to the mega store and buy in bulk but that's not actually practical and it also doesn't safe a huge amount of money. I do that once a year for my birthday party.

> There is no evil force at work. Simple economics really.

Yes but you are ignoring the reverse incentive. The need to own a car. The need for a big fridge and lots big storage space. You need a place to put your car, and society might finance that for you with free street parking (should be abolished) or you need to have a garage. Then you need to heat that space and on and on.

And on a society level, you need to build stroads, you need to bring water and other services to those big box stores. You need to have lots and lots of policing for every Walmarket (2 police visits a day on average). Who pays for that? Local property taxes, that guess what you have to pay, and the garage that your car is in has to pay that too.

There is a reason that in most cities in the world and historically most people walk to the closest convenient store that is often not owned by the largest cooperation in the world, but rather by some immigrant family.

The Soivets built their whole society around micro-districts that had everything that you need in them. And among all the dumb shit they did, that actually did was the cost efficient way of doing things.

When you think systematically about what actually cost money and how to account for those costs, and how you can structure a society so that the most amount of people people can live without government welfare, designing a system so that poor people can go to Cosco and buy 3 month worth of grocery to get economics of scale is the exact wrong solution.

But that is exactly the pattern of development encouraged and promoted. Instead of complaining about all the individual issues, high taxes, high transportation cost, high housing cost, high cost for utilizes. These are the trees, but the forest here seems to be missed.

The real economics of scale are in the density and the accessibility of your urban environment, not in the individual buying choice of each consumer.

The idea that poor people are poor because a 50kg bag of rice cheaper per kg, then a 5kg bag of rice is wrong. They are poor because the land use pattern force them (and society) into a long term unhealthy, in-efficient and wasteful form of living.

Do you get where I am coming from?