With this song which might as well have been a poem:
Rent a flat above a shop, cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend you never went to school.
But still you’ll never get it right ‘cos when you’re laid in bed at night
watching roaches climb the wall, if you called your dad he could stop it all.
You’ll never live like common people, you’ll never do whatever common people do,
you’ll never fail like common people, you’ll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw, because there’s nothing else to do.
Sing along with the common people, sing along and it might just get you through.
Laugh along with the common people, laugh along even though they’re laughing at you
and the stupid things that you do, because you think that poor is cool.– Pulp
I remember listening to this when I lost my insurance sophomore year of college.
Though it makes me wonder – whether or not class divisions are as obvious in the U.S. as they are in Britain. And something tells me no…
Natalia A. 
Oh the twins CAN, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……
Observe class divisions: Duke students vs East Durhamites. Not very hard to see.
Class divisions here are pretty clear. The fact that their are a few exceptions (eg the small number of poor Dukies) doesn’t make much of a difference. The same applies everywhere, including the UK.
Pulp are awesome and you should listen to more:
“I’m not Jesus, but I have the same initials” – Jarvis Cocker
I really shouldn’t comment when I wake up. Their=there in previous post.
I think in the U.S., “posh” people don’t stand out as much – particularly when it comes to interacting with the middle classes.
Not true. The US has its aristocracy. Just look at, say, the Clintons and Bushes, or the Rockerfellers, or any Hollywood stars. They stand rather far out.
There’s an image of aristocracy predicated on celebrity. But I think that the middle class here is far more integrated.
I have no idea what you mean by that. Clarify?
I think that in many countries – there is a vast gulf between upper and middle class. I don’t experience it nearly as much in the U.S.
I also think that celebrity tends to get everything confused – it creates a whole new definition of class – class that’s all about money and exposure, but not necessarily about who your father is.
Class has always been about power, whether inherited or otherwise. But if we’re talking about old money, go back to my examples of Bushes, Clintons, Rockefellers, etc.
I think you’ll find the class divide between those in DC with actual power and their so-called constituents is rather vast.
“Old” is a very relative term – in America.
Damn straight class is about pow-ah. Raaaaar.
Old has different connotations here and in the UK. However, there are very few people with centuries-old money over there. The majority of the upper class is about as old as the American version. That is, it’s based in the 20th Century, possibly the 19th.
I think that in the U.S. it’s much easier to shrug off breeding and blend in with the crowd. I think it certainly has to do with how much history the country has – and with what the expectations are of someone who is rich, and someone who is middle-class.
I’d like to see Bush, Clinton, etc ‘shrug off breeding and blend in the crowd’. How about the Bush daughters to start with?
Those are great lyrics . I wish I had the tune.
I’ve always found it puzzling that America is most often in the sights of those who are most concerned about class. There are always upper classes in any society, even communist (supposedly classless) where government ministers and party officials have all the perks unavailable to others.
America has some extreme differences between the richest person and the poorest, but it also has the “wealthiest” poor in the world. More important is that class and wealth is very fluid in America. It’s not restricted to a few or some. But it does put a premium on intelligence, effort and ambition.
The beauty of America is that it is easy to jump the classes. Had I come from an equivalent town in Russia to mine in TN, say Vladimir, i don’t think I would have ended up where I am now. Hard work, twisting the system, and learning to maneuver around rules are very much rewarded in the US. However, if you were to see my area, the abject poverty in Appalacia, then ask me if I think a class divide exists, I would have to slap you.
Poverty exists on a wide scale in America. The excessively rich tend to be concentrated in a few areas as do the poor. Doesn’t mean there’s not a huge divide between the two, they’re just ‘out of the way’ and what you’re actually judging here, Natalia, is the different levels of middle class that seem to meld together. IN teh US, we have “lower, middle and upper middle” classes, not just one. That’s why, I think, you may see similarities.
and where is chapter 3?
Actually, a huge proportion of Americans are poor. Poverty is higher in the US than anywhere else in the ‘developed’ world.
mike, that song is widely available for piracy. Shouldn’t be hard to get.
“Poverty exists on a wide scale in America.”
Not to nitpick, but this is very dependent on a high economic threshhold of “poverty”. The average poor in America have an operating vehicle, live in decent housing (for instance, not three families to a house or two families to an apartment), suffer from obesity rather than hunger, have a cellphone. Poverty has rapidly become a choice in America (drugs being the most common counter option to, at worst, lower class).
I wonder if it’s possible that you are projecting your observations in Appalachia, which is a special case, to the rest of America.
Rann,
I found it. Thanks anyway. (grumble)
Yes, poverty in America is characterized by ownership of all sorts of material goods, coupled with massive credit card debt…
That’s still poor, by any definition.
“Yes, poverty in America is characterized by ownership of all sorts of material goods, coupled with massive credit card debt…
That’s still poor, by any definition.”
By that definition America is a third world country and Americans the poorest people om earth. Try again, with brain cells.
Americans are actually pretty poor, yes.
Look, if you owe someone money (that is, you have credit card, or other, debt) you have negative assets. It’s not hard to figure this out.
You’re right, Rann. So where is the love? Where is the sympathy?
Where are the contributions? Where is the debt forgiveness? Why do rich, wealthy nations around the world demand money from the poor?
Wrong. American citizens are poor. American multinationals are not. Big difference.
Personal debt is not usually cross-national….
Yay! I finally found someone who actually knows less about economics than I do!
But the national debt, Rann. The budget deficits, Rann. America itself lives on credit, Rann. America is one of the poorest countries on earth by your own definition. Where is the love?
“American multinationals are not.” But they do, Rann. Almost all multinationals use borrowed money, either in the form of loans or bond issues, to finance expansion at the least if not to cover bad times.
Where is the love, Rann? Where is the yearning for social justice?
You are conflating many different concepts.
First of all, social justice has nothing to do with multinationals or their debts. To me, any form of social justice involves dismantling all corporations.
I agree, poor people of the world should help each other, including Americans. Workers of the world unite and all that. Preferably unite against the multinationals who put them in massive debt and their governments who support those multinationals.
ummm…people in appalacia don’t have mobile phones, cars, or credit cards much less bank accounts. And I’ve seen plenty of places in America that are this poor.
“people in appalacia don’t have mobile phones, cars, or credit cards much less bank accounts.”
Exactly as I said, that her views might be extrapolating her experiences in Appalachia to America as a whole. Appalachia does not get the attention it deserves because it is very white and by current fashion it is not capable of being a victim of anything, not oppression, discrimination, neglect and so on. It doesn’t register.
Do you think the same liberals who portray Appalachia as the land of sister-humping, mouth breathing, ignorant, racist rednecks are going to vote funding to correct its economic problems, address the medical needs and so on??
Rann,
“You are conflating many different concepts.”
I took your “have debts, therefore poor” criteria and hit it out of the park. Get over it.
Yes, you did, and you did so at the intellectual level of a 5 year old. Very well done mike.
This has very little to do with Appalachia. There is huge-scale poverty in the US, most of which is ignored by the US government until loads of people get killed (see LA (and other) riots, New Orleans, etc etc). Then they fuck up the response and the problems stay or get worse.
“Yes, you did, and you did so at the intellectual level of a 5 year old.”
That is soooo schweet coming from the Up Your Bum school of debate graduate.
As you say so often: care to address the actual arguments?
Nah. You’ve never wanted to do so before. I’m used to you as the fool.
ok, then don’t expect anyone to take your arguments seriously 🙂
“The average poor in America have an operating vehicle, live in decent housing (for instance, not three families to a house or two families to an apartment), suffer from obesity rather than hunger, have a cellphone.”
THat’s my definition of lower middle-class. If their “decent housing” is a government housing project, and welfare income buys their mobile phone, they go in the ‘lower class’, as far as I’m concerned. That’s not poverty. Don’t get me started on the numbers that stay locked in that class sue to abject laziness, although I am aware that many single mothers choose to stay there for the sake of medical insurance for their children (long and short- once you get off welfare it is near impossible to get back on, so if you’re a single mother of 4 are you going to take that job with benefits just for the sake of getting off welfare if you have no education and fear what to do next should you lose this job, or if you’re doing just fine on welfare screw your pride and stay there…from my observances this is very much a minority of the welfare recipients, but I am not a social worker so I would like to be optimistic and think that maybe I’m wrong).
“I wonder if it’s possible that you are projecting your observations in Appalachia, which is a special case, to the rest of America.”
I assume that this refers to me, although your reply to my previous post leads me to believe that you meant Natalia?
I think Appalacia has a particularly bad reputation, however, I do not believe it is an anomaly. This is an area I researched for my economics degree and while working for Fannie Mae and I have to say I saw plenty of places in Michigan, Montana, California, as well as several other states whose conditions matched, if not rivaled, those in Appalacia. So yes, I do think it’s fair to extrapolate this to the rest of America; nearly every state has an “appalacia-type’ area therefore you cannot exclude these areas when judging America. My original point is that these areas are overlooked frequently and therefore the poverty line is perceived to be much higher than it actually is.
Tornado, credit culture completely changes any definition of class. It simply doesn’t make sense to define class by material ownership without taking debt into account. Many of those ‘lower-middle class’ people you describe above are in massive debt and can barely afford to feed their families after credit card payments.
But that’s the point, Rann. Access to credit assists in class separation. Appalacians, for example (simply because I do not know the common nomer for the similar groups in Michigan, California, et al as I mentioned above) simply do not have access to credit. They do not have mortgages, credit cards- many do not have bank accounts. Therefore, those who have credit, however they use it, rank higher on the economic scale than those who do not.
I make a distinction between ‘poverty’ and ‘cash-poor’. One has infinite more earning potential than the other. You’ll find plenty of cash-poor wealthy people who for one reason or another have overextended credit and over-leveraged their equity, thus the need for the distinction.
Thanks for the reply, Tornado. Did you ever see figures for how much government aid per capita and, say, per square mile (state and federal) your study areas received compared to more urban areas?
I disagree. Access to credit enables poverty in the long-term, while allowing short-term material gain. Most residents of the 9th Ward in New Orleans had tons of access to credit, big-screen TVs, large cars, etc. All bought on credit. Yet they couldn’t afford flood or home insurance.
That is, credit gives the appearance of wealth, veiling the underlying poverty rather than solving it. Credit makes the individual less, not more, financially secure. The only people who benefit from credit in the long run are credit card companies.
“Yet they couldn’t afford flood or home insurance.”
That’s preposterous. New Orleans is within a designated flood plain. Anyone who has a mortgage is required by the lender to carry both flood (subsidized by US Flood Program) and homeowners insurance. They probably total $400 to $500 per year. Mortgage holders almost always pay both premiums directly, out of escrow, and include both insurance premiums in monthly mortgage payments.
The sad situations with many of N.O.residents was that, having paid off their loans, and no longer required, they dropped the “extra expense” of flood insurance although most kept their homeowners insurance. (Which is why so many N.O. residents are trying to get courts to pay for a risk that their policies plainly exclude.) Owning a home outright, whether by hard work or inheritance, pretty much precludes being too poor to pay a couple hundred dollar premium. If nothing else, the home itself provides equity for a premium loan.
We will always be faced with the tragic figures of people who make very bad choices.
Er, no. Around 90% of people in the 9th Ward had no flood insurance. Not because they didn’t want any, but because they couldn’t afford it. This has been widely acknowledged by government agencies and there have been widespread (and unimplemented) calls for state-funded flood insurance for people in low-lying areas. This will become even more of an issue in coming years with changing climate and rising sea levels.
As for home ownership: Lousiana has rather odd laws on this. The 9th ward had the highest home-ownership rate of any poor black neighbourhood in the country, but many people didn’t own the land itself. They were also massively in debt, partially through mortgages and partially through personal (most credit) debt. In practice, credit culture has now left these people with less than nothing: all their credit-bought posessions have been destroyed, but they are still in debt.
By the way, all this information is first-hand: I have spent a lot of time in NOLA and have talked to many legal workers and residents.
“access to stuff” and “unable to get more stuff” are just not the same.
Agreed. Anyone with a credit card is able to get more stuff, but that doesn’t make them any more wealthy.
Then they owned their own homes. Absolutely no mortgage lender will hold as security a home that is not insured for flood risk in a designated flood plain. Their security and their customers ability to repay could be wiped out overnight.
And I simply don’t believe your assurances that officials themselves judged that 90% of the people who owned their own homes in *any* area, 9th ward or otherwise, had no way to pay for flood insurance. Advocacy organizations, yes, but they are infamous were justifying false data and studies for the greater good of “social justice”.
There are a lot of N.O. residents who lacked flood insurance because of ignorance and senility. For those I fully support federal relief to rebuild their homes (or better yet a new home elsewhere). For those who made lifestyle choices and “took a chance” that others sacrificed not to take, they should shoulder the burden of the choice they made and start rebuilding their lives.
PS. Land rent has nothing to do with this. I spent 9 years in Baltimore, about 75% of which is rowhouse on rented land. It has remarkably little effect on values and liquidity. Land rent houses sell for anywhere from $30,000 to a million.
“Agreed. Anyone with a credit card is able to get more stuff, but that doesn’t make them any more wealthy.”
Rann, that’s just illogical.
Tornado: how is that illogical? These days, you don’t need good credit to get a credit card. You can get one with insane rates at any time. That’s the only way poor people can establish credit. So you get those, spend on them, default on payments because you lost your job, and then you’re fucked, but have your big screen TV.
Are you therefore more wealthy than before you had the card?
No, I didn’t say that 90% of people couldn’t afford flood insurance. I said that most of those 90% couldn’t.
Mike, you have no idea what poverty looks like. If your choice in spending $200 is between feeding one of your kids today or buying flood insurance, you’re going to feed your kids. Many poor people have to make that choice on a daily basis.
Many people’s ability to pay their mortgage was wiped out overnight (or over a day, actually). As I said, many of these ended up with nothing, many because they decided to feed their kids rather than get insurance.
What credit does is give people the feeling that they have far more purchasing power than they actually do. That’s a dangerous road to go down, and personal bankruptcy figures stand strong testimony to that.
I don’t get it.
My negative assets should make me “poor.”
Yet I remember a conversation at the Federal, during which you stated that I was “upper middle class.”
Which is it, Rann? Shouldn’t education figure into this somehow?
Your definition of wealth and poverty is interesting to me – isn’t the poverty of the citizens of developing nations on a whole other level?
“Mike, you have no idea what poverty looks like.”
I worked full time (plus) at a tri-church founded non profit in Baltimore City (!) for seven years whose mission was to provide *direct* services (not to make political and ideological use of, like many “advocates”, but to directly help, hand to hand) to the poor and homeless. We funded many (and established one) local shelters, we directly provided employment to men and women in those shelters by getting a city contract to clean up the yards and board up the windows and doors of owner abandoned houses in the most run down neighborhoods. (My program, I spent all day, every work day, working in those neighborhoods.) More ambitiously and lasting, we used church and college volunteers and our newly trained formerly homeless “carpenters” (full pay) to buy dirt cheap derelict houses, gut rehab them and either sell them to soon to be or recently displaced (gentrification) low income renters at way below market prices or provide low rent housing for the men and women getting back on their feet. We worked with and provided direct (person to person) services to the poor such as no charge (or $5.00) handyman services for the elderly and poor. And to be frank, I was poor and homeless for several years (drugs, alcohol and despair) earlier in my life. It’s why I decided to give something back. I have “an idea” what poverty is.
First off, no one, no adult, starves or goes hungry except by choice or abandonment (elderly disabled, for example, a true horror to discover). There are just too many resources :church, soup kitchens, grocery handouts for families etc., FOOD STAMPS (which can be traded for food or drugs, your choice, I traded mine for cash/drugs/booze and ate in soup kitchens). I’m sure it’s different in some rural areas, but in most areas of America it is a choice to go hungry, to walk around with tattered clothing; and often, but not always, to sleep outdoors or in abandoned buildings (my choice in warm weather, shelters in winter).
Most of the poor who actually live poor do so because of drugs and alcohol, that is, by choice (like me earlier). There are just too many programs and resources (and jobs) for those who want help, then for someone to stay poor for years. Some poor are mentally ill (many pushed out on the street by well meaning idiots), some are elderly or disabled, abandoned by whole families that are devastated by drugs and violence. They have fallen through the cracks of the safety net and we should always be doing more to reach them.
My original point is that most, by far, of the misery that we see are bad choices. Drugs instead of food, rent or fuel. Alcohol (actually cheap) instead of going to work. Unemployment and “dignity” instead of a service job, where an employeee will demand you be polite to people (a big problem today, from my own experiences being an employer). Unemployment and “dignity” instead of an entry level job making low wages. Unemployment and “dignity” instead of “making money for the man”. And yes, plasma TV’s instead of that useless Flood Insurance payment.
There are poor and helpless and then there are poor. The first deserve our full resources. The second deserve a chance and then, our help and sympathy. There’s a difference.
Sorry for the length.
I couldn’t agree more, Mike. This is why Fannie Mae separates lower middle class from actual poverty by the ‘access to credit’ benchmark (I worked for FM for 2 years in its economics department). Overextended credit= bad choices (most of the time), as far as I’m concerned. I would love to meet someone whose credit card debt is comprised of nothing but food for his family. Debt is not a killer; there are prudent measures one can take to get out of it. Yeah, they take time, but few people get rich overnight.
I come from one of those rural areas. I made good choices, and i’ve jumped several classes, by educating myself about my options and making prudent, calculated choices. Many people born into poverty, actual poverty, not “cash-poor because we’re overextended” situations, are not aware of the programs available to them and the circle of poverty continues. And again, I emphasize, there are far more of these in the US than even the IRS realizes, as these families are pretty far off the radar and miss conventional measures.
You have access to choice because you’re educated. You’re educated because you got lucky, either by birth or later on.
There is massive pressure on poor people to buy stuff because our materialistic society gives the impression that material goods=wealth=happiness. There is massive pressure to spend beyond your means. Companies use hard pressure sales techniques to reduce the element of choice to the minimum possible. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t survive.
“Companies use hard pressure sales techniques…”
They advertise. Unless you are talking about the very little door to door and person to person selling that still exists, then it is laughably overwrought and factually inaccurate to make the above statement. You are either an extremely compliant and weakminded human being (and assume most others are the same) or you are deliberately misusing the terms, hard and pressure.
Besides, the “hard pressure sales” techniques that you despise and lament as a robbing of poor peoples free will is not a whiff as high pressure as any advocacy group trying to convince the poor that its policies and politics will best serve their needs. For example, convincing the black community that they will be empowered by aborting future black voters. Now there is a liberal con job to be proud of, eh?
It’s more than advertising. We are all surrounded constantly by the idea that unless we buy things, the US economy will be in trouble. We are surrounded by the idea that it is good to buy on credit (that is, it is good to go into debt).
Additionally, certain product advertising is directed at certain weak groups (cigarette ads indirectly aimed at children are a classic example, but there are many others). One does not have to be weak-minded to be affected by ads. Marketing relies on the fact that people will be affected by it. That does not imply that people are weak-willed.
I won’t bother addressing your nonsensical abortion argument. Let’s stick to the subject. If you want to debate that issue, start a blog of your own and I’ll be happy to talk about it there.
You didn’t answer my question – do negative assets make me poor, or not?
No. I think that poverty is the probability that (relatively small) decisions or external events can result in the collapse of your ability to sustain yourself or your dependents. You have both a support network (eg you’re getting a new computer) and the education necessary to avoid dangerous decisions. Additionally, you can afford housing that protects you to some extent from external calamities. You also have a steady job, again due to education.
Assets are a significant factor in poverty, but not the only one. The point is that the vast majority of asset-poor people have virtually no chance of escaping their situation. You are an exception, but that does not disprove the rule any more than someone winning the lottery proves it is a good idea to buy a lottery ticket.
“One does not have to be weak-minded to be affected by ads. ”
No shit, Sherlock. That’s why companies and advocacy groups as well pay to advertise.
But you called it hard pressure sales techniques and if you think advertisements that merely talk up their products, and require the public to pay attention to be effective, are “hard pressure sales techniques”, then your views are bizarre.
A hard (actually “high” is the term) pressure sale would be, as an example, a car salesman telling someone that the vehicle they want will be unavailabe starting tomorrow, or is scheduled to be increased in price tomorrow.
And as I said earlier, I’m not interested in debating you, I’m pointing out when you are trying to bullshit people with inane statements.
“And as I said earlier, I’m not interested in debating you, I’m pointing out when you are trying to bullshit people with inane statements.”
Damn, that’s rich.
“Let’s stick to the subject. If you want to debate that issue, start a blog of your own and I’ll be happy to talk about it there.”
Are you kidding me? You, Mr Butt Fixation, Mr. Proud Troll, lecturing other commenters about what they should say, demanding they stick to the topic of your choice? After playing the vulgar fool for as long as I have commented here? Kiss my ass. Clear enough?
Don’t pretend this is your blog. You have one already. Why don’t you take your own advice. Unbelievable.
Man, if you only knew the fun we have laughing at you…
Oh, and I’ll kiss your cute ass any time, babe.
My boyfriend has a support network – I don’t. Although hey, I like the idea that SOME people think I’m not living on the edge – it’s comforting, in a way.
“Man, if you only knew the fun we have laughing at you…”
Oh Rann, that distresses me sooo much to know that a liberal who laughs at Alzheimer patients is laughing at me. Gosh, the hipster hate crowd doesn’t think I’m cool. I’ll just die.
You have a support network partially through K. You’d be in a much worse (financial) situation without it, hence it’s a support network.
Please do, mike.
What a surprise. Now that’s the real Rann.
🙂
“You have access to choice because you’re educated. You’re educated because you got lucky, either by birth or later on.”
I got educated because I wanted out. Period. That had to do with hard work, not luck. That guilt trip works on Natalia and no one else.
Hahahahaha, T.
Rann, but that’s exactly what I’m getting at – a lot of people look poor on paper, but have at least someone looking out for them.
Not that it’s a picnic – considering when you realize how far you have to go – but it IS easier.
Oh, and I’m laughing at the guilt-trip part.
T is one of many people I know who got ahead by kicking ass.
Yes, T, you were lucky. Many people ‘want to get out’ and can’t. Many people worked hard and are fucked. Do you really think that anyone who works hard and wants to ‘get out’ makes it? In the real world, the exact opposite is true: most people who work hard and have all the desire in the world to ‘get out’ fall flat on their ass.
Natalia: exactly what I said before. Poverty is not merely asset-based. I think my probabilistic definition holds up pretty well.
Thanks, Natalia. I kick my own ass pretty hard. And you’ll get ahead because I’m going to kick yours. Luck is what you make of it; without motivation it’s worthless. People get breaks all the time and screw them up or are too lazy to move through an open door. Kinda like people who buy that winning lottery ticket and file bankruptcy the following year because they overextend their credit. Finally above the poverty line, these people are no further ahead.
Yes, and for each of those people, there are hundreds or thousands who worked hard, were motivated, didn’t make those mistakes and got fucked anyway.
Life sucks sometimes.
Life sucks for most people most of the time. You said that luck has nothing to do with it. If that were true, then the probability that a person ‘makes it’, given hard work and motivation, would be 100%. That is clearly nonsense, therefore luck has something to do with it.
I think that all the evidence shows that not only is the probability not 100%, it’s absolutely tiny.
Life is always unfair.
I know plenty of people who lived in the Soviet Union in its heyday – and still never made it, and still had a very hard time.
Their parents drank, they drank, they had depression, they had sick kids, they had “the wrong outlook on life” according to their superiors. They went to live in tents, or they killed themselves.
As for assets – I asked you those questions, Rann, because you seemed to be implying that debt was the greatest problem. Is it?
Of course life is unfair. That was exactly my point. Additionally, our consumerist/capitalist society exacerbates differences, making life even more unfair for the majority of poor people.
I didn’t say Soviet ‘communism’ was any better…
Personal debt is a huge problem in the ‘developed’ world, especially the US. It increases the probability of single factors leading to collapse, which is my definition of poverty. It’s not always the biggest factor, but if you went around asking people in low-income areas of the US what their biggest day-to-day worry is, it’s a fair bet that personal debt will feature pretty high on the list.
In your case, it’s certainly an issue, but since you have a steady job (and good prospects of getting more steady jobs in the future), it’s less of one. Again, you are well-educated, which reduces your, er, Rann’s poverty probability measure. Again, the existence of your support network (or K’s, which transfers to you, if somewhat more weakly) reduces that measure once again.
To summarize: asset-poverty/debt is not always poverty, but it is a significant factor, in the US and the EU (especially the UK).
Thank you for the seminar, Rann.
But this isn’t about me, is it? It’s a larger issue.
🙂
Well, you asked about you, so I answered.
I’ve been thinking about this, so my answers are going to get more complex (and longer).
No, I wasn’t asking about me – I was asking you to reflect on this statement:
“Americans are actually pretty poor, yes.
Look, if you owe someone money (that is, you have credit card, or other, debt) you have negative assets. It’s not hard to figure this out.”
Obviously, you have.
I was just the example.