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Notes -
Replace 'cartoonishly terrible decisions' with 'decisions they are manipulated into' like spending their money on fast food, building credit card debt, financing cars at ruinous interest rates, and you quickly see how it's quite difficult for these people to handle themselves in the modern economy.
You may say 'oh well those are stupid decisions they deserve it,' but the fact of the matter is that they are being manipulated into these bad decisions by much more intelligent people. We cannot expect them to have the intelligence or discipline to ward it off. Basically predatory high-IQ businesses that fuck over poor people are extracting rents and creating huge negative externalities for the rest of society through their business models.
People with credit card debt, car payments that are too high, wasteful spending habits, or payday loans are in modern developed countries mostly not starving to death in the streets, or living rough, or what have you. America and Europe just don’t let people starve. Yes, there are many people who are manipulated into making bad decisions that adversely affect their quality of life, but these people still get to avail themselves of a minimum standard of living unless they’re cartoonishly poor decision makers.
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