20 Reasons the Poor Can't do Things

So through reading Christina H's fantastic new article on Cracked, I discovered this lovely article posted to Dave Ramsey's bigoted controversial website.

For those who don't want to read the article, it lists "20 things the rich do every day" in an attempt to shame poor people and blame them for their socioeconomic situation.

This post is a direct response to that article, where I will be responding to each of the 20 "things" that he shames poor people for not doing with what I think are pretty common sense responses (although apparently they're not all that common sense since neither the writer of the original article nor Dave Ramsey seem to understand them).

Also, please note that these comments are in direct response to "statistics" from the original article: I'm not trying to create generalizations, I'm responding to the generalizations that the original article makes. I honestly don't think in the kind of binaries that he uses, but I am writing using the same binaries so I can address what he says. So if you're wealthy and reading this, please don't be offended: I'm not bashing rich people, I'm simply responding to the suggestions about "rich" and "poor" that the article makes using the same language. I'm not actually agreeing with the binary divide he makes between "rich people" and "poor people."

Anyway, here we go:

1) He kind of cheated here and put 2 things under one point. Either that or he can't count. But anyways: poor people eat more junk food calories than rich people because junk food is cheaper than healthy alternatives and they can't afford to eat the healthier alternatives that rich people can. If they had the money to buy healthier food, they probably would.

Also, rich people do gamble: it's called the stock market. But I assume the article's clearly fabricated statistics don't take that into account. Poor people gamble in cheaper ways because they can't afford high-risk/high-reward investments because they don't have that kind of money, so they buy a 2 dollar scratch card, because that's what they can afford. Rich people also don't need that little bit of hope for escape that gambling offers, because they are already in a good financial position. Some poor people, on the other hand, rely on that little bit of hope because it's all they have and the only hope they have of not being poor one day.

2) Poor people aren't as hyper focused on a single goal because the goals of "being able to pay this month's rent" and "being able to eat" are things that require a lot of their attention. Because these various essential goals are taken care of for rich people already, they can then dedicate more attention to "some single goal."

3) Poor people exercise less because they have more physically demanding jobs that leave their bodies exhausted and unable to exercise, while rich people typically have jobs with little to no physical labor. They also have less time because they often have to work multiple jobs. Also, they can't afford gym memberships.