QA：有钱人知道穷人有多困难吗?

Liam Littlefield
I have wealthy friends who are genuinely baffled as to why anyone doesn’t live in a house and don’t find jobs that makes six figures. What’s weird is they’re very nice people, they just don’t get how someone can end up in poverty or how hard it is to get out of it.

我有一些富有的朋友，他们真的很困惑，为什么有人不住在房子里，也找不到年薪六位数的工作。奇怪的是，他们都是很好的人，他们只是不明白为什么有人会陷入贫困，也不知道摆脱贫困有多难。

L. De Vives to Liam Littlefield
My ex-inlaws were like that. They thought that if you had a job, even minimum wage, that you shouldn't have any financial problema. And if you did have problems, it was your own fault because obviously you were: on drugs, lazy, spent your money foolishly, had an alcohol problem, hired too many babysitters, bought too much stuff on home shopping TV, etc…

我的前姻亲就是这样。他们认为如果你有一份工作，即使是最低工资，你也不应该有任何经济问题。如果你真的有问题，那也是你自己的错，因为很明显你是:吸毒、懒惰、花钱愚蠢、酗酒、雇了太多保姆、在家庭购物电视上买了太多东西，等等……

Roy Wilson to Liam Littlefield
And they probably support government regulations that they see as keeping their city looking nice and can’t understand that they’re making the poverty trap worse.

他们可能会支持政府的规定，他们认为这些规定让他们的城市看起来更美好，无法理解这些规定让贫困陷阱变得更糟。

Anthony Cassidy to Roy Wilson
Government spending that makes a city looking nice, generally results in a net reduction in poverty. This is because it is a form of government spending that takes from the wealthy, and spends it on cleaners, gardeners, caretakers, handymen and other laborers - giving these laborers a change to give their kids a decent school life, with the aim of breaking the poverty cycle. Beautiful well-maintained citiscapes also creates citizens that don’t mind paying high rates of tax because they can see the benefits that this tax provides - and they see paying tax as necessary sacrifice for living in a well maintained city/country. (eg Japan, Denmark, Austria, Sweden)

政府支出能让一个城市看起来更好，通常会导致贫困人口的净减少。这是因为这是一种政府支出形式，它从富人那里拿走，花在清洁工、园丁、看护人、杂工和其他劳动者身上，让这些劳动者有机会让他们的孩子过上体面的学校生活，目的是打破贫困循环。维护良好的美丽城市景观也会创造出不介意支付高税率的公民，因为他们可以看到这种税收提供的好处——他们认为纳税是生活在维护良好的城市/国家的必要牺牲。(如日本、丹麦、奥地利、瑞典)

Judah Frangipane to Anthony Cassidy
These are good ideas I supported for many years but there is more to it. To get out of poverty you have to be able to save. In the US many people live in rented spaces. Every penny a person in the US works hard for (that is paid from an employer) is taken by a land lord every month who doesn't work at all. Many people cannot afford homes or do not qualify for homes bc of the intentional housing crisis or low pay from employers. The ability to acquire the American Dream died 30 years ago. Cost of living from deliberate inflation means everything is 3x the cost. There are working homeless who have two or three jobs. 80% of US citizens live paycheck to paycheck.

这些都是我多年来支持的好想法，但还有更多。为了摆脱贫困，你必须会存钱。在美国，许多人住在租来的房子里。在美国，一个人辛辛苦苦挣来的每一分钱(来自雇主的工资)每个月都被一个根本不干活的地主拿走。由于蓄意的住房危机或雇主的低工资，许多人买不起房或没有资格买房。实现美国梦的能力在30年前就消失了。蓄意通货膨胀的生活成本意味着一切都是成本的3倍。有从事两份或三份工作的无家可归者。80%的美国公民过着薪水到薪水的生活。

Ogunleye Ibukun to Roy Wilson
They probably also think social welfare programmes are a waste of government money, and that people are poor cos they're lazy, dull or addicted to drugs.

他们可能还认为社会福利计划是对政府资金的浪费，人们之所以贫穷是因为他们懒惰、迟钝或吸毒成瘾。

Franklin Newman to Ogunleye Ibukun
And they certainly don’t understand that money is finite. Which means for them to have their wealth, thousands must be destitute.

他们当然不明白钱是有限的。这意味着，要想拥有他们的财富，必须让成千上万的人一贫如洗。

Casey Fernandez to Franklin Newman
Respectfully disagree with the comment that “money is finite.” The economic pie can get bigger so both owners and workers can improve their standing. When Elon Musk created SpaceX the money was not sucked out of someone else’s pocket. He made the pie bigger. Thinking economics is a sum zero game would make it difficult for anyone to progress because you believe someone is losing when you do well.

恭敬地不同意“金钱是有限的”这一说法。经济蛋糕可以做大，这样所有者和工人都可以提高他们的地位。当埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)创建SpaceX时，钱并不是从别人的口袋里掏出来的。他把馅饼做大了。认为经济学是一个零和游戏会让任何人都难以取得进步，因为你认为当你做得好的时候，有人会输。

Christopher Pearman to Franklin Newman
We live in a ‘crony capitalist society’ know. So it does mean that someone been wealthy means a lot of people been poor. It was not always that way, though.

我们生活在一个“裙带资本主义社会”中。所以这确实意味着有人富有，而很多人贫穷。不过，情况并非总是如此。

Molly Stevens
Another concept which rich people do not understand is just how deeply difficult it is to pull one’s self out of crushing poverty. They don’t know how society is set up to basically make that virtually impossible.

富人不理解的另一个概念是，将自己从极度贫困中拉出来是多么困难。他们不知道社会是如何建立起来的，以至于基本上不可能做到这一点。

Cheryl Teeg
I was kinda that girl, granted I figured out I was NOT like everyone else before highschool. Thankfully, I wasn’t running around in college thinking I had an average childhood. My parents weren’t rich rich, but we were firmly upper middle class. Private school, yearly vacations to Disney World, International vacations every other year, Mexico, England, France, the Caribbean, Canada. Luxury cars, anything I wanted for birthdays and Christmas. I can honestly say there was nothing I ever asked for that I didn’t get. In private school, most people had houses like mine, got mostly what they wanted. I’d go to someone’s house and it was basically like mine, or often bigger and way more expensive. Then I went to public school for 6th grade and invited some kids over for a party. The girls entered my house and looked around in awe exclaiming over the “mansion” and how we were “so rich”. That’s when I began to realize that my life wasn’t normal. And they’d invite me to their houses, some were about the same as mine, but some lived in apartments or small townhouses with extended family. I’d never lived in anything but a single family. In some ways I really disliked going to public school, but it gave me a world perspective I wouldn’t have got otherwise. Even then, it was a really good public school in one of the richest counties in the US. When I met my husband, who grew up in projects of the NY Bronx, it was another level of perspective.

我有点像那个女孩，在高中之前才发现自己和其他人不一样。值得庆幸的是，我在大学里没有东奔西跑，认为自己有一个普通的童年。我的父母不是富有的富人，但我们是坚定的中上阶层。私立学校，迪斯尼乐园的年假，每隔一年的国际假期，墨西哥，英国，法国，加勒比海，加拿大。豪华车，任何我想要的生日和圣诞节。我可以诚实地说，我从来没有要求过我没有得到的东西。在私立学校，大多数人都有像我这样的房子，得到了几乎所有他们想要的东西。我会去别人家，它基本上和我的房子一样，或者通常更大，更贵。然后我去了公立学校读六年级，邀请了一些孩子来参加派对。女孩们走进我的房子，敬畏地环顾四周，惊叹着“豪宅”和我们是如何“如此富有”的。那时我开始意识到我的生活并不正常。他们会邀请我去他们的房子，有些人和我的房子差不多，但有些人住在公寓或有着大家庭的小联排别墅里。除了一个家庭，我从来没有住过任何东西。在某些方面，我真的很不喜欢上公立学校，但它给了我一个世界观，否则我不会有。即便如此，它在美国最富有的县之一，也是一所非常好的公立学校。当我遇到在纽约布朗克斯区长大的丈夫时，又获得了另一个层次的视角。

Claire Jordan
That’s something that very rarely happens here in the UK, because rich houses and poor houses are often on the same street, 50 yards apart. There are virtually no gated communities here aside from monasteries, army bases and sheltered housing for the elderly or disabled. In fact, in 63 years I’ve only seen two. One belonged to a Saudi prince who had bought up a group of properties and put a fence round them in the 1980s, and the other became gated by accident because the houses are mixed in with some council offices that need to be locked up at night.

这在英国很少发生，因为富人的房子和穷人的房子通常在同一条街上，相隔约50码。除了修道院、军队基地和为老年人或残疾人提供庇护的住房外，这里几乎没有封闭的社区。事实上，63年来我只见过两次。其中一处属于一位沙特王子，他在20世纪80年代买下了一组房产，并在周围筑起了围栏;另一处则是在意外中被上锁的，因为这些房子与一些晚上需要上锁议会办公室混在一起。

Avinash Singh
A rich family was having own private jet. One day private jet went for repair work, and family with kids took public planes for their holiday trip. Kids always used their private jet for all their travels in past. They were surprised, asked dad why so many people are there in that plane?

一个富裕的家庭拥有自己的私人飞机。一天，他们的私人飞机被送去维修，一家人带着孩子乘坐公共飞机度假。过去，孩子们在所有旅行中都使用私人飞机。他们很惊讶，问爸爸为什么飞机上有这么多人？

L. De Vives to Avinash Singh
And to me, at one time…being able to fly anywhere at all in a comercial plane was an unreachable dream that would never happen.

对我来说，曾经……能够乘坐商用飞机飞到任何地方是一个遥不可及的梦想，永远不会实现。

Abigal Silverson
A lot of people equate being rich with being very intelligent. This is simply not true, yes having money can buy you anything you want but it does not make you intelligent unless you constantly working on your mind.
Some people don’t value money at all and they only need it to live. A good friend of mine has three degrees and a master’s, two of them he took at the same time, one during the day and one online while he was studying for the first. The third he took while he was working full time at another job and was paid by his employer to do so and the Masters he obtained during the pandemic.

许多人把富有等同于非常聪明。这是不正确的，是的，有钱可以买到你想要的任何东西，但它不会让你变得聪明，除非你不断地在你的思想上工作。
有些人根本不重视钱，他们只需要它来生活。我的一个好朋友有三个学位和一个硕士学位，其中两个是他同时获得的，一个是在白天获得的，另一个是他在网上攻读第一个学位时获得的。第三个学位是他在做另一份全职工作时获得的，他的雇主为此支付了报酬，另一个硕士学位是他在大流行期间获得的。

When I tell you he does not care about money at all, I mean he really does not care about it, he only uses it to pay the rent, buy food, and any essentially but his passion is obtaining knowledge,
He wears ordinary clothes so people think he is normal but when people hear him speak they think he super-rich which he keeps telling them that he is not, one of his rooms has a library with thousands of books. Now a rich person might come along and say well I have millions but what my friend has and I would argue goes beyond money and that is passion just for learning.
I once asked him why he was so passionate about learning and if it was to lord it over people, and he simply replied that he does not even tell people that he has all these degrees, and does what he does because he simply loves learning just for the sake of learning and to push oneself just like an athlete does.

当我告诉你他根本不在乎钱的时候，我的意思是他真的不在乎钱，他只是用钱来付房租，买食物，本质上他的热情是获取知识。
他穿着普通的衣服，所以人们认为他是普通人，但当人们听到他讲话时，他们认为他超级富有，而他一直告诉他们他不是，他的一个房间里有一个图书馆，里面有成千上万本书。一个富人可能会说，我有几百万，但我朋友拥有的不仅仅是钱，那是对学习的热情。
我曾经问过他为什么对学习这么有热情，是不是为了凌驾于人之上，他只是简单地回答说，他甚至不告诉别人他有这么多学位，做他所做的一切只是因为他只是为了学习而学习，像运动员一样不断鞭策自己。
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Andre Leong
Probably they might not see it on TV either?
If they just watch TV shows then they'll think everyone in “poverty" can live in a large apartment with a giant living room.
If they watch the news they might have an idea of poverty but it will always appear as something far away in Africa and Asia, or perhaps eastern Europe and also South America.
Maybe they don't think poverty in the USA is real poverty because “public transport" exists and people can just walk into a supermarket or even a McDonald's if they are hungry? (Even though it is quite impossible to walk anywhere safely in the USA outside of a few sext areas in big cities)

也许他们也不会在电视上看到?
如果他们只是看电视节目，那么他们会认为每个“贫困”的人都可以住在一个有巨大客厅的大公寓里。
如果他们看新闻，他们可能会对贫穷有一个概念，但它总是出现在遥远的非洲和亚洲，或者东欧和南美洲。
也许他们不认为美国的贫困是真正的贫困，因为有“公共交通”，如果饿了，人们可以走进超市甚至麦当劳?(尽管在美国，除了一些大城市的特定地区外，几乎不可能安全地步行到任何地方)

Brian Cura to Andre Leong
That's a good point. Thank you.
Some people like to say, “America has the richest poor people in the world.”
Which isn't true, and even if it was, it isn't a great argument for not caring.

这是一个很好的观点。非常感谢。
有些人喜欢说：“美国有世界上最富有的穷人。”
这不是真的，即使是，这也不是一个不在乎的好理由。

Rohit Panuganti
I have a friend whose mom just gifted him a luxury car (his second car) for no particular reason. He dates models. I on the other hand have to send money to my parents so that they can pay their rent. I need to pay education loan EMI. I can't afford the cheapest car in the market, and I have 0 savings. We both earn same salary. He thinks he's not rich, and that I'm not that poor compared to him. I'm not jealous, but every time I think of the difference between us, it makes me sad.

我有一个朋友，他妈妈无缘无故送了他一辆豪车(他的第二辆车)。他和模特约会。另一方面，我得给父母寄钱，这样他们才能付房租。我需要偿还教育贷款EMI。我买不起市场上最便宜的车，而且我没有存款。我们俩的工资一样。他认为他不富有，而我和他比起来也不算穷。我不是嫉妒，但每次想到我们之间的差异，我都很难过。

Stephen Handler
Income inequity has grown multiple folds in the last 40 years in the US. It has resulted in reducing the middle class. As a result the haves have less experience and understanding for the have nots or even those lower down the economic scale. Without knowledge and experience, people began to make negative assumptions which often turn into prejudices. These create further divisions. In my opinion this has contributed to the most divided US A in 150 years.

在过去40年里，美国的收入不平等程度翻了好几倍。这导致了中产阶级的减少。因此，富人对穷人甚至经济规模较低的人缺乏经验和理解。没有知识和经验，人们开始做出消极的假设，这些假设往往会变成偏见。这造成了进一步的分裂。在我看来，这导致了150年来最分裂的美国。

Malik......
Half the world is starving to death and the other half is trying to loose weight and gain weight. No one has the choice of being born poor or rich. I've seen babies die from starvation in the mother's arms, overseas. I've seen rich people spend $150, 000 on a pocket book. Some will die poor some will die rich, thing is they never new the other existed.

世界上一半的人正在饿死，另一半人正在努力减肥和增重。没有人可以选择生下来是贫穷还是富有。我在海外见过婴儿死在母亲怀里。我见过有钱人花15万美元买一本袖珍书。有些人死时贫穷，有些人死时富有，问题是他们从来都不知道另一类人的存在。

Uvuvwevwevwe
i live in a relatively upscale neighborhood. my family is a relatively high-class family. i totally understand what its like to be impoverished and poor, especially in a hypercapitalized society like the USA, not because i have personally experienced it before, but i naturally just have a very empathetic and understanding personality. i try to not waste anything like water, electricity food etc, never buy things i dont need, and i also try to gave the homeless a $5 bill or some takeout every so often. im only 18 so its not like i have high end connections to powerful people or celebs or massive corporations or anything like that. no, i may come from an upper-class household but im literally just a regular teen who goes to a regular high school. if society isnt willing to help these people out, the most i can do is put in some effort to not take everything for granted or be so ignorant with what’s going on just 2 blocks away.

我住在一个相对高档的社区。我家是比较上流社会的家庭。我完全理解贫穷和贫穷是什么感觉，尤其是在美国这样的高资本化社会，不是因为我以前亲身经历过，而是我自然只是有一种非常善解人意和理解的性格。我尽量不浪费水、电、食物等任何东西，从不买我不需要的东西，我也试着给无家可归者一张5美元的钞票或一些外卖。我只有18岁，所以不像我与有权势的人或名人或大公司或类似的东西有高端联系。不，我可能来自一个上流社会的家庭，但我实际上只是一个普通的青少年，上了一所普通的高中。如果社会不愿意帮助这些人，我最多能做的就是努力不要把一切都视为理所当然，或者对两个街区外发生的事情如此无知。

Jonathan Chao
If you have all 4 limbs intact, a mind with little to no illnesses, some self discipline, access to clean water, parents, friends, internet, housing, food, then you are rich.

如果你四肢健全，头脑几乎没有疾病，有一定的自制力，有干净的水，有父母，有朋友，有网络，有房子，有食物，那么你就很富有了。

Lisa O'Brien
Wealthier people not only do not understand why or how the less fortunate live, they don’t give a shit. Why should they? Their nests are feathered nicely, health care isn’t an issue, and their chicks are well-fed and sent to private schools, tutors, coaches, and summer camps. They have their own, very pressing types of problems.

富裕的人不仅不理解那些不幸的人为什么或如何生活，他们也不在乎。他们为什么要这么做?它们的巢长得很漂亮，卫生保健不是问题，它们的雏鸟喂养得很好，被送到私立学校、有家教、教练和夏令营。他们有自己的，非常紧迫的问题。

Peter Walbran
Unless you have been directly exposed to poverty it is almost impossible to comprehend what a grinding existence it is trying to survive day to day. It grates me to hear people from rich Western nations bemoan how poorly off they are.

除非你直接生活在贫困中，否则你几乎不可能理解日复一日的生存是一种多么艰难的生活。听到西方富裕国家的人抱怨自己多么贫穷，我很恼火。