Was Malthus ever poor?

[CountDeMoney]

Just to test your thinking, do you believe Mitt and Ann Romney were poor when they were living in their first apartment?

I don't know much about their situation except they ate off an ironing board.

They sold off stock whenever they needed cash during that time.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Just to test your thinking, do you believe Mitt and Ann Romney were poor when they were living in their first apartment?

I don't know much about their situation except they ate off an ironing board.

They sold off stock whenever they needed cash during that time.

They sold stock?

I never knew before that Mitt had had it so bad 

[Admiral Yi]

Well, my understanding is they got married and then Mitt enrolled at BYU. They moved into a basement apartment paying around $60/mo in rent, and used a pair of sawhorses with a door laid over them as a communal study desk and a ironing board as a dining table.

But you would consider them "poor" in that scenario even though Mitt had a father that had ran a major automaker and who was a millionaire? Anyway, after they finished at BYU Mitt moved to Belmont, MA and bought his first home with a $42,000 loan from his father--proving that money was always there whenever it was needed. I don't see that as a "poverty" situation.

As i said about Malthus before, I think it depends on what Romney Sr.'s policy was.  If he said something like you're completely on your own and you'll never see a dime from me, then yeah, I think poor works.  I suppose you'll come back with the house loan, but that was a loan, not a gift.

Being poor while in college of course complicates things.  Presumably Mitt could have cranked up some more student debt and eaten off, say, a card table.

[DGuller]

I'm not particularly concerned with statistical definitions, while DGuller is horrible and I'd love to see him buried up to his neck in dirt and watch people hurl car batteries at him til he was dead

That's not nice. 

I actually complimented you--I said you were right, that's the highest praise I give!

[grumbler]

DG discovered that he didn't really understand what the term "poor" meant in a discussion with Malthus, and now is trying to build an argumentum ad populum that it is Malthus who doesn't understand the word poor.

I'm not trying to build an argumentum ad populum, the sizable majority agrees with me.

Please tell me this is a joke.

Unbelievable, eh? 

[Ideologue]

Ooooo! Poor stories....

I sold most of my 1st wargame collection to make a 400/mo house payment while eating bologna sandwiches as my main meal of the day. My car was a t-bird that only ran because my dad fixed it for me. And I did car repo because my friend took pity on me and made me a driver.

I miss my t-bird. And my copy of Battlefleet Mars.

For a few nights, I slept in Korea's car in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Of course, I could've gone home anytime I wanted and I even got my parents to put her up, too.  I was: MALTHUS POOR.

[Scipio]

Good God, no.  It's part of his self-made man story, to which liberals are unfortunately not immune, though at least it usually doesn't ordinarily serve as the foundational justification for higher-order douchiness with folks like Mal.

I'm a self-destroyed man.  Our lobby is huge, but largely ineffectual.  Because, well, you know, we destroyed ourselves.

[Eddie Teach]

What about a person who owns 20 nicely painted 28 mm scale armies? Oh, and stares at them at starves.

Vain.

[Ideologue]

Garbon was poor once.  He considered going to Columbia.

What's wrong with Columbia?

That's the joke.  It's the slightly smaller castle to Stanford's big one.

Columbia is fine afaik.  Though as a matter of fact Columbia Law is a real dicey proposition in comparison to HYS' law schools, graduating huge numbers, gaming statistics by admitting a large transfer cohort for the Obamabucks, and providing pretty mediocre employment statistics for the fourth or fifth best law school in Amerika.

[CountDeMoney]

They sold stock?

I never knew before that Mitt had had it so bad 

Yeah.  Roughing it.

[Ed Anger]

I sold most of my 1st wargame collection

I'd have had more respect for you if you were sucking cock. 

[crazy canuck]

Malthus considers himself to be poor because he got a job that didnt pay much after his undergraduate degree which he obtained for free. 

Lets compare that to people who had to pay for their undergraduate degree and so accumulated debt and then either had as bad a job or worse, no job at all.  Yeah, Malthus cry me a river.  You really really had it tough.

[Eddie Teach]

Plenty of poor people obtain degrees for free, as you should know Mr. Basketball Scholarship.

[crazy canuck]

Plenty of poor people obtain degrees for free, as you should know Mr. Basketball Scholarship.

There are a couple of differences.  First, my scholarships (both athletic and academic) were based on merit.  The kind of thing that people who do not get handed benefits based on birth have to earn.  Malthus on the other hand obtained a free education based on nothing more than an accident of birth.

Second, even after obtaining my scholarships I still had a significant debt load after I graduated from my undergraduate degree.  Since Malthus' father taught at the university he attended I assume it was close to his home and he had the option of living at home while attending university.

In the other thread I said it was comical that a person born into the kind of priviledged life Malthus had would try to claim he was poor.  Now I find it a bit offensive that he cant actually see the difference.

[grumbler]

Ah, now we begin the phase wherein people compete to see how offended they can be because others don't agree with them!

*pops popcorn*