this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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Because being poor means you're weak, and weakness makes you're a piability to your friends, useless, and prey.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Ego

Bad education

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

That's called Modern Monetary Theory. It's a fun game until the underlying physics of our little civilizational project fails, that is to say the energy return on pumping oil out of the ground.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

It's just temporary trust me.
Tonight is the night, I'm going to sleep and have 🗽the American Dream ™️ 🦅

[–] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you own a house or vehicle in the USA there's a good chance you're in debt.

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[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 7 points 1 year ago

Hey, it's the land of Hollywood. If anyone in the world is good in pretending, it's them.

[–] zululove@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

America is a third world occupied country but everybody is in denial, obese and wearing nice clothes 😌

Some of us are just trying to make the most of whatever time we have left.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean honestly some should not be. There is this guy that talks about california real estate on over ten million dollar properties were the person has problems with other debt to. I mean the down payment has to be a mill or more. If I had financial means like that I would be debt free.

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago
[–] FreedomAdvocate 6 points 1 year ago (15 children)

In debt doesn’t mean broke. People with a mortgage that they are easily paying off have debt. Millionaires and billionaires have millions and billions in debt. Debt itself isn’t bad. Debt can be good.

[–] P13@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The average American is living paycheck to paycheck with bad, high interest debt and killer monthly minimums. Many people roll their underwater car loan into a new underwater car loan. The housing market is taking a turn.

People are mostly broke.

[–] FreedomAdvocate 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The point is that being in debt isn’t the same as being broke and living paycheque to paycheque. Rich people have more debt than broke people because banks etc are far more willing to give rich people debt since they can actually pay it back.

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[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do we count mortgages as debt here?

[–] bss03@infosec.pub 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They often are, yes. I'm not sure exactly what "in debt" means to OP. But, when I use it like this I generally mean "negative net worth" not "carrying a line of credit".

I currently have a balance on a CC, but I don't consider myself in debt, because it's smaller than my checking account balance, and that's smaller than my investment account balance, and that's smaller than my retirement account balance.

I don't own a home, but I also didn't really consider myself "in debt" when I purchased my current car.


Oddly enough I would say I am "in debt to" my CC company, because I do owe money to them and they do not owe money to me. The "to X" part of the phrase restricts my consideration to just two-party financial relationship, in my mind. When you leave off the "to X", I consider all the financial relationship I have and (roughly) sum over them.

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[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 5 points 1 year ago

While I have no debts, sometimes my bank account is hovering at a $200. I hate the insecurity it gives me.

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