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<blockquote style="position: relative; padding-left: 55px;"><section><a href="https://mastodon.social/users/danluu/statuses/111068065178842131">Dan Luu (danluu@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 15-Sep-2023 20:48:09 JST</a><a href="https://mastodon.social/@danluu" title="danluu@mastodon.social"><img src="https://gnusocial.jp/avatar/35339-48-20221122073124.webp" width="48" height="48" alt="Dan Luu" style="position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0;">Dan Luu</a></section><article><p>Roughly speaking, Vimes' boots theory of poverty is the idea that, if you're poor, you're forced to buy cheap products, such as boots, that wear out quickly and need to frequently be replaced, causing a kind of poverty trap.</p><p>Below are some quotes that illustrate typical examples of how people think about Vimes' boots theory.</p></article><footer><a rel="bookmark" href="https://gnusocial.jp/conversation/2062308#notice-4048542">In conversation</a><time datetime="2023-09-15T20:48:09+09:00" title="Friday, 15-Sep-2023 20:48:09 JST">Friday, 15-Sep-2023 20:48:09 JST</time> <span>from <span><a href="https://mastodon.social/@danluu/111068065178842131" rel="external" title="Sent from mastodon.social via ActivityPub">mastodon.social</a></span></span><a href="https://mastodon.social/@danluu/111068065178842131">permalink</a><h4>Attachments</h4><ol><li><label><a rel="external" href="https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/1524166"> pflenker
One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to invest wisely!" This is true if you are free to choose to buy a new shirt now or save a bit and buy it later. But if you are running out of shirts now, you don't have that choice.CobaltFire 
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would...</a></label><br><a href="https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/068/055/752/156/455/original/1f1d23a8cb5f69bb.png" rel="external">https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/068/055/752/156/455/original/1f1d23a8cb5f69bb.png</a></li><li><label><a rel="external" href="https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/1524167">... And part of how I could economically swing that financially challenging process was by the advantage of having those $200 boots.So in an important sense, I could make through the financially challenging process of getting to be a licensed medical professional where I had better economic prospects (than a junior therapist who fails to make it to licensure does) because I already had the economic advantage of being able to get $200 boots. I could make a move in social class which improved my economic class because I already had an economic class advantage. You've presumably heard the expression "it takes money to make money"; I was able to make more money because I already had the money – to get the boots.But allow me to draw your attention to something that was happening in parallel. Let's talk about what it took for me to be able to take advantage of the $200 boot option.Vimes' Boot Theory says that the reason rich people get to save themselves money on boots is that they have the $200 for boots that poor people don't. That is true, of course, as discussed above. But that's not the whole story.They also know where to buy $200 boots.They also know which $200 boots to buy....</a></label><br><a href="https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/068/063/565/465/213/original/2be00493cfb823f0.png" rel="external">https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/068/063/565/465/213/original/2be00493cfb823f0.png</a></li></ol></footer></blockquote>

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Dan Luu (danluu@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 15-Sep-2023 20:48:09 JST Dan Luu
Roughly speaking, Vimes' boots theory of poverty is the idea that, if you're poor, you're forced to buy cheap products, such as boots, that wear out quickly and need to frequently be replaced, causing a kind of poverty trap.
Below are some quotes that illustrate typical examples of how people think about Vimes' boots theory.
In conversationFriday, 15-Sep-2023 20:48:09 JST from mastodon.socialpermalink
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1. pflenker One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to invest wisely!" This is true if you are free to choose to buy a new shirt now or save a bit and buy it later. But if you are running out of shirts now, you don't have that choice. CobaltFire The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would...
  https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/068/055/752/156/455/original/1f1d23a8cb5f69bb.png
2. ... And part of how I could economically swing that financially challenging process was by the advantage of having those $200 boots. So in an important sense, I could make through the financially challenging process of getting to be a licensed medical professional where I had better economic prospects (than a junior therapist who fails to make it to licensure does) because I already had the economic advantage of being able to get $200 boots. I could make a move in social class which improved my economic class because I already had an economic class advantage. You've presumably heard the expression "it takes money to make money"; I was able to make more money because I already had the money – to get the boots. But allow me to draw your attention to something that was happening in parallel. Let's talk about what it took for me to be able to take advantage of the $200 boot option. Vimes' Boot Theory says that the reason rich people get to save themselves money on boots is that they have the $200 for boots that poor people don't. That is true, of course, as discussed above. But that's not the whole story. They also know where to buy $200 boots. They also know which $200 boots to buy. ...
  https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/068/063/565/465/213/original/2be00493cfb823f0.png

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