Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by erdos4d 1295 days ago
> You'll find drastically different results in other parts of the world (third-world, for instance). Plenty of people wouldn't talk to you if they see no financial benefit in doing it (even a measly amount can have a profound effect).

I live in Ecuador, so third-world. The people here are not really after money, unless it's very easy to get. I mean, 30% of the "economy" here involves standing in the road with a mango, hoping someone gives you some coin for it (literally). Those same people could go get a real job and do some real hard work if they wanted actual cash. They don't. They like doing basically nothing and getting along okay from it. Not saying you're wrong, but latin america doesn't work this way.

1 comments

Ecuador has no-cost public healthcare. The US does't. Not having money in the US will literally actively kill you.
I'm not sure this has the effect you are suggesting but it did make me laugh. Makes you wonder who decides what is a first world country and what is a third world country. In some ways the existence of a significant portion of American's (those unfortunate enough to be poor) is worse than a third world existence.
It’s actually quite clear cut.

1st world: NATO and allies 2nd world: The Soviet Sphere 3rd world: Everything else.

Clear cut according to a definition absolutely nobody uses any more. There's no longer a Soviet sphere even if you wanted to use that definition and the post-soviet sphere has diverged dramatically.
> Not having money in the US will literally actively kill you.

Doesn't it put you on Medicaid?

If you're a legal citizen, and in one of the states that opted in to Medicade expansion (many states, all "red" states did not, despite it being literally free money from their prospective.)

A bigger problem is that the limits are quite low (Max income limit will be exceeded by someone making minimum wage in a lot of states. It's only $18k if single, going up to $36k for a family of 4.

That means there's a HUGE donut hole problem of making too much for Medicade, but not nearly enough to actually afford healthcare - or they maybe have some crappy employer plan that has a high deductible that would bankrupt them to even approach.