Being poor is a state of mind that you never out grow, but being broke is just a temporary condition

[Adrahil]

19. I can just tell you my experience.

I picked a career and went for it. She could never find a job she liked. 30 years later, she works at a Wendy's. When she got a $500 bonus, she bought a big HDTV, instead of paying off a credit card. Although I now probably make at least 3 times what she does, I didn't get an HD TV for 3 years after she did. Just this summer she visited me and spent half the time talking about how broke her family is. Two weeks after she got home, she and her husband bought a used Harley and, yup, put it on a credit card.

I want to emphasize, we started in the same place. Neither has any money to go to college, or otherwise get a start. We BOTH got scholarships. I got a degree. She dropped out because she never had enough time or money to hang out with her friends at the bar.

I'm not saying we don't have structural economic problems. We most certainly do. And they are getting worse. But we also have a cultural problem, at least for some people.