• BlackSheep@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    The Sam Vimes theory of socioeconomic unfairness, often called simply the boots theory: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … 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. … 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 still have wet feet.”

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I can’t make this sink into the minds of privileged people who never lost everything in their lives due to medical disasters from not being able to afford insurance, or having their house suddenly literally collapse one day while you’re at work because you couldn’t afford to get the pipes replaced.