4 ms·

"overextending" oneself, especially if you have dependents, is irresponsible.

by joubert 16y ago

mkr-hn 16y ago
Putting yourself in heavy debt to make sure your kids have a good shot is not difficult to defend. It's not something I'd do, but I have a hard time blaming someone for making that sacrifice.
- joubert 16y ago
  It's not something I'd do, but I have a hard time blaming someone for making that sacrifice. a) Why is it that you won't do it? b) The issue is that they're sacrificing the financial security of their kids by living on the edge and that is irresponsible if you're someone's guardian. Imagine a company/government says we'll go into heavy debt because we want to give our shareholders/citizens a good shot - is that not irresponsible?
  - jasongullickson 16y ago
    Debt can go away but bad education doesn't.
  - mkr-hn 16y ago
    Mainly because I don't have any plans to have kids, but I'm also not the sort to take that kind of risk. I'd rather supplement a bad school with good resources at home and plenty of guidance.
    - zizee 16y ago
      I would say that you haven't thought about the power of a bad peer group can have over a good kid. I didn't think about that stuff until I had kids myself, so it is not that surprising, given your position, that you haven't thought of that.
  - timwiseman 16y ago
    Imagine a company/government says we'll go into heavy debt because we want to give our shareholders/citizens a good shot - is that not irresponsible? Those are two different questions. When it comes to a company, the answer is very often Yes. The purpose of most companies (there are some exceptions) is to maximize profits using all ethical and legal means. If the expected payoff of the capital investment the loan would finance is greater than the interest of the loan, then taking it very often makes sense even if it would risk bankruptcy if something goes wrong. When asking about the government, it matters a lot about what you think the purpose of government is, and that is a philosophical question I will leave alone for now.
  - amalcon 16y ago
    They are risking having their kids grow up with less access to resources in order to give those same kids one of the primary benefits of access to resources. If they did the research, understood the consequences, and were sincere about their reasons, it is the very epitome of a calculated risk. It's not like the potential downside is living in the car. The potential downside is maybe being forced to rent in a worse area, and having trouble buying things on credit for a while.
- hartror 16y ago
  I truely don't buy into the whole "good school" thing as being overwealmingly important for a child's future happiness and success. Though this is based on my own personal experience rather than solid data. Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended. I think the main factors to my economic success was being taught to enjoy reading at a young age by my parents. I have always devoured information and through that have made a career without any qualifications. The emotional/social success and general happiness I experience is a little harder to point to a source but certainly didn't come from the shit hole high school I attended. I generally attribute it to my parents teaching me what to value and growing up in an emotionally secure environment. This security and parenting happened even though my parents fought each other constantly and divorced in my early teens. The were both dedicated parents who presented a consistent set of rules and values. Of course I could just be on the further end of the bell curve?
  - Helianthus16 16y ago
    You don't know how bad schools can be. >Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended. But would those factors be the same at a different school? I'm going to commit a minor sin and say a statistic without a citation; the average ACT score among teachers in Chicago was 19 a few years back. You say you went to a shit hole high school, in which case you really _should_ have a sense of perspective on the whole thing. If your school was a shitty as you say, you must have been near the very, very top of your class (not in class rank but in overall success). That's a huge distribution of people who are _not you_, who went on to more desperate lives.
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      Is the debate here about poverty or is it about debt? Money is just the messenger in the economy - it transmits information to you about what roles might or might not be valuable, and from you as to what goods and services you would like to consume. It's not hard to stay out of debt - you simply have to heed the message that money is transmitting to you. Poverty is a wider question, and includes whether or not it is fair & just that some people have to make the sacrifices needed to stay out of debt. When I say that you can simply choose not to send your kids to college to avoid taking on crippling student loan debt, that is a 100% factually true statement. When you then say "But one shouldn't have to forgo an education to avoid going into debt", that's a normative statement. It's one that I'd probably even agree with you on, but it's a much broader conversation with no clear answers about how to fix it or even what the problem definition is.
joe_the_user 16y ago
And a "medical emergency" can have unlimited costs today...
- joubert 16y ago
  The parent wrote: "They did it because they overextended themselves to get a house in a good school district and then one of them lost their job or they had a medical emergency." So, they overextended themselves and THEN lost a job or had a medical emergency. The problem is people choose to live on the edge financially, which I think is irresponsible, especially if you have others who depend on you for their life.
  - rick888 16y ago
    "So, they overextended themselves and THEN lost a job or had a medical emergency. The problem is people choose to live on the edge financially, which I think is irresponsible, especially if you have others who depend on you for their life." This is exactly true. Someone above mentioned that people buy houses, to get into a good school district. Why can't we allow people in bad school districts to go to another school? I will give you the answer: teacher's unions. I always try to have at least 6 months (IE: I could survive for six months without a job) salary in the bank. I got laid off a couple of weeks ago and now I'm fine. Many people I know, that decided to live beyond their means, are now worried that if they lose their job, they will be in trouble. Everyone wants to blame the medical system (which does need work) and ignore personal responsibility. Medical emergencies that result in bankruptcy probably happen to less than 5% of the population. It's almost as bad as the terrorist fear mongering.
    - lutorm 16y ago
      Teacher's unions??? Why don't we have state-wide, or at least city-wide financing of schools? That would take away the school district issue entirely.
    - jfrumar 16y ago
      Times your "probably less than 5%" by twelve and you're closer to the truth: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical...

"overextending" oneself, especially if you have dependents, is irresponsible.

by joubert 16y ago

"overextending" oneself, especially if you have dependents, is irresponsible.

Putting yourself in heavy debt to make sure your kids have a good shot is not difficult to defend. It's not something I'd do, but I have a hard time blaming someone for making that sacrifice.

joubert 16y ago
It's not something I'd do, but I have a hard time blaming someone for making that sacrifice. a) Why is it that you won't do it? b) The issue is that they're sacrificing the financial security of their kids by living on the edge and that is irresponsible if you're someone's guardian. Imagine a company/government says we'll go into heavy debt because we want to give our shareholders/citizens a good shot - is that not irresponsible?
- jasongullickson 16y ago
  Debt can go away but bad education doesn't.
- mkr-hn 16y ago
  Mainly because I don't have any plans to have kids, but I'm also not the sort to take that kind of risk. I'd rather supplement a bad school with good resources at home and plenty of guidance.
  - zizee 16y ago
    I would say that you haven't thought about the power of a bad peer group can have over a good kid. I didn't think about that stuff until I had kids myself, so it is not that surprising, given your position, that you haven't thought of that.
- timwiseman 16y ago
  Imagine a company/government says we'll go into heavy debt because we want to give our shareholders/citizens a good shot - is that not irresponsible? Those are two different questions. When it comes to a company, the answer is very often Yes. The purpose of most companies (there are some exceptions) is to maximize profits using all ethical and legal means. If the expected payoff of the capital investment the loan would finance is greater than the interest of the loan, then taking it very often makes sense even if it would risk bankruptcy if something goes wrong. When asking about the government, it matters a lot about what you think the purpose of government is, and that is a philosophical question I will leave alone for now.
- amalcon 16y ago
  They are risking having their kids grow up with less access to resources in order to give those same kids one of the primary benefits of access to resources. If they did the research, understood the consequences, and were sincere about their reasons, it is the very epitome of a calculated risk. It's not like the potential downside is living in the car. The potential downside is maybe being forced to rent in a worse area, and having trouble buying things on credit for a while.
hartror 16y ago
I truely don't buy into the whole "good school" thing as being overwealmingly important for a child's future happiness and success. Though this is based on my own personal experience rather than solid data. Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended. I think the main factors to my economic success was being taught to enjoy reading at a young age by my parents. I have always devoured information and through that have made a career without any qualifications. The emotional/social success and general happiness I experience is a little harder to point to a source but certainly didn't come from the shit hole high school I attended. I generally attribute it to my parents teaching me what to value and growing up in an emotionally secure environment. This security and parenting happened even though my parents fought each other constantly and divorced in my early teens. The were both dedicated parents who presented a consistent set of rules and values. Of course I could just be on the further end of the bell curve?
- Helianthus16 16y ago
  You don't know how bad schools can be. >Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended. But would those factors be the same at a different school? I'm going to commit a minor sin and say a statistic without a citation; the average ACT score among teachers in Chicago was 19 a few years back. You say you went to a shit hole high school, in which case you really _should_ have a sense of perspective on the whole thing. If your school was a shitty as you say, you must have been near the very, very top of your class (not in class rank but in overall success). That's a huge distribution of people who are _not you_, who went on to more desperate lives.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Is the debate here about poverty or is it about debt? Money is just the messenger in the economy - it transmits information to you about what roles might or might not be valuable, and from you as to what goods and services you would like to consume. It's not hard to stay out of debt - you simply have to heed the message that money is transmitting to you. Poverty is a wider question, and includes whether or not it is fair & just that some people have to make the sacrifices needed to stay out of debt. When I say that you can simply choose not to send your kids to college to avoid taking on crippling student loan debt, that is a 100% factually true statement. When you then say "But one shouldn't have to forgo an education to avoid going into debt", that's a normative statement. It's one that I'd probably even agree with you on, but it's a much broader conversation with no clear answers about how to fix it or even what the problem definition is.

joe_the_user 16y ago

And a "medical emergency" can have unlimited costs today...

joubert 16y ago
The parent wrote: "They did it because they overextended themselves to get a house in a good school district and then one of them lost their job or they had a medical emergency." So, they overextended themselves and THEN lost a job or had a medical emergency. The problem is people choose to live on the edge financially, which I think is irresponsible, especially if you have others who depend on you for their life.
- rick888 16y ago
  "So, they overextended themselves and THEN lost a job or had a medical emergency. The problem is people choose to live on the edge financially, which I think is irresponsible, especially if you have others who depend on you for their life." This is exactly true. Someone above mentioned that people buy houses, to get into a good school district. Why can't we allow people in bad school districts to go to another school? I will give you the answer: teacher's unions. I always try to have at least 6 months (IE: I could survive for six months without a job) salary in the bank. I got laid off a couple of weeks ago and now I'm fine. Many people I know, that decided to live beyond their means, are now worried that if they lose their job, they will be in trouble. Everyone wants to blame the medical system (which does need work) and ignore personal responsibility. Medical emergencies that result in bankruptcy probably happen to less than 5% of the population. It's almost as bad as the terrorist fear mongering.
  - lutorm 16y ago
    Teacher's unions??? Why don't we have state-wide, or at least city-wide financing of schools? That would take away the school district issue entirely.
  - jfrumar 16y ago
    Times your "probably less than 5%" by twelve and you're closer to the truth: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical...