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Isn't and Shouldn't are different things. Also, new hires exist. Not everyone has had time to actually accumulate wealth from their compensation. Not everyon

Isn't and Shouldn't are different things. Also, new hires exist. Not everyone has had time to actually accumulate wealth from their compensation. Not everyone was taught financial literacy before being dumped into a high stress job. Not everyone is in good health. I think sympathy and compassion are fine ideals to hold for any of our working class cohort.

vorpalhex 4y ago
I think treating our fellow humans like humans is more valuable than assuming they aren't capable of basic finance. Put another way, people will behave as you treat them. Treat them like they are fools who can't do finances and they will behave that way. Expect them to do basic financial behavior and they will. We literally make financial literacy courses free, online, without any need to even sign up. They will teach you what a bank is all the way up to 401k basics.
- solardev 4y ago
  As someone who is financially illiterate, but doesn't have the time or knowhow to separate the good ones from all the spam out there... can you recommend any good courses?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    MoneySmart - the official government course that covers the basics: https://www.fdic.gov/resources/consumers/money-smart/teach-money-smart/money-smart-for-adults.html https://www.fdic.gov/resources/consumers/money-smart/teach-m... It's intended to be instructor led but all the resources are available on that page. It is not an overwhelmingly thrilling course but it will get you through the material. The PersonalFinance Wiki for the /r/PersonalFinance subreddit is actually very nice and covers a lot of common situations: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics Investopedia maintains an excellent and well written dictionary on financial terms, with a mix of articles. I use this website heavily: https://www.investopedia.com/financial-term-dictionary-4769738 https://www.investopedia.com/financial-term-dictionary-47697... They have a personal wealth section here: https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance-4427760 https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance-4427760 and a good place to start is: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/09/financial-responsibility.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/09/financial-respon... If you want a software aid, YNAB is pretty good and is based on a solid set of principles. https://www.youneedabudget.com/the-four-rules/ https://www.youneedabudget.com/the-four-rules/ Obviously lots of other options exist to manage your money and YNAB is not the only option, but it's a good one. If a resource suggests any kind of particular stock picks, crypto or other "investments", it's bad. It exists to sell you a product.
    - solardev 4y ago
      Thank you! These are great resources. I've started skimming through them and will learn more in the weeks to come. Just created my budget for the year, which is a great start, but I have a lot more to learn.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    You don't need a course. Save money from each paycheck. If you're just starting, put this into an emergency fund (savings account) until you have 6 month's take-home pay saved. Then start savings in equities. You should diversify this, i.e. in low-fee index funds. Do this in an IRA or other tax-advantaged plan your employer might offer. Don't watch this too closely or try to time the market. Just invest with every paycheck. Understand the time value of money. Don't go into long term debt for short term needs or consumables. Live below your means so you can save more and maximize compounding gains in savings/investments. Do these things and you are well ahead of most people. If you want to get more sophisticated at that point, look for courses or professional advice, but remember pros rarely beat the market.
- refurb 4y ago
  Treating people like human beings (adults) also means letting them feel the consequences of poor choices. If someone is making $200,000 a year and is financial trouble when they get laid off (with severance), well, I reserve my tears for people who never see that kind of income their entire life.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    I don’t get why you feel the need to reserve your tears at all.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Only so many tears to go around. I’m not wasting them on someone who loses a $250,000/yr job.
smugma 4y ago
New hires won’t have vested equity that is blocked, so I don’t understand the relevance. It’s also not clear that Twitter would be able to block sales once you are no longer an employee; my guess is that they can’t.
rayiner 4y ago
> compassion are fine ideals to hold for any of our working class cohort. “Working class” lol. Class-wise, engineers are like the junior executives in the Mad Men era, or junior lawyers and bankers today. They are not only well compensated, but have tons of impact (and therefore leverage) as individual contributors. The “working class” are the folks cleaning the building who are fungible commodities. You can be a 10x janitor and it won’t give you any leverage in the organization, and you have no pathway to upward mobility in the executive ranks.
- projectazorian 4y ago
  > “Working class” lol. Class-wise, engineers are like the junior executives in the Mad Men era, or junior lawyers and bankers today. They are not only well compensated, but have tons of impact (and therefore leverage) as individual contributors. Anyone who relies on wage labor for their income (as opposed to earnings from capital) is working class. That is the defining feature of the working class. Unless you could retire tomorrow and support yourself from your capital holdings alone, you're a member of the working class. (Many engineers at Twitter likely could retire tomorrow and live off their equity, but I'm guessing the majority could not.) People love to erode class solidarity by claiming that only people whose incomes are below a certain level are working class, or that you have to "work with your hands" to be working class. Don't fall for it.
  - shukantpal 4y ago
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > Anyone who relies on wage labor for their income (as opposed to earnings from capital) is working class. Since when is that the definition? Doctors and lawyers have never been considered part of the "working class." Software engineers, and other categories of jobs that didn't really exist in the 1930s, are more similar to those professionals than to working class people. > People love to erode class solidarity by claiming that only people whose incomes are below a certain level are working class You've got it exactly backward. The top 10% has been pulling away from the median American for decades now. They're beneficiaries of the same forces that have produced outsized growth for the top 0.1%. They write the software, paper the deals, put together the PowerPoint presentations, etc., that enable those trends. The delusion among skilled professionals that they are part of the "working class," and their influx into the putatively labor-aligned political party, has had a tremendously negative effect on working class interests. They champion policies like globalization and mass immigration that benefit them at the expense of factory and farm workers. They spent divert vast amounts of political capital to social issues important to highly educated people, at the expense of economic issues important to the working class. And they make it impossible to pay for expansive social services the way other developed countries pay for them: by heavily taxing the upper middle class.
least 4y ago
Are highly educated, highly compensated, and highly privileged folk considered working class now? Financial literacy is something that desperately needs to be part of the curriculum in high school and I can empathize with people that will struggle as a result of their layoffs even if it's due to their own money mismanagement, but software engineers being laid off from a tech giant are definitely not working class in any sense.
- ProfessorLayton 4y ago
  If someone needs to work to make ends meet, then yes they're working class. The capitalist class are those that make their income from the labor of others (The working class).
  - least 4y ago
    A person developing software definitionally isn't part of the proletariat or working class, they'd be defined as petite bourgeoisie. Your definition does not make sense in the archaic marxist sense nor does it represent the connotative definition of working class that is more representative of class structure in the world we're currently living in.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fleddr 4y ago
"Not everyone was taught financial literacy" That's not how adulthood works. The world doesn't care if you learned it nor will it teach you. Besides, it doesn't take a course in finance to understand basic financial responsibility.
- ribosometronome 4y ago
  I don't understand the utility of this viewpoint. Adults can teach themselves most things given the right tools and incentive. Your viewpoint essentially means nothing is ever problematic ever. Invasive rhinos released onto SF streets causing property damage? Why didn't SF residents learn to defend themselves and their property damage. The world doesn't care if you learn or not. Climate change leading to drought and the entire world is starving? Should have done a little thinking ahead and stockpiled food.
  - cecilpl2 4y ago
    You seem to be suggesting that basic adult skills like financial literacy and planning for the possibility of a layoff are completely unnecessary in today's world?
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    Do you expect us to teach adults how to do laundry and cook dinner as well? When you’re an adult, financial planning becomes your responsibility.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      Lots of places have classes for this, yes. Some would suggest making them mandatory, or emphasizing them more.
    - assttoasstmgr 4y ago
      > how to do laundry and cook dinner as well Half my coworkers lack these basic skills and they drive around in $100k Teslas.
kamaal 4y ago
>>Not everyone was taught financial literacy before being dumped into a high stress job. Financial literacy is quite literally adding and subtracting numbers. For somebody who gets in to FAANG sort of companies with mad algorithm skills. This sort of things are a cake walk. Financial Literacy applies to people who just didn't get any education. We are talking of people who can't even read and write.

vorpalhex 4y ago

I think treating our fellow humans like humans is more valuable than assuming they aren't capable of basic finance. Put another way, people will behave as you treat them. Treat them like they are fools who can't do finances and they will behave that way. Expect them to do basic financial behavior and they will. We literally make financial literacy courses free, online, without any need to even sign up. They will teach you what a bank is all the way up to 401k basics.

solardev 4y ago
As someone who is financially illiterate, but doesn't have the time or knowhow to separate the good ones from all the spam out there... can you recommend any good courses?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  MoneySmart - the official government course that covers the basics: https://www.fdic.gov/resources/consumers/money-smart/teach-money-smart/money-smart-for-adults.html https://www.fdic.gov/resources/consumers/money-smart/teach-m... It's intended to be instructor led but all the resources are available on that page. It is not an overwhelmingly thrilling course but it will get you through the material. The PersonalFinance Wiki for the /r/PersonalFinance subreddit is actually very nice and covers a lot of common situations: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics Investopedia maintains an excellent and well written dictionary on financial terms, with a mix of articles. I use this website heavily: https://www.investopedia.com/financial-term-dictionary-4769738 https://www.investopedia.com/financial-term-dictionary-47697... They have a personal wealth section here: https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance-4427760 https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance-4427760 and a good place to start is: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/09/financial-responsibility.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/09/financial-respon... If you want a software aid, YNAB is pretty good and is based on a solid set of principles. https://www.youneedabudget.com/the-four-rules/ https://www.youneedabudget.com/the-four-rules/ Obviously lots of other options exist to manage your money and YNAB is not the only option, but it's a good one. If a resource suggests any kind of particular stock picks, crypto or other "investments", it's bad. It exists to sell you a product.
  - solardev 4y ago
    Thank you! These are great resources. I've started skimming through them and will learn more in the weeks to come. Just created my budget for the year, which is a great start, but I have a lot more to learn.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  You don't need a course. Save money from each paycheck. If you're just starting, put this into an emergency fund (savings account) until you have 6 month's take-home pay saved. Then start savings in equities. You should diversify this, i.e. in low-fee index funds. Do this in an IRA or other tax-advantaged plan your employer might offer. Don't watch this too closely or try to time the market. Just invest with every paycheck. Understand the time value of money. Don't go into long term debt for short term needs or consumables. Live below your means so you can save more and maximize compounding gains in savings/investments. Do these things and you are well ahead of most people. If you want to get more sophisticated at that point, look for courses or professional advice, but remember pros rarely beat the market.
refurb 4y ago
Treating people like human beings (adults) also means letting them feel the consequences of poor choices. If someone is making $200,000 a year and is financial trouble when they get laid off (with severance), well, I reserve my tears for people who never see that kind of income their entire life.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  I don’t get why you feel the need to reserve your tears at all.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Only so many tears to go around. I’m not wasting them on someone who loses a $250,000/yr job.

smugma 4y ago

New hires won’t have vested equity that is blocked, so I don’t understand the relevance. It’s also not clear that Twitter would be able to block sales once you are no longer an employee; my guess is that they can’t.

rayiner 4y ago

> compassion are fine ideals to hold for any of our working class cohort. “Working class” lol. Class-wise, engineers are like the junior executives in the Mad Men era, or junior lawyers and bankers today. They are not only well compensated, but have tons of impact (and therefore leverage) as individual contributors. The “working class” are the folks cleaning the building who are fungible commodities. You can be a 10x janitor and it won’t give you any leverage in the organization, and you have no pathway to upward mobility in the executive ranks.

projectazorian 4y ago
> “Working class” lol. Class-wise, engineers are like the junior executives in the Mad Men era, or junior lawyers and bankers today. They are not only well compensated, but have tons of impact (and therefore leverage) as individual contributors. Anyone who relies on wage labor for their income (as opposed to earnings from capital) is working class. That is the defining feature of the working class. Unless you could retire tomorrow and support yourself from your capital holdings alone, you're a member of the working class. (Many engineers at Twitter likely could retire tomorrow and live off their equity, but I'm guessing the majority could not.) People love to erode class solidarity by claiming that only people whose incomes are below a certain level are working class, or that you have to "work with your hands" to be working class. Don't fall for it.
- shukantpal 4y ago
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Anyone who relies on wage labor for their income (as opposed to earnings from capital) is working class. Since when is that the definition? Doctors and lawyers have never been considered part of the "working class." Software engineers, and other categories of jobs that didn't really exist in the 1930s, are more similar to those professionals than to working class people. > People love to erode class solidarity by claiming that only people whose incomes are below a certain level are working class You've got it exactly backward. The top 10% has been pulling away from the median American for decades now. They're beneficiaries of the same forces that have produced outsized growth for the top 0.1%. They write the software, paper the deals, put together the PowerPoint presentations, etc., that enable those trends. The delusion among skilled professionals that they are part of the "working class," and their influx into the putatively labor-aligned political party, has had a tremendously negative effect on working class interests. They champion policies like globalization and mass immigration that benefit them at the expense of factory and farm workers. They spent divert vast amounts of political capital to social issues important to highly educated people, at the expense of economic issues important to the working class. And they make it impossible to pay for expansive social services the way other developed countries pay for them: by heavily taxing the upper middle class.

least 4y ago

Are highly educated, highly compensated, and highly privileged folk considered working class now? Financial literacy is something that desperately needs to be part of the curriculum in high school and I can empathize with people that will struggle as a result of their layoffs even if it's due to their own money mismanagement, but software engineers being laid off from a tech giant are definitely not working class in any sense.

ProfessorLayton 4y ago
If someone needs to work to make ends meet, then yes they're working class. The capitalist class are those that make their income from the labor of others (The working class).
- least 4y ago
  A person developing software definitionally isn't part of the proletariat or working class, they'd be defined as petite bourgeoisie. Your definition does not make sense in the archaic marxist sense nor does it represent the connotative definition of working class that is more representative of class structure in the world we're currently living in.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

fleddr 4y ago

"Not everyone was taught financial literacy" That's not how adulthood works. The world doesn't care if you learned it nor will it teach you. Besides, it doesn't take a course in finance to understand basic financial responsibility.

ribosometronome 4y ago
I don't understand the utility of this viewpoint. Adults can teach themselves most things given the right tools and incentive. Your viewpoint essentially means nothing is ever problematic ever. Invasive rhinos released onto SF streets causing property damage? Why didn't SF residents learn to defend themselves and their property damage. The world doesn't care if you learn or not. Climate change leading to drought and the entire world is starving? Should have done a little thinking ahead and stockpiled food.
- cecilpl2 4y ago
  You seem to be suggesting that basic adult skills like financial literacy and planning for the possibility of a layoff are completely unnecessary in today's world?
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  Do you expect us to teach adults how to do laundry and cook dinner as well? When you’re an adult, financial planning becomes your responsibility.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    Lots of places have classes for this, yes. Some would suggest making them mandatory, or emphasizing them more.
  - assttoasstmgr 4y ago
    > how to do laundry and cook dinner as well Half my coworkers lack these basic skills and they drive around in $100k Teslas.

kamaal 4y ago

>>Not everyone was taught financial literacy before being dumped into a high stress job. Financial literacy is quite literally adding and subtracting numbers. For somebody who gets in to FAANG sort of companies with mad algorithm skills. This sort of things are a cake walk. Financial Literacy applies to people who just didn't get any education. We are talking of people who can't even read and write.