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Just the push back on financial advice by guys like Dave Ramsey is shocking. You tell people to save, avoid debt, don’t buy new cars, etc and people react with

Just the push back on financial advice by guys like Dave Ramsey is shocking. You tell people to save, avoid debt, don’t buy new cars, etc and people react with almost anger at the suggestion.

mschuster91 4y ago
It's impossible today to have any sort of major asset without going into debt. Simply said, wages are so low you can't really save up for anything - like what, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck? Back in the Ford era, it was at least commonly understood common sense that people need to be able to afford products. Today? The people are held poor so that they can't afford to strike, much less openly revolt, and nickeled-and-dimed by the credit industry. The advice from Ramsey and friends makes sense and is objectively the best thing people can do, but at the same time its messaging is clear: miss out on the fun everyone else has achieved by debt.
- quacked 4y ago
  I agree with you and your parent commenter. > Today? The people are held poor so that they can't afford to strike, much less openly revolt, and nickeled-and-dimed by the credit industry. I think it's less that they're held so "poor" (i.e. not having access to a lot of cash) as that they are so completely effectively barred from any kind of sustenance outside of the Debt System that striking would mean the total abandonment of any kind of life they're used to. A real revolution would mean complete blockage from almost every public space and service--unlike the past, there's not anywhere for you to go if you're at odds with the banking system. You'll starve, or you'll be tracked and thrown in jail to suffer the wrath of the stupid, uncivilized drug-addicted gangs. There's not even food in the lands surrounding the towns and cities, it's all single-crop cash yields that get exported. People are also very carefully manipulated (not necessarily deliberately--it's just the net result of all aggregate manipulation) to be extremely suspicious and cautious of anything that would upset the life they're used to. If you talk to anyone above $140k/year household aggregate about the possibility of living 2-3 families in one home or never travelling by air again they look at you like you're speaking a foreign language.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > It's impossible today to have any sort of major asset without going into debt. The system is headed for feudalism, where majority of the population will never own land/home, and will have lesser rights than those that do. People who think this is a fantasy, should check what percentage of the population can afford a lawyer. it's like 20-30% tops
paulmd 4y ago
I think there's pushback because it's kind of a "just buy more money" solution. On the whole, the problem isn't that people are buying $70k trucks and escalades that's keeping them poor. It's not having enough income. The difference personally between $70k and $90k is massive and the difference between $90k and $120k is massive. That's the difference between underfunding my retirement and no savings and still being fairly tight on fun money, and having all of those things and still being able to pay that surprise $2k vet bill and just not save as much that month. And I pay less to own than I did to rent, in a nicer house, and I'm building equity when I do it. Was there an attitude change towards savings/etc there too? Sure. But like, the biggest difference was just having more money. You can't save when you don't have money coming in. And at $70k I was making more than the median family with kids. People have to make do with a lot less than that. And that becomes "can't fix the car" or "can't afford to go to the hospital" or "kids don't eat breakfast" at the bottom end. $40k with kids is poverty, and that's an awful lot of people. When your shitty insurance drops you a $40k bill for a weekend in the hospital you're not paying that and it will take the rest of your finances with it. At an individual level yes, acting wisely with money is all any one person can do. But it comes off as entitled when you tell people that they personally are doing it wrong, when the overwhelming majority of people in the economy are losing. The middle-class lifestyle as we have come to know it basically requires you be in the top 10% of income earners in your local economy. At some point it's a society-wide problem, people respond to the incentives you give them as best they can with the resources they have. But a talk-show host saying "just buy more money" isn't going to fix those social-level problems. The problem isn't people, and if your system requires magical rational-actors who will wageslave for 50 years without the occasional vacation or other nicety and die penniless in retirement after cutting social security, then your system is going to fail. At a societal level, there is no "one weird trick from a talk-show host" to bypass the incentives we've set up or vastly increase the amount of resources any one person is allocated. Well, crime I guess.
- quacked 4y ago
  This was a very well-written response to the parent commenter and to my own attitude to which the parent commenter was responding. > The middle-class lifestyle as we have come to know it basically requires you be in the top 10% of income earners in your local economy. Absolutely true. I've found that to not worry about any of (health, retirement, surprise bills, vehicles, housing) you need about $100k/year post-tax, and that's in a heartland state with "low" COL. > The problem isn't people, and if your system requires magical rational-actors who will wageslave for 50 years without the occasional vacation or other nicety and die penniless in retirement after cutting social security, then your system is going to fail. Amusingly, this is one of the reasons I'm not too worried about the inevitability of the system crashing. The current system is bound for failure. It's practically designed to fail. Once it fails, something will have to take its place. I think there's just enough civilizational inertia that the US isn't headed for total anarchy, as is always a risk for less-developed places when the currency and the food importation falls through.

Just the push back on financial advice by guys like Dave Ramsey is shocking. You tell people to save, avoid debt, don’t buy new cars, etc and people react with almost anger at the suggestion.

mschuster91 4y ago

It's impossible today to have any sort of major asset without going into debt. Simply said, wages are so low you can't really save up for anything - like what, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck? Back in the Ford era, it was at least commonly understood common sense that people need to be able to afford products. Today? The people are held poor so that they can't afford to strike, much less openly revolt, and nickeled-and-dimed by the credit industry. The advice from Ramsey and friends makes sense and is objectively the best thing people can do, but at the same time its messaging is clear: miss out on the fun everyone else has achieved by debt.

quacked 4y ago
I agree with you and your parent commenter. > Today? The people are held poor so that they can't afford to strike, much less openly revolt, and nickeled-and-dimed by the credit industry. I think it's less that they're held so "poor" (i.e. not having access to a lot of cash) as that they are so completely effectively barred from any kind of sustenance outside of the Debt System that striking would mean the total abandonment of any kind of life they're used to. A real revolution would mean complete blockage from almost every public space and service--unlike the past, there's not anywhere for you to go if you're at odds with the banking system. You'll starve, or you'll be tracked and thrown in jail to suffer the wrath of the stupid, uncivilized drug-addicted gangs. There's not even food in the lands surrounding the towns and cities, it's all single-crop cash yields that get exported. People are also very carefully manipulated (not necessarily deliberately--it's just the net result of all aggregate manipulation) to be extremely suspicious and cautious of anything that would upset the life they're used to. If you talk to anyone above $140k/year household aggregate about the possibility of living 2-3 families in one home or never travelling by air again they look at you like you're speaking a foreign language.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> It's impossible today to have any sort of major asset without going into debt. The system is headed for feudalism, where majority of the population will never own land/home, and will have lesser rights than those that do. People who think this is a fantasy, should check what percentage of the population can afford a lawyer. it's like 20-30% tops

paulmd 4y ago

I think there's pushback because it's kind of a "just buy more money" solution. On the whole, the problem isn't that people are buying $70k trucks and escalades that's keeping them poor. It's not having enough income. The difference personally between $70k and $90k is massive and the difference between $90k and $120k is massive. That's the difference between underfunding my retirement and no savings and still being fairly tight on fun money, and having all of those things and still being able to pay that surprise $2k vet bill and just not save as much that month. And I pay less to own than I did to rent, in a nicer house, and I'm building equity when I do it. Was there an attitude change towards savings/etc there too? Sure. But like, the biggest difference was just having more money. You can't save when you don't have money coming in. And at $70k I was making more than the median family with kids. People have to make do with a lot less than that. And that becomes "can't fix the car" or "can't afford to go to the hospital" or "kids don't eat breakfast" at the bottom end. $40k with kids is poverty, and that's an awful lot of people. When your shitty insurance drops you a $40k bill for a weekend in the hospital you're not paying that and it will take the rest of your finances with it. At an individual level yes, acting wisely with money is all any one person can do. But it comes off as entitled when you tell people that they personally are doing it wrong, when the overwhelming majority of people in the economy are losing. The middle-class lifestyle as we have come to know it basically requires you be in the top 10% of income earners in your local economy. At some point it's a society-wide problem, people respond to the incentives you give them as best they can with the resources they have. But a talk-show host saying "just buy more money" isn't going to fix those social-level problems. The problem isn't people, and if your system requires magical rational-actors who will wageslave for 50 years without the occasional vacation or other nicety and die penniless in retirement after cutting social security, then your system is going to fail. At a societal level, there is no "one weird trick from a talk-show host" to bypass the incentives we've set up or vastly increase the amount of resources any one person is allocated. Well, crime I guess.

quacked 4y ago
This was a very well-written response to the parent commenter and to my own attitude to which the parent commenter was responding. > The middle-class lifestyle as we have come to know it basically requires you be in the top 10% of income earners in your local economy. Absolutely true. I've found that to not worry about any of (health, retirement, surprise bills, vehicles, housing) you need about $100k/year post-tax, and that's in a heartland state with "low" COL. > The problem isn't people, and if your system requires magical rational-actors who will wageslave for 50 years without the occasional vacation or other nicety and die penniless in retirement after cutting social security, then your system is going to fail. Amusingly, this is one of the reasons I'm not too worried about the inevitability of the system crashing. The current system is bound for failure. It's practically designed to fail. Once it fails, something will have to take its place. I think there's just enough civilizational inertia that the US isn't headed for total anarchy, as is always a risk for less-developed places when the currency and the food importation falls through.