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Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

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Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#81

Post by verbify »

d_t_w wrote: post #13
kevinmannix wrote: post #3

I wish more people thought this way. Debt can be be used effectively, but as Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility." It seems that too much of America is wooed into a false sense of security by their ability to obtain debt without judging their ability to pay that debt off.

I agree with your sentiment, but it strikes me that there is safety and opportunity in behaving badly when the bulk of your peers are swept away in an orgy of debt fuelled spending. Ten years ago I bought a small flat in London to live in. I paid a respectable deposit and didn't over-leverage. We were at the end of decade long property boom, there were huge concerns about the level of borrowing and ability to repay,…

Just because you got unlucky by being responsible doesn't mean everyone does or will.

I've known people in places where the property market collapsed and its ugly. And I know people think it can't happen in London, but 'it can't happen here' is about as myopic as it gets.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#82

Post by verbify »

d_t_w wrote: post #13
kevinmannix wrote: post #3

I wish more people thought this way. Debt can be be used effectively, but as Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility." It seems that too much of America is wooed into a false sense of security by their ability to obtain debt without judging their ability to pay that debt off.

I agree with your sentiment, but it strikes me that there is safety and opportunity in behaving badly when the bulk of your peers are swept away in an orgy of debt fuelled spending. Ten years ago I bought a small flat in London to live in. I paid a respectable deposit and didn't over-leverage. We were at the end of decade long property boom, there were huge concerns about the level of borrowing and ability to repay,…

Just because you got unlucky by being responsible doesn't mean everyone does or will.

I've known people in places where the property market collapsed and its ugly. And I know people think it can't happen in London, but 'it can't happen here' is about as myopic as it gets.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#83

Post by paganel »

appleiigs wrote: post #45

Debt conversations always have these weird grandpa rules of thumb and words of wisdom, as you can see in the other comments. The proper use of debt is to match the debt with the asset. If you are buying a house, a 25-year mortgage matches the value of the house. If you are buying a car, a 5-year loan matches the value of the car. If you are buying a sandwich with a credit card, well... you should pay off your credit…

> If you are buying a house, a 25-year mortgage matches the value of the house

The exchange price of the house does not have any intrinsic value, while generally speaking the cash money you owe to some external entity like a bank tends to keep its value in most of the cases (the Venezuela- and Zimbabwe-like cases are few and far between). In other words, you're betting that a real-estate crash won't happen before you end up paying your debt.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#84

Post by d_t_w »

verbify wrote: post #81
d_t_w wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment, but it strikes me that there is safety and opportunity in behaving badly when the bulk of your peers are swept away in an orgy of debt fuelled spending. Ten years ago I bought a small flat in London to live in. I paid a respectable deposit and didn't over-leverage. We were at the end of decade long property boom, there were huge concerns about the level of borrowing and ability to repay,…

Just because you got unlucky by being responsible doesn't mean everyone does or will. I've known people in places where the property market collapsed and its ugly. And I know people think it can't happen in London, but 'it can't happen here' is about as myopic as it gets.

I agree, all markets go up and down. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

What I think I underestimated is the length the government or reserve bank will go to in order to protect borrowers at the expense of everyone else.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#85

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #21
vinhboy wrote: post #17

> Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind. How refreshing. I agree with him. Paying my taxes is a point of pride for me. It's a repayment for all those years I was poor and the government paid for me to live and go to school.

Not sure if you're living in the US, but I do and I have the exact opposite viewpoint. The amount of waste, corruption and poor planning by the gov't makes me feel like I'm throwing money away. I'd rather give it a charity since then I'd know a majority of it had an impact. I think if the gov't was a bit more efficient and could be shown to be good stewards of money I'd probably hate paying taxes a lot less.

[deleted]

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#86

Post by vidarh »

edanm wrote: post #62
yequalsx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there are no examples of charity ever being able to provide the basic needs of all but a small percent of the poor of a nation. It was not charities that provided clean water. It was not charities that largely ended hunger or gave healthcare to the poor. It was not charities that educated the masses. Government is necessary. It can be done badly but it doesn't have to be.

You might be right but I'm not sure what you prevented is any kind of proof that charity couldn't provide those needs. It's just that in most cases, governments effectively have a monopoly on providing these kinds of services, making charity either redundant, or legally unable to provide said services.

Universal healthcare and other welfare reforms in most of the world came as a direct response to the total failure of charitable systems.

You are right: It's not proof that it can't work. However, despite extensive attempts, we also have no proof that it works, and plenty of proof that government welfare systems work far better than the charitable solutions that preceded them.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#87

Post by soVeryTired »

d_t_w wrote: post #13
kevinmannix wrote: post #3

I wish more people thought this way. Debt can be be used effectively, but as Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility." It seems that too much of America is wooed into a false sense of security by their ability to obtain debt without judging their ability to pay that debt off.

I agree with your sentiment, but it strikes me that there is safety and opportunity in behaving badly when the bulk of your peers are swept away in an orgy of debt fuelled spending. Ten years ago I bought a small flat in London to live in. I paid a respectable deposit and didn't over-leverage. We were at the end of decade long property boom, there were huge concerns about the level of borrowing and ability to repay,…

> In retrospect I should have taken all the cash the bank wanted to throw at me and bought the whole house.

You made the correct decision with the information you had. In Ireland, people who made the opposite decision are still underwater after a decade. So it could easily have gone the other way.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#88

Post by soVeryTired »

bootload wrote: post #5
kevinmannix wrote: post #3

I wish more people thought this way. Debt can be be used effectively, but as Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility." It seems that too much of America is wooed into a false sense of security by their ability to obtain debt without judging their ability to pay that debt off.

"I wish more people thought this way." It used to be common to view personal debt this way. I noticed a big change in the way debt was perceived by during the late '80s. Since then, debt is seen as normal. I'm pretty sure the finance industry has pushed 'Fractional reserve banking' to the limit to allow unchecked borrowing for land and housing. [0] Reference [0] "fractional-reserve banking permits the money supply to…

Fractional reserve banking doesn't really exist any more in the developed world. Banks lend against their capital, not their reserves [1].

[1] http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#89

Post by tawayway »

soperj wrote: post #26
refurb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're living in the US, but I do and I have the exact opposite viewpoint. The amount of waste, corruption and poor planning by the gov't makes me feel like I'm throwing money away. I'd rather give it a charity since then I'd know a majority of it had an impact. I think if the gov't was a bit more efficient and could be shown to be good stewards of money I'd probably hate paying taxes a lot less.

Tons of Charities pay their CEOs a shit ton of money. Boy Scouts CEO made 1.6 million as of 2010. I think it was Operation Smile that paid theirs over a million as well.

The counterargument is a well-intentioned but clueless volunteer should not be in charge of directing millions of dollars in donations. I imagine it's hard to find someone with skills to efficiently run a large organization without paying them an industry wage.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#90

Post by willbw »

wtvanhest wrote: post #11

Off topic, but why did the creator of this site make the top bar move when scrolling? That makes it 100% impossible to read for people who use the top of the screen as a line to read along. Also, is their a chrome extension to cancel that functionality?

I'm not having that problem on Safari.
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