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Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

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Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#101

Post by Retric »

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.

It's not about can't but won't. The feedback loop is basically as the problem gets worse more people give, but as the situation improves fewer people give. Thus, cheraties won't fix any problem that requires regular funding.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#102

Post by coderjames »

taurath wrote: post #94
ianai wrote: post #47

There was a point where financing the government was a patriotic act. People would give other people War Bonds as presents. But now the patriotic thing is to trash talk which ever party is in the administration and wax poetic about governmental corruption. You can't have it both ways. You can't say no to financing your government and scorn corruption. Either you're okay paying for your government, you're okay with so…

The government needs better PR frankly, instead of allowing itself to be a punching bag all day. Nobody can even imagine how many things the government and your tax dollars provide.

I was thinking about this recently when I filed my taxes.

Maybe if they provided some kind of itemized receipt? "You paid $x in taxes. This was distributed as $y to infrastructure, $z to education, $w to defense" etc.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#103

Post by patrickaljord »

coderjames wrote: post #102
taurath wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government needs better PR frankly, instead of allowing itself to be a punching bag all day. Nobody can even imagine how many things the government and your tax dollars provide.

I was thinking about this recently when I filed my taxes. Maybe if they provided some kind of itemized receipt? "You paid $x in taxes. This was distributed as $y to infrastructure, $z to education, $w to defense" etc.

Your tax dollar don't pay for $y, $z or $w. You pay for the national debt mostly at this point. The government overspends and gets its money either from debt or from over printing. Even if top 10 of fortune 500 paid 100% taxes, it would still not cover spending. Just saying.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#104

Post by Confusion »

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.

Proudly paying your taxes doesn't mean you don't recognize that the government may not be the most efficient organisation around. It doesn't mean that you agree with the decisions being made. It only means you agree that something between X and Y% of taxes needs to be paid to operate a country smoothly. And I've delegated the decision of what exactly to spend it on to others, so I accept that I can't always be 100% happy with the choices.

  The amount of waste, corruption and poor planning by the gov't [..]
Companies do the exact same thing. How much money is wasted by the next failed IT project? Poor planning, check. Funnelling money to their own pockets and those of their friends? Check.

Governments aren't the most efficient organisations around. But Western governments certainly aren't the worst either.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#105

Post by callmeal »

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.

Actually they are[1]. And if you want to consider things like roads, railways and other infrastructure -- think about how almost every private institution that built that infrastructure went bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the taxpayers. A lot of the "government is inefficient" talk comes from people who want all regulation to go away for their own benefit. A little searching will also show you a long list of private industries and institutions with equivalent amounts of waste, corruption and poor planning.

[1] http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/20/medicare-is-more-ef...

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#106

Post by daemin »

d_t_w wrote: post #73
L_226 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in AU the Federal Government is considering allowing access to superannuation (compulsory retirement fund paid out of your wage) to first home buyers to help with a deposit. An interesting opinion piece[0] discusses how this might be construed as a ponzi scheme. [0] - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-16/super-for-housing-depo...

Similarly first home buyer grants or stamp duty concessions, they sound appealing to young couples struggling to enter the market but have repeatedly been shown to do nothing but inflate the market further. When confronted with a golden goose that pumps money into the economy no politician wants to take a long term view of impacts, particularly when it's their generation making easy money at the expense of those who…

Indeed, in AU there is also the pressure of negative gearing, which enables a lot of high earners to buy many properties. Even removing negative gearing from properties is a really tough ask to get through politically.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#107

Post by daemin »

bittercynic wrote: post #44
paulcole wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the rebranding of the scary "second-mortgage" into the treat-yourself "home-equity-line-of-credit."

Those are two distinct products. I think they're both scary ways to treat-yourself.

It's the way that consumer culture can grow, because you use your line of credit to buy a second or third car, nicer car, jet ski, boat, canoe, etc. Then when you have all of this stuff you have to buy a bigger property just so that you have space to store it. So that means selling your existing property to someone else to repeat the cycle.

It is certainly an efficient way to keep money moving.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#108

Post by lostboys67 »

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.

As compared to Kids Company in the UK or the channelling of tax payer funds to charities in Tower Hamlets

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#109

Post by douche »

camillomiller wrote: post #77
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.

It surprises me all the time to see what you can do with a CC in America. Here in Europe it's also very common to have a direct debit card. You don't have a monthly bill, but the amount you spend is directly deducted from your account. Lots of people prefer that.

The best option in the US is to use a credit card as if it were a debit card, and pay your balance off every month. This way, you get to take advantage of the better fraud protections, cash-back rewards, and balance-smoothing benefits of the credit card, without paying any intetest. And it improves your credit score.

Unless you have no financial discipline, there's no reason to use debit over credit.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#110

Post by mdpopescu »

err4nt wrote: post #14
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 view debt as gambling against future prosperity. It's a faustian deal you make with yourself to steal your own future earnings to use today. What a bittersweet deal (most of the time)

As a general rule, people in the future are richer than people in the past - both individually and at the society level. It is gambling, but history suggests that it generally works out.
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