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Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

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Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#131

Post by marknutter »

shadowfiend wrote: post #122
mi_noi_noi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you don't like any cities or states? With charities you can always make your own. Don't have that option in your system. I'm not American, but aren't some taxes that go to education/welfare/healthcare on a federal level? If so, are you going to tell people to leave the country? It's very expensive and for many practically impossible. Besides, is the goal not here to spend the money as efficiently as possible?…

You are correct---in your system, someone can be surrounded by a society that is fundamentally positive because no one is wanting for basic needs, and leverage that fact to be wealthy because they don't have to worry about a certain class of problems, yet not contribute back into the system that has allowed their wealth to accumulate. This is as much a choice as a welfare recipient who could work, but is choosing not…

The problem is that inneficient systems can only work in best case scenarios. The minute a country with an inefficient universal health care system gets inundated by immigrants or has to ramp up its defense spending or loses one of its primary sources of revenue, the whole thing comes collapsing down (see Venezuela).

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#132

Post by marknutter »

vacri wrote: post #119
mi_noi_noi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you don't like any cities or states? With charities you can always make your own. Don't have that option in your system. I'm not American, but aren't some taxes that go to education/welfare/healthcare on a federal level? If so, are you going to tell people to leave the country? It's very expensive and for many practically impossible. Besides, is the goal not here to spend the money as efficiently as possible?…

The idea that people would spend as much on charity as they do on taxes is one of the most clearly bunkum libertarian fantasies out there. Private charities come nowhere near modern government levels of welfare, and never have (that's why we have modern levels of welfare).

I think the idea is that the amount of money being spent by the government to try to solve society's woes is absurdly high and kept artificially high by turning charity into entitlements.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#133

Post by marknutter »

callmeal wrote: post #105
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.

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 pr…

Nobody ever argues that roads, railroads, and highways are an unfair tax burden. It's such a ridiculous straw man. The beef that most Libertarians have with government spending is with entitlement programs.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#134

Post by varelse »

ethbro wrote: post #28
vinceguidry wrote: post #9

You obviously didn't read the article. Bourdain did not reach the magical 'no-debt' world of wonder until after he got famous. If anything it's a fake-cautionary tale. "Don't do what I did kids, even though I'm rich and did more blow and had way more fun than you'll ever have in your whole life!" Ugh.

I didn't read anywhere in there where he says don't do what he did. He lived his life the way he wanted to, there were some rough times. Now he has a family, different priorities and resources, so is taking those into account but still generally living the same way. My tl;dr would be "I was always in debt when I was young. Now I have a bit of money and prioritize those I care about, but after that's funded I'd rather…

As a long-time fan of his, his early life IMO (I've read and loved Kitchen Confidential) was shortsighted hedonism that came to a crashing halt when he became famous.

He has since settled for dating/marrying beautiful women, noticing that chain smoking would probably kill him and started doing Krav Maga instead, and becoming smart about money.

His dayjob's not so bad either.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#135

Post by marknutter »

p_eter_p wrote: post #24
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.

People always say this, but nobody can ever point to a solid example. Do you have hard numbers that government social programs are less efficient than charity?

Ask yourself this: is the government efficient with its defense spending? If the answer is no, why would it be any different with its social programs?

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#136

Post by ctrlrsf »

taurath wrote: post #93
shostack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there's the flip side of using credit cards to get a 1%+ discount on things and paying it off in full. If you have the cash and discipline, debt can be used for very low risk benefit.

And CC companies bank on the fact that if even a small percentage of people aren't able to pay it off in full they'll get their "rewards" back in full within a single period of interest.

They also bank of the fact that you will use your plastic for more frivolous purchases since it's so convenient. Plus you think you're getting some cash back reward later, so you don't feel so bad about it. If you had to pay cash, you might not be wasting as much money.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#137

Post by dagw »

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.

One big advantage that charities have and that helps them be much more efficient is that they can pick and choose who they help. If a group or problem is too hard or too expensive or not 'sexy' enough to deal with efficiently they can just ignore them. Governments can't do that.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#138

Post by thatcat »

shadowfiend wrote: post #122
mi_noi_noi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you don't like any cities or states? With charities you can always make your own. Don't have that option in your system. I'm not American, but aren't some taxes that go to education/welfare/healthcare on a federal level? If so, are you going to tell people to leave the country? It's very expensive and for many practically impossible. Besides, is the goal not here to spend the money as efficiently as possible?…

You are correct---in your system, someone can be surrounded by a society that is fundamentally positive because no one is wanting for basic needs, and leverage that fact to be wealthy because they don't have to worry about a certain class of problems, yet not contribute back into the system that has allowed their wealth to accumulate. This is as much a choice as a welfare recipient who could work, but is choosing not…

>Government is where we come together as a people and say "yes, this is the cost that we have decided is worth paying in order to have the society that we want".

In this way, it is the largest form of organized labor. When something is decried for 'inefficiency' we should examine what we are trying to do efficiently. For example, reducing costs of health care by negotiating drug price ceilings as a group in UK/Canada compared to much higher US drug prices as a result of rejecting these policies due to perceived inefficiency. This perception is ideological, in the mind of many Americans market equillibrium is always the most efficient pricing, this measure of efficiency is not related to the amount of healthcare delivered per dollar spent.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#139

Post by xapata »

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.

In my experience, every large organization is terribly managed and inefficient. The government not noticeably different.

I guess I'm saying I don't mind paying taxes.

I consider the tax rate when choosing how much to charge my customers. I'm sure you do the same when choosing a job. If you paid less in tax, you'd earn less money. Obviously not at a 1:1 ratio, but it's something to keep in mind.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#140

Post by Delmania »

refurb wrote: post #128
Confusion wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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% h…

Companies do the exact same thing. Yeah, but companies waste their own money. Not mine. Unless I'm a shareholder, I could care less if they flushed cash down the toilet.

With tax breaks, subsidies, and grants, they get to throw your money down the crapper as well.
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