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I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

mrmoneymustache.com

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Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#101

Post by mistercow »

tallanvor wrote: post #84
repsilat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a very specific concept from the United States Constitution This is completely incorrect, and it's a little insulting to the users here who aren't American. Freedom of speech is a value with broad applicability. The United States Constitution enshrines a right to free speech as a limitation of government power, fine, but they don't have a monopoly on the idea. Relative freedom of speech is a characteristic of…

The blog post is from an American blog, so noting that specific concept of freedom of speech from an American point of view is perfectly fine in this case. And in the American concept, freedom of speech is a constitutional concept regulating what the government can do to individuals.

Even in America, we have a concept of freedom of speech that extends beyond the First Amendment. Obviously his Constitutional rights have not been abridged, but that doesn't mean that it's not a free speech issue.

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#102

Post by goatforce5 »

PythonDeveloper wrote: post #34
anthonyb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you need to borrow money for a car or a house...

You don't need a credit score if you can pay 50% down, which you may be able to do if you didn't pay all your money to the credit card companies.

My credit card company paid $800 towards the airfare of my recent trip to Oz thanks to reward points.

I pay my card off multiple times per month. They don't get a chance to charge me interest.

(Just checked and I have $300 worth of points waiting to be spent on travel. That's my upcoming Boston trip covered.)

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#103

Post by redslazer »

mibbitier wrote: post #82
speg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably his readers are smart enough to get a deal. He mentions using Google Calander to cancel cards before fees kick in. So I assume he's not selling his readers down the river, but helping them 'hack' the system.

Yeah I would advise against that. Last time I checked, your credit score will plumet if you do that sort of thing. If you pay off your debts without paying any interest all the time, you're pretty much a terrible person to lend money to. The credit card companies also rely on the fact that however organised people thing they are going to be, a good amount of them slip up. Once they have credit, maybe they dip into it…

Im not american so bare with me on this question. So my credit score is based not on my repayment history or my financial stability but the potential profit of making a loan/credit to me? So if im cancelling credit cards before the interest free period is up this reflects badly on me? Why?

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#104

Post by Someone »

Someone wrote: post #98
alan_cx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ 36k to pay the actual loan?

That depends on the type of mortgage. At least in some countries, you can/could get a mortgage where you do not pay anything back, the idea being that increasing house prices and inflation would, together, lead to a situation where total mortgage debt is much larger than the worth of one's house.

Oops: "larger" should, of course, read "smaller".

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#105

Post by sageikosa »

phaus wrote: post #83
repsilat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a very specific concept from the United States Constitution This is completely incorrect, and it's a little insulting to the users here who aren't American. Freedom of speech is a value with broad applicability. The United States Constitution enshrines a right to free speech as a limitation of government power, fine, but they don't have a monopoly on the idea. Relative freedom of speech is a characteristic of…

I'm not disagreeing with your statement about credit card companies, but to me it is hilarious that American credit card companies and banks still honestly believe that the customers think of them as brands which represent the epitome of honesty, integrity, and family values.

I sort of view them like politicians: grab bags of stinky stuff, and some bits of professed policy which I might find useful in narrow contexts. In that regard, they can be value-ranked, and value-rankings within demographic groups can be brand managed.

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#106

Post by sageikosa »

mistercow wrote: post #100
jaysonelliot wrote: post #70

Freedom of speech doesn't mean no one can ask you to change what you say, or that you never change your words to please anyone. It's a very specific concept from the United States Constitution that relates to the government forcing you to refrain from saying things that you want to say. Freedom of speech is the kind of thing that comes up when a government agency puts warning labels on record albums, news media are p…

As others have mentioned, the idea that "freedom of speech" is a concept originating from and specific to the US Constitution is staggeringly ignorant, and the idea that freedom of speech can only be infringed by the government is too. Freedom is about what the less powerful can do even when opposed by the more powerful. Money is one of the rawest forms of power in the modern world, and so if someone threatens to dec…

Any previous customer of mine that doesn't continue to buy and wear my T-shirts filled with "obscenities" are denying me my freedom of speech by threatening my income (since I've set myself up as a T-shirt merchant); they are built into my forecast projections as repeatable sales, and they are not allowed to not deal with me.

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#107

Post by facemelt »

alan_cx wrote: post #88

Instinctively I know I must have misread or misunderstood something, but... "$4000 a month is about twice the amount it takes to pay for my entire family’s living expenses. It’s also enough to pay the mortgage on a $900,000 house, " How does $48000pa pay for a $900,000 mortgage? Old skool was 3x your income. Pre-crash, 5x was possible. This is 20x (ish). What blindingly obvious point have I missed?

You could maybe come close to just paying the mortgage. But you couldn't eat, have kids, cable etc. For example:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/101-Far-Brook-Dr-Short-Hil...

Taxes are high on this one, but in most places you're going to pay a lot of taxes on a 900k house.

You are on the money with 3x income being what you can realistically spend on a house without getting yourself in trouble.

A later poster says this is a mistake because it's what banks use, not what you can afford, but the banks historically used that number because it is what a person can reasonably afford. Way back when banks actually had to eat a loss on a bad loan, they knew who to loan to.

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#108

Post by bgruber »

lusr wrote: post #87
gfodor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying credit cards are bad financial decisions is like saying getting a drivers license is a bad safety decision. Beyond the fact that you can use credit cards to your financial benefit, simply getting the card has no consequences whatsoever. (Unless you buy into the 'you must keep a balance to maintain good credit' myth.)

While I think credit cards have great benefits (see stevenwei for an excellent summary), getting the card does have a consequence in my experience: every card I've ever had has an annual maintenance fee (perhaps not the case in the USA?).

In the us, few cards besides AMEX have annual fees. The credit card companies make most of their money on people who fall behind on their payments and end up paying a ton of interest, and i would guess that annual fees aren't attractive to those customers. New college students are a prime example.

While this sucks for the system as a whole, on an individual level it does mean that those of us who have a reliable income (or FU money) can use credit cards very differently. They provide convenience, consumer protection, usually some kind of 'reward' (travel points or such), and yes, a 30 day grace period in which you can do something else with your money though I usually don't think of it that way. In fact, from an individual standpoint the only reason I can think of to use a debit card rather than credit here is a complete lack of financial responsibility/will power.

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#109

Post by mchanson »

redslazer wrote: post #103
mibbitier wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I would advise against that. Last time I checked, your credit score will plumet if you do that sort of thing. If you pay off your debts without paying any interest all the time, you're pretty much a terrible person to lend money to. The credit card companies also rely on the fact that however organised people thing they are going to be, a good amount of them slip up. Once they have credit, maybe they dip into it…

Im not american so bare with me on this question. So my credit score is based not on my repayment history or my financial stability but the potential profit of making a loan/credit to me? So if im cancelling credit cards before the interest free period is up this reflects badly on me? Why?

Nope. Credit score is about the ability to repay in the US. Parent doesn't know what he is talking about.

However credit cart companies do like you better if you are the type to 'slip up', mortgage lenders not so much.

Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech

#110

Post by domador »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #70

Freedom of speech doesn't mean no one can ask you to change what you say, or that you never change your words to please anyone. It's a very specific concept from the United States Constitution that relates to the government forcing you to refrain from saying things that you want to say. Freedom of speech is the kind of thing that comes up when a government agency puts warning labels on record albums, news media are p…

Maybe a more accurate term for what the blogger values--instead of "freedom of speech"--would be "artistic freedom" or "editorial independence". The blogger values the ability to write whatever he wants without bowing down to an advertiser's opinions. Every post is a "director's cut" edition (to throw in movie metaphors), rather than a bland studio-appeasing release.

At the same time, the fundamental concept in "freedom of speech", "artistic freedom", and "editorial independence" seems to be the same: the ability to express what you want to express without pressure from an external authority. Of course, coercion from a government creates much greater pressure than insistence from a boss or an advertiser.

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