Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

wealthsimple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 366 posts

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#301

Post by Shivetya »

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.

well you might feel differently if you factored in all the embedded taxes you pay on top of fees for government services an licensing.

there are those who don't know how much they pay, they just know what they take home

there are those who know their income tax, medical, etc, deductions are

and then there are those who see other avenue of taxation that effects the price of goods and services we make use of

I have no problem paying my taxes but why would be happy about it when I cannot recall a single government out there that is using them responsibly?

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#302

Post by plandis »

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.

I just use my credit card as a debit card. In the US, consumers have better financial protections against fraudulent charges with credit cards than debit cards.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#303

Post by plandis »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #269

> Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind. It's actually amazing how little most Americans pay in taxes yet we complain. This year my effective tax rate was ~8%. Of course this is by using every legal tax shelter available. Considering what I get from the Federal government here in the US, I think 8% is actually fair. If it spent more of my money doing thing like taking care of home and quit with the empire…

8%? You either live very close to (or under) the poverty line or are fabulously wealthy. I'm assuming that you're rich since you mentioned tax shelters.

TurboTax put my effective tax rate this year at 26%.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#304

Post by adventured »

faceyspacey wrote: post #251
tinco wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every 60 minutes I work, ~30 minutes of that work product is appropriated by government How about every 60 minutes you work, 30 minutes of that is spent establishing the world around you? From the opportunities you had as a young person, and those of your children, to the safety and security of your adult life. Half of your product is yours to spend freely, the rest goes towards the idea that you don't even have to t…

Except for here in the states 25% of the taxpayer money is going to military, intelligence and debt from past wars we know to have been bad ideas and knew all along were bad ideas. And let's just say another 25% is misspent. In a country this big and bloated, that's also likely a low ball figure. But overall, only 50% of taxpayer money is going to anything remotely properly executed and needed. That said, our public…

> Except for here in the states 25% of the taxpayer money is going to military, intelligence and debt from past wars we know to have been bad ideas and knew all along were bad ideas.

I don't disagree with your point (about wasteful spending on the military), but your number is substantially inflated and you're wrong on the financial conclusion.

The federal + state spending is $6.x trillion, soon to be $7 trillion. Closer to 10% of tax payer money is going to the military + intelligence. Federal debt service is closer to 5%-6% of the US Government's revenue year to year; less than half of that net cost is due to war.

Entitlements are by far the largest budget problem the US has, there isn't anything else even remotely close at this point. Within ten years those entitlements will balloon the US budget deficit back above $1 trillion, the military spending increases - which I disagree with - are comical next to the entitlement costs inbound. Unless you're planning to abolish the entire US military, you're not going to be able to financially resolve the truly epic entitlements funding shortfall just through military reduction. Even slashing the US military in half won't come close to fixing the problem (~$300 billion versus an inbound $1 trillion annual entitlement shortfall).

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#305

Post by thebooktocome »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #248
mfringel wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have found a pattern. Do you have a point you want to make?

People frequently say "nobody" when they mean "almost nobody" and it doesn't lead anywhere productive to point out the odd counterexample. A handful of extremists are not representative.

Exactly what evidence do you require to demonstrate that this is indeed a thing?

AFR were extremists a couple years ago, sure, but the Overton Window recently shifted. You may have noticed.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#306

Post by hueving »

mseebach wrote: post #76
hueving wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you had the money to pay off the card already and are just using the CC as a convenient method of payment, the risk is obviously far lower Right, but you're still taking on debt for the month and then paying it in full. What is the risk?

As with risks, so with debts. There are large ones and small ones. Paying down a balance on a credit card every month is pretty low risk, but not as low as paying with a debit card in the first place. Also, a credit card you're paying down monthly isn't really 'debt', isn't it usually something you do for the air miles or cashback?

>Paying down a balance on a credit card every month is pretty low risk, but not as low as paying with a debit card in the first place.

Not when you account for the stolen card scenario. When someone steals your debit card and racks up charges, it locks up real money (your bank account balance) that you can't use until it's resolved. A stolen credit card just locks up a credit-line.

However, even if you ignore that, I'm still missing what risk you see with a credit card that results in it being higher risk than a debit card. What is the risk I'm missing?

>Also, a credit card you're paying down monthly isn't really 'debt', isn't it usually something you do for the air miles or cashback?

It's very short term debt. I do it for two reasons, air miles/cashback, and for better protection when things go south. In addition to the stolen card scenario above, some credit cards (e.g. an amex I have) will provide additional protection for things like rental cars (additional insurance) or even stolen goods (refunds for electronics stolen from your vehicle).

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#307

Post by hueving »

pc86 wrote: post #204
hueving wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it does not mean its a reason not to use those things... It is for people really sensitive to privacy that are distrustful of institutions.

Not having a baby because of the privacy implications is not a choice a mentally well person makes.

There is a non-trivial portion of the home birth movement that does it because of distrust of institutionalized medicine.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#308

Post by hueving »

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…

There is a much bigger and simpler reason people stopped gifting bonds, interest rates are garbage. War bonds aren't even available right now, but there are still general government bonds and treasury bills.

The interest rate is so low on them that the growth is basically a slap in the face to whoever is receiving it and cash would be better because they could at least use it at the present time. Remember, once you buy a bond like that, the interest rate is locked in so you're stuck with the crap 2% for 27 years on the bond you bought from the government 3 years ago.

People also used to gift corporate bonds (e.g. from railroad or utility companies) and that's a dead practice as well for the same reason.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#309

Post by AstralStorm »

stickfigure wrote: post #271
coconut_crab wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vietnam, ranks 110 or so in transparency index

Lovely country (excepting the smog in HCM) and lovely people. Until recently I had a company whose customers were primarily digital marketers in Vietnam. My anecdotal observation is that tax compliance is generally poor and enforcement is applied unevenly. While whinging about taxes is a national pastime here in the US, we have one of the highest tax compliance rates in the world. These might be related. And it's not…

Are those compliance rates weighted per income or per person?

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#310

Post by alkonaut »

rsync wrote: post #194
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.

"Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind." I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes". One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high. The other is a high percentage tax rate. I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in…

> I think an effective tax rate north of 40% is getting in the danger zone.

I think it varies mostly depending on the services you get for it and the percieved values of it. If you get higher education, healthcare and very social safety net possible then you tolerate a higher tax level, presumably.

If the tax is percieved as being spent on things you don't agree with (some random war etc) then it's harder to accept.

> It's very difficult to rationalize that every 60 minutes I work, ~30 minutes of that work product is appropriated by government.

If you consider that money to be appropriated then obviously there is a political problem. The money isn't spent on the services you need or want, or it's (seems to you at least) a lot of it is wasted. But there is no point discussing an absolute limit of fairness without discussing which tax paid services you would like to cut in order to lower taxes. Taxes could be 90% or 99% and there would be nothing inherently unfair about it - it would just proably be a very inefficient society.

Post reply on HN