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Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

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Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#351

Post by jandrese »

brightball wrote: post #189
padobson wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of living a debt-free existence, I have to disagree. In the monetary policy environment we live in, having debt is the most sensible way to build wealth. Dollars are a terrible store of value. Dollars invested in a savings account are almost as bad. Securities, real estate, and inventory are much better. Dollars invested in education and advertising to multiply the value of securities, real estate and…

A lot of people get confused when talking about debt just because types of debt are different. Using debt to generate income = good. Using debt to buy stuff you can't afford = bad. The first pays itself back while the latter does not. When somebody like Dave Ramsey is talking about debt, he's talking about paying off credit card bills, car loans, student loans, mortgages - payments that you're making that leave you p…

This is less black and white than you are making it out to be. Taken to the extreme you praise the millionare who is up to his eyeballs in debt and living under a bridge because all of his money is tied up in investments and he's going to die with the biggest fortune possible.

Having tons of money is pointless if you don't eventually spend it on improving your life or the world around you. Obviously blowing all of your cash on frivolity is also bad, but you need to strike a balance or you will end up being Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserable old rich guy with nothing to show for his life but big numbers on a piece of paper somewhere.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#352

Post by dalore »

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…

Isn't it 50% above a certain level. So your first hour worked you're not paying 50% to the govt, but your last hour worked you are.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#353

Post by jandrese »

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.

Unfortunately, that PR has another name: Propaganda.

Progressives in particular are sensitive to the idea of the government messaging them and tend to worry about the perception. Meanwhile, private interests have no compunction against advertising heavily and constantly to get their message across. It's a huge advantage for industrial incumbents over the government.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#354

Post by AIMunchkin »

tcfunk wrote: post #347
AIMunchkin wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes it is actually, by collecting more data, you are doing a better job marginalizing the distribution of government corruption and waste across the planet. And that can make a seemingly bad thing turn out to actually be relatively good and vice versa. Or, to quote some famous dead dude: "The World Is a Book and Those Who Do Not Travel Read Only One Page" - St Augustine Or, to quote Anthony Bourdain himself: “Tr…

But I'm not talking about relative goodness or badness. If I say "boy I'm tired today, I only slept 4 hours" and you say "you're tired? I didn't sleep at all!", your being more tired doesn't make me any less tired. In the same regard, other governments doing a much worse job than the US government doesn't mean that the US government is doing the best job that it can.

Sure, that's possibly true. But if the ensemble of governments planetwide are mostly doing worse than the US(1), then you need to consider it might not be humanly possible to do much better even if it's obvious how to do better theoretically.

But, by all means, go get some billionaire to buy you an island or build one for you to test out your ideal black spherical cow ideas for government. The US itself was once a crazy experiment in cutting edge governing theory itself.

(1) We're not the best, but we are in the top 10% here, no? But I note that everyone who beats us has much smaller populations to satisfy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#355

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

pc86 wrote: post #179
mathgeek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: were you alright in past years with your federal taxes going to the war in Iraq, as an example? Where do you draw your personal line for "this type of activity against foreign nationals is alright, but that type is where I draw the line?" Anyone can feel free to answer this one. I'm interested in where people are drawing their own lines.

You can't draw your own lines, which is precisely the argument in favor of a small, weak federal government and robust, largely sovereign state governments. The same people glad Trump is in office now were screaming about executive power two years ago, but were thrilled with the huge expansion of federal power with the TSA, etc. It's cyclical and everybody's memory seems to be maxed out at 12-18 months on a good day.

> the argument in favor of a small, weak federal government and robust, largely sovereign state governments

Pretty sure we tried that with the Articles of Confederation and it was a total failure.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#356

Post by clarky07 »

zymhan wrote: post #349
lap42 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem. You should never be responsible to judge how he spends his money, that's his problem. You never know. You don't know if it was only 10%, he could use those 40% much better than the "government", oh hell, be damn sure he would. He could create companies, could fund companies, could put this money in funds, those funds would have to fund companies to earn money, these would generate jobs, education,…

Man, why does everyone assume that rich people just take their money and start companies? Do you realize how risky it is to start a business? You are highly likely to lose EVERYTHING you invest, as well as ruin your reputation, if you start a business from scratch and it fails to take off. Almost all wealthy people just invest their money in stocks, hedge funds, VCs, and other intangible assets that don't immediately…

What do you think the purpose of stocks and venture funds are? They are for starting and growing businesses. He/She doesn't have to start the business themselves.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#357

Post by chrshawkes »

tinco wrote: post #209
rsync wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

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…

I'm sorry, no knock against you, but that's the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. It starts at 35, than 40, than 45 than 50 and on and on until eventually 75% is towards everything else while your neighbor contributes nothing. Doesn't seem like a formula for success.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#358

Post by tinco »

chrshawkes wrote: post #357
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…

I'm sorry, no knock against you, but that's the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. It starts at 35, than 40, than 45 than 50 and on and on until eventually 75% is towards everything else while your neighbor contributes nothing. Doesn't seem like a formula for success.

It starts at 15% and then 30% and then 50% and then everything you do ends up in one big pot and you have communism. And your neighbour is happily doing nothing while you slave away, who is stupid then?

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#359

Post by clarky07 »

kbenson wrote: post #36
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.

Given that all the taxes go to perpetuate a system which allows the US to be successful, I think it's hard to make a case that overall the majority is not working usefully in some way, even if not obvious. I think it would be hard to make a case that if the government ceased to exist tomorrow and no more taxes were owed, we would all be better off.

I don't think anyone has said they think they should pay 0 taxes. Just that perhaps 50% is more than is needed, and that we waste a lot of tax money.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#360

Post by clarky07 »

megablast wrote: post #60
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.

The road out front of your house costs $100,000 to build. You just using that, gets you back all the taxes you spend. Now multiple that by 10 million things, and you are still better off.

The federal gov't spends less than 2% of the budget on ground transportation (roads, bridges, and even amtrak included in that number). So, no, the road out front doesn't in fact get us back all the taxes we pay
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