78 replies to this topic

[Ash]

Hence entirely why I like to break your cycle. The only way to win the economics game, as I've said before, is not to play, or at least, to play as little as possible. No loans, no spending beyond one's means. We live in a debt economy.

I'll follow my great-grandfather's advice, I think. "If you earn a hundred pounds, and you spend a hundred and one, you're in trouble. If you earn a hundred and only spend ninety, you're winning." No mortgage for Ash, no credit cards, no cars on finance, ever. Even if I am losing in the short term, being unburdened in later life will suit me.

I won't be a party to the ruinous ways of our governments and the frivolties of the people. I heartily encourage everyone to act likewise, and to save in the face of being punished for doing so. I urge you to vote for the savvy savers in your governments, and not necessarily staunchly support your own brand of oligarchy. This applies most pressingly to the British members; our election time is soon. Don't vote Labour, don't vote Tory, either. Both are the wrong choice. Vote some other party. Any other party. Get your families and friends to do the same, and get them to get their friends and families to do the same. Politics is bogged down in itself - America's stuck with a two-party system, and so is Britain, though Britain has more ability to change that, with all the smaller parties that make up our deomocracy. So...let's see if we can't give someone else a crack of the whip. Otherwise they'll all continue to fritter away your hard-earned money on worthless ventures like moon missions, foreign aid, the EU, unnecessary overmilitarisation, the Big Brother State and means of MONITORING climate change (notice not 'reverse'...).

[Puppeteer]

Where is the proportional representation that Labour promised us 13 years ago? Not that it's an invitation to compromise with the Tories, who'd never promise PR.

Edited by Puppeteer, 03 February 2010 - 10:04 PM.

[Bart]

no credit cards

They're quite convenient though. Of course I never spend more with it than I can actually afford, so the word "credit" doesn't really apply to how I use it.
Otherwise I agree with you, saving > loaning. The exception being things like starting a company, where you need to loaned money to earn more (better keep the loan as small as can be though).

[duke_Qa]

I'll follow my great-grandfather's advice, I think. "If you earn a hundred pounds, and you spend a hundred and one, you're in trouble. If you earn a hundred and only spend ninety, you're winning." No mortgage for Ash, no credit cards, no cars on finance, ever. Even if I am losing in the short term, being unburdened in later life will suit me.

Thats more or less my philosophy aswell. I'm no fan of loans, but as long as its used on something that will pay you back with interests, you climb up a step in the pyramid of money and gain an advantage. After all, that's how banks work: Loan money and spend it on something that earns them more money.

Getting a loan for a house or a car or something that is not going to pay itself back much more than what inflation will steal from you, is a bad way to spend loans in my opinon.

[Allathar]

Hence entirely why I like to break your cycle. The only way to win the economics game, as I've said before, is not to play, or at least, to play as little as possible. No loans, no spending beyond one's means. We live in a debt economy.

Agreed, but you can easily have the cycle without loaning money. Hell, it'd be much better.

Also, I can't see how you're planning to buy a house without a mortgage.

[Vortigern]

I'd say a loan is acceptable for buying a house, but apart from that, live within your means. I don't even have a student loan, I'm living off what I can earn and so far it's working out pretty well.

I second the motion about voting any other party than Labour or the Tories. I plan to vote Green, because they've actually got a chance up here.

[Phil]

That argument has two flaws though:

Firstly, the effect that you describe, the income multiplier, doesn't just apply to the private sector but also to government spending. The money you give to Obama to monitor climate change doesn't just vanish in his pockets, instead it is used to hire people to do those jobs, who in turn will have an income of which they will spend a part for their lives. The cycle continues. In fact (if I'm not very mistaken) Keynes himself used this theory to advocate government spending in times of weak economy because the total stimulus is much bigger than the actual amount that the government has to spend..

That may be true, but from experience we know that the free market is more efficient in redistributing the money. Because then the people decide where the money is going as opposed to the government. And also the fact that a lot of money is simply getting burned in endless bureaucratic processes, ultimately rotting away on some government bank account. As for the other cons, you pretty much nailed it.

Secondly, while the free market system may be very efficient, it is not necessarily fair.

That’s also true, but I’m not implying that we should get rid of all the income taxes: I’m suggesting that it shouldn’t be that much, and also a flat rate. Look at it this way: a manager of some company can get an extra order, a pretty large one. If he takes that order he’ll have to work very hard, but because he’s in the highest tax range, 60% of what he earns with that order gets burned in income taxes. Needless to say he thinks it isn’t worth the effort. With a flat rate, however, he views every order the same: now only 35% of what he earns gets taxed. He thinks it’s worth it and takes the order, making many more hours, but also earning a lot of money. The people working for him earn more money too, he even hires a couple of extra people to lessen the workload. Those people all get a good wage for the extra work they’ve done, and it also stimulated the economy with the extra order and all the wages that are getting spend, resulting in the income multiplier.

Now, let’s say that with the highest tax range situation, those extra people that he otherwise hired would be jobless. They then would be sitting at home, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the government benefits to show up, which would be paid from the money of the highest tax range. Either way, they would be getting some money that period, working or not – but what’s the fairest, according to you?

Funny, I guess we have a similar stance then, even though your wording seemed much more radical to me. Maybe that's because we come from different countries. I didn't know the Netherlands had a 60% income tax. Personally I find that ridiculous... everything close to 50% and certainly over 50% is psychologically counterproductive.
I think Swiss income tax rates are reasonable, being max. 40% for people and about 20% for companies (in general, there are always loopholes though). It's still progressive and not flat but I can accept that. If you're in the highest earning class you can be happy anyway and give back to society.

[Elvenlord]

Going back to the moon debate...
I want to go to the damned moon. Nuff' said.

[Vortigern]

Why, man? I'm agreed I'd love to stand on another world, but the Moon? Aim higher, dude. The Moon is a barren lump of rock that's just next door in cosmic terms. I'm holding out for a mission to some kind of Avatar-style world, or the foundation of the Firefly universe. Now that would be awesome.

Anyway, I'm going to add something here, paraphrasing an opinion I read somewhere else: the space project is essential because, in a nutshell, it gets kids interested in science and astronomy. Nobody's going to be bothered with it if they know there's no future in NASA and the space program will die, then we'll all be stuck here on this shitty little planet and it'll get way overcrowded and we'll have to Anthrax-bomb China and India to make room, and ultimately the little apocalypse will have begun with Obama. (The guy I borrowed this from didn't say that last bit, that's my personal touch. Infect the bastards!) Anyway, because of cuts in NASA's funding, everybody will stop caring about space exploration and then we'll all die here in the smog that massive overpopulation of the planet will necessarily create. Fun times, kids.

[Elvenlord]

Because I need experiance before they'll let me go elsewhere. Come on Vort.
Plus it has the best view of earth. And very little gravity. Hell yes.

[duke_Qa]

Which within a few weeks would leave you weak and frail, which is a common problem to astronauts when they come back from missions.

Gravity is a bitch, but since all life as we know it have had to cope with it, it's hard to take out of the equation and expect nothing to happen.

[Ash]

Where is the proportional representation that Labour promised us 13 years ago? Not that it's an invitation to compromise with the Tories, who'd never promise PR.

Actually, I think that's part of Tarquin Lionus Edwin Cameron's manifesto. It's certainly part of the Lib Dem's.

Also, I can't see how you're planning to buy a house without a mortgage.

I'm not. I will be saving up to pay for an extension to my parents' house, and will just live in the extension. The alternative is rent, earn a good wage, save plenty, and pay for the house in cash. I will not, ever sign twenty to forty years of my life away to a bank. It galls me enough that the government own me for the next twenty-four years with my student loan (which will never be paid off because I'll probably never earn enough money to even match the interest). No bank shall ever have that privilege.

[duke_Qa]

I feel sympathy with the attitude of living at home with your parents while earning up the cash for a house. But I come from a farm with 3 different houses available, probably a total of 650 square meters of living quarters, and even I get annoyed by my parents being around all the time.

But if you are capable of living at home for 4-7 years, you should in theory have built up enough money to get an acceptable house.

[OmegaBolt]

4-7 years? I live off less than 15k a year (by I I mean me and my parent), which would take over 10 years of not spending a penny to get enough for a house.

Edited by OmegaBolt, 04 February 2010 - 08:32 PM.

[Ash]

I feel sympathy with the attitude of living at home with your parents while earning up the cash for a house. But I come from a farm with 3 different houses available, probably a total of 650 square meters of living quarters, and even I get annoyed by my parents being around all the time.

I don't really have much option. I currently sleep on a fold-out sofa-bed in the living room, and will be doing so for the foreseeable future.

But if you are capable of living at home for 4-7 years, you should in theory have built up enough money to get an acceptable house.

Yeah, that's kinda optimistic, considering houses cost in excess of £100,000 in the UK, and that's for a shitty fleapit in the shithole town where I live. If you want to move to another town somewhere nicer, you can add another 50k to that. And that's before you get to the legal fees, stamp duty, etc. Which is why I'm going for the cheaper option of save up for an extension to the house (10-15k), and live in until my folks croak and I inherit the house. Which I will either a) Rent out and use the rent proceeds to pay the whole mortgage (the only time I would entertain having a mortgage is where I don't have to pay for it ) or b) sell it outright for cash and then fuck off to Canada with the proceeds.

4-7 years? I live off less than 15k a year (by I I mean me and my parent), which would take over 10 years of not spending a penny to get enough for a house.

Yeah, it's ridiculous how little we in the UK earn compared to how much everything costs. I'll be earning 24k before tax in the police, of which I'll be lucky to take home 1500 a month...which is fuck all, taking into account bills, food etc. which fortunately would be split three ways, so economically speaking this is by far the sanest option, rather than allowing myself to get into debt.

To live beneath one's means is the surest path to future success.

[Hostile]

Nice story but back on topic. The Obama budget was submitted at $3.2 trillion and $1.6 trillion is deficit spending, please tell me we can at least afford the $18 billion for the space program? Seeing he's burning through money on an unprecedented level, can't he at least afford the space program?

Maybe someone should ask what we are spending the money on?
http://www.foxnews.c...-ad-super-bowl/

Enough already, don't tell me my nation is broke and then spend at a deficit level higher than any other President in the history of the US. Does he think we're that stupid? We voted him in and we'll soon vote him out. Not soon enough.

NASA employs engineers and high tech construction crews. They employ the best and the brightest the US has. Why lay them off and then talk about "shovel in the dirt" programs from the stimulus bill. To redistribute wealth from the educated to the poorly educated?

I can't find any "shovel in the dirt" programs. What I see is a President who has no qualifications, has no business being a US President, telling the American people that they have no right being wealthy. Eat the rich.

So go ahead Obama, eat the rich and "shit change."

[Phil]

Enough already, don't tell me my nation is broke and then spend at a deficit level higher than any other President in the history of the US. Does he think we're that stupid? We voted him in and we'll soon vote him out. Not soon enough.

Of course the two wars he inherited and the financial (or in fact, economic) crisis are exclusively his fault. Quick, vote him out so another Republican nutjob can screw your country up even more and then let someone else take the blame.

[Hostile]

He's 25% through his Presidency, how long can a President blame the last President? Will he do it for the next 3 years? And the democrats had a large part in the economic crisis. But that should be for a different article. Bush didn't create the mess. He was a party to the mess.

What is a Republican nutjob? Don't you think the current Democratic jutjob is ruining the country enough? What is a nutjob? Someone like Obama who forces their will against the majoirty of the will of the people. Most people are not willing to accept this new so called "health care reform"

It's not reform, it's a fleecing of the people.

http://www.politico...._care_bill.html

Reform health care, but not it's current form. Not this bill, not this time...

[Puppeteer]

He's 25% through his Presidency, how long can a President blame the last President? Will he do it for the next 3 years? And the democrats had a large part in the economic crisis. But that should be for a different article. Bush didn't create the mess. He was a party to the mess.

As long as the last President/regime/whatever still left the country with such an appalling legacy and situation. You really expect Obama to have solved the whole financial crisis in a year?

Edited by Puppeteer, 04 February 2010 - 10:38 PM.

[Hostile]

Than tell me, how long can a current President continue to blame the last President? 2 years, 4 years, 8 years, 28 years?