Debaser, you’re an ass. Do you have any fucking idea what it’s like to be poor? No? Then shut the fuck up! Don’t tell people who actually do know what it’s like that they could “just get a loan or go into bankruptcy”. As if that was a real option for most of the people we’re talking about. Even better, you seem to be trying to play the “personal responsibility” card, and yet you think it’s a better idea to put money that we can’t afford to not have into a 401k and deal with whatever disaster may come by declaring personal bankruptcy. Yeah, this is a great idea when paying off a mortgage on a home we bought right before the market collapsed.
Fuck yourself with a rake, you disgusting cuntwicket. People like you piss me off. There’s just this awesome assumption that people like my parents and friends are either lazy or stupid - too lazy to get a better job, or too stupid to take good advice. But beyond that, it’s stupid shitbags who can’t see past their own situation and make ridiculous assumptions - “my advice works for all situations” “there’s no reason why anyone shouldn’t be able to set aside 15% of their income to save for a nest egg” - that are responsible for some of the most short-sighted, terrible policy decisions in the history of this country. No, you shitgargler, your suggestions are terrible even for people with money. Your head is so far up your ass it would be reasonable to call you a professional spelunker.
He’s the Ivory soap of assholes: 99 and 44/100 percent pure.
But I must say, he does have a unique twist on personal responsibility: “If you’re short of money for medical bills or something, just run up huge debts then declare bankruptcy! What are you, stupid?”
There’s a really easy and big reason many people can’t: They don’t make enough money to support themselves as it is.
I went through bankruptcy 3 years ago, because I had not been making enough to live on for a very long time. Oh sure, in hindsight I could have just given away/sold/thrown out pretty much everything I owned and gone down to renting a room in a house with 8 other guys or a cheap ass studio in a bad neighborhood. Having been a fairly high paid IT professional at one point and being in my late 40’s, I wasn’t willing to do that. To me that was pretty much surrendering to homelessness and despair.
I’ve worked with a lot of other people in similar situations over these years. Some by choice (they’re just comfortable in the lifestyle), some due to medical situations that prevent them from earning more, many by circumstances like mine.
People who throw out such flippant, clueless, unsympathetic comments desperately need one of two things to happen; They either need to be slapped in the face with their lack of empathy/intelligence/clues, or they need the broad hand of Karma to bitchslap the fuck out of them and teach them how it works.
Debaser, if you respond here, could you list the sources from which you get your daily news, and the groups with which you talk politics? I ask because I think I might be seeing a pattern.
Well this is a disappointment. My first pitting and it’s rather weak sauce. It’s got a punctuation error in the title, which doesn’t even read well (Presumptuous Cockweed has been poor?). It’s got a rule violation, which I’ve reported you for. It also contains the same tired straw man that I already disavowed in the thread. I never said or implied that poor people are lazy.
I don’t even know where to start.
How about this: I don’t think it’s wise to rely on bankruptcy or debt. I never said that. I do think that having a retirement account like a 401k is a smart thing to do even if it means not having other savings, which is what I said. This is because short term crises like car repairs or medical emergencies do have other options, such as bankruptcy or going into debt, if there are no other options. Retirement doesn’t. You can’t get a ‘retirement loan’ because they don’t exist. Nor does bankruptcy save you from a lack of retirement planning.
If you think it’s so awful for me to suggest that everyone should save 15% for retirement, you must really hate Social Security with it’s ~15% regressive tax on the income of the working poor, right? Of course, if we did away with that tomorrow, I’m sure I’d still be called names if I dared so suggest that people save the money themselves.
You make a lot of assumptions about me. They’re mostly wrong. You’ve clearly got a lot of baggage as a result of the troubles your family has had. I sympathize with that. But you come across to me as simply giving up. Sure, throw your hands in the air and claim it’s impossible for poor people to save. I disagree. When good habits are formed early by putting away retirement savings before you get used to having it even people with low incomes can save for retirement.
As to your claim that even people with money shouldn’t follow the simple advice of saving for retirement, I disagree. So would any financial adviser. I wasn’t being specific. I didn’t say “Put 15% into xyz mutual fund.” Or even “Put 15% into a 401k.” There are many ways to save and that’s why I left it very open ended and generic. That you would still disagree with such a simple statement of fact is quite telling. You simply have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’m really curious as to how the hell he thinks “Borrow money to pay for medical bills, while keeping money away for retirement” works. Like, I’m not even all that smart financially, but even I know that just plain doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Edit I put away money for retirement myself. It’s not 15% - if it was 15%, I would be in the red every month, and pretty soon my bank account would be empty, and I wouldn’t be able to afford rent, food, etc. I scrimp and save as much as I can. I cannot imagine how people who are poorer than me (I’ve got an engineering degree and a job that required it) could ever be expected to put away 15%, in any rational world.
Are you yearning to hear that I get all my news from Fox and that I really try not to talk to anyone outside of the gun club and the weekly Tea Party meeting?
Snark aside, the predominant group of people with which I talk politics frequent a message board. You might have heard of it. Their mission is to fight ignorance.
[Moderating]
Sorry, I was mistaken there. “Cuntwicket” would fall under the “and variations” part of the ban on the word “cunt.”
Budget Cadet Player, please avoid using the word “cunt” in compound insults aimed at other posters. Likewise with telling posters to fuck themselves, with or without garden implements.
Well then you have this bizarre way of expressing yourself - after hearing that all money went into immediate or near-immediate concerns, your response was “borrow/declare bankruptcy to deal with problems, put money in 401k”. Um, newsflash, the reason that slush fund exists is because shit happens on a damn near constant basis and it’s better not to have constant debt. You idiotic dick-suck-o-matic, you remain completely and utterly clueless about anything not in your immediate field. You have no fucking clue what it’s like to be poor. So stop acting like your financial advice is worth a damn, and stop acting like your retarded overgeneralizations have any place in rational discussion.
You were called a liar on this before and it remains true. Go suck on a weed whacker.
Not only did I not say that, but you know what? I’ll fucking say it now: it is impossible for people who are living month to month to save money. It is completely fucking impossible by the very definition of what those terms mean, and if you would tell me otherwise, you are fucking clueless. Tell me, what’s the lowest average income you’ve had? Where were you at that point in your life? I’m willing to be you’ve never been functionally poor with responsibilities. Never. You have no perspective and no fucking clue. Get one, or both, but stop bringing this stupid “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” shit to people who don’t fucking have bootstraps.
