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Social mobility in the US is dropping and has been dropping for some time. It's a straight fact that the biggest indicator of your future wealth is the socio-economic status of your parents. There's significant amounts of evidence that long-term poverty has as deleterious an effect on decision-making abilities as intoxication. I'd really suggest you guys hang around D&D for a little while and read some of the threads on poverty, it might be an eye-opener.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 10:01 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 02:54 |
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Lightning Zwei posted:However, people born into poverty who choose to value their own educations and are ambitious enough can break out of poverty and rise above their surroundings. This is wrong in so many ways. The bottom line is education costs money, and even once you get educated it doesn't go anywhere near guaranteeing you a job to pay for it in the end. There's plenty people with degrees working minimum wage jobs who prove this. I worked my way through University, but the only reason I could is because I live in Australia where the government gave me a zero interest loan on my tertiary education (and heavily subsidised it before that) and didn't want me to pay them back until I was earning a wage in the 40k+ region. Switchback posted:I was as good a liberal hippie as the rest of us here. Went to a liberal arts school where we discussed these institutional problems and how it's not their fault! The system! I work in an industry that relies on alot of imported labour because it's hard, dirty, disgusting work, and yet we get Asians on work visa's here who are from well off families that pay for everything, they buy them cars while their here and give them as much spending money as they can spend, and yet these workers still volunteer for every extra hour of overtime they can get and they bust their balls all day every day and ask for more at the end of it. Meanwhile the Australian workers are calling in sick every second day and doing just enough to keep their jobs. You don't know it until you see it, but it really is just a totally different mindset.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 10:11 |
Switchback posted:Then I worked offshore, followed by moving across the world. Offshore, you get people from Philippines/Malaysia/wherever that work twice as hard as the white people, they make an order of magnitude less money (literally), and are on a boat away from their families for 11 months out of the year. They have better attitudes than the European assholes on board that bitch about everything, but get equal time off and double salary plus hazard pay. This is hilarious because your example actually proves the opposite point. It doesn't matter how hard those SE Asian workers work, they're still making orders of magnitude less than the Europeans simply because they're SE Asian. There is no American Dream for those folks, there's just endless poverty or a constant limping struggle up to some sort of proto-middle class. The odds are that, regardless of agency, the former is what they'll get. Now, imagine that those SE Asian workers offshore are a visible minority in the US, or women, or homosexuals, or the disabled, or even that their parents were just poor. A very similar phenomenon exists between the "rear end in a top hat Europeans" and Filipinos on your rig right here onshore in North America, the differences are just not as egregious. tuyop fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 13:52 |
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Switchback posted:I was as good a liberal hippie as the rest of us here. Went to a liberal arts school where we discussed these institutional problems and how it's not their fault! The system! Yeah those dumb poors should just work to get their employers rich, and gently caress em if they get sick. They should be happy they're not hunted for sport! To contribute: my aunt was named the executor of my grandmother's estate because she was the oldest child. Earlier this year she locked my uncle and mother out of the accounts and said it was because it was "her job" and she didn't need to prove anything to them. Mind you, the estate's supposed to be split evenly three ways Of course, eventually they ask for some documentation of where the money is. She provides a lovely spreadsheet, and when my mom(who works in an accounting department) goes over it, she realizes she had been fudging the numbers claiming she paid hundreds more on hospital bills than they really were, etc. Long story short, it turns out my aunt blew through all the estate accounts, took out a 30k equity loan on my grandparents' house and blew through that, maxed out her husband's credit cards, cashed out her husband's 401k, cashed out all her own bank accounts and blew through that, and pawned all my grandmothers' jewelry. In ten months she blew through well over 500k and has her and her husband 200k in debt. This was all spent on gambling. Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Sep 28, 2013 |
# ? Sep 28, 2013 14:25 |
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Nail Rat posted:Yeah those dumb poors should just work to get their employers rich, and gently caress em if they get sick. They should be happy they're not hunted for sport! Your aunt needs two things: a good asskicking, and help for her serious gambling problem. Edit: because at that point it's not just a bad decision, she's gone firmly into the 'serious mental problem requiring professional assistance' category.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 15:15 |
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Yeah, I'm not trying to argue that generational poverty isn't incredibly hard to get out of, just that as I get older, the less of a hippie my attitude is. I guess I'm becoming kind of an rear end in a top hat. I listen to a lot of dave ramsey, it's starting to get internalized. Anyway, back on track! So my dad and his brother grew up quite poor, but both were quite smart and managed to get to Cornell. They both graduated as mechanical engineers (my dad just barely). Same footing. My dad ended up much more successful. He took risks, transferred us across the country, worked many different jobs. My uncle stayed in the same place, doing the same job, for his whole life. Even when I was a little kid, I knew it was hard for that part of the family to come to our biannual family meetups because of money. My uncle over the years would throw in snide bible verses about how my dad was greedy and ungenerous to his brother. It took us a long time to realize how messed up that was... my dad wasn't handed anything, and him and Skipper were total equals. Then we find out he's been giving $800/month to his church for the past 30 years. Where they speak in tongues. What a loving whackjob.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 15:22 |
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Don't listen to Dave Ramsey, guy's a jerk.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 15:24 |
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tuyop posted:It doesn't matter how hard those SE Asian workers work, they're still making orders of magnitude less than the Europeans simply because they're SE Asian. There is no American Dream for those folks, there's just endless poverty or a constant limping struggle up to some sort of proto-middle class. The odds are that, regardless of agency, the former is what they'll get. Naw dawg, these guys have live-in maids and nice houses and a good life for their families back home. They are making the sacrifice to provide. But we can't really compare breaking out of poverty from the 3rd world thanks to big oil, and what it's like to grow up in an American ghetto. Like our aussie friend up there said, it's just a totally different realm. It was the biggest culture shock I've gone through. Being the only American around has really shifted my perspective.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 15:38 |
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It's also interesting to see the new growing population of "educated poor" where there have been multiple generations of both college education and poverty. People really are resistant to the idea that the American dream is changing and getting further away - they went to college and got at least a two year degree and then continued to manage a blockbuster, but there is magical thinking that their child's liberal artsy bachelors will be different. I tend to believe that the "socio" part of "socioeconomic status of parents as a predictor of future wealth" is the real game changer. Someone can be rich and still live like they are poor and vice versa. Despite my crippling poverty growing up, my parents were still socioculturally middle class with a good understanding of institutional systems and mortgages and retirement, but no money to fund them (because hey, drugs man). I could play myself off as the American dream, or I could admit my privilege gave me an enormous advantage over those who are now my clients. Bonus story for content: What happens when someone who is first generation "not poor" but also ninth generation "college bound" goes to college? If you guessed enormous loans, credit card debt, and working full time hours, you are correct! I will be graduating from grad school in May with a cumulative 60k of student loans for the last seven years, 7k of credit cards I'm paying down, and a two year obligation to work for the state that I indentured myself to for a stipend so I wouldn't starve to death. I also financed a MacBook and am going to Costa Rica in March
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 18:09 |
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So let's make all college students take a mandatory major in healthcare, science, technology, math, or engineering as a pre-requisite to getting federal student loans. They can double major or minor in humanities if they choose. We need to stop selling liberal arts degrees as an "investment" seeing as how these never pay off.
INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Sep 28, 2013 |
# ? Sep 28, 2013 18:27 |
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INTJ Mastermind posted:So let's make all college students take a mandatory major in healthcare, science, technology, math, or engineering as a pre-requisite to getting federal student loans. They can double major or minor in humanities if they choose. We need to stop selling liberal arts degrees as an "investment" seeing as how these never pay off. I don't believe in turning public universities into trade schools - I was a sociology of law undergraduate and it informed my life thereafter. Now I am finishing my masters of social work as a result. A classical education is how you make global citizens with empathy for humanity as a whole and a broader sense of duty and obligation. Grad school is trade school - go career or academia or perish. I do believe in being realistic with undergrads. "Do what you love as long as you love it enough to pursue a phd. Otherwise, here is the computer science department." That said, my brother is a chemical engineer who is now back in school for a pharmacy phd who is very socially conscious, so your mileage may vary.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 19:03 |
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But you agree it's a bad idea for 18-24 year olds to take on 5-6 figures of debt to be "more enlightened global citizens" right? They can always take humanities electives and still learn marketable skills.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 19:29 |
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Trilineatus posted:I don't believe in turning public universities into trade schools - I was a sociology of law undergraduate and it informed my life thereafter. Now I am finishing my masters of social work as a result. A classical education is how you make global citizens with empathy for humanity as a whole and a broader sense of duty and obligation. I mean, do you need to rack up $60k+ in student loans to become a global citizen with empathy for humanity and a broader sense of duty and obligation? You can read books on socioeconomic inequality in your own free time and participate in the D&D circle-jerks until your brain explodes. There's no need to encumber yourself with crippling life-long debt to become a more socially conscious person. Christ it's no wonder you hate the system so much, you literally have no other choice at this point. I agree with INTJ, if kids are going to assume massive federal student loan debt they should be obligated to study something actually marketable and that may help improve their lot in life and their future. Becoming a mental giant and internet debate champion about social issues doesn't pay the bills - or build wealth. Lightning Zwei fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Sep 28, 2013 |
# ? Sep 28, 2013 19:42 |
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Lightning Zwei posted:Becoming a[n] internet debate champion about social issues doesn't pay the bills - or build wealth.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 19:44 |
Trilineatus posted:If you guessed enormous loans, credit card debt, and working full time hours, you are correct! I will be graduating from grad school in May with a cumulative 60k of student loans for the last seven years, 7k of credit cards I'm paying down, and a two year obligation to work for the state that I indentured myself to for a stipend so I wouldn't starve to death. Dude, that's kind of exactly what I did, except much smaller student loans and a car loan on top of it. I hope you realize the value of freedom at some point and enjoy the 5 to 10-year journey of paying it all back. I'm serious.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 20:04 |
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Hey everybody, I came into this thread because I was predicting that I'd see 20 stories on how people are terrible with spending money. I was kind of disappointed to hear a D&D discussion that really should be in this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3567987 . Story: When I checked my parents' (who are very close to retirement) finances about half an year ago, I found out that they had at least 30% of their money in a single technology stock. It turns out that they had neglected proper investment training while they were working.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 20:37 |
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I think the point is that universities shouldn't see themselves as obligated to provide job training, but rather as institutions dedicated towards research and discovery. The fact that people go there in order to get jobs does not mean that getting people jobs should be the goal of academia. EDIT: Sorry for derail not gonna post any more.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 20:38 |
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tuyop posted:Dude, that's kind of exactly what I did, except much smaller student loans and a car loan on top of it. I joined the forums to follow Zaurg's second thread, and your thread has been a journey of discovery for me. I am in public service so my loan forgiveness should improve my outcomes, and the credit card debt is decreasing rapidly.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 21:24 |
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Trilineatus posted:I do believe in being realistic with undergrads. "Do what you love as long as you love it enough to pursue a phd. Otherwise, here is the computer science department." The people who go CS for the money don't tend to stay in CS very long without failing out. It's basically an applied math curriculum. There are trade schools for programming too, you know.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 21:39 |
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Why the gently caress does the world job market have a 1950's Japan, or any other technologically nascent mind-set for that matter, style of obsession with engineering and math? There are equally valuable skills which ALL types of society need as well such as international trade, economics and foreign languages. Yes, those skills can't go into a nice post-degree test as easily, but if everyone just got a STEM degree, there goes all our loving employee diversity and work-force diversity. Also, if society really gives a poo poo about calculus so much, why isn't it explicitly introduced in grade school? Those who self-studied calculus early end up being the only ones who can get through how poorly it is taught and how so many subjects are crammed in on a formal level, or those who got a tutor to drill it into them. On-topic story: my estranged paternal uncle is the worst schemer I've ever heard of, in terms of cutting costs and mooching for money in vile ways as much as possible to be lazy. The start was nothing too bad: he received full parental support for college as the eldest son, and my dad didn't get poo poo. My dad dropped out of a literature degree with one semester left to go and subsequently was drafted, which was really stupid, but he did finish a degree in management eventually. He worked to pay for college, and we found out about five years ago that his college fund went to pay for grandpa's boat. Also if I'm remembering correctly, dear uncle got the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge or something, but was still able to milk Veterans Hospital for all it was worth afterwards. Uncle and his wife basically lived in a trailer and mooched off other people to go on international vacations, and I think now live in their daughter's house. Then they have two other sons and grandma to continue supporting their artificial retirement. He also attempted to take full power of attorney over grandma's estate one time in order to secure more funds for himself, and the loving lawyer agreed with that approach, the antiquated feudal rear end in a top hat. So dad had to convince grandma not to set it up that way.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 00:19 |
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I know this guy, really nice guy pretty well together, has a successful job. Since I've known him he has: - Signed up for a Forex trader program, set up a website to sell the software for it, and has started bidding on the incredibly competitive cpc keywords for forex. Like $20 cost per click. He hasn't converted once and has lost a lot of money speculating on currency. - Because of the above he decided to get some quick cash by setting his commercial truck (which he uses for aforementioned successful job) on fire to collect insurance on it. Insurance guys saw through this pretty transparently and he's currently negotiating a settlement that hopefully doesn't involve jail time. - He makes over $100,000/yr and is currently borrowed $$$ up to the gills from everyone willing to lend to him It's like watching a car crash in slow motion.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 01:06 |
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Scaramouche posted:I know this guy, really nice guy pretty well together, has a successful job. Since I've known him he has: Oh God. Forex. Next to pyramid schemes, it seems to be the next big thing that's attracting a lot of suckers. I once heard some hack talking about it. He said, "Forex is so easy! Once you hold a position, the market can only go two ways- up, or down. If it goes down, you hold. If it goes up, you sell! It's simple!" I'm 99% sure that he was trying to scam some people into paying for some sketchy Forex course. Only 15% of Forex traders are profitable. And at the end of the day, Forex is day-trading. Even successful daytraders will tell you that about how difficult (and stressful) any sort of daytrading is. And as an individual Forex Trader, the odds aren't exactly stacked in your favour- you're competing against massive financial institutions that are trying to beat the markets, as well firms that use complicated automatic trading software that detect irregularities (and use said irregularities to turn a profit) and input trades faster than any human possibly could. melon cat fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Sep 29, 2013 |
# ? Sep 29, 2013 01:14 |
I was watching an American Greed where someone setup a Forex trading exchange or something. Instead of actually having it invested, he just took all the money and spent it. His logic was they were just going to lose it all anyway. I got a pretty good laugh because he was probably right.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 01:47 |
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Not so much a person, but... At my new job I was recently given the task of following up on a bunch of unpaid insurance claims going back to 2010. They were either denied, never sent to the insurance, sent to the wrong insurance, or submitted correctly and paid but no one had actually processed the payments. The woman who was supposed to have been doing them hadn't because she "didn't know how to check the claims" or "didn't know how to fix the denials". Well dammit, woman, LEARN. There was over $6000 missing and unaccounted for because this woman couldn't be bothered to make a couple phone calls or get online. I've been able to get about $700 in two weeks of minimal effort. I wonder what her personal finances are like, and no, I don't know why she's been allowed to neglect her duties at work without repercussion.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 04:30 |
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Lightning Zwei posted:Boy do I love Chris Rock, I grew up listening to all of his stand-ups on repeat and could probably recite every word. I always liked this bit especially but as I've grown older I realized that life doesn't have to be the zero sum game as he describes it ("Only the white man can profit from pain."). First you have to consider what "wealth" really is, and wealth isn't money, which I think is the point he's trying to make. Poor people buy cars and jewelry when they receive a windfall, and wealthy people invest windfalls into assets that are intrinsically valuable and in turn create more wealth. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 04:37 |
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That's enough with the derails.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 07:11 |
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I know a guy who bought a house and 10 acres of land ages ago for 50k. The mortgage payments were something silly like 250/month. A couple years back the plot next to him went up for sale around 2006 in the height of the housing boom. This guy, in his mid-fifties and in the middle of a chemo treatment course, bought it without consulting his wife to start his lifelong dream of becoming a farmer.(!) Monthly payments went up to $1250. This is around 25% of his gross income. Of course, he's never gotten close to selling anything from the farm, because there's always another thing he needs to buy before he can make a profit: tractors, seeds, other equipment, chickens so he can "save" money on fertilizer... All the time complaining about how backbreaking his real job is. Oh, and he and his wife each drive about 100 miles each day for work. I did the math a while back and they would save a fair amount on balance (not even counting car repairs) just by renting an apartment in the city. Why don't they do this? Because they are bad with money.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 11:07 |
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A friend of mine finally managed to pay off his credit card debts. He has just broken up with his GF and is moving across London, and is on ~£18k a year. His gaming PC dies, so instead of diagnosing what was wrong with the PC, he buys a new one outright, straight on the credit card. What's worse is that he doesn't have the money for a copy of Windows yet so is waiting until next month to buy that. So the PC's just going to be sitting there.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 14:41 |
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Why didn't he just throw that down on credit too, or did the PC max out his limit?
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 15:15 |
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SpelledBackwards posted:Why didn't he just throw that down on credit too, or did the PC max out his limit? Or, you know, transfer the OS license between rigs. Bad with money and bad with computers too. On Topic: It's come to light how bad my parents were with their finances. Growing up, I just assumed that we were well off. Lots of awesome Christmas times, vacation every year, a cruise at one point because why not, sports and activities fully funded. Now they're divorcing, my father is retiring early to move cross-country and also within the last 3 years has bought: a Harley, a Jaguar and then sold back the Jaguar a year or so later to get a truck because it was "much more practical." Because of the divorce, I've come to find out that basically my whole childhood was put on a large number of credit cards, took at least one home-equity loan to cover those debts, have probably racked up lord knows what else on the motorcycle and two cars. When my grandmother on my mom's side died a couple years back, they got a fairly substantial windfall which was used to buy my brother a car and then "pay down debts" even though they're apparently back to square 1 due to the divorce. I have never felt so guilty for asking for all that dumb crap as a kid. If I knew then what I knew now I would have been happy with socks for birthday and Christmas.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 15:33 |
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:A friend of mine finally managed to pay off his credit card debts. He has just broken up with his GF and is moving across London, and is on ~£18k a year. His gaming PC dies, so instead of diagnosing what was wrong with the PC, he buys a new one outright, straight on the credit card. What's worse is that he doesn't have the money for a copy of Windows yet so is waiting until next month to buy that. So the PC's just going to be sitting there. Higgy posted:I have never felt so guilty for asking for all that dumb crap as a kid. If I knew then what I knew now I would have been happy with socks for birthday and Christmas. tuyop posted:He probably wants to play video games. melon cat fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Sep 29, 2013 |
# ? Sep 29, 2013 18:06 |
melon cat posted:Why not just use a free OS like Ubuntu? He probably wants to play video games.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 18:09 |
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tuyop posted:He probably wants to play video games. Well he could at least have a usable computer until he can afford windows. If it were my poor friend I would probably tell them to pirate windows instead though.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 18:18 |
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He's just a bit of a silly person. Just saw this on Reddit: quote:Sorry, but this is the worst advice anyone could give to a 21 year old. Let me spell it out for you. DO NOT SAVE AND INVEST.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 18:22 |
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:He's just a bit of a silly person. I have been a class A financial gently caress up and even I think this is dumb. I like the arbitrary thousand pounds as the largest number this guy could imagine someone saving.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 18:37 |
DrAlexanderTobacco posted:He's just a bit of a silly person. Read this as: Spend all your money because all value in life comes from outside yourself. You are only the things that you buy, letters after your name, countries that you visit, and the statuses and photos that you post on Facebook. Nurture constantly-evolving, nebulous (be unique and essential hahaha), endlessly unattainable expectations. And yeah, I felt that way for almost all of my life so I totally get the perspective. I never thought saving and investing was a recipe for happiness, and it's not. But neither is making GBS threads it all away to try to somehow get to the nirvana that is "interesting", "unique", "essential", "good at" all based on how you might describe your life to others or yourself as an outside observer. It just so happens that saving and investing forces you to internalize value. If you're deciding not to get that new car, you're either going to: A) find yourself unhappy, or B) find happiness in the things that you already do have or the way your life is regardless of a lack of new car. In the case of A, you probably just buy the car or something else (drugs, vacations, whatever to try to advance a little further on that hedonic treadmill) at some point anyway.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 18:37 |
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A response from the guy:quote:If you think your opinion is more worthy than mine because you know what compound interest is, you may want to consider I do quantitative analysis for a big investment bank.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 19:06 |
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:He's just a bit of a silly person. melon cat fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Sep 29, 2013 |
# ? Sep 29, 2013 19:12 |
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:A response from the guy:
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 19:38 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 02:54 |
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:He's just a bit of a silly person. DrAlexanderTobacco posted:A response from the guy: This is your friend posting these things, or somebody else? Surely a quantitative analyst doesn't make only £18k per year? the littlest prince fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Sep 29, 2013 |
# ? Sep 29, 2013 19:43 |