2005 was the first year since the Great Depression in which Americans spent more than they earned.
That should never happen. Ever. No single person should ever spend more than they earn. The country can't spend more than it earns if individuals do not.
Right. It should never happen. Did the article say that people are spending more than they earn because they're going on wild spending sprees? No. People are spending more than they earn because they're being squeezed.
She thinks she should be able to afford having children? Hah! Raising a child from the age of 0 to 17costs about $15,000 a year. If you do not have a spare $15,000 a year in income, you can not afford to have a child. Having a child in such a situation is, in effect, buying something you can not afford.
So, no sympathy from you for people who haven't sat down with a calculator and a baby budget sheet before having sex?
What I think you're missing is that a lot of these options suck. Take the lady moving to Ohio. Maybe all of her family is in Connecticut. Moving to Ohio would suck. Nobody is saying that she'll starve. Rather, people are just pointing out that the consequences of a recession can suck big time.
Even if you have to dip into your savings because you got laid off, that sucks. You've lost income and have less buying power. You've taken one step back in your quest towards global domination. That sucks. See the common thread here?
I like things to not suck. I like to thrive. I don't like to take steps back. Therefore, I hope that there is no recession.
Right. It should never happen. Did the article say that people are spending more than they earn because they're going on wild spending sprees? No. People are spending more than they earn because they're being squeezed.
It's not wild spending sprees. It's things that seem reasonable, but are not. It's things people expect to be able to afford, but actually can't. It's living in a four bedroom house in suburbia instead of an apartment. It's buying an SUV instead of getting a used sedan. It's eating lunch out every day for work instead of bringing lunch in. It's having two kids when you can only afford one. It's buying twenty pairs of shoes when the average person needs only five (sandals, slippers, sneakers, dress shoes, boots). More shoes can be excused for people who need skates, blades, cleets, etc. We're not talking about people who go to the mall and blow their entire paycheck every single week like complete idiots. We're talking about people who merely live at a standard of living above what they can afford. They might always have money in the bank, but their savings isn't growing much, or is being decreased. They are also not taking swift action to change their ways when the savings starts decreasing.
So, no sympathy from you for people who haven't sat down with a calculator and a baby budget sheet before having sex?
What I think you're missing is that a lot of these options suck.
Life sucks. The universe sucks. I figured that out when I learned the laws of thermodynamics. Allow me to translate the laws of thermodynamics into English for you.
Every Law of Thermodynamics - "Nothing awesome will ever be possible. No matter what you do, the final result is heat-death of the universe. Ha ha ha, pitiful humans, suck it!"
Over the course of any person's life, things will suck. They will, however, suck much much less if you just suck it up and deal with it. Do absolutely everything you can do within your power to decrease suckage, and in the end it really won't be so bad. Is moving to Ohio a pain in the ass? Sure, moving is one of the worst things there is, but it's a lot better than sleeping in your minivan. If you told me that the woman moved to Ohio, then got laid off six months later anyway, and couldn't get another job in Ohio, and was living frugally, then I would offer sympathy.
I don't understand why expectations of fiscal responsibility are being villainized, here. It seems like Joe and others think that unless the economy is supporting rampant, unfettered spending without savings, then it is flawed. People want to have everything with no personal risk; that's just not possible. But it seems like Joe and others are saying that any sacrifice to remain liquid is anathema.
Let's face it: The standard of living in the US is high. It's really high. This recession that everyone keeps talking about isn't forcing an abnormally high number of people into the gutters, though. It's forcing them out of their condos. Things could be a lot worse than having to decide between Ohio and Connecticut.
So, what should she do? BTW, she is in her 50's married no kids.
You said it yourself. Move to Ohio. What's wrong with moving to Ohio? I may not like Ohio as a state, but if that's what I needed to do in order to get paid, I would go instantly. Adapt to survive. She has an option to where she can continue to live well. The economy isn't screwing her, her resistance to change is the problem.
The alternative is to find whatever job she can get in the area and move to a house she can afford. She lost money on her house? That's the breaks. She can still sell it for what she can get and move to a house she can afford right now. Investments are not guaranteed to pay off, they are a gamble. If you view a house as a place to live, and not as an investment, you are much better off. Also, a $400 a month car payment? What is she driving, a Ferrari? Sorry, no sympathy for the Ferrari driver who has to trade it in for a Ford.
What's wrong with moving to Ohio?
Your parents are likely the same age as her. Do you think your parents would want to uproot themselves from all of their friends and family like that? Selling the house now would be a bad idea because prices are down. They are not upside down on the house (purchased it about eight years ago) but the sale price would make the return on their investment in the 1% range (after factoring in improvements and rent saved, etc...). Selling now would also piss them off when a few years from now those real estate prices rebound.
Uprooting and moving is easy when you are a twenty-something. Not so easy as you get older.
Ditch the car? The payments are high because she got a short term car loan at 0%. She has a little under two years left on it.
My expenses are so low I could easily make it working a job at Wal-Mart stocking shelves. They can not. Further, they were not living above their means. Their house costs less than five times her annual salary. Her car payment is equivalent to about one days pay.
So, no sympathy from you for people who haven't sat down with a calculator and a baby budget sheet before having sex?
No sympathy whatsoever. Don't have unprotected sex if you aren't prepared to pay for a child, put it up for adoption, or get an abortion. Anyone who chooses to have a child lightly and without a lot of planning and consideration is an absolute idiot.
While I don't know what to do about it, people having children they can't afford is probably one of the biggest root causes of the general economic problems in America today...
Uprooting and moving is easy when you are a twenty-something. Not so easy as you get older.
I know that from personal experience. Our move to Maryland from Kentucky was very difficult.
My expenses are so low I could easily make it working a job at Wal-Mart stocking shelves. They can not. Further, they were not living above their means. Their house costs less than five times her annual salary. Her car payment is equivalent to about one days pay.
I have to agree. If her annual salary stood in that relation to the price of her house, her housing decision was reasonable. If her car payment was equivalent to about one day's pay then it was not outside her means.
So, no sympathy from you for people who haven't sat down with a calculator and a baby budget sheet before having sex?
No sympathy whatsoever. Don't have unprotected sex if you aren't prepared to pay for a child, put it up for adoption, or get an abortion.
Uprooting and moving is easy when you are a twenty-something. Not so easy as you get older.
Nobody said it was going to be easy. But hard does not mean impossible. You gotta do what you gotta do. If there are options available, an you don't take advantage of them, don't go looking for pity. We were very lucky to have such a long stretch of years where everything was easy. Many people took it for granted. Now everyone is crying because things are hard. Hard is the default situation. Easy is an amazing luxury. Impossible is when you start worrying.
Also, it does seems as if this person is financially responsible. That's good. She was also making a hell of a lot of money. That's also good. So why can't she find a new job with a similar salary? Everyone who is reading this, who works for a living, ask yourself this question. If you were fired right now, how quickly could you get into a new job of similar pay? Ok, now you have that, ask yourself this. Can you live off of your savings for that long? If the answer is no, you have made a mistake. Either you were not saving enough, you weren't constantly educating yourself and building your skills, or both.
I am confident that I can find a new job inside of a week. If I did not have that confidence, I would consider myself already up shit's creek, even if my current job seemed very secure. You guys talk about how it's easy for young people, but not for old people. That's not true at all. What's true is that it is easier for agile adaptable people, and more difficult for the less flexible. The thing is that when you are young, the education system puts you off to a good starting spot, but if you don't keep changing, you will become like the old people where everything is hard. I have met plenty of older people who have kept their wits about them, and kept adapting to the world around them. They never sat still, and always tried to move forward. They were never content to sit down in one place. They never let their guard down. Notice how those types of people never seem to find themselves in hard times? Notice how many of the entrepreneurs from the dot com crash are raking it in right now despite losing it all not so long ago? It's because of their attitudes and willingness to do whatever they have to do.
You have to have you constantly kick the world's ass, and never stop until the day you die. If you let up for even a second, it could be your doom. Sitting still and not moving forward for over 20 years was the mistake this woman made, and now she is facing the consequences. All things considered, the consequences aren't all that bad. The world can do a lot worse.
The failure rate is less than 2%. If you use a secondary method (even just rhythms), the actual pregnancy rate is practically zero.
Also, in the rare, rare case that you're one of the unlucky few, the rest of what I said still stands. If you aren't prepared for adoption, abortion, or a significant and long-term expense, you did it to yourself.
No, it is easier for you younguns to uproot to a new job and/or location because you have not set any roots down.
If I lost my job tomorrow I could not land a similar job because what I do is so specialized. I could land a job but it would not be nearly as good as what I have now.
I've been in this job since 1995. I have a lot of nice benefits and a good salary. I can make do with a lesser job but I would not enjoy it. I would do it if I had to but not if I could avoid it.
No, it is easier for you younguns to uproot to a new job and/or location because you have not set any roots down.
Don't set roots ever! Roots make it hard to move. You can grow old without setting in roots. Also, why can't you get another job? Are you qualified for any other jobs at all? I'm qualified for so many jobs it is ridiculous. I learn new technologies every week or two. I will continue to do so for as longs as I live. I won't let myself be in your position. I suggest you start learning new and valuable skills. Not only will they help increase the value of your labor, but they might help in every day life as well.
Apparently Scott never lived through the tech crisis that hit Boston in the 1990s.
There were a shit-ton of people with a shit-ton of skills who could not get work. Their skills were very similar to yours. Yes, the problem eventually corrected itself, but the belief that you can always find comparable work is the product of a mind that has never seen a deep recession.
Aren't you the one that was talking about buying a Geek Haus? FYI, that's a root. It's actually a deep root since your fortunes are intertwined and dependent on others.
Also, roots are good 99% of the time. A family, a house with a large yard, good neighbors, good schools... all good. I'm no expert on game theory, but I wouldn't give all of that up because 1% of the time it's a hindrance.
Apparently Scott never lived through the tech crisis that hit Boston in the 1990s.
There were a shit-ton of people with a shit-ton of skills who could not get work. Their skills were very similar to yours. Yes, the problem eventually corrected itself, but the belief that you can always find comparable work is the product of a mind that has never seen a deep recession.
My aunt experienced that. One week she was working a 250K a year job as an Oracle DB manager and then she had no job. At the same time she was just finishing sending her daughter through an expensive college. She spent close to five years out of work before she started landing new jobs.
It hit her about a year after she bought her new house. She was also smart in a financial sense and had plenty of money set aside to live comfortably while waiting for a new job to appear. She could have uprooted and moved to CA or some other state that was still going through a tech boom but all of her family is in MA so why move?
There were a shit-ton of people with a shit-ton of skills who could not get work. Their skills were very similar to yours. Yes, the problem eventually corrected itself, but the belief that you can always find comparable work is the product of a mind that has never seen a deep recession.
It's like every post I make, people forget the things I have said in previous posts.
The power of a human being only extends so far. There are things you can do, and things you can't do. You can move to Ohio. You can't move the sun. You can learn new skills. You can't drain the ocean. You do everything you can all the time to get what you need and want. If you do that, things will be fine in the end. Nobody has a life that is 100% easy from beginning to end. Our society has survived good and bad times, and we're still here. We have working toilets, running water, and electricity. It's really fucking amazing.
If somehow things get out of control, to the point where nothing you can do, or could have done, can save you, then just accept it. Accept that which you can not change. Change absolutely everything else that you can. Short of a real catastrophe, everything will be fine. If there is a real catastrophe, then start practicing your Hokuto no Ken.
Seriously, what is up with this thread? You've got the young guys telling the old guys that life is hard, and to suck it up. Meanwhile the old guys are moaning and groaning because life isn't going to be as easy as it has been recently. Isn't is supposed to be the other way around? Makes me think maybe the old guys are the reason we're in this mess in the first place, but it also gives hope for the future if more young people have the good attitude.
You're not going to get me to have sympathy for people who were born in western society, got educations, got jobs, and made plenty of money. There is plenty that anyone in that situation can do to make sure they get what they need, and some of what they want. If you want to talk about real hardship, bring on the North Korean orphans.
Aren't you the one that was talking about buying a Geek Haus? FYI, that's a root. It's actually a deep root since your fortunes are intertwined and dependent on others.
We can buy a GeekHaus. But if it is necessary, that house could be sold and moved overnight. We've actually been doing some research on tenancy in commons which would allow us all the benefits of property ownership, but all the flexibility of being able to switch things up at any time if need be.
Because it is better than being unemployed for five years? You can always move back later.
I just want to point out another personal anecdote. When we were at RIT, there were two camps of people we knew. One camp of people wanted everyone to stay in Rochester and be together with friends. Another camp of people wanted to move to wherever they could find jobs and money. Notice how none of the awesome Front Row Crew peoples are still living in Rochester? Notice how even the people who moved far away, i.e: Texas, are still awesome and totally with it despite being so far away? Yeah, I think we've mentioned this before, but geography is the last thing you should let get in your way.
But if it is necessary, that house could be sold and moved overnight.
You might not be able to sell that house if it's necessary. If you can sell it, you may lose a shit-ton of money in the transaction.
That's fine, but don't suggest that buying a Geek Haus isn't a "root." Also, tenancy in common is much more of a convoluted root system than just owning something by yourself. Trust me. You should learn a little phrase. It's called: "partition action." Not fun.
No offense, but by purchasing real property as tenants in common, you are SOOOO not practicing what you preach. If it were me, I'd buy the house myself and charge the others rent. I like to be master of my domain.
You might not be able to sell that house if it's necessary. If you can sell it, you may lose a shit-ton of money in the transaction.
Buying a house for $200,000 and selling it for $100,000 is a lot better than renting a place and then just moving out, no? That's the way I look at it. When I pay to live somewhere, I'm paying for shelter. If I happen to be able to recoup some of the money I paid for shelter, that's amazing. The problem isn't losing money on a house, the problem is an expectation that a house is an investment rather than a good.
That's fine, but don't suggest that buying a Geek Haus isn't a "root."
Even if it is a root, we're not afraid to pull it out of the ground at a moment's notice.
Also, tenancy in common is much more of a convoluted root system than just owning something by yourself. Trust me.
Maybe you can offer your lawyerly helps then? I'm serious, we need to find a lawyer to help us with incorporating, real estate, filing trademarks, and answering miscellaneous questions.
Maybe you can offer your lawyerly helps then? I'm serious, we need to find a lawyer to help us with incorporating, real estate, filing trademarks, and answering miscellaneous questions.
I'm only qualified to put you in jail if you screw up all of those documents. Joe can defend you. Steve will make sure that your jailhouse telephone calls to Joe go through. Thaed will be the mystery guy who will talk with you, but nobody will know what he can or can't do.
Can you help us find someone who can help us not screw up all those documents in New York?
You're probably not going to find one person who does all of those things well. Your best bet, as Thaed said, is to ask local lawyers for recommendations. Lawyers know which of the peers are good.
No offense, but by purchasing real property as tenants in common, you are SOOOO not practicing what you preach. If it were me, I'd buy the house myself and charge the others rent. I like to be master of my domain.
I agree wholeheartedly. I don't want to rain pn your parade, but I think everyone would be much better off doing what k. suggested. Tenancy-in-common is just a plea to the universe, "We don't have enough problems. Please give us more!"
Maybe you can offer your lawyerly helps then? I'm serious, we need to find a lawyer to help us with incorporating, real estate, filing trademarks, and answering miscellaneous questions.
I'm only qualified to put you in jail if you screw up all of those documents. Joe can defend you. Steve will make sure that your jailhouse telephone calls to Joe go through. Thaed will be the mystery guy who will talk with you, but nobody will know what can or can't do.
Now I can maybe keep them out of jail and out of the loony bin. I've developed some pretty good loony bin law skills over the last six months.
I'm only qualified to put you in jail if you screw up all of those documents. Joe can defend you.
Can you help us find someone who can help us not screw up all those documents in New York?
It found a bunch of lawyers nearby, but it doesn't say what kind of lawyer they are. Do jack of all trades lawyers exist, or are we going to need to find multiple peoples?
It found a bunch of lawyers nearby, but it doesn't say what kind of lawyer they are. Do jack of all trades lawyers exist, or are we going to need to find multiple peoples?
A jack-of-all-trades can incorporate you, but I wouldn't recommend it because you'll need a specialist to do the IP stuff anyway, and s/he'll be able to incorporate you. You'll need a real estate guy for the tenancy-in-common.
Comments
What I think you're missing is that a lot of these options suck. Take the lady moving to Ohio. Maybe all of her family is in Connecticut. Moving to Ohio would suck. Nobody is saying that she'll starve. Rather, people are just pointing out that the consequences of a recession can suck big time.
Even if you have to dip into your savings because you got laid off, that sucks. You've lost income and have less buying power. You've taken one step back in your quest towards global domination. That sucks. See the common thread here?
I like things to not suck. I like to thrive. I don't like to take steps back. Therefore, I hope that there is no recession.
Every Law of Thermodynamics - "Nothing awesome will ever be possible. No matter what you do, the final result is heat-death of the universe. Ha ha ha, pitiful humans, suck it!"
Over the course of any person's life, things will suck. They will, however, suck much much less if you just suck it up and deal with it. Do absolutely everything you can do within your power to decrease suckage, and in the end it really won't be so bad. Is moving to Ohio a pain in the ass? Sure, moving is one of the worst things there is, but it's a lot better than sleeping in your minivan. If you told me that the woman moved to Ohio, then got laid off six months later anyway, and couldn't get another job in Ohio, and was living frugally, then I would offer sympathy.
Let's face it: The standard of living in the US is high. It's really high. This recession that everyone keeps talking about isn't forcing an abnormally high number of people into the gutters, though. It's forcing them out of their condos. Things could be a lot worse than having to decide between Ohio and Connecticut.
Your parents are likely the same age as her. Do you think your parents would want to uproot themselves from all of their friends and family like that? Selling the house now would be a bad idea because prices are down. They are not upside down on the house (purchased it about eight years ago) but the sale price would make the return on their investment in the 1% range (after factoring in improvements and rent saved, etc...). Selling now would also piss them off when a few years from now those real estate prices rebound.
Uprooting and moving is easy when you are a twenty-something. Not so easy as you get older.
Ditch the car? The payments are high because she got a short term car loan at 0%. She has a little under two years left on it.
My expenses are so low I could easily make it working a job at Wal-Mart stocking shelves. They can not. Further, they were not living above their means. Their house costs less than five times her annual salary. Her car payment is equivalent to about one days pay.
While I don't know what to do about it, people having children they can't afford is probably one of the biggest root causes of the general economic problems in America today...
Also, it does seems as if this person is financially responsible. That's good. She was also making a hell of a lot of money. That's also good. So why can't she find a new job with a similar salary? Everyone who is reading this, who works for a living, ask yourself this question. If you were fired right now, how quickly could you get into a new job of similar pay? Ok, now you have that, ask yourself this. Can you live off of your savings for that long? If the answer is no, you have made a mistake. Either you were not saving enough, you weren't constantly educating yourself and building your skills, or both.
I am confident that I can find a new job inside of a week. If I did not have that confidence, I would consider myself already up shit's creek, even if my current job seemed very secure. You guys talk about how it's easy for young people, but not for old people. That's not true at all. What's true is that it is easier for agile adaptable people, and more difficult for the less flexible. The thing is that when you are young, the education system puts you off to a good starting spot, but if you don't keep changing, you will become like the old people where everything is hard. I have met plenty of older people who have kept their wits about them, and kept adapting to the world around them. They never sat still, and always tried to move forward. They were never content to sit down in one place. They never let their guard down. Notice how those types of people never seem to find themselves in hard times? Notice how many of the entrepreneurs from the dot com crash are raking it in right now despite losing it all not so long ago? It's because of their attitudes and willingness to do whatever they have to do.
You have to have you constantly kick the world's ass, and never stop until the day you die. If you let up for even a second, it could be your doom. Sitting still and not moving forward for over 20 years was the mistake this woman made, and now she is facing the consequences. All things considered, the consequences aren't all that bad. The world can do a lot worse.
Also, in the rare, rare case that you're one of the unlucky few, the rest of what I said still stands. If you aren't prepared for adoption, abortion, or a significant and long-term expense, you did it to yourself.
If I lost my job tomorrow I could not land a similar job because what I do is so specialized. I could land a job but it would not be nearly as good as what I have now.
I've been in this job since 1995. I have a lot of nice benefits and a good salary. I can make do with a lesser job but I would not enjoy it. I would do it if I had to but not if I could avoid it.
There were a shit-ton of people with a shit-ton of skills who could not get work. Their skills were very similar to yours. Yes, the problem eventually corrected itself, but the belief that you can always find comparable work is the product of a mind that has never seen a deep recession.
Also, roots are good 99% of the time. A family, a house with a large yard, good neighbors, good schools... all good. I'm no expert on game theory, but I wouldn't give all of that up because 1% of the time it's a hindrance.
It hit her about a year after she bought her new house. She was also smart in a financial sense and had plenty of money set aside to live comfortably while waiting for a new job to appear. She could have uprooted and moved to CA or some other state that was still going through a tech boom but all of her family is in MA so why move?
The power of a human being only extends so far. There are things you can do, and things you can't do. You can move to Ohio. You can't move the sun. You can learn new skills. You can't drain the ocean. You do everything you can all the time to get what you need and want. If you do that, things will be fine in the end. Nobody has a life that is 100% easy from beginning to end. Our society has survived good and bad times, and we're still here. We have working toilets, running water, and electricity. It's really fucking amazing.
If somehow things get out of control, to the point where nothing you can do, or could have done, can save you, then just accept it. Accept that which you can not change. Change absolutely everything else that you can. Short of a real catastrophe, everything will be fine. If there is a real catastrophe, then start practicing your Hokuto no Ken.
Seriously, what is up with this thread? You've got the young guys telling the old guys that life is hard, and to suck it up. Meanwhile the old guys are moaning and groaning because life isn't going to be as easy as it has been recently. Isn't is supposed to be the other way around? Makes me think maybe the old guys are the reason we're in this mess in the first place, but it also gives hope for the future if more young people have the good attitude.
You're not going to get me to have sympathy for people who were born in western society, got educations, got jobs, and made plenty of money. There is plenty that anyone in that situation can do to make sure they get what they need, and some of what they want. If you want to talk about real hardship, bring on the North Korean orphans.
I just want to point out another personal anecdote. When we were at RIT, there were two camps of people we knew. One camp of people wanted everyone to stay in Rochester and be together with friends. Another camp of people wanted to move to wherever they could find jobs and money. Notice how none of the awesome Front Row Crew peoples are still living in Rochester? Notice how even the people who moved far away, i.e: Texas, are still awesome and totally with it despite being so far away? Yeah, I think we've mentioned this before, but geography is the last thing you should let get in your way.
That's fine, but don't suggest that buying a Geek Haus isn't a "root." Also, tenancy in common is much more of a convoluted root system than just owning something by yourself. Trust me. You should learn a little phrase. It's called: "partition action." Not fun.
No offense, but by purchasing real property as tenants in common, you are SOOOO not practicing what you preach. If it were me, I'd buy the house myself and charge the others rent. I like to be master of my domain.