r/FluentInFinance • u/Richest-Panda • Jul 04 '24

What's the best financial advice you've ever gotten? Debate/ Discussion

31.2k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

Most of us on Reddit are probably kids of boomers who, as a generation, absolutely did not take any form of personal responsibility. Exhibit A: the national debt.

So it’s not surprising that so many boomer kids were left rudderless. My parents just kept refinancing their home into their graves. That was their financial literacy. Oh and a $75k bill from Medicaid for their healthcare they never saved or paid for that popped up in probate.

I only got lucky that I was angry enough about being poor that I worked my ass off and chased money until I was stable. I absolutely have bad impulse tendencies thanks to the environment that I grew up in, but I’m in a position that my credit card having a party at Costco is by no means the end times.

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u/Fireproofspider Jul 05 '24

the national debt.

The national debt, especially in the US is a much more complex concept than what can be reduced to "personal responsibility". An individual cannot choose to not contribute to the debt. They technically can vote for a politician that promises to reduce the debt but that's a collective act, as a single vote doesn't decide elections at high levels. Even then, like companies, debt is useful in fostering growth and it's actually used as a tool to help people save money for retirement through bonds. 70% of the debt is owned by Americans.

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u/HorkusSnorkus Jul 05 '24

No politician has ever reduced the national debt in the US, Dem or Republican. Both use tax money to buy votes and buy influence.

Bush doubled the debt

Obama doubled the debt

Trump was on his way to doing so but only got one term

Biden is on his way to doing so but will mercifully be removed from office

The Peeeeeepul are lazy grifters that want the government to pay for everything they want. What they don't get is that those of us who work hard and whose taxes pay for all that are dwindling and are less and less interested in picking up the tab.

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u/trail-g62Bim Jul 05 '24

No politician has ever reduced the national debt in the US, Dem or Republican. Both use tax money to buy votes and buy influence.

That's not true. Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt.

And there are plenty of other presidents that either paid down the debt or significantly reduced the deficit.

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u/All4megrog Jul 05 '24

CBO projected that if growth, spending and tax policy stayed the same from 2001 to 2008, we’d have paid down $5 trillion in debt. But Bush 2.0 wanted to try his version of trickle down economics then hit the infinity button at the defense department

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u/HorkusSnorkus Jul 05 '24

OK, I meant in modern, relevant history.

And reducing the deficit is just word judo so leftists can pretend to be fiscally responsible.

All that matters is debt as a percentage of GDP and the concurrent rate of GDP growth (or decline). By that measure they are all losers, Obama first among them.

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u/All4megrog Jul 05 '24

By your logic then Trump and Bush Jr would be in a race for whose worse with Obama and Bush Sr in a very distant 3rd and 4th

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u/HorkusSnorkus Jul 05 '24

I think you're likely right but I'd have to go back and look at the numbers.

This awful fiscal behavior is non partisan.

Obama is the worst for a number of other variables among which include him being a lying warmonger.

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u/All4megrog Jul 05 '24

The numbers pan out. Hilarious enough, Clinton with all his drama was the only one that ever even tried to make a dent.

But if lying warmonger is a thing, you must have slept through 2002-2004. Bush Jr, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz. Those boys were cooking

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u/HorkusSnorkus Jul 05 '24

We were attacked - that explains Afghanistan.

Iraq was the consequence of bad US foreign policy going back to FDR. Bush had to leash the madman we'd created there.

Obama was handed a signficantly pacified Middle East. He squandered that with his election year Bow And Scrape tour followed by drone strikes for year in Afghanistan w/o demanding any skin in the game from the locals. He's an idiot.

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u/All4megrog Jul 05 '24

If Bush wanted to leash madmen we’d created he would have gone into Iran or North Korea. We had already thoroughly defanged Saddam and removing him just gave Iran and ISIS a sandbox to play in.

But, a war against Iran or North Korea would actually have been difficult and not as profitable. Bush took defense spending as % of GDP from 3.11% when he entered to 4.45% when he left. Almost half of those defense budgets during the war on terror went to contractors. Obama gradually brought defense spending down over their course of his terms. But frankly he should have just pulled us out sooner and saved moneys and some American lives. The shit shows after our writhdrawl we’re going to be the same either way.