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I'm supporing Dave Ramsey for Secretary of the Treasury!
So, what do you think?
keith drury
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17 comments:
Doesn't it say, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you will die? If you are going to die, why do you need to worry about $?
Despite your tongue-in-cheek approach, I think Ramsey's philosophy is a good one. Although it would certainly be painful to apply on a macro level, that pain is coming sooner or later. Even though I'm a saver, and it would be personally devastating, I'd rather have the pain now.
One of the huge reasons we are in the financial situation we are in now is the amount of money our government has spent on the military industrial complex now spanning about 30 years. That's one of the things that bankrupted Russia and when the US went into Afghanistan, the handwriting appeared on the wall. The US military policy is financial insanity. Instead of good investments in education, alternative energy and promoting healthy lifestyles, the money has been poured down the military drain along with a whole lot of blood in the process over the last 3 decades. What kind of action would that prompt from Dave Ramsay?
Not many things get my blood boiling than the way our government has stewarded the tax dollars of current and future generations! No doubt we spend disproportionally on military spending, but at least it is a legitimate constitutional expenditure of the federal government.
What bothers me is that the savers, those living by conservative financial principles are always the ones who will bear the burdens of those who live care-lessly. Save for your kids college fund? Why? The kid whose parents (make the same money as you) live in a 3,000 square foot home with the 8 4-wheelers in the garage, never saved a dime will qualify for grants and federally backed loans.
Save for car? Why...when the government will give you 4k for a car.
Save for 20 percent down on a home? Why...when you can get 8k for a downpayment.
This is all craziness!
The solution is for states to take back much of what the federal government as assumed in expenditures and localize power with states as envisioned by the framers of the constitution.
Thanks for spiking my blood pressure this morning :)
Great nomination and I would put Peter Schiff in charge of the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately these things will not happen because the socialists in charge I think are attempting to overload the system and create such a mess that only Imperial Government will be able to fix the disaster. Good-bye constitutional freedoms.
You want Americans to be responsible, that train has left the station long time ago.
Tim Geithner is not printing money, the Federal Reserve (Ben Bernanke) is.
We live in a Keynesian economy in which irresponsibility of the consumers and printing money practices are the vital parts of the theory.
If you presume, for a moment, that all of this is not how to save the economy, but how to make the rich richer, you will see some logic in all these "measures."
This is a novel idea, if all the folks who have government contracts agree to 2-3% profit for the length of the war while their fighting boys and girls are making no profit and mostly losing, then maybe so much woulden't be wasted on the war!
I just bet, some of them raking in the dough are religous folk with high "money morals". They fleece America while the folks who do the real work get screwed!
Yea, let's tax the war... the poor bastards fighting the war pay for the battle while the rich stay home and rake in more dough! The brilliance of the rich and powerful just amazes me!
My 68 year old full time pastor has no embarrassment whatsoever at collecting his full Social security of $15,000 a year which comes in on top of the $45,000 he gets from our church as full time pastor.
He speaks against bailouts and welfare (not form the pulpit thankfully--but in social settings) but he himself is sucking money he doesn't need out of the system every month while he still works.
The first step in solving Social Security is to end the stupid rule that people can rake in money while they are still working.
The second step is to move the retirement age to 75--even that would be young compared to the life expectancy when it was established.
The third step is to "Means-test" the payments. People who have $100,000 in the bank and a pension of $2000 a month should not get Social security. It is a welfare program no a pension program.
Finally, We must change the laws to parents can't "spin off" their assets to their children one year before they go into a nursing home and stick us all with their bill for Medicaid. I am aghast as how many Christians do this and make th4e government pay their nursing home bill because they are "destitute". This is shameful behavior that is no better than any one else and Christians should have better morals than this.
Robert
Reduce social security benefits, give money to banana repubic despots and raise taxes? We all know that ain't gonna happen.
Seriously, I would love to hear Dave Ramseys personal take on this. I read Larry Burkette's book on the coming meltdown a few years ago, and the only person I mentioned it to; a 'boss'--way up the food chain from me--poo-pooed the whole thing.
I know too many people who are living on social security and small or no pensions, and they would be hurt by any cuts, I think, to mention that one issue.
The problem would always be deciding what gets cut, who pays more, etc, and everyone wants someone else to make all the sacrifices.
When you see is almost-impossible plight of the government it makes my personal situation look encouraging!
I only have a few points to share... I'm currently working on a PhD in Political Science so I thought I could share some information that I didn't know until a few months ago.
--The "interest" paid on the debt is the paying off of bonds that come due that particular year. Even just a balanced budget would allow for the debt problem to slowly disappear, both by shrinking the debt as a % of GDP due to growth of the economy and paying down the debt.
--Generally, the debt of the US is massive and sometimes keeps me up at night too, but to give it some perspective, there are many developed countries with debt greater and even approaching triple what ours is as a % of GDP. That doesn't make ours okay but it shows that we are not a year or two away from being sent back to the stone age.
--The US already has more than $80 billion in foreign holdings kept by the treasury.
--For the person who suggested "means testing" Social Security and Medicare: SS is a type of social insurance, which means that the amount you get from the system depends on the amount you pay. For example, someone who never works a day in their life cannot collect SS retirement benefits. Likewise, someone who makes $80,000 a year in their life will collect significantly more than someone who makes $35,000 every year.
I would predict that the next 10 years will bring a national consumption tax in the US along with slightly higher marginal tax rates for the higher brackets as well as higher capital gains taxes. The SS retirement age will be raised slightly and the formula for benefits growth will be made more conservative.
I think our nation's time of wild debt will pass soon--and I think there is enough public pressure to force individuals on both sides of the aisle to take this problem seriously--after the recession is clearly ending (an important point, I think).
Like I said, there appears to be a very good reason why folks in the middle east want schools closed!
What may seem radical at first may become the norm. At one point in life, it was radical to have so much debt. Today, it is the norm.
At one point in life, respect and concern for others was the norm. Today's norm is, how can I use the social systems to better myself and those close to me without being caught or others realizing that I'm screwing them or the system.
Many years ago, religious beliefs were the norm. Today, religious beliefs are the enemy.
In today's street verion, it says, what goes around, comes around!
On the individual level, I think you are exactly right that Ramsey needs to add the component of teaching people to keep dollars from eroding into quarters. That may be the single greatest weakness of his system. It seems to me his system works best for people who wouldn't be disciplined and shrewd with investing money. Those who are, do better to keep money out of the house at 6% and turn it around at 12% beating inflation by 2-3%. Certainly then if the investment is relatively liquid it helps keep you out of foreclosure longer. Banks don't care how much extra you paid over the last 10 years. They care if you can pay next month.
One thing I have been curious about with all of this lately is, is there a minimum payment requirement for the USA on its debt? Credit cards have a minimum payment, mortgages do, is the government on some unending minimum payment plan? Or are we already practically defaulting? Do you know?
Thanks for a fascinating post!
DAVE WARD.
Thanks for the comment--your fiscal intuition is always good. As to a min. payment for the Gov't -I suppose that would be the interest on the national debt... if the Gov't failed to pay interest they would default and the whole monetary system would crumble..so I guess that's our Minimum payment--just paying the interest.
The last time the national debt was actually being paid down was during Bill Clinton's era... we were then reducing the debt... they even took the famous sign down. Since then, though, the Gov't has reduced revenues because of the fiscal crisis, plus reduced revenues due to the large tax cuts of the last decade, plus at the same time we have increased expenses for two wars and various Bailouts... as I see it Americans either have to ignore the national debt and give the problem to the next generation to figure out..OR increase taxes considerably while at the same time reducing services significantly to pay down the debt--we can't just do one. If we do that for a decade or More we could pay it off... but my hunch is Americans will do the former--just ignore it and let future generations live on less... but that's shameful.
(Lots of theological stuff here isn't there--about how human nature functions in a democracy).
Fascinating post really! Thanks for the follow up. Interesting if we are only paying an "interest only" loan, no wonder countries are willing to give us money on loan. We are building China's residual income pool, among others, I suppose.
You should do a follow up post on your theological thoughts on human nature in a democracy. I would be interested to read it anyway. :)
Dave Ware, If you want to read some human nature stuff on democracy read some of Alexis de Tocqueville. It is interesting reading some of his thoughts and his concerns about American democracy.
I think there are many factors we can point at that have brought us to where we are.
Actually, if you really want to dig deep many researches have found that President Clinton years in office and the claims of a surplus was always false.
9/30/1993 National Debt 4.411488 Trillion
9/28/2001 National Debt 5.807463 Trillion
President Clinton last year in office the deficit was at 17.91 billion and went up to 133.29 billion just before he left office. Even though I do not support President Bush and his spending he had no surplus in first place.
It never went down during President Clinton years.
"Both Democrats and Republicans are all running this year and next and saying surplus, surplus. Look what we have done. It is false. The actual figures show that from the beginning of the fiscal year until now we had to borrow $127,800,000,000." - Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings, October 28, 1999
Sorry, for getting of track for a few moments.
Sorry Dave in calling you Ware and not Ward
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