if there were no financial idiots there would be no mr ramsey or suze.


think of them like fish you need em for a healthy economy.

You have a top tier credit score, but your silly adherence to Dave Ramsey-ism is going to prevent you from utilizing the benefits of this. Its more a commentary on how silly it is to maintain a "I use cash as leverage" attitude which is 1) nonsensical 2) absurd.

LOL. How am I not utilizing the benefits of a high credit score? All I potentially need it for is a home refinance which will happen either now or withing 30 days after I start my new job. I have no intention of putting myself into a position where I "need" to borrow again.

To say it is "silly" to be debt-free and build wealth by living your wage and saving is "silly" imo. I'm certainly not trying to change your mind. Personal finance is just that - personal. I've chosen my path, you choose yours. The purpose of this thread was to simply offer an alternative to normal (normal defined as up to your eyeballs in debt and broke).

That is fine. Though to establish a fact, "your path" will result in having less money than "my path". When you talk about "personal" choices you're using it to disguise a "being poorer" eventuality.

Also, stop making up strawmen. You're being a tool.

Hilarious. Are you actually serious? Maybe I'm missing a joke here, I don't know. I would like to know what your path is. How is having zero debt payments and socking away a truckload of cash going to make me poorer? Poorer then what? Buffet, Gates? Okay, yes. I'll be poorer than them. But, I'll be richer than the vast majority of Americans.

I've been very forthright with the details of my personal situation throughout this post. I'd be interested to know yours. How's your balance sheet look? Assuming you prepare one. Yeah, I prepare annual net worth statement at the end of each year.

Finally, what's up with the strawmen statment and I'm a "tool" comment? Comments like that discredit anything valuable you might have to add to the conversation.

Sigh. Yes, I am.

You'll have less money than someone who correctly utilizes debt. Lets take the example of someone who uses their great credit to continually transfer a 10k balance back and forth between cards at a 0% APR. They've now achieved a completely free loan. They are ahead of you. You've been basically ignoring all the commentary in this thread contrary to what you want to believe. How about a further example of being able to achieve a car purchase for ~1k cheaper by financing it then immediately paying it off as opposed to attempting to buy it with cash. The list goes on and on. If we take a list of possible decisions and analyze them "your way" and then in an optimal way. Most will end up being the exact same, but the optimal choice will never be worse than you end up, while you'll end up trailing an optimal decision maker a decent % of the time. Add the time value of money into the mix and you'll start to become significantly poorer as time elapses.


This is completely immaterial. Though I do the same thing. My balance sheet looks exceedingly good as I'm a professional gambler and have to keep a bankroll, add in that I couldn't get enough credit to outpace my income/NW, and you have a recipe for success. Though I did take a loan during the Neteller fiasco to get started gambling again, this would again be an example of where Dave Ramsey influenced Thremp is a busto moran, and regular Thremp is a semi-busto moran.

The reverse Straw Man!!! I love it. Here are your words:

I said this no where. Here is a link to something that may help you understand what you did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Here is another post on how you end up with more wealth if you ignore Dave Ramsey and carry debt: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=10

It's against the TOC of credit cards to do what you're suggesting.

OH NOES!

I know what a strawman is. My comment is simply what I took out of your comment. If I misinterpreted, my bad.

LOL. I've actually done this dozens of time, especially back in and shortly after college.

I'm not even sure its against the TOC, nor do I care. Seems like any phrasing would be arbitrary and absurd with no negligible downside.

Thremp, did we actually agree on something (lol)?!?!?! I enjoy the discussion.

Kinda interesting discussion with Peter Schiff where he goes through his reasoning of why he is renting vs owning a home: http://www.europac.net/media/PeterSchiff_01-14-2009.mp3

It's around 10 minutes into it.

Ramsey's basic idea is that many people are in a mess because they both can't do math and don't handle money well.

The vast majority of the people that follow his advice used debt to finance consumption.

Despite his rhetoric, Ramsey is not for everyone - if you are (demonstratively) already able to spend less than you earn and can honestly use debt to invest at a higher rate of return, you can happily ignore his advice.

However, there are far more people who *think* they have the self-control to do this, than actually do.

He is not always right. I am still searching for the mythical 12% long term track record mutual fund he says everyone can invest in.

He is flat out wrong when he insists that there has never been a 10 year period in he history of the stock market when it has not made money. (He says this almost daily on his show.)

He has started to get more political recently, encouraging his listeners to ask their congresspeople to end mark-to-market accounting (for example). His arguments supporting this idea are... ill-informed at best.

Yeah, that is interesting and I can't really disagree. I actually bought a loft in the Denver Tech Center so I don't have alot of the "costs" associated with typical home ownership: homeowner's insurance, upkeep of the exterior, trash removal, water, etc. I'm in a situation where it is less expensive than owning a single family home but (potentially) more expensive than renting since I do bear the costs of any repairs to appliances, etc.

Can someone give a cliff's on the schiff thing? I can't stand listening to him on his OWN show.

In a nutshell, he says he rents because he can accomplish two things:
1) Live in a nicer place by paying higher rent since he does not have the "hidden" costs (e.g. real estate taxes, homeowners insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc.)
2) He can take the money he saves on the items above and invest

At least that's what I got out of it.

Aha...yeah.

He is right on both those points. The problem is that he assumes people are complete idiots with no self-control when it comes to debt but suddenly the same people are not irresponsible when it comes to allocating the capital they retain access to via renting.

makes a lot of sense to rent if its cheaper - kinka ldo better place less cost is a no brainer but many people live in places where renting costs the same or more and then ownership tends to become the no brainer.

Anyone who insists one is better than the other is a no brainer.

Rent v House is a pretty rudimentary math problem once you can make some decent assumptions.

...which people are really bad at doing, Thremp. Seriously, don't give regular people much credit in being able to estimate long-term amortization of repairs...or to factor in stuff like property taxes (if they come from renting).

and most people don't realise that even an interest only mortage reduces the mortgage very significantly over time in real terms.

Owning is long term.................well not in the past 10 years with all the flipping frenzy and all, but if you plan on moving within the next 3 to 5 years, renting is a simpler and less expensive option.

I've seen the 12% figure for the US markets quoted in lots of sources, not only on Ramsey's show. I figured it was a before inflation figure for average stock market growth.