'A blog in support of stupid people's rights (probably the most important...)' blog

JimmyTheWig · 21 October 2011 at 3:17PM

Mandelbrot wrote: »

Even if he had savings that were greater than his mortgage, he would still technically have a debt.
No credit card, Martin? Even if you pay it off completely each month, you still have a debt until then.

He said he'd never been "in debt". I think that's different to never having had a debt.
If your savings outweigh your debts then I'd say you weren't in debt.

MSE_Martin · 21 October 2011 at 3:34PM

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

He said he'd never been "in debt". I think that's different to never having had a debt.
If your savings outweigh your debts then I'd say you weren't in debt.

I was talking net

Errata · 21 October 2011 at 3:46PM

My list of ‘stupid people’

That's probably the most arrogant and insulting phrase you've written so far. Shame on you.

Scarpacci · 21 October 2011 at 3:59PM

Errata wrote: »

That's probably the most arrogant and insulting phrase you've written so far. Shame on you.

I think you may have misunderstood his blog post. The list is of people that may, in his view undeservedly, end up being called "stupid" by some of the more cynical posters and commenters.

The point, as I understand it, is quite a few people are willing to call people stupid for certain financial mistakes, when there are people - like those on the list - who are perhaps more susceptible to these mistakes and do not deserve to be called stupid. It's a post against the idea financial mistakes only happen to stupid people who are too lazy to read terms and conditions, etc. I certainly don't think he's actually calling people on the list "stupid".

dtsazza · 21 October 2011 at 4:04PM

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

But sometimes this really isn't practical, is it?

For example, I often get updates for Adobe Reader pop up on my computer. Every time I have to tick the box to say I understand the terms and conditions.
I trust them and so tick the box.

Are you really saying that you read _every_ term and condition of _everything_ that you sign up for?

Yes - or at least those things that have statutory power over things I care about (a clause about owning your first-born in a EULA, for example, would be unenforceable).

If I don't have time/motivation to assess the terms, then I won't use that service. Once I started doing this I realised how it's less of an issue than you might initially think. There aren't that many things that include more than 30 seconds reading's worth of conditions - and they tend to be important things such as financial accounts, insurance documents, residential contracts etc. An aggregate I probably spend less than an hour a month reading T&Cs, and it's definitely time well-spent.

(In fact your specific example is quite relevant - I use SumatraPDF instead of Acrobat because the latter is so fussy and has so much cognitive overhead for the simple task of displaying a PDF. Prompting for updates and restating the EULA each time is a part of this.)

im-lost · 21 October 2011 at 4:08PM

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

He said he'd never been "in debt". I think that's different to never having had a debt.
If your savings outweigh your debts then I'd say you weren't in debt.

Of course you are in debt, just because you have the funds to pay off the debt set aside doesn't mean that there isn't a debt owed, if you owe money to others you are in debt whether you like it or not.

And Mr Lewis, to suggest you haven been 'in debt' because you are basing
that on your net worth is inexcusable, however you try to twist it.

You are 'in debt' whether you like it or not, got a mortgage? credit card you pay off monthly? is your electric, gas, council tax etc paid in advance? no, oh there's another debt.

Please don't try to paint a picture that you are whiter than white.

JimmyTheWig · 21 October 2011 at 4:11PM

MSE_Martin wrote: »

I was talking net

You don't have to answer this if you feel it's too much information, but are you saying, then, that you came out of university with more savings than debts? And that when you bought your first property you (could have, at least) paid cash?

dtsazza · 21 October 2011 at 4:14PM

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

No, it's not.

The difference is implied trust.

Implied by who, though? And on what grounds?

If you decide to trust someone, and they turn out to be untrustworthy, then you made a bad judgement. Again, it boils down to your fault for making an assumption which turned out not to be true, and I don't see a problem with the negative consequences accruing to you for that (they've got to accrue to someone).

I'm not saying that you can't/shouldn't trust anyone. The point is that once it comes down to a position of trust, as opposed to a situation with contingencies that protect you, you're taking a calculated risk. If the risk doesn't come off, you'll be the worse for it. You can't expect to fix things to get everything with 100% certainty of a positive outcome, all the time.

And it's especially silly when you can take a small amount of effort to remove guesswork/assumptions, and by extension the imputed trustworthiness, out of the question. For example, in the milk situation, making the decision without taking 30 seconds to work out what the conversion is (Google can do it in a couple of seconds), is foolish.

JimmyTheWig · 21 October 2011 at 4:16PM

im-lost wrote: »

Of course you are in debt, just because you have the funds to pay off the debt set aside doesn't mean that there isn't a debt owed, if you owe money to others you are in debt whether you like it or not.

In terms of language I don't know and I'm not that bothered in this instance.

In terms of the reality of the situation, I'd say someone with the funcs to pay off their debts wasn't in the same situation at all as someone with debts without the funds to pay them off.
Go over to the Stoozing board and find someone with £20k credit card debt.
Then go over to DFW and find someone with £20k credit card debt.
You can't possibly equate the two, and so I feel it is not helpful to use the same language for the two.

Please don't try to paid a picture that you are whiter than white.

Are you saying that someone who pays their phone bill, for example, in arrears is less whiter than white than someone who, somehow, pays it upfront?

SD1_2 · 21 October 2011 at 4:16PM

Working in the online safety arena, I get thoroughly sick of hearing comments like this:

"If people are too stupid to watch their kids online, they deserve everything that happens"

"If people are too stupid to spot a scam, they deserve to lose their money"

It doesn't help. All it does is to discourage those who most need help from asking for that help for fear of being branded stupid, accused of being crap parents or subjected to ridicule.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the people who brand people who fall victim to any kind of ripoff as "stupid" who are in fact the stupid ones.

'A blog in support of stupid people's rights (probably the most important...)' blog

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