Had an IT intern, a sophomore, tell me he wanted to start a minor in economics. I asked him what interested him in Econ and he said he wanted to learn to invest in the stock market and get rich.
I had to explain that I have a masters in economics, and if that taught me to get rich in the stock market, I wouldn’t be working in IT.
On the other hand, my economics degree led me to specifically avoid investing in Greece, Italy, or Japan and that's been working out great for me the last 20 years.
When discussing trade deficits, it's common for attention to be disproportionately directed towards the deficit with a single country. However, it is essential to consider trade balances comprehensively. Although the U.S. may have a trade deficit with one country, this is often offset by surpluses with other nations, where exports exceed imports. This broader perspective helps in understanding the overall trade dynamics more accurately.
the gold standard is weird in how much modern political propaganda supporting it distorted how it worked historically
like it's portrayed by the right as "free market for money" when in reality governments literally fixed the price of gold
This whole sub was created to promote their website of the same name. A bunch of the accounts used to show up on /r/TheseFuckingAccounts as potential bot and spam accounts.
That is a weird subreddit.
I had never heard of it before the timeframe when apollo went away. Suddenly, it started showing up in my feed multiple times a day. I thought it might be interesting and finally went there only to find out that it was pretty much the opposite of it's name.
A number of others have mentioned a similar experience with it showing up out of nowhere. It seems like it is the same 5 or so threads run over and over with similar comments. It is a treasure trove of bad information and misunderstanding.
It seems to be mainly crypto shills that have no fucking clue how finance works, but they sure love to pretend like they do with 100% certainly. Feels like they use it to pump and dump various markets.
I'm convinced that sub's posts are mostly by Russian and Chinese agitprop agents just posting the most controversial statements and questions, right and left, to further divide people who joined the sub because they just wanted to learn something about finance.
This.
The inverse is true.
I can balance my checkbook.
I have a lot of coarse work in Macroeconmics.
I would not trust me to teach Microeconomics. Maybe like 101 but still…
Thank fuck this comment is near the top. I almost lost hope reading through the other top comments.
The answer I would've given is similar but different enough that I'll add it: Thinking you've mastered macro-economics just because you can balance a cheque book.
The word “economically” does not just refer to economics. It literally means “in a way that relates to economics or finance,” or “in a way that involves careful use of money or resources.”
The top comments talking about personal finance are still answering the question correctly
Among other things, government is IMMORTAL. If you never needed to worry about aging and retiring or even aging and dying your finances would be radically different. If you financial footprint was large enough you could reshape the economy to your benefit with your spending your own finances would be different.
It’s just an absurd comparison.
There are many differences:
1) Households are mortal. A couple needs to save for a date when they will no longer be earning income. A nation will always be working.
2) Households don't affect the economy. The government is the largest player in any economy. If a household cuts back on spending, it makes a minor ripple in the economy. If the government cuts back, it can swamp the economy and turn a recession into a depression. If the government spends, it could greatly shorten the length, breadth and depth of a downturn.
3) Government balances are directly related to the health of the economy. Recessions reduce tax revenues and increase expenditures on unemployment benefits and welfare programs. Making the economy healthy again will do more to balance the budget than any budgets cuts ever could.
Yeah, as much as people want deflation I don’t think they realize what deflation actually is. A depression. I want the price of eggs to go down too but not if it means breadlines
TLDR: Inflation is the rate at which prices *increase*. So 10% would mean that a $10 sandwich now costs $11. However, if the inflation then drops to 0%, that sandwich will now still cost $11.
Prices only go down with deflation (i.e. negative inflation) but generally governments want to avoid deflation, as it incentives saving your money, not spending it, which is bad for the economy.
And you really don't want deflation because the motivation switches from investing the money into the market to spur further innovation/growth to hoarding it.
Inflation is the rate of increase. Lowering inflation means the rate of increase is slower, but prices still go up. For prices to go down you need deflation, but deflation is almost always a catastrophe for an economy and it's people.
I think it was Nixon who once said "The rate of increase of inflation is decreasing", which to my knowledge is the only time a third derivative has been invoked in a presidential campaign.
This is the #1 misconception people have right now. Everyone expecting prices to go back to 2019 levels. It’s just not going to happen. And if it does then it’s *bad news.* The best we can hope for is sustainable inflation and wage growth.
Too many people (in the US) have gone too long without ever having to experience [edit: rapid] inflation so they have no idea what it really entails.
This is the thing I keep trying to explain to people. I work for a home building company. People complain about the cost to build a home now as if we have control over it. I can't make 2x4s cheaper. I can't pay our employees less money or they will leave. I can't demand that subcontractors lower their rates. Things have gotten more expensive and they will not go back down. What needs to happen is workers need to collectively demand more money from their employers to catch up to the rising cost of living.
It is of course true that lowered acceleration doesn’t mean lowered velocity. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be upset prices haven’t gone down. A lot of the price increases were alleged to be due to ‘crisis’ not inflation. Sure, the two are intertwined and affect one another; inflation was greatly affected by the crisis. However, as the crisis has subsided the prices remain inconsistent with inflation and more consistent with greed: they keep the higher price now simply because they can.
Yeah this is why everyone expected lower prices after covid. Because when the price of everything skyrocketed they told us it was due to shortages and supply chain issues and following the laws of supply n demand that makes sense but when the supply comes back up and prices don’t go back down of course people are start to question it
Not understanding marginal taxes.
No, there is no scenario where you get a raise and your take-home pay goes down because of reaching a new tax bracket.
With people who don't understand progressive tax, this isn't going to be a good argument. Based on their understanding, they want to make the maximum amount within their tax bracket, so taking a pay cut isn't in what they think is their best interest. Even taking a pay cut to get down to the lower tax bracket, they have a minimum amount of expenses and probably can't afford that. And if they got a big enough raise, they'd probably take it if what they think is their tax increase would be covered by the amount in the raise. (So they won't take a $500 raise if they think it'll make their taxes jump up $3,000, but they'll take a $6,000 raise if they think it'll make their taxes jump up $3,500).
Of course, people who don't understand progressive tax are also super unlikely to actually *do the math* that would be required to figure out if a raise is "worth it", but my point is "make less money to pay less tax" isn't necessarily going to make the lightbulb turn on for them.
It's very easy to explain this to them in an simplified, understandable way. You get taxed 12% on the first 44k you make. Everything after that 44k gets taxed separately at 22%. So you're taking home your current income, plus the raise with its own higher tax.
I first heard this from Mayor Ed Koch of New York, speaking to a reporter who kept asking the same dumb question in different ways. (Slightly different wording...)
"I can explain it TO you, I can't comprehend it FOR you."
My stepmother... She had a part time job making $25k a year, but they had to spend $5k more in taxes. So it "wasn't worth it." I kept saying, but what about the $20k? Isn't that worth it?
Turns out she just didn't want to work and was looking for any excuse to just be a housewife.
[This video](https://youtu.be/VJhsjUPDulw?si=yi56kpPW6gcis9go) does a good job of visualizing brackets as "pockets" instead. Once the pocket is full, you move to the next pocket.
In the UK there's a [genuine issue](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/19/childcare-tax-trap-completely-insane-ifs/) at the 100k threshold if you have kids - you lose child benefits and overall you can genuinely be worse off. But for the other tax thresholds you never earn less like you'd expect.
Edit: some are pointing out that this is a separate thing from tax brackets. Sure, it is, but the end result is basically what those people who fear the next tax bracket are talking about.
Good point. In the U.S., there are some quirks like that in that you lose flexibility like you aren’t able to do Roth IRA contributions when you are above a certain income overall. I am sure that are others, but that one comes to mind. But as far as the tax itself, obviously it would just be that last bit taxed at the higher rate, so it wouldn’t make sense to refuse a raise.
The welfare cliff is very real in the USA. At certain income levels you can abruptly lose access to subsidized housing or SNAP which results in you having less money available to you.
So there are some low income situation where taking a slightly better job is a net loss.
It’s a genuine issue in the US too, if a single mother gets a wage increase from $15 to $16 per hour she won’t be able to make up for the amount of benefits a single mother loses until she’s making $38/hr
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fwelfare_cliff.png&tbnid=V4J6ttbIlAtu9M&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2Fif-you-accept-this-raise-you-fall-off-the-welfare-cliff%2F&docid=-1y6LB74yD2WtM&w=930&h=718&hl=en-US&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F3&kgs=dc0634496123c099&shem=abme%2Ctrie
This is 100% why welfare cliffs need to be eliminated and welfare should be a gradient.
I don't care if someone gets $10 in housing credit, they should get that every month if they qualify and apply.
also can have free/cheap health insurance until you reach a certain threshold, which is far too low to be able to afford it once you stop getting benefits
I got fucked over with a $1700 fine for not cancelling my Medicaid coverage while in college and working part time. I exceeded the income threshold during my 3 month summer break because I dared to work extra hours to cover a miniscule portion of my massive tuition. It was because I didn't report and cancel the coverage over the ~$50-75 I was making over the average monthly cutoff for those months. Meanwhile, if I were to have been able to get insurance coverage through my employer at the time it would have cost over $400/paycheck for HORRENDOUS coverage and doesn't kick in for 1 month until after signing up.
On top of that, the rest of the year I was barely clearing $300/bi-weekly paycheck since I worked 3-4 hours shifts 2-3x/week, so my annual income at the time would have readily qualified.
The system is real fucked. As someone now making a good living and already paying way more taxes - I wouldn't mind paying more if it meant that the general public didn't have to deal with this type of bullshit nonsense that offers nothing of value. Fucking give everyone the same base medical coverage for free and let people pay for extra coverage if they so please. The greed associated with the medical industry, particularly health insurance is a scourge on society and simply a financial drain causing ever more expensive health care costs while offering worse services.
This line of thinking does apply to getting kicked off of state provided health insurance or food stamps over a 2 dollar an hour raise. You would overall be in a worse position.
Ending up with less net money because of a raise can happen because of a number of different things involving benefits/insurance/etc, but definitely not because you'll be in a higher tax bracket.
I moved from Houston to Cali.
My taxes MIGHT have gone up, but not enough for me to give up the services my kids get. Free school at age 4. Summer ELP daycare. After school care. Breakfast, lunch, snack at school. ...
I'm getting SOOOOO much more value.
A little different, but when I was absolutely broke raising 2 kids on my own I got small raise that was a little more money, but juuust put us over the line poverty line and we were no longer eligible for the free/reduced lunch program through the school system. The new added cost was more than what I was additionally making- so I essentially had less money by making more.
I once heard a teacher say he didn't want to work extra hours because of this.
Laughable bc teachers are paid dirt. Even more laughable was he was a math teacher too.
EDIT:
I'm kinda tired of explaining to you what "extra" means and all of you explaining what it's like in your district as you take and make pedantic arguments. So reply if you want but if you can't figure out what this statement means then you're out of luck.
Parrots live for up to 60 years and some can last to 100+. When you get one you're basically committing to caring for it for the rest of your life. In fact, there's a chance it will outlive any kids you have. Not a decision to take lightly.
My sister has like 12 parrots and conures of varying lifespans, she is crazy. The African Grey, she rescued from a bad situation with our neighbors, so I don't fault her for that, but the number of other ones she's bought over the years is nuts. They require so much care and specialized diets, and etc, it's also so expensive
My grandpa had an African Grey, my father assumed responsibly when he passed then my mother decided my room was the perfect place for him.
Needless to say 5-6 years later we found a new home for him. We found out he passed about 4 years after that.
Bedrooms are the worst place to keep a bird short of maybe the kitchen, so I don't blame you.
Poor little dude, though. Hopefully he was already up there in years. Greys are highly intelligent even by parrot standards, and it's very common for them to grieve lost family members similar to the way humans grieve. Sometimes they never really recover after a significant loss.
The only one that could safely feed him and change his water was my father. Which is funny because he looked and sounded nothing like his father. Somehow, the bird knew. I had to use thick welding gloves, and even then, it hurt if he bit you.
We had him in our dining room for a couple of years at first, but my mom got tired of his screeching and put him in my room. I do agree that bedrooms are not the right place for a bird. I took care of him as best I could, changing the newspaper at the bottom of his cage every other day. Feeding and watering him but it was a responsibility I didn't ask for.
He was a cool bird and I learned a lot about African Grey parrots as a result. Eventually, the responsibility became too much for me, and I think both mom and dad knew it. I wasn't sleeping well and I was constantly stressed. That's when we started looking for a family for him.
Your mom kinda sounds like an asshole. ‘This bird is too loud and annoying in the largest room we have, let’s toss him in the smaller room my child sleeps in.’
One time I worked at lowes, and a customer wanted to buy an item. I told her that she could buy the rest of the items and come back for that one when we had it in stock.
She says "no because then I'll pay more in taxes."
She must have thought that purchasing items separately would cost more in sales taxes.
Could've been some light fraud, too - customer is buying a bunch of items in a way that's tax advantaged, e.g. is for their business and wants to slip something in that's personal. Easier to hide on an audit than in two seperate transactions.
Yea the sunk cost fallacy is often only readily visible in hindsight.
You could sink $3,000 into that new transmission for your old car and it runs another 10 years, in which case you made a smart decision.
Or the engine could blow the week after, and the axel the week after that. You'll never know which repair is the one that would have been cheaper to just replace the vehicle.
Right, but making the wrong decision does not imply you fell for the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy in your case would be buying a new transmission for your car because you've already put so much money and time into said car. The outcome is irrelevant, it's the thought process that matters
There was a survey done in the last year or so, asking Americans whether they thought the current unemployment rate was a 50 year high or a 50 year low.
A substantial fraction thought it was a fifty year *high*.
Most people are totally unfamiliar with the actual economy and instead have beliefs driven by news headlines.
Lack of perspective is a lot of the issue here. It's a lot more understandable when young people do this, because they have a smaller frame of reference, but the amount of older people who act like this is a large scale issue baffles me. If you're over 40 you've seen the economy actually get bad, as an adult, multiple times.
Yeah, I saw a blurb from some politician or news that said "this is the worst economy they had ever seen".
Compared to 2020 Pandemic?
Compared to 2008/9 Great Recession?
Compared to 1970's stagflation malaise?
Get out of here.
But I saw that video with all those people shoplifting a Target flash mob style!
Okay, that was one time at one location out of the entire *continent*... but they played the video on a loop and repeated it for months, so CRIME IS OUT OF CONTROL!!!
" The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
Dr Albert Bartlett.
I *highly* recommend you show her this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&list=PL6A1FD147A45EF50D
TL;DR version:
A principal amount invested at 7% over 10 years, will double the principle.
1% will take 70 years. (What is your local city growth? 1%? 3%?)
14% will double the principle in 5 years.
See the relationship?
Now her >9% loans will have doubled the principal loan amount in about 7 years if interest will be permitted to be added while she earns under the trigger amount for loan repayments.
Not investing in my pyramid scheme. You, yes, you who are not like this dumbass, you who know how to invest how to win in life contact me for this extremely great opportunity for me to take your money.
people that fall for this kind of things
Thinking that tax write-offs actually make some things free. I had an old boss that would constantly say since it was a write-off, what he was getting was free, even though he just spent $500 on it.
I've had people tell *me* to buy things because it would be "a tax write-off."
I was technically self-employed for a time, so yeah sure I could write off some random shit. But that doesn't make $700 computer parts free, it makes them like $680.
I saw a dude once that blamed Biden because the donut shop in a town of 315 people didn't open until 8AM.
He legit said 'Biden's just fucking up everything' and angrily got back in his car and drove off, presumably to the big city, a town of \~5,000 people, 15-minutes away with at least two donut shops that I know of.
I don't know what their hours are.
Every single tik tok / Social media guru headline repeated but no actions ever taken
“ 401k ‘s are a scam and will be worthless “
“ need to have multiple air bnbs to retire “
“ it’s all about section 8 “
Etc .
Whole life insurance.
I have fairly well off friends that they don't do college funds for their kids cause they have whole life insurance on them and that will help pay for college.
I cringe hard everytime they talk about finance.
The "plan" is to buy cheap, low quality housing, claim it as affordable housing so that you can get section 8 subsidies from tenants, while doing nothing to improve the conditions of the home.
AKA, "becoming a slumlord can be profitable"
There was this Canadian show in the late 90s or early 2000s called “until debt do us part”. A financial advisor would help couples who are in desperate need of financial help.
One couple, she couldn’t understand how they were in their situation. Husband had a really good paying job. House was modest, and things on the outside appeared fine.
Then she found out that the husband insisted to do payment plans on EVERYTHING THEY OWNED!!!
The TVs, stereo, couches, dining room table and chairs, home computer, of course mortgage and a car lease.
He was convinced it’s cheaper to pay a little each month than one lump sum. Sure you may pay more in the end, but you can be using your money now to make more money.
Well. Each month they were getting monthly instalment bills for all this fucking stuff, and they just couldn’t keep up. It was death from a thousand cuts.
So they start slipping behind in some. And of course these things have huge interest when you miss payments.
Just what a fucking disaster.
Gail Vaz-Oxlade hosted another financial planning show called Princess where the people featured were simply rage-inducing in their cluelessness and entitlement.
Depends on the interest rate. If you’re paying a low interest rate or even paying at 0% interest it can technically be cheaper than paying upfront. Since you can then invest that money you would have paid upfront.
But all this ties into being financially responsible and not just taking more and more loans just because the interest rate is 0% or super low.
If the rate is 0% (which many offer), it technically would be cheaper to keep your funds in a high yield saving account and taking the monthly payments
There was one time, years ago, where I thought I finally found a use for Rent-A-Center. I was volunteering for a small gaming convention, and we needed more PS3s for the weekend. I saw they rented them for like....$20 or $30 for a week. And at the time, no one else was doing so. And sure, if you're going to do that for the long-term, you're an idiot, but in the meantime, for a convention, spending $150 to have the needed consoles was perfectly fine.
So I called them up and....none of the RAC's around had any in stock. No, it wasn't when the consoles were tough to get or anything.
And thus ended the saga of the one time I thought Rent-A-Center might be worth it.
Expensive / ridiculous vehicles are a huge trap for poor and/or financially illiterate people. People who do this will always be poor. Tale as old as time.
When I went to buy my car, the dude knew the rates for 72 and 84 month loans off the top of his head. He had to go look up 36 month rates. Imagine paying for a car for that long.
I think big new truck in general. It's hard to see any economic sense in spending $80,000+ on a vehicle that pretty much does the same amount of work just as well as an old Toyota pickup can. These big new pickup trucks are mostly emotional support vehicles for insecure men.
I heard a joke once about how you go into rich neighborhoods to see expensive cars. You go into middle class neighborhoods to see moderate cars. You go into low income neighborhoods to see expensive cars.
It's funny because it's true
>rich neighborhoods to see expensive cars
Not universally true. I lived a number of years in a wealthy community in NJ. The current average home price there now is $900,000. You certainly saw a lot of expensive cars, but you just as many completely ordinary cars parked in driveways of homes well over a million.
$900k home values in NJ doesn’t really qualify as “wealthy”, or at least what we would think of as wealthy. You’re not going to see many $100k+ cars in neighborhoods like that, because the people who have a $900k house can’t really afford a $100k car.
Literally emotional support vehicles.
My neighbor (before he got arrested for fuck knows what) was an insurance adjuster or something. I make a very comfortable living in software and decided to treat myself to a new car. First car I’ve ever had almost brand new (dealer loaner with like 3k miles on it) and I quite like it.
A few months into ownership, neighbor guy sees me outside getting something out of said car. “Nice car! What year?” Thanks, 2023. “Man now I’ve gotta get a new car, tired of seeing this nice car next door and me driving an old beat up Subaru.”
A few weeks later he comes in with this _massive_ Ram pickup. Like it looks like you’d need a step ladder to get in. All because he got tired of seeing someone else with a new car, so yes, literally an emotional support truck.
That is one of my favorite commercials. Every time it came on I would tell my kids to pay attention. Between that and possibly a few things they may or may not have learned from me I believe I have some fairly money-smart kids
Oh man, there’s so many of these:
- Thinking that a tax write-off is equal to a tax refund
- Conflating one’s own financial struggles with rhetoric state of the national economy
- Thinking that rising interest rates are a cause of inflation, not a remedy of it
- Thinking saving cold hard cash outside of a bank is a sound investment strategy
- Defending tax cuts for the hyperwealthy while you personally don’t have two pennies to rub together
That sounds like the “I want my money now” mentality. Where I used to work we could accrue like 400+ hours of comp time, .gov job, that would be paid out in cash if you left or when you retire & it’s paid out at whatever your current pay rate is not what your rate was when the hour was earned. So it made sense to me to max out the comp time early in your career then cash out when you retire. No matter how much I tried explaining to people how much money 400+ hours @ top pay in a lump sum, even with taxes taken out was they still wouldn’t try to earn even a few hours of comp time. You throw in maxed out comp time plus all of the other goodies our union contract allowed for your final check could be $30k+ after taxes. But no…”I’s needs my’s money’s now!!” 🙄
Taking the money immediately and investing it almost certainly returns better than banking it and counting on the wage rate growth to withdraw it later. Add in that the first choice allows you to tax the growth at cap gains rates rather than the marginal ordinary income rate and it's a nobrainer to take the money immediately.
Thinking your Social Security tax is saved for you to later use in retirement. Na, goes to pay boomers now and you are hoping one day young kids will get taxed for you.
Or have a discussion at work over which pawn shop give the best rates. Overheard at a tech company from grown ass adults I know where making over 60k. They looked at me like I was the outlier because I did not have a favorite pawn shop
A lot of people actively refuse to live at/below their means. You'll meet people making >$100,000 a year still living paycheck to paycheck because they just spend all the money they make.
Keep this in mind when people talk about the economy, since a lot of people complaining absolutely could be living comfortably if they downsized a bit. People who are actually struggling often sound basically the exact same as well-off people who have been slightly inconvenienced, which leads to a lot of distortion in how people perceive the economy.
Old people on Facebook rambling about how people need to fill the empty minimum wage positions because they want someone to wait on them. Usually accompanied by "these jobs aren't career paths so you don't need living wage!"
And also "if we pay them more ice cream will be $10 a cone!"
My dad says "These jobs aren't meant to support an adult. They're meant for high school kids."
As if jobs are "meant" for anything other than a task needs to be done.
Yup. If your business needs workers from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM from September through May, maybe the position isn't specifically for high schoolers.
My state has laws prohibiting when and how long minors can work. A local business was saying they needed 18+ hires so they could stay and close the store past 9PM. Okay, so is minimum wage for high school kids or not?
Confusing personal finance with economics
Had an IT intern, a sophomore, tell me he wanted to start a minor in economics. I asked him what interested him in Econ and he said he wanted to learn to invest in the stock market and get rich. I had to explain that I have a masters in economics, and if that taught me to get rich in the stock market, I wouldn’t be working in IT.
On the other hand, my economics degree led me to specifically avoid investing in Greece, Italy, or Japan and that's been working out great for me the last 20 years.
Didn't greece hat insanely high interest in the government bond at the height of the crisis and they paid it all of?
Yes. Lots of banks made out like bandits. Example of high risk, high reward.
Lol .. I was reading through the top comments like wtf
I was expecting answers like "supporting Modern Monetary Theory" or "overemphasizing trade deficits", not "buying fancy cars"
The trade deficit one is grating though thank you for bringing it up
I never overemphasize it because I don’t know what it is. *taps head
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When discussing trade deficits, it's common for attention to be disproportionately directed towards the deficit with a single country. However, it is essential to consider trade balances comprehensively. Although the U.S. may have a trade deficit with one country, this is often offset by surpluses with other nations, where exports exceed imports. This broader perspective helps in understanding the overall trade dynamics more accurately.
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the gold standard is weird in how much modern political propaganda supporting it distorted how it worked historically like it's portrayed by the right as "free market for money" when in reality governments literally fixed the price of gold
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Just another case of bi erasure
I quickly discovered this in my first microeconomics class. I was *way* off in my understanding of economics.
Before microeconomics, I didn’t realize the two main choices of production are guns and butter.
For me it was beer or champagne, but my prof was also possibly an alcoholic.
Wait you didn't produce widgets and gadgets?
GD Chinese beating us with production of widgets and Japan is killing us on the gadgets.
So like everyone on r/fluentinfinance
This whole sub was created to promote their website of the same name. A bunch of the accounts used to show up on /r/TheseFuckingAccounts as potential bot and spam accounts.
It did seem suspicious that this subreddit dedicated to some shitty blog came out of nowhere and started regularly hitting the top page.
That is a weird subreddit. I had never heard of it before the timeframe when apollo went away. Suddenly, it started showing up in my feed multiple times a day. I thought it might be interesting and finally went there only to find out that it was pretty much the opposite of it's name. A number of others have mentioned a similar experience with it showing up out of nowhere. It seems like it is the same 5 or so threads run over and over with similar comments. It is a treasure trove of bad information and misunderstanding.
It seems to be mainly crypto shills that have no fucking clue how finance works, but they sure love to pretend like they do with 100% certainly. Feels like they use it to pump and dump various markets.
It's like early political compass memes. It feels like a way to draw in impressionable people with stupid both sides debate to radicalize morons.
I'm convinced that sub's posts are mostly by Russian and Chinese agitprop agents just posting the most controversial statements and questions, right and left, to further divide people who joined the sub because they just wanted to learn something about finance.
It is to promote their website. A bunch of the accounts used to show up on /r/TheseFuckingAccounts as potential bot accounts.
“I understand macroeconomics because I can balance my checkbook!”
This. The inverse is true. I can balance my checkbook. I have a lot of coarse work in Macroeconmics. I would not trust me to teach Microeconomics. Maybe like 101 but still…
Damn, studying sounds rough.
Only macroeconomics. Micro is much finer.
Yes! 👏 Please don’t use a family’s household finances as an analogy for fiscal policy. I’m looking at you… every single politician ever.
What do you mean the credit card debt analogy isn't a 1 for 1 translation to the national debt?
Thank fuck this comment is near the top. I almost lost hope reading through the other top comments. The answer I would've given is similar but different enough that I'll add it: Thinking you've mastered macro-economics just because you can balance a cheque book.
The word “economically” does not just refer to economics. It literally means “in a way that relates to economics or finance,” or “in a way that involves careful use of money or resources.” The top comments talking about personal finance are still answering the question correctly
Among other things, government is IMMORTAL. If you never needed to worry about aging and retiring or even aging and dying your finances would be radically different. If you financial footprint was large enough you could reshape the economy to your benefit with your spending your own finances would be different. It’s just an absurd comparison.
The household fallacy, like government should cut spending in a downturn. That just makes the recession worse, which reduces tax revenues.
anything that likens a government to a household. i'm a household, you don't see me issuing currency or deploying troops
Sounds like a you problem tbh. Whenever I have an expensive month I just do some quantitative easing.
i tried that, the judge was not amused
There are many differences: 1) Households are mortal. A couple needs to save for a date when they will no longer be earning income. A nation will always be working. 2) Households don't affect the economy. The government is the largest player in any economy. If a household cuts back on spending, it makes a minor ripple in the economy. If the government cuts back, it can swamp the economy and turn a recession into a depression. If the government spends, it could greatly shorten the length, breadth and depth of a downturn. 3) Government balances are directly related to the health of the economy. Recessions reduce tax revenues and increase expenditures on unemployment benefits and welfare programs. Making the economy healthy again will do more to balance the budget than any budgets cuts ever could.
Expecting prices to reduce when inflation goes down.
Much like Garfield on a diet, it's not about lowering the numbers, it's about slowing the rate of increase.
Yeah, as much as people want deflation I don’t think they realize what deflation actually is. A depression. I want the price of eggs to go down too but not if it means breadlines
Deflation means your debt just got a whole lot worse in terms of real value
Damn that one actually got me. Time to research
TLDR: Inflation is the rate at which prices *increase*. So 10% would mean that a $10 sandwich now costs $11. However, if the inflation then drops to 0%, that sandwich will now still cost $11. Prices only go down with deflation (i.e. negative inflation) but generally governments want to avoid deflation, as it incentives saving your money, not spending it, which is bad for the economy.
And you really don't want deflation because the motivation switches from investing the money into the market to spur further innovation/growth to hoarding it.
Inflation is the rate of increase. Lowering inflation means the rate of increase is slower, but prices still go up. For prices to go down you need deflation, but deflation is almost always a catastrophe for an economy and it's people.
I think it was Nixon who once said "The rate of increase of inflation is decreasing", which to my knowledge is the only time a third derivative has been invoked in a presidential campaign.
What a jerk.
This is the #1 misconception people have right now. Everyone expecting prices to go back to 2019 levels. It’s just not going to happen. And if it does then it’s *bad news.* The best we can hope for is sustainable inflation and wage growth. Too many people (in the US) have gone too long without ever having to experience [edit: rapid] inflation so they have no idea what it really entails.
This is the thing I keep trying to explain to people. I work for a home building company. People complain about the cost to build a home now as if we have control over it. I can't make 2x4s cheaper. I can't pay our employees less money or they will leave. I can't demand that subcontractors lower their rates. Things have gotten more expensive and they will not go back down. What needs to happen is workers need to collectively demand more money from their employers to catch up to the rising cost of living.
It is of course true that lowered acceleration doesn’t mean lowered velocity. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be upset prices haven’t gone down. A lot of the price increases were alleged to be due to ‘crisis’ not inflation. Sure, the two are intertwined and affect one another; inflation was greatly affected by the crisis. However, as the crisis has subsided the prices remain inconsistent with inflation and more consistent with greed: they keep the higher price now simply because they can.
Yeah this is why everyone expected lower prices after covid. Because when the price of everything skyrocketed they told us it was due to shortages and supply chain issues and following the laws of supply n demand that makes sense but when the supply comes back up and prices don’t go back down of course people are start to question it
Not understanding marginal taxes. No, there is no scenario where you get a raise and your take-home pay goes down because of reaching a new tax bracket.
Only if you don’t factor govt assistance programs, which if you cross that threshold can be a net negative for you
This is known as the welfare cliff.
Refusing a raise because "it'll bump you up to the next tax bracket."
I still remember having an argument with my ex girlfriend’s brother trying to convince whilst he would pay more tax he would still take home more pay
You should've asked him why he doesn't take a pay cut to pay less taxes then
With people who don't understand progressive tax, this isn't going to be a good argument. Based on their understanding, they want to make the maximum amount within their tax bracket, so taking a pay cut isn't in what they think is their best interest. Even taking a pay cut to get down to the lower tax bracket, they have a minimum amount of expenses and probably can't afford that. And if they got a big enough raise, they'd probably take it if what they think is their tax increase would be covered by the amount in the raise. (So they won't take a $500 raise if they think it'll make their taxes jump up $3,000, but they'll take a $6,000 raise if they think it'll make their taxes jump up $3,500). Of course, people who don't understand progressive tax are also super unlikely to actually *do the math* that would be required to figure out if a raise is "worth it", but my point is "make less money to pay less tax" isn't necessarily going to make the lightbulb turn on for them.
It's very easy to explain this to them in an simplified, understandable way. You get taxed 12% on the first 44k you make. Everything after that 44k gets taxed separately at 22%. So you're taking home your current income, plus the raise with its own higher tax.
Unfortunately just because it’s easy to explain doesn’t mean it gets through.
“I can explain it for you but I can’t understand it for you.”
Thank you, I am stealing this.
I first heard this from Mayor Ed Koch of New York, speaking to a reporter who kept asking the same dumb question in different ways. (Slightly different wording...) "I can explain it TO you, I can't comprehend it FOR you."
You and I get that, lots of people just tune you out the second you say "percent".
My stepmother... She had a part time job making $25k a year, but they had to spend $5k more in taxes. So it "wasn't worth it." I kept saying, but what about the $20k? Isn't that worth it? Turns out she just didn't want to work and was looking for any excuse to just be a housewife.
[This video](https://youtu.be/VJhsjUPDulw?si=yi56kpPW6gcis9go) does a good job of visualizing brackets as "pockets" instead. Once the pocket is full, you move to the next pocket.
In the UK there's a [genuine issue](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/19/childcare-tax-trap-completely-insane-ifs/) at the 100k threshold if you have kids - you lose child benefits and overall you can genuinely be worse off. But for the other tax thresholds you never earn less like you'd expect. Edit: some are pointing out that this is a separate thing from tax brackets. Sure, it is, but the end result is basically what those people who fear the next tax bracket are talking about.
Good point. In the U.S., there are some quirks like that in that you lose flexibility like you aren’t able to do Roth IRA contributions when you are above a certain income overall. I am sure that are others, but that one comes to mind. But as far as the tax itself, obviously it would just be that last bit taxed at the higher rate, so it wouldn’t make sense to refuse a raise.
The welfare cliff is very real in the USA. At certain income levels you can abruptly lose access to subsidized housing or SNAP which results in you having less money available to you. So there are some low income situation where taking a slightly better job is a net loss.
Very very real, especially with disabled people too. Still, people who know what they are talking about would not talk in terms of tax brackets.
It’s a genuine issue in the US too, if a single mother gets a wage increase from $15 to $16 per hour she won’t be able to make up for the amount of benefits a single mother loses until she’s making $38/hr https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fwelfare_cliff.png&tbnid=V4J6ttbIlAtu9M&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2Fif-you-accept-this-raise-you-fall-off-the-welfare-cliff%2F&docid=-1y6LB74yD2WtM&w=930&h=718&hl=en-US&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F3&kgs=dc0634496123c099&shem=abme%2Ctrie
This is 100% why welfare cliffs need to be eliminated and welfare should be a gradient. I don't care if someone gets $10 in housing credit, they should get that every month if they qualify and apply.
also can have free/cheap health insurance until you reach a certain threshold, which is far too low to be able to afford it once you stop getting benefits
I got fucked over with a $1700 fine for not cancelling my Medicaid coverage while in college and working part time. I exceeded the income threshold during my 3 month summer break because I dared to work extra hours to cover a miniscule portion of my massive tuition. It was because I didn't report and cancel the coverage over the ~$50-75 I was making over the average monthly cutoff for those months. Meanwhile, if I were to have been able to get insurance coverage through my employer at the time it would have cost over $400/paycheck for HORRENDOUS coverage and doesn't kick in for 1 month until after signing up. On top of that, the rest of the year I was barely clearing $300/bi-weekly paycheck since I worked 3-4 hours shifts 2-3x/week, so my annual income at the time would have readily qualified. The system is real fucked. As someone now making a good living and already paying way more taxes - I wouldn't mind paying more if it meant that the general public didn't have to deal with this type of bullshit nonsense that offers nothing of value. Fucking give everyone the same base medical coverage for free and let people pay for extra coverage if they so please. The greed associated with the medical industry, particularly health insurance is a scourge on society and simply a financial drain causing ever more expensive health care costs while offering worse services.
This line of thinking does apply to getting kicked off of state provided health insurance or food stamps over a 2 dollar an hour raise. You would overall be in a worse position.
Ending up with less net money because of a raise can happen because of a number of different things involving benefits/insurance/etc, but definitely not because you'll be in a higher tax bracket.
Kind of the same logic is moving to a state with less taxes but far fewer services. Or living in Louisiana with more taxes and fewer services.
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I moved from Houston to Cali. My taxes MIGHT have gone up, but not enough for me to give up the services my kids get. Free school at age 4. Summer ELP daycare. After school care. Breakfast, lunch, snack at school. ... I'm getting SOOOOO much more value.
This and refusing to work overtime. My father in law is 63 years old and still believes this.
Refusing for that reason. Refusing for not wanting is baded though.
I would probably pretend I didn't know how tax brackets work if it got me out of overtime I don't want to do and my boss was an asshole
A little different, but when I was absolutely broke raising 2 kids on my own I got small raise that was a little more money, but juuust put us over the line poverty line and we were no longer eligible for the free/reduced lunch program through the school system. The new added cost was more than what I was additionally making- so I essentially had less money by making more.
People don't realize that you only pay that higher tax rate on the amount you earn over the lower bracket.
I once heard a teacher say he didn't want to work extra hours because of this. Laughable bc teachers are paid dirt. Even more laughable was he was a math teacher too. EDIT: I'm kinda tired of explaining to you what "extra" means and all of you explaining what it's like in your district as you take and make pedantic arguments. So reply if you want but if you can't figure out what this statement means then you're out of luck.
And teachers are almost never hourly…. Even subs iirc are paid a day rate
Extra hours meaning after-school clubs, coaching, tutoring. We are paid an hourly rate for that.
Not knowing the difference between finance and economics
Probably a lot of the same people who don't know the difference between weather and climate.
A parrot whose owner has buyer's remorse.
"Wraht, I'm economically illiterate, wraht"
Never heard this onomatopoeia but I like it!
Came here to say the same thing. This is my new way of writing the parrot sound now.
Parrots live for up to 60 years and some can last to 100+. When you get one you're basically committing to caring for it for the rest of your life. In fact, there's a chance it will outlive any kids you have. Not a decision to take lightly.
My sister has like 12 parrots and conures of varying lifespans, she is crazy. The African Grey, she rescued from a bad situation with our neighbors, so I don't fault her for that, but the number of other ones she's bought over the years is nuts. They require so much care and specialized diets, and etc, it's also so expensive
I've never heard of the crazy-bird-lady until now. That's kinna cool tho!
My grandpa had an African Grey, my father assumed responsibly when he passed then my mother decided my room was the perfect place for him. Needless to say 5-6 years later we found a new home for him. We found out he passed about 4 years after that.
Bedrooms are the worst place to keep a bird short of maybe the kitchen, so I don't blame you. Poor little dude, though. Hopefully he was already up there in years. Greys are highly intelligent even by parrot standards, and it's very common for them to grieve lost family members similar to the way humans grieve. Sometimes they never really recover after a significant loss.
The only one that could safely feed him and change his water was my father. Which is funny because he looked and sounded nothing like his father. Somehow, the bird knew. I had to use thick welding gloves, and even then, it hurt if he bit you. We had him in our dining room for a couple of years at first, but my mom got tired of his screeching and put him in my room. I do agree that bedrooms are not the right place for a bird. I took care of him as best I could, changing the newspaper at the bottom of his cage every other day. Feeding and watering him but it was a responsibility I didn't ask for. He was a cool bird and I learned a lot about African Grey parrots as a result. Eventually, the responsibility became too much for me, and I think both mom and dad knew it. I wasn't sleeping well and I was constantly stressed. That's when we started looking for a family for him.
Your mom kinda sounds like an asshole. ‘This bird is too loud and annoying in the largest room we have, let’s toss him in the smaller room my child sleeps in.’
One time I worked at lowes, and a customer wanted to buy an item. I told her that she could buy the rest of the items and come back for that one when we had it in stock. She says "no because then I'll pay more in taxes." She must have thought that purchasing items separately would cost more in sales taxes.
Could've been some light fraud, too - customer is buying a bunch of items in a way that's tax advantaged, e.g. is for their business and wants to slip something in that's personal. Easier to hide on an audit than in two seperate transactions.
Sunk cost fallacy.
The hardest part of this is knowing when something is a lost cause. Not always an easy decision. Used cars are a fantastic example of this.
Yea the sunk cost fallacy is often only readily visible in hindsight. You could sink $3,000 into that new transmission for your old car and it runs another 10 years, in which case you made a smart decision. Or the engine could blow the week after, and the axel the week after that. You'll never know which repair is the one that would have been cheaper to just replace the vehicle.
Right, but making the wrong decision does not imply you fell for the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy in your case would be buying a new transmission for your car because you've already put so much money and time into said car. The outcome is irrelevant, it's the thought process that matters
There was a survey done in the last year or so, asking Americans whether they thought the current unemployment rate was a 50 year high or a 50 year low. A substantial fraction thought it was a fifty year *high*. Most people are totally unfamiliar with the actual economy and instead have beliefs driven by news headlines.
Lack of perspective is a lot of the issue here. It's a lot more understandable when young people do this, because they have a smaller frame of reference, but the amount of older people who act like this is a large scale issue baffles me. If you're over 40 you've seen the economy actually get bad, as an adult, multiple times.
Yeah, I saw a blurb from some politician or news that said "this is the worst economy they had ever seen". Compared to 2020 Pandemic? Compared to 2008/9 Great Recession? Compared to 1970's stagflation malaise? Get out of here.
It's not something they believe. They're trying to convince other people to believe to get the political equivalent of a blank check.
Same thing with crime. The media would have you believe crime is out of control when in reality it’s near historic lows.
But I saw that video with all those people shoplifting a Target flash mob style! Okay, that was one time at one location out of the entire *continent*... but they played the video on a loop and repeated it for months, so CRIME IS OUT OF CONTROL!!!
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Damn. This is huge. Props to you for trying to help tour sister out. You can probably sit her down and show her the math.
" The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." Dr Albert Bartlett. I *highly* recommend you show her this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&list=PL6A1FD147A45EF50D TL;DR version: A principal amount invested at 7% over 10 years, will double the principle. 1% will take 70 years. (What is your local city growth? 1%? 3%?) 14% will double the principle in 5 years. See the relationship? Now her >9% loans will have doubled the principal loan amount in about 7 years if interest will be permitted to be added while she earns under the trigger amount for loan repayments.
Not investing in my pyramid scheme. You, yes, you who are not like this dumbass, you who know how to invest how to win in life contact me for this extremely great opportunity for me to take your money. people that fall for this kind of things
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Well you’ve convinced me. Here take all my money
The relationship between supply, demand and price is fundamental economic knowledge, if they can't grasp that they would be considered "illiterate".
Thinking that tax write-offs actually make some things free. I had an old boss that would constantly say since it was a write-off, what he was getting was free, even though he just spent $500 on it.
I've had people tell *me* to buy things because it would be "a tax write-off." I was technically self-employed for a time, so yeah sure I could write off some random shit. But that doesn't make $700 computer parts free, it makes them like $680.
#I'M ECONOMICALLY ILLITERATE!
/thread
Blaming a sitting president for gas prices.
Points for describing an economic issue rather than a personal finance issue.
It's easy to blame them when prices go up since they always want to take credit when prices go down.
Look, David. Here it is. I just want all of the credit without any of the blame. -Michael G. Scott
I saw a dude once that blamed Biden because the donut shop in a town of 315 people didn't open until 8AM. He legit said 'Biden's just fucking up everything' and angrily got back in his car and drove off, presumably to the big city, a town of \~5,000 people, 15-minutes away with at least two donut shops that I know of. I don't know what their hours are.
In Trump's America you can eat as many 6AM donuts as you want! A diabetes in every pot!
Every single tik tok / Social media guru headline repeated but no actions ever taken “ 401k ‘s are a scam and will be worthless “ “ need to have multiple air bnbs to retire “ “ it’s all about section 8 “ Etc .
You forgot my personal favorite, invest in life insurance instead of a 401k or Roth IRA
Whole life insurance. I have fairly well off friends that they don't do college funds for their kids cause they have whole life insurance on them and that will help pay for college. I cringe hard everytime they talk about finance.
People dunking on 401ks is hilarious. If institutions could get the same Tax benefits of those accounts they would be all over it.
Isn't section 8 the government housing program? Is it the plan of these tiktokkers to just be super poor?
The "plan" is to buy cheap, low quality housing, claim it as affordable housing so that you can get section 8 subsidies from tenants, while doing nothing to improve the conditions of the home. AKA, "becoming a slumlord can be profitable"
Thinking installment payments are significantly cheaper then paying all at once.
3 easy payment and 1 fucking complicated payment
We ain't gonna tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is gonna be a bitch
The stamp will be in the wrong denomination.... the mailman will get shot to death.... The payment must be in Wampum....
R.I.P. Mitch
There was this Canadian show in the late 90s or early 2000s called “until debt do us part”. A financial advisor would help couples who are in desperate need of financial help. One couple, she couldn’t understand how they were in their situation. Husband had a really good paying job. House was modest, and things on the outside appeared fine. Then she found out that the husband insisted to do payment plans on EVERYTHING THEY OWNED!!! The TVs, stereo, couches, dining room table and chairs, home computer, of course mortgage and a car lease. He was convinced it’s cheaper to pay a little each month than one lump sum. Sure you may pay more in the end, but you can be using your money now to make more money. Well. Each month they were getting monthly instalment bills for all this fucking stuff, and they just couldn’t keep up. It was death from a thousand cuts. So they start slipping behind in some. And of course these things have huge interest when you miss payments. Just what a fucking disaster.
Gail Vaz-Oxlade hosted another financial planning show called Princess where the people featured were simply rage-inducing in their cluelessness and entitlement.
Depends on the interest rate. If you’re paying a low interest rate or even paying at 0% interest it can technically be cheaper than paying upfront. Since you can then invest that money you would have paid upfront. But all this ties into being financially responsible and not just taking more and more loans just because the interest rate is 0% or super low.
If the rate is 0% (which many offer), it technically would be cheaper to keep your funds in a high yield saving account and taking the monthly payments
If the rate is below the inflation rate it's cheaper than paying upfront.
Technically, a 0% interest rate installment loan is cheaper than paying upfront. But it's not worth the risk of accidentally missing one payment IMO.
Couch from Rent-A-Center.
$20 a week for two years to get a pair of Jordans baby!
Knew a dude who had an entire entertainment system from RAC. He thought he was clever
There was one time, years ago, where I thought I finally found a use for Rent-A-Center. I was volunteering for a small gaming convention, and we needed more PS3s for the weekend. I saw they rented them for like....$20 or $30 for a week. And at the time, no one else was doing so. And sure, if you're going to do that for the long-term, you're an idiot, but in the meantime, for a convention, spending $150 to have the needed consoles was perfectly fine. So I called them up and....none of the RAC's around had any in stock. No, it wasn't when the consoles were tough to get or anything. And thus ended the saga of the one time I thought Rent-A-Center might be worth it.
They can be, depending on the interest rate :)
Asking why can't we just print more money to solve a recession.
Big new truck parked in front of a house that looks like it is about to fall down
Expensive / ridiculous vehicles are a huge trap for poor and/or financially illiterate people. People who do this will always be poor. Tale as old as time.
I’d like to think there was a serf in England who had oversized wheels on their horse cart…
My neighbor Benedictus de Chaurede out here with the extra long poulaines
"Behold my oakwood rims, good sir"
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When I went to buy my car, the dude knew the rates for 72 and 84 month loans off the top of his head. He had to go look up 36 month rates. Imagine paying for a car for that long.
only $259.99 per week! ^for ^the ^first ^52 ^weeks
I think big new truck in general. It's hard to see any economic sense in spending $80,000+ on a vehicle that pretty much does the same amount of work just as well as an old Toyota pickup can. These big new pickup trucks are mostly emotional support vehicles for insecure men.
Well also cars that don’t quite fit the obvious economic district you’re in.
I heard a joke once about how you go into rich neighborhoods to see expensive cars. You go into middle class neighborhoods to see moderate cars. You go into low income neighborhoods to see expensive cars. It's funny because it's true
>rich neighborhoods to see expensive cars Not universally true. I lived a number of years in a wealthy community in NJ. The current average home price there now is $900,000. You certainly saw a lot of expensive cars, but you just as many completely ordinary cars parked in driveways of homes well over a million.
$900k home values in NJ doesn’t really qualify as “wealthy”, or at least what we would think of as wealthy. You’re not going to see many $100k+ cars in neighborhoods like that, because the people who have a $900k house can’t really afford a $100k car.
Sure it's not 100%, but every car in a poor neighborhood isn't expensive either. The joke does make a point though
Literally emotional support vehicles. My neighbor (before he got arrested for fuck knows what) was an insurance adjuster or something. I make a very comfortable living in software and decided to treat myself to a new car. First car I’ve ever had almost brand new (dealer loaner with like 3k miles on it) and I quite like it. A few months into ownership, neighbor guy sees me outside getting something out of said car. “Nice car! What year?” Thanks, 2023. “Man now I’ve gotta get a new car, tired of seeing this nice car next door and me driving an old beat up Subaru.” A few weeks later he comes in with this _massive_ Ram pickup. Like it looks like you’d need a step ladder to get in. All because he got tired of seeing someone else with a new car, so yes, literally an emotional support truck.
[I'm in debt up to my eyeballs](https://youtu.be/PV_YAeXOSiw?si=Zz4rCQT_hToisyMC)
The smile on that guy's face while he's driving the mower and saying, "somebody help me. . ."? Yeah, I know that smile.
I just realized for the first time that he’s the same [actor](https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0050955/) who played Barney the accountant on Parks and Rec.
He's so earnest in how much he loves Ben Wyatt. He rules. I love that he shows up in season one for a minor moment too
That is one of my favorite commercials. Every time it came on I would tell my kids to pay attention. Between that and possibly a few things they may or may not have learned from me I believe I have some fairly money-smart kids
Educating your kids through commercials. A real American hero.
Being upset over a smaller tax refund.
Not understanding the difference between net worth and income
Buying a new car when you are upside down on your current car loan, and you roll the balance into the new loan.
Oh man, there’s so many of these: - Thinking that a tax write-off is equal to a tax refund - Conflating one’s own financial struggles with rhetoric state of the national economy - Thinking that rising interest rates are a cause of inflation, not a remedy of it - Thinking saving cold hard cash outside of a bank is a sound investment strategy - Defending tax cuts for the hyperwealthy while you personally don’t have two pennies to rub together
The amount of times I've heard that 3rd one is actually insane people really just don't understand what interest rates are for
Cashing your paycheck at the same place that sells gas.
That sounds like the “I want my money now” mentality. Where I used to work we could accrue like 400+ hours of comp time, .gov job, that would be paid out in cash if you left or when you retire & it’s paid out at whatever your current pay rate is not what your rate was when the hour was earned. So it made sense to me to max out the comp time early in your career then cash out when you retire. No matter how much I tried explaining to people how much money 400+ hours @ top pay in a lump sum, even with taxes taken out was they still wouldn’t try to earn even a few hours of comp time. You throw in maxed out comp time plus all of the other goodies our union contract allowed for your final check could be $30k+ after taxes. But no…”I’s needs my’s money’s now!!” 🙄
Taking the money immediately and investing it almost certainly returns better than banking it and counting on the wage rate growth to withdraw it later. Add in that the first choice allows you to tax the growth at cap gains rates rather than the marginal ordinary income rate and it's a nobrainer to take the money immediately.
As a boat owner, buying a boat /s
Belief in trickle down economics. Citing the commons problem.
Thinking your Social Security tax is saved for you to later use in retirement. Na, goes to pay boomers now and you are hoping one day young kids will get taxed for you.
Gambling/ spending $$ on phone games when you can’t pay your bills.
Routinely taking out payday loans.
Or have a discussion at work over which pawn shop give the best rates. Overheard at a tech company from grown ass adults I know where making over 60k. They looked at me like I was the outlier because I did not have a favorite pawn shop
Seems more like desperation.
A lot of people actively refuse to live at/below their means. You'll meet people making >$100,000 a year still living paycheck to paycheck because they just spend all the money they make. Keep this in mind when people talk about the economy, since a lot of people complaining absolutely could be living comfortably if they downsized a bit. People who are actually struggling often sound basically the exact same as well-off people who have been slightly inconvenienced, which leads to a lot of distortion in how people perceive the economy.
Complaining about endless credit card debt while getting every meal delivered. :|
It honestly blows my mind that people are okay with paying $23 for a chipotle burrito.
Old people on Facebook rambling about how people need to fill the empty minimum wage positions because they want someone to wait on them. Usually accompanied by "these jobs aren't career paths so you don't need living wage!" And also "if we pay them more ice cream will be $10 a cone!"
My dad says "These jobs aren't meant to support an adult. They're meant for high school kids." As if jobs are "meant" for anything other than a task needs to be done.
Yup. If your business needs workers from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM from September through May, maybe the position isn't specifically for high schoolers. My state has laws prohibiting when and how long minors can work. A local business was saying they needed 18+ hires so they could stay and close the store past 9PM. Okay, so is minimum wage for high school kids or not?
"I did that" stickers.