20 things the rich do everyday (another Maalox moment)

[JanMichael]

I don't know if I spelled Maalox correctly.

http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/20-things-the-rich-do-every-day?fb_action_ids=10202620326407394&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B167002383484240%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

[rurallib]

1. which came first - the habits or the money?

My guess - the money. Then you have discretionary time that can be filled with what appears to be "good" habits.

[MisterP]

10. in fact, most any rich person would quickly correct Ramsey on this

most are Machiavellian rather than "I made it on my own" ideologues (the Hunts, the Kochs, the Drumpfs)

but the Ramsey and Kiyosakis aren't about learning from the rich, they're about getting rich by catering to "aspirant classes"--unstable middle classes (and these days who isn't unstable in the middle class?) or the Herman Cain "I made it, therefore there's no racism and poor minorities are poor because they're ghetto" new-middle-class types

[El_Johns]

12. +1

[Aristus]

2. Yeah, yeah, we get it: "Rich - Good, Poor - Evil".

Self-righteous bastard...

[El_Johns]

13. +1

[Matariki]

3. Fortunately, that article got a lot of much deserved backlash

It's laughably ignorant and arrogant.

Here's a funny parody: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-facts-about-being-poor-from-rich-person/

[jmowreader]

4. The real Maalox moment is his baby steps

All the Financial Gurus of the 1990s and beyond seem to be addicted to the same basic idea: you can get out of debt no matter your financial situation through Extreme Austerity. Ramsey wants to put you in a place where you can send all your money to Jesus instead of the banks, is his main schtick. (Understand Ramsey: he was a real estate speculator and hardcore Republican until Reagan closed the tax loophole he used. This caused him to lose everything. Now he's an even harder core Republican AND a fundamentalist Christian. What he should be is a Democrat. If Reagan would have solved his fiscal irresponsibility by dialing back rate reductions instead of closing loopholes we'd have never heard of Dave Ramsey.

Look at his seven baby steps:
1. $1000 emergency fund.
Two problems with this: A thousand bucks isn't enough to fix a lot of emergencies, and if you are desperate enough to be taking advice from snake oil salesmen a thousand bucks is as attainable as a million.

2. Pay off debts using the debt snowball.
This sounds good, but this requires paying the minimum on everything but your smallest debt, which you pound money into until it's paid off. Then you take all the money you sent to the debt you just paid off to your new smallest debt and so on until you are finally debt free. The problem is simple: if there's not enough money to pay more than the minimum on everything, where will the cash to start this come from? (And as Ramsey is painfully aware, when the bill collectors come at you hard they're gonna find out about the thousand bucks you're not using to pay debts.)

3 to 7 you can't complain too much about, but (as I have said many times) Ramsey never once mentions the need for additional income. If the path God has set for you is not providing for your earthly needs - or in secular terms, if you need $2000 a month and you make $1500 - you are simply going to have to follow the true path: get a second job, divert the ten percent you're sending to the church to your debts, and forget the idea you can just stretch your money to make ends meet. A budget is like a rubber band: stretch it too far and it fails.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Why are you giving clicks to this asshole? Here's the bullshit list.

1. 70% of wealthy eat less than 300 junk food calories per day. 97% of poor people eat more than 300 junk food calories per day. 23% of wealthy gamble. 52% of poor people gamble.

2. 80% of wealthy are focused on accomplishing some single goal. Only 12% of the poor do this.

3. 76% of wealthy exercise aerobically four days a week. 23% of poor do this.

4. 63% of wealthy listen to audio books during commute to work vs. 5% of poor people.

5. 81% of wealthy maintain a to-do list vs. 19% of poor.

6. 63% of wealthy parents make their children read two or more non-fiction books a month vs. 3% of poor.

7. 70% of wealthy parents make their children volunteer 10 hours or more a month vs. 3% of poor.

8. 80% of wealthy make Happy Birthday calls vs. 11% of poor.

9. 67% of wealthy write down their goals vs. 17% of poor.

10. 88% of wealthy read 30 minutes or more each day for education or career reasons vs. 2% of poor.

11. 6% of wealthy say what’s on their mind vs. 69% of poor.

12. 79% of wealthy network five hours or more each month vs. 16% of poor.

13. 67% of wealthy watch one hour or less of TV every day vs. 23% of poor.

14. 6% of wealthy watch reality TV vs. 78% of poor.

15. 44% of wealthy wake up three hours before work starts vs. 3% of poor.

16. 74% of wealthy teach good daily success habits to their children vs. 1% of poor.

17. 84% of wealthy believe good habits create opportunity luck vs. 4% of poor.

18. 76% of wealthy believe bad habits create detrimental luck vs. 9% of poor.

19. 86% of wealthy believe in lifelong educational self-improvement vs. 5% of poor.

20. 86% of wealthy love to read vs. 26% of poor.

Bottom line, rich people have time and money. What an earth shattering revelation...

[JanMichael]

11. Yep. He's a jackass

I had never heard of him. He's horrible.

[Egalitarian Thug]

14. He has a radio show in this market. I really hate it when I forget my music in the car.

I think he's double creepy because not only has he made his money fleecing the suckers, but he's insufferably righteous about it.

Obviously if JC were alive today he'd make a fortune as a slum lord and self-help-through-God-and-the-republican-party huckster, just like Dave.

[SharonAnn]

6. Things he doesn't get!

So much that he doesn't understand, even in his response. He lists 3 causes of poverty, dismisses one of them as not relating to the United States, and then selects one of the remaining "personal choices" as the only remaining cause and never again mentions "oppression of the poor".

A couple of immediate thoughts:
1. Children reading books: first they have to have access to books, then a parent has to make sure it gets done. Many children don't have easy access to books (can't afford to buy them and no library access) and working parents are very busy, without a stay-at-home parent or hired help, and can only supervise so many things.

2. Listening to audio books on commute: Have to have an audio player and access to audio books. See above.

Truthfully, there are some things he continually point out that I believe are true. But he extrapolates too much and doesn't look into issues more deeply. So he's kind of a "I got mine and you should get yours" kind of guy.

[MineralMan]

7. More things the rich do - a different list:

1. Drive by poor people and think, "How annoying."
2. Vote against educational taxes.
3. Vote for Republicans.
4. Complain about property taxes going to public schools.
5. Send their own children to private schools and complain about problems in public schools.
6. Donate primarily to charities that feed their own interests, rather than feeding the poor (symphonies, art, etc.)
7. Attend churches with only well-dressed and fed parishioners.
8. Complain about high gasoline costs from the seat of their BMW or Lexus.
9. Drive through poverty-ridden neighborhoods on their way to the office and worry about their own safety.
10. Vote for Republicans again.
11. Complain about the high cost of Ivy League universities where their legacy children are admitted to whine about their classes.
12. Install automatic generators to protect their wine cellars from power outages.
13. Complain about high crime rates in the city, from their homes in exclusive suburban neighborhoods.
14. Worry about catching some exotic disease while on their summer European swing.
15. Fuss about crowded Emergency Rooms when Buffy or Biff needs stitches and they have to wait for 10 minutes in their suburban hospital.
16. Worry about high healthcare costs and then plan to cut health insurance for their employees.
17. Complain to their Congress Member about restrictions on offshore bank accounts.
18. Complain to their Congress Member about changes in inheritance tax laws.
19. Get charges dropped when their teenager totals some poor person's car and leaves the scene, despite injured people.
20. Vote for Republicans.

[broiles]

8. +1

[vanlassie]

9. Don't forget that the rich don't pay healthcare costs. They have coverage at 100%

I worked for a major insurance company. We handled major corporate accounts. The top tier had different coverage than their employees, and we were under strict pressure never to let them see a bill slip through. Even for a copay. I could never figure out how they could make decisions about the insurance plans to provide for their people if they had not a clue what medical costs looked like.