Media Meltdown and also Media Bias 101

[Deleterious]

10 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

Dave Ramsey is definitely extreme, but if more young people listened to him, they'd be better off for it. I've been listening to the Money Guys podcast and youtube recently, they're alot more balanced and down to earth than Ramsey.  

The people that rip Ramsey seem to be the upper middle class.  They bought their $700K house for $200K 20 years ago, its paid off, they have a few million in their 401K.  Ramsey isn't for those people.  He is for the couple that doesn't own a home, has $2500 a month car payments, no savings, no 401K, $100K in CC debt, etc etc.  

He is basically chemotherapy.  You wouldn't put that junk in a healthy person.  But a sick person is begging for it.

[Deleterious]

Also, agree on The Money Guy.  Good stuff anytime I have listened.  

[Tigeraholic1]

13 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

The people that rip Ramsey seem to be the upper middle class.  They bought their $700K house for $200K 20 years ago, its paid off, they have a few million in their 401K.  Ramsey isn't for those people.  He is for the couple that doesn't own a home, has $2500 a month car payments, no savings, no 401K, $100K in CC debt, etc etc.  

He is basically chemotherapy.  You wouldn't put that junk in a healthy person.  But a sick person is begging for it.

Dave has helped many people become debt free, good dude. I love when he rips people calling in saying they are broke and as a married couple make 200K plus lol.

[oblong]

Ramsey's appeal is not unlike the old daytime talk shows like Springer and Jenny Jones, which morphed into Judge Judy.  It makes people feel better about themselves to see other people doing life wrong.

He's not preaching any rocket science.  Avoid debt as much as you can, don't waste money, and spend less than you make.  You don't need a recurring subscription to his services to know that.  It's like working out and losing weight. Everybody knows what to do.  It's just doing it that's hard for some people.

"You can do this and I'm going to sell you a product to help you do it".

I'm also biased because I've read about some practices in his company that.... aren't good.  Men can screw around and cheat on their spoues and keep their jobs.  The females can't.

 

[romad1]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

I also get timeshare exit strategy videos.  I clicked on once b/c unlike a lot of people I enjoy the presentations and sales pitches.  I did it twice in order to stay at a resort.  I love telling them no over and over and fighting and arguing with them.  One guy told me that "Why should you pay for your kids college?  I didn't pay mine?" and I retorted "You look like you are in your 60's and selling time shares....  "  I figure once their alleged time is up I can be a jerk and if they get personal or sly insults, then all bets are off.  Otherwise I'm fine to go thru the motions and listen.

The other one I get is Dave Ramsey.  That guy's a hoot.  Many times his math just doesn't add up.  Other times he ignores tax advantages.  "If you invest $100 a month from 18 until you are 85, you will have $3.5 Million".  Great.   What good is $3.5M going to do for me when I am 85.  I didn't go to Disney World or take that trip to Iceland but dangit.... I got $3M in the bank.  There's a balance in life Dave.  Money is not a sign or morality and he crosses that line.   The other bits are poking fun at people's misery, I think the callers are fake, like those house hunters looking at $1.5 million houses with jobs that sound like they pay crap.  "Hi, I'm 38 years old, my husband and I make $150K a year between the two of us and we have $1.5 Million in debt and are underwater on our house, the payments are $55,000 a month...."

 

 

I approve of this message in general.  However, I view people who have low battery life on their phones as morally degenerate.  

[Tigeraholic1]

What I invision when I read all the angry grifting. "Ramsey helps people get out of debt? They are losers for being in debt in the first place" 

Edited January 7 by Tigeraholic1

[romad1]

Another observation about FB:  a lot of supposed military fan sites that show Chinese and Russian and weirdly enough Turkish aircraft and ships as superior to US and NATO (yes, I know Turkey is still in NATO).   

"Gosh, Vern... that F-35 is soops expensive we should buy that Chengdu J-20 from the Chinese instead."

 

[pfife]

I like Ramsey and think hes right most of the time.   I dont agree with him when he says to eliminate debt like mortgage before investing.

[pfife]

Money Guy has financial order of operations and thats a pretty legit order of steps

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, pfife said:

I like Ramsey and think hes right most of the time.   I dont agree with him when he says to eliminate debt like mortgage before investing.

Dave Ramsey is the Dr. Laura of financial shows. They both appear to build themselves up by making callers feel bad or stupid. Not that it's undeserved, but it feels more like it's for the benefit for other listeners to feel good about the decisions they make in their own lives than it is to help the callers they are hammering, which, they aren't.

[Tigeraholic1]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Dave Ramsey is the Dr. Laura of financial shows. They both appear to build themselves up by making callers feel bad or stupid. Not that it's undeserved, but it feels more like it's for the benefit for other listeners to feel good about the decisions they make in their own lives than it is to help the callers they are hammering, which, they aren't.

[oblong]

1 hour ago, pfife said:

I like Ramsey and think hes right most of the time.   I dont agree with him when he says to eliminate debt like mortgage before investing.

Most of the time or more of the time… semantics I guess. Like I said he preaches some good habits but I don’t think they are all that revolutionary.  I agree with Chas on the Dr Laura comparison. He’s like Steve Harvey… it’s about the reaction he gives when a caller says something stupid.  
 

I did catch him make what I think is a wrong assumption. He tried to make an apples to apples comparison between investing $500 a month in a 401(k) vs $500 in a Roth and saying the Roth was better because of the tax advantage when you withdraw.  But in order to invest $500 into the Roth you have to use after tax income. So it’s not the same. It was a clip so I couldn’t see alll or it.   

he also thinks it’s still possible to forgo the reliability of a new car for a $1000 clunker.  Sure it’s better to go used in general but again check the math on what a decent used car goes for.  Get out of your gated community and look around   It’s not 2003 anymore  

 

 

 

[romad1]

NYTPITCHBOT has competition

https://bsky.app/profile/numb.comfortab.ly

Edited January 10 by romad1

[romad1]

Looks like the lack of fact checking on Meta platforms has led to a lot of mischief

https://bsky.app/profile/numb.comfortab.ly/post/3lfe6ma7dhk2v

[romad1]

And the Australians on this site love that sort of mischief

https://chaser.com.au/general-news/top-10-real-mark-zuckerberg-quotes/

[gehringer_2]

On 1/7/2025 at 5:10 PM, pfife said:

I like Ramsey and think hes right most of the time.   I dont agree with him when he says to eliminate debt like mortgage before investing.

Anyone who says there is such a rule is just straight up wrong. It's *always* a matter of comparative returns. If the interest rate on you mortgage is higher than your likely return, pay it first, if not, don't. In general over the last couple of decades it has not been hard to find investments that pay substantially more than the interest on most mortgages. That may not be true for small investors right now, but the point is that it's a situation that has to be constantly evaluated.

[chasfh]

54 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Anyone who says there is such a rule is just straight up wrong. It's *always* a matter of comparative returns. If the interest rate on you mortgage is higher than your likely return, pay it first, if not, don't.

Prospective investors dipping their toe into the information for the first time are usually told that average stock market returns are 8% or 10% or 12% or even more, whatever the number of the month is, which is higher than probably 99% of all active mortgages.

[ben9753]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Anyone who says there is such a rule is just straight up wrong. It's *always* a matter of comparative returns. If the interest rate on you mortgage is higher than your likely return, pay it first, if not, don't. In general over the last couple of decades it has not been hard to find investments that pay substantially more than the interest on most mortgages. That may not be true for small investors right now, but the point is that it's a situation that has to be constantly evaluated.

Ramsey also approaches it from a moral angle. He believes debt is morally wrong, and therefore must be eliminated, regardless of the math. Thats fine, he's entitled to his opinion, what I don't like is that everyone at Ramsey Solutions must toe his line, and anyone who disagrees with him is called stupid. I still think most of what he preaches is good, even if it's a little outdated. A lot better than the garbage young 'uns are being fed on Tik Tok.

[1776]

Years ago Money Magazine ran a piece on Ramsey titled (I’m going on memory here 🤔)…

‘Save like Dave Ramsey but Don’t invest like Dave Ramsey.’  
 
Good piece. As pointed out here already, his advice for beginners is solid. If someone has accumulated a good amount of money to invest, maybe look for advice other than Ramsey’s.

Money Magazine was critical of Ramsey for recommending shops like Edward Jones. MM pointed out that EJ is more or less a store front for funds that include loads as a part of their fees. I know at the time of the article this was true. 

I’ll still listen to Ramsey sometimes if I pick him up on radio with a drive ahead of me. Entertaining.
 

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, ben9753 said:

Ramsey also approaches it from a moral angle. He believes debt is morally wrong,

That's beyond silly. Nobody who approaches investing on such a dogmatic basis should have a platform to be giving advice to anyone. Debt is financial tool, it has no more intrinsic moral nature than a hammer - only particular debts or purchases can have any moral value and the moral value doesn't even relate in any consistent way to whether a particular use is profitable or not. All separate issues.

Edited January 10 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

That's beyond silly. Nobody who approaches investing on such a dogmatic basis should have a platform to be giving advice to anyone. Debt is financial tool, it has no more intrinsic moral nature than a hammer - only particular debts or purchases can have any moral value.

He's on the fringe of prosperity gospel in my opinion:  Wealth is an indication of someone's spiritual worth. Poor people must be doing something wrong in their lives and if they'd just pray more (and send money) they'd reap the benefits.

 

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, oblong said:

Poor people must be doing something wrong in their lives

Yeah - starting with listening to him..

[Deleterious]

Ramsey can be a ****ty boss and still give good advice.  

[Motown Bombers]

One time when I was listening to Dave Ramsey, a woman called in and she had a frozen embryo and a deposit or something to that effect of $1,200. She was coming up on a deadline to either get pregnant or lose the $1,200. She was basically saying she can't afford a child right now but didn't want to lose the $1,200. Ramsey told her to get pregnant since he's so pro birth. I couldn't believe someone was telling a person who was struggling with their finances to go have a kid. For the most part he is good at advising people how to get their finances in order, but he sometimes blurs the line between religion and sound financial advice. 

[Deleterious]

On 1/7/2025 at 6:50 PM, oblong said:

Most of the time or more of the time… semantics I guess. Like I said he preaches some good habits but I don’t think they are all that revolutionary.  I agree with Chas on the Dr Laura comparison. He’s like Steve Harvey… it’s about the reaction he gives when a caller says something stupid.  
 

I did catch him make what I think is a wrong assumption. He tried to make an apples to apples comparison between investing $500 a month in a 401(k) vs $500 in a Roth and saying the Roth was better because of the tax advantage when you withdraw.  But in order to invest $500 into the Roth you have to use after tax income. So it’s not the same. It was a clip so I couldn’t see alll or it.   

he also thinks it’s still possible to forgo the reliability of a new car for a $1000 clunker.  Sure it’s better to go used in general but again check the math on what a decent used car goes for.  Get out of your gated community and look around   It’s not 2003 anymore  

 

 

 

Pretty standard to build an emergency fund, invest in your 401K only enough to hit the employer match, then start paying off high interest debt, then go as hard as you can on your Roth.  

401K's are not that hot.  Normally they have higher fees than IRA's.  You also have a lot more choices of what to invest in with an IRA. 

Another big benefit for someone just starting out or rebuilding.  You can pull your Roth contributions out at anytime without a penalty or paying taxes.  You only pay taxes on the gains.  Sort of acts like a second emergency fund.