From: Mix <mixmaster@remail.obscura.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 02:46:17 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Saving money
Message-ID: <199710251832.LAA17149@sirius.infonex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Harka wrote:
>Do you really expect single mothers with 3 kids to have the time to
>do it to the degree of being able to _freely choose_ their
>employers?? Or even Joe Average, who just came out of College and has
>$100 000 school-loan-debt?

Certainly there are people who will give up their privacy rights for
money.  Some of them will not perceive it as a problem.  Some will
have put themselves into a bad situation where the money is worth more
than their privacy.

In almost all cases their problems do not exist outside their minds.

The mother with 3 children did not get into that situation by
accident.  Certain choices and actions were taken that put her into
that "bad" situation.  ("Bad" in quotes because if one really really
wants to have children, the situation may be preferable to the
alternative.)

The kid who borrows $100,000 and can't find a good job did not receive
good advice.

It is terribly important to recognize when people are in situations of
their own creation if we wish to advise people in ways to avoid such
situations or avoid them ourselves.

>While I am glad for your achievements, you have not addressed my
>point: all this doesn't apply to the larger mass of people.

I completely disagree with this.  Read "Your Money or Your Life" by
Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.  This book describes a method which
anybody can use to make good decisions in managing their life.  The
purpose of the book is to teach ordinary people how to become
independently wealthy.  There are few people who would not benefit
from this method and who are incapable of applying it.

>You were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right
>time...one of the founding-members of a company in an industry, that
>pays way more than average and thus brought you into the position,
>that you're in now. Great...more power to you and I encourage
>everybody to try the same.

You should also look at "The Millionaire Next Door" by Thomas
J. Stanley and William D. Danko.  This is a study of millionaires in
the United States.  To quote from "Money" magazine: "To learn what
today's millionaires have in common and how they accumulated their
wealth, Stanley and Danko sent questionnaires to affluent Americans
and conducted focus-group interviews.  They learned that about
two-thirds of those millionaires who still work are self-employed -
versus one in ten for all Americans.  The types of businesses they own
tend to be mundane, such as welding and dry cleaning.  The
overwhelming majority aren't trust-fund babies; eight out of ten
accumulated their riches themselves.  Most are extremely frugal.
Although their average net worth is $3.7 million, they generally live
so modestly that even their neighbors don't have a clue about their
wealth."

The article has these five bullet points to recommend:
"1. Live below your means.
 2. Launch a savings and investing plan.
 3. Take on debt sparingly.
 4. Pay as little as possible to Uncle Sam.
 5. Start your own business."

Standard Ben Franklin stuff, but it works.

>But if the available work-force exceeds the demand for it, such jobs
>wouldn't pay nearly as much as they do right now.  Hence, achieving
>financial independence to the point of freely choosing employers
>would become much harder again.

Actually, it doesn't cost much to change employers.  All you have to
do is find an employer who will hire you.  Mostly this is a question
of time and effort.

>But this is the reality for MOST people (outside of the
>elite-industries) already! Especially if they start out with
>student-loan-debts amounting to several ten thousands of dollars.
>Add a family/kids to that and you tell me how easy a task it will be
>to quickly become independently wealthy.  (Some people will be able
>to pull it off somehow, most people won't - - despite their wishes to
>the contrary. Should they make their best effort? Absolutely! Will
>everybody succeed? Absolutely not.)

I agree most people will probably not pull it off, but that's too bad.
The reason they won't pull it off is that they won't make their best
effort.  Sure, you can dig up people who appear to have really tried
and then failed anyway, but they are rare.

You can easily see that most poor people are not making their best
effort by studying how much money they spend on alcohol, tobacco, or
other recreational substances.  You can also study TV watching habits.
Poor people watch a lot of TV instead of making themselves useful.

>The truth is, that there are many people outside of Cypherpunks, who
>get barely through life _despite_ making efforts. They may get enough
>salary in their 9-5 job to maintain themselves to a degree, but not
>nearly enough to have the complete freedom, that is the issue
>here. And to say, "they get what they deserve" (if they don't have
>the abundance of dollars/freedom) is rather narrowminded and
>out-of-touch with most people's reality.

Gee, I don't know about that.  When I was in school there was
tremendous peer pressure to not study, to not get good grades, to not
program, to not study electronics, to not master calculus,
etc. etc. etc.  If those people end up poor, I have no hesitation in
saying they deserve it - at the very least!

>That may indeed work for some people, but the argument of
>"self-discipline and sacrifice" usually goes overboard once people
>_other than yourself_ are severely affected by that. "Sorry hun, you
>can't have a new winter-coat. Mommy has to save enough money so that
>she can choose the people she works for. And no...no christmas this
>year either".

I think I hear violins! ;-)

In practice, these are very seldom the choices that are being made.
Winter coats are available second hand for almost nothing.  When I was
a kid my parents made many of our presents by hand to save money.
Christmas need not be expensive, and it's not clear that it is
improved in any meaningful way by spending lots of money.

People are perfectly capable of living economically and making
good decisions, even when their children are involved.

(In> is Tim May, quoted by Harka.)
> In> If they won't make these spending tradeoffs and have not even a
> In> buffer sufficient to carry them through a month or two or three,
> In> I say screw them.

>How about you adopting a person/family of your choice instead and
>providing them with enough startup-money, so that they can at least
>make an realistic effort to work towards a position of becoming
>financially independent themselves? :)

Uh, excuse me, but I didn't see Tim volunteering for Santa Claus duty.
Why should he help out people who will, in all probability, fail to
take his advice, squander any money he gives them, and resent him for
his efforts?

For that matter, why should he help out people who will be eternally
grateful if he doesn't value that gratitude?

And the claim that all that is needed is a little startup money is a
standard lame excuse that has probably been used for millenia.  Making
excuses is not how the job gets done.

>I suggest in return you reconsidering the myth, that a free market
>means equal opportunities and thus quick self-reliance for everybody.

The term "equal opportunities" is a curious one.  A free market does
mean that everybody has the equal opportunity to make agreements with
each other.  But, clearly some people will have more success making
these agreements for reasons which are not under their control.
Somebody might have parents who introduce them to the right people and
show them the ropes, for instance.  This is one reason why the free
market does not eliminate the formation of elites.  But, so what?  Are
we really going to claim that people shouldn't help their children to
succeed?

In the sense that I think you mean the term, "equal opportunities" are
exceedingly undesirable.

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm

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