I try to resist the temptation to spend too much time on the goings on in Washington, as that’s not what this blog is about, but sometimes I come across stuff I’ve just got to share.
A graphical representation of Obama’s relative manliness.
A story at NPR, of all places, about a homeowner rescue plan that the government once expected to help 400,000 families. Results have been somewhat disappointing.
I’ll try to get a real post up later today.
Last week I somewhat unfairly mocked two blogs for demonstrating a lack of understanding of what I consider basic financial principles. I say unfairly because, although I believe everybody should know this stuff, I would be the first to point out that tragically few do.
I am reminded of this because essentially the same point of confusion about interest rates and paying back loans that tripped up the bloggers appears to be confusing the Obama administration.
It seems that Goldman Sachs, the tiresomely successful former investment bank, wants to pay back the $10 billion in TARP money it got from the government last year. This isn’t a vague aspiration. Goldman has the money and is politely asking to whom the check should be made out.
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Just to recap, in this (more occasional than I intended) series I am discussing Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby Steps. I’m skipping steps 1, 3, and 5 because there’s not much to say about them. (They are, in order, $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund, 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings, and College funding 
for children.) I’m sure that if I looked carefully into these three I could find something to disagree with, but with so many other things to get myself upset about, I just don’t have the time.
I already did step 2. The official title of Step 4 is “Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement.” Plenty there to get my dander up. Why 15%? Why Roth? And then there’s how Ramsey wants you to invest the money. Oh my. This may be a long post.
There’s nothing scientific about 15%. As far as I can tell, it’s just a number Ramsey thinks sounds about right. Ramsey does concede that a few percent higher or lower probably won’t kill you, but, at least in The Total Money Makeover, he doesn’t explain why 15% and not 10% or 20%. (Total Money Makeover has a chapter on each step and so is, along with his website, my primary source for his advice for this series.)
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This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance carries my post on Why Market Timing is Hard. As usual, there is a lot of other stuff there, much of it worth reading.
There were only two editor’s picks this week, a post from Bargaineering with career advice, and our friend Pinyo at Moolanomy’s post I’m Just a Blogger, Damn it!
And so he is.
Being the tremendously self-centered guy that I am, I assumed that Pinyo’s post was in response to my post the previous day that discussed his mortgage refinance post. Since he didn’t mention this blog, I didn’t feel I needed to comment further. (Note to my future victims: not acknowledging Bad Money Advice at all is your best strategy to let the whole thing blow over.) But now that Pinyo’s explanation that he is just a blogger has been highlighted as one of the two best personal finance posts of the week, it is hard for me not to say something. (Another note: submitting your non-response to the Carnival of Personal Finance lessens the chances of it going away.)
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There was an article in the Saturday New York Times that provided further evidence of something I’ve been blathering on about here. It is what I call the Frugal Lifestyle.
Just to be clear, I have nothing at all against saving money. In fact, I have only respect for those who tightly manage their limited resources to get what they and their families need and want. The same goes for those who now find themselves in difficult circumstances and need to make very hard decisions about what to do.
What I have outright contempt for are people who pretend to save money. People who, for peculiar psychological reasons that need not be explored here, enjoy depriving themselves of small things, or spending small amounts of their time in tiresome ways, because it makes them feel good to be “frugal.” My hostility is doubled for those who have taken the current economic tragedy as inspiration to adopt the Frugal Lifestyle in the same faddish way that they might otherwise take up a new hobby or start twittering.
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Government | Frank Curmudgeon | 
April 17, 2009 8:00 am | 
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