

Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less - cbarnsdale
http://www.unfinishedman.com/young-money-beating-the-man-by-spending-less/

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swdunlop
Funny coming from unfinishedman.com, which is the blog people go to when they
look at The Sharper Image and think "but what do you have that's REALLY
frivolous?"

[1] [http://www.unfinishedman.com/aviator-wing-desk-inspired-
by-w...](http://www.unfinishedman.com/aviator-wing-desk-inspired-by-
ww2-fighter-planes/) [2] [http://www.unfinishedman.com/electric-hot-tub-boat-
for-ultim...](http://www.unfinishedman.com/electric-hot-tub-boat-for-ultimate-
relaxation/) [3] [http://www.unfinishedman.com/mercedes-benz-c63-amg-
edition-5...](http://www.unfinishedman.com/mercedes-benz-c63-amg-
edition-507-coupe/)

~~~
gnu8
Plenty of irony on that site. I liked the ad for a $300 discount card
disguised as another article. Promises to let you live like a "founder" by
buying high priced crap from Bonobo at a discount. Very well targeted for the
ycombinator crowd.

[http://www.unfinishedman.com/founderscard-live-like-a-
prince...](http://www.unfinishedman.com/founderscard-live-like-a-prince-pay-
like-a-pauper/)

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ef4
> Life is hard, and it’s most certainly unfair… perhaps more so for our
> generation that any previous.

Absolutely absurd.

You really think you have it worse than somebody born into slavery? Or worse
than a medieval serf?

A large fraction of humans alive _right now_ would look on your lifestyle as
extremely privileged.

This kind of statement comes across as pitifully ignorant whining. You
actually _hurt_ the cause of fixing real injustices when you fly off into
hyperbole like this.

~~~
cbarnsdale
You realize the article focuses on debt in regards to students and young
people, right? Yeah, there's a bit of hyperbole, but I think my reference to
"toughest... generation... evar..." makes sense in the context of "young
people have it pretty shitty right now". Clearly you disagree, so fair enough.
:)

~~~
Millennium
At the same time, this type of hyperbole makes it way too easy to dismiss
arguments like these as whiny and lacking perspective. It's rhetorically
unsound, and it doesn't do its side much in the way of favors.

~~~
dkarl
_whiny and lacking perspective_

Like everything else young people find persuasive? (That was whiny and
hyperbolic, too, because young people like irony.)

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potatolicious
Seems like advice for a straw man. Author bases the whole diatribe on people
he doesn't know around his college town. He presumes that everyone around him
carrying gadgetry and nice clothes must be destroying themselves financially
to do so, and can barely afford to eat.

While no doubt these people actually do exist, IMO author is really reaching
here. This reads like "I'm starter than all these idiots".

~~~
RyanZAG
While you're correct about not generalizing, the number of students who are in
debt is enormous[1]. Everyone wants to be amazingly educated with all the
latest awesome gadgets, and unfortunately, it really is causing a lot of
problems for society. The author really is doing a good job for himself if he
is saving up some money and getting out of debt.

We'll see how it goes...

[1] <http://www.asa.org/policy/resources/stats/default.aspx>

~~~
jiggy2011
I wonder if taking out a student loan puts people in a mindset where they are
more willing to take on debt?

If you're already borrowing some thousands of $ for an education on the basis
that you will "make it back when I graduate" what's a few more hundred $ for
an iphone?

~~~
lysol
That was my mindset when, after college, I got my first credit cards. What's
another thousand bucks on top of 30k?

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oberheitz
"Life is hard, and it’s most certainly unfair… perhaps more so for our
generation than any previous."

Uhm, have you ever heard of World War II? I'm pretty sure the MacBook-toting
hipsters you describe have a slightly easier life than those people had to
serve in Vietnam or World War II.

~~~
cbarnsdale
I considered pointing this out, and the great depression too. I can't say (and
didn't say) that our generation is definitely harder off (I wasn't born during
the previously stated time periods), however... from everything I've seen,
youth today are in for a really, really shitty time. Perhaps saying "worse
than its been in a long, long time" would have been more balanced.

~~~
maxerickson
Easy access to debt isn't really a harbinger of a really, really shitty time.

If anything, the fact that the debt 'crisis' is global will end up making
student loans easy(er) to repay (because inflation).

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sophacles
It's less the easy access to debt that's the problem, but the requirement of
going into debt for a chance to not be in debt. For a very significant portion
of people, they only chance at a decent job is college - there really aren't
that many decent jobs available for the "no degree" people. Of course the
degree isn't a guarantee of a job, just a prerequisite. And of course most
people can't just up and pay for college, so the debt load is a becomes part
of that prerequisite.

So the requirement of debt for a chance, is probably a harbinger of a really,
really shitty time.

(NOTE: please... no "but _I_ am different in w.r.t. that stuff" posts... the
terms "many", "significant portion", and "most" mean some aren't in that
category, but that doesn't change the statistics).

~~~
maxerickson
Yes, college is a poor, expensive employability filter.

Still, it hardly takes a $50,000 psychology degree (people just looking for a
credential should be fine with a state school) to get a job in a high tech
factory, a $10,000 or $15,000 technology certificate is a lot more sensible.

And I don't mean to argue that these choices are easy or that it is great that
people face them, but going $150,000 into debt is not the only path out there.

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jpsierens
I wanted to input that I as a student am basically the opposite of what this
article is talking about. I'm from West-Europe so maybe that's a huge factor.

I spend less than €100 a month. I live with my parents, and currently doing a
Masters in the best uni of my country, which costs around €550 for a year. I
take the train to class everyday which is about 1 hour, but a train
subscription costs me €80 for 3 months. A car is a luxury here and in my
opinion, useless if you live in a city.

I don't have any debt whatsoever and have never seen why I should go into
debt. I almost never spend on anything not necessary. heck sometimes I wonder
WHY I don't buy more things. My computer is 5+ years old and still in good
shape, so are most of my clothes, although I do buy new stuff every year.

If I do buy a gadget like my smartphone, I save for it first, I don't even
have a credit card. I have never bought things and paid them after. Interest
rates are the devil. Own your assets, not the other way around.

Stop spending so much.

~~~
jzwinck
Western europeans don't all have it this good. For example in London the train
fare for an hour journey each way might be more like 700 pounds per quarter
(roughly 15 times your own). There are some student discounts but they don't
nearly make up that difference.

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jiggy2011
But if people stop buying crap won't the crap making and marketing companies
stop hiring so many of these college grads and instead of buying iphones they
can't afford they now have to buy food they can't afford?

~~~
npsimons
"But if people stop throwing rocks to break windows, how will the window
makers make a living?"

~~~
jiggy2011
In this case the window makers are probably web startups. If college kids
weren't buying all these iphones what would be the value of geolocated picture
dating services or whatever?

~~~
npsimons
It's interesting to hear what people consider window breaking and window
making. Even in the canonical example of lawyers (who only "split the pie"),
some provide a social good by defending innocent people against what some
people consider a corrupt body of laws.

I recently finished reading John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider" and found the
taxation proposal near the end intriguing, if a bit alien. Tax rates are
adjusted based on scoring of profession on three axes: training/talent,
drawbacks (like unpredictable hours and dirty working conditions), and social
indispensability. On all three axes, advertisers would score a zero, thereby
qualifying for a 90% tax rate. I wonder where people would score people who
work in a lot of these startups? I suppose it would depend heavily on what the
startup was doing.

~~~
jiggy2011
If you start following the consequences of the existence of any profession or
product to the logical conclusion you can come up with some surprising things.
Which is probably why such a tax scheme would be fairly unworkable in practice
and would incentivise industries to introduce unnecessary training or
overcomplicate their work.

In the case of web startups you can go from "college students all have
smartphones so let's build a social network for them to share their most banal
thoughts" to "almost everyone in the US will have a smartphone within 5 years
and a social networking profile, how can we use this information to provide
more efficient public services?". So frivolous spending can accidently create
opportunity for much more valuable work.

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pm90
The article hardly offers any new insight. Its just a rant on how the author
perceives most young people are spending their money on 'useless crap' and
exhorts them not to do so.

Move on people.

