This. If you don't know how money works, most people who offer advice are just trying to scam you. But not taking any advice is also not helpful.
If I knew how to invest in index funds 20 years ago, who knows, I might have already been halfway to retirement. Before I had kids, I was able to save a large part of my salary. But everything I did with the money -- following the advice of people pretending to be experts -- only made the money disappear.
If someone has a friendly person who spends a day or two helping them set up the system, so that all they need to do later is send extra money to a specific account once in a while, it can change their future dramatically. But many people do not have such friend.
Where does "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling" stop and personal responsibility begin? Can every suboptimal decision be excused because of "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling"?
That's why we need a UBI - to give the poor people leverage. We saw it a bit with the unemployment bonuses - companies are having to raise their wages finally and are complaining about it, and we might finally see inflation. Every keeps treating it like a bad thing, but in reality, the late 70s with high inflation were the most "equal" times historically, since inflation with wage indexation is actually more akin to a wealth tax on the rich, which I totally support.
What gave you that impression? In my initial comment I acknowledged the concept of excusing suboptimal decision making due to "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling". How is that different than what you're saying?
>3. (transitive) To provide an excuse for; to explain, with the aim of alleviating guilt or negative judgement.
Earlier in the thread there was definitely a tone of negative judgement. ie. "people show up all the time with a litany of complaints and a litany of awful, awful budget mistakes they have no interest in fixing"
(It's actually amazing this is almost a Nobel-prize worthy observation in economics. This is psychology 101.)
If you ask why or what kinds of mistakes they make, now that is where the books go deep. Suffice to say those mistakes are not unpredictable and people can be nudged to make a better (dare I say correct) choice.
Right, but I'm not the person giving the negative judgement. I specifically recognize the possibility of "excusing" them (ie. not negatively judging them) in some cases, and ask whether they should be excused in some cases or all cases. After this long conversation it appears you believe in the latter. Is this correct?
I'm not accusing you of this, but in my experience, the people who preach "personal responsibility" often do not take the time to understand the issues preventing people from making good decisions, and so aren't even working on the right problem in many cases. And in saying that, please be aware that I do feel there is a place for personal responsibility and it's an important factor in anyone improving their situation. Just not the only factor needed.
And a lot of people literally do not know any better. They've never had someone teach them how to manage money and potentially had bad role models growing up. So its easy for you to say, with the knowledge it seems like you have, this is what you need to do. It's much harder to put into practice.
Especially when you consider there are many folks that do manage their money well, don't splurge on non-essentials, work multiple jobs and still cannot make ends meet.