The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: gillstone on September 17, 2015, 04:20:26 PM
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I'll just leave this here....
http://elitedaily.com/life/savings-20s-something-wrong/1214445/ (http://elitedaily.com/life/savings-20s-something-wrong/1214445/)
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LOL. Wow....
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Such valid points, it's gonna be a bummer treating myself to 50+ years of FIRE, I wont have anyone to hangout with as everyone else will be working, WHAT AM I DOING?!
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The comments in the article did a good job of calling the article bullshit.
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How horrifying. I'm 29 and I am apparently doing it completely wrong. LOL.
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The comments section is actually is actually giving me a warm fuzzy that there may be some collective intelligence out there on the internets.
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"When you're saving for yourself, you're refusing to bet on yourself."
This is the dumbest sentence I have ever read in my entire life. Isn't the point of saving money the very epitome of betting on yourself? Why is working 40+ years the norm, when a majority of people are technically able to just save hard (and still have great younger lives) and then stop working?
I just don't get it.
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Well shit... I'm 25 with 150k+ saved up... I'm screwed....
Sent from my klte using Tapatalk
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Apparently "doing it wrong" feels great, then! And I certainly don't envy all my peers who are "doing it right."
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Well shit... I'm 25 with 150k+ saved up... I'm screwed....
OMG! I so wish I was you right now.
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you know.... i'll just tell them to have at it, they dont want their money so i can bank it as corporate profit
sad part is they will try to ask for their student debt to be forgiven because they forgot to pay on it
why cant we have debtors prison? i know i said this in other thread, but i want to lock them up for spending money they dont have if they have loans to pay back first, after that, have at it
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LOL... Just saw this and was gonna post but ya beat me to it.
My fave:
"We’re taking our time growing up, refusing to be shackled by mortgages and diapers. We’re not trying to live with safety nets; we’re trying to live on the edge."
#nosafetynets #freetheshackles #taketimegrowingup #enjoylife#liveinthenow #futurewhatfuture #icantgetajob #crap #shouldveneverlistenedtomyownadvice #brokewillworkforfood
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More gold of the gold:
"When you live your life around your retirement fund, you may as well retire now. You can’t make a mark on the world if you’re too cheap to live in it.
Refusing to give yourself the luxury of enjoying your money negates the whole point of making it."
Just... flabbergasted... wow, where to even start.
I lost count of how many times stupid kicked me in the face as I was reading the article.
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Lauren Martin
Editor•
Lauren Martin is a Senior Lifestyle Writer at Elite Daily. After graduating from PSU, she moved to NYC to write fart jokes at Smosh Magazine. Making her way to ED, she now writes riveting commentary on nude pics, condoms and first dates.
She should have stuck to fart jokes.
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it isnt just that author... i read some more articles there, and many of them seem to be disgruntled never want to grow up millennials....
chinese has a better term for millennials, the strawberry generation... more fitting to me. i also like the term peter pan generation, they act "lost" and spend their 20-30s finding themselves to realize they are old and have nothing to show for it
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Well shit, I better blow through $87.5k soon then. And not save a penny for the next 6 years.
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Well shit... I'm 25 with 150k+ saved up... I'm screwed....
Well, you're young. Start spending! Buy an SUV! Save yourself!!!
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Lauren Martin
Editor•
Lauren Martin is a Senior Lifestyle Writer at Elite Daily. After graduating from PSU, she moved to NYC to write fart jokes at Smosh Magazine. Making her way to ED, she now writes riveting commentary on nude pics, condoms and first dates.
She should have stuck to fart jokes.
Well, erectile dysfunction (ED) can be profitable I suppose, if one's in the business of treating it.
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I've never seen anything decent on Elite Daily, but this is by far the worst. Maybe it makes the author more satisfied with her salary there?
Obviously, I'm setting my sights very low by having a well-paying and interesting job, friends, international travel, fun outings, hobbies, a house, a husband, and a baby on the way in my 20s. Why am I not paying for cabs and bottle service?! I'm wasting my youth!
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aybe it makes the author more satisfied with her salary there?
from the way the articles are written there, I didn't think they got a salary... nothing worth paying for is on there :S
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SHIT I've been wasting my life! Now that I've read this article I know what I need to do: liquidate everything and spend the shit out of my nest egg. Awesome!
See you guys in the comments section of an article about early retirement when I'm 60 and broke. I'll be the one telling you it's the government's fault I can't afford to retire. Don't you know that the cost of living is too damn high to make retirement contributions?!
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Help!!! What am I supposed to do in my 30s???
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Help!!! What am I supposed to do in my 30s???
SPEND IT ALL NOW before it's too late and you're addicted to - oh the horror - the ability to think long-term instead of just chasing the next shiny toy.
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Lauren Martin
Editor•
Lauren Martin is a Senior Lifestyle Writer at Elite Daily. After graduating from PSU, she moved to NYC to write fart jokes at Smosh Magazine. Making her way to ED, she now writes riveting commentary on nude pics, condoms and first dates.
She should have stuck to fart jokes.
This woman is an insult to fart joke writers everywhere...
and seems to me that SHE set her sights too high, thinking she could write actual articles. She should have been saving for herself instead of betting on herself :D
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"When you live your life around your retirement fund, you may as well retire now."
Well.. I guess that settles it then. I'll just retire now :D
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LOL... Just saw this and was gonna post but ya beat me to it.
My fave:
"We’re taking our time growing up, refusing to be shackled by mortgages and diapers. We’re not trying to live with safety nets; we’re trying to live on the edge."
#nosafetynets #freetheshackles #taketimegrowingup #enjoylife#liveinthenow #futurewhatfuture #icantgetajob #crap #shouldveneverlistenedtomyownadvice #brokewillworkforfood
Thank you for that
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I'm 29. I have a husband, a house, an unborn child and nearly 400k in net worth. Well crap.
(Not saying everyone needs to get married and have kids but this article is the worst).
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Well shit... I'm 25 with 150k+ saved up... I'm screwed....
Well, you're young. Start spending! Buy an SUV! Save yourself!!!
That's it. The Tesla is ordered!
Sent from my klte using Tapatalk
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Well, we can always hope she won't breed.
But we know she will, the dumb ones always do.
And we'll all end up paying for her kids and funding her lifestyle.
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Wow. Nice video. I like it
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The comments there do give me some hope though...
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Wow. Just wow. And for some reason I can't see any comments, so there's nothing that could balance this article.
Is there any chance it's a joke?
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Surely this article is a parody.
Now in my 30's, I'm sure glad I saved and have a beautiful home and family rather than riding in taxis to and from nightclubs for a decade
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It's times like these I wish I had some whiskey to put in my coffee... the facepunch hurts this early in the morning.
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Nice response to the article:
http://gawker.com/a-young-person-wrote-a-dumbass-article-with-bad-money-a-1731471536?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=thursdayPM
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My fave:
"We’re taking our time growing up, refusing to be shackled by mortgages and diapers. We’re not trying to live with safety nets; we’re trying to live on the edge."
That EDGE is what motivated me to get an education and a job and start saving money in the first place. I was (am) too scared to slip over that edge. I got a couple good long looks at what is over that edge and I didn't want to be one of those people. (broke and no future due to some unforeseen circumstance like a recession) ;)
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Well, we can always hope she won't breed.
But we know she will, the dumb ones always do.
And we'll all end up paying for her kids and funding her lifestyle.
Haha. Aint this the truth.
I like the idea of networking to increase salary. Obviously hasn't worked out for her so far.
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I actually agree with her that investing in amazing experiences is more fulfilling than just focusing on saving. Unfortunately, her "amazing experiences" seem to revolve around going shopping, eating expensive food and getting drunk (oops, I meant "networking"). What a boring life.
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Nice response to the article:
http://gawker.com/a-young-person-wrote-a-dumbass-article-with-bad-money-a-1731471536?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=thursdayPM
Hahaha! Love it! OP, you should totally post this retort to your friend's facebook comment!
ETA: Oops, it wasn't this thread's OP, but cai in the "Overheard on Facebook" thread who wrote:
Friend just posted this article on Facebook with the caption, "I'm doing it right!" http://elitedaily.com/life/savings-20s-something-wrong/1214445/ (http://elitedaily.com/life/savings-20s-something-wrong/1214445/)
I kept waiting for the punchline, but it never came.
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"$200 a month isn’t going to make the dent that a $60,000 pay raise will after spending all those nights out networking."
There is a big assumption here. A lot of people go into debt in college because they believe fully that they'll get a high paying job once they graduate so their debt is irrelevant.
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Nice response to the article:
http://gawker.com/a-young-person-wrote-a-dumbass-article-with-bad-money-a-1731471536?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=thursdayPM
Funny article, but it's also a good reminder of why reading the comments on online articles is a bad idea. There's so much whining.
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Wow. Just wow. And for some reason I can't see any comments, so there's nothing that could balance this article.
Is there any chance it's a joke?
It's very possible that the whole thing isn't actually her personal belief but something written purely for the purpose of clickbait trolling.
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It's very possible that the whole thing isn't actually her personal belief but something written purely for the purpose of clickbait trolling.
Must be the whole site then, because all the articles are just as vapid.
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My fave:
"We’re taking our time growing up, refusing to be shackled by mortgages and diapers. We’re not trying to live with safety nets; we’re trying to live on the edge."
That EDGE is what motivated me to get an education and a job and start saving money in the first place. I was (am) too scared to slip over that edge. I got a couple good long looks at what is over that edge and I didn't want to be one of those people. (broke and no future due to some unforeseen circumstance like a recession) ;)
#recessionisoverrated #liveontheedge #youmightdietomorrow
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Wow. Just wow. And for some reason I can't see any comments, so there's nothing that could balance this article.
Is there any chance it's a joke?
It's very possible that the whole thing isn't actually her personal belief but something written purely for the purpose of clickbait trolling.
True, maybe they got us... if she's that good, she should be writing for the Onion :P
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Wow. Just wow. And for some reason I can't see any comments, so there's nothing that could balance this article.
Is there any chance it's a joke?
It's very possible that the whole thing isn't actually her personal belief but something written purely for the purpose of clickbait trolling.
It's sometimes hard to tell the difference in a parody and someone's real beliefs if the parody is good enough. I'm sure she knew the topic was one that would get a lot of clicks, so it's click bait either way. Whether or not these are her real opinions is harder to tell.
It's also probable that in her current financial situation her advice makes sense. Maybe she makes so much money and is going to end up earning so much more money in the future that it's irrelevant how she deals with her finances as long as she doesn't take on a big debt. She's not saying it's fine to go into debt, just don't bother saving because you're going to make much more later. If you have low income now, but you know for sure that next year you'll get a $60k raise, then it would make sense to not bother saving now and just save some once you get the raise. The problem is you don't know these future earnings are coming for sure. There is a huge optimistic assumption about the future. If she ends up making lots of money later in life, then she'll look back and this and think she this was great advice because she didn't burden her younger, poorer self with worrying about saving money. However for most people it's not going to work out this way. It's really bad advice to give to the general population.
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Luckily we're not the only one that think it's bonkers....
http://jezebel.com/twenty-somethings-do-not-heed-garbage-advice-telling-y-1731484712?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
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Wow. Just wow. And for some reason I can't see any comments, so there's nothing that could balance this article.
Is there any chance it's a joke?
It's very possible that the whole thing isn't actually her personal belief but something written purely for the purpose of clickbait trolling.
It's sometimes hard to tell the difference in a parody and someone's real beliefs if the parody is good enough. I'm sure she knew the topic was one that would get a lot of clicks, so it's click bait either way. Whether or not these are her real opinions is harder to tell.
It's also probable that in her current financial situation her advice makes sense. Maybe she makes so much money and is going to end up earning so much more money in the future that it's irrelevant how she deals with her finances as long as she doesn't take on a big debt. She's not saying it's fine to go into debt, just don't bother saving because you're going to make much more later. If you have low income now, but you know for sure that next year you'll get a $60k raise, then it would make sense to not bother saving now and just save some once you get the raise. The problem is you don't know these future earnings are coming for sure. There is a huge optimistic assumption about the future. If she ends up making lots of money later in life, then she'll look back and this and think she this was great advice because she didn't burden her younger, poorer self with worrying about saving money. However for most people it's not going to work out this way. It's really bad advice to give to the general population.
Great assessment. Just because you're making tons of money now doesn't mean that will hold true in the future, and yet people live according to what they *think* or *feel* their income matches, unsurprisingly... this is how my in-laws are (well, were; they've gotten 'better' since we've been hounding them with reality in the past several years). They've owned a restaurant for several decades and it was really great years ago (before my wife was born). Not long after she was born, things started going downhill though. But throughout it all, they upheld this mentality that they should spend spend spend and enjoy life. That's what making money is for right? They're in their 70s now and are still laboring because of this mentality... they've thrown away so much money and racked up debt on cars, random credit card purchases they don't pay off in full, and of course mortgage payments for a home they took a loan out on in 2004, when they totally couldn't afford it. While this kind of spending mentality might have been OK and 'sustainable' when they were bringing home the bank and life was good, they are still living in some sort of fantasy world where they can continue living this way even when things aren't great and they're incurring more and more debt... I just don't get it. That said, it seems this mentality is much more pervasive with younger generations but I'd very much argue that there are some in the older generations that want to live in denial.
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My fave:
"We’re taking our time growing up, refusing to be shackled by mortgages and diapers. We’re not trying to live with safety nets; we’re trying to live on the edge."
#nosafetynets #freetheshackles #taketimegrowingup #enjoylife#liveinthenow #futurewhatfuture #icantgetajob #crap #shouldveneverlistenedtomyownadvice #brokewillworkforfood
the hashtags, OMG, I am cracking up!
the name of the site, Elite, already tells you you're dealing with assholes so narcissistic that that seemed like a great name.
it's my savings from 22 on that will keep me afloat since I became disabled. My life plan was investing, retiring at 62, then was told I could safely do so at 55, that was all unbelievably great because I was just a single mom nurse, not making big bucks. The work advisor and one from Vanguard both came to the same conclusion, retire at 55, my retired life was going to give me a payout more than what I was making. What, how did that happen? And all it was was diligently funding my 403B and Roth. Then illness struck. I want to try to live on SSDI if/when I get it. But according to the same advisors I can take out so much a month from now til I die and not touch the principle. I have to call them again and get the math because I called in a complete panic when I found out working til 55 would not happen. I had kind of heard of FIRE and this site when they said retire at 55. But it sounded way too good to be true to actually happen so I didn't really plan on it and how do you touch retirement money at 55 without serious penalties? In a way I retired at 45, it was forced and not my choice and I hate it and I'm petrified about money. But IRL it may turn out ok. And that's only because I started saving like crazy at 22.
So those 20 yr olds are Elite only in their lifestyle choice. They are not Elite amongst the Intelligentsia, or they would know to factor in if you wait to save until your 40s, you will be completely F'd should you fall seriously ill at 45. Never mind their 401k failures, the decades they left an employer match on the table. They better bank on good health and their high income careers to last a good long time. I want to smack them on the head in a motherly way (well, maybe slightly harder than motherly) and point out their idiocy but I suspect these are children who came from privilege and really do not need to worry about any of real life.
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I half wanted to post, "I'm in my 20s and I know for sure that my 40 year old self will thank me....as my 40 year old self will have long since retired due to choices I made in my 20s to save and invest my earnings."
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My fave:
"We’re taking our time growing up, refusing to be shackled by mortgages and diapers. We’re not trying to live with safety nets; we’re trying to live on the edge."
#nosafetynets #freetheshackles #taketimegrowingup #enjoylife#liveinthenow #futurewhatfuture #icantgetajob #crap #shouldveneverlistenedtomyownadvice #brokewillworkforfood
the hashtags, OMG, I am cracking up!
the name of the site, Elite, already tells you you're dealing with assholes so narcissistic that that seemed like a great name.
it's my savings from 22 on that will keep me afloat since I became disabled. My life plan was investing, retiring at 62, then was told I could safely do so at 55, that was all unbelievably great because I was just a single mom nurse, not making big bucks. The work advisor and one from Vanguard both came to the same conclusion, retire at 55, my retired life was going to give me a payout more than what I was making. What, how did that happen? And all it was was diligently funding my 403B and Roth. Then illness struck. I want to try to live on SSDI if/when I get it. But according to the same advisors I can take out so much a month from now til I die and not touch the principle. I have to call them again and get the math because I called in a complete panic when I found out working til 55 would not happen. I had kind of heard of FIRE and this site when they said retire at 55. But it sounded way too good to be true to actually happen so I didn't really plan on it and how do you touch retirement money at 55 without serious penalties? In a way I retired at 45, it was forced and not my choice and I hate it and I'm petrified about money. But IRL it may turn out ok. And that's only because I started saving like crazy at 22.
So those 20 yr olds are Elite only in their lifestyle choice. They are not Elite amongst the Intelligentsia, or they would know to factor in if you wait to save until your 40s, you will be completely F'd should you fall seriously ill at 45. Never mind their 401k failures, the decades they left an employer match on the table. They better bank on good health and their high income careers to last a good long time. I want to smack them on the head in a motherly way (well, maybe slightly harder than motherly) and point out their idiocy but I suspect these are children who came from privilege and really do not need to worry about any of real life.
These are the same "kids" who probably went to some notable college (or one that's probably recognized for *something*), and then feel all entitled that they deserve a job straight outta college that pays close to 6-figures. You know, because mommy and daddy sent them to such-and-such prep school and then such-and-such university/college. Or because my mommy and daddy are alumni and work at your company, can't you get me a job that's *not* in the mail room?
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"When you’re 40, you’re not going to look back on your 20s and be grateful for the few thousand you saved. You’re going to be full of regret."
Yep. My biggest regret is being debt-free before 40! Never mind the stash that will allow meto retire in my 40s. My 20something self was *such* a stupid idiot. I mean, I could have done stuff like dive the Great Barrier Reef or see sunrise from both the top of Mt Rainier and the bottom of the Grand Canyon....oh, wait. I did that!
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This is great advice (if this isn't a joke) if 1) you can maintain a high income 2) really love your work 3) can avoid getting sick or disabled and 4) don't get old.
It says she is a PSU graduate. I have a bunch of cousins who went there, hope she isn't one.
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I was pleasantly surprised to see the comments railing against her. I wonder if the newer generations are actually saving more than the past generations because of readily available information on finances...
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"Their need for us to have a safety net is just a giant metaphor for the difference between our parent’s generation and ours."
Yeah well I'm pretty sure things are MORE precarious these days if you don't have a safety net.
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#enjoylife#liveinthenow #futurewhatfuture #icantgetajob #crap #shouldveneverlistenedtomyownadvice #brokewillworkforfood
Lol!
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I want to smack them on the head in a motherly way (well, maybe slightly harder than motherly)
Me, too, and I'm not even a mother!
Maybe those attracted to this drivel are not priveleged (in a wanton spending way) but from parents of lesser means and/or spending. They might *think* going to clubs and taking taxis is for the elite, but the reality is most any schmuck can fund that or save up to do so once in a while. I always think of elite as something only the top x% of whatever can do, as in elite athletes.
Edited for spelling
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I've started seeing this piece get a thorough trashing in the press. As someone old enough to be the parent of a twenty-something who are trying to be edgy, I'm only bothered that they have a vote.
Theoretically, a test to prove you have a modicum of sense before you get to pull a lever in the polling booth is appealing. Sadly, there doesn't exist any qualified entity to administer such a test (Proof was my last visit to the DMV where my passport was declined as ID.) Here's hoping anyone who'd follow this ridiculous advice stays home on every election day.
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I've started seeing this piece get a thorough trashing in the press. As someone old enough to be the parent of a twenty-something who are trying to be edgy, I'm only bothered that they have a vote.
Theoretically, a test to prove you have a modicum of sense before you get to pull a lever in the polling booth is appealing. Sadly, there doesn't exist any qualified entity to administer such a test (Proof was my last visit to the DMV where my passport was declined as ID.) Here's hoping anyone who'd follow this ridiculous advice stays home on every election day.
We have a bad track record with poll tests in this country.
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I half wanted to post, "I'm in my 20s and I know for sure that my 40 year old self will thank me....as my 40 year old self will have long since retired due to choices I made in my 20s to save and invest my earnings."
Why didn't you? More people need to hear that.
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I've started seeing this piece get a thorough trashing in the press. As someone old enough to be the parent of a twenty-something who are trying to be edgy, I'm only bothered that they have a vote.
Theoretically, a test to prove you have a modicum of sense before you get to pull a lever in the polling booth is appealing. Sadly, there doesn't exist any qualified entity to administer such a test (Proof was my last visit to the DMV where my passport was declined as ID.) Here's hoping anyone who'd follow this ridiculous advice stays home on every election day.
We have a bad track record with poll tests in this country.
+1
"Literacy tests"
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I half wanted to post, "I'm in my 20s and I know for sure that my 40 year old self will thank me....as my 40 year old self will have long since retired due to choices I made in my 20s to save and invest my earnings."
Why didn't you? More people need to hear that.
I'm not a huge fan of posting on websites I'm not familiar with. This is the only website apart from MgoBlog (Michigan fan site) that I'll regularly post comments on, and that's due to these two sites having fairly reasonable members. Most other sites are full of homers, trolls, and nincompoops. But perhaps I should post on that site.
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I'm sure my son really regrets opening that Vanguard account and pouring most of his money into there when he gets paid. He'll never get ahead and I'm sure his 20's will be hell with big savings and a positive net worth that could allow him to retire before he is 30. (He's 18).
*note: the above may contain some sarcasm.
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I've started seeing this piece get a thorough trashing in the press. As someone old enough to be the parent of a twenty-something who are trying to be edgy, I'm only bothered that they have a vote.
Theoretically, a test to prove you have a modicum of sense before you get to pull a lever in the polling booth is appealing. Sadly, there doesn't exist any qualified entity to administer such a test (Proof was my last visit to the DMV where my passport was declined as ID.) Here's hoping anyone who'd follow this ridiculous advice stays home on every election day.
Would you be comfortable with people mlre sensible than you suppressing your right to vote?
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"When you’re 40, you’re not going to look back on your 20s and be grateful for the few thousand you saved. You’re going to be full of regret."
In my experience it's usually the other way around. "I wish I'd saved more in my 20s" is something I've heard. I don't know anyone who saved regrets it.
Anyway, on the cusp of my 40s, I can honestly say that I don't regret it. I didn't even have to save much, probably maxed out at 20% of net with most years around 10%. On my FI spreadsheet, it's the rate of return on the money that I saved in my 20s that impacts my time to FI the most.
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"When you’re 40, you’re not going to look back on your 20s and be grateful for the few thousand you saved. You’re going to be full of regret."
In my experience it's usually the other way around. "I wish I'd saved more in my 20s" is something I've heard. I don't know anyone who saved regrets it.
Really, I would be surprised if the number of 40-somethings the author spoke with about this topic was anything above zero.
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I wish I had thought to save in my 20s. I was counseled to do so by my late grandfathers and my mother.
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Maybe "retirement" means to some people that you start out the day with three hours of morning TV - like watching game shows, and then you wander around town filling prescriptions and chasing coupons/sales with the gray haired brigade. That certainly sounds like a portion of my grandparents' retirement.
To me retirement would be like perpetual Saturdays - reading, tinkering in the garage, going for an occasional drive around the state, getting the chores done without running out of free time to relax, volunteering/tutoring, pursuing side gigs, etc.
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I've started seeing this piece get a thorough trashing in the press. As someone old enough to be the parent of a twenty-something who are trying to be edgy, I'm only bothered that they have a vote.
Theoretically, a test to prove you have a modicum of sense before you get to pull a lever in the polling booth is appealing. Sadly, there doesn't exist any qualified entity to administer such a test (Proof was my last visit to the DMV where my passport was declined as ID.) Here's hoping anyone who'd follow this ridiculous advice stays home on every election day.
Would you be comfortable with people mlre sensible than you suppressing your right to vote?
Yes. This is basically what the house and senate do. They get to vote on issues that I'm sure we would all love to vote on. Our votes are suppressed by more sensible folk.
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I've started seeing this piece get a thorough trashing in the press. As someone old enough to be the parent of a twenty-something who are trying to be edgy, I'm only bothered that they have a vote.
Theoretically, a test to prove you have a modicum of sense before you get to pull a lever in the polling booth is appealing. Sadly, there doesn't exist any qualified entity to administer such a test (Proof was my last visit to the DMV where my passport was declined as ID.) Here's hoping anyone who'd follow this ridiculous advice stays home on every election day.
Would you be comfortable with people mlre sensible than you suppressing your right to vote?
I get what you're saying, but democracy isn't a magical good-things-happen button. Egypt elected the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestine elected Hamas, and the third-largest vote-getter in the Greek election last week was their Nazi party, which won 7% of the vote.
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I've started seeing this piece get a thorough trashing in the press. As someone old enough to be the parent of a twenty-something who are trying to be edgy, I'm only bothered that they have a vote.
Theoretically, a test to prove you have a modicum of sense before you get to pull a lever in the polling booth is appealing. Sadly, there doesn't exist any qualified entity to administer such a test (Proof was my last visit to the DMV where my passport was declined as ID.) Here's hoping anyone who'd follow this ridiculous advice stays home on every election day.
Would you be comfortable with people mlre sensible than you suppressing your right to vote?
I'm already a member of a group whose vote was denied.
I did say "theoretically" and I'm well versed in the history of discrimination, literacy tests, and voting rights atrocities.
She is either completely dense or a con artist. It's not unreasonable to be bothered that someone so stupid or wicked has an equal say in matters of civic importance. The fix for stupid is to improve education. Robust education of everyone else is also what is needed to drive con artists out of business.
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The fix for stupid is to improve education. Robust education of everyone else is also what is needed to drive con artists out of business.
This works, but only up to a point. There comes a point where too much intelligence and education starts working against you.
One of the most intelligent people I ever knew, who had an off-the-charts IQ, was extremely well informed on a number of subjects, was widely considered to be an expert in his technical field. He also managed to get conned out of several thousand dollars by some local mobsters.
This guy (I'll call him S) was a partner in a dot-com startup back in the late 90's. I dated him briefly and was also doing some consulting for the start-up, in order to get their business model and sales plan set up. They had a good idea for a technical product, or more precisely a service, but they needed a scalable way to sell and distribute accounts. As the business got up and running, it became evident they needed a lot more as well, but this was back in their early days before their major business failure.
Anyway, S was approached by some acquaintances who happened to be of the organized crime persuasion, who had heard that three used servers from a bank were available for purchase. They thought there was a chance there could be criminally useful information still left on them, and that the data may not have been wiped, but they couldn't afford to be noticed buying the servers. So, they wanted to do it through S, who would receive the price of two servers in advance. He could, if he wished, buy the third for himself. (He decided to do this, because he needed a server of this type and it was available at less than a third of what it would ordinarily cost). The money he was advanced was in cash, all real bills. All he had to do was buy the servers and have them shipped to the appropriate location. Two servers would go to the mobsters; the one that had never processed sensitive information would go to S.
"So basically, I'm getting a great deal on a server, and a small commission besides." Said S when he called me to brag about the easy money he was making wheeling and dealing. He was in a pretty good mood. The dot-com startup was in its early stages (as in, they hadn't mismanaged it into the ground yet, but that's another story), and everything seemed bright, shiny, and full of opportunity.
I tried to talk S out of doing the deal. "Doing business with mobsters is bad news, unless you're one of them. You're not. They might take care of their own, but it's like in poker. If you can't tell who the mark is, it means you're the mark."
"These guys just aren't very bright."
"They don't have to be. I call this my Law of Divided Attention: no matter how intelligent you are, if your attention is divided, you can and will be outwitted by dumber people who are putting their full effort and attention into getting around you."
"You still don't understand. They think they're going to steal social security numbers. I've told them the servers have probably been wiped, but they don't believe me. They're screwing themselves, I tell you. They don't know very much about computers."
"Have you told them they're barking up the wrong tree?"
"They won't listen."
"How many different ways have you tried?"
"It's not my job to educate them. If they want to pay money for information that isn't there, that's their decision. That's how it works in the big leagues. You'll understand once you have a bit of business experience in the real world."
"I have more than ten years of business experience in the real world. Roughly the same as you, but I started at a much earlier age. One of the things I've learned is that you don't do business with scam artists, unless you want to be scammed, or unless you want to become like them. Another thing I've learned is that if you see someone setting themselves up for a fall, you don't help them to do it."
"You just don't understand how things are done in America."
Nothing I could tell S would keep him from following through. He did the deal, bought the servers, and called the shipping company, which boxed up the servers and carried them away. Everything was done openly and above-board. All he had to pay for was the insurance and shipping charges.
It's a good thing the servers were insured for their full replacement value, which was substantially higher than what they'd paid for them. All three mysteriously fell off the back of the truck they were on, and were destroyed. Well, I say it was good for the mobsters, who cashed in the insurance policy and collected the insured value of all three servers. It wasn't so good for S, who was out every cent he'd paid for the server he didn't get, and who'd spent most of his "commission" paying for the shipping and insurance. Basically, they'd used him to front a small amount of money for their insurance fraud scheme.
From the mobsters' point of view, it was never about the computers or the data they supposedly thought they could harvest. The product could just as easily have been antique furniture or a huge vat of maple syrup. All they needed to do was to find a mark who knew enough about the product to fixate on the product instead of watching where the money was going, or thinking about contingencies or insurance fraud setups. It was classic misdirection and I'm not sure that more education for S would have helped him avoid being hustled.
For what it's worth, S's dot-com business he ran with his partners never amounted to much. Due to his poor decision making, it did eventually fail despite his extremely high IQ, his advanced education and technical skills, and his vast knowledge of how things are apparently done in America.
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The fix for stupid is to improve education. Robust education of everyone else is also what is needed to drive con artists out of business.
This works, but only up to a point. There comes a point where too much intelligence and education starts working against you.
One of the most intelligent people I ever knew, who had an off-the-charts IQ, was extremely well informed on a number of subjects, was widely considered to be an expert in his technical field. He also managed to get conned out of several thousand dollars by some local mobsters.
This guy (I'll call him S) was a partner in a dot-com startup back in the late 90's. I dated him briefly and was also doing some consulting for the start-up, in order to get their business model and sales plan set up. They had a good idea for a technical product, or more precisely a service, but they needed a scalable way to sell and distribute accounts. As the business got up and running, it became evident they needed a lot more as well, but this was back in their early days before their major business failure.
Anyway, S was approached by some acquaintances who happened to be of the organized crime persuasion, who had heard that three used servers from a bank were available for purchase. They thought there was a chance there could be criminally useful information still left on them, and that the data may not have been wiped, but they couldn't afford to be noticed buying the servers. So, they wanted to do it through S, who would receive the price of two servers in advance. He could, if he wished, buy the third for himself. (He decided to do this, because he needed a server of this type and it was available at less than a third of what it would ordinarily cost). The money he was advanced was in cash, all real bills. All he had to do was buy the servers and have them shipped to the appropriate location. Two servers would go to the mobsters; the one that had never processed sensitive information would go to S.
"So basically, I'm getting a great deal on a server, and a small commission besides." Said S when he called me to brag about the easy money he was making wheeling and dealing. He was in a pretty good mood. The dot-com startup was in its early stages (as in, they hadn't mismanaged it into the ground yet, but that's another story), and everything seemed bright, shiny, and full of opportunity.
I tried to talk S out of doing the deal. "Doing business with mobsters is bad news, unless you're one of them. You're not. They might take care of their own, but it's like in poker. If you can't tell who the mark is, it means you're the mark."
"These guys just aren't very bright."
"They don't have to be. I call this my Law of Divided Attention: no matter how intelligent you are, if your attention is divided, you can and will be outwitted by dumber people who are putting their full effort and attention into getting around you."
"You still don't understand. They think they're going to steal social security numbers. I've told them the servers have probably been wiped, but they don't believe me. They're screwing themselves, I tell you. They don't know very much about computers."
"Have you told them they're barking up the wrong tree?"
"They won't listen."
"How many different ways have you tried?"
"It's not my job to educate them. If they want to pay money for information that isn't there, that's their decision. That's how it works in the big leagues. You'll understand once you have a bit of business experience in the real world."
"I have more than ten years of business experience in the real world. Roughly the same as you, but I started at a much earlier age. One of the things I've learned is that you don't do business with scam artists, unless you want to be scammed, or unless you want to become like them. Another thing I've learned is that if you see someone setting themselves up for a fall, you don't help them to do it."
"You just don't understand how things are done in America."
Nothing I could tell S would keep him from following through. He did the deal, bought the servers, and called the shipping company, which boxed up the servers and carried them away. Everything was done openly and above-board. All he had to pay for was the insurance and shipping charges.
It's a good thing the servers were insured for their full replacement value, which was substantially higher than what they'd paid for them. All three mysteriously fell off the back of the truck they were on, and were destroyed. Well, I say it was good for the mobsters, who cashed in the insurance policy and collected the insured value of all three servers. It wasn't so good for S, who was out every cent he'd paid for the server he didn't get, and who'd spent most of his "commission" paying for the shipping and insurance. Basically, they'd used him to front a small amount of money for their insurance fraud scheme.
From the mobsters' point of view, it was never about the computers or the data they supposedly thought they could harvest. The product could just as easily have been antique furniture or a huge vat of maple syrup. All they needed to do was to find a mark who knew enough about the product to fixate on the product instead of watching where the money was going, or thinking about contingencies or insurance fraud setups. It was classic misdirection and I'm not sure that more education for S would have helped him avoid being hustled.
For what it's worth, S's dot-com business he ran with his partners never amounted to much. Due to his poor decision making, it did eventually fail despite his extremely high IQ, his advanced education and technical skills, and his vast knowledge of how things are apparently done in America.
I love your writing style, please let me know if you ever decide to write a book. Any idea what happened to the guy now?
Yeah, I am wary of deals that look too good to be true. My company has been bilked out of product before, and I try to take it as a learning lesson and avoid sales in which my spidey-sense tingles.
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The fix for stupid is to improve education. Robust education of everyone else is also what is needed to drive con artists out of business.
This works, but only up to a point. There comes a point where too much intelligence and education starts working against you.
That doesn't seem like a case of too much intelligence working against him so much as too much confidence working against him. And a lack of understanding of how other people think. Don't ever do business with people who make most of their money illegally. They are playing by totally different rules than everyone else. You could end up going to jail for some crime they committed. If they get you slightly involved in some scam, then get arrested, they will say it was all your idea. I know someone who was the only one who had to go to jail when his involvement in the crime was very minor. Apparently you get a better deal if you rat someone else out. So it's good to involve other people so you have more names to name if things go bad.
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Somewhat contrarian to the rest of this thread. When I read this I had basically the same reaction as the other posters in this thread - but then I reflected a bit on it to see if I could see it differently.
While the overall premise of the article was nonsensical it still offers some tidbits of hidden wisdom (by accident of course). Such as:
- Worrying entirely about your bank account/savings at the expense of enjoying yourself. I don't subscribe to YOLO but it is not healty to work/save and do nothing else that enriches your life for the sole pursuit of FIRE.
- Spending money to make money, sometimes this is a necessary evil - you need to be seen to be known (we aren't all programmers working in isolation and commanding high pay without talking to anyone). Happy hours, lunches and sporting events have been necessary to do the job, meet people that otherwise have the opportunity to do so, get interviews, etc. I have witnessed many people be unwilling to make this investment with the false belief that they will be rewarded solely on the merits of their effort - world doesn't work this way. If you do need to do this though, make it count, don't use it as an excuse to break from being frugal and be sure to accomplish what you wanted to.
- having nothing to lose you really do have everything to gain - nothing but upside and it allows you to take risks, many people I know with money (either a lot or a little) would be unwilling to risk losing it to take advantage of some opportunity. Sure they may be willing to FIRE with it on the low risk premise of a 3-4% SWR but would they start a business that required a meaningful capital outlay or jump on a plane to somewhere for something that will give them a highly rewarding experience of some kind but will massively dent the fund and require work again - most people won't make these choices simply because they have something to lose. This is why most business are start by young people, people who got laid off/fired, or have basically retired and have signifgant means that the investment isn't that impactful.
Balance is important - unfortunately the article really didn't impart any balance.
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I love your writing style, please let me know if you ever decide to write a book. Any idea what happened to the guy now?
Yeah, I am wary of deals that look too good to be true. My company has been bilked out of product before, and I try to take it as a learning lesson and avoid sales in which my spidey-sense tingles.
Thanks. I'm putting together a guide to the fundamentals of small non-profit management (non-fiction) and also a fiction book for adults, replete with sex and violence. But since I'm also in the middle of an adoption I don't have a lot of time to write. It'll probably be a while before I publish any of it.
As to S, he ended the relationship with me, which had become increasingly awkward as I kept calling him on his increasingly stupid financial and business decisions. He simply wouldn't stop doubling down on bad bets, or keeping company with losers and crooks. I made him uncomfortable about his business and financial decisions, so he ghosted. Shortly later, the dot-com ran out of money without producing viable product, due to gross mismanagement, and there was at least one major lawsuit against S in a personal capacity because of what he did to keep servers going at another company in the same building that was involved with some legal but shady business practices.
A month or two after news of the lawsuit broke, S basically disappeared. There's no longer a single reference to him online. I rather doubt that it's because he went to work for the CIA or entered the Witness Protection Program. There was never a public missing persons report or any effort to find S through the press, and I never found any kind of death notice although plenty of people claimed to be looking for him. So he's most likely among the 75% of people who are missing or disappeared because they want to be.
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I love your writing style, please let me know if you ever decide to write a book. Any idea what happened to the guy now?
Yeah, I am wary of deals that look too good to be true. My company has been bilked out of product before, and I try to take it as a learning lesson and avoid sales in which my spidey-sense tingles.
Thanks. I'm putting together a guide to the fundamentals of small non-profit management (non-fiction) and also a fiction book for adults, replete with sex and violence. But since I'm also in the middle of an adoption I don't have a lot of time to write. It'll probably be a while before I publish any of it.
As to S, he ended the relationship with me, which had become increasingly awkward as I kept calling him on his increasingly stupid financial and business decisions. He simply wouldn't stop doubling down on bad bets, or keeping company with losers and crooks. I made him uncomfortable about his business and financial decisions, so he ghosted. Shortly later, the dot-com ran out of money without producing viable product, due to gross mismanagement, and there was at least one major lawsuit against S in a personal capacity because of what he did to keep servers going at another company in the same building that was involved with some legal but shady business practices.
A month or two after news of the lawsuit broke, S basically disappeared. There's no longer a single reference to him online. I rather doubt that it's because he went to work for the CIA or entered the Witness Protection Program. There was never a public missing persons report or any effort to find S through the press, and I never found any kind of death notice although plenty of people claimed to be looking for him. So he's most likely among the 75% of people who are missing or disappeared because they want to be.
Yikes.
One of the smartest guys I know is running a non-profit near me. I really like him, but I question some of his business sense. He does have an MBA, but some of his concepts just don't make sense to me. I should add that he likely questions my business sense, and while I don't know his financial situation (his non-profit just launched a few months ago), I can say that my business is solvent, has had a positive cash flow for the past two years, and we have significant cash reserves should any lean times come in. I realize that not all people run their businesses the same...my style isn't the most pleasant as I have cut our overhead to the bone, which is a large reason of why we are profitable.
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That doesn't seem like a case of too much intelligence working against him so much as too much confidence working against him.
The confidence came from decades of being told how bright he was, and how superior he was, and how he didn't have to do what the other students had to do in order to acquire new skills, and how he therefore shouldn't have to do what the peons did in order to make money. Given that he taught himself a bunch of great nerd-wizard skills, his sense of entitlement did have a basis in fact.
S was a big fan of the whole nerd-guru-sets-his-own-rules culture that prevailed in tech during that era. He never saw the need to show up to work on time (while employed by others), nor did he keep regular hours around his own office. But he didn't stop at demanding freedom for himself: he displayed an astounding lack of consideration for other people, who I think he genuinely did believe were beneath him. For example, he had no problem calling me at 11 PM every night, despite the fact I was an hour ahead, it was midnight in my time zone, and he knew my alarm clock went off at 5 AM because I needed to be at school by 6 to prep for a 7 AM class where I frequently had a test or exam. He could sleep until noon if he liked, and he often did after working into the wee hours of the morning, so he failed to see why he should respect my need for sleep during that time. He also couldn't understand why I wanted to get good grades or understand the material. To his way of thinking, he was getting by without engineering school, having dropped out in his first year, so he failed to see why I should want or need to succeed at it.
Add to the fact that, although he professed to be agnostic at the start of our relationship, he was actually a devotee of a form of religion wherein men reign supreme, and are kowtowed to and obeyed unquestioningly no matter how bad their decisions are. Later in our relationship he took every possible opportunity to lecture me about how his holy book said I should behave, while conveniently ignoring what the same holy book said about a man's duty to provide, or about honesty, frugality, not stealing or lying, and not being an asshole. Between that and a diet/exercise plan that really put the "hippo" in "hypocrite", you could say the thrill was gone.
S also failed to learn that there were laws, rules, and social mores within which he *did* need to operate. Failing to file tax returns, or to pay money toward his employees' employment tax? That's a classic case of slapping the wrong bear.
And a lack of understanding of how other people think. Don't ever do business with people who make most of their money illegally. They are playing by totally different rules than everyone else.
There's illegal, as in off the books... which is bad enough... and there's illegal, as in predatory. So far as I know S was never actually predatory, but looking back it seems to me that he kind of liked to hang out with people who were. He valued their opinions, and wished to impress them.
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This sounds like a really narcissistic person.
Some people end up making their decisions from circular reasoning based on their perception of their own intelligence rather than actually thinking things through properly. They set themselves up to fail without ever being able to see it. "I am intelligent and logical, therefore my decisions are intelligent and logical decisions. My decisions are all intelligent and logical because I'm the one making them and I'm intelligent and logical."
It is good that you are not with him anymore. He most likely left you because he suspected you might be smarter than him and the whole idea of that threatened his ego too much. Especially if he was sexist on top of it all.
Add to the fact that, although he professed to be agnostic at the start of our relationship, he was actually a devotee of a form of religion wherein men reign supreme, and are kowtowed to and obeyed unquestioningly no matter how bad their decisions are. Later in our relationship he took every possible opportunity to lecture me about how his holy book said I should behave, while conveniently ignoring what the same holy book said about a man's duty to provide, or about honesty, frugality, not stealing or lying, and not being an asshole. Between that and a diet/exercise plan that really put the "hippo" in "hypocrite", you could say the thrill was gone.
What religion did he follow?
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A month or two after news of the lawsuit broke, S basically disappeared. There's no longer a single reference to him online. I rather doubt that it's because he went to work for the CIA or entered the Witness Protection Program. There was never a public missing persons report or any effort to find S through the press, and I never found any kind of death notice although plenty of people claimed to be looking for him. So he's most likely among the 75% of people who are missing or disappeared because they want to be.
Ah the makings of a good book:) How is it even possible to wipe out online references/information?
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Ah the makings of a good book:) How is it even possible to wipe out online references/information?
I wish I knew; I'd buy advertising on Ashley Madison's Web site and make a fortune selling my services. I can find addresses and do that sort of public domain lookup, but very little even using whois and the old IP address.
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Ah the makings of a good book:) How is it even possible to wipe out online references/information?
I wish I knew; I'd buy advertising on Ashley Madison's Web site and make a fortune selling my services. I can find addresses and do that sort of public domain lookup, but very little even using whois and the old IP address.
I hadn't heard of it so I googled it - it is an extramarital romance and sex site. LOL - yup, that would be a money maker:)
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[/quote]
We have a bad track record with poll tests in this country.
[/quote]
+1
"Literacy tests"
[/quote]
not fair to poor adults who cannot read d/t crappy schooling, are citizens with ESL, whatev, they should still get to vote. Even the idiot in this article, who will vote opposite of me if she doesn't have better plans for the day
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We have a bad track record with poll tests in this country.
+1
"Literacy tests"
not fair to poor adults who cannot read d/t crappy schooling, are citizens with ESL, whatev, they should still get to vote. Even the idiot in this article, who will vote opposite of me if she doesn't have better plans for the day
True all that, but the referenced versions were worse - they were skin color tests.
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We have a bad track record with poll tests in this country.
+1
"Literacy tests"
not fair to poor adults who cannot read d/t crappy schooling, are citizens with ESL, whatev, they should still get to vote. Even the idiot in this article, who will vote opposite of me if she doesn't have better plans for the day
True all that, but the referenced versions were worse - they were skin color tests.
That's where the term "grandfather clause" came in. It wasn't like many of the southerns would pass at significantly higher rates, so they made is so that you could be "grandfathered" into voting...if you're grandfather voted, then you were allowed to do so. As blacks were slaves, their ancestors of course didn't vote, and so thus a literacy or poll tax would exclude them. Though I imagine if supporters of such past measures were alive today, I'm fairly certain that they would argue, "This absolutely isn't a discriminatory measure, it's simply to ensure that the will of the people is heard and that we are worried about election fraud and to ensure that all voters are properly qualified," and such nonsense to hide the fact that they simply want to make it harder for certain people to vote.
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Literacy tests were de facto skin color tests. Whites would either not be tested or would receive a test that anyone with a 1st grade education could pass. Blacks would receive much more difficult tests and the standards to pass them were impossible since the whole point was making sure no blacks voted ever.
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Literacy tests were de facto skin color tests. Whites would either not be tested or would receive a test that anyone with a 1st grade education could pass. Blacks would receive much more difficult tests and the standards to pass them were impossible since the whole point was making sure no blacks voted ever.
Sometimes, the literacy tests given to blacks weren't even in English.
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...and the third-largest vote-getter in the Greek election last week was their Nazi party, which won 7% of the vote.
So perhaps some folks in Europe have forgotten the misery of WWII?
I get it though - Europe has the same variety of people as we do here. A few are political extremists and some are so poor that they think anything would be better than the economy/society that we have and they can't participate in...
Good grief I'd like to think we're collectively smarter than we were in 1940, 1917, 1861 and so on. Maybe humanity is doomed to repeat its mistakes every few generations.
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That doesn't seem like a case of too much intelligence working against him so much as too much confidence working against him. And a lack of understanding of how other people think. Don't ever do business with people who make most of their money illegally. They are playing by totally different rules than everyone else. You could end up going to jail for some crime they committed. If they get you slightly involved in some scam, then get arrested, they will say it was all your idea. I know someone who was the only one who had to go to jail when his involvement in the crime was very minor. Apparently you get a better deal if you rat someone else out. So it's good to involve other people so you have more names to name if things go bad.
Did the servers fall off of the back of the truck or did they disappear and something else worth far less (but look similar) fall off of the back of the truck? Or perhaps they pulled the hard drives first? Always more value to be had in those deals for the creative criminal. (I'm a history fan. Have read some interesting books about scammers over the years).
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...and the third-largest vote-getter in the Greek election last week was their Nazi party, which won 7% of the vote.
So perhaps some folks in Europe have forgotten the misery of WWII?
I get it though - Europe has the same variety of people as we do here. A few are political extremists and some are so poor that they think anything would be better than the economy/society that we have and they can't participate in...
Good grief I'd like to think we're collectively smarter than we were in 1940, 1917, 1861 and so on. Maybe humanity is doomed to repeat its mistakes every few generations.
Those who don't learn from history...
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I hadn't heard of it so I googled it - it is an extramarital romance and sex site. LOL - yup, that would be a money maker:)
You ought to give the Ashley Madison reference about 30 mins of your time on Google News. Entertaining of late. Lots of "honorable" men found to be cheating on their spouses using their own names. Sort of like the Bill Cosby and VW debacles. how does one lie and deal with the public and not expect to be called out on it sooner or later????
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Literacy tests were de facto skin color tests. Whites would either not be tested or would receive a test that anyone with a 1st grade education could pass. Blacks would receive much more difficult tests and the standards to pass them were impossible since the whole point was making sure no blacks voted ever.
Sometimes, the literacy tests given to blacks weren't even in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YRUUFYeOPI
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I hadn't heard of it so I googled it - it is an extramarital romance and sex site. LOL - yup, that would be a money maker:)
You ought to give the Ashley Madison reference about 30 mins of your time on Google News. Entertaining of late. Lots of "honorable" men found to be cheating on their spouses using their own names. Sort of like the Bill Cosby and VW debacles. how does one lie and deal with the public and not expect to be called out on it sooner or later????
It's also not necessarily accurate, because I could sign up with your name and email address.
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Did the servers fall off of the back of the truck or did they disappear and something else worth far less (but look similar) fall off of the back of the truck? Or perhaps they pulled the hard drives first? Always more value to be had in those deals for the creative criminal. (I'm a history fan. Have read some interesting books about scammers over the years).
The way he explained it to me was that the shipping company told him the servers were damaged in transit, and fell off the back of a truck. The mobsters did not give him any hard drives to attempt to read, and filed a claim for the entire value of all the servers.
It appeared to me that the data that "might" have been on the hard drives was a red herring to make an overconfident "super-genius" comfortable enough to put up some of his money and take risks he wouldn't otherwise have taken.
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I think they removed the comments because it made her look bad haha.
About the author:
Lauren Martin is a Senior Lifestyle Writer at Elite Daily. After graduating from PSU, she moved to NYC to write fart jokes at Smosh Magazine. Making her way to ED, she now writes riveting commentary on nude pics, condoms and first dates.
She should of saved some of that fart joke money because she won't be getting a $60,000 pay raise any time soon lol
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Did the servers fall off of the back of the truck or did they disappear and something else worth far less (but look similar) fall off of the back of the truck? Or perhaps they pulled the hard drives first? Always more value to be had in those deals for the creative criminal. (I'm a history fan. Have read some interesting books about scammers over the years).
The way he explained it to me was that the shipping company told him the servers were damaged in transit, and fell off the back of a truck. The mobsters did not give him any hard drives to attempt to read, and filed a claim for the entire value of all the servers.
It appeared to me that the data that "might" have been on the hard drives was a red herring to make an overconfident "super-genius" comfortable enough to put up some of his money and take risks he wouldn't otherwise have taken.
My company ships a lot and we usually don't get all that much for missing or damaged inventory. I think a few of our carriers limit claims to $3 per pound, which is nowhere near full value. Also, if you have a few "damage" claims that do get fully paid, truck companies get a little wary. This seems odd, but who knows, mine is a tiny company. If deceit is their profession, I'm certain they know methods that would be unknown to me.
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Did the servers fall off of the back of the truck or did they disappear and something else worth far less (but look similar) fall off of the back of the truck? Or perhaps they pulled the hard drives first? Always more value to be had in those deals for the creative criminal. (I'm a history fan. Have read some interesting books about scammers over the years).
The way he explained it to me was that the shipping company told him the servers were damaged in transit, and fell off the back of a truck. The mobsters did not give him any hard drives to attempt to read, and filed a claim for the entire value of all the servers.
It appeared to me that the data that "might" have been on the hard drives was a red herring to make an overconfident "super-genius" comfortable enough to put up some of his money and take risks he wouldn't otherwise have taken.
My company ships a lot and we usually don't get all that much for missing or damaged inventory. I think a few of our carriers limit claims to $3 per pound, which is nowhere near full value. Also, if you have a few "damage" claims that do get fully paid, truck companies get a little wary. This seems odd, but who knows, mine is a tiny company. If deceit is their profession, I'm certain they know methods that would be unknown to me.
The angle was that the mobsters had enough influence with the shipping company to make sure the servers got destroyed, so that the third-party insurance would pay out. You're right about the way insurance companies approach customers with multiple claims. That's why the mobsters needed S's name on the insurance application instead of their own. They did take the payout though.
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An Fyi to those who might not be signed up for automatic updates - MMM himself has just written a blog post in response to this article. Check it out.
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An Fyi to those who might not be signed up for automatic updates - MMM himself has just written a blog post in response to this article. Check it out.
And it's proof that MMM does read this forum.
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An Fyi to those who might not be signed up for automatic updates - MMM himself has just written a blog post in response to this article. Check it out.
And it's proof that MMM does read this forum.
a) no its not. if you actually read the article he mentions seeing it on Facebook and being alerted to it.
b) why the hell would you care if he reads the forum? Would it make a difference to you? I mean really make a difference to you?
seems an odd comment to make.
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MMM went way too easy on this worthless clickbait article in his post. I thought the name Lauren Martin was familiar, and sure enough a few months ago she astonished the internet with the equally tragic/hilarious "50 things about millennials that make corporate America sh#t itself", which was possibly the the most concentrated dose of millennial narcissism/solipsism/cluelessness on the entire web (no small achievement). Nice to see that she has now brought the intellectual rigor of a hack listicle writer to personal finance and frugality.
The funniest thing about the article is that it's a transparent rationalization for the author's own lifestyle mistakes (a sort of corollary to Steve Sailer's Law of Female Journalism). I guarantee Lauren is poorly paid and easily replaceable. By her own admission she's broke, and she's probably also deep in debt. She's vaguely aware that these are problems but can't allow herself to introspect about the poor choices that created them, because that would cost her psychic pain even as it led to personal growth. Instead she wrote this article to encourage people to pat her on the head on social media, which gives her a momentary dopamine boost even as she sinks deeper into the swamp. I shudder to think what her life will be like when she's 45, or even 35.
As for the actual content of what she wrote, the most anti-mustachian thing about it has got to be the striverishness. It's the same old blind worship of the Sex & The City NYC ultra-consumption lifestyle. Trendy bars, taxicabs, exotic foreign travel, etc. etc. We've heard it all before and it is BORING. I would also gladly kill myself rather than listen to another Millennial "entrepreneur" pimping his burgeoning online media empire (i.e. glorified blog) or worthless iPhone app, cranking the Tim Ferriss used-car salesman sleaze up to 11. I have infinitely more respect for a 20-something woman who quits her job to start a family (like the MMM clan did) than one who pisses her prime years away polluting the internet with sub-Buzzfeed level prose.
Mustachianism isn't really about superficial life changes like cutting out your morning latte or getting a cheaper phone plan. It's about thinking carefully about your values so that you direct your time, effort, and money towards what is truly worthwhile rather than just doing what the media/your parents/your friends want you to do. It's also frequently about having the courage and confidence to stand in opposition to the prevailing culture, which happens to be a Clown Culture of selfishness, conspicuous hyper-consumption, and debt slavery. And it's also about humility, and rejecting the idea that we are somehow too fancypants for a materially modest lifestyle of living in a normal house in a non-elite city, wearing normal clothes, cooking our own food, etc. For the Lauren Martins of the world this last step is by far the hardest, but once over that hurdle a huge new vista of useful and joyful activity opens up, and it finally becomes possible to see what shameful empty strivers these absurd NYC tranplants are.
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An Fyi to those who might not be signed up for automatic updates - MMM himself has just written a blog post in response to this article. Check it out.
And it's proof that MMM does read this forum.
a) no its not. if you actually read the article he mentions seeing it on Facebook and being alerted to it.
b) why the hell would you care if he reads the forum? Would it make a difference to you? I mean really make a difference to you?
seems an odd comment to make.
a) I missed that reference.
b) It doesn't really. Are you always so hostile to people you don't know? Your choice of username implies the answer is yes.
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The funniest thing about the article is that it's a transparent rationalization for the author's own lifestyle mistakes (a sort of corollary to Steve Sailer's Law of Female Journalism). I guarantee Lauren is poorly paid and easily replaceable. By her own admission she's broke, and she's probably also deep in debt. She's vaguely aware that these are problems but can't allow herself to introspect about the poor choices that created them, because that would cost her psychic pain even as it led to personal growth. Instead she wrote this article to encourage people to pat her on the head on social media, which gives her a momentary dopamine boost even as she sinks deeper into the swamp. I shudder to think what her life will be like when she's 45, or even 35.
Or maybe she wanted a lot of clicks, and knew how to get them. Her article got a lot of attention, so her job is done.
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The funniest thing about the article is that it's a transparent rationalization for the author's own lifestyle mistakes (a sort of corollary to Steve Sailer's Law of Female Journalism). I guarantee Lauren is poorly paid and easily replaceable. By her own admission she's broke, and she's probably also deep in debt. She's vaguely aware that these are problems but can't allow herself to introspect about the poor choices that created them, because that would cost her psychic pain even as it led to personal growth. Instead she wrote this article to encourage people to pat her on the head on social media, which gives her a momentary dopamine boost even as she sinks deeper into the swamp. I shudder to think what her life will be like when she's 45, or even 35.
Or maybe she wanted a lot of clicks, and knew how to get them. Her article got a lot of attention, so her job is done.
Yeah, I sometimes wonder how many of these writers just create idiotic personas to say outrageous things in order to generate maximum clicks. I mean, I can think of any number of radio and cable TV personalities who are such complete monsters that I can only believe that they at least started out as creating an over-the-top persona to attract more viewers. I personally couldn't do it -- I would hate for people to think I was that stupid or crazy -- but if I really, really wanted money or fame and didn't care about my integrity, it would be one of the easiest ways to reach my goals.
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Or maybe she wanted a lot of clicks, and knew how to get them.
Total tangent, and immature to boot, but "cl" looks so much like "d" when you have blurry vision... bahaha
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Yeah, I sometimes wonder how many of these writers just create idiotic personas to say outrageous things in order to generate maximum clicks. I mean, I can think of any number of radio and cable TV personalities who are such complete monsters that I can only believe that they at least started out as creating an over-the-top persona to attract more viewers. I personally couldn't do it -- I would hate for people to think I was that stupid or crazy -- but if I really, really wanted money or fame and didn't care about my integrity, it would be one of the easiest ways to reach my goals.
A few fashion brands invent an ideal client (her age, name, job, relationship status) to cater to her supposed needs, reaching in this way a lot of consumers which have the same lifestyle as their hypotetical client. I guess it's not the only industry using this trick.
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Or maybe she wanted a lot of clicks, and knew how to get them.
Total tangent, and immature to boot, but "cl" looks so much like "d" when you have blurry vision... bahaha
Dude, put down that beer, it's just 16h!
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If it were 16h I wouldn't have my face in the screen! Central time... *sigh*
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b) It doesn't really. Are you always so hostile to people you don't know? Your choice of username implies the answer is yes.
I'm a really tolerent person but sometimes the amount of stupid shit on the internet gets too much for me and I just type what I think.
You were todays lucky recipient. Please redeem your ticket in the "don't give a flying fuck" cafe.
MOD NOTE: As per forum rules, please keep comments to other members respectful, or you know, don't say anything at all
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I think this girl is probably trolling millions of people lol.
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As for the actual content of what she wrote, the most anti-mustachian thing about it has got to be the striverishness. It's the same old blind worship of the Sex & The City NYC ultra-consumption lifestyle.
At least Carrie Bradshaw had a moment of realization when she needed money and realized her only assets were shoes and clothes. She got her face punch and so will this one eventually.
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worthless clickbait article ...equally tragic/hilarious ...possibly the the most concentrated dose of millennial narcissism/solipsism/cluelessness on the entire web (no small achievement). Nice to see that she has now brought the intellectual rigor of a hack listicle writer to personal finance and frugality.
If you haven't considered writing epitaphs as a side hustle, please do. Your descriptions are hilarious and true!
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At least Carrie Bradshaw had a moment of realization when she needed money and realized her only assets were shoes and clothes. She got her face punch and so will this one eventually.
oooo, so that's how she got so ugly?
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As for the actual content of what she wrote, the most anti-mustachian thing about it has got to be the striverishness. It's the same old blind worship of the Sex & The City NYC ultra-consumption lifestyle.
At least Carrie Bradshaw had a moment of realization when she needed money and realized her only assets were shoes and clothes. She got her face punch and so will this one eventually.
She married a rich man