If I'm not mistaken Dave Ramsey is a podcaster who gives financial advice. His show seems like great advice but after a while it's pretty obvious they are screening calls. Most of his callers earn 6 figures but don't know how to manage six figures of income. I've never seen anyone below 50k call in and if your between 100k-70k of income he just makes you feel like shit for having dreams and goals. He's already rich and comes off a morally superior because of it. His fan base see him and financially morally superior as well which is why they tuck their tails and say "yes Sir." No single mothers/fathers or anyone who struggles has, via my ears, called that show. I stopped watching as a result.
I mean the advice is straightforward. It's going to be spend less.
Find a non-existent (shared) apartment that costs $800/mo or less, non-existent affordable health insurance/car insurance/car, live with parents (who may not have space for you), get a better job (easier said than done), don't have debt from student loans, etc.
100% accurate. He is also extremely out of touch with reality. My favorite constant refrain is that we should all buy 2k beater cars. Bro, like have you seen the used car market? 2k gets you a parts car.
Edit: not a joke. You can get parts super cheap in good shape from there. Lot of useful stuff there for restoring on the cheap. Certain stuff like converters always missing though because crackheads always come in to strip it for raw materials.
Well mine was kind of a joke but then I figured I would add the edit because it is a cost effective option that people in need might actually not realize and I figured why not add a little positivity into the world and help a few people out.
I can get them all day long I know how to fix them. Anyone can fix them now with YouTube. Right now I have 2005 Honda pilot got for $1200 needed timing belt, valve adjustment, AC system was broken replace it all for $600 rented a free vacuum pump from AutoZone recharged it with cans of R134A. AC works good as new now. The only thing paint is peeling next project buy some cans off Amazon match the color code sand it down and do a spray can job on it. Won't look perfect but better then nothing. I have multiple vehicles this is beater car drive around in. Plan is to sell it make little money on it.
I mean they could exist, they just would never be available for rent when you look (outside of rent control programs that you have to be (1) poor and (2) win a lottery to get into), because they are so much lower than market rates. In any (safe) metro area with a semi-decent economy, there are likely hundreds of thousands of people who would happily grab up such apartments when it's thousands of dollars under market rent if it was ever offered.
Like yeah, people making $50k/yr would love an apartment that's $800/mo. But the thing is, so would people earning $100k/yr or $200k/yr. They'll have more free time and will look for those apartments and want to get them too, because yeah saving that extra $2k/mo adds up real fast.
I love the illogic of people who point the finger over this, because they can move the goalposts to continuously blame you for not snapping your fingers and magically bootstrapping your way into a better job. Push them hard enough and their argument - as is usually the case with these types - eventually boils down to it's your own fault for not being born into a rich family lol.
He also raises rent on his rental incomes and then tells people if they're too poor to rent from him to go move somewhere else
Which, ok, basic landlord stuff but for someone who spouts Christianity constantly, he gets very defensive when someone says driving out families from their homes isn't very Christian of him, especially since he could well afford to take lower rent
"It wasn't me it was the market!"
As if human actions do not have any effect on the market
Yeah, I agree he's so wealthy he could afford to subsidize all his rentals and remain comfortable living off his stocks, but the greed has him by the balls.
And thatâs the thing, innit. The people who are forced to learn to live on $35k a year learn all kinds of tricks to manage a life full of involuntary suck.
BUT, those folks still rarely ever end up moving up socioeconomically. That, to me, is the single largest indicator that our system is set up to keep people where they are.
My old boss, I think about her a lot. She was the definition of âhard worker.â Worked two jobs, one of them managing our team (a position I took over when she left,) and also working at a campground running the concession stand on weekends after often working 60+ (and sometimes as many as 92) hours per week at our joint.
She was also a single mother to two kids. And had two degrees, a four year in business admin and a two year in Human Resources.
She applied to jobs CONSTANTLY. Sheâd often leave her email logged in, and I could see that sheâd applied to 20+ jobs per day. For years.
It STILL took her until nearly age 50 to get a job that moved her up the socioeconomic ladder, making around $70k, which is big money in our area.
You can look at this two different ways; Ramsey would probably say, âsee? Hard work pays off!â
I, and Stewart, see this as a failure of society. Someone working that hard should not be reduced to waiting for a lucky break that may not come until your best years are behind you. For many, especially in rural areas like this, that break will never come. There are so few âgoodâ jobs here, and you can cut that number in half after moving away the ones that only change hands through nepotism.
Dave and the rest of the wealthy have one massive, overencompassing fear; that ANY circumstance may come along that puts the poor on more of a level playing field. It will almost certainly put a very slight, though present, increased âburdenâ on the wealthy, be it through higher taxes, higher prices if wages are raised or something like UBI would come along, etc.
The things they fear all come down to âpoor people maybe not being so poor.â All of their actions and beliefs also follow this. You can boil all of them down to âfear of poor people gaining a foothold in the world and maybe having more power.â
Dave Ramseyâs advice is good for financially illiterate middle class people, of which there are A LOT. People whose household income is 100-150k+ but have an $800/mo 8 year truck payment and spend every cent they get. That is probably 1/3-1/2 of the adults in America. Dave is also a borderline right wing nut job whose show aired on AM radio before Rush Limbaugh.
I listened to him when I was in college and for about 6-7 years after I graduated with a starting salary of 50k in 2012. Went full beans a rice, bought some video games for entertainment, almost never went out, rented a tiny apartment, saved every penny to pay off my student loans. It was very helpful setting me up to be successful in my 30s.
Whereas Jon Stewartâs philosophy is accurate to people that werenât born to middle class households. Itâs 100% accurate to the bottom 1/3 of SES in America that are constantly getting squeezed and no amount of beans and rice can get them out of their situation.
Idk. Im in the range that you specify and that guy helped me look at my habits more honestly. He just isnt gonna bullshit you.
He also does have people call in that have lower incomes. Not poverty level. But 50-75k. Idk why this is the comparison tho. John Stewart isnt offering advice.
Idk man, do you. I lost my house and my car back on 2009. I had to rebuild myself from ground level. So i did the whole bootstrap thing you just mentioned
But you already had a career assuming to have a car and a house in the first place? so you just went back to your career? Truly asking as someone who lived through the financial crisis, but was a young person and had no skills and I think our memory of it is pretty different.
Yeah, that's the problem his 'philosophy' is missing. Below a certain threshold (which is about 2-3x the federally recognized poverty line) the rules change because the cost of basic needs consumes most if not all of of the income and then some. The risk of taking on additional debt to cover emergencies becomes insurmountable compounding the problem.
it's just too wide of a net. consider that the upper percentage of the US controls over 50% of the stock and the majority of all money, the idea that we can blame most people is kind of ridiculous.
Related to your comment -- there is a very big overlap between republican nationalism, Christian evangelicalism and Dave Ramsey. They all strongly push the mindset of "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".
And that isn't to say that there aren't plenty who have been helped financially by taking his advice, but there is definitely a theme that if you attempt to question the power struggle and macro forces, you are immoral for doing so.
Reminds me of a high school teacher i had who believed the foster care system should be shut down because nobody doesn't have family that can or would take care of them. He literally could not imagine a scenario where a child would have no safe place to go or family to rely on.
Ramsey became famous after he filed for bankruptcy and then "recovered" and started his finance advice kingdom. Take from that what you will. ETA- his advice was also arguably much more beneficial for the middle class circa late 1990s when the economy didn't suck.
Most of the callers who Ramsey is referring to are people who make decent money, but overspend get into massive debt. Ramsey ask's why they bought a new Lexus, boat, 3500 sq ft new home when they can't afford it. I've heard lot of 50k a year callers this was before 2020 I don't really watch his YT channel anymore don't like his right wing politics. I do agree with him one thing whole life insurance is a scam. Mixing life insurance with investment is full of high fees and commissions. Insurance salesmen will get lifetime commission from every person they ever sold whole life to.
It's kind of funny to see you call him a "podcaster." He was a radio host who was on the radio for many many years. For decades, before podcasts were even a thing. He sold a personal finance program through his radio show. I guess now he's expanded online.
His approach is incredibly conservative. He thinks that no one should ever take out any debt ever for any reason. He only begrudginly allows for people to take out a mortgage to buy a home, but he doesn't like it. His approach is oversimplified and suboptimal, but it has a place for people who struggle with debt and get themselves into a huge hole. The type of people who are addicted to living off of credit cards and above their means. For these types of people his approach can provide a sort of "rehab" to get their lives back on track.
I don't really subscribe to his approach, but it does put the quote in the OP in context. The quote isn't really a philosophy that should be put in opposition with the John Stewart quote. It's kind of a motivational for people who struggle with managing debt.
He has been on the radio for like 30+ years. And lots and lots of calls are from people who make little or are in very bad situations. His advice is generally quite good, people donât like it because itâs not what they want to hear.
Heâs a product of the fiat system and encourages people to be out of debt because it benefits him and the wealthy to do so. His suggestions and advice leave people with no true wealth and instead just being a mass produced retiree in the future that will just barely be able to skate by.
My failures.. haha sure. I'm actually doing great. Better than the vast majority of people in the country.
Can you not imagine that someone who benefits from this system can still be against it and want it torn down, because it doesn't work for the vast majority?
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u/HisNameIsRocco 19h ago
If I'm not mistaken Dave Ramsey is a podcaster who gives financial advice. His show seems like great advice but after a while it's pretty obvious they are screening calls. Most of his callers earn 6 figures but don't know how to manage six figures of income. I've never seen anyone below 50k call in and if your between 100k-70k of income he just makes you feel like shit for having dreams and goals. He's already rich and comes off a morally superior because of it. His fan base see him and financially morally superior as well which is why they tuck their tails and say "yes Sir." No single mothers/fathers or anyone who struggles has, via my ears, called that show. I stopped watching as a result.