Good Article, Great Quote

[Mr. Pedantic]

Oh fuck my car broke down. Time to use up my savings. Shit! My kid broke his leg. There goes that attempt at savings. Etc. etc.

How would that be any different to having to pay in arrears by credit card? You will still have to fork out money you could have otherwise used for the item in question for more pressing matters. If anything, that example just illustrates how much more advantageous it is to save in advance, seeing as the money is yours, and you get an unrivalled flexibility with it. Whereas with payments on a loan or credit card debt, you don't get that kind of flexibility, and you definitely can't take back the money you paid for an emergency and leave the credit card company an IOU.

I could go on and on and explain costs of living and thresholds of when a savings cushion actually becomes a viable reality based on your income, but you refuse to acknowledge that some people would literally have to save for years or decades without fail, just to have enough money to get them through a year without work, so there is really no point in me debating this with you right now.

But then they wouldn't really have the means to sustain a loan on a 56" LCD TV either. So it makes the whole thing moot.

Also, something else you will probably refuse to admit is that people would literally go crazy and/or spiral into maddening depression if they followed your tunnel-vision advice and never spent any money on leisurely things. Until you have lived an adult life on low wages, without hope, and without any nice things, you don't get to comment on the practicality of it, given how short sighted your ideals are. Some people literally dream of their tax refund check and how they are going to use it because money gets that scarce for them.

So why are you talking like it's practical for people to go out buying goods if the purchase is beyond their means to sustain? I know being poor is tough, but I would hope that it wasn't so tough that you couldn't live without a 56" TV.

 

[Kristofff]

How would that be any different to having to pay in arrears by credit card? You will still have to fork out money you could have otherwise used for the item in question for more pressing matters. If anything, that example just illustrates how much more advantageous it is to save in advance, seeing as the money is yours, and you get an unrivalled flexibility with it. Whereas with payments on a loan or credit card debt, you don't get that kind of flexibility, and you definitely can't take back the money you paid for an emergency and leave the credit card company an IOU.


But then they wouldn't really have the means to sustain a loan on a 56" LCD TV either. So it makes the whole thing moot.


So why are you talking like it's practical for people to go out buying goods if the purchase is beyond their means to sustain? I know being poor is tough, but I would hope that it wasn't so tough that you couldn't live without a 56" TV.

FYI, poor people buy TVs with their tax refunds, not loans. Though, I think I already pointed out your ignorance of other peoples lives, so I don't really need to spell it all out again.

 

[The-UselessNoob]

Its a pity you can't trick ignorant people into killing themselves so you can have a better retirement? Oh wow, quite the superiority complex you have there.

That wasn't a serious statement mate, I would much rather tax the cigarettes and put that money back into healthcare. Also there comes the problem that to control the problem of their being no money left for anyone my age when we retire, people who are enjoying their benefits would have to voluntarily vote for something that would reduce them, and with the majority of the population getting older, they have to support it for any politician who wants it to get in. Not a fucking chance in hell.

 

[HOCP4ME]

Christmas isn't a Christian holiday. Thank you for spreading your typical religious ignorance. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm

Oh, you're funny. Just look at the word itself. "Christmas" literally means "Christ's Mass." Even the website you linked to says it's a Christian holiday: the Christians marked Dec. 25 as a date to celebrate Christ's birth, choosing that date specifically to coincide with the pagan celebrations. Yes, I know Jesus wasn't really born on Dec. 25.

To quote Wikipedia:

Christmas[2] or Christmas Day[3][4] is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

You are obviously very insecure about your religious beliefs/lack thereof to resort to claiming Christmas doesn't have Christian origins. If you're looking to denounce Christianity, there are much better arguments.

"Christmas isn't a Christian holiday..." one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Sorry to derail the thread, but this is ridiculous.

 

[Kristofff]

Oh, you're funny. Just look at the word itself. "Christmas" literally means "Christ's Mass." Even the website you linked to says it's a Christian holiday: the Christians marked Dec. 25 as a date to celebrate Christ's birth, choosing that date specifically to coincide with the pagan celebrations. Yes, I know Jesus wasn't really born on Dec. 25.

To quote Wikipedia:



You are obviously very insecure about your religious beliefs/lack thereof to resort to claiming Christmas doesn't have Christian origins. If you're looking to denounce Christianity, there are much better arguments.

"Christmas isn't a Christian holiday..." one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Sorry to derail the thread, but this is ridiculous.

Holy shit dude. Are you serious? I mean, I know religious people try really hard to twist facts, but come on....

A. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

B. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

C. In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]

D. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

It literally says that Christmas is not Christian in origin, and yet, even after reading that the church intentionally hijacked a pagan holiday trick followers into practicing Christianity, you yourself fall for the trap of the name sounding Christian. Right after reading about it! Astonishing!... How do you manage this level of disconnect with your rational logic screaming at you? Or do you not have any?

Or are you simply saying that Christmas has origins in Christianity because that specific name was chosen for a farcical holiday used solely to fleece people into abandoning their religion? LOL! Such a nice Holiday huh?

 

[Judas]

the church intentionally hijacked a pagan holiday

What amazes me is that so many people still want to deny that this is true, even though the facts are there for all to see. It is a blemish on the face of Christianity.

 

[TheCommander]

What amazes me is that so many people still want to deny that this is true, even though the facts are there for all to see. It is a blemish on the face of Christianity.

Who cares. The origin of Christmas or where it came from has nothing to do with this topic. We don't need another topic going down the drain because people want to argue about religion or have some agenda.

 

[Bobthecoolguy]

Every "last" generation says this about every current generation, since the beginning of time.

Truth, everyone here complaining about 'kids these days' were once complained about themselves.

 

[JinxyBoi]

I guarantee you will see an article similar to this one next year. And the year after that.

I'm pretty sure there was one yesterday too.

I love media recycling a timeless concept.

 

[gdonovan]

The blame falls on the parents for letting/making the kids watch 16 hours of TV a day instead of playing with the kids.

As a parent I'd say it is about 50% the parents fault, percentage will change from day to day! lol

You can control what your child sees and does while the child is in reach, but once the go to school and public areas it becomes a different story.

You can't block what they see and hear in the mall or over the radio or crap friends pour in thier head.

Best you can do is explain to them what is right and wrong, live by example and keep keep a short leash on them.

Learning how to say NO helps a lot and explain why, be realistic.

 

[gdonovan]

It has been pretty ridiculous. Kids these days have a huge sense of entitlement.

I went back to my old tech school 20 years after graduating, the change was astonishing. The kids in the current class actually acted like jobs would be OWED to them.

Reality is a harsh bitch.

Parents keep enshrining this idea that everyone of their children is either a little prince or princess who is owed everything by the world. They aren't doing these kids any favors.

Not so much the parents but idiots in society, schools and government.

Look how it is frowned to hurt little Jonnys feelings! We must make our children feel good about themselves even if they are lazy sacks of sh*t! We give out awards for non-performance and hold games with no scores and grade on curves, etc, etc.

My advice is to man up punk and get used to it! Life is hard and you wrestle out of it what you can. Growing up in the projects with nothing will do that to you.

My favorite quote-

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. "

 

[PMildren]

I went back to my old tech school 20 years after graduating, the change was astonishing. The kids in the current class actually acted like jobs would be OWED to them.

Reality is a harsh bitch.



Not so much the parents but idiots in society, schools and government.

Look how it is frowned to hurt little Jonnys feelings! We must make our children feel good about themselves even if they are lazy sacks of sh*t! We give out awards for non-performance and hold games with no scores and grade on curves, etc, etc.

My advice is to man up punk and get used to it! Life is hard and you wrestle out of it what you can. Growing up in the projects with nothing will do that to you.

My favorite quote-

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. "

I like alot of what you have said. It goes back on each individual and the choices he/she has made. But I think alot of this goes back to something I keep trying to spread about life in general.

We need to take the foam padding off of the sharp corners in life. Let the weak be culled from life and let the strong survive. You can change out weak for stupid and strong for smart/ intelligent as you want, but it works either way really. Its about the ability to survive and not fall for old tricks.

About current generation, yes there are alot of children today that feel entitled to alot of things in life and I think it goes back to being raised by our Society that no child be left behind. Children cant get dirty, they cant have their feelings hurt, they are not taught to resolve conflicts or issues in life because we as a society have decided that its best they not be involved in this as to make every child feel like a winner. I personally think that if a child has felt like a loser every once inawhile, how do they know what the true joy of being a winner is and having had to fight for what is theirs.

I know someone in here said that we are stupid for feeling like we should have to fight for things to truly appreciate them. That we would rather trade in our daily grind for a fast million and while we may say we would rather have the million that have to go on working. If I am truly honest with myself, I wouldnt mind some extra cash from time to time to make life easier, I like working. I enjoy my job as it gives me a sense of accomplishment on a daily basis. I think we, as humans, need something on a daily basis, to look forward to. Some goal to fulfill on a regular basis and without it, we tend to find more destructive things to due and less constructive things to do.

 

[MisterSparkle]

we are stupid for feeling like we should have to fight for things to truly appreciate them

Quite the opposite. A life with no challenge is no life at all.

 

[gdonovan]

We need to take the foam padding off of the sharp corners in life. .

A major issue with my *EX* was how our daughter should be raised, she wanted to have her insulated from all danger 24/7.

My upbringing was that kids need to burn thier fingers on a stove time to time to learn that the burner really is hot. Painful lessons are better then book learned ones most of the time.

I look after her of course... You give them just enough rope but not so much they go over the edge. Cuts and bruises heal and build character.

 

[Spewn]

Save it. If you buy a TV, you'll have to cough up some time or later, whether it's by putting money in the bank beforehand, or making monthly repayments after. All it requires is the discipline to put money aside and not touch it.

So your advice to everyone everywhere is: never borrow money.

I don't know where to begin.

 

[gdonovan]

So your advice to everyone everywhere is: never borrow money.

I don't know where to begin.

I borrowed money once in life; to buy my house which was paid off in 14 years.

Everything else is cash, if I want it bad enough I save up or hustle to make it happen.

Credit card is paid every 14 days, no interest payments for me.

 

[The-UselessNoob]

they are not taught to resolve conflicts or issues in life because we as a society have decided that its best they not be involved in this as to make every child feel like a winner.

This is one thing about your post that I don't really agree with. I mean it doesn't make all the sense to me, how does teaching kids conflict resolution cause them to feel like losers?

I know someone in here said that we are stupid for feeling like we should have to fight for things to truly appreciate them. That we would rather trade in our daily grind for a fast million and while we may say we would rather have the million that have to go on working. If I am truly honest with myself, I wouldnt mind some extra cash from time to time to make life easier, I like working. I enjoy my job as it gives me a sense of accomplishment on a daily basis. I think we, as humans, need something on a daily basis, to look forward to. Some goal to fulfill on a regular basis and without it, we tend to find more destructive things to due and less constructive things to do.

I know some people who feel they have to be working all the time, and some who are more evenly balanced and enjoy working for the purpose it gives their lives, but some people can completely enjoy retirement and are happy to not be tied down to anything.

 

[PMildren]

This is one thing about your post that I don't really agree with. I mean it doesn't make all the sense to me, how does teaching kids conflict resolution cause them to feel like losers?

I think I mistyped that. What I was trying to get at was that we dont teach children the value of winning anything in life if you dont have to fight for it in one way or another. We can all be losers in life if we expect everything to be handed to us. There are a few of those out there that dont have to work to get what they want in life, but for the rest of us we must fall occasionally and learn to get back up. Essentially I am say is that losing once in awhile is good for us, winning all the time is not the way to raise children. Then they expect to win with little or no effort.