George Reisman's Blog on Economics, Politics, Society, and Culture: Piketty’s Capital: Wrong Theory/Destructive Program

George Reisman's Blog on Economics, Politics, Society, and Culture: Piketty’s Capital: Wrong Theory/Destructive Program

Resist!

Resist!

Is it just me or do you too detect an upsurge in the financial media attempting to put a smiley face on U.S. massive indebtedness...?

This week alone I've come across 3 amusing articles from popular publications discussing managing personal debt.

Marketwatch.com, wholly-owned subsidiary of financial media powerhouse, Dow-Jones & Company, is first at bat with...

"New Grads Should Start Saving for Retirement Now"

Their advice for the graduate escaping college with an average $19,200 of debt...? Don't even think about unloading that albatross using your newly minted paychecks. Instead of debt payoff, they suggest even a little 401(k) saving will grow big over the next 30 years or so.

They offer the usual arguments... tax benefits, matching contributions, and compound interest over a long period of time. All good reasons to MAXIMIZE 401(k) contributions. If you're sharing your paycheck with debt, young grad, you're going to have a hard time maximizing contributions.

Next up is SmartMoney.com, a joint publishing venture of Dow Jones & Company -- hmmm, I think I see a pattern here --and Hearst SM Partnership. I tried googling "Hearst SM Partnership"and the only references returned were to a joint publishing venture with Dow Jones & Company. Their salvo...

"When Credit-Card Debt Is Better Than Home-Equity Debt"

recommends trading Home-Equity Loan debt for credit-card debt. Sort of a reverse consolidation loan. As quoted from this article...

"Turning home-equity debt into credit-card debt sounds like a dumb move. It's conventional wisdom that if you have credit-card debt, you want to consolidate it into a home-equity loan...To do the reverse goes totally against what we've been taught about being prudent."

You can read the pros and cons for yourself. I was more interested in the underlying message... at one time you were "smart" to use your home to pay for things charged on a credit-card. Now that this has revealed itself as lunacy, the new "smart" thing is to flirt with credit-card quicksand.

Curiously, it's not smart to simply pay all of these things off and get out of this debt shell game.

Finally, and again from SmartMoney.com, we have...

"Being Debt-Free Isn't Always All It's Cracked Up to Be"

about the stresses and strains of owning your life and owing no one.

This article allows readers to post comments. One reader says it best...

"Only in America can living debt free be a bad thing."

It's obvious, isn't it? They're attempting to manipulate your common sense...

Resist!

"Don't Get Cooked in the Squat!"

Motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, tells a childhood story about Maude’s biscuits. Maude was the family cook and Maude’s biscuits were legendary. One meal, some of her biscuits were flatter than pancakes. They had failed to rise. When young Zig asked Maude what happened, she responded:

"In order to rise, the biscuits had to squat... The flat ones got cooked in the squat!"

Zig tells this story to discourage procrastination and encourage action.
Waiting for exactly the right conditions before embarking on a life-changing plan often results in life changing your plans.

I’m reminded of this whenever I receive emails from clients who were "planning" to start on their path to Debt-Freedom "just-as-soon-as…" but then, "fill-in-the-blank…" happened.

And now they’re looking for alternatives.

If you’re squatting to rise --waiting for more income, your kids to get out of or into school, your spouse to get with the plan -- before beginning your Journey to Debt-Freedom... stop! Five to seven years, the time it will take you to reach Debt-Freedom, is both a long and short time. It’s a long time when it’s ahead of you, and a short time when it’s in your rear view mirror.

Such is the nature of goals...

I’ve heard it time and again from my clients who’ve crossed the Debt-Freedom finish line...

"I can't believe how fast it was…"

And from those who’ve failed to start…

"I lost my job, my wife left me, and my dog died..."

2007 is here! A new opportunity to change your life. Maybe you've spent 2006coming to grips with the fact that conventional financial strategies for successful wealth building are fraught with inconsistencies...

How can you build wealth if half your income is consumed by debt?

You've studied various alternatives... read a few newsletters... did some trial calculations using your own debts...

You know what's possible and now you're ready to implement a solution. This is all the squatting required.

Rise!

By the way, if you have any friends who might have some debt, send them to my Special Report on The Top 3 Middle Class Dangers and How to Avoid Them:

http://www.debtintowealth.com/specialreport

To A Prosperous 2007!
-----------------------
Greg Moore is the Creator of the Wealth Building System

DebtIntoWealth -- Lessons from My Journey to Debt Freedom

'I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel and this time
it's not the train coming at me! My Debt-Free date for my $54000 is
January 2010. That's only 3 years away! Not bad for a single
mom with no income but my own.' -- Dianne D., Texas.

Get LESSON 1 FREE now:http://www.debtintowealth.com/home.html