Not surprised that Godnorgosh is really this illiterate. Couldn't even read the article properly.
You mean the article written by someone describing how stagnant wages and the cost of college sucked his family dry? I just copy-pasted two paragraphs directly refuting your point, and because you know you're wrong, all you can do in response is deflect.
He literally pissed away his savings trying to keep up with the Joneses for his kids, with schools and other things that were way too expensive. He even outright says it's his fault.
But even having made those choices, which involved revolving credit, for the better part of my life I was not drowning in debt (maybe treading in it okay, barely treading). Until about five years ago, when I stopped using my credit cards altogether and started paying them off little by little with the help of a financial counselor, Id always managed to pay at least the monthly minimum and sometimes more. I didnt have savings, but not because I thought I could rely forever on credit instead or because I chose to spend my money extravagantly rather than salt it away. In retrospect, of course, my problem was simple: too little income, too many expenses. Credit enabled me to forestall this problem for a timeand also to make it progressively worsebut the root of the problem was deeper.
I never figured that I wouldnt earn enough. Few of us do. I thought Id done most of the right things. I went to college; got a graduate degree; taught for a while; got a book contract; moved to a small, inexpensive, rent-controlled apartment in Little Italy to write; got married; and bumped along until I landed a job on television (those of you with elephant memories may remember that for three years, I was one of the replacements for Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on the PBS movie-review show Sneak Previews). Then my wife and I bought a small coop apartment in Brooklyn, which we could afford, and had our two daughters. My wife continued to work, and we managed to scrape by, though child care and then private schools crimped our finances. No, we didnt have to send our girls to private schools. We could have sent them to the public school in our neighborhood, except that it wasnt very good, and we resolved to sacrifice our own comforts to give our daughters theirs. Some economists attribute the need for credit and the drive to spend with the keeping up with the Joneses syndrome, which is so prevalent in America. I never wanted to keep up with the Joneses. But, like many Americans, I wanted my children to keep up with the Joneses children, because I knew how easily my girls could be marginalized in a society where nearly all the rewards go to a small, well-educated elite. (All right, I wanted them to be winners.)
There's more to the story than financial irresponsibility. I mean, yeah, he could have sent his children to a shittier public school and not have sent them to college at all, but that would require sacrificing his children's education for extra savings. It's a catch-22. Of course, he made these choices. But he made them in the context of a society that put him between a rock and a hard place.
No, dude. He had too little income for the multitude of unnecessary expenses he had.
He actually made a decent amount of money as a successful writer. He squandered it. He could've sent them to a good public school and spent less in general.
America is a blessed country where anyone can succeed as long as you don't stunt your financial trajectory through needless spending. ---
they shall be the first ones against the wall when the revolution comes - averagejoel