I'm still happy with my HSA.

Ok, if you can't see the difference you *are* an asshole.

Nah, it's a slippery slope argument... one might you're thinking you might not want to hire those with credit problems, the next you're deciding you might just not want to hire some black guy either...

No, it most certainly is *not*. One is something you are (thus no choice)and the other is something you do (choice). The whole point is to filter people who make good choices vs. those who don't. Only an asshole (and racist) would equate the two.

Hi Keith,

Well, I'll give you that clearly you have zero choice as to your skin color or gender, as a practical matter a significant number of people end up with, e.g., lousy credit viz-a-viz largely unforeseeable events: No one expects to get divorced when they get married, no one expects to require 5- or 6-digit dollar amount medical care when they're still generally young and healthy, no one expects their own businesses to fail when they start one, etc.

---Joel

Hogwash.

Get real. Of course some get into these messes but the *vast* majority in such a mess ask for (or demand) it. Poor credit *IS* a lifestyle choice.

Hey Keith,

OK, I think we've reached a good conclusion for our discussion here -- I agree that poor credit can be reasonably described as a lifestyle choice for some, and while I wouldn't think that was a factor in the "vast majority" of the casess, I don't have any good evidence for trying to suggest that it's 10% vs.

An awful lot of one's politics hinges on just how many people in bad situations you presume got there via knowingly engaging in risky behavior vs. being due to forces largely beyond their control, I suppose; I think it's clear that you tend to lean towards thinking more of them got there via the "risky behavior" route than I do.

---Joel

You're off my a couple of orders of magnitude.

How many people live paycheck to paycheck. That *IS* risky behavior.

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Sorry, i have met ones that do. Disproof by counterexample.

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Please consider the control freak personality in this context. And how = it=20 impacts the relations with others in the organization.

So did I, in the Netherlands. That, plus the (consequently) exorbitant tax rates back then were the main reason I packed up and left.

required).

Or a medium size wench. ;-)

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However, the modifier before "control" was "self" (which rhetorically matched "group" and "rights").

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No sale as actually written. When impounded by parenthesis like that it=20 becomes a contrast between rights and control (as in social control).

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I can't help it if you're bankrupt. The parenthetical can also be explanation of meaning.

Agreed, although hopefully you'd also agree that it's a lot harder for someone making near-minimum wage to ever get *out* of that rut once they're in it that people making decent salaries like you and I are.

Indeed, I think we'd also both agree that part of the problem with welfare today is that of those who are willing to work, if all they can find is a near-minimum wage job without many benefits, they end up doing worse overall due to the loss of various entitlements than if they just sat back and watched Oprah all day... although I expect our proposed solutions to that problem would differ. :-)

---Joel

Is the standard of living you've achieved here in the U.S. higher than what you expect it'd have been back in the Netherlands?

Harder, perhaps but self-control is self-control.

One solution is to make it more difficult to live without producing. If you need assistance, work goes with it. There are many streets that need cleaning and much trash to pick up. Start with 12 hours a day and if they still can't find a job, fourteen. ...and then get serious.

Self-control isn't just a binary thing that you either have or don't have, however -- it takes a lot more self-control to get yourself out of poverty than it does to stay out of poverty, IMO. (In other words -- while it certainly wouldn't work in all cases, I believe that if you took welfare recipients and just plopped them down in a job as, say, an autoworker making $40k+ a year, a very large percentage of them would have no problems keeping that job and thus living a good, middle-class lifestyle. Perhaps I'm naive...)

I might say start at 8 and then go to 10, but generally speaking I think it's an idea with merit.

Who watches over the young kids for single-parents while they're out working, though? -- Government-provided day care being run by other welfare recipients? :-)

---Joel

I assume so but I don't know for sure, because I chose to leave. Taxes used to be really high over there and that automatically comes with a ding to the standard of living. Some costs are still outrageous over there, for example taxes on cars. But then again, having lots of luxury isn't really what life is all about, at least not for me.

Germany and the US are probably on par, maybe a little better in the US because prices for the same goods are lower, but then health care is the pits.