I am a huge Dave Ramsey fan and have been a coordinator for his Financial Peace University class where people learn the novel concept of not spending more than you make. As everyone knows the government is hysterically devising a plan to put us $700 billion (with no cap) into further debt.
Dave is a smart guy and someone who I greatly admire and it's no surprise that he is voicing a debt-free plan to get us out of this mess. It's relevant to this blog because well, we all live in this economy and also because it involves mark to market accounting and the unintended consequences of Sarbanes-Oxley.
Dave wrote an article this week called “How We Can Clean Up A Lot of the Economic Problems“.
The funny thing about going into debt is, well…someday you will have to pay it back. Our great-grandchildren are going to wake up to an America one day that is completely owned by China and the Middle East.
I listen to Dave Ramsey often as well, however, I don't always agree with what he says. Too much debt (and frivolous debt) is foolish. However, many businesses would not even EXIST if it were not for debt. Having debt, can be a safety net in a time of temporary crisis. He has some good things to say and obviously is pretty successful so I'll keep listening but I still believe debt, like a knife or a hammer, is a tool.
We've 'drank the kool aid' and haven't used a credit card in over 2 years...we cut all of them up and cancelled them. We'll pay off our last credit card by Christmas and be debt free except our mortgage.
The Ramsey plan works.
get rid of mark to market rules? that puts a good percentage of our profession out of business!
"and say just on sub-primes for this period of time you can change that rule -- a temporary change -- that'll free the market up. ">