'A blog in support of stupid people's rights (pro...

[MSE Helen]

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "A blog in support of stupid people's rights (probably the most important blog I've ever written)" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

[tagq2]

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."

It's the other way round, of course. The idea that a man is or could strive to be a perfectly rational, informed being voluntarily interacting with his peers is as foolishly romantic as the notion that an angel without eyes can strive to see if only he would imagine hard enough. The brain is just as programmable and just as prone to fault as any other machine, biological or man-made, and 18th century fantasies about ideal agents in the marketplace need to be set aside in favour of a scientific understanding of man. This ultimately means recognising that the various forms of innate intelligence required to survive in the modern world are no more earned than the two legs we most of us were fortunate to start life with.

Of course, for someone to accept that they're not just doing better "because everyone else is lazy and/or wilfully ignorant" is both a blow to the ego and an invitation to a more level playing field - and that's threatening. But, to borrow an edict from that boy-philosopher prodigy, it's a magical world. Rather than resting safe on our laurels, let's go exploring.

[Dave_C]

If a man in the street tried to extract money from a financial institution by deception, it would be classed as fraud and he would be breaking the law. In some cases this can lead to time behind bars.

Surely the reverse must be true, when a financial institution is using deception to extract money from the man in the street. But somehow this is OK?

So I am in agreement with Martin

[JimmyTheWig]

I simply don’t get the venom of some who aren’t caught out towards those who have been.

I believe, Martin, that it's selfishness.

RyanAir, for example, can afford to offer flights for £1 because they know that most people who are drawn in by this offer will pay many times this in charges. Some of those able to avoid the extra charges are glad that others pay the charges because this is the very reason they can get their £1 flights.
Likewise, credit card companies only offer 0% deals to make money out of people. Those of us who are able to benefit from this are offset by others who cannot.

If everyone was savvy, the currently savvy would lose their edge. I would be happy for this to happen in the name of the greater good. But others wouldn't.

[JimmyTheWig]

By the way, Martin, have you really never been in debt? Or is it that you've never been in bad debt?
Did you make do with no student debts? [You only went through the system a few years before me, and I didn't know anyone who wasn't in debt.] Did you never have a mortgage (greater than your savings)?

[dtsazza]

Originally Posted by Dave_C

If a man in the street tried to extract money from a financial institution by deception, it would be classed as fraud and he would be breaking the law. In some cases this can lead to time behind bars.

Surely the reverse must be true, when a financial institution is using deception to extract money from the man in the street. But somehow this is OK?

That's what this issue boils down to - I don't agree that it's deception.

The terms are laid out in front of you, stating what the institution is proposing to do. If you sign a document, to agree to be bound by something without knowing or understanding what you've just signed up for - well, I just can't see an excuse for that.

Or rather, I'm sure there are lots of excuses, but it comes down to taking responsibility for your own actions. It's my view that trying to wrap the whole world in cotton wool, so that people are now told that coffee is hot, is both incredibly wasteful and condescending, and gets in the way of the crux of humanity: actions leading to consequences.

If you don't understand the terms of what you're signing up for, or you can't be bothered to read them, don't sign it until you do. And if you choose to do it anyway, you can't expect to have any recourse if they differ from what you assumed they'd be.

[dtsazza]

Originally Posted by Dave_C

If a man in the street tried to extract money from a financial institution by deception, it would be classed as fraud and he would be breaking the law. In some cases this can lead to time behind bars.

Adapting your metaphor, it's more like a man on the street trying to profit from a financial institution by offering them a bespoke financial contract. He might, for example, ring up and propose that his mortgage repayments are switched to a spread above RPI. Or that it's effectively coupled with an FX rate swap - so he can pay back in euros (say, due to obtaining most of his income from the eurozone and wanting to hedge the currency risk).

The point is, he draws up a proposal and puts it in front of the bank. They may accept this offered contract or decline it - but the man certainly wouldn't go to jail for proposing a contract that involved the exchange of money. (In reality of course, the bank almost certainly wouldn't be set up to deal with these types of offers, so would reject them unless the amounts involves justified some manual processing work. But it doesn't affect the legality or morality of the situation).


And the reality is the same, but in the different direction. The banks create a proposal of a financial transaction, and you accept it or decline it based on whether it's beneficial to you. Also not illegal/immoral.

[JimmyTheWig]

Originally Posted by dtsazza

If you don't understand the terms of what you're signing up for, or you can't be bothered to read them, don't sign it until you do. And if you choose to do it anyway, you can't expect to have any recourse if they differ from what you assumed they'd be.

But sometimes this really isn't practical, is it?

For example, I often get updates for Adobe Reader pop up on my computer. Every time I have to tick the box to say I understand the terms and conditions.
I trust them and so tick the box.

Are you really saying that you read _every_ term and condition of _everything_ that you sign up for?

[Mandelbrot]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheWig

By the way, Martin, have you really never been in debt? Or is it that you've never been in bad debt?
Did you make do with no student debts? [You only went through the system a few years before me, and I didn't know anyone who wasn't in debt.] Did you never have a mortgage (greater than your savings)?

Yes, I didn't believe that bit in his blog either.
Even if he had savings that were greater than his mortgage, he would still technically have a debt.
No credit card, Martin? Even if you pay it off completely each month, you still have a debt until then.

[tagq2]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheWig

Are you really saying that you read _every_ term and condition of _everything_ that you sign up for?

A more revealing question might be, "Do you read and fully understand..." and the answer would of course be "no". You can have a layperson's approximation of an understanding of what a term means, assuming your intelligence and knowledge are sufficient to parse each often horribly-worded term. Even a lawyer's understanding will be the result of questionable interpretation. Even a court's will be, one of the main reasons we have an appeals system.

But even if we assume for a moment that every man understands the short and medium term consequences to himself of all his actions (and we're already way into fantasy here), so what? A market as a whole is unsustainable if it's based on the notion of buyer beware: 2008 came from a decade of smart people becoming fabulously wealthy by persuading less smart people to put money where they cannot afford to put money.

[JimmyTheWig]

Originally Posted by dtsazza

Adapting your metaphor, it's more like a man on the street trying to profit from a financial institution by offering them a bespoke financial contract.

No, it's not.

The difference is implied trust.

The bank would not automatically trust the customer (as you go on to imply) and wouldn't take up the offer without going through it with a fine tooth comb.
In many cases (particularly with the elderly) the customer trusts the bank and accepts the contract offered to them.

It would be more like a teacher sitting down at the lunch table and offering to swap 1000 picolitres of their milk for 4 gills worth of a child's milk (like happened with the students in a Simpsons episode). You would expect the teacher to offer a fair trade rather than trying to get the better of the child.

[JimmyTheWig]

Originally Posted by Mandelbrot

Even if he had savings that were greater than his mortgage, he would still technically have a debt.
No credit card, Martin? Even if you pay it off completely each month, you still have a debt until then.

He said he'd never been "in debt". I think that's different to never having had a debt.
If your savings outweigh your debts then I'd say you weren't in debt.

[MSE Martin]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheWig

He said he'd never been "in debt". I think that's different to never having had a debt.
If your savings outweigh your debts then I'd say you weren't in debt.

I was talking net

[Errata]

My list of ‘stupid people’

That's probably the most arrogant and insulting phrase you've written so far. Shame on you.

[Scarpacci]

Originally Posted by Errata

That's probably the most arrogant and insulting phrase you've written so far. Shame on you.

I think you may have misunderstood his blog post. The list is of people that may, in his view undeservedly, end up being called "stupid" by some of the more cynical posters and commenters.

The point, as I understand it, is quite a few people are willing to call people stupid for certain financial mistakes, when there are people - like those on the list - who are perhaps more susceptible to these mistakes and do not deserve to be called stupid. It's a post against the idea financial mistakes only happen to stupid people who are too lazy to read terms and conditions, etc. I certainly don't think he's actually calling people on the list "stupid".

[dtsazza]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheWig

But sometimes this really isn't practical, is it?

For example, I often get updates for Adobe Reader pop up on my computer. Every time I have to tick the box to say I understand the terms and conditions.
I trust them and so tick the box.

Are you really saying that you read _every_ term and condition of _everything_ that you sign up for?

Yes - or at least those things that have statutory power over things I care about (a clause about owning your first-born in a EULA, for example, would be unenforceable).

If I don't have time/motivation to assess the terms, then I won't use that service. Once I started doing this I realised how it's less of an issue than you might initially think. There aren't that many things that include more than 30 seconds reading's worth of conditions - and they tend to be important things such as financial accounts, insurance documents, residential contracts etc. An aggregate I probably spend less than an hour a month reading T&Cs, and it's definitely time well-spent.

(In fact your specific example is quite relevant - I use SumatraPDF instead of Acrobat because the latter is so fussy and has so much cognitive overhead for the simple task of displaying a PDF. Prompting for updates and restating the EULA each time is a part of this.)

[im-lost]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheWig

He said he'd never been "in debt". I think that's different to never having had a debt.
If your savings outweigh your debts then I'd say you weren't in debt.

Of course you are in debt, just because you have the funds to pay off the debt set aside doesn't mean that there isn't a debt owed, if you owe money to others you are in debt whether you like it or not.

And Mr Lewis, to suggest you haven been 'in debt' because you are basing
that on your net worth is inexcusable, however you try to twist it.

You are 'in debt' whether you like it or not, got a mortgage? credit card you pay off monthly? is your electric, gas, council tax etc paid in advance? no, oh there's another debt.

Please don't try to paint a picture that you are whiter than white.

[JimmyTheWig]

Originally Posted by MSE Martin

I was talking net

You don't have to answer this if you feel it's too much information, but are you saying, then, that you came out of university with more savings than debts? And that when you bought your first property you (could have, at least) paid cash?

[dtsazza]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheWig

No, it's not.

The difference is implied trust.

Implied by who, though? And on what grounds?

If you decide to trust someone, and they turn out to be untrustworthy, then you made a bad judgement. Again, it boils down to your fault for making an assumption which turned out not to be true, and I don't see a problem with the negative consequences accruing to you for that (they've got to accrue to someone).


I'm not saying that you can't/shouldn't trust anyone. The point is that once it comes down to a position of trust, as opposed to a situation with contingencies that protect you, you're taking a calculated risk. If the risk doesn't come off, you'll be the worse for it. You can't expect to fix things to get everything with 100% certainty of a positive outcome, all the time.

And it's especially silly when you can take a small amount of effort to remove guesswork/assumptions, and by extension the imputed trustworthiness, out of the question. For example, in the milk situation, making the decision without taking 30 seconds to work out what the conversion is (Google can do it in a couple of seconds), is foolish.

[JimmyTheWig]

Originally Posted by im-lost

Of course you are in debt, just because you have the funds to pay off the debt set aside doesn't mean that there isn't a debt owed, if you owe money to others you are in debt whether you like it or not.

In terms of language I don't know and I'm not that bothered in this instance.

In terms of the reality of the situation, I'd say someone with the funcs to pay off their debts wasn't in the same situation at all as someone with debts without the funds to pay them off.
Go over to the Stoozing board and find someone with £20k credit card debt.
Then go over to DFW and find someone with £20k credit card debt.
You can't possibly equate the two, and so I feel it is not helpful to use the same language for the two.

Please don't try to paid a picture that you are whiter than white.

Are you saying that someone who pays their phone bill, for example, in arrears is less whiter than white than someone who, somehow, pays it upfront?