Personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi has a good post on what the candidates aren't telling you about your money. Here's one of his points:Not all homeowners deserve to stay in their houses. Renting is a perfectly reasonable alternative, but the idea of Americans “losing their houses” is politically untenable. Why? Because America perpetuates a mistaken culture of homeownership. Owning your own home is the kind of BS sacred cow that got us into this mess: Our parents tell us to buy a house. Our friends are impressed if we own a house in our twenties. The government literally encourages us to own a house by offering tax deductions. Homeownership is the American Dream! The truth is, if you’re making the largest purchase of your life, you need more than a slogan — you need to take the responsibility to do some research.I've been talking about the advantages of renting over owning for years and have quite a few blogs posts on the topic. The decision to buy a home should certainly be based on more than a slogan and on more than on the phrase "renting is just throwing your money away."
See more examples of what the candidates aren't talking about after the link.
(HT Lifehacker)
1 comment:
Unfortunately, all politicians are afraid to tell us what we don't want to hear.
But that to some extent is the fault of us, the public. When politicians do tend to say stuff like that, they get punished at the ballot box.
I will say this for Obama, though: if you read or watch his speeches, he talks alot about shared sacrifice among the people. He speaks a lot about how achieving what we aspire too takes long, hard work.
He also mentions constantly that it will take the involvement of all of us. One of the key attractions of the Obama message is its sense of empowerment for the average person.
I really do believe that if he becomes President, Obama will have that rare ability to call us as a people to be better than we are.
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