This is not a game, ... Debt has become a part of who we are. It's become that spoiled child in the grocery store with their lip stuck out: 'I want it. I want it. I deserve it because I breathe air.' And, well, that's an uphill climb in our culture right now, to go against that and say, 'Hey, let's be grownups here. Let's be mature, learn to delay pleasure, save up and pay for things.'
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of financial responsibility and the need to delay gratification.
Dave Ramsey highlights the challenges of living in a culture that promotes immediate gratification and debt accumulation. He likens debt to a spoiled child, which illustrates how it can dominate our desires and decisions, urging us instead to embrace maturity and financial discipline by saving and paying for things outright rather than succumbing to impulsive spending.
In practice
During a financial workshop, one might use this quote to stress the importance of financial planning.
Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans can't even envision a car without a payment ... a house without a mortgage ... a student without a loan ... and credit without a card. We've been sold debt with such repetition and with such fervor that most folks can't conceive of what it would be like to have NO payments.
The thing I have discovered about working with personal finance is that the good news is that it is not rocket science. Personal finance is about 80 percent behavior. It is only about 20 percent head knowledge.
Debt collectors like to play on your emotions because they think you'll give in and do something you can't really afford to do. Most of them don't care about you or your situation as long as they get some money.
Hitting bottom and hitting it hard was the worst thing that ever happened to me and the best thing that ever happened to me.
Your priorities, passions, goals, and fears are shown clearly in the flow of your money.
You have to teach children about money intentionally - create teachable moments.
The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.
I like Burton Malkiel's 'A Random Walk Down Wall Street.' He comes to the same conclusion that I do - that indexing is the way. My 'Little Book of Common Sense Investing' says pretty much the same thing.
Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.
If you're trading individual securities, you're almost certainly making a mistake. Because most professional managers can't outperform their benchmarks, and there's little reason to think that individuals can.
Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade math, you can do it.
Outperforming the market with low volatility on a consistent basis is an impossibility. I outperformed the market for 30-odd years, but not with low volatility.
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