'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

[Slimprofits]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

Credit crunch now hitting student loans

The credit crunch roiling the financial markets is starting to hit college campuses as dozens of lenders - comprising at least 13 percent of the student loan market - have stopped offering federally guaranteed student loans over the last few weeks.

So far, the departures have not kept students from getting loans. But lawmakers are worried enough that the House passed a bill Thursday to give the Department of Education temporary authority to buy up existing student loans, which could free up money for lenders to make new loans.

The bill also would allow the education secretary to advance money to guaranty agencies - state or private entities that insure federal loans - which could serve as lenders of last resort if more private lenders bail out.

[..]

...Cuts in subsidies to student lenders, approved by Congress last fall, also have made federal student loans less profitable.

...57 lenders are getting out of the business, including such big banks as Washington Mutual and HSBC Bank. Citigroup's Student Loan Corp. will stop issuing loans May 1 at certain colleges where it's no longer profitable, often because of low graduation or high default rates. Sallie Mae, the nation's biggest student lender, said last week it will no longer make consolidated loans, which pull together all of a student's college debts.

[..]

Students have not seen the impact yet. A few private lenders are stepping up their lending to fill the void and boost their market share. Some affected schools are turning to the Education Department's direct loan program, which provides $12 billion in loans annually directly to students through their schools.

"To me, this is a lender crisis, not a student crisis," said Cheryl Resh, UC Berkeley's director of financial aid, who said Cal students have not been impacted because of the school's direct loan program. "As far as we're concerned, direct loan is a real option for schools that are concerned."

My sister was wait-listed at Northwestern U. and was told that 25,000 students applied for 2,000 spots.

So there is an all-time high of college applicants at the same time that we're in a recession with rising unemployment in 45 states, stagnant wages, consumer price inflation, tuitions rising above inflation and a credit cruch. Something has got to give.

[zoog]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

Credit crunch now hitting student loans



My sister was wait-listed at Northwestern U. and was told that 25,000 students applied for 2,000 spots.

So there is an all-time high of college applicants at the same time that we're in a recession with rising unemployment in 45 states, stagnant wages, consumer price inflation, tuitions rising above inflation and a credit cruch. Something has got to give.

This is not unusual. Early in recessions, higher education enrollment tends to increase, or at least stay flat. As the job market shrinks, people cannot find work, or don't see an upward path in their job, so they hope a college degree (or an additional degree) will give them better options. As short as most recessions are, by the time they get out of school, the job market is improving and they usually find a good job. This enforces the behavior, though I wonder if the education really has more effect than just overall improvement in the economy.

[GRG55]

Re: 'investor literacy' = a big hoax

In doing research for my book, one of the questions I seek to answer is how Americans got so lousy at household finance. The answers I've dug up so far are not surprising. Three coincident factors:

1) For the post WWII generation, household budgets were managed by the wives. The wives learned household finance in usually mandatory high school Home Economics classes. In the the 1950s and 1960s these became elective, and by the late 1960s the changing roles of women in American society meant that Home Economics was seen as a symbol of 1950s roles and by the 1970s all that was left of Home Economics were classes on baking cookies. After that, the basics of household finance were not taught at all.

2) The other source of household finance were religious principles, especially of Christianity, that taught savings and frugality and avoidance of debt. As the US became more secular, these ideas receded under an onslaught of consumerist ideology from Madison Ave via TV, newspapers, and magazines. The new religion was consumerism.

3) Banks joined the consumerist religion, marketing ideas that fly in the face of 2,000 years of basic finance, such as "Do not use credit to finance the purchase of depreciating assets (e.g., cars and appliances) and "Save and let compound interest do the saving for you."

Over this period since the end of WWII there has been no source communicating the old pre-consumer ideology beliefs about saving, borrowing, and investing to effectively provide balance with the same authority, production values, and frequency of mass media advertising. (There is a whole section of the book that focuses on the principle of authority, production values, and frequency as the system for developing beliefs.)

So here we are with that vast majority of Americans believing a lot of things about saving, borrowing, and investing that are simply not true. Who benefited from the widespread adoption of these false beliefs? Banks and producers...

Eric: It appears your book is going to venture into some "politically incorrect" topics that are badly in need of examination. Kudos for having the courage to delve into these.

At the risk of being labelled a misogynist, it strikes me that the development of the "new religion of consumerism" was an important factor in the devaluing of unpaid work; most of it traditionally done by women.

After all, if status is governed by the ability to consume [keeping up with the Jones'], and consumption requires money, then activities devoted to acquiring (and spending) of money/income must therefore rank higher in the eyes of one's family, friends, neighbours and professional peers. IMO the "24/7 always-connected" Blackberry may well be the ultimate outward expression of this addiction by so many to earn, earn, earn, more, more, more [thus far I have absolutely refused to submit to my business partners repeated entreaties to get one...I just don't want to be quite that connected]. How else to explain the phenomena of longer professional work hours to earn more money in order to pay for such services as nannies, lawn maintenance, housecleaning, and so forth?

There's been a less than subtle shift over time even in the way our society confers celebrity status. Actors and pro athletes used to be lionized, and paid, for their talent. In too many cases today, actors of modest ability and athletes with limited on-field motivation are considered superstars because of their latest breathtaking contract settlement and the ability of their "brand" to earn revenue (Becks and Posh come to mind). We are regularly subjected to the absurdity of the media asking a Hollywood celebrity, some who clearly struggled to get through high school, to weigh in on the latest global economic or political issues of the day. It's as though immense wealth automatically confers superior intellect and knowledge.

We have come full circle from a society admirably trying to tap the full potential of all its citizens regardless of sex, to one where both parents have to work just to keep above water, the loss of either spouse's job is a financial disaster for so many families, and divorce practically guarantees both halves are immediately reduced to poverty.

[EJ]

Re: 'investor literacy' = a big hoax

In the American version of Christianity it also taught self-reliance and separation of church and state. However, starting from the 1930's the state became a major part of the new religion.

The real name of the new religion is socialism. It started in the 19th century in Europe and by the 1930's spread to America. FDR's Second Bill of Rights is much more powerful expression of the new religious credo, than anything concocted by the media. And, actually, MSM did quite a lot to propagate this new faith.

The SBR introduced "economic rights". So, now everybody was entitled to happiness, not only pursuit of it. Comparing SBR with this document

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Soviet_Constitution

we can see, that "economic rights" are a major point in both of them. Except, of course, Brezhnev constitution was much more consistent. It is pretty clear, that economic rights require "socialist property" as opposed to "private property".

I am not religious, but I do care about societal and economic consequences of the dominant religion in a society. Religion is supposed to be irrational, just like most human beings are. However, socialism as a practical religion is not even irrational, it is ridiculous.

I don't care about the nonsense Christans believe. I just know, the Protestant beliefs and traditions sustained and improved American society and economy, while Socialist faith will destroy it, just like it destroyed Russia.

I am no anti-government fanatic. I agree, that government has a very important role to play in the modern society. If the Founding Fathers allowed the gov't to run the Post Office, they would, definitely, accept the government participation in many infrastructural activities including energy, communications, education, insurance etc. (it's just, there was no power grid and Internet back then).

However, the common socialist belief, that gov't can and must solve all the problems in life, is absolutely destructive and ridiculous.

A friend who came to the US from the Soviet Union in the 1970s commented: "America has accomplished what the Soviet system promised but failed to deliver. Here you can start a business, compete, fail, try again, maybe eventually succeed and get rich, if you stick with it. Or you can live out your days as a worker for some big company. If you start off stuck in a low paying job you can still save up money to go to college, or go at night, or you are a married young couple, one of you can work and the other go to college to develop skills for a higher paying job. So many ways to get ahead and make money, and if you fail a government safety net so you don't starve."

He was very impressed with the US system then. Recently he told me he did not believe this to be true any longer. The purchasing power of income has so far eroded relative to the cost of basic necessities of housing and food that a person starting at the bottom cannot save enough to go to college, both parents in a family have to work to pay the bills, and if you are working a low paying job you have to work two or more jobs just to earn enough to have a place to live and food to eat, leaving no spare time for night school. College is so expensive you need to take out loans to do so and if your credit isn't good then cannot get a loan to pay for college. Even if you get in you graduate with so much debt that it's not economical unless you go are training for a profession that pays you enough to pay off the debt in 10 years.

What happened? Did the US become more like the Soviet Union, more socialistic? No. You are looking in the wrong place for the source of the problem.

Since the early 1980s the US became not more socialistic but more more feudalistic. The economic liberalization that was promised under the Reagan administration and carried forward by both Democratic and Republic party leadership ever since has resulted in the following: substitution of economic rent on labor by government in the form of taxes has been replaced by economic rent on labor by banks in the form of interest on debt.

The problem is not that the US has become more socialistic. What has happened is that the US economy has become geared to increasingly maximize the extraction of economic rent from its people.

This is the profound change over the past 30 years that has so profoundly reshaped American society. If you want to understand how it occurred, I recommend you read this report:

A Matter of Trust (pdf)

And visit these two web sites:

Open Secrets

Sourcewatch

On your point regarding the US Constitution, proposals for government subsidies of industries that extract economic rent from citizens are regularly rejected by constitutional bodies of other countries that most Americans consider to be far more socialistic than the US. For example:

France does not allow a home mortgage interest deduction. In 2007, newly-elected President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed creating the deduction as part of his legislative plan for sparking the French economy.^[2] In August 2007, the Constitutional Council, the highest court in France, struck down the mortgage interest deduction as unconstitutionally creating a tax advantage that goes far beyond its stated goal of encouraging non-homeowners to buy homes. The Court noted that the deduction would apply to people who already own homes.

Compare this to US policy.

Under 26 U.S.C. § 163(h) of the Internal Revenue Code, the United States allows a home mortgage interest deduction, with several limitations. First, the taxpayer must elect to itemize deductions, and the total itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction (otherwise, itemization would not reduce tax). Second, the deduction is limited to interest on debts secured by a principal residence or a second home. Third, interest is only deductible on up to $1 million of debt used to acquire, construct, or substantially improve the residence, or on up to $100,000 of home equity dept regardless of the purpose or use of the loan.

...there are additional tax incentives for home ownership. For example, taxpayers are allowed an exclusion of up to $250,000 ($500,000 for a married couple filing jointly) of capital gains on the sale of real property if the owner used it as primary residence for two of the five years before the date of sale. Furthermore, U.S. taxpayers are not taxed on imputed income derived from home ownership. This can be explained by comparing a person who owns a home and rents it out to strangers. The rents received are included in the taxpayer's income. If this taxpayer rents a place to live because he chooses not to live in the home he owns, the payments he makes is not deductible because it would be a personal expense. Simply by evicting the tenant and moving into the home he owns, this taxpayer avoids including the rent on his own from his gross income.

This Wikipedia entry makes the standard error of only pointing out that as home owners are not paying taxes then non-home owners have to pay the taxes for them. In reality, the home owner is paying interest on a mortgage that would not otherwise exist; it is afforded by the tax deduction. Income goes to debt service that goes to a bank rather than to taxes to pay for public goods. Many other examples are offered in the book.

Whenever you hear the battle cry "Government is inefficient at allocating resources; lower taxes mean a stronger economy" instead hear "Lower taxes combined with the right tax policy means money available for Americans to pay interest on debt."

[EJ]

Re: 'investor literacy' = a big hoax

Students from middle class families routinely graduate from college 20 to 40 thousand dollars in debt. When and how did that become acceptable?

Thailandnotes, please see my response here.

[EJ]

Re: 'investor literacy' = a big hoax

Eric: It appears your book is going to venture into some "politically incorrect" topics that are badly in need of examination. Kudos for having the courage to delve into these.

At the risk of being labelled a misogynist, it strikes me that the development of the "new religion of consumerism" was an important factor in the devaluing of unpaid work; most of it traditionally done by women.

After all, if status is governed by the ability to consume [keeping up with the Jones'], and consumption requires money, then activities devoted to acquiring (and spending) of money/income must therefore rank higher in the eyes of one's family, friends, neighbours and professional peers. IMO the "24/7 always-connected" Blackberry may well be the ultimate outward expression of this addiction by so many to earn, earn, earn, more, more, more [thus far I have absolutely refused to submit to my business partners repeated entreaties to get one...I just don't want to be quite that connected]. How else to explain the phenomena of longer professional work hours to earn more money in order to pay for such services as nannies, lawn maintenance, housecleaning, and so forth?

There's been a less than subtle shift over time even in the way our society confers celebrity status. Actors and pro athletes used to be lionized, and paid, for their talent. In too many cases today, actors of modest ability and athletes with limited on-field motivation are considered superstars because of their latest breathtaking contract settlement and the ability of their "brand" to earn revenue (Becks and Posh come to mind). We are regularly subjected to the absurdity of the media asking a Hollywood celebrity, some who clearly struggled to get through high school, to weigh in on the latest global economic or political issues of the day. It's as though immense wealth automatically confers superior intellect and knowledge.

We have come full circle from a society admirably trying to tap the full potential of all its citizens regardless of sex, to one where both parents have to work just to keep above water, the loss of either spouse's job is a financial disaster for so many families, and divorce practically guarantees both halves are immediately reduced to poverty.

In standard iTulip fashion, I start with the data and follow where it leads. As I'm sure you have noticed, my view is that ideology gets in the way of understanding.

Many years ago a US-based international writer's group organized a worldwide writer's conference. One of the topics of the agenda was international standards of compensation: How much should writers be paid?

One of the European delegates admitted difficulty with the question, "In my country, a great writer seeks to be rewarded with the love and respect of his countrymen. How can money possibly compare in valuable to that?"

Money has become the measure of success in the US whereas in many societies it is one of several measures of success. Americans have a great deal of difficulty understanding this and also why so many Europeans are not eager to emulate this aspect of US society, although many Asian societies, especially Chinese, are similar in this respect.

I am not advocating a return to 1950s women's roles or that increased secularism has not on net been positive for US society. I acknowledge that some beneficial social rules have been lost and replaced with less beneficial ones. In the financial sphere, the solution is to require at least one course in basic finance for all high school students and to regulate loan products by applying the same consumer protection philosophy as we do to any other product that has both beneficial and detrimental characteristics.

The other change that has to occur is that social definitions of success need to expand. I can see this happening in the US as a result of exhaustion with "bling" culture combined with the decline in opportunity being created by the series of inflationary recessions that we are starting to experience; on the one hand the trend will be driven by a desire to acknowledge and thus encourage successes that do not entail becoming rich (e.g., pure science) and on the other reduced opportunities to make money that creates a need for economically downwardly mobile members of society to put a positive label on an often intended circumstance. "Downshifting" is an example. As friend recently told me, "I'm retired. I hadn't planned to be." The economy retired him.

The shift from the need for two versus one parent to work is part of an ongoing downwardly mobile trend, although few acknowledge it as such. The trend will continue and acquire new labels as society adapts.

[Slimprofits]

Re: 'investor literacy' = a big hoax

A friend who came to the US from the Soviet Union in the 1970s commented: "America has accomplished what the Soviet system promised but failed to deliver. Here you can start a business, compete, fail, try again, maybe eventually succeed and get rich, if you stick with it. Or you can live out your days as a worker for some big company. If you start off stuck in a low paying job you can still save up money to go to college, or go at night, or you are a married young couple, one of you can work and the other go to college to develop skills for a higher paying job. So many ways to get ahead and make money, and if you fail a government safety net so you don't starve."

He was very impressed with the US system then. Recently he told me he did not believe this to be true any longer...

Awesome post, thank you for putting it down on paper....The themes that you touched on are resonating with many (former) middle class peoples right now.

[Andreuccio]

Re: 'investor literacy' = a big hoax

Awesome post, thank you for putting it down on paper....The themes that you touched on are resonating with many (former) middle class peoples right now.

There are certain posts that I'd like to be able to return to easily. This is one of them. I particularly want to be able to access and read the suggested links, which I'm interested in but don't have time for now.

Fred, EJ: is there a way to mark a specific post (not a whole thread, which I know how to do)?

[c1ue]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

Let's take the example of your young friends. If they can put away 10% of their income, they'd be saving a little over $2900 per year. Assuming they're 25, if they make only 4% after inflation they would have $287,000 when they reached 65. Maybe that won't buy them a condo in SF, but it's a large home in many parts of the country, and it's $287,000 more than they would have had without saving.

A,

I understand and personally agree with your logic, but unfortunately those who are more intelligent than average and less stubborn than you or I see this equation:

Save $2900 per year.
Lose 5% to 10% in a periodic stock market correction.
Pull savings to cash.
Watch inflation erode value of money literally in real time (i.e. gasoline, bread, etc)
See those with no money get $88/month condos to live in(This is SF, after all)
Say 'F*** it' and go to Starbucks.

Think on this another way: if you just graduated now, would there REALLY be a point in saving? Knowing that inflation is going to eat you alive?

To a similar extent and declining as you approach 1971, you see this exact same equation for every person starting work in the last 30 years.

Those who started 30 years ago had asset inflation in their favor, as you approach today the calculation reverses.

To choose another example: average home price vs. average salary in 1971 vs. now.

Clearly there are some significant differences.

[The Outback Oracle]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

LOL. C1ue, I love you, man.

My point is you don't have to start out with "serious" investments. All you have to do is start. Compound interest will turn small investments into serious ones, given enough time. Your friends don't have to buy 10 lbs of gold. (BTW, nice one, Jeff!) A few ounces a year would make a great start.

Let's take the example of your young friends. If they can put away 10% of their income, they'd be saving a little over $2900 per year. Assuming they're 25, if they make only 4% after inflation they would have $287,000 when they reached 65. Maybe that won't buy them a condo in SF, but it's a large home in many parts of the country, and it's $287,000 more than they would have had without saving.

I agree that at 25 it's hard to see the value in that. Still, I wish somebody had talked me into putting away $100 per month when I was 15, or $300 when I was 25.

Andreuccio

Firstly I agree on the need to save both from a personal and national viewpoint.
I am a little worried about the ability to consistently make 4% above inflation. Particularly, if we are talking real inflation.
I don't know about the US but this is how it stacks up in Aus. Let's say real inflation is 7%. So we have to achieve an after tax nominal return of 11%. Let's assume a 40% marginal tax rate, then we have to earn, befroe tax, 18.33%!!! The break-even before tax return in these circumstances is 11.67%.

People will not save unless there is real incentive to do so. We are screwed because we have not saved in the past, and we are now so damned deeply in debt we cannot have interest rates that encourage people to save....Interest rates have to be negative just to keep the whole damned corrupt edifice going for one more day!!!

[GRG55]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

A,

I understand and personally agree with your logic, but unfortunately those who are more intelligent than average and less stubborn than you or I see this equation:

Save $2900 per year.
Lose 5% to 10% in a periodic stock market correction.
Pull savings to cash.
Watch inflation erode value of money literally in real time (i.e. gasoline, bread, etc)
See those with no money get $88/month condos to live in(This is SF, after all)
Say 'F*** it' and go to Starbucks.

Think on this another way: if you just graduated now, would there REALLY be a point in saving? Knowing that inflation is going to eat you alive?

To a similar extent and declining as you approach 1971, you see this exact same equation for every person starting work in the last 30 years.

Those who started 30 years ago had asset inflation in their favor, as you approach today the calculation reverses.

To choose another example: average home price vs. average salary in 1971 vs. now.

Clearly there are some significant differences.

Assets are still inflating today. Just not the same assets as the last 30 years or so.

If you started saving 30 years ago and invested in the assets that had inflated teh most over the prior 10 to 15 years you would have done quite poorly, because you would have been investing in things like oil and minerals that were near their price peaks and just about to head south for 25 years.

If you are graduating now there is every reason to start saving now. You would have a full working life ahead of you and many economic cycles to cope with, not just the current one.

[c1ue]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

GRG,

Actually, even for oil had you bought oil companies you would have been fine.

Even oil itself - so long as it was physical and already stored in some facility you own, you would still have been ok. $100 now vs. $12.37 in 1976?

Only gold and silver would have hurt you badly had you invested at the peak, and possibly bonds at the absolutely wrong time.

This is what I mean by asset inflation - so long as almost whatever investment you bought in the 1970s exists still today, you would have made money.

Sure there are plenty of places to put your money now, but should we really have an unwinding of the 'inflation bubble' that has existed since the breaking of any semblence of gold backing for the dollar, I think the exact opposite for the last 30 years will happen: almost any investments will go down.

It would be ironic if it were indeed gold/silver/bonds which do well in contrast.

This speaks again to risk vs. reward: sure, RE can go up again and likely will do so someday. But it hasn't done so in Japan for 13 years.

Some kid newly into his corporate job who bought Japanese stocks, real estate, yen, or most anything else would still be under water. Of course, had this person saved his cash, deflation at least would make the cash worth more.

But here we're looking at inflation. How sad will it be if (indeed, more like when) prices for stocks, real estate, the dollar, or most anything else may remain roughly the same, but the purchasing power parity will drop by half or more?

In this case, spending right away is not at all a bad strategy.

Sure, double mocha lattes might not be ideal, but the principle isn't always wrong!

[GRG55]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

...But here we're looking at inflation. How sad will it be if (indeed, more like when) prices for stocks, real estate, the dollar, or most anything else may remain roughly the same, but the purchasing power parity will drop by half or more?

In this case, spending right away is not at all a bad strategy.

Sure, double mocha lattes might not be ideal, but the principle isn't always wrong!

Forgive me but I do not understand how the price of "everything" can stay the same, while the currency purchasing power declines by 50%? A declining currency suggests that there is something, somewhere today that is "cheap" compared to what it will cost denominated in that same currency tomorrow, after it's purchasing power has been cut in half. Makes sense to me to figure out what that something is and buy it now. If that something is double mocha lattes then we are all in a heap o' trouble...

[Andreuccio]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

Think on this another way: if you just graduated now, would there REALLY be a point in saving? Knowing that inflation is going to eat you alive?

I was thinking about something this morning that strikes me now as interestingly parallel: many inner city youth act in ways that to us would seem incredibly irresponsible or worse. They don't care about school, are sexually active at a young age (early teens or sooner), are involved with gangs, are violent, do drugs, etc. If you ask them why, many will tell you that they don't expect to live into their 20's, so they might as well live it up now. Not much point studying for the SAT if you don't expect to live to 21.

Now this may actually be a rational decision, (just like it might be a rational decision of your young professional friends not to save). I don't know what type of odds these kids really have of seeing their 20th birthday. What I can attest to, though, is the incredible strain their collective decisions put on the system. It becomes much harder to run a successful school, for example, as you get a large enough percentage of students whose goals for the day have absolutely nothing to do with the goals of the teacher in the classroom. And as the system gets overwhelmed, and everything else gets worse, that decline in itself increases the chances that these kids, and others around them, won't make it into their 20's.

I wonder what kind of impact the decisions your friends are making will have on society 30 years forward.

[c1ue]

Re: 'Investor literacy' = Big hoax

Forgive me but I do not understand how the price of "everything" can stay the same, while the currency purchasing power declines by 50%?

I should have been more clear: Everything refers to assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate. It does not refer to consumables.

The beauty of assets (and the asset inflation we've seen since 1971) is that the purchasing value of the dollar only peripherally affects price.

This is because the prices of these assets are determined at the margins - i.e. buys/sales.

When no one wants to buy/sell, the price stays roughly the same.

Thus as the dollar depreciation has its way with the US$ purchasing power, real estate and other assets simply sit around without much buy/sell activity. The value may stay roughly the same, but the purchasing power extracted for same will still drop once the buy/sell starts occurring again.

This is completely different than food and gasoline. I'm sure you can see the parallel in say, MBS securities.

I wonder what kind of impact the decisions your friends are making will have on society 30 years forward.

Well, my friends aren't the inner city ghetto punks.

These friends are 20-ish workers ranging from:

a husband/wife couple: wife works as a Fedex import regulation 'manager' - basically transcribing import regulations from foreign countries into Fedex's database, husband manages the valet parking in a swank restaurant while studying chiropractics. No point saving as they don't make much money, just enough for their 1 bedroom apt, 1 old car, going out twice a week, and the yearly trip to see wife's relatives in Brazil.

boyfriend/girlfriend: He, was doing mortgage banking, has his band. She, also was doing mortgage banking, now also working in restaurant. She now believes MBA is the way up. They rent a house in 'burbs, also go out twice a week.

another husband/wife couple: He, bartender. She, owns/runs a language school.

Oh and more than half of the above are born in the US.

They don't save much because there isn't much point. They don't understand investments - all have dabbled but got burnt and now don't bother. They don't think about the future in iTulip terms, more in terms of what magic wand (mortgage banking, chiropractics, MBA, own business, etc) will be used to transport them into the upper classes.

But life isn't that bad at all. At least not yet.