Large of law numbers. There are a lot of idiots out there. I had a buddy; super nice, super funny guy, late 20's, but financially an idiot.
He sent a $1,000 check as "collateral" to some online "bank" to get a $10,000 "loan". I explained to him that this isn't how any of this works and he just paused and said, "Huh, so should put a stop payment on the second check?" He had sent them another $1,000 as some sort of second round of collateral for the loan or some other nonsense.
Tech experts things that everybody not as knowledgeable as them are "stupid". The reality is that everybody has blind spots and fall for a scam. Maybe, you will not fall for this one because you are an expert on technology but you may be victim of some other form of scam.
To call victims "idiots" is an attitude that solves nothing. We should make sure that people gets better on-line safety education with good trustful sources starting on school. This will be too late for some people that grow in a different time and may have problems identifying this type of on-line scams, but it is not for younger generations.
That state median average of $95K makes sense for Washington state, but the Seattle median (which they say is actually $189K) just seems way too high by comparison. It'd imply people on the other side of the state are making much less than $95k per household. That may be true, I grew up over there and there is plenty of poverty. But, it's especially weird considering how much of the state's high-earning population lives within commuting distance of the city, but not in it, which would further drive down the median income in, say, Yakima or Spokane. My guess is those numbers are wacky.
I went here first too, I thought I need to start putting my laptop on the right side of my main screen to make me lean the other way to increase my mood.
Sometimes I feel like I was taking crazy pills, but I distinctly remember major news agencies like the BBC calling BS with pretty hard facts about the whole WMD thing, but no one really cared. (In America or Britain anyways)
To address your second point, it is merely about satisfaction, not solutions or best optimal outcomes. The question is neutral to what the current state is or what the future state should be, only on their satisfaction with it.
There isn't really a conflicting result if 50% of the people think we should live in a theocracy and 50% think religion should be outlawed if 0% of them are satisfied with the status quo.
You could look at money as condensed time - you've worked for the money and saved it up. At some point if you save enough you can stop working and live off that savings. And then you have time.
Fallacy. With money you can avoid working. You cant buy time. Those are two very different things. You know who benefits from you being confused on that point? Your employer. "work hard and then you'll be able to buy time. Not now of course, now you're working hard. But later you'll buy time trust me bro"
What is "enough" and how much guarantee is there that I'll reach that?
It's rather similar to what investing calls the DCF - but with time: time I have today is worth more than time I might have in future. For several reasons:
Time I have today is guaranteed. The future is unknown. But rather known, is that in the future I'll be older, my health and energy lower and therefore my options limited. The quality of "time" is potentially much higher when you are 20 than when you are 83. And then there's the risk that I don't even make it far beyond my 70ies.
