Character Assassination Against Dave Ramsey?
June 10, 2018 12:08 PM   Subscribe

The big three automakers tried to assassinate Ralph Nader's character when he pushed for seat belts (see the documentary about him). The FBI spied on MLK to do the same thing. Have there been any reports of banks / lenders trying to assassinate Dave Ramsey's character?
posted by daniel.poynter to Work & Money (6 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't think Ramsey has the sort of reach that actually warrants that. Like, I did FPU, I've read a bunch of his books.
It strikes me like he sets up a very strict standard for how people ought to behave, like the idea that it's somehow totally reasonable to buy all your houses and cars outright as a middle-class person, or go to school without debt, but the reality that his audience takes away isn't "no debt ever", it's "keep a budget and pay off your debt as quick as you reasonably can and think hard about taking on any future debt", and people just like the ass-kicking kind of extremist talk the same way they want to hear that from a personal trainer or something. I don't really care for him anymore, but I think just in general that even at his best he doesn't present a real danger to the banking establishment.

At his worst, well, it took me quite a large number of tries including other methods of contact through his website to get unsubscribed from the mailing list where he was constantly trying to sell me books that I didn't want or need, so... no, I don't think he's personally super committed to the vast reform of people's spending habits that some of his advice would suggest.
posted by Sequence at 1:11 PM on June 10, 2018 [1 favorite]


Also it's part of his showman's style that he assassinates his own character. Ramsey talks freely about going bankrupt as a 25-year-old real estate millionaire, and all the mistakes he made with money throughout his life. Ultimately he is about thriving from within the system, not reforming it. He is very much "you be smarter than other people" in his approaches, not trying to make it better for everyone-- a mindset that becomes obvious when he talks about lotteries being a tax on people who can't do math, criticizes people who think life is hopeless, shows you what happens to your money if you pay cash, not payments and so on and so on... Not a revolutionary. Like Sequence wrote, I don't think banks fear him. Not like they fear Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or (formerly) Al Franken.
posted by seasparrow at 2:23 PM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]


Nader and MLK pushed to change laws and make things better for everyone. Ramsey isn’t fighting the system itself - just suggesting people change the way they work within it. Also, by pushing so-called personal responsibility, he feeds a narrative that the finance industry loves - if you’re in trouble, it’s nobody’s fault but your own. Someone like Elizabeth Warren, who challenges the rules that make it easy for people to get in trouble, is more of a threat. I also think Ramsey’s anti-LGBT stance will eventually make him mostly irrelevant, though he seems to be grooming his daughter to follow him. Maybe she’ll be better.
posted by FencingGal at 2:50 PM on June 10, 2018 [16 favorites]


Dave Ramsey is perfectly in tune with the financial industry. He advocates saving money and then investing it using his ELP endorsed advisers who pay Ramsey a fee for each person they sign up. He also promises people ridiculous 12% investment returns to encourage their investment.

So what's not to like about Ramsey by the financial industry. He's not their enemy. He's their ally.
posted by JackFlash at 3:01 PM on June 10, 2018 [11 favorites]


Ramsey performs conscientiousness as a means of aspirational entertainment. It isn't clear to me whether many people are actually inspired by that to the point of some degree of self-transformation towards a conscientious approach to their finances, or if Ramsey's audience is largely conscientious people drawn to the way his ministrations affirm and reinforce their temperament.

In the latter case, Ramsey is absolutely no threat at all, and provides a convenient way to target ad buys at people who likely have some amount of money to invest.

In the former case, while lenders *might* see their market shrink somewhat (depending on how much credit really is pursued out of discretion rather than necessity), bankers and lenders are hardly threatened by conscientious behavior. In fact, their models need that behavior in the large in order to work. So, potentially there's some loss of opportunity in the consumer market at the margins, but likely greater stability. Probably just moves where bankers/lenders allocate their appetite for risk+return rather than providing any existential threat.
posted by wildblueyonder at 3:38 PM on June 10, 2018


The Bogleheads Forum will sometimes take a swipe at Ramsey for what they perceive to be his high-fee, inefficient investment recommendations. They're evangelical index-fund types - a mix of not wanting to give fees to the banking industry and "personal responsibility" ideology. I find that triangulation pretty interesting since, as noted above, bankers mostly like to subscribe to the idea that if you're in debt you're just not trying hard enough (but they're willing to sell you products and fees to fix your deficiencies). So, for Boglehead types, Ramsey is a shill for investment advisors.
posted by media_itoku at 12:35 PM on June 11, 2018


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