Hearing much about Dave Ramsey. Which of his works is best in describing his “philosophy” about money?
Start with his website, specifically his seven steps. Most everything else is around motivating people to actually do the plan. As he often says personal finance is 80% personal and 20% finance, by which he means that things that make sense financially (paying off high interest debt first) don't necessarily motivate action (so instead pay off the smallest debt first to get motivation). Really the rest is details around those seven concepts. On his site there is a link to a free one-hour podcast for the iPod, and you can pay for the full three hours of his radio show on podcast. He started on radio, and it is probably his best format. The reason Dave Ramsey has limited appeal beyond the US is that he is explicitly evangelical. He views his system as an extension of his Christian beliefs. That sells very well in parts of the US, but doesn't port very well. There is actually nothing religious in his program, other than the occasional reference to biblical verses in an attempt to tie his program into his religion, but people who are really interested and want to teach his program, not just practice it, are going to find they need to be an Evangelical (or at least a Christian) to fit in. Addendum: I should mention that Dave Ramsey is changing the FPU program (and I expect it will trickle into other things) to be more explicitly (although apparently not overtly) religious and have a stronger emphasis on budgeting. See here. If I had to start with one thing about Dave's Philosophy it would be: Zero Debt.   Dave Ramsey doesn't believe in going into debt for anything, except a house for residence (and he's conservative about how much debt there as well).  This is his biggest differentiating feature from Clark Howard or some of the others.   His main points are (Some duplication of Yishai) His radio show is available on many US radio stations with internet streams.  I use WSJS, where he is available from Noon to 3PM Eastern. His books: The Total Money Makeover - This is a very step by step approach to what he teaches about how to handle money. Financial Peace - This is a more philosophical approach to the same topics.  More idea and less application based. You can catch his radio show online for free - or an hour podcast each day in the itunes store - this is free. You can watch his TV show on Hulu. "Actually, Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar, wrote a ""book club"" series that basically reads like cliff notes for Dave's The Total Money Makeover starting with this blog post. So that might be a really good place to start. Also of note is Trent's Article ""Five Ways I Disagree With Dave Ramsey""." My beef with day (and to ape Yishai's answer a little) is that his good advice is no different than anybody's good advice.  The seven steps are on the home page, Clark Howard, Suze Orman and probably quite a few others all chat about spend less, save more, shop wisely and live within your means. Anything specific is just motivation, and it sort of irks me that Dave Ramsey charges $100+ buck to go to a seminar about how to save money.  A $30 book to read anecdotes and examples of how to follow the seven steps.  (Probably, I won't buy his books) I have no problem with somebody making money, but I doubt that Dave is just barely breaking even.  I was stand corrected if he is, but I just don't suspect he is. Clark Howard recommends that people go to the library and check out his book; he is a lot closer to practicing what he is preaching.
Thanks for the writeup, it was a really informative read. I've been aware for a while now that Reagan and Reaganomics were in a large way the 'start' of most of the current problems in the economic and political landscape, but you filled in a few gaps that were really useful for me.  So I guess ultimately a lot of conservatives see it as a kind of necessary evil in order to bring about the success story that the current economy needs right now. Unfortunately, their strategy is totally wrong. That kind of makes sense with my observation that rather than supporting the cronyism and corruption, they turn a blind eye to it because they think it's necessary.  My view is not so much that labour and finance capital returns need to be balanced (although that is probably a great thing to aim for), but that creation of wealth/capital needs to be intrinsically linked with the creation of real value. The modern banking crisis was a great example of the ability to generate wealth while in fact destroying real value. I have read his book(s) as well and agree with his message of identifying poor financial patterns and correcting them.  However, I don't recall the chapter about corporate bankruptcy strategies and defensive financial moves which make you impervious to lawsuits.    Maybe I glossed over that part. Will strongly vouch for this. Ray Dalio gives you the macro view in that video, while Ackman gives more of the micro view. Would highly recommend watching them both in the same sitting, particularly for somebody who is just entering their study of finance Which is exactly what it was supposed to *not* do, but that seems to be the trend with Lewis's writing.    Buffett's biography (*The Snowball*) is great.  *The Black Swan* by Taleb is another good one and he's just put out a new one as well, which I haven't read.  Stiglitz's *Freefall*. The Bible of fundamental analysis was written by Graham and Dodd, and is titled Security Analysis. If you don't know the name Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet was his student and attribute his own success to Graham.  If Security Analysis is a bit too intense for you, Graham also wrote The Intelligent Investor which is probably a better starting point. Well, yes.  Lewis (and anybody) is presuming that you accept take advantage of good fortune.  In his own example, though, he wasn't in any way prepared to go into finance.  Having gotten there, and established himself even, he pitched it in favor of writing a book.  Neither of those examples supports everyone calling luck the result of work plus brains. Would you please get into whether or not you thought that getting away from the gold standard was a good idea? And why? I am not great with money/economy and I really felt like I understand a lot more now that I have read that post. Thank you either way "There are books like, ""The Millionaire Mind"" that could be of interest when it comes to basics like living below your means, investing what you save, etc. that while it is common sense, it is uncommonly done in the world.  Something to consider is how actively do you want your money management to be?  Is it something to spend hours on each week or a few hours a year tops?  You have lots of choices and decisions to make. I would suggest keeping part of your savings as an emergency fund just in case something happens.  As for another part, this is where you could invest in a few different options and see what happens. There would be a couple of different methods I could see for breaking into finance that I'd imagine: IT of a finance company - In this case you'd likely be working on customizations for what the bank, insurance or other kind of financial firm requires.  This could be somewhat boring as you are basically a part of the backbone that keeps the company going but not really able to take much of the glory when the company makes a lot of money. Brains of a hedge fund - In this case, you may have to know some trading algorithms and handle updating the code so that the trading activities can be done by a computer with lightning speed.  Harder to crack into since these would be the secretive people to find and join in a way." I got that notion from Max Kaiser, his ideas about that are mostly about interest rate apartheid - banks and rich people get money at zero interest, we pay 9, 10, 30%.  I think it involves everything from how we are seen in the eyes of the law to assuming risk, etc.  We are expected to play by the rules and they are not. "**Debt: The First 5000 Years**  Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a book by anthropologist David Graeber published in 2011. It explores the historical relationship of debt with social institutions such as barter, marriage, friendship, slavery, law, religion, war and government; in short, much of the fabric of human life in society. It draws on the history and anthropology of a number of civilizations, large and small, from the first known records of debt from Sumer in 3500 BC until the present.  A major argument of the book is that the imprecise, informal, community-building indebtedness of ""human economies"" is only replaced by mathematically precise, firmly enforced debts through the introduction of violence, usually state-sponsored violence in some form of military or police.  ***  ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&amp;message=Excludeme&amp;subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/economy/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot)   ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.24" "Excellent questions!  Asking such questions indicates something special about yourself.  The desire to learn and adjust your beliefs will increase your chance of success in your life.  I would use a wide variety of authors to increase your education.  Myself I prefer Dave Ramsey to Clark Howard, but I think Clark is very good. The first thing you should focus on is learning how to do and live by a budget.  Often times, adults will assume that you are on a budget because you are broke.  It happens with my friends and my youngest child is older than you.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  A budget is simply a plan on how you will spend your income so you don't run out of money before you run out of month. Along with budgeting I would also focus on goal setting.  This is the type of ""investing"" you should be doing at your age.  For example if your primary goal was to become an engineer, my recommendation is to hold off buying stocks/mutual funds and using your current income to get through school with little or no student loans.   Another example might be to open your own HVAC business.  Your best bet might be to learn the trade, working for someone else, and take night classes for business management. Most 18 year olds have very little earning power.  Your focus at this point should be increasing your income and learning how to manage the income you have.   Please keep in mind that most debt is bad.  It robs you of your income which is your greatest wealth building tool.  Car loans and credit card debt is just plain stupid.  Often times a business case can be made for reasonable student loans.  However, why not challenge yourself to take none.  How much further ahead could you be if you graduate, with a degree, when your peers are strapped with a 40K loan? Keep up the good work and keep asking questions." I didn't take too many finance or economics courses so i can't comment.   In my post I recommended the YouTube video or audiobook 'why an economy grows and why it doesn't'  I guess it's more economy related than finance related, but is still relevant as it touches on loans and net worth and stuff. Have you read is letter? He's saying thanks to the government for basically saving the economy. Warren Buffet was from day 1 a strong supporter of the bailout program.   I'm sorry for my ignorance but what ''output'' are you talking about? As I understand you don't just want to establish a basic income but want to change the whole monetary system? And you can't even explain it? "Dave Ramsey would tell you to pay the smallest debt off first, regardless of interest rate, to build momentum for your debt snowball.  Doing so also gives you some ""wins"" sooner than later in the goal of becoming debt free." "Warren Buffet isn't using any special sauce. He looks for value and ignores hype, greed, and fear. He buys what he knows and looks for companies that generate cash and/or are available for a discount of their true value. He explains what he looks for in a company and his reasons for buying it. He has said on numerous occasions, ""I look for intrinsic value."" (So there's your formula.) Human nature is often  irrational and investing seems to bring out the fear and greed. I've always been a bit surprised when people ascribe some sort of sixth sense to Warren Buffet's success. He just works hard and doesn't deviate from a sound strategy. ""Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."" And of course, rule one: ""Don't lose money."" It's not a joke. How many people buy high and sell low because of fear and greed? When the market tanks, buy more. Finally, anyone can invest with Buffet without all the work. Just buy a few shares of BRK.A or BRK.B."