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We receive thousands of e-mails and comments on the Your Money message board each week and read them all, though we can't respond personally to each one. Below is a sampling of some of the recent MSN Money articles that received insightful comments and feedback.
- I have always thought that as a society, we overvalue a college degree. I graduated two years ago and found a job almost immediately. I can honestly say that I've learned more in my first year of "the real world" than I did in all of college. Further, if I only would have taken classes related to the field I wanted to go into (accounting), I would have finished college in two years or less, owe less to student loans, and not have come out of school dirt poor, with less than $100 in my bank account. While I do have a larger salary than all my friends (now) who didn't go to college, I also am in a whole lot more debt. While I do not regret going to college, I do regret thinking that college is the only way.
- I have two college degrees, and yet I do not work in either field of study. None of the employees that I supervise have college degrees, but their wages are as high as mine. While I was paying for that valuable piece of paper and studying, my co-workers were working here right out of high school and chilling out afterwards with a cold beer. Our facility here may be closing its doors soon, and my employees have a better chance of finding new employment quickly than I do. I wish I had saved my money instead of attending college and become an electrician. I would have been better off.
- You have created facts to fit your theory. It is just like taking a poll: If you ask the right question of the right group of people, you will get the response you want. What you have done is shown how much journalism and critical thinking have died. Maybe you should consider going to back to college.
- Finally someone has the guts to tell the truth. Not everyone should go to college. To incur the burden of college debt in those cases is not sound financial planning.
- How many manufacturing jobs has this country lost because we don't have talented, interested people pursuing them? How much harder is it to find competent auto mechanics because high schools (complicit in this affair) steer young people away from such blue-collar careers? Instead, these young men and women are bored (and oftentimes drunk) in college. Thank you for a cogent discussion of this.
- I graduated in 1999, with a major in mass communication and a minor in political science. I have NEVER had a good-paying job, except when I worked for the state making $17.72 per hour with no benefits, although that was a six-month temp job. I now make $14 per hour as a secretary. I think college degrees are useless unless you graduate in a specific field such as law, medicine or engineering. Degrees like mass communication, English, history and general education only make parents happy by thinking that their child is doing the right thing by going to college. My combined loans were $4,000, not much compared to most. Ten years later I am still paying off college loans. I am 38 years old, and I live paycheck to paycheck.
- Citi must not have gotten the memo. I just received a letter from them stating that they would be charging prime plus 17.99% from now on. Guess they don't need my business any longer.
- Why does your article not talk about the most serious downfall of having your credit card balance "reduced"? That is that the individual will receive a form 1099-C from the institution representing forgiveness of indebtedness income, which is fully taxable unless the taxpayer can prove that they are either insolvent or been adjudicated as bankrupt. This can be a substantial cost to the transaction.
- Loss of income and unexpected medical bills have created a financial problem for me, and my credit card company's one-size-fits-all solution was to close my account and put me on a plan that INCREASED my monthly payment, which I declined. They then referred me to a Consumer Credit Counseling organization and now are balking at accepting the proposal. They can make copper wire by squeezing a penny and don't give a hoot about their customers. If I had gotten a proportionally-sized handout from the government like they did, I would have no financial problems. Don't buy their smooth assurances about helping people -- they are lying.
- I also lost my job and have continued to pay all my bills on time even though I have had to cut back on family pleasures. It is so unfair that people who have racked up credit card bills to the extent of 62% of their income are eligible for reduction in balances and better terms. It seems that if the banks are willing to negotiate down to compete for dollars, they ought to be making sure their reliable paying customers are also kept happy. Just like traffic school, people who find themselves in this sort of trouble ought to be required to attend home economics classes so they understand how to avoid this mess in the future. . . . This is just another way banks are ripping off their good customers for the sake of eking out money from bad debts. No wonder they are in the state they are in and have thrown the whole country into a quagmire.
- I think it is morally wrong for banks to forgive those who borrowed from the bank, lost their jobs and then feel like they are entitled to be forgiven. That is nuts! When you swipe that card you are telling the bank thanks for the loan, and I will pay you back. When 17% of our citizens have 10 credit cards, it is obvious to me these people are out of touch with reality. Get real, folks. There is no free ride. I am retired, and my wife and I pay off our credit card debt every month. It is easy, because we do not spend more than we earn. It is as simple as that.
- I wish this article were true, but it is not in my case. Bank of America has turned my credit debt over to a collection agency. They have called and yelled at, threatened me with lawsuits and liens and just out-and-out harassment. Bank of America always sounds like the good guy in these articles. But I have not found this to be true.
Please do more of this. Bankers are turning in their TARP money because they don't want limits on their pay. Pay for bank executives should be published. We should all move our accounts out of banks where executives are making obscene amounts of money. We should punish them for their greed and reward banks that don't lavish perks on their executives.
They talk about lower pay making firms uncompetitive -- that they won't be able to hire the best talent. However, first, the best talent got us in the mess we're in, and, second, lots of talented new college grads are looking for work. There is NO SHORTAGE of talent. But, there is an oversupply of overpaid, self-entitled executives.
This article disgusts me because of the class warfare it promotes. First, it erroneously suggests that a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch, insinuating that all success has rampant greed at its core and is always ill-gained. While there will always be abuses in any area (and the mainstream media's assault on capitalism is an example), I celebrate the fact that I live in a country where people have the freedom and opportunity to achieve success.
It's funny that I can identify project after project I did that, together, saved my company more than $3 million in the last year. I can do the same for every year I've worked at this company and others. I doubt that any CEO anywhere can name even one thing that generated a dime of revenue or reduced cost. And, for my efforts I got a 10% pay cut, had to take countless furlough days, and saw hundreds of my fellow employees lose their jobs. The sick thing is that most CEOs didn't earn these perks like the common worker must do. So, while I try to avoid foreclosure on my home, tell my child that I can't help pay for her college, and realize that will take me more than three years of standard 3% merit increases just to get back to my previous pay, my company's executives will keep raping the company and living the high life. Where's Robin Hood when you need him?
Perhaps CEOs should have a modest salary plus a percentage of the profits as their income with a cap on total compensation. If the company does not do well, neither do they. It may also help cut down excessive risk-taking because if the company fails, so do they.
Don't you know every time one of those (corporate) jets flies, 30 regular people with decent jobs are involved? Do you think jets fly and maintain themselves?
Editor's note: Letters may have been edited for grammar or spelling. Due to space considerations, some letters have been condensed and are not presented in their entirety. The views and opinions expressed in the letters are those of the authors and not necessarily those of MSN Money.
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