Today is Tuesday, money nerds, and I’m pleased to say that the world is still here. It hasn’t fallen apart. Not yet, anyhow. That means I get to share some great money stories from around the web.
A letter to the class of 2020. [The Belle Curve] — “If I could give one piece of advice to my 18-year-old self, I would tell her to choose optimism over pessimism…Everyone will face challenges in life. Bad things will happen to all of you. Family members will die, romantic relationships will end, jobs will be lost, and illness or injury may plague you. But it is how you choose to react to adversity that defines you. You don’t always have a choice about what happens to you, but you can choose how you will react to it.”
Why so many Americans don’t talk about money. [The Atlantic] — “One common explanation for the particular sway money taboos hold over Americans is, as Zaloom put it, the widely held belief that ‘your value as a human being is somehow made material in your pay and in your accounts.’ If people were to publicly reveal their income, Zaloom said, they’d be ‘exposing how they’re valued by their employer and how their contribution is valued even more broadly, by the community.'”
How you can help close racial wealth gaps. [Smart Money Mamas] — “The racial wealth gap we see in our country today is part of the foundation of our nation. It started when we built an economic powerhouse of a country on the back of slave labor. And then, when we finally abolished slavery (mostly for economic reasons), we transferred essentially zero wealth to those who created that economic prosperity…All the way up until today, when significant racial income gaps remain.”
Many Americans are getting more money from unemployment than they were from their jobs. [FiveThirtyEight] — “The question is whether this will be a problem as the economy starts to reopen. In addition to the inequality inherent in possibly replacing some workers’ wages at a higher rate, it might not make financial sense for workers to search for other jobs or even return to their original jobs if they’re making substantially more money by staying home.”
To finish the day, here’s Julien Saunders speaking at the inaugural EconoMe conference last March. In this nine-minute talk, Saunders explains why our natural inclination to avoid conflict prevents us from experiencing life-changing breakthroughs.
This is a tough topic for me. I loathe conflict. Hate it, hate it, hate it. “Roths don’t like confrontation,” I often say. And right now, our world seems filled with conflict. I don’t like it. 🙁
Okay, that’s it for Tuesday. I’ll be back tomorrow with more great money stories! See you then!