Facts vs. Belief–Arguing over Wealth and Retirement in America

Earlier this week at Robbie’s coffee shop I got into an argument with a state trooper named Will about wealth and retirement. That’s what we do at the coffee shop: argue. Politics, religion, health care, gun control, you name it. Many intelligent, educated, opinionated people hang out at Robbie’s. It’s a great place for stimulating the mind.

Will and I were discussing capitalism, which morphed into an argument about the financial health of American citizens and their retirement outlook. Will expressed a love for our capitalistic system and believed capitalism made America the great country it is.

I asked Will, “How’s it working so far? People are broke and in perpetual debt on a treadmill of consumerism.” I wasn’t actually arguing against capitalism, but against the statement that our country was great. I said that most people would be unable to retire with the same level of comfort they have while employed. He disagreed and stated that most people would be able to retire comfortably. He thought that most people were financially secure.

Will said repeatedly to me, “I deal with facts. I don’t know where you get your information, but I’m talking facts.” When I told him only 3 percent of the population would be able to retire comfortably, Will laughed at me, exclaiming, “Where’d you get that from?” I got it from John Cummuta, a financial educator I trust.

After being told for the fourth time that he dealt in facts (as opposed to my emotional, fictional argument), I asked where he got his facts. He said, “Well, define wealth.” I told him, “You’re the one that said people are wealthy. So you define wealth.” He couldn’t so I offered that wealth was the ability to retire and enjoy the same level of comfort as that had while employed. This included being debt-free and able to pay for gas, taxes, food, travel and goods. He agreed to this definition.

But when pressed for his sources, he said he couldn’t pull them out of his butt at the moment. He couldn’t offer me the title of any book, any publication, study, anything that would substantiate his claim. Eventually he admitted that he talked to people.

“Talked to people? You mean you have determined that we’re all wealthy by talking to people in Lane county?” No, he talks to people all over the US. Sorry, but that’s hardly statistical, representative evidence that most people are wealthy and retiring comfortably. But that was all this facts-based man was able to come up with.

The funniest thing about the conversation was that Will determined that my view was based on emotion, because most people he argues with come from a position of emotion and faith (what they want to believe), not on facts like he had. Okay, I have found that also to be true. But only a closed mind would assume that my argument is based on emotion before even listening to it.

Will himself couldn’t produce any facts. When he couldn’t back up his claim, he tried to denigrate me by calling me a pessimist, meaning that my views were nothing more than projection of a disappointed life.

When you find yourself in a debate, argument, whatever you want to call it, ask for sources. Some people take in information by reading reports and studies. Some base their opinion on a book or two they’ve read. Some people can be very passionate about a subject and devote considerable time to it. Some merely absorb hearsay. Hearsay is:

• unverified, unofficial information gained or acquired from another and not part of one’s direct knowledge
• an item of idle or unverified information or gossip

People are very opinionated, and they’re very passionate about their beliefs. But few, in my experience, take the time to educate themselves on topics of interest. People tend to repeat what they’ve heard their whole lives (societal paradigm) or the latest TV sound bite (media manipulation) without exercising critical thinking.

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. –John Kenneth Galbraith

Here’s an example of believing something without testing it. A colleague posted a piece that was attributed to George Carlin. I read through it quickly and posted that it was brilliant. Then someone else proved that it was not Carlin’s work and that Carlin thought it was sappy. I had turned off my critical thinking and accepted at face value that Carlin wrote it. Then, because I thought Carlin was brilliant, I chose to believe this piece was brilliant. It really wasn’t. It was rather dull and sappy, as Carlin said.

I catch myself all the time wanting to read things that agree with my worldview and pass over things that do not. But I’ve been proven wrong so many times, I’ve seen that there are numerous angles to just about everything, that it’s hard to be certain about anything. We’re all just guessing. But the best guesses can be made with the most information.

I went home and looked up income and savings on the Internet, and the picture is pretty dismal and agrees with my “pessimistic” view. But I’ll save that for another post.