i just wanted to agree with trent that The Way of Kings is fantastic and definitely on the top of my “best books of the year” list. Actually, it’s pretty high on my “best books ever” list..

BUT: Post-secondary education costs in this country are reaching out of control proportions. The projection of what a four year degree is going to cost when my son hits college age indicates tuition and expenses grown at a disproportionate rate. Now, I’m hoping that the free market will kick in, and other schools (community colleges, trade schools, etc.) will force a change in the way traditional four year institutions are doing business. And I don’t believe that the government is responsible for regulating these fees. Yet the fact remains that the expense of a traditional, four year college/university is rapidly increasing at a disproportionate rate. Here’s hoping the bubble bursts, and soon.

This next statement is not aimed at you Annie, just using your comment as a springboard. People need to wake up and realize that going to college does not automatically entitle them to better pay. Too many people have been tricked into believing that any debt they take out to pay for college is well worth it, when in many cases that may not be the case. Maybe future generations will learn from the mistakes of those carrying the burden of large student loans and will not put themselves in the same difficult situation.

Right. That’s exactly my point. It has nothing at all to do with the level of “communication” involved, and everything to do with the people themselves. Some families can handle it, some can’t. Those who can’t handle intrafamilial loans won’t magically be converted into content borrowers/lenders by some threshold level of “communication” being added to the mix. Likewise, some families can work through a loan situation problem-free and barely talk to each other at all.

You and your husband both need term life insurance. It’s relatively cheap. Baby doesn’t need anything. And a Roth is a better use than the 529 plan, as it is more versatile.

Even stay at home parents need life insurance, as the other parent would be left with finding a housekeeper and nanny to replace them.

Also, Junior in your example is irresponsible with money, which to me is more of the issue that caused problems in the loan than the communication.

Loans between family members can work just fine without damaging family relationships. It all depends on the people involved. I have many examples from my own life.

But that’s just me; personally, I think it’s hard to draw that line and I think we get a better blog atmosphere when people are allowed to speak their minds than when they’re not. And people have said they’re turned off by the negativity, but (a) other people have said they come back because the comments give different perspectives, and (b) for me, the comments complaining about negativity almost universally tend to read as more negative than the original negative comments were, which shows the folly of trying to police this stuff, in my opinion.

Here is an example of the type of negativity that I believe is unhelpful. I have seen multiple discussions regarding Trent’s incorrect use of the phrase “five word summaries” at the start of each Reader Mailbag segment. The complaint is that some of the summaries are less than five words, so the phrase used to describe them is inaccurate.

When Trent first started doing the summaries in June of 2010 he explained his intent. “Many readers have written to me asking for me to summarize the questions in the mailbag right at the top so that they know what’s inside. So, I’m going to try this out for this mailbag and see how it goes. Here are summaries of the included questions in five words or less.” That is very clear. When he started using the phrase “five word summaries” I knew what he meant. Even if I had not read his original explanation, however, I could reasonably have concluded what he was trying to do.

What is the value to other readers when someone complains about Trent’s choice of words in this situation? Unless someone was about to make that same mistake I can’t see any value. Trent could get some value from the comments, if he read the comments. If the intent is to communicate the information to him then sending a private email would be much more effective.

Do such complaints have any downside? Since multiple people have mentioned the negativity and nit-picking in the comments I believe that yes, such complaints do have a downside. They create negativity, which may cause some readers to stop reading the otherwise very useful comments, without providing any actual value to the readers.

I hope that by engaging in some of the back and forth debates I sometimes do I am not adding to the negativity here. That certainly is not my intent and I apologize if it has been the case.

Also I would point out that the issue being discussed here isn’t really with people who disagree with the blogger. Those comments are actually some of the most helpful.

Really? Because this blog has fewer comments than almost any other one I read – certainly than any other blog I read with the readership of this blog – and it’s the only blog I read where people who disagree with the blogger are regularly called out as negative and told they shouldn’t comment. Usually, people who disagree with the blogger just get a dialogue going.

I disagree. You can have all the open communication in the world, but if the borrower and lender have different expectations about what is “reasonable,” you can still develop an extremely toxic situation.

Say Junior just graduated from college and has a bunch of credit card and student loan debt. He gets a new job, but needs a vehicle. Mom & Dad lend Junior $9,000 for a vehicle, interest free. They take the money from their own retirement savings. Then Junior wins $10,000 from a lottery ticket. He spends it on a trip to Vegas, a new TV and surround-sound system, and collectible comic books.

Junior’s parents “communicate” that they object with how he’s using the money, and they’d like to be paid back. Junior disagrees, and “communicates” that he sees his spending as reasonable, and they’ll get their money according to the terms of the original loan, and they should back off.

There you go. Lots of open communication. And everybody is still mad at each other.

Loans between family members are a powderkeg of hurt feelings, regardless of how much “communication” you pour on the situation.