re: It costs a lot of money to live

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But again, where I have diverged is this "one size fits all" financial path.

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Obviously, I competely agree with you on this point. I direct broke people (and myself when I was broke) to the Baby Steps. It certainly is not nearly as subject to the A/B analysis you've shown here.

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But he's infiltrated the churches, and steered people into a lifestyle that's not the best fit.

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From a certain philosophical way, people who are attracted to the approach, and are not seeking good, independent financial advice - this probably is the best approach.

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With no bipolar credit habits who wouldn't secure 30 years of 3.5% money for as long as possible with paying as little as possible upfront, especially given inflation with a capital "I" that's coming, is being given bad advice.

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While that is the correct call under a lot of different circumstances, in a financial crisis being debt free has advantages over being leveraged and you know this. The fact that you made credit work for you is not universally applicable - many people get eaten up on compound interest, continually refinance and draw money out until they're sitting in front of a bankruptcy trustee or starting over somewhere else (or both).

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Furthermore, anyone who would pay more to secure this money from someone just because they are an ELP of Ramsey, has been brainwashed.

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I agree with you on that - I have always skeptical of the ELP program - there are probably good ones, but every person's situation is different, and financial advice should be independently sought and the advisor should, first and foremost, owe a duty to the client who trusted him with his money, rather than the principles of some referral program - regardless of the intentions and motivations of the founder of said program.

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But I see it or hear about it constantly.

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And I understand this is the source of a good bit of your frustration with the topic.

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FYI at 14k Dow on Friday I retreated. I am 60.2% in cash in my IRA. This approach may not be the best for everyone.

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I think that's a safe bet. I considered switching to about 50/50 equities/cash-equivalent myself, but I resisted.