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Don’t Know Much About The Big Three (#1316)

I’ve gone on record here at fallible in expressing my utter disdain for bailouts.

Trust me when I say I know enough personal bailouts to stay away from them (both on the giving and receiving end). It’s not that I don’t believe in giving second chances because, honestly, I do. It’s more that I’ve noticed that second chances usually lead to more crimes of the same type and further requests for easy answers.

My own dear grandfather once extended a personal bailout to a member of my family who was in serious trouble with some members of another “family” you really don’t want to mess with. Grandpa specified when he handed over the big bucks that this was a one time deal and not to come crying to him again.

Did the offending party ever ask Grandpa for another bailout? Amazingly, no. But only because Grandpa was known for being a strong man of his word.

Did the family member avoid the kinds of activities that might get him in trouble down the line? No way! His bad habits never changed. He just got lucky enough to avoid having to beg for mercy from those few who still might be willing to save his behind.

And that’s the point. Unless behaviors change—-and now I’m talking about all the poor business models that have the car manufacturers lining up for the goody bags—-the bailouts will never stop. In fact, they will never even slow down. Each sector of the economy will line up, as if on cue, demanding “theirs.”

There’s one thing I’ve yet to hear in all the rhetoric about how the Big Three must be saved at all costs to the American taxpayer. For all the talk about the jobs that will be lost (and of course that would be truly painful for all involved, and it’s hard not to feel bad about it….) and the communities that will be affected because of it, I still haven’t heard that car BUYERS will be deprived of automobiles to purchase.

Shouldn’t EVERY business exist to serve the needs of the customer? I know quite a number of self-employed people whose businesses would go down the tubes this second if they stopped having goods and services that their customers desperately needed. And while that would be regrettable, it would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it? If the customer has completely viable options elsewhere in the marketplace, WHY should a specific company automatically continue to exist?

If it’s ONLY for the employees, and for the healthcare and pensions of the former employees, that seems wrong to me.

When the debate about keeping the Big Three afloat begins to incorporate their own solid business plans for making sure this request for a bailout never happens again, I might start thinking they deserve some assistance.

And if I ever feel that a company actually exists to serve the needs of the customer, I’ll do my part to support their business.

I’d even consider buying an American car, if my money weren’t currently tied up in bailouts.

Posted by Katy on 11/23/08
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Why, Oh Why Didn’t I Take Home Ec? (#1315)

When I went to an all-girls Catholic high school from 1968-1972, I was exposed to an education that was nothing if not progressive.

Now, that may not seem possible to you. Could the nuns really have been ahead of the times as far as women’s issues were concerned? You might think we were all taught to get married and pop out babies as fast as humanly possible. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, St. Teresa’s Academy was and still is known as a prep school—-and getting an Mrs. degree ain’t exactly what we were prepped for. I don’t know a single girl who would have claimed, even back in the old days, that she actually wanted to be a wife, mother, and homemaker to the exclusion of a career path with a whole bunch of letters before or after her name.

And while St. Teresa’s offered a class in Home Economics in those days, I wouldn’t have been caught dead taking it. Not when the hallowed halls of journalism, forensics, theater, and art beckoned. There were important issues to be debated, wars to be protested, bad poetry to be written, Bob Dylan songs to be sung, and yes, bras to be burned.

Maybe, if I’d signed up for Home Ec, I would have learned the most cost-saving way to burn my bra—-whether by lighting the gas oven and inserting it, using charcoal briquettes on the BBQ grill, or incinerating it in the furnace. Maybe I would have learned a whole bunch of other really smart stuff, too. The kind of stuff that would sure come in handy during my years spent as the Chief Financial Officer of the Raymond Home, whether I ever had a lucrative career outside the home or not.

I snubbed my nose at the idea, though. And so I learned by trial and error, and trust me, I learned a lot. I am grateful now that when my husband and I were young, we were poor. I am glad that when were were fledgling parents, I had the privilege of staying home with the kids. We could in no logical way afford for me to do so, and yet it worked out. And guess what? I learned more about Home Economics during those lean years that some people who apparently have more money than they know what to do with are capable of comprehending.

The thing is, when we started prospering, I still couldn’t get into the whole shop-till-you-drop mentality. I could do Nordstom’s, I guess. But why, when there’s a perfectly good Penney’s Outlet down the road?

After reading the New York Time’s article, which I recommend for the giggles if nothing else, all I can imagine is that times aren’t yet tough enough for true behavioral changes to take place. And every night when I watch the news, I just laugh. Have you ever seen so many goofy stories on penny pinching in your born days?

The spendthrift ways of a lifetime are rarely altered in a period of four or five weeks. It takes more serious pain than that for people who are used to indulging in not just one or two regular luxuries but a luxurious lifestyle to even begin to realize that there’s another (more sustainable and more satisfying!) way to live.

I’m not going to ask how you’ve “cut back” recently. I’m just not sure it’s the right question, judging by the ridiculous trade-offs the folks in this article have made. But maybe I’ll go ahead and ask if you took Home Ec in school.

If you did, I’m thinking you are feeling pretty good about your choice right about now. Congratulations on embracing wisdom in your youth!

Posted by Katy on 11/21/08
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Really, Really Fun While It Lasts! (#1314)

If you hurry, you can catch one of the most fun blurbs for a headline I’ve ever seen. It’s on the Drudge Report, in the right hand column.

Do you see what I see? “Global SOCKS Slump.”

I am laughing my head off over here. If we HAVE to watch global STOCKS slump day after day, ad infinitum, we might as well have the hilarious vision in our collective consciousness of a worldwide global sock slump, too!

Hang on to your socks, everyone! We’re in for quite a ride.

Posted by Katy on 11/20/08
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In Defense Of Good Old-Fashioned Books (#1312)

My good buddies BJ Hoff and Cindy Swanson have been twittering today about how books make such excellent Christmas presents, and I couldn’t agree more.

I think the first time I truly became aware of the magic of a wonderful volume unwrapped on Christmas was when I, as a ten-year-old, read Little Women. Who can forget how the four sisters each opened a differently-colored Pilgrim’s Progress—-obviously the story Marmee felt would most ably shape their young hearts during difficult times—-plus one other small gift suited to their individual personalities?

Ever since, I’ve been thrilled to both give and receive coveted books at Christmas, when often the members of my family—-after the gifts are all opened and before the feast is begun—-find private nooks and crannies in which to preview their treasures. A hush descends upon the house for those few minutes, as fingers carefully turn new pages and eyes smile over the bounty of even the slimmest tome.

So, as the holiday season once again approaches, tell me: What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift? Is there a title you’ve given that was appreciated even more than you imagined it would be? And if you could receive only one book on your wish list this Christmas, which one would it be?

Sure, many of us will be cutting back on extravagances this year. I know we are, just like those Little Women did back in the day. But pity the Christmas when books become beyond our reach! For us, we’ll celebrate with good books even if most everything else falls by the way side.

How about you?

Posted by Katy on 11/17/08
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Things I’ve Said That I’m Happy Someone Else Didn’t Say First, One In An Ongoing Series Of Several (#1311)

“Some of us, when we read the writing on the Web? We see a wall.” Fallible Katy, November, 2008

Posted by Katy on 11/13/08
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Do Depression Meds Work For This? (#1310)

Can you count how many times in the past two months you have heard or read the phrase “since the Great Depression”?

As in, of course, “the worse economy since the Great Depression,” “the highest rate of foreclosures since the Great Depression,” and “the fastest rate of rising unemployment since the Great Depression.”

Here’s the deal: In every recession in my memory—-and I’m old enough to remember quite a few—-the words “Great Depression” have not been spoken. It’s as if to even compare any harsh realities we’ve gone through with the dreadful circumstances Americans faced during those bleak times is so ridiculous an exaggeration that it’s not permitted.

There’s also always been a sense in which Americans have been led to believe that another Great Depression could not possibly happen, since our great nation now has policies in place (What are those policies again? We might want to pull those puppies out and USE THEM! Ha.) which preclude and prevent the obvious stupidity that allowed such a disaster to begin with.

Now, though, otherwise respected journalists are tossing around “since the Great Depression” with such abandon that it seems to me they might being fed this newly-acceptable language like a slow-dripping IV, the kind that causes the patient’s pain to be evenly numbed without killing her from an overdose outright.

And we, the listeners and readers, are growing ever more inured to the phrase ourselves. So much so, that I’ve got to say I won’t be one bit surprised when we are finally told that oooops, another Great Depression actually IS possible! I won’t be one bit surprised when they finally tell us that we’ve been in the Greater Depression for quite some time already.

Recession, my eye.

Posted by Katy on 11/12/08
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The T-Shirt Off Our Backs (#1309)

Times are tough everywhere, and as you know, even here at fallible we’ve had to resort to desperate measures to make a few measly bucks.

Not that coming up with t-shirt slogans and pitching them on cafepress.com is exactly an act of desperation, but still. Let’s just say it’s not one of our usual lines of work. And that, my friends, is precisely what makes it so darned fulfilling.

Because, you see, in a fit of pre-election fervor, we decided to revisit our brief foray into t-shirt sales, which we haven’t attempted once in the last eight years. Heck, we couldn’t even remember our log-in information, since we’d had no use for it after pocketing the cool $25 we made all those many moons ago.

So we came up with a few designs, posted them in our store, and right away we profited by a handsome $9.50. Not bad for seven or eight hours work, you say? That’s what I thought, too, until I clicked on a little noticed link I’d never noticed before—-the one that indicates whether or not you have any money due you from days long past.

Believe it or not, eight years ago some industrious soul passed through our humble CafePress t-shirt store on his way to fame and fortune. He ended up so inspired by our designs (in this case, I imagine “inspired” meant him thinking “I can do better than that!”) that he clicked on an affiliate link at our site and then started up his own business.

His own very extremely successful business!!!

Yes, people, what they say about the Internet is all true. Without lifting a single finger, you too can make a World Wide Web killing!

Sure, we’ve only made a grand total of $34.50 over the past eight years through our own creative genius, as expressed in designs we’ve personally sold at CafePress.

But the ginormous success of a guy we don’t even know earned us an additional…drum roll, please…$680.00!!!!! I know these days we’re used to talking in terms of billions and even trillions, but to my way of thinking $680 is still a great little haul.

To think this money has been sitting in our account at CafePress for eight years, just waiting for us to become motivated enough by the goofy things candidates say that we order the old t-shirt press fired up again.

“Spread the Wealth Around,” indeed!

Posted by Katy on 11/11/08
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For The Fallible Record (#1308)

I’ve waited a couple of days, but the time has come to tell you why I did not vote for Barack Obama. And why I’m at peace with my decision.

I didn’t vote for him because I’ve had my fill of charismania. Now, I’m not referring to the various branches of Christianity known as “Charismatic.” Rather, I’m referring to the tendency among humans to find a man (or woman) so full of what we’ll just call personal attraction as to make NOT following him (or her) seem almost sinful.

I didn’t vote for him because I’ve grown ever more fond of principles than I will ever again be fond of personalities. I’ve read, post-election, that Obama won because of “the secret of attraction.” Please, God, say it isn’t so. Can’t a candidate win on the basis of substance anymore, even if his style (or his level of attraction…) is rough around the edges?

I didn’t vote for him because I feel no “white guilt” whatsoever, and apparently I was supposed to. I didn’t know I owed him my vote, in order to somehow make reparations for the collective sins of the past. Seriously, I did not realize beforehand that such a thing as white guilt would even enter the white population’s thinking as they cast their ballots. But now, post-electon and in our new supposedly post-racial society, all I’m hearing is that race is a far bigger issue than I could have ever imagined.

I didn’t vote for him because it never occurred to me to consider his color at all. Not only that, but I didn’t understand that his ability to deftly mesmerize an audience (me included) with words of lyrical inspiration should trump my analysis of his voting record. So I read about his record, found that I disagreed with him on almost everything, and snapped out of his spell.

I didn’t vote for him because while someday, I’d love to have the opportunity to vote for a man of color, I did not and do not believe that Obama is that man. And since I cannot and will not vote for a candidate based on his color, I will have to wait a while longer to enjoy that privilege.

Posted by Katy on 11/07/08
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Long Time, No Blog (#1307)

I sure have missed all you fallible readers, but it’s my own fault, isn’t it? If I would just get my act together and BLOG, things would be different….

The truth is that I haven’t felt overly well lately, and darned if I’m not starting to sound like my husband! He’s the one who——when he’s practically a dead man walking with back pain or a migraine—-reports his condition to me as “not perfect.”

In case you EVER wondered, I have never been even remotely close to perfect! Recently, though, I’ve been toughing my way through some medication changes for the dumb stabbing pain in my eye, changes that have brought on depression. Now I need to decide if I will try to persist with the meds (which actually help the pain), in the hopes that the depression will lift, or if I should go off the meds and accept the pain as my 24/7 companion.

See, I AM cheery, am I not?

It probably doesn’t help that the world in general is in such a funk right now. I mean, we’ve been through some crummy economies before, but in my (rather long) lifetime, I don’t believe the entire planet has ever entered into a slump on virtually the same day.

I’m not a big fan of extended election seasons, either. One of my girlfriends (waving to Alison!) actually took a trip to Ireland in part to escape the craziness of the election, and I WISH I were with her right this very minute. Don’t you?

I wish I could say I have high hopes that the next president and congress will be able to correct some of the overwhelming problems this nation faces, but I believe we’re in for a world of hurt here. The problem is that no one seems willing to address the causes of the crises—-only to patch over the symptoms. That NEVER works for the long term, and what on earth would make us think this time is different?

One of the ways the U.S. and many other countries attempts to gloss over facts is the continual printing of money, which if allowed to fester, eventually results in a situation like the one currently happening in Zimbabwe—-hyper-inflation. If you want to see some pictures that will blow your mind and make you wish you’d studied New Math a little harder while you had the chance, check these out!

Think it can’t happen here? How many Zim dollars you wanna bet?

Posted by Katy on 11/01/08
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Droppin’ Gs (#1306)

It’s bad enough that millions of us have watched our retirement accounts drop thousands (Gs for short) in the blink of an eye. I mean, the indignity of hitting “refresh” on Scottrade’s marketwatch page and seeing the market lose 300 points in 20 seconds is more than a little unnerving.

But there’s something worse. Something so insidious that the entire nation—-both those invested in the stock market and those largely unaffected by the economic downturn of recent weeks—-cannot help but fall under its evil influence.

And that, O fallible ones, is the sayin’ of words minus their final consonants.

I’m guilty of it myself. I say I’m gonna go, instead of going to go. But I try my best to only do it when the hearing of the sounds actually contributes to a simpler understanding of their meaning. You’ve got to admit that “going to go” has really gone too far, construction wise. “Gonna” works pretty well as a substitute.

But when presidential and vice-presidential candidates go from reasonably well-spoken individuals to hayseeds who are tryin’ to win votes with the common folk by usin’ Ozarky mannerisms, it just gets awful tirin’, awful darn fast.

So I’m proposin’ that we protest this artificial affectation they’ve all takin’ on. Insist that your candidate add proper consonants to his or her ridiculous sounding words or you’ll be up and withholdin’ your vote! Hold them to linguistic standards, even if you’ve lost all hope of them meeting any others!

After all the Gs we’ve lost, though (both in dollars and letters), I’ve got to say that the loss of a different consonant is the one that is truly worryin’ me to death.

People, if you still have Emergency Fun instead of an Emergency Fund, make like Vanna and buy yourself a letter D now! I’ve never been as sure of anything as I am of the fact that you’re gonna need one really, really soon.

I’m just sayin’.

Posted by Katy on 10/20/08
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Help A Sister Out! (#1305)

As you might remember, a couple of weeks ago I issued my latest release of Katy’s Market Timer, as a public service to all my fallible readers.

This infrequent timer is intended to help you with your own financial planning, since whenever I announce my intention to either buy or sell stocks, the market turns precisely against me and remains against me for upwards of the rest of my natural life. Which is considerably shorter now, I figure, than it was two weeks ago.

So, since you have likely benefitted from my market timer by many thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of dollars (or euro or yen or francs or whatever), I decided that today would be a perfect time to offer you the chance to pay me back.

Whether you are a fan of Obama or McCain, I’m hoping you’ll find a bit of humor and good cheer in the “Joe the Plumber” and “Spread the Wealth Around” items Doug and I put together last night during the presidential debates. We’re big fans of multi-tasking, and there’s no time like when you’re mourning the loss of half your money and listening to candidates tell you how they’re going to tax away the rest to start a sideline business, right?

Thank you for your support! :)

Posted by Katy on 10/16/08
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Broke And Broker (#1304)

Sometimes, when you’re getting broker every day, it helps to sing your way through your troubles.

Anybody got any favorite songs for hard times? Songs that never fail to cheer you, to make you feel a sense of camaraderie with all the other poor chumps out there?

I’m stuck today singing, “Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you, honey, everything will bring a chain of love…..”

Yeah, I’m sappy like that. How about you? Shoot me your best song in the comment section and let’s all hum a few bars together!!

Posted by Katy on 10/09/08
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Share Wear (#1303)

I’ve written a couple of posts since I told you the story of my panty escapades during my writers conference trip.

One of my dear writer friends, Cathy West, even left a comment on one particularly well-thought-out and relevant post, saying that while my subject matter was all well and good, I should stick closer to the topic my audience is most interested in: panties.

In my eight years of blogging, I’ve purposefully remained a generalist. I have avoided becoming a blogger who only writes about writing, or about personal finances, or decluttering, or my faith, or my family, or elder care. Sure, I cover my personal experience in those areas, but there are so many other things happening in life, I just didn’t want to be tied down.

What if I occasionally dabbled in politics? Or the unwinding stock market? Wouldn’t fallible readers just love to know my opinions about the sub-prime mortgage debacle or Sarah Palin?

Just when I was starting to wonder, I landed in the hospital. I was only there 24 hours, from Friday night till Saturday evening, but during those tense hours in tube after tube after tube (dear Lord, deliver me!) I had a lot of time to reflect on you, my dear audience.

And since I landed in the ER without any spare panties, I also had plenty of time to wonder where my next pair would come from.

By Saturday morning, I felt pretty desperate to get cleaned up. Doug wouldn’t be arriving for several more hours, and I was stuck with the same pair of underwear I’d arrived in. I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t work for me.

I’d told Doug what to bring with him when he came, but my troubled mind conjured images of my last trip to the ER when I’d given him similar instructions. Back then, after I was admitted and knew I’d be an in-patient for several days, I asked my dear husband to bring five pairs of panties. It seemed like a simple enough request.

He brought one pair of raggedy underwear, three bras, and two girdles. Dave Barry might be able to make this up, but I am NOT.

This time, I couldn’t take any chances. What if he showed up with a freakin’ Spanx???

So, after getting cleaned up, I told the nurse that I’d found myself utterly and irretrievably pantyless until my husband’s visit, and she seemed to understand how much security I take in underwear.

She came back into my room in a moment with a sealed packet of…something. I honestly had no idea what. “These will work until your husband gets here,” she said.

I tore open the package to discover two rectangles of paper mesh. Each one was approximately six inches wide and three inches high. The nurse had already left the room, so I could not question her about her gift and how on earth to make it work on a body older than age three.

So I did what I do best: I experimented. I went into the bathroom and studied one of those rectangles until I figured out which end was up. Sure enough, one of the six-inch sides opened wide enough for me to insert a hand. Then my hand kept on traveling until it opened up a tiny leg hole on the other side.

But would an actual, real woman’s thigh fit through it? I became ever more determined to find out!

Miracle of miracles, it worked! The paper mesh stretched in both directions, and in no time, I knew the height and width and breadth and depth of a darned substantive pair of disposable panties.

No sooner had I emerged from the bathroom than Doug showed up with a bag of underwear. No bras or girdles this time—-trust me, he learned his lesson on that one. I peeked into the bag and said, “I remember asking you to bring cotton panties. In the hospital, I want cotton.”

Let’s just say he’d packed some pairs that were decidedly not cotton.

“I looked through all of them,” he said. “And I liked these best.”

It figures. After all, he was my very first fallible reader.

Posted by Katy on 10/07/08
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Buy And Bail, Before It’s Too Late! (#1302)

I thought I’d heard everything.

I especially thought I’d heard everything about how poor, unfortunate mortgage holders all over the nation have become unwitting victims of predatory lending practices. It’s those greedy bankers, mortgage companies, and various and sundry financial institutions, I tell you! The little guy just can’t catch a break.

Except that, evidently, we can.

If you haven’t heard of “buy-and-bail,” I encourage you to google it. Read articles in the Wall Street Journal and at ABC online. Then go ahead and read articles published by folks in the business of lending money. Tell me what I’m missing, O ye fallible ones!!

Here’s the gist of how you, too, can profit from buy-and-bail, without feeling even an ounce of guilt over your fraudulent behavior, since by now everyone knows that the taxpayer will bail the financial institutions out should you decide to put the screws to them.

Let’s say that in 2006, you purchased a home for $450,000 with no money down. Already, you’ve got a big problem—or then again, not. I guess it depends on how you look at life. Anyway, two years later your house-formerly-known-as-“dream” is now your constant nightmare.

Its value has dropped to $225,000!!! This is completely unacceptable!!! Why, two years into home ownership, you were practically guaranteed that you’d have a ton of equity, even though you didn’t have a single cent of a down payment when you purchased. The nerve!!

Plus, darned if that mortgage you took out didn’t turn out to be an ADJUSTABLE. Now, maybe you didn’t quite realize this at the time, but adjustable is code for UP. So, you’ve found out that your payment is about to jump from an already too high $3300 a month to a deal breaking $4000 a month.

What do you do? What CAN you do? Evidently, plenty.

1. Find a house exactly like yours in a nearby neighborhood. A house that two years ago sold for $450,000, but is now selling for $225,000.

2. Purchase said home, with no money down as per usual.

3. Move your furnishings into said home and immediately after you close on the new place, let your previous home slide into foreclosure.

Bingo! We have a winner! The foreclosure will only hurt your credit for four or five years, but who cares? You won’t need to purchase another home during that time period anyway. In the meantime, the housing market will turn around. You will instantly begin to build equity in your new home, which you got at HALF PRICE.

Why, if you’d waited around for your original house to regain its value, you’d NEVER get ahead. And as we all know, that just wouldn’t be fair.

If it occurs to you to feel bad for all your previous neighbors, who now have one more foreclosed upon home on the block, dragging down their property values, resist the urge to repent. It’s every homeowner for himself!

And as far as the lending institutions go, you can fall into a blissful sleep at night by chanting, “They got what was coming to them. They got what was coming to them….”

We’ve been told that the number one reason folks lose their homes is because of catastrophic medical bills, and in the past, that might very well have been true. That’s the kind of unfortunate situation I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

But now I’m wondering how many McMansions sit empty, bank-owned, and discounted even further than the market warranted because of not only unscrupulous lending practices, but treacherous purchasing practices, as well.

All I know for certain is that whoever thought of this scam has the kind of brilliance I missed out on when God was passing out talents.

Posted by Katy on 10/06/08
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On Bad Behavior And Bailouts (#1301)

I admit right here and now to knowing next to nothing about economics and how free markets work most efficiently.

The only thing I really know much about at all, in fact, is raising children to become responsible adults. And a bit about the process by which behaviors are either encouraged or discontinued. The truth is, if one of my kids landed in jail because he’d committed a crime, I would hesitate (and probably decline) to bail him out.

Of course, if he’d been thrown in the slammer due to some terrible misunderstanding on the part of law enforcement officials, that would be a different matter, one that obviously doesn’t apply to the situation at hand.

Is there ANYTHING that would make us believe that the practices Congress is seeking to throw money at weren’t completely intentional and, in fact, ENCOURAGED by the very lawmakers who now want to rob Peter (YOU!) to pay Paul (THEM!). I think not.

So I’ll stick my neck out here and say that on general principle, I am completely against bail-outs. I’m talking governmental, corporate, and personal. I’m a big fan of letting markets (and families) sort out their own difficulties and—as much as possible—change their own behaviors in order to achieve different outcomes from the ones they’ve gotten so far.

I realize there’s a chance that if we had no bail-out package whatsoever, the suffering we’d all endure as we adopted new (more fiscally responsible) behaviors would be stressful and difficult, and possibly last longer than if Congress does pass the deal.

However, that’s no reason to pass legislation that bolsters the confidence of those who’ve done wrong and essentially puts them in the position of being enabled to continue the abhorrent borrowing and lending practices that led to this mess to begin with.

As for credit drying up, my mailbox JUST YESTERDAY contained credit card offers at 0% from five separate companies. We are debt-free except for our mortgage, but we’ve got credit lines out the wazoo. I expect the offers will continue ad infinitum, because we have a strong history of paying back what we owe.

I’m not bragging. What I’m saying is that credit will always be available to those who have the ability to pay back what they borrow. And that’s as it should be. Believe me, for the early years of our marriage, we would NOT allow ourselves to get a credit card at all because we KNEW our meager income could not support a payment to a lending institution. I know whereof I speak.

If parents, companies, financial institutions, and governments began to operate (for the first time in decades) on the principle of rewarding good behavior (such as obedience, saving, investing, and building businesses without unqualified borrowing) and discouraging bad behavior (by putting the kabosh on bailouts), we’d all be a lot better off in the long run.

The long run may take a long time, but the payoff is so worth the wait.

Here are two articles I couldn’t agree with more. Since they are both written by libertarians, perhaps that makes me one? Hey, whatever it takes.

A Harvard Economist Speaks Out

Karl Marx Makes A Comeback

Posted by Katy on 09/30/08
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Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	Don’t Know Much About The Big Three (#1316) I’ve gone on record here at fallible in expressing my utter disdain for bailouts. Trust me when I say I know enough personal bailouts to stay away from them (both on the giving and receiving end). It’s not that I don’t believe in giving second chances because, honestly, I do. It’s more that I’ve noticed that second chances usually lead to more crimes of the same type and further requests for easy answers. My own dear grandfather once extended a personal bailout to a member of my family who was in serious trouble with some members of another “family” you really don’t want to mess with. Grandpa specified when he handed over the big bucks that this was a one time deal and not to come crying to him again. Did the offending party ever ask Grandpa for another bailout? Amazingly, no. But only because Grandpa was known for being a strong man of his word. Did the family member avoid the kinds of activities that might get him in trouble down the line? No way! His bad habits never changed. He just got lucky enough to avoid having to beg for mercy from those few who still might be willing to save his behind. And that’s the point. Unless behaviors change—-and now I’m talking about all the poor business models that have the car manufacturers lining up for the goody bags—-the bailouts will never stop. In fact, they will never even slow down. Each sector of the economy will line up, as if on cue, demanding “theirs.” There’s one thing I’ve yet to hear in all the rhetoric about how the Big Three must be saved at all costs to the American taxpayer. For all the talk about the jobs that will be lost (and of course that would be truly painful for all involved, and it’s hard not to feel bad about it….) and the communities that will be affected because of it, I still haven’t heard that car BUYERS will be deprived of automobiles to purchase. Shouldn’t EVERY business exist to serve the needs of the customer? I know quite a number of self-employed people whose businesses would go down the tubes this second if they stopped having goods and services that their customers desperately needed. And while that would be regrettable, it would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it? If the customer has completely viable options elsewhere in the marketplace, WHY should a specific company automatically continue to exist? If it’s ONLY for the employees, and for the healthcare and pensions of the former employees, that seems wrong to me. When the debate about keeping the Big Three afloat begins to incorporate their own solid business plans for making sure this request for a bailout never happens again, I might start thinking they deserve some assistance. And if I ever feel that a company actually exists to serve the needs of the customer, I’ll do my part to support their business. I’d even consider buying an American car, if my money weren’t currently tied up in bailouts. Posted by Katy on 11/23/08 Permalink Why, Oh Why Didn’t I Take Home Ec? (#1315) When I went to an all-girls Catholic high school from 1968-1972, I was exposed to an education that was nothing if not progressive. Now, that may not seem possible to you. Could the nuns really have been ahead of the times as far as women’s issues were concerned? You might think we were all taught to get married and pop out babies as fast as humanly possible. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, St. Teresa’s Academy was and still is known as a prep school—-and getting an Mrs. degree ain’t exactly what we were prepped for. I don’t know a single girl who would have claimed, even back in the old days, that she actually wanted to be a wife, mother, and homemaker to the exclusion of a career path with a whole bunch of letters before or after her name. And while St. Teresa’s offered a class in Home Economics in those days, I wouldn’t have been caught dead taking it. Not when the hallowed halls of journalism, forensics, theater, and art beckoned. There were important issues to be debated, wars to be protested, bad poetry to be written, Bob Dylan songs to be sung, and yes, bras to be burned. Maybe, if I’d signed up for Home Ec, I would have learned the most cost-saving way to burn my bra—-whether by lighting the gas oven and inserting it, using charcoal briquettes on the BBQ grill, or incinerating it in the furnace. Maybe I would have learned a whole bunch of other really smart stuff, too. The kind of stuff that would sure come in handy during my years spent as the Chief Financial Officer of the Raymond Home, whether I ever had a lucrative career outside the home or not. I snubbed my nose at the idea, though. And so I learned by trial and error, and trust me, I learned a lot. I am grateful now that when my husband and I were young, we were poor. I am glad that when were were fledgling parents, I had the privilege of staying home with the kids. We could in no logical way afford for me to do so, and yet it worked out. And guess what? I learned more about Home Economics during those lean years that some people who apparently have more money than they know what to do with are capable of comprehending. The thing is, when we started prospering, I still couldn’t get into the whole shop-till-you-drop mentality. I could do Nordstom’s, I guess. But why, when there’s a perfectly good Penney’s Outlet down the road? After reading the New York Time’s article, which I recommend for the giggles if nothing else, all I can imagine is that times aren’t yet tough enough for true behavioral changes to take place. And every night when I watch the news, I just laugh. Have you ever seen so many goofy stories on penny pinching in your born days? The spendthrift ways of a lifetime are rarely altered in a period of four or five weeks. It takes more serious pain than that for people who are used to indulging in not just one or two regular luxuries but a luxurious lifestyle to even begin to realize that there’s another (more sustainable and more satisfying!) way to live. I’m not going to ask how you’ve “cut back” recently. I’m just not sure it’s the right question, judging by the ridiculous trade-offs the folks in this article have made. But maybe I’ll go ahead and ask if you took Home Ec in school. If you did, I’m thinking you are feeling pretty good about your choice right about now. Congratulations on embracing wisdom in your youth! Posted by Katy on 11/21/08 Permalink Really, Really Fun While It Lasts! (#1314) If you hurry, you can catch one of the most fun blurbs for a headline I’ve ever seen. It’s on the Drudge Report, in the right hand column. Do you see what I see? “Global SOCKS Slump.” I am laughing my head off over here. If we HAVE to watch global STOCKS slump day after day, ad infinitum, we might as well have the hilarious vision in our collective consciousness of a worldwide global sock slump, too! Hang on to your socks, everyone! We’re in for quite a ride. Posted by Katy on 11/20/08 Permalink In Defense Of Good Old-Fashioned Books (#1312) My good buddies BJ Hoff and Cindy Swanson have been twittering today about how books make such excellent Christmas presents, and I couldn’t agree more. I think the first time I truly became aware of the magic of a wonderful volume unwrapped on Christmas was when I, as a ten-year-old, read Little Women. Who can forget how the four sisters each opened a differently-colored Pilgrim’s Progress—-obviously the story Marmee felt would most ably shape their young hearts during difficult times—-plus one other small gift suited to their individual personalities? Ever since, I’ve been thrilled to both give and receive coveted books at Christmas, when often the members of my family—-after the gifts are all opened and before the feast is begun—-find private nooks and crannies in which to preview their treasures. A hush descends upon the house for those few minutes, as fingers carefully turn new pages and eyes smile over the bounty of even the slimmest tome. So, as the holiday season once again approaches, tell me: What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift? Is there a title you’ve given that was appreciated even more than you imagined it would be? And if you could receive only one book on your wish list this Christmas, which one would it be? Sure, many of us will be cutting back on extravagances this year. I know we are, just like those Little Women did back in the day. But pity the Christmas when books become beyond our reach! For us, we’ll celebrate with good books even if most everything else falls by the way side. How about you? Posted by Katy on 11/17/08 Permalink Things I’ve Said That I’m Happy Someone Else Didn’t Say First, One In An Ongoing Series Of Several (#1311) “Some of us, when we read the writing on the Web? We see a wall.” Fallible Katy, November, 2008 Posted by Katy on 11/13/08 Permalink Do Depression Meds Work For This? (#1310) Can you count how many times in the past two months you have heard or read the phrase “since the Great Depression”? As in, of course, “the worse economy since the Great Depression,” “the highest rate of foreclosures since the Great Depression,” and “the fastest rate of rising unemployment since the Great Depression.” Here’s the deal: In every recession in my memory—-and I’m old enough to remember quite a few—-the words “Great Depression” have not been spoken. It’s as if to even compare any harsh realities we’ve gone through with the dreadful circumstances Americans faced during those bleak times is so ridiculous an exaggeration that it’s not permitted. There’s also always been a sense in which Americans have been led to believe that another Great Depression could not possibly happen, since our great nation now has policies in place (What are those policies again? We might want to pull those puppies out and USE THEM! Ha.) which preclude and prevent the obvious stupidity that allowed such a disaster to begin with. Now, though, otherwise respected journalists are tossing around “since the Great Depression” with such abandon that it seems to me they might being fed this newly-acceptable language like a slow-dripping IV, the kind that causes the patient’s pain to be evenly numbed without killing her from an overdose outright. And we, the listeners and readers, are growing ever more inured to the phrase ourselves. So much so, that I’ve got to say I won’t be one bit surprised when we are finally told that oooops, another Great Depression actually IS possible! I won’t be one bit surprised when they finally tell us that we’ve been in the Greater Depression for quite some time already. Recession, my eye. Posted by Katy on 11/12/08 Permalink The T-Shirt Off Our Backs (#1309) Times are tough everywhere, and as you know, even here at fallible we’ve had to resort to desperate measures to make a few measly bucks. Not that coming up with t-shirt slogans and pitching them on cafepress.com is exactly an act of desperation, but still. Let’s just say it’s not one of our usual lines of work. And that, my friends, is precisely what makes it so darned fulfilling. Because, you see, in a fit of pre-election fervor, we decided to revisit our brief foray into t-shirt sales, which we haven’t attempted once in the last eight years. Heck, we couldn’t even remember our log-in information, since we’d had no use for it after pocketing the cool $25 we made all those many moons ago. So we came up with a few designs, posted them in our store, and right away we profited by a handsome $9.50. Not bad for seven or eight hours work, you say? That’s what I thought, too, until I clicked on a little noticed link I’d never noticed before—-the one that indicates whether or not you have any money due you from days long past. Believe it or not, eight years ago some industrious soul passed through our humble CafePress t-shirt store on his way to fame and fortune. He ended up so inspired by our designs (in this case, I imagine “inspired” meant him thinking “I can do better than that!”) that he clicked on an affiliate link at our site and then started up his own business. His own very extremely successful business!!! Yes, people, what they say about the Internet is all true. Without lifting a single finger, you too can make a World Wide Web killing! Sure, we’ve only made a grand total of $34.50 over the past eight years through our own creative genius, as expressed in designs we’ve personally sold at CafePress. But the ginormous success of a guy we don’t even know earned us an additional…drum roll, please…$680.00!!!!! I know these days we’re used to talking in terms of billions and even trillions, but to my way of thinking $680 is still a great little haul. To think this money has been sitting in our account at CafePress for eight years, just waiting for us to become motivated enough by the goofy things candidates say that we order the old t-shirt press fired up again. “Spread the Wealth Around,” indeed! Posted by Katy on 11/11/08 Permalink For The Fallible Record (#1308) I’ve waited a couple of days, but the time has come to tell you why I did not vote for Barack Obama. And why I’m at peace with my decision. I didn’t vote for him because I’ve had my fill of charismania. Now, I’m not referring to the various branches of Christianity known as “Charismatic.” Rather, I’m referring to the tendency among humans to find a man (or woman) so full of what we’ll just call personal attraction as to make NOT following him (or her) seem almost sinful. I didn’t vote for him because I’ve grown ever more fond of principles than I will ever again be fond of personalities. I’ve read, post-election, that Obama won because of “the secret of attraction.” Please, God, say it isn’t so. Can’t a candidate win on the basis of substance anymore, even if his style (or his level of attraction…) is rough around the edges? I didn’t vote for him because I feel no “white guilt” whatsoever, and apparently I was supposed to. I didn’t know I owed him my vote, in order to somehow make reparations for the collective sins of the past. Seriously, I did not realize beforehand that such a thing as white guilt would even enter the white population’s thinking as they cast their ballots. But now, post-electon and in our new supposedly post-racial society, all I’m hearing is that race is a far bigger issue than I could have ever imagined. I didn’t vote for him because it never occurred to me to consider his color at all. Not only that, but I didn’t understand that his ability to deftly mesmerize an audience (me included) with words of lyrical inspiration should trump my analysis of his voting record. So I read about his record, found that I disagreed with him on almost everything, and snapped out of his spell. I didn’t vote for him because while someday, I’d love to have the opportunity to vote for a man of color, I did not and do not believe that Obama is that man. And since I cannot and will not vote for a candidate based on his color, I will have to wait a while longer to enjoy that privilege. Posted by Katy on 11/07/08 Permalink Long Time, No Blog (#1307) I sure have missed all you fallible readers, but it’s my own fault, isn’t it? If I would just get my act together and BLOG, things would be different…. The truth is that I haven’t felt overly well lately, and darned if I’m not starting to sound like my husband! He’s the one who——when he’s practically a dead man walking with back pain or a migraine—-reports his condition to me as “not perfect.” In case you EVER wondered, I have never been even remotely close to perfect! Recently, though, I’ve been toughing my way through some medication changes for the dumb stabbing pain in my eye, changes that have brought on depression. Now I need to decide if I will try to persist with the meds (which actually help the pain), in the hopes that the depression will lift, or if I should go off the meds and accept the pain as my 24/7 companion. See, I AM cheery, am I not? It probably doesn’t help that the world in general is in such a funk right now. I mean, we’ve been through some crummy economies before, but in my (rather long) lifetime, I don’t believe the entire planet has ever entered into a slump on virtually the same day. I’m not a big fan of extended election seasons, either. One of my girlfriends (waving to Alison!) actually took a trip to Ireland in part to escape the craziness of the election, and I WISH I were with her right this very minute. Don’t you? I wish I could say I have high hopes that the next president and congress will be able to correct some of the overwhelming problems this nation faces, but I believe we’re in for a world of hurt here. The problem is that no one seems willing to address the causes of the crises—-only to patch over the symptoms. That NEVER works for the long term, and what on earth would make us think this time is different? One of the ways the U.S. and many other countries attempts to gloss over facts is the continual printing of money, which if allowed to fester, eventually results in a situation like the one currently happening in Zimbabwe—-hyper-inflation. If you want to see some pictures that will blow your mind and make you wish you’d studied New Math a little harder while you had the chance, check these out! Think it can’t happen here? How many Zim dollars you wanna bet? Posted by Katy on 11/01/08 Permalink Droppin’ Gs (#1306) It’s bad enough that millions of us have watched our retirement accounts drop thousands (Gs for short) in the blink of an eye. I mean, the indignity of hitting “refresh” on Scottrade’s marketwatch page and seeing the market lose 300 points in 20 seconds is more than a little unnerving. But there’s something worse. Something so insidious that the entire nation—-both those invested in the stock market and those largely unaffected by the economic downturn of recent weeks—-cannot help but fall under its evil influence. And that, O fallible ones, is the sayin’ of words minus their final consonants. I’m guilty of it myself. I say I’m gonna go, instead of going to go. But I try my best to only do it when the hearing of the sounds actually contributes to a simpler understanding of their meaning. You’ve got to admit that “going to go” has really gone too far, construction wise. “Gonna” works pretty well as a substitute. But when presidential and vice-presidential candidates go from reasonably well-spoken individuals to hayseeds who are tryin’ to win votes with the common folk by usin’ Ozarky mannerisms, it just gets awful tirin’, awful darn fast. So I’m proposin’ that we protest this artificial affectation they’ve all takin’ on. Insist that your candidate add proper consonants to his or her ridiculous sounding words or you’ll be up and withholdin’ your vote! Hold them to linguistic standards, even if you’ve lost all hope of them meeting any others! After all the Gs we’ve lost, though (both in dollars and letters), I’ve got to say that the loss of a different consonant is the one that is truly worryin’ me to death. People, if you still have Emergency Fun instead of an Emergency Fund, make like Vanna and buy yourself a letter D now! I’ve never been as sure of anything as I am of the fact that you’re gonna need one really, really soon. I’m just sayin’. Posted by Katy on 10/20/08 Permalink Help A Sister Out! (#1305) As you might remember, a couple of weeks ago I issued my latest release of Katy’s Market Timer, as a public service to all my fallible readers. This infrequent timer is intended to help you with your own financial planning, since whenever I announce my intention to either buy or sell stocks, the market turns precisely against me and remains against me for upwards of the rest of my natural life. Which is considerably shorter now, I figure, than it was two weeks ago. So, since you have likely benefitted from my market timer by many thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of dollars (or euro or yen or francs or whatever), I decided that today would be a perfect time to offer you the chance to pay me back. Whether you are a fan of Obama or McCain, I’m hoping you’ll find a bit of humor and good cheer in the “Joe the Plumber” and “Spread the Wealth Around” items Doug and I put together last night during the presidential debates. We’re big fans of multi-tasking, and there’s no time like when you’re mourning the loss of half your money and listening to candidates tell you how they’re going to tax away the rest to start a sideline business, right? Thank you for your support! :) Posted by Katy on 10/16/08 Permalink Broke And Broker (#1304) Sometimes, when you’re getting broker every day, it helps to sing your way through your troubles. Anybody got any favorite songs for hard times? Songs that never fail to cheer you, to make you feel a sense of camaraderie with all the other poor chumps out there? I’m stuck today singing, “Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you, honey, everything will bring a chain of love…..” Yeah, I’m sappy like that. How about you? Shoot me your best song in the comment section and let’s all hum a few bars together!! Posted by Katy on 10/09/08 Permalink Share Wear (#1303) I’ve written a couple of posts since I told you the story of my panty escapades during my writers conference trip. One of my dear writer friends, Cathy West, even left a comment on one particularly well-thought-out and relevant post, saying that while my subject matter was all well and good, I should stick closer to the topic my audience is most interested in: panties. In my eight years of blogging, I’ve purposefully remained a generalist. I have avoided becoming a blogger who only writes about writing, or about personal finances, or decluttering, or my faith, or my family, or elder care. Sure, I cover my personal experience in those areas, but there are so many other things happening in life, I just didn’t want to be tied down. What if I occasionally dabbled in politics? Or the unwinding stock market? Wouldn’t fallible readers just love to know my opinions about the sub-prime mortgage debacle or Sarah Palin? Just when I was starting to wonder, I landed in the hospital. I was only there 24 hours, from Friday night till Saturday evening, but during those tense hours in tube after tube after tube (dear Lord, deliver me!) I had a lot of time to reflect on you, my dear audience. And since I landed in the ER without any spare panties, I also had plenty of time to wonder where my next pair would come from. By Saturday morning, I felt pretty desperate to get cleaned up. Doug wouldn’t be arriving for several more hours, and I was stuck with the same pair of underwear I’d arrived in. I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t work for me. I’d told Doug what to bring with him when he came, but my troubled mind conjured images of my last trip to the ER when I’d given him similar instructions. Back then, after I was admitted and knew I’d be an in-patient for several days, I asked my dear husband to bring five pairs of panties. It seemed like a simple enough request. He brought one pair of raggedy underwear, three bras, and two girdles. Dave Barry might be able to make this up, but I am NOT. This time, I couldn’t take any chances. What if he showed up with a freakin’ Spanx??? So, after getting cleaned up, I told the nurse that I’d found myself utterly and irretrievably pantyless until my husband’s visit, and she seemed to understand how much security I take in underwear. She came back into my room in a moment with a sealed packet of…something. I honestly had no idea what. “These will work until your husband gets here,” she said. I tore open the package to discover two rectangles of paper mesh. Each one was approximately six inches wide and three inches high. The nurse had already left the room, so I could not question her about her gift and how on earth to make it work on a body older than age three. So I did what I do best: I experimented. I went into the bathroom and studied one of those rectangles until I figured out which end was up. Sure enough, one of the six-inch sides opened wide enough for me to insert a hand. Then my hand kept on traveling until it opened up a tiny leg hole on the other side. But would an actual, real woman’s thigh fit through it? I became ever more determined to find out! Miracle of miracles, it worked! The paper mesh stretched in both directions, and in no time, I knew the height and width and breadth and depth of a darned substantive pair of disposable panties. No sooner had I emerged from the bathroom than Doug showed up with a bag of underwear. No bras or girdles this time—-trust me, he learned his lesson on that one. I peeked into the bag and said, “I remember asking you to bring cotton panties. In the hospital, I want cotton.” Let’s just say he’d packed some pairs that were decidedly not cotton. “I looked through all of them,” he said. “And I liked these best.” It figures. After all, he was my very first fallible reader. Posted by Katy on 10/07/08 Permalink Buy And Bail, Before It’s Too Late! (#1302) I thought I’d heard everything. I especially thought I’d heard everything about how poor, unfortunate mortgage holders all over the nation have become unwitting victims of predatory lending practices. It’s those greedy bankers, mortgage companies, and various and sundry financial institutions, I tell you! The little guy just can’t catch a break. Except that, evidently, we can. If you haven’t heard of “buy-and-bail,” I encourage you to google it. Read articles in the Wall Street Journal and at ABC online. Then go ahead and read articles published by folks in the business of lending money. Tell me what I’m missing, O ye fallible ones!! Here’s the gist of how you, too, can profit from buy-and-bail, without feeling even an ounce of guilt over your fraudulent behavior, since by now everyone knows that the taxpayer will bail the financial institutions out should you decide to put the screws to them. Let’s say that in 2006, you purchased a home for $450,000 with no money down. Already, you’ve got a big problem—or then again, not. I guess it depends on how you look at life. Anyway, two years later your house-formerly-known-as-“dream” is now your constant nightmare. Its value has dropped to $225,000!!! This is completely unacceptable!!! Why, two years into home ownership, you were practically guaranteed that you’d have a ton of equity, even though you didn’t have a single cent of a down payment when you purchased. The nerve!! Plus, darned if that mortgage you took out didn’t turn out to be an ADJUSTABLE. Now, maybe you didn’t quite realize this at the time, but adjustable is code for UP. So, you’ve found out that your payment is about to jump from an already too high $3300 a month to a deal breaking $4000 a month. What do you do? What CAN you do? Evidently, plenty. 1. Find a house exactly like yours in a nearby neighborhood. A house that two years ago sold for $450,000, but is now selling for $225,000. 2. Purchase said home, with no money down as per usual. 3. Move your furnishings into said home and immediately after you close on the new place, let your previous home slide into foreclosure. Bingo! We have a winner! The foreclosure will only hurt your credit for four or five years, but who cares? You won’t need to purchase another home during that time period anyway. In the meantime, the housing market will turn around. You will instantly begin to build equity in your new home, which you got at HALF PRICE. Why, if you’d waited around for your original house to regain its value, you’d NEVER get ahead. And as we all know, that just wouldn’t be fair. If it occurs to you to feel bad for all your previous neighbors, who now have one more foreclosed upon home on the block, dragging down their property values, resist the urge to repent. It’s every homeowner for himself! And as far as the lending institutions go, you can fall into a blissful sleep at night by chanting, “They got what was coming to them. They got what was coming to them….” We’ve been told that the number one reason folks lose their homes is because of catastrophic medical bills, and in the past, that might very well have been true. That’s the kind of unfortunate situation I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But now I’m wondering how many McMansions sit empty, bank-owned, and discounted even further than the market warranted because of not only unscrupulous lending practices, but treacherous purchasing practices, as well. All I know for certain is that whoever thought of this scam has the kind of brilliance I missed out on when God was passing out talents. Posted by Katy on 10/06/08 Permalink On Bad Behavior And Bailouts (#1301) I admit right here and now to knowing next to nothing about economics and how free markets work most efficiently. The only thing I really know much about at all, in fact, is raising children to become responsible adults. And a bit about the process by which behaviors are either encouraged or discontinued. The truth is, if one of my kids landed in jail because he’d committed a crime, I would hesitate (and probably decline) to bail him out. Of course, if he’d been thrown in the slammer due to some terrible misunderstanding on the part of law enforcement officials, that would be a different matter, one that obviously doesn’t apply to the situation at hand. Is there ANYTHING that would make us believe that the practices Congress is seeking to throw money at weren’t completely intentional and, in fact, ENCOURAGED by the very lawmakers who now want to rob Peter (YOU!) to pay Paul (THEM!). I think not. So I’ll stick my neck out here and say that on general principle, I am completely against bail-outs. I’m talking governmental, corporate, and personal. I’m a big fan of letting markets (and families) sort out their own difficulties and—as much as possible—change their own behaviors in order to achieve different outcomes from the ones they’ve gotten so far. I realize there’s a chance that if we had no bail-out package whatsoever, the suffering we’d all endure as we adopted new (more fiscally responsible) behaviors would be stressful and difficult, and possibly last longer than if Congress does pass the deal. However, that’s no reason to pass legislation that bolsters the confidence of those who’ve done wrong and essentially puts them in the position of being enabled to continue the abhorrent borrowing and lending practices that led to this mess to begin with. As for credit drying up, my mailbox JUST YESTERDAY contained credit card offers at 0% from five separate companies. We are debt-free except for our mortgage, but we’ve got credit lines out the wazoo. I expect the offers will continue ad infinitum, because we have a strong history of paying back what we owe. I’m not bragging. What I’m saying is that credit will always be available to those who have the ability to pay back what they borrow. And that’s as it should be. Believe me, for the early years of our marriage, we would NOT allow ourselves to get a credit card at all because we KNEW our meager income could not support a payment to a lending institution. I know whereof I speak. If parents, companies, financial institutions, and governments began to operate (for the first time in decades) on the principle of rewarding good behavior (such as obedience, saving, investing, and building businesses without unqualified borrowing) and discouraging bad behavior (by putting the kabosh on bailouts), we’d all be a lot better off in the long run. The long run may take a long time, but the payoff is so worth the wait. Here are two articles I couldn’t agree with more. Since they are both written by libertarians, perhaps that makes me one? Hey, whatever it takes. A Harvard Economist Speaks Out Karl Marx Makes A Comeback Posted by Katy on 09/30/08 Permalink Page 8 of 84 pages « First < 6 7 8 9 10 > Last »


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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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