Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
We need to talk about the concept of crippling debt.
One of the reasons socialism is growing in popularity right now is that a lot of young people feel the same way I felt when I was their age. They have hopes and dreams they think they can build on, possibly to the betterment of all the rest of us. Like I had, and still have. And they have a load of debt, like I had back then. Today I have debts but I’ve learned to live within my means, and make it manageable.
I’ve learned some other things. I’ve learned debt isn’t always bad. You have to make good decisions about it, and if debt really is unmanageable then that usually means you haven’t been doing that. Of course there are exceptions. Unfortunate things happen. But even then you still have options. You may have to make a major course change in life, and that’s okay. That’s learning. But one way or another, it’s best not to look at your existing debts as “crippling,” but more like a task you have to get done. Can you achieve these hopes and dreams before you get your debts paid? Maybe! Maybe not. But that is okay too.
But the most important thing I’ve learned is: If I don’t have the ingenuity to take care of my debts — if I’m not bigger than they are — then I don’t have what it takes to realize these hopes and dreams that are going to make life better for everyone else.
That’s dark, so let’s turn it around: If I have what it takes to realizes these hopes and dreams and make life better for everyone else — I can pay my debts. That would be but a first step. And that’s for me, given that I plan to get them all paid before I start on those hopes & dreams in earnest. That’s actually not necessary for everyone. A lot of people do some very fine work while still in debt.
Now this might seem like bold talk, since I have a good reputation and I’m experienced, and my total debt-load compared to my income earning potential is slight. Many young people would be tempted to ignore this, and it’s understandable because their debt load is much higher when compared to their income earning potential. Without paying food rent and utilities, I could put all my income into this red ink for month and months, years maybe, it just seems so hopeless. And so they think: Someone has to take care of that for me! So I can work on my hopes and dreams that will help everybody else.
Well no sweetie, you don’t want that. That’s my message here. After your debts are paid you’re still going to have limited income potential and you’re still going to see things you’ll want to have that are worth more than what you can save up during the term of time in which you want to have them. After the fat guy gets liposuction there’s still going to be food to be eaten. Yes our health care system is a mess right now — due to government intervention — and I have sympathy for people who run into a health crisis that drains their life savings, I really do. But if your hopes and dreams are really good for everyone else, and you really do have what it takes to bring them to fruition, you can pay off your student loan first. Or during.
I’m sure that feels like it’s some kind of smack-down. Back in my younger days when I was foolish, inexperienced, debt-ridden and skinny, I’d have taken it that way if someone else said it. But that’s not what it is. What I mean to say is that debt is a test, an extremely elementary one. It’s a test of your decision-making powers in the past, when you racked up the debt, and your powers of negotiation and resourcefulness today, when you’re trying to do something about it. It is the drawing of the sword from the stone before you can become King. It is the draining of the swamp before you can pour a building foundation into the construction site.
If you’ve got that, then you’ve got this.
If nobody is making the effort to get the word across to the younger generation, we can hardly blame them for not hearing it or reading it or understanding it. When they insist they’ve got all the brightest and best ideas that will finally make the world all perfect, while acting helpless and “triggered” and bemoaning that some magical Fairy Godmother doesn’t come along and clean up their messes for them, they look silly to our generation. But they’re simply channeling the ideas they’ve been given, while we, who can see what’s wrong with all that, have remained silent.
And that is why socialism is gaining inroads right now. It isn’t because people talk about politics too much; it’s because we discuss things too little. It’s because of “If I say something I might get called in by H.R.” or “Politics religion and sports have no place at this dinner table” or “I’m too smart to talk back against left-wing politics, working where I do” or “Stop it already, there’s cheesecake!!” The politicians and pundits who are selling socialism to our young people, who fancy themselves to be crippled by debt, are never interrupted by cheesecake. And so of course the young people don’t know, when someone pays your debts for you there are always strings attached. Of course they don’t know that. It’s not all their fault.
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I have always been of the opinion that the crushing debt so many find themselves in, after leaving college, while paying rent, and car loan/lease, to be an extraordinary ignorance tax, maybe even a stupidity
- CaptDMO | 05/20/2019 @ 05:07tax.
I’m pretty sure that “moving back into the basement” causes more “debilitating mental issues” than starting off in a crappy apt, in a crappy neighborhood, with a spouse, and newborn, and a “home economics” budget,, while navigating one’s way through the school of cod.
Of course, electing to swim with “the school” of food fish is it’s OWN ignorance tax.
I’m told that’s what that J0rdan Peters0n guy (not being cutesy; his very name brings out the weirdos) is getting at when he says “Clean your room.” If you can’t even manage to maintain your living space, you have no business being out there trying to change the world. Get your own house in order first, then work on the rest of the world.
That said, when I’m dictator, high on the Committee for Truth and Reconciliation’s to-do list will be tracking down everyone involved with getting FedGov in the student loan business. If a Bernie Madoff type had done to Wall Street what the student loan racket has done to Main Street, the Morgan Stanley boys would have him drawn and quartered in Times Square, and broadcast it in place of the Super Bowl, pour encourager les autres.
- Severian | 05/20/2019 @ 11:03