Who Owns Who?

[Loki]

Sobering video ...

RpmlH5rtTkg

[Aemma]

Good vid Loki. Thanks. Sobering indeed.

About student loans: Both my hubby and I wouldn't have gotten the education that we both wanted had it not been for student loans. It took us both a very long while before they were paid in full, but at least we can sleep at night with the satisfying knowledge that this debt to society has been paid in full, lock, stock and barrel and that we now own those nice little pieces of paper that are kept in some box in the basement somewhere. :rolleyes: What makes me fume however is the leniency banks today have with respect to defaulters on student loans. I know of one young man who 'struck a deal' with his financial institution and got to pay a certain percentage of his loan immediately while the balance was 'forgiven'--it seems the bank was willing to get anything from this guy asap and then close out the file or some such. (Gods only know where he got the money for this, mind you!) While we put off doing other things that young couples do, such as buying a home, because we were paying off student loans at incredibly high interest rates (par for getting a loan during the 80's and early 90's), here is this young upstart, getting a break from paying off the total amount of his loan which had an interest rate at least half of what we were paying at the time. Makes me fume just thinking about it. :mad:

Oh well...c'est la vie. :rolleyes2:

Cheers!...Aemma

[lei.talk]

thought - by some - to be a pompous ole wind-bag
reciting a grab-bag of clichéd aphorisms
under the guise of parental advice
to his departing son, but,

how improved would be one's life, if...
quoth Lord Polonius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonius) to Laertes -
There; my blessing with thee! and these few precepts in thy memory see thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man, and they in France of the best rank and station are of a most select and generous chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Fare well: my blessing season this in thee!

- William Shakespeare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet)

[Revenant]

It's a good point he makes in a drawn out sort of way, can't afford it then don't buy it. Many people don't think what they're doing when they rack up the credit, especially on credit cards, they just do it like some sort of automated robot and worry about it later.

[lei.talk]

:offtopid:

"This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as nontraditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank . . . If that's the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!"

Verily speaks Christopher Moore, much beloved scrivener and peerless literary jester, who hath writteneth much that is of grand wit and belly-busting mirth, including such laurelled bestsellers of the Times of Olde Newe Yorke as Lamb (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GZAZ_enUS281US281&q=%22christopher+moore%22+lamb), A Dirty Job (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GZAZ_enUS281US281&q=%22christopher+moore%22+%22a+dirty+job%22), and You Suck (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GZAZ_enUS281US281&q=%22christopher+moore%22+%22you+suck%22) (no offense). Now he takes on no less than the legendary Bard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare#Plays) himself (with the utmost humility and respect) in a twisted and insanely funny tale of a moronic monarch and his deceitful daughters—a rousing story of plots, subplots, counterplots, betrayals, war, revenge, bared bosoms, unbridled lust . . . and a ghost (there's always a bloody ghost), as seen through the eyes of a man wearing a codpiece and bells on his head.

http://i40.tinypic.com/i5ow2h.jpg (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GZAZ_enUS281US281&q=%22christopher+moore%22+fool)

A man of infinite jest, Pocket has been Lear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear#Characters)'s cherished fool for years, from the time the king's grown daughters—selfish, scheming Goneril, sadistic (but erotic-fantasy-grade-hot) Regan, and sweet, loyal Cordelia—were mere girls. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege's side when Lear—at the insidious urging of Edmund, the bastard (in every way imaginable) son of the Earl of Gloucester—demands that his kids swear their undying love and devotion before a collection of assembled guests. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father's request is kind of . . . well . . . stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.

Well, now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. The whole damn country's about to go to hell in a handbasket because of a stubborn old fart's wounded pride. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket, a small and slight clown with a biting sense of humor. He's already managed to sidestep catastrophe (and the vengeful blades of many an offended nobleman) on numerous occasions, using his razor-sharp mind, rapier wit . . . and the equally well-honed daggers he keeps conveniently hidden behind his back. Now he's going to have to do some very fancy maneuvering—cast some spells, incite a few assassinations, start a war or two (the usual stuff)—to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear's good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia's twisted sisters, to rescue his gigantic, gigantically dim, and always randy friend and apprentice fool, Drool, from repeated beatings . . . and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who's amenable to shagging along the way.

Pocket may be a fool . . . but he's definitely not an idiot.

[SuuT]

Sobering video ...

And it is particularly true in America where Capitalism has run amuck: there is nothing "free" about the market any longer; and the notion of 'competition' is a pipe-dream fairytale. A good gauge of when an economic system, as a whole, is rotten and failed is not only when the population lives beyond their means; but when the existing system requires them to do so to function. This requisite over-indulgence simply cannot sustain itself over protracted periods of time - it results in the acquisition of false wealth, itself backed by bad assetts/paper, itself backed by nothing. The end result, in a global economic system, is....

Oh yeah, go click your tele on.

[lei.talk]

Do not heap up upon poverty

- which has many attendant evils -

the perplexities which arise
from borrowing and owing.

~ Moralia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralia)