Thursday, March 06, 2008
I am so weak...
Amazon.com may well be the death of my budget. I just purchased 2 books about cheap living and the underground economy, and I'll review them here to justify my spending. I also just realized any of the information in the books is probably invalid now anyway, and I just wasted 42 bucks including shipping. I can afford it, in that I am not drawing on what little savings I have, but I'm supposed to be doing better than that. I leave for Prague in a month for crying out loud! Bah and bah... Anyway, the first book concerns living cheaply, which by definition would indicate I take the book out of the library and read it for free rather than buying it. Still, the book's introduction was an interesting read. It discusses the impact of sudden and unplanned poverty and the psycho-social ramifications thereof. It's interpretation is fairly bleak, with passages about how people will shun you for your poverty. The first chapter is: "Keep Your Self-Respect While Poor" and delineates how people, due to your misfortune, won't ask you lead charity drives at church, etc. As a Catholic, I like poor people, so I'll gather this is a statement for all those WASP's out there.
The advice I could read via Amazon's page turning app was fairly simple and sparse, but direct and unflinching. This is similar to my financial aid counseling style, so I could appreciate the prose. Written by a tried and true New Englander, the book is published by Paladin Press; a libertarian outfit in the back woods of Colorado. I was first introduced to their books in the pages of Soldier of Fortune magazine, so finding this book on Amazon was a little strange. Both the topic and author are, at first blush, unconventional for the publisher, but it really tells the reader how to live off the grid and defy society's economic expectations as much as possible.
Themes and the usefulness of the advice aside, the main supposition of the book remains in question: is economic misfortune even a social stigma any more? A friend and I discuss the subject often and at length, and we both agree that the social consequences of mortgage foreclosure are non-existent at this point. True poverty, however, will still stop those dinner invites from coming. Part of the disconnect is that while you may have lost your house, so have lots of other people. Moreover, you're still employed. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the money people used to buy McMansions they could never hope to afford was not their neighbors'. The dollars used to purchased these over-inflated homes belonged to the Chinese. Now, the irony of the people of a communist nation holding enough currency of the largest capitalist economy in HISTORY to cause a bubble of epic proportions is worthy of exploration, but I (and apparently almost everyone else) don't really care. People will care when Asia stops buying our bonds, but that is also debate for another time.
Back when a bank could only lend what it had in deposits, getting a mortgage was a far more difficult process then it was during the boom. There were minimum down payments, massive background checks, going over your finances as if the bank was the IRS, body cavity searches, and the like. Lenders are becoming more careful now, as I can attest. This is different than the "credit crunch" since all banks should have been doing this anyway. Not having any money to lend because your bonds are worthless in a different story. Now the money belongs (belonged is a better way to say it, since the money is gone....) to another people far away, and you don't have to face your fellow townsfolk when you pissed away their savings. This is still a problem on a macro level, since this will hurt Sino-American relations and trade, but if I lost my house, the holder of the note won't come to lecture me or kick my ass.
The book, updated before there was even a housing bubble (2001), should have some interesting things to say, even if the approach of the book is steeped in the Depression-era survival of the author's father. We'll see if the true theme is leaving the system or embracing poverty, but I should gain a few worthy nuggets of information either way.
The second book is probably both more interesting and less useful than the first, but how can I pass on a guide to the underground economy? There is a theory in social psychology concerning trends and who benefits. Essentially, only those who embrace a trend in the very earliest manifestations benefit. As an example, the first people to stand up at a concert get a better view, and then only until everyone else follows suit. As such, those who first bought the book when it came out benefited the most from ti's information. What that means to me is another story. Again the book deals with separating oneself from the system, but the unspoken theme seems to be how to work and not pay taxes. I don't need a book for that, I can just wait tables. Still, it should be another entertaining reads with a few helpful tips and ideas.
Whatever good the books could do, (and I am not living in a fucking tent at Fahnestock or the Poconos), it does not answer the fundamental question: how do I control my spending? My apartment is significantly cheaper than my apartment (after tax benefits) and I'll own my car long after it is paid off. So where is the money going? Eating out? Sure. Starbucks? Yepper. Mostly, it services debt. I owe lots of money to lots of places, and my debt payments (including car but not mortgage or maintenance) is a whopping 1185 a month. This assumes I make more than the minimum payment on my credit cards. I don't need furniture other than a box spring and I've mostly tamed eating out for the moment. Driving too much and Starbucks still beg for improvement, but even that's better than it was. I could get rid of the Internet access and WoW, but what else would I do? I could close my storage unit, but I'd have to throw out 75% of what's in it. No, the answer is paying off my debts, and that is incredibly hard. I hope to enjoy the books and I'll leave it at that.
The advice I could read via Amazon's page turning app was fairly simple and sparse, but direct and unflinching. This is similar to my financial aid counseling style, so I could appreciate the prose. Written by a tried and true New Englander, the book is published by Paladin Press; a libertarian outfit in the back woods of Colorado. I was first introduced to their books in the pages of Soldier of Fortune magazine, so finding this book on Amazon was a little strange. Both the topic and author are, at first blush, unconventional for the publisher, but it really tells the reader how to live off the grid and defy society's economic expectations as much as possible.
Themes and the usefulness of the advice aside, the main supposition of the book remains in question: is economic misfortune even a social stigma any more? A friend and I discuss the subject often and at length, and we both agree that the social consequences of mortgage foreclosure are non-existent at this point. True poverty, however, will still stop those dinner invites from coming. Part of the disconnect is that while you may have lost your house, so have lots of other people. Moreover, you're still employed. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the money people used to buy McMansions they could never hope to afford was not their neighbors'. The dollars used to purchased these over-inflated homes belonged to the Chinese. Now, the irony of the people of a communist nation holding enough currency of the largest capitalist economy in HISTORY to cause a bubble of epic proportions is worthy of exploration, but I (and apparently almost everyone else) don't really care. People will care when Asia stops buying our bonds, but that is also debate for another time.
Back when a bank could only lend what it had in deposits, getting a mortgage was a far more difficult process then it was during the boom. There were minimum down payments, massive background checks, going over your finances as if the bank was the IRS, body cavity searches, and the like. Lenders are becoming more careful now, as I can attest. This is different than the "credit crunch" since all banks should have been doing this anyway. Not having any money to lend because your bonds are worthless in a different story. Now the money belongs (belonged is a better way to say it, since the money is gone....) to another people far away, and you don't have to face your fellow townsfolk when you pissed away their savings. This is still a problem on a macro level, since this will hurt Sino-American relations and trade, but if I lost my house, the holder of the note won't come to lecture me or kick my ass.
The book, updated before there was even a housing bubble (2001), should have some interesting things to say, even if the approach of the book is steeped in the Depression-era survival of the author's father. We'll see if the true theme is leaving the system or embracing poverty, but I should gain a few worthy nuggets of information either way.
The second book is probably both more interesting and less useful than the first, but how can I pass on a guide to the underground economy? There is a theory in social psychology concerning trends and who benefits. Essentially, only those who embrace a trend in the very earliest manifestations benefit. As an example, the first people to stand up at a concert get a better view, and then only until everyone else follows suit. As such, those who first bought the book when it came out benefited the most from ti's information. What that means to me is another story. Again the book deals with separating oneself from the system, but the unspoken theme seems to be how to work and not pay taxes. I don't need a book for that, I can just wait tables. Still, it should be another entertaining reads with a few helpful tips and ideas.
Whatever good the books could do, (and I am not living in a fucking tent at Fahnestock or the Poconos), it does not answer the fundamental question: how do I control my spending? My apartment is significantly cheaper than my apartment (after tax benefits) and I'll own my car long after it is paid off. So where is the money going? Eating out? Sure. Starbucks? Yepper. Mostly, it services debt. I owe lots of money to lots of places, and my debt payments (including car but not mortgage or maintenance) is a whopping 1185 a month. This assumes I make more than the minimum payment on my credit cards. I don't need furniture other than a box spring and I've mostly tamed eating out for the moment. Driving too much and Starbucks still beg for improvement, but even that's better than it was. I could get rid of the Internet access and WoW, but what else would I do? I could close my storage unit, but I'd have to throw out 75% of what's in it. No, the answer is paying off my debts, and that is incredibly hard. I hope to enjoy the books and I'll leave it at that.
