We shouldn't have asked in the first place. Hundred bucks would only have delayed the inevitable. The wife knows where she can stick that tightly rolled-up Benjamin. Dropped a last few hundred at Backhawk. Then we picked a fight with the fellow at whose house we have been staying for the past several months. The next day he invited us to leave and not return. Just go ahead and toss whatever of our stuff you were storing for me and any other odds and ends. We have no place to put it--the old long-term rental is already overflowing. And the storage area is only paid through January so all that stuff will get tossed eventually. Most of that storage room is our mother's stuff. Maybe I can contact her brothers for help.
Thanks, Tom, for the hospitality. We know we were getting on your nerves. It's cold out there and we are tapped, though. You're getting some use out of my old Buick after you invested some time and money. It's a good car for its age and mileage. Plus, you were able to salvage and clean and make a little cash from our refrigerator, dishwasher, etc. from our soon to be former house. I will miss those two cute black cats. O, well.
Guess we should have blown town a month ago before Blackhawk got to us. Nah, that would have only prolonged the inevitable.
Back last June or July we had just gotten back from Vegas, winning 28K in five days. That gave us a total of over 65K. But rather than catch our breath and consolidate, we bolted right back to Vegas a week later and, ultimately, lost the whole shootin' match. So bloody stupid. Someone THAT stupid should not be allowed to live. A lousy compulsive gambler.
A month later we were able to cobble together another smaller bankroll and headed out to LA. Lost that eventually, of course, and then travelled up the coast through Big Sur and beyond.
And then a few weeks later, mirabile scriptu, we stitched together another 4K or so and headed back to LA. Lost 2K of the 4K, then parlayed the last 2k into 20K over a couple weeks. Flying high. Played some poker with Jerry Buss, owner of the Lakers, and also James Woods, the actor. But ended up losing most of that 20K. And we saw some sights in California and Oregon. The redwoods are spectacular, as is the whole coastline for that matter.
Now we find ourself just having entered our 48th year, now REALLY tap city. What does one do? The plan was to lose everything and then dispose of this life of ours. It's very hard, though, to commit suicide. Leaving a mother and sister behind. Friends? Well, folks have their own lives. We wouldn't wish our tendency for self destruction on an enemy. It's a terrible, terrible thing to feel like ending one's life. We've just dug ourself too big a hole to climb out of. The rope, even if someone wanted to throw a lifeline, just won't reach.
Suicide is really not a big deal. Why not finish the plan? Mother is more or less happily situated. Sister Grace will have to fend for herself, which she has done over the years. We wish, of course, that we could have held on to the old City buyer job. Might have taken a month or two to recover and get well. Then look to go back to work, maybe even get rehired. Booze and gambling. Gambling and booze. Fatalistic outlook also got the better of us. Even before Jerome's leap, Dad's death--we had trouble finding that stable equilibrium, a sense of happiness. Fear of the future, of dealing with mother and sister and, even before HIS suicide, our brother always messed with us. We had many opportunities to get better but never did. One has to figure out one's way through this life. There was always a lot of guilt about the lack of success that Jerome and Grace. I went to college, got a job, all that. We had some decent chances at love but were always too much of a loner to make it work. Love created too much stress.
We've been extraordinarily lucky in a lot of ways. Health. Decent constitution in spite of being fat. Eyes still going strong at 48, though reading glasses are now advisable. Ah, the past. Memories are made of it, as Dino crooned. Finished a marathon 27 years ago in 4:04. Not too shabby for a 225 pound guy. Also got the old bench press up above 350--without a spotter, we might add. How many folks can claim BOTH a 4:04 marathon and a 350 pound bench press in the same life. What more is there, really, left to do. We've also had the good fortune to walk around the ancient Acropolis in Athens. Visited the Tower of London. Anne Frank's apartment in Amsterdam. The ruins of ancient Ephesus in Turkey. Can't see everything. Some folks try but just look silly to me. Seeing Rome, southern Italy, Sicily would have been nice. Another trip to see sites we missed in Greece the first time around. Greece could easily handle four or five trips without any danger of retracing steps. Alas, those trips will not happen.
What right do we have, what a huge conceit to even seriously entertain the taking of one's own life, to set the date and time oneself rather than let "Nature" take its course. We are just weary of it all. Tired. Too many mistakes--what's one more! Life is just killing time. And if you can't figure out a way to make it work, then so be it. There it is.
Dean Martin. Joe Namath. Johnny Cash. Movies. Television. One just grows weary of killing time. We could watch those roasts and the Dino TV show over and over again for eternity. Better to kill oneself. Get it over with. Put us out of our misery. Another statistic. How about being the last suicide of 2007 and the first of 2008. Straddle. Middle the f^cking game. Possible. An idea. Yes, we are a coward. But mostly we are just too weak to go on. We see why we must live, why we must go on. But it's just not there. It's hard to pull off a suicide, though. It took a lot of losses, gambling and otherwise. We suppose our brother's suicide set much of the course. Some things you just never get over. The guilt and self-recrimination is just too strong. Would that we had taken control of our life and held onto the job and figured it all out. I know what you might be thinking: It's still not too late. Easy for you to say. We think, unfortunately, that it is. What to do with the car? Park it or die in it? Decisions, decisions. Even in death there are decisions.
To be, or not to be? That is the question. We guess we'll go with the latter. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Buckley's Take Is Singularly The Best, As Usual.
No paragraphs really makes you work a bit, huh? At least there is still punctuation. Putin has said much the same thing about the West over the years.
Pakistan’s Blood-Stained DemocracyBy William F. Buckley Jr.
Lally Weymouth of Newsweek did a brilliant article published just two weeks before the assassination. She was in close quarters with Benazir Bhutto and then with President Musharraf. Neither one of them said anything apocalyptic, and certainly there was no indication that poised in those conventional words was the gleam of the assassin, or the fright of a victim bound. In short, from the two principals, there were no big surprises. But Ms. Weymouth’s questions were not banal, and Musharraf rewarded her with a singular frankness. This came early in the interview, when Ms. Weymouth asked him, “Do you feel you stuck your neck out for the United States after September 11 and the United States has not stood by you?” One yearns to write that the following words were “spat out,” but that much can only be inferred: “No, I don’t. I stuck out my neck for Pakistan. I didn’t stick out my neck for anyone else. It happened to be in the interest of the world and the U.S. . . . The problem with the West and your media is your obsession with democracy, civil liberties, human rights. You think your definition of all these things is [correct]. . . . Who has built democratic institutions in Pakistan? I have done it in the last eight years. We empowered the people and the women of Pakistan. We allowed freedom of expression.” Musharraf cited as an example of the bias against which he works, the coverage by the Western media of the violence at the Islamabad mosque last summer: “We took action. What did the media do about it? They showed those who took action as villains and brought those madwomen who were there on television and made heroes of them.”Weymouth then asked the sacred question: “Do you feel you could work with Benazir Bhutto?” Musharraf: “When you talk of working with her, you imply she is going to be the prime minister. Why do you imply that? I keep telling everyone we haven’t had the elections.”“Mrs. Bhutto charges that there are going to be ghost polling stations — that the voting is going to be rigged.” This brought real asperity: “. . . let her not treat everyone like herself. . . . I am not like her. I don’t believe in these things. Where’s her sense of democracy when 57 per cent of the Parliament vote for me, and she says she is not prepared to work with me . . . ?” Why, the interviewer asked Ms. Bhutto, are the terrorists so strong in Pakistan? Is it because there is support for them from the government? Ms. Bhutto: “Yes, I am shocked to see how embedded it [terrorism] is. I knew it was bad from afar. People are scared to talk. They say I am polarizing when I say militancy is a problem.” Two weeks later the lead story in the New York Times spoke of our policy as “left in ruins.” Nothing remained of “the delicate diplomatic effort the Bush administration had pursued in the past year to reconcile Pakistan’s deeply divided political factions.” Another Times reporter spoke of “the new challenge” the assassination posed to the Bush administration in its effort “to stabilize a front-line state” in the “fight against terrorism.” There are reasons to object to the repository of blame in the Bhutto situation. To the charge that there was insufficient security in Rawalpindi, nothing more needs to be said than that — yes: manifestly there was insufficient security, as there was at Ford’s Theatre in 1865, Dealey Plaza in 1963, and the hundred other places in America where mayhem has been plotted. We cannot know with any confidence just what it is that the Pakistanis have to come up with to make safe the niceties of democracy about which Musharraf speaks with understandable scorn. The scantest knowledge of Pakistani and Muslim history challenges the fatuity that this is a corner of the political world where public life can proceed with no more concern for militant interruption than would be expected in the House of Lords. The Bush administration should announce to the waiting world that the United States cannot be charged with responsibility for maintaining order in Pakistan, and does not accept responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
© 2007 Universal Press Syndicate
Pakistan’s Blood-Stained DemocracyBy William F. Buckley Jr.
Lally Weymouth of Newsweek did a brilliant article published just two weeks before the assassination. She was in close quarters with Benazir Bhutto and then with President Musharraf. Neither one of them said anything apocalyptic, and certainly there was no indication that poised in those conventional words was the gleam of the assassin, or the fright of a victim bound. In short, from the two principals, there were no big surprises. But Ms. Weymouth’s questions were not banal, and Musharraf rewarded her with a singular frankness. This came early in the interview, when Ms. Weymouth asked him, “Do you feel you stuck your neck out for the United States after September 11 and the United States has not stood by you?” One yearns to write that the following words were “spat out,” but that much can only be inferred: “No, I don’t. I stuck out my neck for Pakistan. I didn’t stick out my neck for anyone else. It happened to be in the interest of the world and the U.S. . . . The problem with the West and your media is your obsession with democracy, civil liberties, human rights. You think your definition of all these things is [correct]. . . . Who has built democratic institutions in Pakistan? I have done it in the last eight years. We empowered the people and the women of Pakistan. We allowed freedom of expression.” Musharraf cited as an example of the bias against which he works, the coverage by the Western media of the violence at the Islamabad mosque last summer: “We took action. What did the media do about it? They showed those who took action as villains and brought those madwomen who were there on television and made heroes of them.”Weymouth then asked the sacred question: “Do you feel you could work with Benazir Bhutto?” Musharraf: “When you talk of working with her, you imply she is going to be the prime minister. Why do you imply that? I keep telling everyone we haven’t had the elections.”“Mrs. Bhutto charges that there are going to be ghost polling stations — that the voting is going to be rigged.” This brought real asperity: “. . . let her not treat everyone like herself. . . . I am not like her. I don’t believe in these things. Where’s her sense of democracy when 57 per cent of the Parliament vote for me, and she says she is not prepared to work with me . . . ?” Why, the interviewer asked Ms. Bhutto, are the terrorists so strong in Pakistan? Is it because there is support for them from the government? Ms. Bhutto: “Yes, I am shocked to see how embedded it [terrorism] is. I knew it was bad from afar. People are scared to talk. They say I am polarizing when I say militancy is a problem.” Two weeks later the lead story in the New York Times spoke of our policy as “left in ruins.” Nothing remained of “the delicate diplomatic effort the Bush administration had pursued in the past year to reconcile Pakistan’s deeply divided political factions.” Another Times reporter spoke of “the new challenge” the assassination posed to the Bush administration in its effort “to stabilize a front-line state” in the “fight against terrorism.” There are reasons to object to the repository of blame in the Bhutto situation. To the charge that there was insufficient security in Rawalpindi, nothing more needs to be said than that — yes: manifestly there was insufficient security, as there was at Ford’s Theatre in 1865, Dealey Plaza in 1963, and the hundred other places in America where mayhem has been plotted. We cannot know with any confidence just what it is that the Pakistanis have to come up with to make safe the niceties of democracy about which Musharraf speaks with understandable scorn. The scantest knowledge of Pakistani and Muslim history challenges the fatuity that this is a corner of the political world where public life can proceed with no more concern for militant interruption than would be expected in the House of Lords. The Bush administration should announce to the waiting world that the United States cannot be charged with responsibility for maintaining order in Pakistan, and does not accept responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
© 2007 Universal Press Syndicate
Thursday, December 27, 2007
"Bad Lieutenant"
We love this movie though are hardpressed to recommend it to anyone else--unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool Harvey Keitel fan--which we happen to be as well. He really is a bad lieutenant. Snortin' coke, sippin' vodka, shootin' heroin. Gamblin'. 15K lost, let it ride. 30K, let it ride. 60K, let it ride. Oops. Mets come back from an 0-3 deficit to win 4-3.
We relate since we were(are): Bad buyer, bad friend, bad brother, bad son, et cetera.
We relate since we were(are): Bad buyer, bad friend, bad brother, bad son, et cetera.
Monday, December 24, 2007
John J. Guldaman
Just refuse to pay and walk away, that's what we say. We've added a contribution of about 40K in credit card debt to the problem. Not to mention, of course, the tens of thousands related to the old homestead. Guess we always wanted to gut ourself before anyone had the chance to do it. An irrational fear to be sure. So bloody sick and messed up. Someone that messed up should just blow their brains out. Someone that stupid really doesn't deserve to live, does he? Make sure you have, though, at least 5K in reserve money. That's going to be hard for many "average" Americans. Congress granted a windfall to the credit card industry in 2005 when the new bankrupcy was enacted, after that industry had thrown tens of millions in contributions to legislators. Big corporate players and individuals can bail out but not more average consumer debtors. No more easy chapter elevens, like we did back in 1990. Hear any of the major presidential candidates talking about the world-wide credit crunch? The fallen and falling dollar? Other key issues? No, just whether or not Mitt's dad actually marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. And how fast Hillary's face will fall under the stress if she is elected. Friends, a crash is coming next year, the bubble will continue bursting. Did anyone at any of the candidate 'debates' ask any question such as: "What is your take on the current world-wide credit crunch?"
We wish, sorta, that we had held on to life. We might've easily been in great shape. We WERE in great shape for many years. But, alas, it didn't work out to the better. The only question now is how is it to be done. And the timing. Christmas day might be good. Or, do we wait for our birthday a week later? We have, ourself, long ago lost contact with our fine credit card lenders. Remember 'Glengarry Glen Ross'? Early in the movie (and the play) Pacino's monologue, as Richard Roma, at the chinese restaurant: "....did you ever take a dump so big you felt like you had slept for 12 hours?". Maybe a slight paraphrase. We love to read the New York Times at a local Starbucks.0
SAN FRANCISCO - Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come.
... analysis of financial data from the country's largest card issuers also found that the greatest rise was among accounts more than 90 days in arrears.
Experts say these signs of the deterioration of finances of many households are partly a byproduct of the subprime mortgage crisis and could spell more trouble ahead for an already sputtering economy.
"Debt eventually leaks into other areas, whether it starts with the mortgage and goes to the credit card or vice versa," said Cliff Tan, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and an expert on credit risk. "We're starting to see leaks now."
(AP) Kenneth McGuinness poses for a photograph Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007 at his home in the Queens borough...Full ImageThe value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP. That represented more than 4 percent of the total outstanding principal balances owed to the trusts on credit cards that were issued by banks such as Bank of America and Capital One and for retailers like Home Depot and Wal-Mart.
At the same time, defaults - when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt - rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Serious delinquencies also are up sharply: Some of the nation's biggest lenders - including Advanta, GE Money Bank and HSBC - reported increases of 50 percent or more in the value of accounts that were at least 90 days delinquent when compared with the same period a year ago.
The AP analyzed data representing about 325 million individual accounts held in trusts that were created by credit card issuers in order to sell the debt to investors - similar to how many banks packaged and sold subprime mortgage loans. Together, they represent about 45 percent of the $920 billion the Federal Reserve counts as credit card debt owed by Americans.
Until recently, credit card default rates had been running close to record lows, providing one of the few profit growth areas for the nation's banks, which continue to flood Americans' mailboxes with billions of letters monthly offering easy sign-ups for new plastic.
Even after the recent spike in bad loans, the credit card business is still quite lucrative, thanks to interest rates that can run as high as 36 percent, plus late fees and other penalties.
But what is coming into sharper focus from the detailed monthly SEC filings from the trusts is a snapshot of the worrisome state of Americans' ability to juggle growing and expensive credit card debt.
The trend carried into November. As of Friday, all of the trusts that filed reports for the month show increases in both delinquencies and defaults over November 2006, and many show sequential increases from October.
Discover accounts 30 days or more delinquent jumped 25,716 from November 2006 and had increased 6,000 between October and November this year.
Many economists expect delinquencies and defaults to rise further after the holiday shopping season. ....Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com Inc., cited mounting mortgage problems that began after this summer's subprime financial shock as one of the culprits, as well as a weakening job market in the Midwest, South and parts of the West, where real-estate markets have been particularly hard hit.
"Credit card quality will continue to erode throughout next year," Zandi said.
Economists also cite America's long-standing attitude that debt - even high-interest credit card debt - is not a big deal.
"The desires of consumers to want, want, want, spend, spend, spend - it's the fabric of our nation," said Howard Dvorkin, founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which has advised more than 5 million people in debt. "But you always have to pay the piper, and that can be a very painful process."
Filing for bankruptcy is no longer a solution for many Americans because of a 2005 change to federal law that made it harder to walk away from debt. Those with above-average incomes are barred from declaring Chapter 7 - where debts can be wiped out entirely - except under special circumstances and must instead file a repayment plan under the more restrictive Chapter 13.
Personal finance coaches say the problem is most grave for individuals who are months delinquent or already in default - like Kenneth McGuinness, a postal clerk from Flushing, N.Y.
His credit card struggles began nine years ago, when he charged his son's college tuition and books. He thought he was being clever: His credit card's 6 percent "teaser" interest rate was lower than the 8.6 percent interest on a college loan.
McGuinness, 61, soon began using Citibank and Chase cards for food, dental work and copays on doctor visits and minor surgeries. Interest rates surged to 30 percent. Now he's $37,000 in debt and plans to file for bankruptcy in February.
"I tried to pay what I could and go after the high-interest accounts first," McGuinness said. "But it just kept getting higher and higher, and with late charges and surcharges I was going backward."
In the wake of the jump in defaults on subprime mortgage loans made to borrowers with poor credit histories, banks have been less willing to allow consumers to consolidate credit card debt into home equity loans or refinanced mortgages. That is leaving some with no option but to miss payments, economists said.
Investors also are backing away from buying securitized credit-card debt, said Moshe Orenbuch, managing director at Credit Suisse. But that probably has more to do with concerns about the overall health of the U.S. economy, he said.
"It's been getting tougher to finance any kind of structured finance - mortgages, automobile loans, credit cards, student loans," said Orenbuch, who specializes in the credit industry.
Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) (COF) reported that delinquencies and defaults are highest in regions where troubled mortgages are concentrated, including California and Florida.
Among the trusts examined, Bank of America Corp. (BAC) (BAC) had the highest delinquency volume, with overdue accounts valued at $5 billion. Bank of America defaults in October were almost 200 percent higher than in October 2006.
A spokesman for Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America declined to comment.
Other trusts - including those linked to Capital One, American Express Co. (AXP), Discover Financial Services Co. and those containing "branded" cards from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), Home Depot Inc. (HD), Lowe's Companies Inc., Target Corp. (TGT) and Circuit City Stores Inc. (CC) - also reported striking increases in year-over-year delinquency and default rates for October. Most banks and other financial institutions holding credit card debt on their own books also reported double-digit increases in delinquencies.
The one exception in October was JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)'s credit card trust, which reported declines in both delinquencies and defaults. A Chase spokesperson attributed this to its focus on prime borrowers and aggressive account management.
By contrast, Capital One executives told analysts last month that the company projected 2008 write-offs of credit card debt to be at least $4.9 billion. This projection, analysts were told, took into account growing delinquencies and potential effects if the housing market continued its downward slide.
Capital One spokeswoman Julie Rakes said the increase in delinquencies could be due to an accounting change last summer, which shortened the grace period between when statements were issued and the due date.
Capital One also reported that the number of accounts 90 days or more in arrears had increased between October and November. More than 1.2 million of Capital One's 30 million accounts were either delinquent or in default.
Many personal financial coaches expect this trend to accelerate in 2008 - particularly among people who took out untraditional loans whose interest rate has risen, requiring owners to pay mortgages several hundred dollars more than just a year ago.
"You're looking at more and more distress - consumers desperately trying to preserve their credit lines, but there's nowhere else to go," said Robert Manning, director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services at Rochester Institute of Technology. "It's like a game of dominoes."
We wish, sorta, that we had held on to life. We might've easily been in great shape. We WERE in great shape for many years. But, alas, it didn't work out to the better. The only question now is how is it to be done. And the timing. Christmas day might be good. Or, do we wait for our birthday a week later? We have, ourself, long ago lost contact with our fine credit card lenders. Remember 'Glengarry Glen Ross'? Early in the movie (and the play) Pacino's monologue, as Richard Roma, at the chinese restaurant: "....did you ever take a dump so big you felt like you had slept for 12 hours?". Maybe a slight paraphrase. We love to read the New York Times at a local Starbucks.0
SAN FRANCISCO - Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come.
... analysis of financial data from the country's largest card issuers also found that the greatest rise was among accounts more than 90 days in arrears.
Experts say these signs of the deterioration of finances of many households are partly a byproduct of the subprime mortgage crisis and could spell more trouble ahead for an already sputtering economy.
"Debt eventually leaks into other areas, whether it starts with the mortgage and goes to the credit card or vice versa," said Cliff Tan, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and an expert on credit risk. "We're starting to see leaks now."
(AP) Kenneth McGuinness poses for a photograph Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007 at his home in the Queens borough...Full ImageThe value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP. That represented more than 4 percent of the total outstanding principal balances owed to the trusts on credit cards that were issued by banks such as Bank of America and Capital One and for retailers like Home Depot and Wal-Mart.
At the same time, defaults - when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt - rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Serious delinquencies also are up sharply: Some of the nation's biggest lenders - including Advanta, GE Money Bank and HSBC - reported increases of 50 percent or more in the value of accounts that were at least 90 days delinquent when compared with the same period a year ago.
The AP analyzed data representing about 325 million individual accounts held in trusts that were created by credit card issuers in order to sell the debt to investors - similar to how many banks packaged and sold subprime mortgage loans. Together, they represent about 45 percent of the $920 billion the Federal Reserve counts as credit card debt owed by Americans.
Until recently, credit card default rates had been running close to record lows, providing one of the few profit growth areas for the nation's banks, which continue to flood Americans' mailboxes with billions of letters monthly offering easy sign-ups for new plastic.
Even after the recent spike in bad loans, the credit card business is still quite lucrative, thanks to interest rates that can run as high as 36 percent, plus late fees and other penalties.
But what is coming into sharper focus from the detailed monthly SEC filings from the trusts is a snapshot of the worrisome state of Americans' ability to juggle growing and expensive credit card debt.
The trend carried into November. As of Friday, all of the trusts that filed reports for the month show increases in both delinquencies and defaults over November 2006, and many show sequential increases from October.
Discover accounts 30 days or more delinquent jumped 25,716 from November 2006 and had increased 6,000 between October and November this year.
Many economists expect delinquencies and defaults to rise further after the holiday shopping season. ....Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com Inc., cited mounting mortgage problems that began after this summer's subprime financial shock as one of the culprits, as well as a weakening job market in the Midwest, South and parts of the West, where real-estate markets have been particularly hard hit.
"Credit card quality will continue to erode throughout next year," Zandi said.
Economists also cite America's long-standing attitude that debt - even high-interest credit card debt - is not a big deal.
"The desires of consumers to want, want, want, spend, spend, spend - it's the fabric of our nation," said Howard Dvorkin, founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which has advised more than 5 million people in debt. "But you always have to pay the piper, and that can be a very painful process."
Filing for bankruptcy is no longer a solution for many Americans because of a 2005 change to federal law that made it harder to walk away from debt. Those with above-average incomes are barred from declaring Chapter 7 - where debts can be wiped out entirely - except under special circumstances and must instead file a repayment plan under the more restrictive Chapter 13.
Personal finance coaches say the problem is most grave for individuals who are months delinquent or already in default - like Kenneth McGuinness, a postal clerk from Flushing, N.Y.
His credit card struggles began nine years ago, when he charged his son's college tuition and books. He thought he was being clever: His credit card's 6 percent "teaser" interest rate was lower than the 8.6 percent interest on a college loan.
McGuinness, 61, soon began using Citibank and Chase cards for food, dental work and copays on doctor visits and minor surgeries. Interest rates surged to 30 percent. Now he's $37,000 in debt and plans to file for bankruptcy in February.
"I tried to pay what I could and go after the high-interest accounts first," McGuinness said. "But it just kept getting higher and higher, and with late charges and surcharges I was going backward."
In the wake of the jump in defaults on subprime mortgage loans made to borrowers with poor credit histories, banks have been less willing to allow consumers to consolidate credit card debt into home equity loans or refinanced mortgages. That is leaving some with no option but to miss payments, economists said.
Investors also are backing away from buying securitized credit-card debt, said Moshe Orenbuch, managing director at Credit Suisse. But that probably has more to do with concerns about the overall health of the U.S. economy, he said.
"It's been getting tougher to finance any kind of structured finance - mortgages, automobile loans, credit cards, student loans," said Orenbuch, who specializes in the credit industry.
Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) (COF) reported that delinquencies and defaults are highest in regions where troubled mortgages are concentrated, including California and Florida.
Among the trusts examined, Bank of America Corp. (BAC) (BAC) had the highest delinquency volume, with overdue accounts valued at $5 billion. Bank of America defaults in October were almost 200 percent higher than in October 2006.
A spokesman for Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America declined to comment.
Other trusts - including those linked to Capital One, American Express Co. (AXP), Discover Financial Services Co. and those containing "branded" cards from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), Home Depot Inc. (HD), Lowe's Companies Inc., Target Corp. (TGT) and Circuit City Stores Inc. (CC) - also reported striking increases in year-over-year delinquency and default rates for October. Most banks and other financial institutions holding credit card debt on their own books also reported double-digit increases in delinquencies.
The one exception in October was JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)'s credit card trust, which reported declines in both delinquencies and defaults. A Chase spokesperson attributed this to its focus on prime borrowers and aggressive account management.
By contrast, Capital One executives told analysts last month that the company projected 2008 write-offs of credit card debt to be at least $4.9 billion. This projection, analysts were told, took into account growing delinquencies and potential effects if the housing market continued its downward slide.
Capital One spokeswoman Julie Rakes said the increase in delinquencies could be due to an accounting change last summer, which shortened the grace period between when statements were issued and the due date.
Capital One also reported that the number of accounts 90 days or more in arrears had increased between October and November. More than 1.2 million of Capital One's 30 million accounts were either delinquent or in default.
Many personal financial coaches expect this trend to accelerate in 2008 - particularly among people who took out untraditional loans whose interest rate has risen, requiring owners to pay mortgages several hundred dollars more than just a year ago.
"You're looking at more and more distress - consumers desperately trying to preserve their credit lines, but there's nowhere else to go," said Robert Manning, director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services at Rochester Institute of Technology. "It's like a game of dominoes."
Friday, December 21, 2007
A Short Story?
It occurred to us this morning whether anyone had ever written a short story about a severely messed up fellow, a losing poker player and alcoholic, who ends up renting a car and then keeping that car as if he owned it? This fellow had intended to off himself and the car in California but then ended up back home as a beggar--but still with the car. He changed the oil and rotated the tires. Even drifting through the occasional car wash. Ever notice how much better a car drives after a good washing? Ah, but the tags were expiring as New Year's Eve/birthday approached. He also, alas, was overstaying his welcome at an acquaintence's run-down hovel of a house. And, to be honest, he was getting sick himself of this friend and that house. It's no fun to be a beggar. Better dead than beg. Cute. Just wondering if anyone had written a story along these lines.
Choices. Does one stay and watch "Magnolia" again or hustle off to the library to continue reading an interesting biography of Groucho Marx? We chose the latter. "Respect the C*ck. Tame the C*nt."
This fellow with the car--grand theft auto? What was he doing? Was he trying to out-irresponsible his sister? Where was his urge to struggle on and overcome his recent self-inflicted wounds? He seemed not to know. The life he lived when he was employed seems like such a distant memory. He had loved that life in many, many ways. But that life was also doomed to expire. Drinking in the morning on the way to work, and then at work. Hard to sustain. He didn't have cable or internet at home, all the better for motivation to go to work every day. How long could that motivation be sustained? Turns out just the other side of twenty years. Why stuggle anymore now that all that life has now vanished? Even the house is in the final stages...the Sheriff may be on the way now....He had some fun, it can't be denied. Fifteen thousand dollar online pots. Similiar live action pots. But it could not be sustained. Play carelessly with fire long enough and you get burned. Such a trite truism. Did he have the will and the guts that his brother exhibited ten years ago? Getting out, finally, before the year's end seemed, somehow, poetic. By what means though? Leap? Interred with the car? Combination including the car? Well, he would think about it later. Now, as the snow fell heavily, he would check in on sister and his kitty....
Choices. Does one stay and watch "Magnolia" again or hustle off to the library to continue reading an interesting biography of Groucho Marx? We chose the latter. "Respect the C*ck. Tame the C*nt."
This fellow with the car--grand theft auto? What was he doing? Was he trying to out-irresponsible his sister? Where was his urge to struggle on and overcome his recent self-inflicted wounds? He seemed not to know. The life he lived when he was employed seems like such a distant memory. He had loved that life in many, many ways. But that life was also doomed to expire. Drinking in the morning on the way to work, and then at work. Hard to sustain. He didn't have cable or internet at home, all the better for motivation to go to work every day. How long could that motivation be sustained? Turns out just the other side of twenty years. Why stuggle anymore now that all that life has now vanished? Even the house is in the final stages...the Sheriff may be on the way now....He had some fun, it can't be denied. Fifteen thousand dollar online pots. Similiar live action pots. But it could not be sustained. Play carelessly with fire long enough and you get burned. Such a trite truism. Did he have the will and the guts that his brother exhibited ten years ago? Getting out, finally, before the year's end seemed, somehow, poetic. By what means though? Leap? Interred with the car? Combination including the car? Well, he would think about it later. Now, as the snow fell heavily, he would check in on sister and his kitty....
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Birthday Greetings
Happy Birthday, Mother. We may still make it over there later this evening to see you, but we must avoid to the admin folks who would have left for the day.
Guess we have sorta mucked everything up, haven't we? We were, at least for twenty years, hanging onto that long-time City job, a great job but also one that had finally gotten to us. But, alas, we were not taking some of the steps necessary to get healthy--stopping the booze at work (after, to be fair, fair warning), dealing with the gambling bug, catching up at our house, dealing with getting mother situated. Then the move upstairs at WMD cracked our routine. Basic cable TV from the conference room ended. Oh, how we loved coming down and watching Gunsmoke and TCM on weekends. Could've turned the move into a blessing if we had just made the adjustment to a more normal and accepted workplace modus vivendi. Blowing the 60K from the second refi. Blowing another 50K borrowed from deferred comp in early 2007. On tilt with on-line poker. Familiar faces retiring. Situation with mother and sister feeling like the breaking point. The DUI. 10th anniversary of brother's leap from the parking garage my office window looked out at for ten years. Staying on 4th floor at 777 another week or so this past April might have been well-advised. Another week to continue staying away from old habits, clear my head. Maybe figure a way to do family medical and hit the road and clear our head. No guarantees that job would still be there, but it would have been worth a try. Get more bang for that three hundred co-payment buck. Good luck, by the way, trying to collect that baby. There was just some mental health work to be done and we didn't do it. We are still not doing it. Is there still time? Best piece of advice we've gotten in the last few months is to just "give yourself a chance." A very wise lady said that, and we thank her. We wonder if typing these words is therapeutic? At a minimum it gives one a chance to write and type a little. And get's us over to a library for a change.
Guess we have sorta mucked everything up, haven't we? We were, at least for twenty years, hanging onto that long-time City job, a great job but also one that had finally gotten to us. But, alas, we were not taking some of the steps necessary to get healthy--stopping the booze at work (after, to be fair, fair warning), dealing with the gambling bug, catching up at our house, dealing with getting mother situated. Then the move upstairs at WMD cracked our routine. Basic cable TV from the conference room ended. Oh, how we loved coming down and watching Gunsmoke and TCM on weekends. Could've turned the move into a blessing if we had just made the adjustment to a more normal and accepted workplace modus vivendi. Blowing the 60K from the second refi. Blowing another 50K borrowed from deferred comp in early 2007. On tilt with on-line poker. Familiar faces retiring. Situation with mother and sister feeling like the breaking point. The DUI. 10th anniversary of brother's leap from the parking garage my office window looked out at for ten years. Staying on 4th floor at 777 another week or so this past April might have been well-advised. Another week to continue staying away from old habits, clear my head. Maybe figure a way to do family medical and hit the road and clear our head. No guarantees that job would still be there, but it would have been worth a try. Get more bang for that three hundred co-payment buck. Good luck, by the way, trying to collect that baby. There was just some mental health work to be done and we didn't do it. We are still not doing it. Is there still time? Best piece of advice we've gotten in the last few months is to just "give yourself a chance." A very wise lady said that, and we thank her. We wonder if typing these words is therapeutic? At a minimum it gives one a chance to write and type a little. And get's us over to a library for a change.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Pinter's "The Homecoming"
We think this would be a play worth driving all the way to NYC to see. Alas, the money is now mostly gone. Ian McShane and the rest. Pinter's "The Homecoming". Never heard of it before now.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/theater/reviews/17home.html?th&emc=th
One finds it increasingly hard to scribble these dispatches. The end seems closer than ever. We won't complain. We've had our moments, chances to hang onto a decent stake, but the compulsion to lose is just too overwhelming. Of course, that's the whole point: Winning would mean to having to go on, and THAT we don't really want to do. These things are always a mystery anyway. Some end up being just bigger mysteries than others. Same old story, just another iteration--gambling, booze, food, laziness, terminal inertia. The last two, we suppose, are the same: Sloth. They aren't just whistlin' dixie when they write about those seven sins as being deadly.
We dropped by the Colorado Train Museum today. Lot's of tears. Our father was the son of a boiler-maker in Wichita. He loved trains, especially the old steam locomotives. He worked as an industrial insurance inspector for many decades with what was then called Kemper. I think he was also certified to inspect some nuclear stuff as well. I regret that I didn't fully debrief dad before his death in 1995 at a diner in Switzerland during a trip focused on trains.
Well mother seems OK, comfortable. Sister Grace now has my (brother's) kitty cat and also seems OK. Maybe we just wanted to see some stability. We are the only decidedly not OK--at least in this life. What was remaining of the money is mostly gone. Work is but a distant memory. Just playing out the string. Perhaps the little long-term rental car will be our tomb?
Heard dear Mayor Hick on KOA. Talking about tough love for the homeless. One can only imagine how distorted are those homeless statistics that hizzoner throws out. We suppose tough love might be the only cure for anonymousbuyer. It also might a cure worse than the disease. Which statistic do we want to be? I used to have that structure that a job confers. Used to....
It HAS been a good run. Pity to think about ending just short of the dawn of our forty eighth year. Movies, books. All ultimately meaningless. Like television, just another way to kill time.
The play "Becket" is an interesting read. The movie understandable is quite faithful to the play. Fun reading the play in the voices of O'Toole and Burton. Becket was a man searching for meaning and he found it in God.
Goosebump moments:
----KOA playing "Houston" by Dean Martin on the day of Thursday's Bronco game in Houston.
----Irv and Joe and Jim on 950thefan: Joe mentioning Merle Haggard's song"I Take A Lot of Pride in What I Am". Also the title of a Dino album and a great cover version of that song.
Watched Dean and Jerry in "At War With The Army" this morning. Dean is and was everything. That'll be the hardest thing to let go of, but we're close....
Reading a Robert Mitchum bio at Tattered. Very interesting fellow. Born same year as Dino and died two years later, in 1987. "Five Card Stud" is an all-time favorite.
We went through the book "1001 Movies To See Before You Die". We tallied it up and it turns out we've seen about 225 from the list. We wonder if you could get all of them from netflix? Quite a few relatively obscure silents and foreign films. A few worthy favorites of ours, however, didn't make the list: House of Games, A Face In The Crowd, Ace In The Hole, Romance (French). "Airport" is worth seeing and it's on cable all the time. The Young Lions, Some Came Running. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Becket. The Killing. Cannonball Run 2. As we leafed through all those movies we were reminded of the year we saw a particular movie at the Mayan or Chez Artiste. I remember seeing Pulp Fiction four or five times. Mulholland Drive, same thing. And "Memento" was worth seeing more than once.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/theater/reviews/17home.html?th&emc=th
One finds it increasingly hard to scribble these dispatches. The end seems closer than ever. We won't complain. We've had our moments, chances to hang onto a decent stake, but the compulsion to lose is just too overwhelming. Of course, that's the whole point: Winning would mean to having to go on, and THAT we don't really want to do. These things are always a mystery anyway. Some end up being just bigger mysteries than others. Same old story, just another iteration--gambling, booze, food, laziness, terminal inertia. The last two, we suppose, are the same: Sloth. They aren't just whistlin' dixie when they write about those seven sins as being deadly.
We dropped by the Colorado Train Museum today. Lot's of tears. Our father was the son of a boiler-maker in Wichita. He loved trains, especially the old steam locomotives. He worked as an industrial insurance inspector for many decades with what was then called Kemper. I think he was also certified to inspect some nuclear stuff as well. I regret that I didn't fully debrief dad before his death in 1995 at a diner in Switzerland during a trip focused on trains.
Well mother seems OK, comfortable. Sister Grace now has my (brother's) kitty cat and also seems OK. Maybe we just wanted to see some stability. We are the only decidedly not OK--at least in this life. What was remaining of the money is mostly gone. Work is but a distant memory. Just playing out the string. Perhaps the little long-term rental car will be our tomb?
Heard dear Mayor Hick on KOA. Talking about tough love for the homeless. One can only imagine how distorted are those homeless statistics that hizzoner throws out. We suppose tough love might be the only cure for anonymousbuyer. It also might a cure worse than the disease. Which statistic do we want to be? I used to have that structure that a job confers. Used to....
It HAS been a good run. Pity to think about ending just short of the dawn of our forty eighth year. Movies, books. All ultimately meaningless. Like television, just another way to kill time.
The play "Becket" is an interesting read. The movie understandable is quite faithful to the play. Fun reading the play in the voices of O'Toole and Burton. Becket was a man searching for meaning and he found it in God.
Goosebump moments:
----KOA playing "Houston" by Dean Martin on the day of Thursday's Bronco game in Houston.
----Irv and Joe and Jim on 950thefan: Joe mentioning Merle Haggard's song"I Take A Lot of Pride in What I Am". Also the title of a Dino album and a great cover version of that song.
Watched Dean and Jerry in "At War With The Army" this morning. Dean is and was everything. That'll be the hardest thing to let go of, but we're close....
Reading a Robert Mitchum bio at Tattered. Very interesting fellow. Born same year as Dino and died two years later, in 1987. "Five Card Stud" is an all-time favorite.
We went through the book "1001 Movies To See Before You Die". We tallied it up and it turns out we've seen about 225 from the list. We wonder if you could get all of them from netflix? Quite a few relatively obscure silents and foreign films. A few worthy favorites of ours, however, didn't make the list: House of Games, A Face In The Crowd, Ace In The Hole, Romance (French). "Airport" is worth seeing and it's on cable all the time. The Young Lions, Some Came Running. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Becket. The Killing. Cannonball Run 2. As we leafed through all those movies we were reminded of the year we saw a particular movie at the Mayan or Chez Artiste. I remember seeing Pulp Fiction four or five times. Mulholland Drive, same thing. And "Memento" was worth seeing more than once.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Floating About
We actually read a book last night--start to finish. Double Indemnity, the 1936 roman noir by James M. Cain that the movie was based on. Fascinating to see how differently the book turns out. The movie is one of our all-time favorites, having seen it at least a dozen times. In the book the Stanwyck character is much more evil. And the ending is a complete departure from the movie. Hollywood couldn't let them get away with the murder.
Found some other goodies at the house along with the Sheriff's notice. MAD magazine from 1973 with a parody of the TV show Cannon. They called it Cannonball. We were a big fan of William Conrad growing up. Also turns out he was on the Dean Martin Show quite a lot.
We've relocated our cat, 'Ole Lady, to our sister's motel room. It's been a couple days and she is adjusting to the confined space and the other cat. Not an ideal solution but we had to get her away from the house, which will be gone in matter of a week or two at latest. End of a process. Should have had sister living there last few months and saved on motel rent. Oh, well.....add that the the long list of mistakes. The end game is approaching for us. Mother got approved for Medicaid at the nursing home but they want to bill her retroactively for her portion of the expenses. It's fairly trivial amounts, but that bread is long gone.
Found some other goodies at the house along with the Sheriff's notice. MAD magazine from 1973 with a parody of the TV show Cannon. They called it Cannonball. We were a big fan of William Conrad growing up. Also turns out he was on the Dean Martin Show quite a lot.
We've relocated our cat, 'Ole Lady, to our sister's motel room. It's been a couple days and she is adjusting to the confined space and the other cat. Not an ideal solution but we had to get her away from the house, which will be gone in matter of a week or two at latest. End of a process. Should have had sister living there last few months and saved on motel rent. Oh, well.....add that the the long list of mistakes. The end game is approaching for us. Mother got approved for Medicaid at the nursing home but they want to bill her retroactively for her portion of the expenses. It's fairly trivial amounts, but that bread is long gone.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Abruzzo--Dino Paul Crocetti
The most expensive olive oil at Wholefoods is a brand called Agramato. It's pressed with tangerines and sells for almost three cents an ounce. It's imported from the Abruzzo region of Italy, which is straight across Italy from Rome on the Adriatic side. It's also the region from which Dean Martin's father and uncles emigrated to the United States, from Montesilvano on the coast in the early twentieth century.
We've recovered a few important books. Complete Handbook of Greek Verbs. 201 Latin Verbs.
The Greek verbs brings back memories of cramming and trying (unsucessfully) to finally pass second semester Classical Greek at CU. My tenure at CU callibrated to those attempts. I had passed Greek 101 one fall on the second try, or was it the third? Then Greek 102 always followed in the spring. Always five classes per week at 9:00 a.m. Ugh. Who can get up that early for a class? I was enrolled in Greek 102 during the spring of my eighth year and was about to fail it for the third time. That's when it occurred to me to just withdraw from the whole semester and graduate. It was a lovely time to be at CU. I could never leave because they would never have let me back in. Eight years was enough, and only three in base two. I occasionally have sleep dreams of being back on the campus and running around and so forth. Out of sixteen total semesters, six were fairly solid with one or two other semesters decent. The first two years were the solid foundation upon which I constructed latter zero point zero efforts, ala Mr. Blutarsky.
We've recovered a few important books. Complete Handbook of Greek Verbs. 201 Latin Verbs.
The Greek verbs brings back memories of cramming and trying (unsucessfully) to finally pass second semester Classical Greek at CU. My tenure at CU callibrated to those attempts. I had passed Greek 101 one fall on the second try, or was it the third? Then Greek 102 always followed in the spring. Always five classes per week at 9:00 a.m. Ugh. Who can get up that early for a class? I was enrolled in Greek 102 during the spring of my eighth year and was about to fail it for the third time. That's when it occurred to me to just withdraw from the whole semester and graduate. It was a lovely time to be at CU. I could never leave because they would never have let me back in. Eight years was enough, and only three in base two. I occasionally have sleep dreams of being back on the campus and running around and so forth. Out of sixteen total semesters, six were fairly solid with one or two other semesters decent. The first two years were the solid foundation upon which I constructed latter zero point zero efforts, ala Mr. Blutarsky.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Dean Martin and Jean-Paul Belmondo
Just wanted to see those two names together. Watched the original "Breathless" and wondered whether that character's fate might foreshadow my own? They are also connected through Jean Seberg, who co-starred in both "Breathless" with Jean-Paul and 1970's "Airport" with Dean Martin. The latter was Seberg's final major film. Some years later she committed suicide.
Gambling for me is a means to an end. Losing is a sure-fire way towards desparate suicidal feelings. Booze never does that for me; its impact, rather, is to slightly enhance my already mauldlin and emotional reaction to life, to movies, to memories, to visiting the cats and dogs at the shelters. Gambling was the means that drove me to quit my job. Booze would never have accomplished that.
We saw a story in The Times about the late Judge Manzanares and his wife's lawsuit over his suicide. Seems she and her brother-in-law want to hold the Jeffco DA, et al. accountable. Good luck. The only individual responsible for that suicide died during the act. Must everyone be a victim?
We saw a story in The Times about the late Judge Manzanares and his wife's lawsuit over his suicide. Seems she and her brother-in-law want to hold the Jeffco DA, et al. accountable. Good luck. The only individual responsible for that suicide died during the act. Must everyone be a victim?
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