From extremely general analytical software that every website any of us has ever visited uses, I have gleaned that there are some people who visit this site with some regularity to read these blogs, or at least people that share regional attributes. I compliment you on your taste. You have made a wise choice. It has been decided however, in a meeting filled with members of the elite secret society that controls this site and meets in Geneva thrice yearly to make these decisions, to move this blog to the KPWS-Law site, more specifically, to the Credit Repair Blog.

That site will have a focus on a Links Page for self-educational materials, webinars, and informative links. This helps us because it leads to a greater concentration of effort. From now on, this is where you go for blog updates, although you can still contact us with questions and comments through here if you like and someone will respond shortly. Thank you very much for your continual support, we apologize for any inconvenience, and please join us at the new site to continue reading relevant information about debt and credit repair.  Remember, a credit repair journey of a thousand miles begins with a single credit repair step.

Sincerely,

Site Administration

Someone asked if I could see a humorous side to debt related problems, and I have decided to try. I have two reasons for attempting it. One, because it represents a legitimate challenge. To illustrate, have you heard any good foreclosure jokes lately?

It seems hopeless. So, I decided to see if the Internet might provide some assistance. To begin:

“A man said his credit card was stolen but he decided not to report it. The thief was spending less than his wife did.”

Now, that joke is offensive and sexist. Why is the man the one with financial self control, and the woman the spendthrift? Is it possible to make an amusing joke that does not reinforce negative social stereotypes? I found this other joke by Dr. Gregg Dimkoff on the same site: “There’s a joke going around about the time Larry King interviewed Satan on his radio/TV program. At one point during the interview, King asked Satan to describe the foulest deed he’d ever done. Satan refused to name one, pointing out that there had been so much destruction over the years, so many lives cut short, and so many wars and calamities that none stood out. But Larry King kept pestering. ‘Surely, if you think hard enough, there must be one dastardly deed you are most proud of.’ Satan thought for a moment, his eyes brightened, and he replied, ‘Well, yes. I guess if I have to pick just one particularly evil thing I’m proudest of, it would be this: Several years ago, I invented credit cards.’”

The other reason I have for attempting to see the lighter side of crushing debt is that the mechanics of joke creation have long fascinated me.To analyze the mechanics of the above joke and why it is funny, the first thing that comes to mind is why The Larry King Show? Won’t it work with Oprah? What makes this joke funny?

I tried to write my own funny jokes about the ravages of debt, and I even started to make a list, such as what are the advantages of crushing debt? #1. You get really adept at modern technology, like Caller ID. #2. Door to door salesmen, cult members, and Census workers seem to start leaving you alone when you hit them up for donations whenever they appear on your front stoop, etc., but my list wasn’t very funny. Anybody out there got one?

“Moderation is a fatal thing, for nothing exceeds quite like excess,” wrote Oscar Wilde, perhaps to mollify the sting of his bankruptcy. He was later quoted by Michele Pfeifer, playing the character of the improbably named Elvira Hancock in the classic tale of excess, Scarface. She was either commenting on her co-star Al Pacino’s excessive use of profanity in the role of Tony Montana (Scarface), or the size of his tub, which could have floated a fair sized yacht.
The quote always bothered me. True, nothing exceeds like excess, but this has to be considered as having either a positive or a negative outcome. To proceed from this statement to “moderation is a fatal thing..” is to proceed from a tainted premise. Also, how exactly was the educationally challenged character of Tony Montana supposed to be familiar with this fairly obscure quote from early 20th century English literature anyway? That sort of sarcasm simply isn’t helpful, and it certainly didn’t help Tony Montana, who died from an amount of bullets that would have seemed excessive for taking down a Brontosaurus.
Far more useful advice for actually living a constructive life was contained in Abraham Lincoln’s letter to his half-brother in 1848, in which in response to his brother’s request for an $80 loan, he basically responds by calling him lazy and a poor role model for his children. Abraham told him that he had loaned him money in the past, but feared his brother would always be in financial straits unless he learned some good spending habits, so he wrote,”You are now i n need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nail,” for somebody who will give you money for it.” He then offered to match whatever wages his brother earned, dollar for dollar, until his financial difficulties were resolved. Abe Lincoln, although apparently a truly lousy speller, somehow seemed to pull this off tactfully. Reading it, one is struck by the sheer diplomacy of the thing. Although he starts off with what could be described fairly as brutal honesty, the indelible impression is of Lincoln’s concern for his brother’s well-being. Lincoln’s moderation does not seem like a fatal thing, just the opposite in fact. The financial problems are important, the letter seems to say, but please consider them symptoms of other problems relating to your character and immortal soul. In the future, when the correspondence of the Bush brothers or of Bill Clinton’s letters to Roger are anthologized, I hope after suffering through them readers will return to the letters of Abraham Lincoln as an antidote for depression. Unfortunately for the USA, for our ruling families nothing seems to exceed like excess, but the road of excess seldom seems to lead to the palace of wisdom.

They say being a mother is the hardest job in the world. By ”they” I admit I don’t precisely know who I’m referring to. I’ve heard it someplace. It is a popular aphorism, conventional wisdom, common knowledge. Everybody says it. In fact, it’s seems almost blasphemous to suggest otherwise. I would also say, by and large, the statement seems mainly true.

But what if you are Dina Lohan, Lindsay Lohan’s mother? How hard is that? That kid has been a cash cow since she started making commercials when she was three years old, big name brand commercials like Pizza Hut, and Jello Pudding commercials with Bill Cosby. I knew somebody who was in a Coca Cola commercial when they were a kid. Years later, they would open a mailbox and surprise! A residual check.  Must be nice. I mainly get bills and junk mail. Once I got two dollars in the mail from those Nielsen people so they could monitor what I watch on T.V. That was a magical moment for me. Now, imagine how Dina Lohan felt a couple times a day since her kid started paying off  like a friendly slot machine. Being a mother may be the hardest job in the world, but opening the mail and getting big fat royalty checks does not seem like the hard part.

What got me started thinking about this is that recently Dave Ramsey discussed Lindsay Lohan on his show, in a video that has been widely circulated, discussing the story that Lindsay Lohan has racked up $600,000 in outstanding credit card debt. Whether this is actually true or not is unknown to me. It was on Fox News, whatever that’s worth. What struck me was when Dave Ramsey called celebrities who delegate their financial responsibilities to others as being “irresponsible”.  This smacks of blaming the victim to me. Speaking in as general terms as possible, many child stars have been swindled by their parents and agents for their whole lives. I would be willing to bet the two dollars I got from the Nielsen people if I still had it that Lindsay Lohan could absolutely amaze us with her detailed grasp of the minutiae of the movie, commercial and entertainment business in general.  Most people, if you sound them out a bit, will know quite a bit about some aspect of human knowledge. People are not stupid, they do sometimes make poor financial decisions or experience misfortune. If they do, they are faced with the decision of what to do, and who to trust. If you are reading this, you may be trying to make decisions like this yourself.

If you are trying to decide who to trust, please go to our contact page and send us a message. If you like, we will put you on our email list, and start sending you information so you can start becoming informed enough to make the right decisions.  We can even set up a good time for you to call in for a free phone consultation. All the information you send us is and will remain confidential. We will not share your contact information with any other agency or individual.

The headline reads “Stony Ridge Standoff Ended Peacefully”. This piqued my curiosity, as heretofore I had been unaware there was a standoff. It seems a fellow by the name of Keith Sadler had been “squatting” in his home of twenty years in an effort to fight foreclosure. His house had been sold at a Sheriff’s Sale by State Bank and Trust, and he had barricaded himself into the house with the assistance of some members of a group who wish there to be a moratorium on foreclosures during the current economic crisis. After about a week of broadcasting their experience on a streaming video feed on the web, the inevitable occurred, the door was knocked down by a battering ram at 7:00 am in the morning, and the SWAT team came in full Imperial Storm Trooper regalia and hauled everybody off to jail. If you like such videos, here is a good one. As performance art, these things are surprisingly well done.
Mr. Sadler had made payments on his home for twelve years, but had been unable to continue due to an illness. Perhaps the only thing distinguishing him from others who lost their homes due to foreclosure might be that streaming Web feed. People have a tendency to suffer silently through these problems. Maybe they think if they barricade the door and hide, somehow everything will turn out alright. The average person is ashamed to seek help. If only all these large financial institutions had the sense of shame that these decent Americans have, Goldman Sachs and friends would not be lining up for huge taxpayer funded bailouts, but perhaps I digress.
Personal Freedom and Personal Rights absolutely begin with Property Rights. It doesn’t take much abstract thought to see this, and the mundane effects of the loss of property rights have been experienced in every Communist Gulag ever to inflict mindless suffering. There needs to be a consistency of economic policy however. Obviously, Keith Sadler is being held to a higher standard of responsibility than the financial institutions who were the biggest contributors to both John McCain and Barack Obama in the last elections. His protest was surprisingly effectual, we have more power than we know, and since Keith Sadler is not “too big to fail”, he’s lucky he did not get shot.