Is the origin
of the bustle girls trying
to look booty-ful?
Posted on 03/11/2005 9:27:36 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
Years ago, this country did away with debtors prisons. The nation in general, and poor people in particular, would be well served to bring them back. The harm to business from unpaid debt, and the reduced productivity and even business failure unpaid debt can bring, is obvious. Businesses or individuals who are not repaid the money they loaned or who are not paid for the goods or services they produced and sold on credit are prevented from accumulating needed and even expected capital for expansion, and they are frequently thrown into serious financial constraints making it hard to pay their own creditors and employees. This not only can theoretically choke the gross national product, many recessions and even the Great Depression have been in fact brought on at least partly by unpaid debt.
But debt relief measures, either in the form of actual debt forgiveness or in the form of relaxed procedures to collect debt (including the abolition of debtors prisons), are generally thought to help the poor. The idea that once again forcing poor people into involuntary servitude to pay for meager food and shelter is certainly a tough sell. But here goes.
A return to debtors prisons would help poor people in at least five ways: 1) increasing workforce participation; 2) increasing personal responsibility; 3) making it easier for the poor to climb the economic ladder through entrepreneurship; 4) reintroduction of the virtues which have proven the only reliable way of the poor to leave poverty; 5) making credit more readily available.
(Excerpt) Read more at jesbeard.com ...
No. The only thing that will free you is death. Of course if you've managed to save or acquire anything during your lifetime, your beneficiaries will be enslaved.
Debtors prisons. Hey, maybe they can do the jobs Americans won't do....
...and so the great bustle controversy on FR begins. I predict it will far out strip all other controversies and hot button issues.
Evolution versus intelligent design? Old news.
Bill and Hill? Older news.
Home schooling? Not a chance.
Gun control...nope.
Bustles are the new hot button issues. I predict threads of three and four thousand posts...
Is the origin
of the bustle girls trying
to look booty-ful?
Michael Jackson was a multi-millionaire. I'm not talking about people with an 'entourage' who spend tens of thousands at retail/jeweler prices for diamonds they never use. I mean people who were told - there's an American dream - buy it. They did, and perhaps some felt they've been betrayed. The means aren't there. This isn't the 1950s of single wage home owners, where America was the exporter to the world. We all knew the day was coming. It's been here for a few years, now.
If you and I are fortunate in some way, that doesn't mean that others are in the same way. And it takes all of us to make a country. This nation is comprised of many, many citizens, not just those few who by luck, by opportunity, by skill are able to pull in the medium-bucks, as it were. And if others are struggling, look at it selfishly. It will ramify to those unaffected, again in some way. Policy needs to include them, particularly as home/land-ownership, again, is sold as virtually part of what it means to be a citizen. Wages need to keep up, not down. You don't have to pay people on spec like some 'star'. But you need to boost the minimum (and I mean without resort to ANY minimum wage).
Yes, the Victorians, though not widely known, were fond of saying, "She's bustle-licious." The phrase, obviously, faded from style sometime around 1888.
Actually it is. If you want to live like a 1950 single wage earner. But most people don't want their kids sharing a room, having only one bathroom, not having a dryer, no TV, one car, eat 99% of their meals at home, movies only as a special treat, have a garden, send your kids to public school and mend your clothes rather then buy new ones.
The problem is that people want more then that. And they are not willing to wait until they can afford it.
I repeat there is no such thing as a "living wage" when you insist on spending 125% of your income.
But I'm saying that if what they're saying is right, then think may 50-60% or more of that income on housing. If it's a problem, in what is otherwise genuinely a crooked field of bankers and lenders. I don't think it was a hardship that one family in the 50s could afford only BW and the other the new color tv, any more than someone was an early adopter of VHS when decks ran maybe $1000 (or more?), and others were not. But I do think that the difference between the same house - the same house - if its likely cost was 35K in 1955 and is now 600K in 2005 is a far greater increase than the likely increase in salary of the sole breadwinner for the household, 1950s again, but having recently purchased such a property.
Instead, my sense is, regardless of the article, that both parents HAVE to work, in most cases, because their costs are out of control. It's not that they live extravagantly, which is I think your complaint. It's that they are trying to provide a bare minimum which unarguably is hampered by government taxation, regulation, and by corrupt banking practices and greed, and also arguably seems to have come much easily for many families 40 years ago, with the benefits I mentioned. And you didn't comment on that, either.
And you also didn't comment on my comment about the hypocrisy of professional moneylenders. Bankruptcy is irrelevant to those people if the potential borrower has sufficient cashflow. If they stopped THAT practice, and punished bankruptcy filings for the same number of years and FOR ALL, regardless of income, and only they can do that, they wouldn't have had their argument, it seems, for this legislation which seems to target an entirely different group of borrowers.
The United States Government is $17Trillion to $20Trillion in debt that can never be repaid, except by printing tons of the "funny money" called Federal Reserve Notes which are backed by nothing but a printing press.
So all former and present congress critters and Presidents should be shunted off to debtors prison...poof solves the deficit problem.
The point is that businesses and consumers are equally as guilty. The lending industry has behaved irresponsibly in their willingness to shower people will credit. While there are those businesses that use credit to help customers offset the large costs of todays material goods - the lending industry in general has helped to create a debt culture in which we have willingly imbibed.
If the government is about to reward businesses by punishing the consumers then I'm afraid that this administration has just demonstrated the worst stereotype of Republicanism. Pro big-business at the expense of the consumer.
Of course when you get out it drops by 35%...
Martha Stewart OmniInsanity
Why on earth would someone put 50-60 percent of their income on housing? That is beyond stupid and no wonder they go broke. Very bad money management.
But I do think that the difference between the same house - the same house - if its likely cost was 35K in 1955 and is now 600K in 2005 is a far greater increase than the likely increase in salary of the sole breadwinner for the household, 1950s again, but having recently purchased such a property.
Where are you getting those figures? Besides you are comparing apples to oranges because of location. If the city has expanded and the house is now closer to certain things then the price will go up because the location is no longer the same.
Instead, my sense is, regardless of the article, that both parents HAVE to work, in most cases, because their costs are out of control.
And my knowledge is that if you sit down and figure out what it costs to have both parents working that the end result is pretty much null.
It's not that they live extravagantly, which is I think your complaint.
My complaint is that many people live beyond their income. It does not matter what size that income is if you live beyond it. Please see all the people who were once fabulously wealthy are are now flat broke. They had high incomes but had no idea of how to manage it.
There is no such thing as a living wage when you persist in spending beyond your income.
It's that they are trying to provide a bare minimum which unarguably is hampered by government taxation, regulation, and by corrupt banking practices and greed,
Yes, the greed of the consumer to spend more then they have.
and also arguably seems to have come much easily for many families 40 years ago, with the benefits I mentioned.
Go read this.
http://www.mwilliams.info/archives/003994.php
I will not argue with you that taxes are high but things were tougher 40 years ago. Not easier. People want more.
Bare minimum! Please.
Because you didn't make the comment in the post I was replying to.
Bankruptcy is irrelevant to those people if the potential borrower has sufficient cashflow.
No but if there is current sufficient cash flow it is less important. That is logical.
Because the cheapest home in the area is overpriced. But the limited housing stock guarantees that the 'bubble' doesn't burst. People have been predicting a collapse in real estate prices for years.
the price will go up because the location
Or because they are willing both to work, and maybe two jobs each, and still put over 50% of that income into the payments, which with refi could mean the property is never truly theirs - which is really the dream of property holding and bequeathing any estate. Stability, in other words, and good for society. And it might be that such is slipping away in this country. It might be. You give me the sense that you could care less, in any case.
the greed of the consumer
But it isn't the consumer that levies this tax, and then that, this taxing regulation and that, this service fee or that, all of which seem to increase daily. Don't blame the victim of government and moneylending. Don't blame the consumer because oil prices have skyrocketed, along with the price at the pump. Don't blame the consumer for the high price of property. Or if you prefer, do blame certain ones with more money than sense, who get themselves into trouble, perhaps. But the rest are powerless to stop them in a free market. You don't say to the seller of the widget that he's getting too much. You only hope that reason prevails. But you can ignore the widget and let people spend foolishly on speculation. You can't ignore the widget when it's literally the local housing stock. You have to live somewhere, after all.
Then the law is pointless, and particularly that under discussion. If bankruptcy is considered some offense, in some way, to some one, then some one should treat it as - an offense, rather than an irrelevancy.
Carolyn
P.S. At the risk of losing my head, I have to say that locking people up for nonpayment of child support is the same as debtors' prisons.
Then move.
And it might be that such is slipping away in this country. It might be.
Actually quite the opposite is happening. More people are making more money, have more things and are leaving more to their heirs. We have never been better off.
But it isn't the consumer that levies this tax, and then that, this taxing regulation and that, this service fee or that, all of which seem to increase daily
Who is it that keeps demanding more and more services from the government?
Don't blame the victim of government and moneylending.
Oh brother! The perpetual whine of the loser. Sure I can blame them. They are the one who made the poor choices that got them up a creek. Nobody forced a thing on them.
You don't say to the seller of the widget that he's getting too much.
Well I should hope not. After all the widget is worth what someone will pay for it. If they pay to much for it because they are incapable of handling their finances, well it is a painful and valuable lesson.
I was just pointing out the rise in prices. If you have a home, the same home, the same parcel, the same structure, that cost 40K in 1955, and 600K or more in 2005, that's quite an increase, particularly if the new family has to buy at the 600K side. Have your "making more money" people really kept up with that rate of inflation? Do the math.
The perpetual whine of the loser.
Don't blame the victim of government and moneylending. Don't blame the consumer because oil prices have skyrocketed, along with the price at the pump. Don't blame the consumer for the high price of property. Or if you prefer, do blame certain ones with more money than sense, who get themselves into trouble, perhaps. But the rest are powerless to stop them in a free market. You don't say to the seller of the widget that he's getting too much. You only hope that reason prevails. But you can ignore the widget and let people spend foolishly on speculation. You can't ignore the widget when it's literally the local housing stock. You have to live somewhere, after all.
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