Saturday, April 24, 2021

Big Plans, Really Big Big Plans

 I've spent my life a planner, maintaining a safe, secure location to better manage those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune like Hamlet. I have three tomes I feel a need to study. One is a spiritual tour of Flannery O'Conner's The Habit of Being. The second is Mark Twain's autobiography that was published 100 years after his death and the third being the complete works of Shakespeare. Plus there is that TBR shelves of books, a library of children stories I picked up at an estate sale and my mother's recommendation of reading the Bible.

It's more of less picking a path. My disorganized system truly stinks. This week, I read Elizabeth Greenwood's book about how people purposely disappear and why it truly does not work well for them. But like all things, there is a good reason for some to disappear like victims of spousal abuse. Most people who try to disappear do it for the money. And interesting enough they are rarely prosecuted for making false insurance claims. They are just denied the claim.

We have a time bomb in our country and that is unpaid college debt. Having financed my own education, I am not too sympathetic. Having been young, I do think assuming so much debt should be limited by the lenders. Manana is the rallying cry of the young. You know "Someday Never Comes" is more than a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival. 

I don't think student debts should be wiped clean. But I do think there should be responsibility of the lender to monitor how much is borrowed versus the how much that person will be able to pay back. I remember a young lady who was bemoaning she would owe 10,000 in student loans back in 1980. For the student who owes 100.000, I wonder in 40 years will inflation reduce it's sting. Elizabeth Greenwood supposedly had flirted with the idea of a fake death to get rid of her college debt. I think it was just a thread she ran with in the book. She is very smart, and I suspect has quite a profitable career in writing waiting for her.

I never had trouble getting a job. One reason was the fact I always had a job and would work any job available. I was a professional in that I taught school. But I have been a house cleaner, lawn mower, baby sitter, peach grader, cashier, food worker, waitress, bank worker, cook, dishwasher. My mother is from Appalachia and there is no shame in honest work. For the most part me and my siblings have been good workers. One of my siblings wasn't so much a poor worker, she just never chose careers that used her natural talents.

Therein lies the rub comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet comes to mind. Young people going to college or university don't have to have a car nor do they need to live in an apartment like a young working person of independent means. Why aren't kids living in dorms and eating in a dining hall? They probably still are. Not every young person can handle a part time job and full time college which is what I essentially did. We all dressed like hippies in the seventies which helped me out financially big time in college. My roommate and I joked how our favorite jeans were standing by our beds every morning waiting on us.

When you are young or at least for me, that is when my pride got the best of me. I feel that pain for young people now. I would like to share with them that one day; you will not care. You will want to apologize to that kid you picked on. You will see where that kid that had everything really was not as lucky as you were. 

And the gist of this post was really how everything lately reminds me how much time I have left in this world. How well will I spend the rest of it. Next week, you'll find out which I have chosen to read during the summer of 2021. Of course, I got to get a better schedule for my day. Oh my. And even though there is a big part of me that wants people to pay back their student loans for living so high on the hog; as a country we need to give a low interest rate and possibly some way to erase a portion of their loans. They need to pay something. But not an 11 percent interest rate when you can currently purchase a house with a 3 to 4 percent loan. 

I'm leaning toward reading the children's stories. The 26 books have the date 1941. I doubt they were ever read. They really need to be read.


 

7 comments:

  1. I am a big fan of Creedence.
    Debt scares me and always have. I do go into debt when necessary (like for our home) but work to pay it off as fast as I can. I don't need everything now either. Upbringing? It works for me.
    The son of a friend owes over $100,000 in student debt for his various degrees. He is going to great lengths NOT to pay it off. I couldn't sleep at night.

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    1. Debt is fearsome to me too. I don't think when people borrow heavily they understand the control that debt will have on their lives. I feel for parents of young people who overborrow. You have to let them get out of their mess but it is painful to watch.

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  2. I totally agree with you on student loans/debts.
    We've got here big unpaid debts mainly coming from house mortgages and driving fines.
    I believe lenders should be more careful with public money. The country's in a terrible deficit and we keep borrowing money!?

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    1. I know. We've become societies that is too invested in spending and buying.

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  3. Hi Ann!
    Would that every child be taught the virtues that we were. It ought to be a crime to knowingly lend money to anyone not willing - or able to pay it back. Along these lines, John Grisham's "Rooster Bar" is a great example. I hope you share a few titles of those children's stories from 1941! I'd love to read a few. It's rare that I meet someone who enjoys Creedence as I do! Did you have a good view of the Full Pink Supermoon last night? We haven't seen rain in months, so naturally, it was overcast here last night. sigh.
    Until again, take care.

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  4. I have a friend who now is a retired special education teacher. Back in the day, when she needed money, she would go back to school and live off her student loans. She racked up a lot of debt that just recently she paid off. She's 65 now. I don't think she would do that again. She lived in bondage to that debt for many years and it cost her relationships and just living life to the max while she was still young.

    I don't do debt well at all. My oldest son Michael, had student debt that worried him and stressed him out so much, that he had a fatal heart attack at age 25. They said it was a heart defect, but I am sure the stress didn't help plus he was having a hard time finding a job after he graduated college. Funny though - the loan was forgiven after his death.

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  5. Student tuition fees are still a controversial subject in the UK. College/ tertiary education was free until 1998 when Tony Blair, the Labour Prime Minister, suddenly introduced tuition fees with no consultation and without any mention of such fees in the Labour manifesto. The fee was £1000 a year to begin with but is now £9000, one of the highest fees in the world. I personally object to tuition fees and think all education should be free as it benefits the whole of society (and the economy). Also the tuition fee has turned students into consumers who demand good marks and exam passes from the academic staff.

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