Debt has been in the news a lot lately.

Debt has been in the news a lot lately. All the discussion of the new bankruptcy laws. Yesterday they had a TV piece on how one out of seven loans to family and friends ends up unpaid. Whereas only one out of one hundred bank loans is unpaid. Shakespeare gave out some good advice in a line from the play Hamlet "Neither a borrower, nor a lender be"

I heard from an acquaintance that just lost his house in L.A. He bought an $850,000 crackerbox that is a little bigger than my garage in a poor area of L.A. and could not afford to pay his interest only loan payments of $40,000 a year of as well as his almost $9000 per year in taxes and insurance. When I heard 'interest only' this hit a nerve with me. What do I preach? Living within ones means. With interest only the buyer in not living within his means and is buying something 'outside' of his comfortable means. He or she will never 'own' his home with an interest only loan. The debt will never be paid back, the debt will remain a debt indefinitely. Of course, the buyers in such a hot market as L.A. thinks things will go up indefinitely. Will they? I don't know I am not a fortune teller. All I know is how to run my debt program to stay within solvent limits if I work a good Debtors Anonymous program. I wish him luck, but once you turn over a house to a bank through foreclosure it follows you around for many years.

Sometimes I get complaints my writing is a little too cold, tough or judgmental - well compared to Thoreau I am a pussycat. Thoreau didn't think much of those that lived beyond their means and he said so without hesitation. This quote always strikes me in its rough but true evaluation of how Thoreau saw the debtor as he penned in Walden. He also makes reference to the "time debtor" a name that is still being debated as to if such an animal really exists.

(Quote shortened)

"Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are - sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by the experience of others; always living on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latin - 'Res Alienum' or 'another's brass' for some of their coins were made of brass. Living, seeking to curry favors, lying, dying, and buried by 'other's brass'; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today insolvent."