Salon.com > Money

No gifts, just pay my bills

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Dear Mr. Tennis,

I have a fairly simple holiday question to ask you. But I fear that even though the question is simple the answer, or advice, may be much more complicated.
So here goes…
In all of your intuitive sagacity do you believe that it would be bad form to ask family members if they could contribute to helping pay outstanding debts (i.e., bills) instead of giving presents? A little clarification may be in order (I told you this would be sticky). Now this would not be the same as asking for money outright, which would be pretty ballsy and probably not welcomed warmly. No, this is more like saying, “I would really enjoy getting some new-fangled electronic gizmo or the entire set of Robogeek I-XII on Blu-ray… but this year what I really need is leg up to get back on my feet, so to speak.” Cash in hand says to me that it says to other people that I may take this to Vegas for partying and bail money or that groceries might not be the only bags I purchase with this money. Also, a check is usually something from grandparents or for an unrelated celebration from an entirely different sect. I am a decent person and I am fairly responsible but times are tough and the bestest gift I can think of is the gift of freedom. Clearing up that debt gives me the freedom to visit and do more of those things I had to politely decline so that I could spend more time at work slaving away to make more money to eventually have more time to do more things with family. Deep breath … OK. You can see how this could foul up a person's "rasoodock" and lead to unwanted existential angst in the middle of a time of good will and good cheer. The holiday season is a time for charity but where the line should be drawn is kinda blurry. Or maybe it isn't.

6 things money shouldn’t be able to buy

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:49:00 +0000

Need a womb? You can rent one from an Indian surrogate mother for $8,000. Want to make millions? Do like Natalie
Dylan did and auction off your virginity online.

Before the financial crash sounded a high-decibel wakeup call, Americans had gone decades without serious public discussion about the intersection of markets and morals. Sold on Reagan-era market worship and frenzied deregulation, we looked more and more to markets to solve our problems and enhance our lives. But that’s slowly starting to change. We're beginning to ask the question: When everything is for sale, how much does it really cost us?

Of finances and fiancés

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Dear Cary,

My fiancé and I are a pair of deeply-in-love 20-somethings who, like any young couple, have had our share of rough financial patches. We're both very hardworking people and have always managed to stay afloat without any handouts. I recently lost my job during the holidays and am scrambling to find work while saving for our rent next month. I told my fiancé that if we were still short on cash I could borrow a hundred bucks from my father for a bit just to tide us over.

During the conversation he casually said that his parents told him as soon as he turned 18 and moved out that they would never help him financially again, as he is now an adult and therefore must be completely independent. That seemed reasonable enough, but upon inquiry he went on to say that even if he were in dire monetary straits and facing eviction that they would still refuse to lend him even a hundred dollars.

Obama’s humblebrag: How to tell everyone you’re rich

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Mitt Romney was never able to find the right way to talk about his money, but Barack Obama is happy to tell you that he's rich, again and again. That is, if he's asking for higher marginal taxes on the rich, whose ranks Obama first joined with book-related earnings and then with his $400,000 White House salary.

Obama said it again this week: "What the country needs … is an acknowledgment that folks like me can afford to pay a little bit higher rate," he told Bloomberg News. He's been saying it at least since April 2011, when he was pushing the "Buffett rule": "I don't need another tax cut," he said. "Warren Buffett doesn't need another tax cut."

Powerball jackpot winners in Arizona and Missouri

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:43:00 +0000

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Two lucky ticket holders - one in Arizona and another in Missouri - are waking up Thursday to new lives as multimillionaires after the largest Powerball jackpot drawing ever.

Powerball officials said two tickets matched all six numbers to win the record $587.5 million jackpot. The numbers drawn for Wednesday night, for the second-highest jackpot in U.S. lottery history, are 5, 16, 22, 23, 29. The Powerball is 6.

It was not clear whether the winning tickets belonged to individuals or were purchased by groups.

One of the winning tickets was sold at a Trex Mart convenience store in Dearborn, Mo., about 35 miles north of Kansas City, the state lottery commission said in a news release.

Earlier Thursday, Missouri Lottery spokesman Gary Gonder said he was on his way to the store that sold that ticket to assist with the expected onslaught of media attention. That store will be awarded $50,000 for selling the winning ticket.

It did not appear Wednesday's big winner had yet come forward.

Must I repay the jerk?

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Dear Cary,

Earlier this year, two and half years into a long-distance relationship and after over a year of serious job searching, I finally found a job that allowed me to move 8,000 miles across the world to join my boyfriend. About five weeks later, he finally said what had been pretty obvious since I arrived -- he was no longer interested in me or our relationship. He refused to explain or seek counseling, saying the "feeling was gone." While breaking up, things were said and done, or not said or done by both of us and we are out of contact, permanently, I suspect.

I moved out and things are generally going OK. Life here is much more costly on a solo budget and I sometimes feel lonely being so far from anyone I really know or who shares my language/culture. So, I've reframed this as a one- or two-year adventure and this helps me feel more positive when I miss my friends and family back home. I can still get angry that he pulled the rug out from under me so my first impression at the new job was of a distracted person with personal issues. Or that the great new chapter opened with being pushed away and left alone. But, I've turned things around at work and I recognize I am better off without him.

Did I make it?

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 17:01:00 +0000

“The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate,
but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.”—H. L. Mencken

* * *

TODAY—or rather tonight; at 9:26 pm EST, to be precise—the transiting Sun will conjunct my natal Sun for the fortieth time. Which means, in layman’s terms, that it’s my birthday. I am now, somehow, 40.

There is no astrological significance to my new age (pun intended). The three overlapping transits that together comprise what Robert Hand calls “the crises of middle age”—Saturn oppose Saturn, Uranus oppose Uranus, Neptune square Neptune—begin later, at age 42. The real biggie, the Uranus opposition, won’t start for me until April 14, 2016. As far as horoscopy goes, there’s so reason today should be any different than November 13, 2011, or November 13, 2010.

Weird news: Man attempts to eat fake cash after arrest

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:45:00 +0000

DARIEN, N.Y. (AP) — Authorities say a 35-year-old man tried to swallow several counterfeit $50 bills after he was caught trying to use the bogus money at a New York amusement park.

The Genesee County Sheriff's Office says deputies were called to Darien Lake Theme Park and Resort on Sunday night after Larry Jones, of Buffalo, bought french fries with a $50 bill.

Deputies say a park employee spotted the fake and called security. While being taken away, deputies say, Jones stuffed five bills into his mouth and tried unsuccessfully to eat them.

Investigators say Jones told them he had received the bills as pay for a remodeling job.

He was charged with possessing a forged instrument and tampering with evidence and jailed without bail. He's expected in court with a lawyer Sept. 25.

Secret Bain documents reveal that Mitt Romney is rich

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:59:00 +0000

Gawker's John Cook got his hands on hundreds of pages of confidential financial documents related to Mitt Romney's investments. They're still going through the material -- it's obtuse stuff -- but so far it's fair to say that the trove proves that Mitt Romney is a very rich person who does weird rich people stuff with his money.

In other words he has a lot of people who work very hard to make sure Romney has to pay as little in taxes as possible. Eight of the strangely named entities Romney has millions of dollars invested in are in the Cayman Islands. As Bain Capital Fund VIII LP helpfully points out: "Under the current laws of the Cayman Islands, there are no income, estate, transfer, sales, or other Cayman Islands taxes payable by the Partnership."

As everyone knows, Romney made his fortune with complex ("innovative") financial instruments that are basically designed to be impossible to understand so that no one can regulate them. (This is also known as "job creation.") So obviously his money is still being used to create more money through credit default swaps and short sales and other things that rich people did that blew up the world economy a couple of years ago.

Loaning money kills relationships

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:42:00 +0000

At this point in history, money holds such massive emotional baggage that asking Can I have some of yours for a while? or Will I ever get it back? are some of life's weightier questions.

And now, we the people -- underwater, unemployed and terrified -- are forced ever more into the position of borrowing and lending among ourselves. Facing increasing personal financial crises, many of us now gaze dollar-sign-eyed at those with whom we lunched and shopped and shared secrets in gladder times.

When friends ask friends for loans, what's really being asked? What's the emotional "interest" on such loans -- and can friendships survive them?

Ella Hodges had three kids and worked part-time for a law firm when her husband's business failed in 2010. For the first time in her life, she needed to borrow money. But from whom?

"I knew that my friend Bree had a lot of money, and I knew she would say yes," Hodges remembers. "She knew I had always been very fiscally careful, so she trusted me. But how could I put Bree into the position of worrying that maybe the payback might never come? How could I put that burden on our friendship?"

A cool new coin app

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:15:00 +0000

If the Euro falls, what should the coins of Greece, Spain, Italy and the rest of the member states look like? The Money Museum’s Coins app, with its high-definition photos of ancient and modern currencies, offers a lot of ideas.

I’m particularly fond of this impractical dolphin coin, which dates to 480 B.C. in the Greek City of Olbia (and shows that the Ichthys — the Christian fish symbol — wasn’t as unique as it seems now). You would definitely always be able to find it by touch in your pocket.

Americans love class war!

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:15:00 +0000

Americans still hate the rich, according to yet another poll. And not just godless secular liberals! Pew's major Trends in American Values poll shows class resentments bridging the partisan divide: “Majorities in all educational and income groups agree that ‘today it’s really true that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.’ In the current survey, 76% of the public agrees with this statement, about the same as the 74% that agreed in 1987.”

Even the moderate pundit crowd's beloved independents agree: Our ruling classes are worthless parasites. A mere 22 percent of "swing voters" "admire the rich." (How many Romney supporters "admire the rich," you ask? Thirty-eight percent. No one likes rich people.)

As Elspeth Reeve puts it, succinctly and correctly, "swing voters are not libertarians." They're also not "socially liberal and fiscally conservative," like the vast majority of our well-off media elites tend to consider themselves.

Where did the money go?

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Cary,

I am 24 years old. Sometimes I get so angry that it is hard to function. Other times I get very anxious and I feel like I am on the verge of a breakdown. I think it stems from my parents. I don't know what to do, and I need your advice.

My father is an engineer for a large oil company, and my mother works in a doctor's office. My father has always been steadily employed (although I have lived in three different states growing up because of his job). However, I feel like my family has always been struggling financially. This has deeply affected me, especially when I graduated from college in a time when jobs were difficult to find. One problem is that I am not sure why it is this way -- they live in a nice house, but definitely not one out of their means. They do not buy nice cars, and we did not go on vacations growing up. They do not eat out very often or buy anything that would be considered luxurious.

However, they have filed for bankruptcy twice.