Just tonight, up late and restless, I have caught up with this posting on your blog. Like many, many readers, you did not, as far as I can tell, pay attention to what I actually wrote in my essay in Harper's all those years ago. First of all, I was not complaining: I absolutely took responsibility ass author of my situation, just as I was author of the essay, and I knew exactly what I was doing. As it happens, I am an expert shopper at thrift shops and rummages, can size a piece of clothing in seconds, and indeed was married in a suit that cost $3 and shoes that cost $1. As the article made clear, I did not get into debt buying shit. I got into debt living in a world where relatively simple things, or things once thought quite attainable, such as modest real estate and a decent education, in the city of my parents and the place I will forever call my home, had become unaffordable to all but the richest people. Basic middle class life: good schools, a car, an annual vacation, had been put out of reach of many dual career couples not just in NYC but all over the US. The whole economy, in fact, seemed to be running on credit: credit card solicitations numbered in the scores per year for every man woman and child in the nation. I predicted that one day everyone would be in debt up to their necks and since, indeed, when push comes to shove, one does not pay if one doesn't have the money, the whole sand castle would be washed out with the tide.

Have you read the papers lately?

Meanwhile, the tone of your post suggests that like many Americans you cannot separate money and thrift from the idea of personal morality. That people who are foolhardy with money are morally wanting, that they have, indeed, sinned. Your approach is that of rectitude preaching to the woefully fallen (“It would be hard to be 48 years old, making $120,000 per year [that was $100K by the way, not $120] at a prestige job and living in a little rental apartment. It would be hard to work in academia and send your children to sub-standard schools. But neither is impossible, and both can be made to work.” Yeah? “sub-standard schools” cannot, in fact, be made to work, and this nation has fallen from the top to the bottom of the industrialized world in educational achievement over a mere three decades).

This whole approach to money goes with much of the American sense of christianity I'm afraid, inherited by many who probably no longer subscribe to other such utterly puritanical notions. As Jesus himself pointed out, repeatedly, money has nothing to do with morality or enlightenment, and in fact the best way to achieve either of those is to have no money at all. Perhaps we'll get there yet.

Just tonight, up late and restless, I have caught up with this posting on your blog. Like many, many readers, you did not, as far as I can tell, pay attention to what I actually wrote in my essay in Harper's all those years ago. First of all, I was not complaining: I absolutely took responsibility ass author of my situation, just as I was author of the essay, and I knew exactly what I was doing. As it happens, I am an expert shopper at thrift shops and rummages, can size a piece of clothing in seconds, and indeed was married in a suit that cost $3 and shoes that cost $1. As the article made clear, I did not get into debt buying shit. I got into debt living in a world where relatively simple things, or things once thought quite attainable, such as modest real estate and a decent education, in the city of my parents and the place I will forever call my home, had become unaffordable to all but the richest people. Basic middle class life: good schools, a car, an annual vacation, had been put out of reach of many dual career couples not just in NYC but all over the US. The whole economy, in fact, seemed to be running on credit: credit card solicitations numbered in the scores per year for every man woman and child in the nation. I predicted that one day everyone would be in debt up to their necks and since, indeed, when push comes to shove, one does not pay if one doesn't have the money, the whole sand castle would be washed out with the tide.

Have you read the papers lately?

Meanwhile, the tone of your post suggests that like many Americans you cannot separate money and thrift from the idea of personal morality. That people who are foolhardy with money are morally wanting, that they have, indeed, sinned. Your approach is that of rectitude preaching to the woefully fallen (“It would be hard to be 48 years old, making $120,000 per year [that was $100K by the way, not $120] at a prestige job and living in a little rental apartment. It would be hard to work in academia and send your children to sub-standard schools. But neither is impossible, and both can be made to work.” Yeah? “sub-standard schools” cannot, in fact, be made to work, and this nation has fallen from the top to the bottom of the industrialized world in educational achievement over a mere three decades).

This whole approach to money goes with much of the American sense of christianity I'm afraid, inherited by many who probably no longer subscribe to other such utterly puritanical notions. As Jesus himself pointed out, repeatedly, money has nothing to do with morality or enlightenment, and in fact the best way to achieve either of those is to have no money at all. Perhaps we'll get there yet.

Just tonight, up late and restless, I have caught up with this posting on your blog. Like many, many readers, you did not, as far as I can tell, pay attention to what I actually wrote in my essay in Harper's all those years ago. First of all, I was not complaining: I absolutely took responsibility ass author of my situation, just as I was author of the essay, and I knew exactly what I was doing. As it happens, I am an expert shopper at thrift shops and rummages, can size a piece of clothing in seconds, and indeed was married in a suit that cost $3 and shoes that cost $1. As the article made clear, I did not get into debt buying shit. I got into debt living in a world where relatively simple things, or things once thought quite attainable, such as modest real estate and a decent education, in the city of my parents and the place I will forever call my home, had become unaffordable to all but the richest people. Basic middle class life: good schools, a car, an annual vacation, had been put out of reach of many dual career couples not just in NYC but all over the US. The whole economy, in fact, seemed to be running on credit: credit card solicitations numbered in the scores per year for every man woman and child in the nation. I predicted that one day everyone would be in debt up to their necks and since, indeed, when push comes to shove, one does not pay if one doesn't have the money, the whole sand castle would be washed out with the tide.

Have you read the papers lately?

Meanwhile, the tone of your post suggests that like many Americans you cannot separate money and thrift from the idea of personal morality. That people who are foolhardy with money are morally wanting, that they have, indeed, sinned. Your approach is that of rectitude preaching to the woefully fallen (“It would be hard to be 48 years old, making $120,000 per year [that was $100K by the way, not $120] at a prestige job and living in a little rental apartment. It would be hard to work in academia and send your children to sub-standard schools. But neither is impossible, and both can be made to work.” Yeah? “sub-standard schools” cannot, in fact, be made to work, and this nation has fallen from the top to the bottom of the industrialized world in educational achievement over a mere three decades).

This whole approach to money goes with much of the American sense of christianity I'm afraid, inherited by many who probably no longer subscribe to other such utterly puritanical notions. As Jesus himself pointed out, repeatedly, money has nothing to do with morality or enlightenment, and in fact the best way to achieve either of those is to have no money at all. Perhaps we'll get there yet.

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/20…

Apparently, Andrews' new wife has a history of bankruptcy. I no longer have even a teeny bit of sympathy for him.

Yet our government continues to do so, at an accelerated pace. We're going increasingly fast down a very dangerous road. The previous administration started the downfall, and the current just keeps accelerating it.