Always Crashing the Same Markets

I haven't said anything about what Jon Stewart aptly called the ClusterF#@k to the Poor House, because my if blood boiled any longer about the things that led to and are being done about this financial hot mess, I would be even more dain bramaged than I currently may be.

Also, I don't want to.

I'm very lucky I never had enough money to invest, is all I'm saying.

Okay, I did, that one time, made my $35, and got the hell out of the stock market before the trading place started charging a monthly fee.

I used that $35 on Star Wars action figures, most likely.

I'm also really hoping oil continues to drop. Then I hope roofing becomes free for people who can cook wicked meatballs! That'd be sweet!

Always Crashing the Same Markets

All Too Common

The Flowfield Unity is one of my favorite online comics. It's deep, it's dead-on, has a fantastic fan base, and the artist is a neat guy as well. The most recent strip, In Commons starts out as a mashup of NIN and Nintendo, and then raises the question of how the ordinary everyday artist is expected to make a living giving away free things, like how Nine Inch Nails gave away their music under a Creative Commons license.

This brought out two immediate reactions from me. First, the Closer vs. Super Mario Brothers theme mashup by DJ Roomate.

And then--it was late, and that's when I get honest--I mentioned how my earliest mix tapes were populated by songs taped off the radio, and it snowballed into an admission of how I single-handedly killed the economy of the United States.

"The movie industry will also have me on a list for waiting for movies to hit cable. I may have come off as a raging pirate in my first reply, but I do buy songs I absolutely love online, I paid $5 for In Rainbows mainly to support the idea that more artists shouldn’t rely on the industry, but I’m more likely to do it if the artists or bands are lesser known. I’m not the kind of consumer the industries like at all, though, I wear shoes and clothes until they disintegrate (not that alluring, really), my computer is heading for ten years old, my mobile phone is only a phone, and my car is thankfully low on emissions but so old the garage has to take out a special machine to inspect it (mind you the garage also had to use a “special” razor blade to scrape off the previous year’s sticker, and it looked suspiciously like a wallpaper scraper to me)."

I keep my comments light, because I don't like bringing people down. It comes from the reality I live in, I suppose.

That car? I only fill it with gas once a year. The clothes? Mostly hand-me-downs or things I bought when I was a teenager, which was around the time I last saw a doctor, come to think of it. I'm poor, you see, and I have a chronic, pre-existing condition. I am, obviously, uninsured. All this talk of "These Economic Times (TM)" makes me laugh because what everyone else is waking up to is how I've lived my entire life. The only difference between the hysterics flailing about financial ruin and me is I'm happy. I don't feel poor, I never have. I don't want granite counters in my kitchen or blinding white teeth. Oh yeah, I've never been to a dentist in my life, either. That's what it's like to grow up with no insurance. I've been very lucky with my teeth, I still have all of them and am capable of cleaning them myself, but don't worry, I was punished with the metal in my eyes and the whole allergy to the sun thing. That and the tumor took any money I saved up for anything else, and when our trees started dying that even cost us the deed to the house until the day I can pay it all back. And I will pay it back, even though there is no one interested in hiring a freak like me for longer than it takes for this body I was given to fail.

So there it is. That's a fraction of me. Pigeon-hole me, judge me, write me off, don't believe me...I don't care. I'm happy with what I do have. Money means nothing to me beyond fixing the most recent leak in my roof or making sure my family is secure. Not that I don't want to be given money for my work. But that's the other thing...I rarely get paid in money. Funny how that works out.

All Too Common

Show me an honest money lender, and I'll show you a very young child with a piggy bank.

My earliest memory of being screwed over by a bank involves the dollars my grandfather gave me every day, which I saved up in a plastic heart-shaped box until I had over $100.

I was not a cynical child; in fact, I was rather stupid. "What are you going to do with all that money?" I once was asked.

"Save it," I said, because that is what I do. I am a stingy little squirrel.

"Why not put it in the bank?" I was asked.

I never saw the money again. The bank was robbed, and closed soon after. (This wasn't some bullshit fairytale I was told, either, That bank was always getting hit.)

I didn't put my money in a bank after that. Until I had to get a car, of course. Car dealerships don't accept checks drawn from the National Orthopedic Mattress of New York.

But this isn't about me, it's about my family, and I'm really tired of banks fucking with the collective mind of my family.

Ameriquest, who bought out the bank which issued the credit card we use for food, charged us an over-the-line fee twice this month, with a payment already made and enough free in the account. Ameriquest has been involved in class action lawsuits for overcharging their mortgage customers, and they're doing the same thing with their credit card customers. Don't use them, ever, for anything.

Before you, dear reader, go all Suze Orman on me, I will just say that there are reasons we need to use a credit card at the end of the month to buy bread in the 99¢ store, but I'm not getting into those, because it has nothing to do with being overcharged on a bill that's paid like clockwork ahead of time every month.

Ah, someday...someday I'll have loads of money, and I'll give none of it to you, Ameriquest.

Show me an honest money lender, and I'll show you a very young child with a piggy bank.