Debt

Just about every night the ABC-TV national news airs some gloom-and-doom report about the mess in the mortgage biz.
People being foreclosed out of their houses, and home-values plummeting so low the mortgage is more than their home’s worth.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wrings his hands and tells Congress it will only get worse.
And the other night the reporter related the cost of auto-loans is skyrocketing. (—That repossessions are up.)
And people are swimming in credit-card debt, and falling behind.
Well I’m sorry, but I can’t feel much compassion for people that got in over their heads.
True, some of that debt may be college loans.
I owed my college some money when I graduated, plus National Defense Student Loans to the gumint.
The college wouldn’t even release my transcript.
But I set about paying everything off as soon as I graduated.
I didn’t spring for a ‘Vette or a speedboat.
I remember some callow dreamer and his young wife coming into the Henrietta office of the bank I worked at.
He wanted an auto-loan to buy a Corvette.
The front-desk people, laughing uproariously, sent him packing.
Now the bank would “work with him.”
After college I wanted to buy a sportscar.
The Triumph TR250 new cost $3,500, about $1,000 more than the average car. (Back then, 1968, $1,000 was a lot of money.)
But that was what I wanted, so I started saving for it.
Ended up paying cash — never have bought a single car without ending up with clear title; i.e. paying the full amount to the seller with cash. No dealer financing; only a $500 one-year bank-loan for the Triumph to establish a credit-history.
For years that was the only car ever bought new, until the Faithful Hunda, which we bought with the help of a home-equity loan (we could have paid cash).
We still have that home-equity loan, but the balance is down to about $400.
Beside our credit-card, it’s our only debt. I only use it to pay the real-estate taxes.
Our house mortgage is also paid off.
Two-thirds of this house was paid cash; the rest was mortgaged.
And it was a fixed-rate mortgage; I couldn’t accept an adjustable-rate mortgage. —There’s no such thing as a free lunch; sooner-or-later even the fat-cats gotta pay the piper.
The mortgage debacle is homeowners getting hit with climbing adjustable rates.
A few years ago, mortgage-rates were dropping enough to make refinancing worth considering.
But I figured it made more sense to just pay the thing off. It wasn’t much.
By that time, I was carrying the mortgage only for the credit rating.
People are surprised we only have one credit-card.
That card mis-scans, and “doncha have any other credit-cards?”
“Nope. Only this.”
“Man; these people are weird.”
And I never pay any finance-charges on it.
I pay it in full every month.
Yet weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth about people unable to pay their minimum credit-card payment.
The cash-advance checks we get every month go in the shredder.
They’re payin’ me interest to hold my money; I ain’t payin’ them interest.
Sure; leverage everything and buy a ‘Vette. That ‘Vette will cost me more than it’s worth; and furthermore, where do I put the dog, or the groceries?
Yet we get inundated with credit-card approvals; usually one every day.
I return the postage-paid envelope filled with unidentifiable junk. If it’s identifiable it becomes confetti.
And the TV is always trumpeting schemes to get out of debt. —Far as I ever knew, the onliest way to “get outta debt” is declare bankruptcy or pay it off.
I get e-mails declaring the joys of bankruptcy.
All my motorbikes have been cash too.

RE: “The bank I worked at.....” —My first job, out of college, was Lincoln Rochester Bank. It lasted almost three years, but was a misfit. I was “released.” They had an office in deepest, darkest Henrietta, a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed (replaced by our 2003 Honda CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked] pronounced it.)