From Claire Berlinski in City Journal:
You see, about a month ago, I asked my mother to bail me out. I knew she’d do it. She’s done it before. She sent me money she’s been saving toward my retirement. I resolved to stop spending money on stupid things. (There was really no excuse for that lamp, Mom, I know. Sorry! In my defense, I was sure there was a genie in it.)
With my mom paying my rent, I’ve been able to charge less for what I write and stay in the black. Voilà, I’m selling a cheaper product (for now) than Reuters and AP. That will teach them where to stuff their “good investment decisions” and their “economies of scale.” I fired the guy who does my odd jobs—it was painful, but it had to be done. So, congratulations to me! I’m making it in this tough business climate, with a little help from Mom. America’s back! And if I’m broke again in a year, I’ll hit her up again. (Don’t forget, Mom, that you really have no choice: no matter what you do, I’m still going to be a huge financial drag on you. If I fail, I’ll end up coming home with all my cats. You don’t want me sleeping on your couch, do you? And you sure don’t want to see what my cats would do to that couch. Antique, I believe it is?)
All of this is, alas, a perfectly accurate description of my financial life. The reader may wonder about my mom’s wisdom in going along with this plan. That’s between me and her—she loves me, and it’s her money, not yours. The money that went to GM was yours, however. And I suppose you must love GM as if it’s your profligate kid, because surely you could not be so credulous as to believe these reports about the spectacular success of the bailout.
There was a rush to buy GM shares last Thursday, when the company, which emerged from bankruptcy restructuring last summer, held an IPO. The company has been drowned in taxpayer cash. It’s going to be fine in the short term. No one should be surprised by this. Anyone—and any company—can get back in the black in the short term if someone gives it a ton of money. And who wouldn’t want to invest in a company that everyone knows won’t be allowed to go down? All the merchants in my neighborhood would lend me money, too, if I asked, confident that their loan would be repaid. A “generous American mom” sounds pretty good to them.
Of course, GM is paying back its new loans, though this doesn’t help investors who hold old GM stock; that’s worthless. By the way, I’m also considering stiffing my creditors. The GM example proves that it will result in an immediate improvement of my balance sheet. GM’s production numbers have been increasing, and mine have, too: it’s a lot easier to write when you’ve got peace of mind. Whether anyone will buy the stuff I’m writing, God knows, but my word count is definitely up, and that, apparently, is the number that matters.
Note that GM is still producing those gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs that no one seemed to want before. Great news for me: I’ll just keep writing about the arcana of Turkish constitutional politics. It’s what the market should want. Turkish politics are fascinating. I don’t know what’s wrong with Americans. If they understood what was good for them, they’d want to be better informed about Turkey. (They’d want that Volt electric car, too. I hear it’s much better for the environment.)
Naturally, I’ll pay my mother back. Here’s how: I’m going to have her put a small percentage of all the money she’s given me in an escrow account, which I’ll call a “working capital” account. Then I’ll transfer the rest of my assets to her. (Good news, Mom: you own seven cats and seven litter boxes.) Then I’m going to use the money from that escrow account to pay her back at an interest rate no one but my own mother would give me. As soon as I empty the escrow account, I’ll declare the loans repaid. What do you mean, that makes no sense? That’s just what the U.S. governmentdid for GM, and no one finds that problematic, do they? Never mind that the cash part of the loan has been repaid from TARP, or that this in fact represents only about 15 percent of the total bailout, or that the rest remains tied up in the automotive equivalent of cats and litter boxes. By the way, I’m thinking of bundling all my liabilities into a separate company, just like GM. I’ll call the company “Some other Claire who can deal with the creditors, never heard of that Claire.”
Read the whole thing here.
The other day I blogged with a funny Santa photo of my daughter, which I made into our holiday card that year. Even though my little one still has some fears of Santa, the vast majority of kids find him fun and fascinating. As you may have read in Lisa Sikora’s blog post last week, Windows and Southwest Airlines are partnering to bring you Holiday Photos on the Fly. This is a great opportunity to have your photo taken with Santa for free. Once your photo is taken, you’ll get a printed copy and later you can logon to www.freeholidayphotos.com to retrieve and share your photo. Southwest and Windows are offering this great opportunity in 26 airports, as well as kiosks located at Bryant Park in NYC and Skyline Park in Denver. If you can, make sure you take advantage of this great opportunity – who can beat free!
Now that covers fun with Santa, but I personally also strive for that great family photo to share out and I commonly face the familiar crisis I’m sure many parents also go through: It’s December 1st and I need a nice family photo for our holiday cards! Thankfully, this task has been made much easier with a few great inventions.
First, Windows Live Photo Gallery now provides a special touch of magic, enabling you to very quickly fix nearly any photo and create perfection. This includes the tool Photo Fuse, which allows you take several photos of the same group shot and merge them together to create the photo YOU want – you may have seen this in recent “To the Cloud” TV advertising and it seriously is that easy! Essentially, you can now have that perfect group or family photo without every person having to smile at the same time. I told you…just like magic. For any parent, taking that perfect picture can be very daunting. Photo Fuse has saved me time and money, as I now don’t have to pay for a professional photographer to capture everyone in the right pose. Once you have taken your group photos, simply open Photo Gallery, highlight the set of photos you want to fuse together and click Photos Fuse (under the create tab) and presto! For in depth tips and steps on how to do this, see my previous blog post on photo editing in Windows Live, which will show you how to use Retouch, Auto Adjust and Photo Fuse.
Second, there are a plethora of tools available to help you create fun holiday cards, whether you want to send yours electronically or pay for a professional service print and mail cards out for you. Additionally, advancements in photo printers have made it easier than ever to print your own photo cards at home. I like the Epson Artison 725 All In One printer, which is not only very affordable at just under $200, but also gives you hi-definition prints and is the world’s fastest 4” x 6” photo printer. Since I’m usually in a rush to get my cards and invitations out the door, I like to use online software to create my own masterpiece and then print them up myself at home, which guarantees I’ll get my cards out to friends and family before the New Year.
For more information on the Epson Artison 725 printer, my colleague Brandon will be doing a review of it on the Windows Experience Blog in the coming weeks.
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