Ruthless Like Scrooge

You try to save money, but somehow it never quite works out, and you try to live within your means, but you can't help but expand beyond those narrow confines, and you try not to charge anything on your credit card, but woah, look at that balance! Does it mean you are weak, or bad?

A friend of mine is becoming something of a nuisance in the local press, because she publicly doles out advice to thousands of readers to live frugally, and invest your money, and avoid using the credit card - all good things, surely - but she also has begun offering her personal history as an example of the virtues of what she preaches.

Only trouble is, her personal history, as related in the press, is incomplete:

• When she was married, she also had the advantage of a two-income household - the only solid way most people have to advance beyond subsistence, after all, but which she never mentions; and,
• When her husband contracted a virus and went blind, she divorced his sorry ass and sent him back to live with his parents.

More than most people realize, advances in personal finance depend on a ruthless, determined energy. Personal finance columns never mention this aspect of life. Anyone in your life with any problems? Gotta throw those folks under the bus! Not only must you clip coupons, you must avoid getting sick. Only losers get sick, after all.

Does baby need new shoes? Does baby need new shoes? Time to park the car at the nearest freeway exit and drop kick baby towards the closest truck stop. That'll teach baby some personal responsibility!

Remember Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," when Ebenezer Scrooge was approached by his kindly but careless mentor, Mr. Fezziwig, for a loan? Not for a second did Scrooge even consider saying yes.

Why are romance novels like "Forever Amber" or "Gone With The Wind" so popular? The fascinating, ruthless heroine is willing to do what is necessary to succeed, whether it seems Christian, or appropriate, or whatever. Most people are made of lesser stuff and we are fascinated by the willful rulebreaker, even as we condemn her.

With all the Southern plantations in ruins after the War Between The States, and the region crawling with boll weevils, you just know Scarlett O'Hara's Tara will prosper, because she'll cut any corner and make any deal she has to to make it so.

Meanwhile, people like me will join Rhett Butler and exclaim that, frankly, we don't give a damn. Even if we, secretly, do give a damn. Because society has to rein these folks in from time to time, and we had better give a damn if society won't mutate into something radioactively unpleasant, and unrecognizable.

....

Please forgive me for not providing any names, or links. Because this person, for all her faults, is lots of fun, and dances well.....kind of like Scarlett O'Hara! And I wouldn't want to burn any bridges. Because, like Scarlett says at the end of "Gone With The Wind," 'tomorrow is another day!'