...There’s no such thing as certainty.
Any good scientist will tell you that, scientifically speaking, nothing is ever proved. There is nothing in the universe that can be predicted with 100% certainty. My favorite example: we cannot say for sure that the sun will rise tomorrow. We just can’t. And that’s not because of a semantic nit-picking over the fact that the sun doesn’t actually rise, it’s because we can’t be altogether certain that our sun won’t go and explode on us without warning, in which case we’ve all been vaporized and no one will ever see a morning again, ever.
But what we can say is that the probability of the sun rising tomorrow is extremely high. So high that I think it’s safe to say we’re all pretty damn confident that this morning’s sunrise will be followed by another one tomorrow.
So when we talk about something as being proved, what we’re really talking about is probability. The likelihood that, based on a great deal of consistent observation, something will behave as it has behaved in the past. The earth will probably continue to rotate and the sun will probably continue to blaze forth way up there, and there’s no point in worrying about something so unlikely as a supernova.
Which is exactly why proof, or the demand for it, can be used as a lie.
The fossil record is incomplete, therefore evolution is a flawed theory and shouldn’t be taught in schools, or at least should be taught alongside other similarly-unproveable theories like, say, creationism. But this is a conflation of two entirely different standards of proof: a scientific standard, based on the slow but constant growth of a fossil record that goes back millions of years, and a religious standard that can only be based on faith.
The same can be said for the climate change debate. Give somebody an unusually cold day and they’ll say “But how can there be global warming when it’s this cold?” (There’s a typical example of this kind of thinking here.) Climate change is “only a theory,” the detractors say, therefore unproven and therefore flawed and therefore we should throw out all the evidence and keep burning fossil fuels because it’s easy and we like it and whattaya mean there are consequences? Nonsense! Just a theory!
Well then, here’s one for all the deniers out there. I’m going to share something with you, so lean close. You know that thing they say, about how staring at the sun will make you go blind? It’s just a theory. There’s no actual proof. Really, I’ve heard that from, y’know, somewhere. So go on, you know you want to. Step outside. Stare into the glory of God’s brilliant creation.
And lemme know how that goes, okay? Okay.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The Bank is Not Your Friend
Here’s what they do.
Like millions of Americans, you’re living paycheck to paycheck. You’ve cut corners, you scrimp wherever you can, and you’re getting by. The bills are covered. There’s almost nothing left over, and sometimes things get a little rough when you’ve got a bill due Tuesday but you don’t get paid till Thursday, but still, you’re getting by well enough.
Then the economy changes. Or the markets take a little dive, for reasons that passeth understanding. Or your bank makes a lousy investment and needs to shore up its books from some other direction. Or there’s a southerly wind and a bank executive gets a headcold. Whatever the reason is, something happens. And your bank decides they want more of your money. Here’s what they do.
You’ve got credit cards. Each individual balance is a little high, but nothing dramatic, and you’ve always been able to make the payments, with a little extra thrown in to get the balances down. Slowly. Sloooooowly. But one day you get a notice from the bank that provides your credit card, saying that they’re lowering your credit limit--to an amount just slightly above whatever balance you happen to be carrying that month. Okay, well, that’s annoying, you don’t have any available credit anymore, but it’s not that big a deal.
But here’s what they do.
A month or two passes, and this has now happened to all of your credit cards. And now you get a new notice from the bank. It says that the ratio of your debt to your available credit is way too high. Dangerously high. Why look, you’ve maxed out all your cards! (Yes, that's right, it's your fault.) The only reasonable response, they say, is to raise your interest rate since now you’re such a big risk.
You did nothing. Absolutely nothing. But the banks have manufactured a crisis, and now they’re moving in for the kill. They no longer have to provide you any extra credit, plus they’re making a boatload more money on the same amount of debt you’ve always had. This is simply fantastic. For the bank.
But your month-to-month budget just got a hell of a lot harder to manage. It may even have become impossible, and there’s no fat left to trim. After living honorably your entire life, you’re forced to make an arrangement with the bank, which will generously agree to drop the interest rate again (maybe back to what it was before they raised it), and they'll set a fixed payment plan--but the card will be canceled, and of course this will have to go on your credit report. Which will follow you around for years, so that when your car breaks down and you need a new one, well geez, we can’t give you a decent rate because look what a big risk you are. Or they just won’t let you get the new car at all.
It could get even worse. You might be forced to default. Then collection agencies start harassing you at home at all hours. Lawsuits get filed against you, adding costs and attorney fees to the pile of money they want from you. They file a lien on your future earnings so that a big chunk of everything you make goes to them. Bankruptcy. Foreclosure. People forced out of their homes and onto the streets. And if that sounds melodramatic, it isn’t. It’s happening to thousands of people every year.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” you say. “It just doesn’t make sense for a bank to destroy its customers, that just starves the bank itself, in the long run.” Quite right. It doesn’t make sense.
But big corporations aren’t very good at the long run. They’ve got shareholders, and shareholders are only interested in the short-term. They want positive growth every single damn quarter, and if they don’t get it, the CEO will most definitely hear about it. A lot. Like when his earnings report adds millions to the books but still “disappoints” Wall Street because they were expecting something even higher. So the executives do everything they can in the short term to keep earnings as high as possible, and if that means destroying a couple thousand customers, well, those customers were a bad risk anyway. And besides, it’s a big country and there will always be more people to destroy next quarter.
That’s how they do it.
Like millions of Americans, you’re living paycheck to paycheck. You’ve cut corners, you scrimp wherever you can, and you’re getting by. The bills are covered. There’s almost nothing left over, and sometimes things get a little rough when you’ve got a bill due Tuesday but you don’t get paid till Thursday, but still, you’re getting by well enough.
Then the economy changes. Or the markets take a little dive, for reasons that passeth understanding. Or your bank makes a lousy investment and needs to shore up its books from some other direction. Or there’s a southerly wind and a bank executive gets a headcold. Whatever the reason is, something happens. And your bank decides they want more of your money. Here’s what they do.
You’ve got credit cards. Each individual balance is a little high, but nothing dramatic, and you’ve always been able to make the payments, with a little extra thrown in to get the balances down. Slowly. Sloooooowly. But one day you get a notice from the bank that provides your credit card, saying that they’re lowering your credit limit--to an amount just slightly above whatever balance you happen to be carrying that month. Okay, well, that’s annoying, you don’t have any available credit anymore, but it’s not that big a deal.
But here’s what they do.
A month or two passes, and this has now happened to all of your credit cards. And now you get a new notice from the bank. It says that the ratio of your debt to your available credit is way too high. Dangerously high. Why look, you’ve maxed out all your cards! (Yes, that's right, it's your fault.) The only reasonable response, they say, is to raise your interest rate since now you’re such a big risk.
You did nothing. Absolutely nothing. But the banks have manufactured a crisis, and now they’re moving in for the kill. They no longer have to provide you any extra credit, plus they’re making a boatload more money on the same amount of debt you’ve always had. This is simply fantastic. For the bank.
But your month-to-month budget just got a hell of a lot harder to manage. It may even have become impossible, and there’s no fat left to trim. After living honorably your entire life, you’re forced to make an arrangement with the bank, which will generously agree to drop the interest rate again (maybe back to what it was before they raised it), and they'll set a fixed payment plan--but the card will be canceled, and of course this will have to go on your credit report. Which will follow you around for years, so that when your car breaks down and you need a new one, well geez, we can’t give you a decent rate because look what a big risk you are. Or they just won’t let you get the new car at all.
It could get even worse. You might be forced to default. Then collection agencies start harassing you at home at all hours. Lawsuits get filed against you, adding costs and attorney fees to the pile of money they want from you. They file a lien on your future earnings so that a big chunk of everything you make goes to them. Bankruptcy. Foreclosure. People forced out of their homes and onto the streets. And if that sounds melodramatic, it isn’t. It’s happening to thousands of people every year.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” you say. “It just doesn’t make sense for a bank to destroy its customers, that just starves the bank itself, in the long run.” Quite right. It doesn’t make sense.
But big corporations aren’t very good at the long run. They’ve got shareholders, and shareholders are only interested in the short-term. They want positive growth every single damn quarter, and if they don’t get it, the CEO will most definitely hear about it. A lot. Like when his earnings report adds millions to the books but still “disappoints” Wall Street because they were expecting something even higher. So the executives do everything they can in the short term to keep earnings as high as possible, and if that means destroying a couple thousand customers, well, those customers were a bad risk anyway. And besides, it’s a big country and there will always be more people to destroy next quarter.
That’s how they do it.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The Starving Artist
That damned Van Gogh. Sold only one painting in his lifetime, but now his work commands millions. Exhbitions sell out. There’s a very popular museum dedicated to him in Amsterdam. And every artist, I’m telling you every damn artist of any kind who has ever lived since Van Gogh’s time, has said to her- or himself at one time or other, “I’m starving. Can’t sell a thing. Nobody’s interested. But that’s okay, because I’m the new Van Gogh.”
That way insanity lies. Literally. Look at Van Gogh.
The Starving Artist Myth is a lie twice over: it’s a lie we tell to ourselves, which is bad enough; but it’s also a lie that the established powers like to reinforce, because it benefits them when you feel like you have to come to them on bended knee. If you’re starving, you’re desperate. If you’re desperate, then any time you’ve got a new project to sell, you’ve already got your hand out, you’ve already got desperation in your eyes. Brian Michael Bendis, among others, tells us to “Always be prepared to walk away from a bad deal.” But if you’re a Starving Artist, you don’t dare walk away from any kind of a deal--and with that kind of attitude, it’s a cold certainty that the only deals you’ll be offered will be bad ones.
Once you’ve bought into the myth, then, you find that it’s self-reinforcing, a snake eating its own tail. And the trouble is, you can’t just walk away from all deals altogether, tempting though that may be. Kafka was a typical starving artist, who bought into that way of thinking entirely. He sold very little during his lifetime, and when he died, left instructions with his executor to burn everything he’d written. Kafka, clearly, wrote for himself, and that’s fine so far as it goes—but art without public display is just, let’s face it, aesthetic wanking, and I think we are all grateful that Kafka’s executor decided to ignore his friend’s dying wish. (‘Cause in this rare case, that was some pretty damn good wanking.) (And there is a metaphor that has now been extended way too far....)
There are people like Mark Lipsky who have gone whole-hog for the starving artist mindset as a requirement for creating good art. In his blog he wrote that “commerce has no role – or at least should be the absolute last thought rather than the first, second or tenth – in the independent filmmaking process.” In other words, the only reason Van Gogh’s stuff is any good, the only reason it’s worth millions now and adored worldwide, is that he never compromised by indulging the interests of any potential benefactors he might have gained if he’d just been a little more, y’know, compliant.
(Lipsky, by the way, is an interesting case: he’s someone who came out of the very commercial movie world, having worked on a lot of Eddie Murphy films, from the good to the awful. I suspect that his newfound zeal for ultra-pure indie film is delivered with the passion of the converted, a kind of religious fervor with which one cannot argue. C’est la vie.)
But Lipsky’s line of reasoning ignores another artist named Shakespeare. (To pick only the most prominent example.) Shakespeare was subsidized throughout his entire career, first by Queen Elizabeth’s chamberlain and then by King James directly. It’s also well understood that these subsidies came with certain costs: the reason why Banquo comes off so well in Macbeth is that King James claimed to be descended from, yes, that same Banquo. (In Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s principal source, Banquo is an accomplice of Macbeth’s.) And in his time, Shakespeare was popular and acclaimed, and when he retired he was able to purchase a very nice property back in Stratford, not to mention a coat of arms for the family.
Was Shakespeare necessarily a hack because he compromised? Must we dismiss his work because it doesn’t meet some starving-artist purity test? Hell no.
Let me assert as clearly as I can: selling your work does not make you a sellout. Wanting to sell your work does not make you a bad artist. Developing the marketing skills to sell your work effectively does not, by some weird law of inverse proportion, turn your art into bad art. We’re rich, complicated individuals full of potential, and we can in fact do both without sacrificing a damn thing.
No one can help you if your art is bad art. No one would have cared if the work that Kafka’s executor rescued wasn’t good. In this, Mark Lipsky is right: your first job is to make good, creative, risk-taking art. But I must insist that that is not your exclusive job. And art that never makes it into the public arena is just plain worthless. If you buy into the Starving Artist Myth, you will be depriving yourself of the opportunities you deserve, you will be short-changing the art you pretend to care about, and you will be denying the world of a voice that the world needs to hear. A double-edged lie that produces a triple-edged catastrophe. Banish the Starving Artist from your thinking, get out there and create, then work just as hard to make sure that you can share that creation with as many of the rest of us as you possibly can.
And for god’s sake, have a nice meal now and then. You deserve it.
That way insanity lies. Literally. Look at Van Gogh.
The Starving Artist Myth is a lie twice over: it’s a lie we tell to ourselves, which is bad enough; but it’s also a lie that the established powers like to reinforce, because it benefits them when you feel like you have to come to them on bended knee. If you’re starving, you’re desperate. If you’re desperate, then any time you’ve got a new project to sell, you’ve already got your hand out, you’ve already got desperation in your eyes. Brian Michael Bendis, among others, tells us to “Always be prepared to walk away from a bad deal.” But if you’re a Starving Artist, you don’t dare walk away from any kind of a deal--and with that kind of attitude, it’s a cold certainty that the only deals you’ll be offered will be bad ones.
Once you’ve bought into the myth, then, you find that it’s self-reinforcing, a snake eating its own tail. And the trouble is, you can’t just walk away from all deals altogether, tempting though that may be. Kafka was a typical starving artist, who bought into that way of thinking entirely. He sold very little during his lifetime, and when he died, left instructions with his executor to burn everything he’d written. Kafka, clearly, wrote for himself, and that’s fine so far as it goes—but art without public display is just, let’s face it, aesthetic wanking, and I think we are all grateful that Kafka’s executor decided to ignore his friend’s dying wish. (‘Cause in this rare case, that was some pretty damn good wanking.) (And there is a metaphor that has now been extended way too far....)
There are people like Mark Lipsky who have gone whole-hog for the starving artist mindset as a requirement for creating good art. In his blog he wrote that “commerce has no role – or at least should be the absolute last thought rather than the first, second or tenth – in the independent filmmaking process.” In other words, the only reason Van Gogh’s stuff is any good, the only reason it’s worth millions now and adored worldwide, is that he never compromised by indulging the interests of any potential benefactors he might have gained if he’d just been a little more, y’know, compliant.
(Lipsky, by the way, is an interesting case: he’s someone who came out of the very commercial movie world, having worked on a lot of Eddie Murphy films, from the good to the awful. I suspect that his newfound zeal for ultra-pure indie film is delivered with the passion of the converted, a kind of religious fervor with which one cannot argue. C’est la vie.)
But Lipsky’s line of reasoning ignores another artist named Shakespeare. (To pick only the most prominent example.) Shakespeare was subsidized throughout his entire career, first by Queen Elizabeth’s chamberlain and then by King James directly. It’s also well understood that these subsidies came with certain costs: the reason why Banquo comes off so well in Macbeth is that King James claimed to be descended from, yes, that same Banquo. (In Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s principal source, Banquo is an accomplice of Macbeth’s.) And in his time, Shakespeare was popular and acclaimed, and when he retired he was able to purchase a very nice property back in Stratford, not to mention a coat of arms for the family.
Was Shakespeare necessarily a hack because he compromised? Must we dismiss his work because it doesn’t meet some starving-artist purity test? Hell no.
Let me assert as clearly as I can: selling your work does not make you a sellout. Wanting to sell your work does not make you a bad artist. Developing the marketing skills to sell your work effectively does not, by some weird law of inverse proportion, turn your art into bad art. We’re rich, complicated individuals full of potential, and we can in fact do both without sacrificing a damn thing.
No one can help you if your art is bad art. No one would have cared if the work that Kafka’s executor rescued wasn’t good. In this, Mark Lipsky is right: your first job is to make good, creative, risk-taking art. But I must insist that that is not your exclusive job. And art that never makes it into the public arena is just plain worthless. If you buy into the Starving Artist Myth, you will be depriving yourself of the opportunities you deserve, you will be short-changing the art you pretend to care about, and you will be denying the world of a voice that the world needs to hear. A double-edged lie that produces a triple-edged catastrophe. Banish the Starving Artist from your thinking, get out there and create, then work just as hard to make sure that you can share that creation with as many of the rest of us as you possibly can.
And for god’s sake, have a nice meal now and then. You deserve it.
Friday, May 21, 2010
That One Can Smile, and Smile, and Be a Villain
It’s from Hamlet, ranting about his family in the first act:
There’s something rotten in the state of California, and it’s called Proposition 16. And the people behind it, they smile and smile and tell you right to your face that this measure will give you more control over how the government spends your money, but in fact it’s really about stripping you of control and making sure that the state’s utility companies can retain their monopoly power.
Here’s the Official Summary provided to voters:
And here’s how Pacific Gas & Electric, which has provided all of the money funding the pro-16 effort, lies to you:
Their website is called www.taxpayersrighttovote.com. And on the home page, you are presented with this sensible and reassuring message:
First of all, local governments are not seeking to “take over private electric businesses,” either with or without letting local voters voice their opinions. The program in question is called Community Choice Aggregation, and it aims to provide competition in markets where one of the big public utilities has a monopoly. Customers may already choose, as individuals, whether they want to participate in the CCA or not, which sounds an awful lot like the free market at work. There’s a good summary of the program, as it was implemented in San Francisco, here.
So that’s one lie, right up front. An outright lie, a flat-out falsehood. But the bulk of their friendly message, their whole “we’re spending these millions of dollars to look out for you” campaign, turns on the notion that “voters deserve the right to have the final say about how our money is spent.” And ordinarily, I would consider voting for such a measure because yeah, if public money is going to be spent, then the public should have a voice in that decision.
But the thing they simply don’t mention at all on their home page, is in the first sentence of the official summary above: that any vote on a CCA program would require a two-thirds majority to pass.
Think about it. 66.6% percent of the voters would have to agree before any CCA program could go forward, anywhere, any time, every time. This is the entire thrust of Proposition 16, and how it actually denies choice to voters: because Pacific Gas & Electric knows damn well that if you required a two-thirds vote on everything, you couldn’t get a post office named for Mother Teresa.
PG&E doesn’t get to a discussion of this element of the measure until you’re three layers deep in the site, and here’s what they finally say, buried in the middle of the page:
So because everybody else is doing it, then it’s fine. But I think we’re all agreed that California has some devastating problems, and one of them is the two-thirds-approval requirement for all statewide budgets and any proposed tax increases. This means that minority Republicans have been able to block dozens of budget and tax initiatives at the legislative level, which is why so many of them go out to voters who are more easily swindled. I’ve written before about this failed attempt at direct democracy in California, so I won’t rehash the argument. But when a state is riding the road to ruin because of policies already in place, telling you that a measure should pass because it’s just like other measures already in place, that’s just pernicious and evil.
And that’s how they really lie to you. They tell you it’s about making sure you have choice, while rigging the system so that no one has any choice but to keep PG&E, or Southern California Gas, as their exclusive energy provider. No competition for lower rates, no incentive to produce clean energy, all the hideous faults of a monopoly system and none of the advantages of free-market competition.
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
RESOURCES: There’s a good, thorough summary of just why Prop 16 is “the worst measure on the June ballot" here, and a more balanced summary of the arguments at a lovely site called Ballotpedia, here.
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables--mete it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain--
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
There’s something rotten in the state of California, and it’s called Proposition 16. And the people behind it, they smile and smile and tell you right to your face that this measure will give you more control over how the government spends your money, but in fact it’s really about stripping you of control and making sure that the state’s utility companies can retain their monopoly power.
Here’s the Official Summary provided to voters:
Official summary: Requires two-thirds voter approval before local governments provide electricity service to new customers or establish a community choice electricity program using public funds or bonds.
And here’s how Pacific Gas & Electric, which has provided all of the money funding the pro-16 effort, lies to you:
Their website is called www.taxpayersrighttovote.com. And on the home page, you are presented with this sensible and reassuring message:
Right now local governments in California can spend public money or incur public debt to take over private electric businesses without letting local voters have the final say. That's why California needs Prop. 16. In tough economic times like these, voters deserve the right to have the final say about how our money is spent. Learn more about Prop 16 and join us to stand up for the Taxpayers Right to Vote - Yes on Prop 16.
First of all, local governments are not seeking to “take over private electric businesses,” either with or without letting local voters voice their opinions. The program in question is called Community Choice Aggregation, and it aims to provide competition in markets where one of the big public utilities has a monopoly. Customers may already choose, as individuals, whether they want to participate in the CCA or not, which sounds an awful lot like the free market at work. There’s a good summary of the program, as it was implemented in San Francisco, here.
So that’s one lie, right up front. An outright lie, a flat-out falsehood. But the bulk of their friendly message, their whole “we’re spending these millions of dollars to look out for you” campaign, turns on the notion that “voters deserve the right to have the final say about how our money is spent.” And ordinarily, I would consider voting for such a measure because yeah, if public money is going to be spent, then the public should have a voice in that decision.
But the thing they simply don’t mention at all on their home page, is in the first sentence of the official summary above: that any vote on a CCA program would require a two-thirds majority to pass.
Think about it. 66.6% percent of the voters would have to agree before any CCA program could go forward, anywhere, any time, every time. This is the entire thrust of Proposition 16, and how it actually denies choice to voters: because Pacific Gas & Electric knows damn well that if you required a two-thirds vote on everything, you couldn’t get a post office named for Mother Teresa.
PG&E doesn’t get to a discussion of this element of the measure until you’re three layers deep in the site, and here’s what they finally say, buried in the middle of the page:
Two-thirds voter approval is the standard for local General Obligation bonds for non-school related infrastructure and for local special taxes, both of which put taxpayers on the hook. Since 2002, California voters have given 2/3 voter approval to hundreds of important local projects with two-thirds majorities.
So because everybody else is doing it, then it’s fine. But I think we’re all agreed that California has some devastating problems, and one of them is the two-thirds-approval requirement for all statewide budgets and any proposed tax increases. This means that minority Republicans have been able to block dozens of budget and tax initiatives at the legislative level, which is why so many of them go out to voters who are more easily swindled. I’ve written before about this failed attempt at direct democracy in California, so I won’t rehash the argument. But when a state is riding the road to ruin because of policies already in place, telling you that a measure should pass because it’s just like other measures already in place, that’s just pernicious and evil.
And that’s how they really lie to you. They tell you it’s about making sure you have choice, while rigging the system so that no one has any choice but to keep PG&E, or Southern California Gas, as their exclusive energy provider. No competition for lower rates, no incentive to produce clean energy, all the hideous faults of a monopoly system and none of the advantages of free-market competition.
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
RESOURCES: There’s a good, thorough summary of just why Prop 16 is “the worst measure on the June ballot" here, and a more balanced summary of the arguments at a lovely site called Ballotpedia, here.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The First Journey Down the Rabbit-Hole
While writing my first novel I discovered my theme. Proust asserts that every writer only really has one theme, and every new work is a renewed attempt to express that theme, or a piece of it, better than the last work did. (If I could find the quote I would provide it, but those books are huge.) And so, while I was writing a novel that turned out to be about the way our lives are like stories that we tell to ourselves, I realized that this is the idea I will probably explore for my entire life. In my newest work, a play based on the infamous cadaver synod, I examine the ways institutions lie to us, but how the power of a good example, a good story, even if it’s just propaganda, can still transcend its manipulative origins.
Segue to this new blog.
As you can guess from the title, it will focus on the lies we’re told, and how those lies are used to exploit us. But from time to time I hope to also tell the other story, about how we’re able to, let’s just say, take a sad song and make it better. I’ll try to keep it light and entertaining, to restrain the impulse toward outrage that can make an outrageous subject seem muddy and clouded, thereby weakening its impact. But when anger is called for, angry I will be.
And now, a first taste of the kinds of things I’ll be dealing with:
Gift Cards and Calling Cards
For several years, my dearly-departed grandfather was fond of giving me, for Christmas, gift cards to restaurants I never visit. He didn’t know I never go to Outback Steakhouse or Chili’s, and there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just not the sorts of places I happen to go. In his mind I’m sure he figured that they were big chains, very popular, and surely I would have occasion to enjoy a nice meal sometime, and to think of him when I did.
But since I never go to those restaurants, the gift cards sat in a pile and languished. The money he spent was wasted, his good intentions squandered.
The restaurants love this.
Because it’s free money for them. Those gift cards sat in a pile for three, four, five years before I discovered cardpool.com and got cash for them. (And, presumably, they were then bought by someone who was actively seeking cards for those exact restaurants. Win-win, at last.) Five years of money that Outback Steakhouse was able to use, and collect interest on, without providing any kind of service whatsoever. Remember, too, that the value of a gift card actually decreases over time.
Yes, the value of the card is static: a $25 gift card is always worth $25. But if a burger cost $7.95 in 2009, then a group of three people could each have a burger and the whole meal would fit on one card. But if the cost goes up to $8.95 a year later, now they would have to add cash on top of the gift card amount. The card is the same, but what it will buy has decreased. So if the card sits in a pile for a year and then you go out to dinner, you’re still getting less than you would have when the card was new. Advantage: the restaurant. Disadvantage: you.
And if the card expires, as some do? Or if you simply never go, and you never discover a service like cardpool.com? Twenty-five bucks, multiplied by the hundreds or thousands of people like yourself. A boatload of free money to these places, for which they have provided absolutely nothing.
Calling cards are even worse.
The existence of these pernicious instruments has, thankfully, waned with the rise of the cellphone. But remember that there are prepaid cellular cards as well, which operate on the same principle: you prepay a set amount onto a card, then use that card to make local or, more often, long-distance calls. It was presented to the public as a great way for college students to stay in touch with home, without being saddled with big phone bills. Something that keeps families connected, what could possibly be wrong with that?
No one can possibly make a phone call that costs exactly $10. That’s what’s wrong with that.
If our hypothetical student makes a call that goes over the face amount of the card, his call might be cut off, or he might get charged for the overage on his bill. Neither is great, but whatever. But what the phone company loves, and hopes you’ll do a lot, is to make a call that ends up costing $9.78.
Because with just 22 cents left on the card, it’s almost certain that you will throw it away. A 22-cent loss is no big deal to you—but again, multiply it. Tens of thousands of people throwing away 5 cents, 22 cents, even a dollar or two. Free money to the phone companies, who have provided nothing in exchange. To follow our example to its conclusion, if 10,000 people leave exactly 22 cents on their respective cards, that adds up to $2,200 for the phone company. And I’m sure the number of cards out there vastly exceeds 10,000.
But you bought the card because they advertised it with warm rosy tones, talking about how you’ll be able to keep in touch with Johnny now that he’s gone off to school. When, in fact, they’re secretly hoping that Johnny will get so involved in school that he won’t call at all, that he’ll forget he has that stupid card in the first place. And if that means that your family disintegrates a little in the process, well, that’s fine—so long as they can get your free money.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch? The hell there ain’t. Trouble is, you’re never invited--rather, you’re the one providing it.
Segue to this new blog.
As you can guess from the title, it will focus on the lies we’re told, and how those lies are used to exploit us. But from time to time I hope to also tell the other story, about how we’re able to, let’s just say, take a sad song and make it better. I’ll try to keep it light and entertaining, to restrain the impulse toward outrage that can make an outrageous subject seem muddy and clouded, thereby weakening its impact. But when anger is called for, angry I will be.
And now, a first taste of the kinds of things I’ll be dealing with:
Gift Cards and Calling Cards
For several years, my dearly-departed grandfather was fond of giving me, for Christmas, gift cards to restaurants I never visit. He didn’t know I never go to Outback Steakhouse or Chili’s, and there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just not the sorts of places I happen to go. In his mind I’m sure he figured that they were big chains, very popular, and surely I would have occasion to enjoy a nice meal sometime, and to think of him when I did.
But since I never go to those restaurants, the gift cards sat in a pile and languished. The money he spent was wasted, his good intentions squandered.
The restaurants love this.
Because it’s free money for them. Those gift cards sat in a pile for three, four, five years before I discovered cardpool.com and got cash for them. (And, presumably, they were then bought by someone who was actively seeking cards for those exact restaurants. Win-win, at last.) Five years of money that Outback Steakhouse was able to use, and collect interest on, without providing any kind of service whatsoever. Remember, too, that the value of a gift card actually decreases over time.
Yes, the value of the card is static: a $25 gift card is always worth $25. But if a burger cost $7.95 in 2009, then a group of three people could each have a burger and the whole meal would fit on one card. But if the cost goes up to $8.95 a year later, now they would have to add cash on top of the gift card amount. The card is the same, but what it will buy has decreased. So if the card sits in a pile for a year and then you go out to dinner, you’re still getting less than you would have when the card was new. Advantage: the restaurant. Disadvantage: you.
And if the card expires, as some do? Or if you simply never go, and you never discover a service like cardpool.com? Twenty-five bucks, multiplied by the hundreds or thousands of people like yourself. A boatload of free money to these places, for which they have provided absolutely nothing.
Calling cards are even worse.
The existence of these pernicious instruments has, thankfully, waned with the rise of the cellphone. But remember that there are prepaid cellular cards as well, which operate on the same principle: you prepay a set amount onto a card, then use that card to make local or, more often, long-distance calls. It was presented to the public as a great way for college students to stay in touch with home, without being saddled with big phone bills. Something that keeps families connected, what could possibly be wrong with that?
No one can possibly make a phone call that costs exactly $10. That’s what’s wrong with that.
If our hypothetical student makes a call that goes over the face amount of the card, his call might be cut off, or he might get charged for the overage on his bill. Neither is great, but whatever. But what the phone company loves, and hopes you’ll do a lot, is to make a call that ends up costing $9.78.
Because with just 22 cents left on the card, it’s almost certain that you will throw it away. A 22-cent loss is no big deal to you—but again, multiply it. Tens of thousands of people throwing away 5 cents, 22 cents, even a dollar or two. Free money to the phone companies, who have provided nothing in exchange. To follow our example to its conclusion, if 10,000 people leave exactly 22 cents on their respective cards, that adds up to $2,200 for the phone company. And I’m sure the number of cards out there vastly exceeds 10,000.
But you bought the card because they advertised it with warm rosy tones, talking about how you’ll be able to keep in touch with Johnny now that he’s gone off to school. When, in fact, they’re secretly hoping that Johnny will get so involved in school that he won’t call at all, that he’ll forget he has that stupid card in the first place. And if that means that your family disintegrates a little in the process, well, that’s fine—so long as they can get your free money.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch? The hell there ain’t. Trouble is, you’re never invited--rather, you’re the one providing it.
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