Budgeting and Achieving the Lifestyle You Want

Source: Forbes

 I was recently talking to a friend of mine (yes, I myself have noticed that most of my posts beings referencing a conversation with someone or something of the sort, but this is how my ideas for this blog happen to be born: through conversations or events in my life), and we were talking about budgeting, keeping to budgets and how people relate to that. My friend if a young lady still, and she's not in a very good financial position inspite of all her efforts and having a very good job. From what I see and what she tells me, she's the one working to keep her family afloat, as neither of her parents have a stable income, or a good enough one, and her one sibling is not working.

I insist: she's quite young, she's barely in her middle twenties (I met her some years back through a book club I used to be part of).

I believe her parents don't have higher education, and both struggle with some mild forms of handicap, which might limit their chances to access higher paying jobs. One of them also prefers to be an enterpreneur in an industry that's either seasonal or don't get much of a demand nowadays, and the other is currently unemployed as they were laidoff by the company in a "sizing down" strategy. Inspite of that, the family has a tendency of living day-to-day and are fond of hosting get togethers, parties or to throw special celebrations of holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, that all in all consume a lot of resources. She is, at a certain point, aware that her family's relationship to money may not be the best, and she tries to manage her own expenses and income in a better way, but time and again she ends up going into these big spending events, and then budgets and resources to loans in order to "break even". And this is what got me thinking.

My friend suffers a lot of stress and has health issues stemming from many sources in her life, and I can't help to wonder if part of it also comes from the weight placed on her young shoulders. She does have dreams that would populate a Pinterest-worthy moodboard, with achieving independence by her 30th birthday, living by her own, in another country and so on. But are these only dreams meant to stay in the moodboard of the year, or are these achievable dreams? And if so, how could she achieve them?

The capability to achieve our dreams depend on a lot of factors, and sadly not everybody can achieve them all, and in some cases people are not willing to take the steps needed to get on the road to achieve some of their dreams, for various reasons that make sense in their own realities. Setting aside the fact that nobody shall judge what others do with their lives just from what they see from the outside, these would be some considerations one could make when setting goals that one really wants to achieve:

1. Be aware of your resources and your commitments

It's nice to dream with being a millionaire or a princess or a super successful business owner, but where do we really stand? This doesn't mean that you can't dream with being rich if you are poor, but that you need to be realistic and consider what do you have at your disposal to achieve that goal. Sometimes dreams stay just as dreams because we think that just by dreaming things and manifesting them, they will magically come true. And be aware that I am a witch and I believe in magick.

Some dreams will take more time, more effort, and there is a chance that some dreams will depend on other people, and those we can't control.

Then, the other part of the equation is about what claims are on our resources. If you have debts, dependant family members, commitments that occupy your time, energy and resouces and leave you little space to maneuver or none at all. Sometimes it's not even something you could leave behind (in a sudden, self-centered, unemotional scenario), but it's something that goes along with you, like a condition or a sickness that requires treatment, or that keeps you from getting other sources of income to improve your situation.

This doesn't mean that, if any of these factors are present, you should give up your dreams, but rather that you must factor them to make better decisions.

2. Consider what you can actually achieve and how much time you would need for it

Once you have a clear picture of what your resources are and what are the claims on those resources, you can start moving around the pieces and deciding what would you need to achieve your dreams. The first step is a kind of reality check where we can actually see what do we have to work with to get what we want.

In the case of my friend, she tells me she wants to move out of her parents' home by the time she's 30. In order to do that, she should be considering things like where she wants to live, whether she wants a house of her own or to rent a place, where and how much could she spend on that, how much would she need for appliances, furniture and how much the utilities could dent her resources, but then also, she needs to consider if she would be still supporting her parents and her sibling, or if she's comfortable letting them go and allowing them to live within their means. In a cold fashion, many readers could think that yes, she should let her parents fend for themselves and maybe learn the hard way that they can't spend more than what they make, but if we are honest, that's not how families (or many families) work, and so, in the end, my friend could be struggling with supporting two households on one salary.

This should give her pause and make her consider what can she achieve, and which pieces can she move (say, talk to her parents that she does intend to move out, that she won't be able to help them anymore, so maybe they should start working on their spending priorities), which depend on her, which depend on others, over which she has control to change and which are out of her reach.

These calculations could help her design a timeline for her dreams. For example, let's say that she does talk to ger parents and her sibling and they agree not to burden her income up to an x%. She also realizes that she could do better if she has a degree in something marketable, or a particular certification, or maybe she would have a better chance abroad with companies that pay better her skills. If she decides to take that road, she would have to commit to getting that degree, enrolling into the academy to get that certification or start to apply to a work visa as well as to positions in companies in the country or countries she had found would pay her better.

3. Make a Plan

Finally, when the resources, the commitments and the possible requirements to get to our dreams are identified, and we can see what are our possibilities, we can start making plans. These plans include not only budgets, but also schedules and task lists of what we need to achieve our dreams. This is the point where we map out our road towards our dreams.

Now, plans can be the point where all comes crumbling down, if we make unrealistical plans. For this, not only do we need to have discipline, but we need to know ourselves and know not only how much leeway do we need, but also what do we need to stay motivated. Let's not make plans that assume we can save up the 99% of our income, that we will live from eating the grass of the park and will never get sick or have an emergency. Let's not pretend either that we can live a life that  consists constantly of days of 8 hours of work, 8 hours of study, 4 hours of side hussles and 4 hours of sleep.

To make a realistic plan you need to understand yourself. Watch yourself, check how much energy you have what can you realistically achieve in a week, how much you spend and how that changes for a period of time. Study yourself as you would study a research subject. Once you know yourself, your habits, your needs and your patterns, make pilot tests: try out different habits, the ones you have devised to achieve your goals, and see how you feel about them, how realistic, achievable they are. Don't worry, there's no failure there, this is just a test. Try it out six weeks, evaluate the results and tweek it, when you need to.

Maybe savings is easier to try out, but studying isn't. Well, check out some of the classes you intend to take, and do a mock-try. Go to the campus, stay there reading, maybe you can get into the class just to listen to it (ask the instructor for permission first!), and calculate the commuting time, and how tired you are after. To test out online classes, try watching videos on the subject of your interest, on the same lenght of the class, at the same time, and see how you feel. There are ways to run tests before you commit, all you need is a dab of creativity.

When you find a test-plan that works for you, recalculate your steps, how much resources you would need to invest, how much time it would take you, how you can take advantage of that time, and set it in motion.

To give you an idea, I recently decided that it might be time for me to move to another company to work. I do have a good income, but I feel that I could do more and that I could also be better paid for what I can do. Now, I still have some debts which I would like to pay off before I move to another job (as there is the chance that the entry level job of the next place I go to won't pay me as much as my current job initially). I made the calculations, and I came to the conclusion that, with a budget plan I have devised and I have already tried out, I could be debt free in two years. This means that I'll stay in the company at least two years (more if things change and a better position in here opens up). I won't use up that time just working and paying up my debts, but rather I decided to use those two years I have given myself to improve my CV. I'm checking jobs I would be interested in and looking at the skills they require. I write those down and I have started looking up free tutorials online to acquire those skills. Yes, I could go with paid courses, but why spend money on courses for things I could get for free to get the basics and then spend the money on more advanced classes? At least, that's my logic: now I place my priority on cancelling my debts, staying on top of my budget to be able to affort all my acquired commitments and then getting all the priming, basic knowledge I can on the things I want to add to my CV.

In two years, when I'm debt free and with a fuller, better equipped CV, I'll start the job searching process, hopefully allowing me to get to a position that would be higher and better paid than the one I could get right now. It could take me time, because I would get older and I'm already of an age that's not so desirable for many companies, or at least for certain positions, but I would be still, in a better position in two years, if I stick to my plan.

It could still end up in nothing, my plan could fail and I could remain where I am, with the same position, but this plan won't ruin me, won't require me to take risks I could otherwise avoid, and yet still it has a better chance to get me to where I want to go than if I sat on my butt mopping and dreaming of one day being in a better place.

Broken Trust

Trust is a very fragile commodity, which once it's lost, it can never be recovered again. Even when it might be repaired through a lot of work and dedication, the cracks remain and - in the best of cases - it won't be the same as it was before it suffered damage.

Recently I had a fallout with an acquintance I used to care for dearly. Last year, as the health crisis affected many around the world, this person lost their job. They are a physician, so some weeks after losing their previous job, they found a new one at a State hospital, which is a magnificent opportunity for any physician. They were there for a few weeks and then sent me a message asking me for money for some tests, so they could keep their job. It was a requirement from the hospital. The test were expensive (they said), and their family had helped them get most of the money, except the last, like US$100. I asked them why did they had to pay when the hospital was supposed to give them the test, and they said that the hospital itself was very slow and HHRR only have them a few days to get the test.

I thought it was maybe because of the pandemic, and though it was stupid and the hospital couldn't afford to lose able, trained physicians, I didn't doubt my friend and gave them the money. They promised me to give it back with their first check. First thing they would pay out, they promised.

That was in July of last year.

They kept working, and then started posting pictures of the books and stuff they bought for themselves on their social media, and I've got annoyed. I had planned on refusing to take their money when they would give it back, but as they didn't and instead let the months go by without a word, I grew disappointed. At one point I mentioned it to some friends, and thanks goodness I did. Little after one of them told me that this person had sent them a message about some terrible family tragedy related to money, and asked them to lend them money. They were doing the same thing again!

I took to messaging and wrote to all my friends to ask them to please not to lend this person money. When they asked me why, I explained them my case. This way I also realized that this person also asked other people for money for this tests they told me their family had gathered the money and needed only as much as I gave them. And this person also went asking others for money for this family tragedy.

I wrote this person and asked them to pay me back. They claimed to be so ashamed, but had this family tragedy and so on and on. (No mention of all those months when they could have honored their word, mind you).

In the end, I came out with my story with all of my group of friends, as a way to protect them from this person's schemes - as I also learned that the State had actually suspended those tests because they needed the physicians - and also confronted this person privately. I told them I knew it was all a lie, and I just hoped they sought help. This person got worked up and reacted angrily.

I talked the issue with my friends, and they said probably this person has an addiction issue. I wouldn't go as far, but I do guess they have issues, if they go around asking money from others and avoiding to pay it back, and that they resource to pity to get the money, and promises they have no intention to keep.

Some people told me, what would I do if this person showed me proof that the tests were real. (This person sent me a photo of a printed paper were the tests were requested). The issue isn't "just" whether the tests are real. The issue is the whole package of going to several people with the same story, and asking money over and over, never giving back the money, the cavalier attitude of showing off purchases after promising to pay back the lent money with their first paycheck, and going at the same tactic again.

What would a paper prove? If the tests are real and the family tragedy is real, how does that make it right that they have milked their friends for money? Now what proof do we have that they actually used to money to pay for those tests and help with that tragedy? How do we know if they really needed it? And even if they did need it for that, what paper can account for the fact that they never bothered paying the debts back?

The lesson here, children, is the following: don't let yourself be gaslighted, dissuaded from your point and your right to be angry because the offender explains of half-explains a part of your griefs.

Proofs can be forged, excuses can be made, but broken trust can never be made whole again.

The Work and the Artist

Photo poperty of Stormberry

It's not uncommon now to see boycott movements against a given brand based on an economic practice, or a social position the owners of the brand take on a given subject. We have seen this with different brands and different stores and companies with different degrees of success. One could say this was an early form of Cancel Culture, where people - depending on their believes and the values they uphold - would choose to stop buying something or start buying something depending on how the behavior or the believes of the company or brand alight with theirs.

The point behind of these acts of boycott or support are based on the idea that the most effective way to protest in today's world it's through our money, specially when it comes to companies that sell us things and services, or people who need us in a way to make money.

With some things it might be easy to express your support or to withdraw it, because there are many other options. For instance, when I withdrew my support from Starbucks because of their horrendous online Customer Service, I took to look up other coffeeshops and I also returned to my previous favorite coffee brand, and thus left my Starbucks days behind. We also see this sort of behavior when people pointedly choose to consume locally produced products or small business products or even buy as much as possible black owned brands or so.

Things get more complicated when the brandor company you wish to no longer to support belongs to an industry or branch with little other options, such as mobile telephones. For instance, what would you do if the company that makes your favorite mobile phones turn out to be involved in employee exploitation, or employs child labour, supports slavery, or corrupt politicians, or the deforestation of the Amazonas, or so on? Sure, you can say you will buy your next mobile phone from another brand, BUT what if the other brand is also sketchy? What if this given brand you used to support has a whole linking of products and you would have to replace everything? It makes it more sketchy, right?

It may happen also that there are brands you really, really love, that have a superior quality or the kind of service and attention of detail that really makes the difference for you, and so leaving them becomes hard. What then? Morals over utility? Are you ok with something that involves something you disaprove of just because the service or the product is really good? Can you make a separation between the product and their politics or the CEO's personal believes and/or behavior?

Well, and what happens when it's an artist whose work you really love, but the artist stands for or has done things you condemn? Is it ok to keep consuming their work and keep loving it even when what they have done or said is henious?

The usual way to put it in context is: if Hitler would have written a really awesome book or made the best movie on the planet or composed the best song ever, would you still consume the piece of art even if he was who he was and done what he has done?

This is a question that has hit many fans for a time now. The discussion also tends to be twisted a bit - in my personal opinion - by  saying "if the artist was someone awful, shall their art be also considered awful?". 

Here are my two cents in this discussion.

Property of Stormberry

There are levels at which the Art and the Artist are separate. The artist ca be a jerk, but the art it creates can have a high artistic value. It's the same way as a nice, good person who is also an artist doesn't necessarily makes good art too. Talent isn't correlated with morals, goodness of heart or values upheld.

Now, unlike the products and services normally traded, Art tends to carry a part of the moral world of the Artist. It might be more subtle in plastic arts or music, as it can be in literature and poetry, but as an Artist creates, they translate part of their world vision into their art, so chances are that the message is somewhere there. With the consuming of the art, you are also consuming the message, and it might be a message you don't approve of. Yes, maybe it's not so easy to see or perceive, and it might be that the point of discord in question doesn't even appear at all in the art. So what then?

This is a personal call, something you will have to decide now and again, each time to face such a situation, but what I believe is the following:

In the end, the Artist lives out of the money they make with their art, just like a company lives out of the products and services they make. Yes, one singer can't justbe replaced so easily with another, nor a painter so easily with another, and even less a moviemaker with another or a writer with another, BUT you can stand for your believes and choose to stop buying their art. It doesn't mean you have to burn everthing you have of them, or necessarily give it away, but you can choose to show your disappointment by no longer acquiring their work.

If you consider that their transgression isn't so bad, or you are not sure they did do what they are being accused of, by all means, keep supporting them. Because when you pay for their work that's exactly what you do: support them. Art isn't (usually) for free: it has a price so that the artist and the indstry behind it can make a profit and a living out of it.

In today's world much has been taken from us, this very blogpost means sweet nothing in the great scheme of things, but the coin? The coin we spend or save are the one powerful voice we have left.

Getting Ready

I'm a few hours away from starting my new work year. New Work Year at the old place, the company for which I've worked already eleven years. Wow, that feels good. :-) I know that, for some people, spending more than four years at the same company is synonymous of stagnating, being caught, swamped, but I'm from that old school of thinking that values stability, thus a long term job, years invested in the same company are meaningful. You don't want to be a job-hopper, after all, a high-churning-rate worker, someone in whom the employer can't trust because you might take off any time, wasting all the invested time and money of the company in further education. However, be it as it may - and allow me a moment to remind you again how grateful I am that I've a job, and such a good one - I really feel that two weeks off were short. I still want to be on vacation, I still want time to be lazy and stay at home, wake up late and wear comfy clothes. Oh well, I guess I'm only human.

My holidays have been spent quite fruitfully. I didn't go anywhere, as I usually do on my vacations, but rather stayed at home, slept - which is the best and most efficient way of spending any free time, if you ask me - got in touch a little with the more alternative side of my spirituality (yes, I've been dabbling into the Pagan, but in a way that maybe Pagans wouldn't approve, as I call in God), read a some very good books (from my Goodreads 2014 challenge, I've got to read 23 out of the 24 books I intended to read), and also did some cleaning and arranging in my room. That was funny. actually. Did I mention it already? That I dusted the whole room, because I wanted to change my bedclothes, and since I was dusting I rearranged my shelves? Yeah, one small thing becomes a big one.

I also made my monthly budget for 2015 and was quite... surprised at actually how tight my budget is for this coming year. Yep, lots of new expenses I didn't have last year (since I have a new car, Nate), but also due to the savings plan I committed to for this year. Well, I'm happy I can do it, so I'll do my best and try to stick to the plan. I'm trying to take these things more seriously, keep a tighter control on my wallet than what I have shown so far, so I don't face unpleasant surprises. I can tell you that I definitively hated receiving my credit card's balance every month and see it grow just because I always ended up spending my money on other things rather than paying my debt. Well, that was in 2014, and I won't let that happen in 2015. I want to be happy when I check my bank balances, I want to be happy at the end of the year, not horrified because I have to spend my saved up money on paying the results of my uncontrolled spending.

My desk.
After I took the picture I still changed a few things, got a new desk calendar on which I can write, perfect for penpalling.

One other thing I did was tackle my accumulated mail-pile. I'm proud of myself, because I managed to pretty much get back on track with all my letters. I've only four letters to answer, though these are from my chattier friends, so they might take a while. However, I no longer have a pile of unopened letters with accusing date stamps on them staring at me and making me feel guilty. I don't know how many of those penpals are going to still want me as their friend (I know of those who still do, and I'm so grateful for that!), but finally I'm going back to it. To each of them, in the very tone and spirit of our conversation, I explained to them what happened, and then answered their letters according to what I deemed still relevant. Lord, I had letters unanswered since 2013! But I'm reclaiming my life and the things I love to do, and hope this never happens again. or at least not again in the medium run.

Personal Finances, Friends or Foes

After accompanying my godmother through the ordeal of her messy finances, I came to think about how difficult is actually for any regular person to keep their personal finances in check and away from becoming a raging monster that takes over their lives and fills them with fear and endless hopelessness.

The thing about personal finances is that they mix two things that generate quite different emotions in people. From one side we've got money, which is a thing we love to have in order to spend it (and fear to owe!), an from the other side we have numbers, and a large part of people (maybe most of them) generally dislike having to deal with them. Ofter there's also a kind of dread at the result of adding or substracting long rows of numbers. Certainly it can be fun to go shopping and buy everything you  desire, but it's quite something different to then start crunching numbers and add up all  your shopping sprees and card-flashing experiences to find out how much do you own in your credit card (and whether you are capable of paying it all out) or to realize you've gonr out of the black numbers and deep into the red.

You certainly don't need to be an elderly lady with memory problems, paying twice the same amenity bill or counting as her own debts the money she pays to others as well as the money paid to her. You could be any regular person from the street, with a good, stable income, a home, well dressed, with a car and looking as the poster image of middle-high class success, and yet you could be deep in a personal finance crisis simply because you decide to ignore things as basic as hoy much is really your household's income and what you spend in and how much you spend.

Credit cards and loans cab give us a fake sense of freedom or opportunities, where you do beleive you can spend far beyond what you make. However this is all money isn't yours and you must pay it back to the lender, and often at a given price, conveniently called interest rate. People loosing their homes and their whole lives due to debts often started the whole mess with credit cards or quick "consumer loans" that paid for these freedoms and a lifestyle they wanted but that they couldn't really afford,a nd all those expenses quickly rose far beyond their paying possibilities. 

Personal finances start with a very simple base block: what's your income and what you need to pay. Don't consider the limit of your credit card, or the loans you can take, the money you can beg from others, just your income. That's your limit. If you want happy, healthy personal finances, you won't trespass that number.

From there you need to take in consideration all those amounts you need to pay. This includes all your amenity bills, the payments on loans, insurances, taxes and similar payments you must do according to where you live. It's a good idea for those payments that occur on a periodicity different than the periodicity of your income (say you get paid once a month, and you have a tax you must pay once a year or an insurance you must pay quarterly, or a class you must pay twice a year and so on) to put away a proportional part of your income (as if you were making part payments!) so when the time comes to pay the amount you don't have to cut a larger chunk from that income, because you've saved part of it already, so the budget you planned won't take a swing to the jaw, and that month too you could be able to live and spend the same way you do it any other month.

You can apply the same principle for gifts, for instance. You can do it for the whole year, programming when you want to give a gift (birthdays, celebrations, Christmas) and how much you want to pay in each case, or you can do it only for really big time where buying gifts could eat up your income, like Christmas. Whatever the case you want to consider, plan ahead! Make at home a gift fund and when the time comes to buy presents, you can tap that source and still keep your ordinary experiences as usual. Now, if you do this, plan very well, and don't exceed your fund! If you have a general grift fund, and aunt Margaret's birthday is coming up, and you planned your fund considering you'll spend $20 or less on her gift, don't go spending $100!

However, lets go back a little, because before you start planning for gift funds, you must consider other important matters such as food, medicine, transportation and similar matters you need frequently (this means more than twice a week, and every week!). Consider carefully how much money you plan to spend weekly on each of these items (yes, piece of advice, visualize these weekly instead of monthly or quarterly or any other period! There can be variations through the week, as usually our weekends are different from our work days - or however you have them - and sometimes we have a "date night" fixed or a "friends night"), and then consider for each of them as many alternatives as they are realistically available for you. Chic or not chic are not valid considerations when you are talking about your money, specially when you can easily bypass spending over 80€ on a lunch at a posh restaurant with coworkers by eating brought homemade meals that took you back 0,50€, simply by saying that you prefer to make sure what really goes into what you eat. So yes, really consider leaving the car at home for work and take the public transportation if that proves more cost efficient (waking up earlier doesn't cost you a dime, but if your personal safety is at risk, fuck it, take the car!), and carrying your healthy homemade meals to the office, or selecting other restaurant options that might prove to be less expensive. I encourage you also to investigate restaurants in the are with delievery service. They might be affordable - at least a couple of times, if you don't want to carry your tupperware all the time, and it has the benefit of having a menu that helps you do the numbers when you do your budget!

Keep your recipes and keep them all in one place, in orderly fashion, and make a habit out of  checking your  financial progress week after week, not just at the end of the month. This way you can recalculate in the case of an unexpected event and have time to correct your numbers, rebalance your budget and close the month in black. Preventive and corrective actions are better than trying to fix the crisis when there's nothing to be done but pay and you have no idea how.

Finally , always leave a margin for any unexpected expense - here's where you can tap when you need to apply your corrective action! Otherwise you tap on your food money or your transportation, your meds or your yoga class!. Also try to create an Emergency Fund. These would be savings that you are not touching nor you plan to spend on something in the future, but rather some money you put away in case you financial situation changes (you lose your job, you have a child and need to send them to a college much more expensive than you originally planned for, you have a medical issue or someone in your family, etc.). These emergency funds can become real lifesavers, and I can testify of that as I'm currently living out of mine. When you have an income, a fix amount - as much as you can afford - or not so fix, but as much as you can afford - and that could be what remains of your safety margin, if you haven't spent it - could go to a separate account at the bank, or any safe option you can think of. 

Don't buy stock on it! That's your Emergency Money, not your gambling money. It's money you are not supposed to lose, and in the market, in stocks, everything can be lost.

Seek to prepare a budget such that's realistic, that you can keep, that won't starve you, and stick to it! And if you can save withing that budget - for your Emergency Fund, for retirement, for a new plasma TV - better! But whatever you do, whatever budget you plan, RESPECT YOUR INCOME!

You can track and do your finances and your budget on a whiteboard on the kitchen, keep them in a notebook in a drawer or anyway it suits you, any way it works for You. I would personally recommend you to keep your finances on an Excel sheet, and depending on how good you are with Excel you can have it do a lot of things for you (add, substract, calculate how much is left for every month, how much you've saved, how much you owe, how much time could it take you to pay back a debt or how much time would it take you to reach an amount in savings to get something you want...), but that's me.

Please take a minute to consider your personal finances, face the skeletons in your wallet and dare to be financially happy and healthy.

This Last Week When I Was Out

It's been a week since I last wrote, and not few things happened in this week. First of all, there was the "building matter" and this time it wasn't another evacuation - though I would have really enjoyed that - but an article that appeared in the newspapers about the building and how Supercalifragilistic it is.  This, well, rose a lot of reactions, like some utterly stupid - there's no other word for it -  reader who wrote a comment at the electronic site of the paper saying that we "shouldn't be so lazy" and instead of waiting 45 minutes for the elevator, perhaps we "should climb the stairs". Yeah, why don't that s.o.b. come here and climb 16 flights in those stairs and see how he or she likes it? I mean, I would personally climb the stairs, and I was prepared to it, but I really, really need air, not to mention how unpleasant it is to work steated up. Dude, really, think before opening your trap.

To my surprise, I also found people IN the building upset about the article for an array of reasons. So said that such a note shouldn't have been published, that the problems we experience in the building are "absolutely normal" and proper of "a new building to which one has to get used to". Dude, the building was inspected before we moved in, tests were ran - so it was said - it took an extra month to receive it because it had to be corrected (the Fire Department requested for an external emergency exit, which hasn't been built yet, nor it looks like it would), and we get here and there's not a single day, since June 16th that something doesn't work? The freaking building is supposed to be smart! Or perhaps it is smart, but also spoiled and it's throwing a temper tantrum? (That, or the building is Smart. Yeah, Maxwell Smart.)

Also heard comments berating the publishing, saying that by venting this in the eye of the public, the image of the company would deteriorate. Hn. Let me see: the Government don't allow the company to do any investment, as th money is needed to pay the Governments trips and stunts. Add to it, a former employee of quite a high position is in a trial, where also a former President is charged with accounts of corruption in the Alcatel case. Some years ago the Director of Mobile Telecommunications of that time summoned a press conference to announce the opening of prepaid mobile services, when the service wasn't ready and the technical tests weren't positive, and said Director happily anounced the sale in three days. Three days later he was burried in his office or out of the country on the money of the company and let the technicians to explain why the service couldn't be offered. Then the most recent former CEO of the company, discharged this May, is being held on trial for fraud, as he used public funds for his personal use, as well as allowing his wife, who was not an employee of the company, to run it to her like and destroy the work of experienced employees, not to mention to use public funds for her own means. So no, I don't really think that this note on the building is the stain that would mar the company.

I do understand that things must be kept in the company and seek to solve them without pulling a Lohan or a Spears on the deal, but when the management is oblivious about the matters and the problems are issued with e-mails belittling the sitaution, things must be escalated.

This week also, I've got a new phone. ^_^ But please, don't think it's (yet another) compulsive purchase of mine. It was a real need. Really. My old phone, an adorable purple Sony Ericsson w380 broke. I bought it around two years ago (perhaps a week or two before I met Kari) and I loved it! Phone in Hungarian, preloaded with PannonGSM (now Telnor) stuff and all that, and lets be honest: I'm a sucker for technology in Hungarian. However my phone was reaching the 2 years, which makes it old - for me - so I was thinking in replacing it anyway. I definitively needed something with Internet, since I'm a Twitter and I'd love to tweet my way around like all my other Twitter friends, not to mention going bonkers tweeting during out #twittertours. Then, of course, there's also the matter of my PDA. After years of using my PDA it broke. Yes, I had a Palm Pilot m130 that worked adorably, but before I could replace it Palm Pilot closed the business and sould out to HP, and you know when will I buy HP: on neverday. (Have enough HP experience at the office with the HP laptops and printers and stuff, I really know what they are like and I'm not paying for them). Ever since the begining of this year I went back to basics, with a small agenda. Yep, paper agenda. You know, those that don't beep, that have only one way to be looked at, that require you to write up every single event of a given repetitive task, that don't expand when you need to accomodate more activities. Yeah, those. Well, a few ups, however: don't need batteries, don't disappear on you if you haven't charged them, let you stick stickers, draw, write in code, use colors... One thing for the other, right? 

So, the point is that I needed a new phone, and I was planning on getting it by the end of this year in Hungary. Well, after an improptu decision, I was going, so I might as well use the time to update my phone, right? Not to mention that it doesn't look swell to work on the telecommunications business and have some old phone on you.

Since I'm basically a Sony Ericsson-gal, I was checking their offer and was really thinking about an Xperia. When, how much and all those questions were faraway from me. Someday, some, somehow. The idea of an iPhone also fluttered around my brain. Then it happened. The Happening.

It was early Friday morning and, as usual, my phone rang to wake me up. Yes, only I left it charging and as I reached for it it fell on the floor and the joint between both sides of the clamshell broke. Oh hell. Clamshell phones are quite delicate, particularly this joint as it controls stuff like the answering of an incoming call and so on. The phone itself was still working, but when you opened it or closed it, it didn't have that claa that push it open or close, as it should. It was getting stuck. Well, I wasn't going to walk around with a broken phone, nor I was going to wait for it to finally die on me. Once at the office, I went down to the Lobby, to the Kölbi store and checked out the phones. I didn't really had any phone in mind, so I just saw a big banner of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, which was a Sony Ericsson and had all I needed, and pointed at it.

"I want that, but I want it in a plan, with Internet."

The salesguy got me the phone, programmed it, printed out the contract, talked over the monthly fee ($80), told me I'd be paying it from next month on, and just like that, I had a new phone. It gave me a lot of trouble, truth to be told, as the new thing wasn't behaving like any other Sony Ericsson I have had so far, and I had have so far three of them!, but little by little we have been getting acquainted, and even though it hasn't behaved like any of my other SE, this one and I are getting along swell. Haven't named it yet, and I haven't named any phone lately, but I think this one deserves a Scandinav/Scandinavish name. Vesa? Eric?Sven? Sven-Eric, like the cop in Sunstorm? Solstorm? Still to be decided.

Then this same week I had this rich, wrapping messaging with a new penpal of mine, with whom I've took off and flew across the pink and purple skies of the soul. The long, almost daily messages written in such a fashion I felt as Henry Miller penpaling with Anais Nin (me reading Tropic of Cancer may have something to do with the feeling, but may not also), were topped with a delicious letter from her in my P.O.Box on Saturday. Oh the delight! Her letters telling ne as much as her words, the scent of the paper wrapping warm arms around be, from a new friend greeting me as an old one.

This past week felt as heaven!

Well, not to mention that I've worked on fixing the last chapter of the thesis and I've got an SMS from the tutor sayin that "we should unify the document for lecture and defense". We are one step ahead of you, Sir!

To finish it up, I've come up with an idea for a book. After reading a half-assed article in Harper's Bazaar, I've decided I'll compose a book on how to pack for a travel, based on my experience in the matter. Kinda like a "how to do" book with some frappy title like "How to pack and don't kill yourself or the suitcase in the process". How about that?

Happy new Week!

Two Down, Two to Go

*cowboy music* ♪♪ Pananananannnnn! Pwaaa Pwaaa Pwaaaaaaaa! Pananananaaaaannn! Pwaaa Pwaaaa Pwaaaaaa! Pananananaaann! Pwaa Pwa-Pwa-Pwa-Pwaaaaaa! Pananananaaaan! Pwaaa Pwaaaaaaaaaaa! ♪♪ *cowboy music* The day was sunny. It was a perfect day to meet The Rival face-to-face and fight. It was a Western Showdown, where the Quicker Draw would prevail, the Slower would have to leave town. Saturday Morning. That was the date. The expectations of the Town were high, and as the moment came close, women rushed the children inside, men closed the window panes of stores and pubs. The hour came. A quick draw, some gunshots were heard echoing in the space, sound ricocheting from the walls, and a pained moan. The Quicker Draw, know as The Fastest Card of This Side of The Mississipi belted her gun again, safe in the holster, cocked back, safety in, and watched from under the rim of her Stetson how the golden rival, once so powerful was reduced to a piece of plastic. Another credit card debt cancelled. She smirked but still didn't claim victory. Like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, these rode in four. Pestilence and Death were dealt with. War and Famine were yet to be taken care of.

Well, Wild, Wild West Story aside, yes, this Saturday I paid off and cancelled the debt swelling in the second of my credit cards. Hell, no sweeter emotion has been known to men. *thinking about it and making a mental list of all sweet emotions known to men* Nope, not one as GREAT and FULFILLING as getting rid of debt. These two, now brought to 0 were the ones I labelled as "The Dangerous Cards". Higher limits, higher interest rates: death traps sugarcoated in gold and platinum. The feeling was much like finally getting the divorce papers from a troublesome marriage. Now we are free from each other, the card don't hold me down, and whenever we meet again, it will be on my terms, on my watch, no strings attached. No more rabid spending, no more spending and not checking the amount spent. No more payments under the Cancelling Amount and as over the Minimal Payment as possible. No. Now it is a matter of rational shopping, and paying the whole debt. The card is back to be my bitch. (Excuse my vocabulary.)

This Saturday was an awesome day for me. Not only I slaughtered the second Dangerous Card, but I also found out that I can finally pay my Oriflame bills at a far more convenient bank! Yes! No more 3 hour lines to pay a bill! It was also my Dad's birthday and I was totally out of ideas about what to give him, because the one thing I had thought so was unavailable. Damned. However, I made a great choice by buying for him a light green guayavera. In truth, nothing pleases more a pro-Latin American man than a traditional guayavera shirt. So, I pulled that off nicely too! Dad was beyond himself.

I made some ground meat rissoles or patties and some rice, since Mom wasn't feeling well (she may have eaten something bad, because she was complaining about her tummy, but then she was well), which turned out to be great. Well, I was having a great day, so no wonder! So, inspite of Mom feeling a bit under the weather for a few hours, Saturday was one of those "Nothing Can Go Wrong" days. Have you had any of those? You know, those days when you are on the top of the world, the Universe seems aligned to please you and everything is just good. Yeah, that was this Saturday for me.

I spent my day resting, watching TV, wolfing on coke, chocolate icecream with chocolate whipped cream, chocolate waffle sticks and sugared figs, reading mangas and basking in the feeling of freedom being recovered away from the debt chains the bank had me tied down with for so many years. This movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic" came to my mind, and yes, the feeling of being able to pay your dues and elicit pleasure from it, of waving away the Siren Call of windowshops and tell all the sparkly, fancy, pretty things in there "Yes, you are gorgeous indeed, but I don't really need you". The movie wasn't one that really deserved much of my attention, I even considered it somewhat overdone and stupid, irrational at merely suggesting that you can solve all your credit card problems by holding a garage sale of all your things. Lets just be honest: how many of us can do that? Outside the U.S., where it seems garage sales are everyday happenings.

Now, thought I still think the movie is a bit overdone and too fairly-tale-like, the remastered message goes: you can bit your debt, you just have to work it! (And above all, you must be able to STOP before the cards go Godzilla on You!) There is a way out, you just have to stick to it! It is hard, I won't lie, and it's gonna take time, and some times lots and lots of time, but if you are driven, if you are determinated and assume the sacrifices you can make it work. Be happy with all the little victories you conquer, but do not celebrate falling back to the same rathole you just climbed from. Keep kicking and pushing and working and fighting until you are free. And once you are Free, cherish the feeling, embrace your status and defend it!

You can do it, you just have to really believe that you can fly.

The Million Dollar Question - Literally

When you are a gray spot in the bigger gray picture, often whatever you have to say goes completely unnoticed to the world. You are gray spot in the bigger gray picture if you are not famous, and I mean Celebrity Deathmatch famous, not like today's Real World Stupid Alka-Seltzer celebrities. So, basically you and me are gray spots on the tapestry of the human universe, and there's nothing wrong with it. Like Max (played by the astonishing Vanessa Redgrave) said in Mission Impossible, "Anonimity... is like a warm blanket" (quote taken from Wikiquote), so why shall you be unhappy with it? Yeah, my point exactly.

Thing is that, as a gray spot, you still can see a lot of things in the world and do unthinkable stuff, such as "think" and "draw conclusions". You are not expected to do so, as you are basically cattle that produces statistics and generates votes for Presidential Elections. This is how I put my pretty little head to all kind of unproductive and completely meaningless tasks such as follow the national devisa market's pulse and try to find out what could be happening there. I formulated so my theories, which were either wooed by people "much better prepared for the task", and even contradicted entirely by shinier spots of our humble national tapestry.

In Costa Rica the topic of what the dollar (American dollar) does next is of HUGE importance, basically because there's no availability of other devisas nor any interest in them. The Euro, though has timidly entered the market, doesn't have an independent value, but a value always expressed in dollars. Naturally, this has given chance to some less-than-respectable banks to refuse to take dollars for Euros, and instead buy the dollars, then sell them and THEN sell the Euros. Tricky, huh? Oh, and this happened to me in a State Owned Bank, in case you wonder. Now, this narrowness doesn't only show in the devisa supply, but for instance also in the fact that the country rushed like hell and made a HUGE deal out of the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. (though since then we have like 20 FTA's, and even one with China, which, naturally, will leave us poor and gaping, but then, that's the opinion of this gray spot), and up to recently the only language that was promoted as a foreing language was English. People ACTUALLY thought that outside Costa Rica people either spoke Spanish or English.

The position of the dollar in our market strenghtened year after year for over 20-25 years with a system of micro-devaluations, where each day the dollar was one cent of colon more expensive than the day before. This gap was widened through the years. This, naturally, helped the importing industry by buying at some price in dollars outside, pay that with a given amount of colones, and then selling it in the country for quite the same amount in dollars, transferred to colones, and get even more colones than originally paid (plus other costs and the margin of utility). For the exporter it was good in the sense that it could sell it's goods outside for less dollars and get back the colones input, therefore making the product cheaper outside.

So it happens that the heads of State decided that importing and exporting wasn't enough, and they decided to invite companies to invest in Costa Rica, set their factories and offices, hire Costa Ricans and spend money here. This went on a large scale ranging from original maquilas to call centers and service centers. The dollar was appreciating day by day, and so day by day the enterprises investing here had to pay less and less to their workers.

Then shit started to happen. Seeing that Panama was doing so freaking well with all those dollars circulating as their own money, and being that the dollar each day worthed more, a lot of much better prepared people started throwing to the table the idea of dollarizing the economy. They pushed the agenda, pushed the agenda, and even argumented that dollarizing was gonna expenses and headaches. Dude, really. To my absolute outrage, even economists started pushing the agenda. I guess they all fell asleep when they were taught about the fact that minting is a tool the National Bank or Central Bank of Federal Reserve has to get the State out of the shit it gets into sometimes (or most of the times, depends on the given Government). To put it easy for the un-economist masses, it's like when you spend a fucking lot of money on some stuff and then you have to pay a lot of other stuff, or like when you buy on credit or take a lot of loans and then you have to pay them back. You gara get the money out of somewhere, so either you find a new source (like a second job) or you make money. For countries that's legal and it's called MINTING, for people is illegal and it's called COUNTERFEITING. Now, of course, for countries it is legal when they print their own money.

Our Central Bank here, decided then, one good day, to let the dollar loose to dance and wander away... within defined bands. What happened? The dollar stuck to the floor.Why on Earth? Well, it was already too inflated. I mean, allegedly Costa Rica is one of the strongest economies in the region, but is one of the weekest devisa, and the weekest in all Central America. With all sorts of tricks and traps the dollar was ripped off the floor and securely nailed to the ceiling for a while. The devisa started wobbling, making many foreign companies start paying their workers in dollars to minimize the cost impact. In other words, transferred it to the working class.

The claiming for the dollarized economy reached the heavens. After decades of stability, people rushed to the banks to put their dollars in good ol' colones, which seemed like the only safe place.The claiming of the dollarizers was that the colon was such a piece of crap currency that we were better off with the American dollar, which was such a sturdy, valuable, world wide accepted currency. Proof of it, they said, were the bucking and kicking the colon was doing when left free.

Me, being as suspitious and prone to think the works of the Government as I am, immediately thought that this was a maneuveing. "No, no!" claimed the media and the much better prepared people "this is the normal behavior of the colon. This is what the BCCR has been saving us from for years now." Well, like I would buy that. This went on, with a devisa value often nailed to the ceiling. Then, the bucking started to happen, and happen wilder and wilder as the term of the past Administration was coming to an end. Neck breaking jumps of over 20% of the value were seen happen within hours. The market? Why? We have here some Wall Street we don't know about? And I said, and told Kari, "Someone is playing the currencies to exert profit". But "Oh no! That's the normal market movements! You don't know that because you don't read indexed magazines nor are you much better prepared". Yeah, yeah, yeah... I like my fiction with ghosts, vampires and Winchesters, thank you very much. I mean, I don't know how much better prepared am I supposed to be to suspect something is seriously fucked up when the dollar falls all over the world and here it strenghtens day by day, or that slides down when all over the world climbs up. Could it be that Costa Rica is the Dollar Spa? Or the Currency Twilight Zone? Or am I right and someone is playing with the currency to it's own benefit?

Then, in these days, all sorts of articles started popping up. One said that this past Administration, which according to former president Arias "left Costa Rica so much better than at the begining", left a humongus debt, with Public Debt reaching the 44% of the GDP. Well, you ain't gara tell me, homie! Last year the 13th month salary was paid with debt. First time in history. The Scholar Salary, which is paid from the savings people do through the whole year, was put in danger of not paying because "there was no money". Dude, we were FORCED to save it up! It's our money, so fucking give it back!

Be it as it is, the country is up to its eyeballs in debt, the currency is drifting away, infrastructure is falling apart and one of the quickest way to tackle this is by printing money. So, dollarize? Yeah, right away. I mean, something dollarizers should get through their thick skull is that when you adopt another country's currency, you give up power upon it. You can be drowning in debt (kind of like Greece) and you CAN'T save yourself by printing more money. No can do. You can do well, be strong in the international market, but if the currency you use starts to fall, so do you. And can you do something? Yeah, pray. So, if you think the colon is out of control, try getting dollarized.

Now, pulling the ends together, dollarizers and currency players, yesterday I found this article:

What's Going On With the U.S. Dollar in Costa Rica?

It is short, and I would like to quote the ending phrases of it to make my point.

Our experience shows us that this type of trade based volatility in small economies usually imply large profits for a few and losses for many. Those who win are usually the ones who enjoy some form of privileged information.

Who made profits when the dollar was falling in Costa Rica? Who are making them now with its steep recovery?

 

Who are the owners of these large capital flows that are shaking market? Where do they come from?

Does anybody have the answer?

So, in the light of that, seeing that my less better prepared, gray spot conclusions seem to find an echo out there, why would some push for the dollarizing now harder than ever? Evidently, to cover this business up.

BN - No Blessin' in there

Today I was reminded about the beauty of Customer Care. Well, the BN here in Costa Rica does go the extra mile for the customer. I've to pay the Oriflame bill at this bank and I can do it only at this bank. It wouldn't be so bad, except that this one bank is famous for the following thing:

1. HUGE queues.
2. SLOW service
3. Too much red tape for everything
4. Fees for EVERYTHING, far more than in anyother bank, private or state owned, or all of them put together. They even have the face to charge for the upkeeping of the account when they do nothing for it.

It's also the only bank I've seen shamelessly lie on a Balance State for the pension operator, saving the red numbers by counting all the fees charged to the clients for every little bit. In other ways, this bank can't make a single profitable buiness, but covers the expenses with more and more fees, taking from the poor and stuffing the pockets of the rich. A reversed Robin Hood. Oh, and that picture is of a queue at one of the bank's branches... 15 minutes before opening. That line took two hours to get to the teller.

It is so upsetting that the bill of oriflame can only be paid there, so I have to find ways to get to the bank, many of which branches open at 8:30 and close between 15:30 and 16:00. Thanks to a meeting that ended up early (it was both un-productive and very educating at the same time), I managed to get in time to this one office in Heredia, which closes by 18:00, time I normally don't make it. Well, there's more to it. In order to enter the bank, you have to cross an automat teller machine hall and then walk through a double door, much like the ones in many airports (Charles de Gaule has them). Between the doors you are scanned for metallic objects, and if you are carrying them, you are requested to leave them at some lockers. There's no guard on the side of the lockers and the lockers look easy to pic. Naturally, I was loaded with metal: cellphone, coins, wires, PDA, hairpins, compact, metal tipped fountain pens... I wasn't going to leave my bag in such an unsafe place, but talking every single metal thing from it wsa too much of a hassle, particularly because it could all be stoled while I did what was looking like another 2,5 hour queue.

So I left. There was no other branch close, and it really upset me that they were so concerned about THEIR safety that they didn't think about the customer's safety or comfort.

The Banco Nacional is an epitome to the anti-Custormer Care.

Change of plans in the last minute

So I was going to go to Sofia today. With a sleeping wagon and the whole shebang. Then, in the morning, Jules called me and told me that the railroad workers were going to go on strike from Januar 1st on. O_O Holy Hell! I'm so not going to get stuck in Bulgaria! We called the railroad call center to ask about what would happen, or if the train would at least drop me on the border, from where I could take a bus home, but the girl knew nothing. She even said she wasn't aware of when the train-strike was going to start. Was it just some gossip? Was it real? I'm not risking it. I called the hotel and cancelled the reservation, and now, after lunch I'm going to return my ticket, get back my 32 thousand forints (multiply by 2.64 to get colones), and call it the day.

I won't lie to you, I'm extremely disappointed that my trip got so fucked up. I though about going next year, but I have already planned my trip for next year: I'm going to Venice. Kinda upsetting also, because I really thought God and I had an agreement, BUT I rather don't meddle into his stuff, and let him work according to the "greater picture" he has. Currently I'm grumbling really upset and I tip my head towards him and say: "Hope you don't pull one of these with the Thesis!". No, that's not the way you talk to God, but right now I'm upset my plans went donw the gutter. At the same time I'm a bit relieved. I think God has decided to help me with my finances and this is a way to cut back a little my expenses. As a matter of fact, Good Thinking, God!

As for when am I going to visit Sofia... I have no idea. Maybe in 2010, and then, I guess I'll get a plane ticket to avoid all the crap with the train and their irrational strikes. Then again, maybe by then I'll be here, and maybe I could just drive all the way down to there.

Oh well, I called Gitta and asked her if the New Year's party was still up, and it's still up! For 4000 Ft I can drink as much as I want, and there will be food and people and the whole shebang. Today, after returning my ticket, I'll be going to do my shopping for calendars and see what's out there to see. Who knows? May even call the Lord of the Horses to walk with me a little, keep me amused... My Grandfather will certainly be happy I'm not going to the Balkans. But what to do, what to do... we will be going to Győr! And then, of course, Gödöllő. And then, and then... Well, I'll be here at home, and that will be wonderful. ^_^ In the end, everything has a bright side. In this case, the brighter side is that I'll have more money to spend... only gara be careful, or I'll step over my weight limit.

Just an observation

Regarding the current "fucked up" market situation into which the U.S. managed to pull the rest of the world (and I hope now the rest of the world learns and next time knows better before trusting all their assets into the hands of one egomaniac nation or group, and stopr thinking the "Memo Zúňiga"way where the future is the problem of the future, thinking they can fuck up stuff, bacause they'll be long dead before hacing to pay for it...), I watch how the different countries get the Government to help their financial systems. It's kinda funny how if Hugo Chávez talks about "nationalization" it means "socialism", "communism" and therefore evil satanic practices left only to cruel, people torturing dictatorships, where people leave in fear, poverty and denied to express themselves. BUT if the US talk about "nationalization", dude, that's okay because that's gonna save us. (The EU does "nationalize" as well, but 1. Yes, I'm partialized about Europe, because for me Europe is beyond perfect, and 2. As far as I know, Europe hasn't gone out of its way to point fingers at nationalization.)

Who is responsible for the crisis... oh, the Democrats for not acting on time at voting the bailout! The Republicans for not acting together, because they didn't need the Democrat votes to pass the bailout (of $700 billion, according to the American Press, $850 billion according to Le Figaro...) Fuck it, people! The bailout ain't the root of the recession. This was lurking since 1995, almost fall into the ditch in 2001, but the 9-11 came "miraculously" to the "rescue", so people didn't pay attention to it. But it was there. Poverty raising... okay, haul over some of those paupers, make them soldiers and have them killed out there. That's actually very, very Hegel. "The way to end with misery is killing the miserbles." Hey, at least there's a philosopher backing it up, right? So, who's responsible? Everybody from the President down.

Like they say in Internal Control, "the responsability is not transferable". You may "empower" someone, and delegate functions and capabilities, but you cannot delegate responsability. So yes, if the President didn't pay attention to it, it IS his responsability still. Sorry, no way out of this hole. It's responsability of the people as well, for electing him. It's responsability of the enterprises for not taking measures, for thinking they could surf through it and take no precautions even if they had a 13-year notice that this wasn't gonna last. It's the fault of people as customers, for pushing for more and more loans, for not living within their means (yeah, me talking), for not demanding the State to keep their hard earned social warranties. Dude, press your representatives! You have Senators to talk for you! Honestly people, for a country of Freedom and Right of Expression, you really don't get to say much. Anyway, you got into a pit, and now you have to pedal back, and you see you have to go against your own preeching. The irony of it it's actually wonderful. And not because I may or may not be a supporter of the Socialist Systems (I'm not really, for I still don't understand them fully), but because this is like in the 30's, with the Great Depression, when John Maynard Keynes finally had the chance to prove that, yes, he was right and Jean-Baptiste Say was wrong.

The markets themselves are imperfect, and you can't leave them do as they see fit, all guided by their own "selfishness" and feed the fools' hope that it will work out fine. The world is not an economical model, starting with the fact that a. products are not homogenic, b. agents are not the same size and evidently those with more power WILL exercise said power (hey, they are SELFISH and we encouraged them to be so!), but above all c. the agents are NOT rational. Selfish doesn't mean they are by default rational. Why? Because they are ran by people, and people is NOT rational. People is irrational, and hell, I'm rather irrational, so of course the rest of the world is irrational! So, will the individual "every man for its own" attitude save the world amd make us live in a better place? Of course not! If we let them, well, you can well see what happens. What do we need to prevent this? Intervention. Institutions, a government that sticks its nose in the market and makes sure the little people are fine and the conditions are fair. What is fair? Well, for me, but that's just "good ol' keynesian thinking", "fair" means welfare, national well being. People able to support their families, capable of providing to satisfy their basic needs secured in the long term, and the tools to get to those means at hand for everybody without discrimination of age, race, gender, political affiliation or ECONOMICAL and SOCIAL CONDITION. Meaning? Education, and I mean ALL education should be free for the people. From kindergarden to the PhD. Access to health and medical assistance should be free, ranging from a cold, a cut to a nutritional consult, a psychological appointment to AIDS, cancer, or any illness in the world... all of them along with the treatment and the medication should be for free for everybody. Maternity leave, sick days, retirement... should ALL be covered by the Government. And this ain't some "she drank too much coke and is hallucinating" kind of speech. This have been existing around the world, so they are very much possible. Oh, and I include up there also the dental stuff.

State provided education and health doesn't have to be poor quality. It becomes poor quality if you LET IT go that way. Pay no bribes, demand enough people working there, go to no private clinics... Start and finish your education in the State universities, and don't go to "easy" schools where you can pay for the diploma, or end medical school in two years instead of six. How can it be that during the 50's and the 60's universal health and state education where the top in quality and now people think of them as the worst it can happen to you? Dude, that's not because the State stuff don't work, but because you let corruption enter. And I won't go there sounding like my Mom and telling you how the corruption is the little "capitalist pig" people have lurking inside (though right now I see her point), so let's leave it like that. (However, ain't that capitalist pig sweet? Oh, I just love it! Made me laugh a lot at the office!)

So, the thing is that "nationalization" and letting the State take care of matters that affect the population has been around for quite a long time. And we have known of what happens in the "wild, wild capitalism" when you take away all restrains and let the burgeoise, the Co.'s and the "Big Private Money" do their bidding. Just in case you have forgotten, please let me refer you to Karl Marx and "Das Kapital" or "The Capital", available in pretty much all languages... as far as I know. It's available since 1867, so it has been around quite some time now. No, no, before you even say so, it is not Socialist Propaganda, and please don't say you don't write stuff written by the Russians or the Soviets, because it is GERMAN. Okay, so stated these facts, I found it utterly amazing to read in the news that this Mr. Gordon Brown, British PM said, and I quote from the CNN

"This is not a time for conventional thinking or outdated dogma, but for the fresh and innovative intervention that gets to the heart of the problem."

(CNN, London, England, "Britain unveils $84B rescue plan".)

Fresh and innovative. Say, I guess if you plan to use slave labour force... LEGAL slave labour force it won't be fresh and innovative anymore, right? C'mon dude! Some common sense here! Don't try to invent the sliced bread. Go back to the books and do things as they are supposed to be done. This ain't no time to go "experimenting" with something that "doesn't look so leftish, specially not so Soviet". It's fucked up, now own it, face it and work on it.