Please can I have a bigger overdraft

The credit squeeze has started to hit even leafy Cambridge. Last week the son, who had received frequent communications from what we used to know as “The Listening Bank” suggesting that he might like to extend his overdraft, decided to take them up on their offer.

So he trotted off to the local branch and had an interview with some bank official not much older than himself, reviewing his assets etc. The upshot was that he was not a good enough credit risk. In other words, despite the come-on advertising campaign, the answer was no.

In some ways, this was an entirely sensible decision. The son has no assets at all apart from a few guitars and his Mum and Dad, so without some investigation into us, I don’t see why he should get a bigger overdraft.

On the other hand, he came home clutching his refusal letter explaining that he had not been given more credit for two reasons. One: he hadn’t passed the bank’s own guidelines. Two: he had “failed”, as it were, a credit reference agency check. The letter helpfully suggested that he might like to see what the credit reference agencies were saying about him and gave the names of three.

Having heard stories of terrible errors creeping into these records, we decided to take a look.

The first one on the list was called Experian and it offered a free glimpse of your credit reference. But on the principle of there being no such thing as a free credit search, we went on to the next one. This was called Equifax and was selling you your details for a one-off fee of £14.95.

The result turned out to be fine. He had a “good” score. The only warning light on the report was against the “electoral roll” section. He had only been on the electoral roll at his current address for two years, which was not as long as some lenders liked. True, but he is only 20 – so he couldn’t actually have been on roll any longer, even though he has lived at his current address for the last 11 years. Maybe it might have been simpler just to take points off for being young.

But the other revealing section was the one about “how often has your credit rating been checked by a lender in the last 6 months”. The answer was: "never". So despite what they’d said in his letter, the bank hadn’t actually used a credit reference agency at all. It was just a convenient alibi for not giving him the cash.

In the end, though, his story has a happy ending (or an imprudent one, if you have a stricter attitude to credit). He went back to Oxford and into a bank branch there. They increased his overdraft in a flash.

Comments

[Jane]

Mary, this blog has been such fun, and I haven't laughed so much for ages.
Cogito/Judith, your advice was the best; how did you guess, I also have concerns about paint and batteries.
xjy, are you related to Gollum, or have you been taking elocution lessons from Gollum?
Mary
After this light entertainment, I am now going over to the Wikip blog to comment on the survival of Latin in modern western European languages.

[Mary]

OK guys and gals.... I'm sweetly publishing all your stuff... BUT if all I end up being is a middle man for the transmission of messages......err well.... you know, Thanks to Richard for keeping these comment on track

[Tony Francis]

Dear Cogito, nee JF: Life is just one delicious revelation after another!

[Cogito Ergo Doleo]

Tony, Mon Ami, I *am* your banter partner and I left in August and agree with you so much and just wanted you to know you're unforgettable, that's what you are . . .

Erm, it's I think, therefore I am depressed (but, not when I'm dropping by on the cyber-hi fly).

Now, lights out since I, too, need an overdraft extension :). My otherwise brilliant bank manager says she's hard-pressed to up my meagre one to a million from a hunnert, given my assets (or lack of same). I blame the sub-prime thingie, hehehehe . . .

p.s. Mary, you're a Goddess in my books, all twenty-odd of 'em
p.p.s. Tony, I thanked you in the Acknowledgments of the closing volume of my epic poem and you can see that tribute if you visit my 'site and check the page /fyi.html
p.p.p.s. Jane, call your local hydro-electric utility and find out when they have hazardous-material acceptance days, that's what I do for batteries, bulbs, paint, etc.
--
JUDITH FITZGERALD'S FRESH
[NEVER FROZEN] WRITESITE:
http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/

[Tony Francis]

Dearest OPN: St. Ignatius of Antioch was an early martyr who pleaded with his followers to leave him alone. He was taken by Roman soldiers to be martyred in Rome. His advocates were pleading with him to recant. He wanted to martyred. He described the Roman soldiers as being "cruel as dogs. the kinder one is to them, the worse they are". His letters take up the better part of three or four days in the Literature of the Hours.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm
Dear AA: I am curious about what you have in your notes.
Now, moving from the sacred to the profane: Dearest Lord T, How kind of you to offer. I feel warm and fuzzy all over!
Concerning relevant posts: When I was an editor to the medical legal journal, we used to publish just about anything. So I like that tradition. As a result we got a lot of recipes, recounts of trips, anecdotes, etc. It makes for good reading, and fellowship.
In re: Clause 9 vs. Clause 2: Dearest Foska appears to be correct. To be honest, I started reading Clause 2, and couldn't make heads nor tails of it. I clutched onto Clause 9 as a drowning man grasps at a straw. It seems the Telegraph has hired lawyers who can write in the English language. Apparently Rupert has not. We have that kind of lawyer in the US. They write in amorphous jibberish, which leads one to conclude one thing, while meaning ten different others. Maybe that is good legal writing. My take on Clause 9 is: there can be no legal liability to the owners of Times for any use of the blogs. (Including copyright?) But who knows what they are talking about? A while back, a judge didn't like something I had written. He said, "Can't I say it this way...blah, blah, blah...?" I thought, "Yeah, you can say it anyway you want, you are a federal judge." Instead, I replied, "Your honor, you could legitimately argue that point." He replied, "I am not trying to argue anything, I am only trying to get a straight answer out of you!" Geez! Ex-cuse ME!
Dear Cogito of Pain: The other blog seems to have problems. I enjoyed my time there. But I was accused by the blogger you have mentioned of running other intellectuals away from the site. I haven't posted there since October. The intellectual content doesn't seem to have improved since I left. One of my blogging banter partners quit the site, and I started getting about 50% of my submissions spiked. C'est la vie!

[Cogito Ergo Doleo]

Fab Foska: You can't sue a cognomen since I don't exist. I'm just here to remind Tony some commentarians miss him on another blog where we were both driven away by a misogynistic bullee of psychopathic-egomaniacal proportions who proved you can't trust a wolf steeped in a wolf's seething jealousy. L8R. Going back where I belong (in the wordwork; but, not without thanking Dr. Beard for her lovely indulgence and inspiring forbearance). Ta!

[Mary]

OK Lord Truth....I plead guilty. As I know nothing about most of you commenters except from what you write, I thought there was a chance that your comments about light bulbs and flourescent tubes would not be interpreted by the target in the friendly sense in which you no doubt (?) meant it.

For what it is worth I publish everything that comes in, except for the grossly irrelevant (and I am the judge of that!), the illegal and what might be personally hurtful and offensive to an innocent individual/other commenter (what is offensive to ME gets published anyway).

[Lord Truth]

As the person who first raised the question of who owns the copyright of comments etc it appears I am the first victim ,as presumably Prof. Beard, now fully awoken to clause 9 ,has actually refused to print my brief suggestion that I would be very willing to help Mr Francis dispose of his light bulbs-his flourescent tubes in particular.That is surely a pefectly reasonable comment?
Carry on Commenting!

[Tony Francis]

Dear Jane: The US government has spent millions telling us the new light bulbs are extremely dangerous: mercury. Industry must follow exacting disposal rules. But individuals are told to get in touch with their local authorities. As I related, my local authority was depositing my lightbulbs (and my plastic bags) in my trash barrel to be carried to the dump. I complained to the city. As I soon discovered, the city had hired an expert who came to my home and instructed me on recycling. Now I just throw them away (surreptitiously).
http://www.lamprecycle.org/
http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling/
http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling/faqs.htm
If these sites don't give you the environmentally satisfying answer, there are various bodily orifices. I can't recommend this, though. It doesn't provide a permanent solution to the problem. Then there is the mercury issue.

[Tony Francis]

Dear OPN: Having worked in emergency rooms off and on for 20 years, I thought I had seen it all: bottles, various vegetables, screw drivers, lost condoms, you name it. Each one was the result of sitting in the wrong place, on the wrong thing, at the wrong time; or so I was led to believe. There is even a sub-class of young girls over the age of 11 or 12 who get into the habit of sticking carrots and batons in places they weren't meant to go. As I said, I have seen it all, even a light bulb (here reported to have been removed with suction cup tipped darts):
http://www.well.com/~cynsa/bulb.html
But now I find out there was a gentleman in London who inadvertently sat on a live artillery shell (see the bottom of the page; the London docs said there was enough powder in that shell to blast a "knife-maker" out of the sky):
http://www.well.com/user/cynsa/newpiles.html
And another who tried an enema with cement:
http://www.well.com/~cynsa/cement.html
There was a Seinfeld episode about this. George's father fell on the Fusilli Jerry statue, and got it stuck in the wrong place. It was the one where Kramer got the proctologist's New York license plates "Assman" by mistake. As they said, "It was a million to one shot, doc." So it would appear to be. Some guys and girls are just unlucky.

[Xjy]

vel, here in sveden ve put ussed light bulbss in ussed light bulb boxess.

[SW Foska]

Tony, Clause 9 seems to be about whether a comment-poster writes something libellous or that would render TimesOnline liable (do you think I should sue Cogito for alleging that I'm not rich?). Their stab at a claim to copyright is in Clause 2 - 'All material on the Websites and any material sent to you by e-mail or any other form from the Websites (the "content") or in any way relating to the Websites belongs to our licensors or us'. But that's just a random affirmation, it's not part of a binding contract to which I have pledged my assent, any more than the Australian government (or TimesOnline) would be bound were I to write here that Ayers Rock belongs to me. I got to this page without passing that one.

[Oliver Nicholson]

Dear A.A. and Tony Francis,
Surely the denouement of the martyrdom of Phileas Bishop of Thmuis (preserved in two early papyri and so rather likely to be roughly accurate) suggests that there were people acting for him who tried to 'save him from himself' not by asking for him to have a larger overdraft (how is that for relevance ?) but by claiming (to his annoyance) that he had sacrificed to the Gods in the judge's chambers (secretarium) and so should be allowed to avoid the martyrdom he so desired.
Yrs., OPN

Dear TF,
I was under the impression that not all the people who get x-rayed by casualty departments sat on the light-bulbs by accident. More crunch than credit.
Yrs., OPN

[Mary]

jane -- I'm with you. Expertae crede! m

[Jane]

I thought an eclectic site a good place to discuss electric light.

[Jane]

Mary
I appreciate your exceptionally broadminded approach. Which is, of course, part of the classic charm of this blog.
Well, the talk, de nos jours, is all about the disposal of the new, long-life bulbs, but as these last 6 years, it is not imperative to know immediately. Although it would be interesting.
I would like to purge all my old bulbs in favour of long-life low-energy, and feel guilty putting them in the dustbin.
I have put a post on eco-worrier, but I do not expect great things as the blog was all about chocolate eggs, and new comments were posted at the end, not the beginning.
Anyway, I will try not to insinuate any further flagrantly dissimilar comments into the blog. It is tempting, though, with all those experts ready to bring out their fascinating back stories.

[anthony alcock]

Dear TF: wouldn't work here.

[Tony Francis]

Every self-respecting radiology department in the US has a collection of x-rays of people who, through accident, sat on, inter alia, light bulbs (also beer bottles, shampoo bottles, ...you get the idea). Personally, I can't recommend it. But some seem to think it a bright idea. I try to put used light bulbs in my glass recycling bin. THE recycling officer used to place them in my trash barrel. He caught me spying on him. Now he just leaves them in the basket, after taking my other glass for recycling. Concerning copyright, the Times On Line Terms of Use (found at the bottom of the front news page) has, under section 9, language which could be interpretted as indemnifying the writers from damages, for, among others, copyright violation. The language is more arcane than that from the Telegraph. It is arguable that anyone posting on The Times websites has no viable claim for damages through copyright. That's my take on it.

[Cogito Ergo Doleo]

Jane:

Here's a bright idea:

Anna Shepard can help you with lightbulb disposal (and, if you're too shy, email her) . . .

http://timesonline.typepad.com/eco_worrier/

Failing that vision, G'ogling never hurt the ol' tippy-taps.

[SW Foska]

Jane, you could try
a) swallowing them;
b) posting them on this site;
c) taking them apart, replacing the filament, and reusing them;
d) (in the interests of relevance) leaving them with your bank as collateral against a bigger overdraft.

[Mary]

Just to warn you all..... Jane's question almost taxed even my very lax priciples of RELEVANCE...I shall of course publish yior to the point replies. But is it too dirigiste of me to say that I dont really want to turn discussion of a post on credit (broadly understood) into a major discussion of light bulbs. (Jane, do you mean the new low energy sort?) Mary

[Tony Francis]

Dear A. A.: Yes, I would be interested in the notes you have written concerning lawyers and Coptic martyrs. (Not interested in actually possessing the physical notes, but the information contained therein. That is to say, if you want to post here... it would be interesting, provided the Cambridge Professor deems it appropriate.) No doubt, lawyers have been around as long as prostitutes and mildew. As one person told me: "Once you get to the point you need to hire a lawyer, you have already lost." That has been my experience, generally speaking. Or: "What is the difference between doctors and lawyers? If you can get two doctors to agree on your case, your are probably in trouble. If you can get two lawyers to agree on your case, you probably will get a settlement."
As I remember the Egyptian book written before 1920, the name Tutankhamen was in very small print in a list of pharaohs. I was surprised to see it at all. Of course, there was no information about him. There may have been a question mark by the name. But I can't remember.

[Jane]

Since this blog is popular with many experts eager to share their knowledge of subjects sacred, profane and arcane, I wish to put the following question. Can anyone tell me the environmentally correct way to dispose of light bulbs?

[anthony alcock]

Tony Francis: there is a reasonably well-attested Wall of the Ruler from the early Middle Kingdom (Amenemhet I), mentioned in one the best known stories (also Middle Kingdom approx. 2000-1750 BC), Sinuhe: "made to keep out the Aamu and Sand-dwellers", the former referring to the inhabitants of a specific region, the latter a term for nomads in general. I imagine it was somewhere near the Suez Canal area. In 1920 the name Tutankhamen was known only to a relatively few people. Theodore M. Davis (who died in your part of the world in 1915) had discovered objects from Tut's tomb in KV(King's Valley) tomb 54 and, after his own moumental discoveries, famously said of the Valley: "I fear it is now exhausted". And so it remained until 1922.
By the way, if you are interested, I could let you have a little note I jotted down some years ago (for Discussions in Egyptology) on the question of whether Coptic martyrs had lawyers

[Cogito Ergo Doleo]

Fair Use, Foxy Foska. Weasel word? How about a Minxy Mangle? LOL. Please refer to the dearest and clearest Cyber-Commentarian's remarks above mine for clarification on my weasel ways, K? Terrific Tony Francis says it all (with class and panache, per usual). Miss him so much, I am addicted to Mary (not Bloody) because of him! TOS does not trump legislated law, either in the U.K., U.S., Canada, or any signatory to the DMCA, the Berne, et so forthia.

I'd be interested in seeing an Anonymous taking a Blogger to task, though, theoretically, on this issue. Once had an extended e-conversation with the man responsible for pulling all the strands of the DMCA together (from Washington U); we additionally agreed that copyright on the Usenet GROUP (in toto) we were discussing belonged to The Regulars (and, then, of course, we had to concede such a call as defining "The Regulars" was equally subjective). That's why lawyers are bloody rich and you're not :).

[SW Foska]

Cogito, 'implicitly' is a weasel word. It invocation confirms the disputable nature of the granting in question.
On the Telegraph site, a poster's attention is drawn to Terms and Conditions ('Clause 5 in particular', which concerns copyright). The same poster might infer from the absence of such Terms and Conditions on the Timesonline site, that in this forum s/he is not surrending copyright.

[Tony Francis]

Dear Anthony A: About 10 years ago I ran across a book in the Salina, KS library which was a history of the Egyptian pharaohs. It was written before 1920, and listed Tuthankamen as a king of which nothing was known. The interesting part was the statement that various Semitic tribes (not limited to Jews) continually migrated into and out of the Nile delta region, depending on conditions in Sinai and beyond. In other words, the migration of the Hebrews into Egypt was nothing unusual. This book also indicated that whenever the Egyptians needed workers, they would go up to the delta and capture whatever Semites they could find and press them into service. One or more pharaohs (I can't remember the names) were so concerned about the Semites in the delta, they contemplated building walls to keep them out. Do you know anything about this?
http://www.hebrewhistory.info/factpapers/fp010-2_egypt.htm
Tagoshe appears to be a name associated with modern Nigeria, and possibly the Cameroons. Anyway, I like your song.

[Tony Francis]

By publishing on-line, the writer on the blog automatically owns the copyright under US law. A copyright can theoretically be assigned to an anonymous person. But that person has to file a notice with the US Copyright Office, or in some cases, with the Federal Court. This creates a public document, available for anyone to see. Hypothetically, a blogger named "Butterfly 23" would be identified as a real person Jane Jones, 123 Everywhere Lane, Anytown, USA, Phone number:xxx-xxx-xxxx. Publishing from portal: xyxyxyxy. This is necessary in order to litigate for damages in the US Copyright Courts. The longer one waits, the more difficult it is to identify an anonymous blogger. For instance, how would one prove that they were blogger "Monkey Boy" or "Super Girl" from information posted in 1992 or 1996? Practically speaking, it would be nearly impossible. If there is a disclaimer on the blog site relinquishing rights to the posted material, the writer has no copyright. Assume this hypothetical: Mary Beard wants to publish a book of favorite blogs with quotes, including 100 contributors. The book makes a profit. An anonymous blogger comes forward, claiming damages. Assuming the blogger could prove identity, was registered in a timely manner with the Copyright Office, and filed suit: the trial court would determine reasonable damages. What are the damages to a person who contributed less than 1% to the book? It is hard to say, but probably not much.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/302.html
http://www.copyright.gov/register/literary.html
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html

[Cogito Ergo Doleo]

Dr. Beard, your understanding of copyright is correct. When individuals post to either a Forum, Usenet, Chatroom, or Blog, say, they implicitly grant permission for the host to display the contents of the post and, technically, that falls under the Fair-Use provision of the DMCA, the Berne Convention, etc. (or, at least, in those countries which honour such legislation). If you decide to publish a book of commentaria over the years, you will need to obtain written consent from the individuals who have contributed to "A Don's Life" (including those using a provable pseudonym). Anonymous, e.g., must prove they are that specific individual (with IP addies, etc.) before the courts (since your theoretical book would, one hopes, earn / turn a profit).

" . . . [A]lmost any original expression that is fixed in tangible form is protected as soon as the file is saved to disk. This web page was protected as soon as I stopped typing and saved the .html file. As you can see, most of the items that you are likely to encounter on the 'net are eligible for copyright protection, including the text of web pages, ASCII-text documents, contents of email and Usenet messages, sound files, graphic files, executable computer programmes, and computer-programme listings."
— The Copyright Website

[Mary]

On copyright: I THINK that the position is that, by commenting on the blog, you assent to the use of your comments on Timesonline and, I guess, in the Times. But I think that, if I (or anyone) wanted to publish(say) a Blog Book plus your comments, I woud have to get your permission. That's how I understand it anyway.. not a legal opinion.

[anthony alcock]

Incidentally, I couldn't give a toss about copyright.

[anthony alcock]

Mr Francis. Tagoshe is a personal name that occurs quite often in the Coptic letters from Kellis, a village in the Dakhla Oasis (in the Western Desert of Egypt) abandoned towards the end of the 4th cent AD. Volume One of these texts appeared in 1999 as Dakhleh Oasis Papers: Monograph 9, The editors are Iain Gardner, Anthony Alcock and Wolf-Peter Funk. The publisher is Oxbow Press (Oxford). I am not a pseudonym nor was meant to be. Volume Two is on the way.
Since you appear to be interested in Manichaeism, you may wish to know that many of the letters were generated by members of a Manichaean community living there. The village also yielded small quantities of Syriac. The writers of these texts may well have been some of the missionaries who crossed the Red Sea, made their way across the Eastern Desert to Assiut and from there took the desert road to Dakhla, to what at the time was a prosperous village that may eventually have been ruined by over-irrigation (pure speculation on my part).

[Tony Francis]

"He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little" - Horace
Concerning the Billie Holiday song: The comment by A. Alcock leads us to a YouTube rendition which was posted there on March 24, 2008 by "tagoshe". It had only been viewed by 5 people by the time I saw it. This makes me suspect that the YouTube poster "tagoshe" = "Anthony Alcock". We know that "tagoshe" now owns the copyright to his posting. But if "tagoshe" is really a pseudonym for A. Alcock, then the copyright could be disputed if the pseudonym is not registered to A. Alcock. Further, we do not know if "A. Alcock" is, in itself, a pseudonym. THE situation is further complicated since there is a question whether Lord T will now try to claim the rights of one "tagoshe". I don't do copyright law. But my Irish/Harvard lawyer (who is looking for a new gig) is travelling all over England, trying to find Lord T. According to recent communications, she can't locate him. I am sure she would be glad to take the case for "tagoshe". So many questions, so few answers. In the mean time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IYTx60s07A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7llu2aQRSQ&feature=related

[Lord Truth]

Prof Beard is writing about -and using as an example-a personal matter concerning her son on her public place.As such she is perfectly entitiled to distance him from her public self by using the term 'the' instead of the more personal 'my'
It probably also of course indicates the clear cold distance that she puts between her public self and her faithful comment writers-I suspect she has a crushing laser like stare towards unwanted intrusions-has anyone ever experienced it??

[anthony alcock]

Words of wisdom from Billie Holiday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7D0I7tpyC0

[Michael Bulley]

To Paolo: explaining jokes risks making them unfunny, but here goes. I shall put on a sociological hat, which doesn't really fit me. Mary Beard writes "the son" for "my son", because she is content to be thought of as the sort of person she knows those who are sensitive to the signals she is emitting by writing "the son" for "my son" would think her to be. All this is tied up with the unspoken and unspeakable conventions of British society. Since, however, her usage here is non-standard (see grammar books for learners of English, for example) and she is aware it is, it is OK to poke fun at it (I presume you got the point of "the hat" and "my dog" in my earlier contribution). If she changed, it would mean she had decided to have a different social persona. I'd bet against it.

[Paul Potts]

Dear Michael Bulley

I am bemused by your use of the word "here" - where there are such terrible things going on you can't reveal them. Are you talking about your kitchen or your dog or this website or my post or what? The mind boggles. And why not besmirch the TLS? Mary can refuse it if it's that bad. I wait with fetid, sorry I meant bated breath.

Paulo

[megafauna]

Read the Equifax TOS, they may be legally obliged to give you a free credit report via mail (it's that way in Canada).

[Paul Potts]

thanks to Michael and Tony, and since it's Easter Sunday, I'm now want to get all religious and suggest that the Christian belief in "The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost" - or whatever you call her, comes out in English rather different from the Latin. The family dynamics there suggests problems which no doubt our social workers will be able to cope with.

Paulo

[Tony Francis]

The corporation, operating as an individual legal entity, with various immunities and borrowing power was close to extinction during the depression of the 1930s. After various failures, the FDR administration fell upon Keynesian economics. The federal government pumped billions of dollars into US corporations. This worked. Small companies like IBM and Boeing became huge international corporations. Now these are bigger than any government, and move across borders seeking the best economic and political arrangement. But they cannot exist without massive government spending. And the government is reliant upon them for its existence, because they provide employment. Rhetoric aside, every US president since FDR has been a Keynesian. The genie is out of the bottle, and no one can put it back in. No one wants to.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Corporations.html
The big problem with Keynesian economics is the necessity of inflation. It is generally accepted that putting dollars which will be worth only seventy cents, into the hands of all citizens is better than assuming economic draconianism. Continued deficit spending inexorably leads to inflation. But when governments (read S & P 500) run a surplus, there is a recession or depression. (Read Galbraith for this concept.) When inflation reaches a certain level, political instability ensues.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Inflation.html
The question about free trade which Marx was speculating about 161 years ago has been settled. It has been settled after a long European Civil War which began in 1870 and ended in 1945. The winners of the European Civil War were the US and the USSR. They imposed the new economic and political reality in Europe. The Marxist vision failed.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Marxism.html

[Xjy]

The trouble is that neither Keynesianism nor Friedmanism works, neither Free Trade nor Protectionism.(Marx and Engels show this very clearly as early as 1847 in their September articles on the Free Trade Congress in Brussels:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/09/23.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/09/22.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/09/30.htm
- translated by someone I know quite well, as it happens :-)

Apart from that I'm having a ball right now reading Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend, AM's diary for 2002-2003, in which the stark choices faced by the impecunious punter offered greater spending power by Barclays (joy!) or belt-tightening ascetism by homo economicus/the accountant (misery!) are painted with vivid HD surround sound impact.

[Michael Bulley]

To Paolo, on "the son" for "my son": if Mary Beard changes her ways on this, I'll eat the hat, but only after I've finished in my kitchen and taken my dog for a walk. There are social factors at work here too murky to besmirch the internet pages of the TLS with.

[Tony Francis]

To see how the federal government and the banking system turn $1000 into over $4000 through debt and borrowing:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MoneySupply.html

Debt is good. It is the foundation of Keynesian economic theory. This is the international socialism you all are calling for. In the case of the US, it has made us rich:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Keynesianism.htm

The US national debt is a key component to this wealth:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/FederalDebt.html

When my mother died two years ago, I paid a load of inheritance tax. Good grief, the federal government spent it in less than 60 seconds:
http://ZFacts.com/p/461.html

Concerning "THE son": THE facts would tend to indicate that THE Cambridge Professor, THE wife of THE Husband, is THE mother of THE son. Any more information would be deemed to be TOO much. THESE are THE facts as we can discern them. This should be THE end of THE story.

[arindam bandyopadhaya]

Paulo
I was reading the transcript of the divorce case between Mccartney and Heather Mills where the judge was referring them as 'the husband' and 'the wife'.The language of justice appeared clinical;flat and emotionless. Is Mary following suit?
regards

[Paul Potts]

Michael

What's wrong with the grammar of the phrase "the son"? It indicates that there is only one, and it may be that Mary is reluctant to say "my son" because he is no longer "hers" insofar as he ever was. Irony, maybe, but affectionate, whatever he's up to. Even the apparently offensive phrase "the wife" may indicate that she is not as much "his" as he requires - an ironic conession of failure.

Paulo

[Tony Francis]

http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aes_alienum

http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placita_Keynesiana

[arindam bandyopadhaya]

Mary,

Have we forgotten the injunction 'neither a lender nor a borrower be'?

Regards

[Xjy]

The whole system revolves around credit - "finance". Read Capital III by Marx for a hair-raisingly recognizable run through the reasons.

If they don't suck people into the money-go-round and get them into debt, they're screwed. Most "property-owners" in Thatcher's "property-owning" democracy own less than the land in their window-sill flowerpots, cos not only do they own bugger-all but they're in debt over their heads and totally at the mercy of the lenders.

Any joy at not being a rock-bottom wage-slave is cancelled by being a rock-bottom debt-slave.

Aes alienum - ruined the Empire, now it's ruining the whole world.

[anthony alcock]

When I was teaching at Suez Canal University many years ago, I had a Christian student who asked me to teach him the Lord's Prayer in Latin. When we got to the bit that says "Dimitte nobis debita nostra ... Dona nobis hodie panem nostrum quotidianum" (I quote from memory), he looked at me for a few seconds and said, "That's the Third World begging the West, isn't it ?"

[Maxine]

My stepdaughter has used our address as her official address ever since first opening her bank account when an undergraduate. She's now 24. She says she's going to keep to this arrangement until she buys her own property (she's renting currently, and moves quite a bit), as she says that one factor in one's credit rating is how long one has lived at an address. I don't know about that, but I do know she gets about 9/10 of the mail that comes here (probably most of it from banks offering her loans!).

[anthony alcock]

Apart from mortgages I have never owed anything to anyone. But then mortgages are a big enough debt to be going on with.

[Michael Bulley]

"Last week the son... decided to take them up on their offer." So yesterday, by that reasoning, I saw the neighbour coming back with the camera in the hand and the daughter by the side. In a previous piece, the author explained her non-conventional "the husband" as humorous revenge against the still frequently heard "the wife". (I hope we can exclude the author's husband here). But what is the explanation for "the son"? I sense that an ironic tone is intended, but I'd say that the contravention of standard grammar makes it misfire.

[Paul Potts]

Thank god for the credit crunch. The poor might benefit, and the rest of us probably won't go hungry. And China might stop funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever else NATO has in mind.

Paulo

[Paul Potts]

Dear Mary

My trouble is that I have no debts. None whatever. My BarclayCard is in credit, would you believe, which is one reason why they are reluctant to process my orders. I am, apparently, a "very high security risk", and they seem to think that Amazon.co.uk are drug-dealers. (This after several phone calls to India or Scotland or somewhere).

There is, I believe, a much better system of Islamic international finance, which our poor banks are trying to accommodate. It relies on trusting people, not assuming they are terrorists before you start. I'm afraid that the answer to all this may be violence, but when it starts, it will be initiated and funded by the British banking agencies, one of which is called "The Treasury".

Paulo

[latinlass]

Hate to be a spoil-sport but isn't this how the present credit crunch began? By this I mean extending too much credit to those whose means
did not justify it. (nothing personal about your son!!) But it seems to me that people just have to learn to live within their means from now on and surely student days are a good time to begin a lifetime of good spending habits. Here in the USA, credit card companies give away cards to incoming students who have zero earnings!!! What madness!!! OK so I am showing my age but everyone suffers when we have these financial crises.