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Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
In a moral/practical sense, I sort of want people to not be able to walk away from credit card debt through Ch 13. However, on the other moral hand, I don't want credit card companies who rope consumers by offering credit to anyone with a pulse to be able to create a virtual debtor's prison for a large segment of society. Both the foolish consumer and the malicious credit-offerors deserve each other IMHO.
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I concur in large part. I think credit card debt should be less dischargeable than some other kinds of debt (student loans anyone? mortgage debt, probably, too); however I think that credit card companies should have some sort of obligation to ensure the basic solvency of people they offer cards to, and if they don't (i.e.: if the person is shown to have been insolvent when the card was issued or limit increased), they should have to eat the losses outright as a risk they voluntarily assumed. Predatory credit card companies issuing plastic to people who obviously have no ability to pay and, by their history, can be counted on to immediately run off and buy the biggest fucking TV they can find to max it out, piss me off bigtime. Those fuckers do, in fact, calculate uncollectable accounts as a business risk, and write it off or sell it off as part of their usual business. The new Bcy rules would be a total windfall for those assholes.
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Anyone read the piece on happiness in the NYTimes mag this past week? Basically, the piece said that people are horrible predictors of what will make them happy in the future, so they stupidly spend on material and keep the consumption merry-go-round going. I felt a good bit vindicated by the piece's subtle gibes at the "conspicuous consumers" among us. I've always spent wildly on pleasure, but not wildly on material, and it was refreshing to see the writer of the piece basically support a theory I've always had - spend your money and time with friends and family, not on stuff. This article should be required reading for everyone chasing his tail in the current economy.
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I found the article interesting, in that I do believe that people suck at predicting what they want or how they will feel about certain events in the future, and the whole thing that I thought of as the "deadening effect" (i.e.: nothing really matters as much as you think one way or the other) was interesting. But I actually derive significant pleasure from many of my material possessions. In fact, when I don't continue to derive expected pleasure from something I've been excited about acquiring, or when I pull it out 2 years later and think "ho hum," or if it falls apart and therefore ceases to give me pleasure prematurely, I feel a distinct sense of surprise, because it's not a mistake I make often. Maybe I'm a materialistic unfeeling bitch, though. I have at least three pieces of jewelry that give me greater on a regular basis than pleasure than any visit with any member of my family (Mr. excluded) has in 5-10 years.
With shopping for most stuff, I do actually take into account the liklihood of future disenchantment, changing desires, and the "well, then you'll get used to it and you'll need a bigger boost to get the high back" thing they mentioned, and by my experience I do it reasonably well. It is not that often that I miss my early guesses about what I will think in the future, and, actually, my excitement about some sorts of things (jewelry, particularly) does not seem to fade with time.
But much of my pleasure from "things" is, granted, usually by association. I have a pair of earrings the Mr. gave me for our wedding, which are far too elaborate (and diamondy, Fugee) to wear much, so I get almost no practical utility from them, and every time I pull them out I feel swells of happiness I never predicted when he gave them to me. I have a pair of earrings that I bargained down to about 10% of their appraisal price and, even every time I see them I want to dance a capering dance. I have an evening gown I have only worn once, to show off to the Mr. after I got it, and I've never worn it again because of the tear he put in it while responding enthusiastically, and I still love the hell out of that useless dress. I don't know how often I get ready for work in the morning and pull out a skirt or shoes or something and think "damn, this was a good choice," which makes me feel nice and competent for the rest of the day.
Same thing applies fairly frequently to spending time with friends or family. I often know perfectly well that, as much as I might feel like sitting in front of the TV in my robe tonight, if I make an effort to see friends instead I will be glad I did it, and knowing I will get or forego that additional pleasure does, in fact, contribute to my decision to get off my butt or not. It's not that I don't realize that I'm foregoing something that will make me happier
I guess my overall point is that, they seem to assume that non-utility maximizing choices are due essentially to imperfect information: people are basing decisions on incorrect knowledge of what will make them happier. That doesn't strike me as entirely correct, for me at least. I see the problem, in my case, a little differently: even if I accurately predict what will make me happier in the long term I often choose to do otherwise. (That strikes me as even more of a body blow to economic theory, incidentally.)
Maybe I'm an outlier. Maybe I only remember my expectations with respect to things that meet them. Maybe I personalize my posessions too much. Maybe it's that I'm a cheap as hell, so every time I spend money to acquire something I really think pretty hard and make effort to get over my gut sense of "gimme!"
I think they are 100% correct on the overestimation of the value of keeping options open, however.
