Girl Pregnancy Pact Gloucester MA High School: School Subsidizes Teen Pregnancy (Savers Are from Mars. Debtors Are from Venus. Episode 6)

School Subsidizes Teen Pregnancy

Media Reports Miss the Main Point on Spike in Teen Pregnancies

A large number of high-school girls intentionally got pregnant or were happy to get pregnant at Gloucester High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Earlier reports of a formal group "pact" to get pregnant are now disputed to be a post-pregnancy pledge for the teen mothers to somehow support each other, although the point about the girls' enthusiasm to get pregnant appears undisputed:

"But at a press conference today, Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk emerged from a closed-door meeting with city, school and health officials to say that there had been no independent confirmation of any teen pregnancy pact. She also said that the principal, who was not present at the meeting, is now "foggy in his memory" of how he heard about the pact.

[Gloucester High School, principal Dr. Joseph ] Sullivan has not spoken publicly about the teen pregnancies since he told TIME earlier this month that several girls repeatedly requested pregnancy tests at the school clinic and that some had reacted to positive test results with high fives and plans for baby showers. Pathways for Children CEO Sue Todd, whose organization runs the school's on-site daycare center, told TIME on June 13 that its social worker had heard of the girls' plan to get pregnant as early as last fall. She noted that some of the girls involved had been identified as being at risk of becoming teen mothers as early as sixth grade, when they began to request pregnancy tests in middle school." (TIME)

Various reports blame the depressed, working-class, blue-collar, fishing economy or a poor, anti-social home-life:

""What we've seen is the girls fit a certain profile," Todd said. "They're socially isolated, and they don't have the support of their families."

The Real Point

People with no job prospects and no family support should be trying to INCREASE income and DECREASE outgo. Teen, single, diploma-less mothers are DECREASING their income potential and INCREASING their outgo expenses.

The schools apparently utterly failed to teach math, logic, or home economics.

The schools apparently do manage to teach and subsidize teen pregnancy (according to public radio and other reports):

• The school(s) teaches sex to children: School-district health coordinator Ann-Marie Jordan blamed budget "cutbacks" for stopping sex education after the 9th grade, leaving 'only' the years of sex taught in middle school and freshman year: Exactly how many YEARS does it take to figure out? One pair of unfixed neighborhood dogs or cats should do it.
• The school(s) conducts "health surveys" that ask children to describe their sex lives: Behavioral experts know that people are more likely to do something when you make them discuss, imagine, and visualize doing it.
• The school(s) provides/conducts pregnancy tests on children: Children can see grown-ups' tacit acceptance and expectation of teen sex (and usually failing tests in school is bad).
• The school(s) provides a FREE in-school daycare center for teen mothers: "The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. "We're proud to help the mothers stay in school," says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center." (TIME)

Gee, can anyone think of where the girls got the idea to get pregnant?

The school is one step away from providing wine coolers and a Jacuzzi.

"Experts" continue to miss the point:

"Dr. Joanne Cox, director of the Young Parents program at Children's Hospital in Boston, said that in-school programs for birth control are shown to be effective, as is education. Upon hearing of the situation in Gloucester, she said that considering birth control distribution in school would be wise. "When 10 are pregnant — that's the time to have the political courage to do it," she said. She added that the lack of easily available birth control — which, she said, pediatricians are often hesitant to prescribe — is "probably the No. 1 reason" for an increase in pregnancies." (Gloucester Daily Times)

1. Basic economics: Subsidize something and you get more of it.

2. Birth control is useless when the girls WANT to get pregnant, which is the reported case with the Gloucester girls.

Maybe there would be fewer teen pregnancies if the schools spent less time and money teaching and subsidizing sex -- and instead spent more time and money teaching math, logic, and economics.

Savers Are from Mars. Debtors Are from Venus. Episode 5

Turning Gold into Lead:
How To Lose $100k, and Your House, and Your Family

"Wendy's home had appreciated in value by about $100,000, only months after she and her husband bought it. So, they took out a second mortgage for almost $80,000 to enhance their new home. It was at 8% interest. When the housing bubble burst, that $100,000 in equity evaporated. But, the interest on that second adjustable rate mortgage by now had climbed from 8% to almost 16%, creating a monster of a monthly payment they couldn't handle. 'Then, it just gets pulled from right out underneath you.' Wendy says her marriage even broke-up over this. Now the couple faces possible foreclosure on the house" (KVOA).

Debtors often display this unfortunate tendency to turn even a $100k windfall into more debt, to eliminate increases in net worth, to eradicate any trace of even accidental equity.

Remember that the $100k was only a paper profit, not real wealth, because they did not sell the home at the high price (they ignored the basic, old "sell high" truism).

They ignored the chance to increase their income and instead increased their outgo (spending)--the opposite of basic financial advice to increase income and decrease outgo.

End of Privacy Sought by Government

"Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information" (Associated Press (AP), Yahoo! News).

Privacy (noun) = the government knows everything about you--but keeps it a secret from you.
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You Owe 9 Trillion Dollars

Congratulations, the United States gross national debt now exceeds $9 trillion.

You owe $30k. Your baby owes $30k. Your family of 4 owes $120k.

Your government put you in all this debt to make you richer, in case you were wondering why your life has felt so easy and virtually cost-free all these years.

Remember that when choosing a presidential candidate.

Why stop at $9 trillion?

Should the federal government make us all even richer by borrowing $18 trillion (so a family of 4 owes $240k) and leverage-investing it in the stock market for a higher return?

After all, Ben Stein recommended that you stay in debt to get rich: Payoff Mortgage v. Invest Stocks: Housing Myths Part 12

Ron Paul Sets Financial Record for Presidential Candidate

Amusing Theme Yields Impressive Funds for Presidential Candidate Ron Paul

Air Force veteran, Congressman, and obstetrician Dr. Ron Paul is one of the most interesting presidential candidates for the 2008 election. Ron Paul inspires energetic loyalty and outperforms other alleged "frontrunners" in some respects. Paul's supporters ("Paulites") spontaneously organized an earnest if humorously named "Guy Fawkes Day" "money bomb" of 1-day fundraising yesterday which apparently set a record:

From Baltimore Sun:

It is people voting for someone other than the establishment, odds be damned.

Paul already had raised a stunning $5 million in the last quarter, and he has set a goal of $12 million for this final quarter of the year. And, according to his campaign Web-site, Paul raised more than $3.1 million in 19 hours on Monday, marking the single largest fundraising effort of the 2008 election cycle.

As of 4 pm, the campaign maintained, it had raised $2.7 million, surpassing the record for the largest online presidential primary fundraising effort in a single day, and by 6:30 pm, the campaign said it had surpassed Republican Mitt Romney’s $3.1 million record for single-day fundraising this year. This morning, the Web-haul was reported at $3.8 million-plus.

Commenters asserted that the final tally was $4.2 million.

(Update 11/13/07: CNN reported Ron Paul's 1-day total as $4.38 million.)

Home Decorating Costs: Housing Myths Part 11

Previous: Homeownership Cost Cliches: Housing Myths Part 10

The Million-Dollar Paint Job
Peculiar Priorities To Justify Spending a Million Dollars

Those who concede that homebuying is not always financially better than renting often switch the argument from financial bottom lines to unquantifiable personal preferences that cannot be tested by Excel spreadsheets.

One of the favorite intangibles that you “can’t put a price on” is the “freedom” to do no end of unpaid labor, such as painting walls.

Bone Is Freedom. Eggshell Is Slavery.

This obsession with painting houses is very strange:

• Others consider painting to be a chore, on par with having to empty the chamber pot if there was no indoor plumbing ("But if I rented I wouldn't be able to empty my chamber pot and the landlord would get to do it every time.").
• Few people confess to jealously resenting the landlord’s “freedom” to repair the plumbing or shovel the driveway yet we hear people eagerly protest the cruel fate that denies them the right to spend their free time spreading liquid on a wall.
• These color-minded people must be very highly accomplished in life to be able to say, “Darn it, I spend way too much time playing with my children. Spreading liquid on a wall is a much higher priority.”
• Few people express the same compulsion to change the color of their car yet we see people shake their fist against the tyranny that denies them the right to spread liquid on a wall.
• Few people express the same compulsion to trim the hedges in particular shapes yet we can imagine people pacing their floor while seething with burning resentment at the anti-artistic conspiracy that denies them the right to spread liquid on a wall.

Oh, the repressed self-actualization.
Oh, the humanity.

A House Is the World's Most Expensive Canvas

Customizing your home, whether rented or not, is understandable.

Less Expensive Solutions for Frustrated Artists:

• Even extremely customized/specialized decoration does not require paint at all: Most people would guess that a room with beige walls and pink drapes, pink sheets, a pink dresser, and a pink telephone is a girl's room.
• The fixation with hammering holes in walls, instead of the “tyranny” of placing your pictures on a mantel or bookcase, is equally perplexing. Given that houses often cost several times their “sticker price” (initial value) by the time they’re paid off, how many thousands of dollars per hole is that (more expensive than wildcat oil drilling?)?
• Compulsive painters could rent while changing professions to become house painters/remodelers to get paid for their hobby, or volunteer to paint walls at homeless shelters or Habitat for Humanity.
• Even if a landlord does not allow temporary color changes, the color-obsessed occupant might find that forfeiting the renter's security deposit is much cheaper than the million-dollar paint job of buying a house.

(Even a non-"jumbo loan" house can cost a million dollars after you add the mortage interest costs to the initial price: $400k @ 8% 30yr = over $1 million.)

Cheaper than a House:
Landscape painter Bob Ross' The Joy of Painting Basic Paint Set

The Myth of Landlord Color Tyranny

Some landlords let you paint and add picture holes. Some landlords let you repaint to a weird color as long as you return to a neutral color before you leave.

Homeowners Do Not Escape Color Tyranny

The irony is that homeowning is no different from renting and experts recommend that you the homeowner behave exactly like a landlord and repaint your purple kitchen to a neutral “landlord-approved” color if you wall to sell your home. This expert recommendation exposes the basic economic fact that color was never a landlord tyranny and always has been a customer tyranny.

Yes, the tyrant was YOU when you were the customer.

The homeseller is slave to the homebuyer.

The average American moves every 7 years (according to the real estate industry). The housing karma is that you were the tyrant when you were buying so you get to be on the receiving end when you try to sell.

Next: Payoff Mortgage v. Invest Stocks: Housing Myths Part 12

Ben Bernanke on South Park?

Gangrene on the Greenback: The Falling US Dollar

If South Park did Ben Bernanke and Federal Reserve monetary policy:

Ben Bernanke Music Video

Here is a Columbia Business School (CBS) spoof of Ben Bernanke's appointment as Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, based on "Every Breath You Take" from The Police Synchronicity Album:

See more Fed spoofs:
Canada Forces US Federal Reserve To Raise Interest Rates?
Alan Greenspan: Fun with Financial Armageddon and Famous Movies

Canada Forces US Federal Reserve To Raise Interest Rates?

Here is a Saturday Night Live (SNL) Golords spoof of foreign frustration with "Easy Al" Greenspan's loose US monetary policy in 1998:

(Warning: violence and sexual content)

Except for a 25 basis points (bps) hike on March 25, 1997, the Fed only held or lowered the Fed-funds benchmark interest rate for over 4 years after Februart 1, 1995 and until June 30, 1999 while the stock market bubbled. The Fed dropped 75bps in September-October-November 1998 to 4.75% (deja vu now?).

See more Fed spoofs:
Ben Bernanke Music Video
Alan Greenspan: Fun with Financial Armageddon and Famous Movies

Alan Greenspan: Fun with Financial Armageddon and Famous Movies

Which movie best explains Alan Greenspan's tenure as Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve?

Comment on these and post your own choices.

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Dr. Greenspan: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bubble

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Greenspan: The Man with the Golden ARM

(ARM=Adjustable Rate Mortgage)

See more Fed spoofs:
Canada Forces US Federal Reserve To Raise Interest Rates?
Ben Bernanke Music Video
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Savers Are from Mars. Debtors Are from Venus. Episode 4

Is Renting So Bad that You Would Steal?

You find a wallet. What do you do?

If you are Elizabeth Cabrera-Rivera, you steal Jose Lara's identity to commit loan fraud by getting a no-documentation mortgage ("no-doc mortgage") for a $419,000 townhouse in his name. Mr. Lara only discovered the plot when he received a $2,800 refund for closing costs and the jig was up for Cabrera-Rivera.

It gets even stranger.

Elizabeth Cabrera-Rivera committed the crime because she could not get a mortgage in her own name. However, she did not abscond with the cash. Nor did she try to get free housing by defaulting on the mortgage and stretching out the eviction. No, our heroine dutifully paid the monthly mortgage payments on time.

Yes, she was buying a townhouse for Jose Lara. Sadly, it sounds like she could have been very successful building equity/savings in her own name while renting. Instead, decades of her toil gets her to that magic moment when the mortgage is paid off . . . for someone else.*

How is that better than renting?

How brainwashed must you be that you "have to" have a mortgage, even if it is to build someone else's home equity?*

* Update 11/12/07: Cabrera-Rivera later transferred the deed to her name (see comments).

Man Buys $200,000 Cave

Yaba-Daba-Doo

Bedrock City, Here We Come

The British housing bubble must be going strong because a man paid 100,000 pounds (about $200k) for a cave home in Worcestershire.

Savers Are from Mars. Debtors Are from Venus. Episode 3

Mind-Boggling Personal Story

A middle-class husband and wife live on the razor's edge of deficit and seek advice from Get Rich Slowly (GRS) when their spending habits turn a wrecked car into a financial emergency.

GRS: “Well, what about the cable bill? You’re paying $60 a month for that. That’s an easy one. What about cutting back to basic cable?” [I would add, ". . . or no cable?"]

Debtor (wife): “Yeah, but we can’t cut cable. Tom would have a fit.”

It looks like Tom is going to be very fit from walking to work.

Take the quiz: Is cable a necessity? Answer in comments.

You Decide: The Best Con Artist Is . . .

An amateur or garden-variety fraud or con is when you find out too late that the fraudster emptied your bank account or stole your investment and disappeared. This is sloppy for the fraudster because now he/she is "wanted" by the law.

The "best" con artist is the worst for everyone else's safety.

The "best" con artist is the one who cons you so well that you do not realize that you have been conned, you profusely thank him/her, you eagerly return to be conned again an again, and you enthusiastically recruit your friends as new victims.

Millionaire Artist wrote:

“Girl power”, my [a@@]. I couldn’t decide what was more disturbing. Was it the fact that these women each paid $5K to join a pseudo-sorority for adults? That they felt a need to pay for friends? That they felt a need to pay for compliments? That what they “bought” boiled down to “self-esteem packaged for the idiotic”? And, oh lord, how self-congratulatory they were! They really thought they were doing something to improve themselves and the lot of women. “Your successes are successes for women everywhere,” said the Guru . . . .

What is the best con or who is the best con artist?

Remember that the best con will be very popular in a Gallup poll.

You decide: Is it a government program? "education"? real estate? cars? clothing?

(Uncivil comments are not welcome but "unpopular" comments might be necessary.)

Savers Are from Mars. Debtors Are from Venus. Episode 2

Mind-Boggling True Story

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Deborah Beatty has no job but took a mortgage for a new New Jersey 3-story home with a view of the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty and then did not pay the payments. Her daughter makes less than $20k/yr as a graduate student but took a $600k mortgage split into 8.75% and 12.5% interest rates and then did not pay the $5k/mo payments—maybe because the payments were more than 3 times (300%) her entire gross income.

“Beatty acknowledged the mortgage was probably too good to be true” (Union-Tribune of SD).

On what planet is $600k debt @ up to 12.5% and payments 3x gross income “good”?

(The quote might only refer to the mother’s unspecified loan but I suspect that she approved of her daughter’s loan and that the mother's loan was little better.)

Take the quiz: Do you find these loan offers attractive or repulsive? Answer in comments.

Savers Are from Mars. Debtors Are from Venus. Episode 1

Mind-Boggling True Story

Debtor: “I’m going to buy a new car.”

Saver: “Why? Your Honda Civic might go another 100,000 miles. What’s wrong with it?"

Debtor: “It’s going to be paid off soon.”

Take the quiz: Would you buy a new car or not? Answer in comments.