[Apollia]

Whew... I didn't mean to write such a long message as this. This is why I should avoid forums. Or maybe I should channel all this enthusiasm for writing on topics I care about into having a blog or something else that I can profit from.

Oops, it's so long I actually have to split it in two posts.

Originally Posted by fountainAtlas

I meant force, one should be able to do whatever they want with their money, give it away, spend it, or even burn it (Dark Night). But the way Apollia said it made it seem like they should be required to give it away.

Really? Oops, I didn't mean to give that impression. I don't think anyone should be required to give money away at all. I'm even against all income taxes for anyone, rich or poor.

(Quote on the topic of charity: )

I agree that in some cases it is a "Good Thing". But, the way the world works, or more importantly the way I believe it does, is that for one person who received charity and became productive there will be 10 people who will see that as an excuse to not contribute and bleed the donors of their money.

Is there really anyone who would really prefer to be a leech who is totally, helplessly dependent on others for their survival, rather than self-sufficient? Especially if you're dependent on cold-hearted, nasty people who don't care at all about you, and are willing to pressure you to do things you don't want to do simply because they have power over you.

That's not my situation, fortunately. But, it's bad enough being dependent on family even if your family is nice to you, since I'm well aware I'm going to have a very difficult time making it in the world if anything happens to them. Wanting to escape being dependent on family (or anyone else) was part of what drove me into debt in the first place.

Originally Posted by fountainAtlas

Honestly Apollia I am amazed at your view of the world, maybe it is because my view is nearly the exact opposite. Would your life have been better if there was no debt?

Hard to say. The entire world would probably be very different.

But maybe you just mean, no debt in my own life. In that case... yes, I do think my life probably would have been better. Probably at worst, I would have continued financially stagnating, but more likely, I would have ended up slowly building up savings.

That certainly would have been a great deal better than my current situation - sliding ever-deeper into the hole at the rate of at least around $300 per month (from late fees, overlimit fees, and penalty interest), being too broke even to go bankrupt, and being at risk of having anything I might store in the bank stolen by Capital One or Providian if they go to court and put a levy on my bank account, as well as at risk of having my wages garnished if I get a regular job.

You yourself have admitted that you only took on debt because it was the lesser of two evils,

Well, a lesser evil amongst an unknown number of other evils, most of which I didn't even consider.

meaning that debt, which crippled you later on, saved you at one point.

Actually, I can't give it that much credit. Before I went into debt, when I was a teenager, rather than being on the brink of any serious adversity (aside, of course, from the imminent danger of me foolishly going into debt), I simply had an exaggerated idea of how bad my situation was (being dependent on my family, or anyone else, made me very uneasy, and I still don't like it, even though my family is overall good to me), and I was very depressed and very impatient for things to improve.

I also felt under pressure at that age to do what I felt was the normal thing for people my age to do - move out, go to college, get a job - regardless of whether it was practical or not. Ultimately, I decided on an alternate path (not moving out; and going into debt to get a computer, which I hoped to somehow use to make money which I could use for college or something). But, not having blossomed into a fully self-confident nonconformist, I felt an extraordinary amount of pressure not to fail at that, which made me even more miserable and reckless.

I would have been better off realizing that having a virtually unlimited amount of time to build up some savings at a nice, relaxed pace, whilst under no pressure from having debts to repay, was a far better, more practical situation for me to remain in, and far kinder to myself, than needlessly making things harder for myself by unhappily pushing myself into a "do or die" or "sink or swim" sort of situation, and gambling that in the process I'd develop the ability to handle it.

Why do you refuse to take responsibility for your actions?

I'm taking responsibility - but, in addition, I'm pointing out that there are a lot of factors besides my own actions which led to the excessively bad consequences which befell me. For instance, credit card companies greedily imposing their unfairly high late and overlimit fees and penalty interest rates to vampirically capitalize on people's misfortune, amd kick people like me when they're already down.

The child support system is also partly to blame. Throughout my teen years (and also for many years after I turned 18), my family was legally obligated to pay child support to a relative's ex-wife to supposedly support 2 children - despite the fact that our family had two children of our own to support (me and my baby sister) - and despite the fact the ex-wife didn't seem to actually need the money, given that the ex-wife had/still has a BMW, and a tendency to waste money on Gucci bags and needless new furniture. (So who knows how much of that child support the ex-wife actually even spent on the children and not some overpriced frivolous junk, when meanwhile, my family was just trying to scrape by).

Then there's the matter of income taxes. That deprived (and still deprives) me and my family of a substantial amount of money we worked hard for and rightfully earned, and it has done nothing but make all our lives harder.

And then there was/is all the debt my family was already in, constantly draining us of money so we had very little left over once all the bills were paid, and which gave me the impression of being trapped on a sinking ship. And some other factors which I don't want to get into.

If not for the above factors, my entire family would have been much better off, and I might not have been quite as depressed and desperate as to be half-willing to go into debt to begin with.

I also would have been better able to pay off my debts if not for income taxes, Social Security, etc. stealing my earnings, and if the credit card companies hadn't been able to get away with charging me thousands of dollars in fees and penalty-rate interest.

I really don't think any teenager (or even any adult) who makes a few dumb mistakes should, as a result, be forced to give 25% of their wages to some credit card companies for the rest of their life. (Which is probably what would happen to me if I were still willing to pay, since I think it is rather unlikely that I will become financially prosperous enough to ever entirely pay off my so-called "debt" - if it can even be called debt, when it mostly consists of usurious fees and interest and relatives' debts placed in my name, rather than charges I made for my own expenses).

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