Ever since the New York Times Magazine ran that sob story by NYT Federal Reserve reporter Edmund Andrews about how he had been lured by lenders into taking on too big a mortgage to pay back, what with his $4k per month alimon payments, anonymous posts have been showing up in various blog's comment sections saying that a missing part of the story involved the reporter's new wife, Patricia Barreiro, an Argentine immigrant with a passion for fashion.
Megan McArdle has now tracked down the facts that Andrews left out of his book. She paid eight cents per page to look at court documents:
Sure, the two married couples had seven children between them, but what's that to stand in the way of Love? And a "stately" home in Maryland?
By the way, an unwritten part of the story of the mortgage meltdown has to do with quiet importation of Fiesta Culture attitudes toward saving and spending.
Megan McArdle has now tracked down the facts that Andrews left out of his book. She paid eight cents per page to look at court documents:
In September 1998, California bankruptcy court records indicate that Patty and her first husband declared bankruptcy. The financial statement they filed with the court indicated family income of $174,000 in 1996, $87,000 in 1997, and $126,000 in the first nine months of 1998. The income fluctuations are not surprising, given that her husband was in the film production industry. By the time of the filing, the couple owed about $30,000 on 8 credit cards, over $200,000 in back taxes, and almost $15,000 in private school tuition, as well as substantial car and mortgage payments.
In 2007, nearly as soon as she was eligible, Patty Barreiro filed again in Montgomery Country. When called for comment yesterday, Andrews was unavailable, but there is no question that it is his wife: his income and occupation are prominently featured in the docket.
This is really highly unusual. For starters, the overwhelming majority of people who file bankruptcy do not make anything close to $100,000 a year--the standard estimate when the 2005 bankruptcy reform was passed was that about 80% of filers had household incomes below the median income in their state. The number of affluent people who file twice is even smaller, and has presumably gone down since the 2005 filing largely eliminated abusive serial Chapter 13 filings, which used to be used, often by quite wealthy people, to forestall evictions or foreclosure.
The bankruptcy code requires filers to wait 8 years after a previous Chapter 7 discharge. Barely four months after she became eligible, Patty Barreiro filed again. And the filing shows some suggestion of strategic debt management.
Ms. Barreiro filed separately from Andrews, and had to amend the filing to include Andrews' income after a complaint from a creditor who wanted to force her into a Chapter 13 repayment plan. She filed when her income was at rock bottom, consisting only of unemployment; the timing may have just excluded having to declare $5,000 in freelance editing income Andrews mentions in the book. And she shed what appear to be jointly incurred debts, such as a Comcast account. Comcast does not service the address listed on the 1998 filing, but as I can attest (to my sorrow), it is the main cable provider in Silver Spring, where she moved to live with Andrews in 2004.
Serial bankruptcies can, of course, happen to anyone with enough bad luck. But they usually don't. And when they do, they usually hit people with marginal incomes that leave no margin for error in the budget. Most people, even in LA, are able to build a sustainable budget out of an income in the low six figures.
Moreover, pesky bad luck isn't really the picture painted by either filing. Rather, Ms. Barreiro seems to have spent most of the last two decades living right up to the edge of her income, and beyond, and then massively defaulting. If you structure your finances so that absolutely everything has to go right, it's hard to blame the mortgage company when you don't quite make it.
Andrews has been admirably open about many of the poor decisions and the wishful thinking that led him deep into debt. Nonetheless, he has laid much of the blame onto irresponsible bankers and mortgage brokers. The missing bankruptcies substantially undermine this basic narrative arc of Andrews' story. Particularly in his book, the bankers are the villains, America's current troubles are the inevitable denouement of their maniacal greed, and the Andrews household stands in for an American public led, by their own greed and longing and hopeful trust, into the money pit.
Sure, the two married couples had seven children between them, but what's that to stand in the way of Love? And a "stately" home in Maryland?
By the way, an unwritten part of the story of the mortgage meltdown has to do with quiet importation of Fiesta Culture attitudes toward saving and spending.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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88 comments:
It sounds a lot like the problem with Argentina the country. It's got a good, educated population, able to earn a decent income, that can't quite get its act together and has to periodically default and start over.
Isn't she looking mostly European in descent? Are Spaniards, Portuguese, or Italian prone to such behavior?
"By the way, an unwritten part of the story of the mortgage meltdown has to do with quiet importation of Fiesta Culture attitudes toward saving and spending."
Unwritten because it's untrue. Sure, bringing in a bunch of poor Hispanics and telling them they can McMansions for nothing down hasn't helped, but the new attitudes towards saving and spending are home-grown.
These stories are interesting but it doesn't take a Latin wife to spend out of control. By the time my ex filed for divorce 5 years ago, she ran up a credit card debt of $90,000 on our combined income of $150,000. And she grew up in a lower middle class coal mining town in PA where thrift was valued. I think that this out of control spending that started about 1985 when credit card companies began to lure college students.
My grandmother is a white Mexican. She is just like Patty. My mother just like her. Both married several times, overspent and finally bankrupted the husbands that didn't divorce them.
"It's got a good, educated population, able to earn a decent income, that can't quite get its act together and has to periodically default and start over."
Doesn't that comment have a pot / kettle / black quality coming from the USA? We haven't had to default yet - though it is coming - but you would think we'd be able to get our act together and STOP spending like crazy BEFORE we have to default.
Having adopted Fiesta Monetary Policy (which just sounds so much more happy than "Zimbabwe Monetary Policy"), the attitudes towards debt, savings, and bankruptcy, perhaps, naturally followed.
Leastways, that's my thesis today.
I hate to be the voice of un-reason at iSteve, but all that anyone cares about is whether or not the rack is real.
Panem et Circenses.
Panem et Circenses.
Life is just one big fiesta.
PS: In all seriousness, where did the figure of "seven children" come from? How many biological mothers are involved? [Two? Three? Four?]
If it's just two [high-IQ] women making seven babies, and if bankruptcy is what it takes to get them to breed like that, then I say: Bring on the defaults.
I'll bet America has something like 100x more Mexicans than Argentines...but I wouldn't be totally amazed if the annual total-dollar bankruptcy filings of the two groups are pretty comparable!
In the general case, your "unwritten part" may be true, but in the specific case, it's not. Upper-class Latin Americans save and control their spending, partly because their governments are so feckless. They don't always choose the same savings vehicles as North Americans, but we haven't had our pension funds expropriated.
There may be a gender dynamic at work, where the stereotypical Latin family patriarch will be more successful at limiting his wife's tendency to overspend than a egalitiarian Anglo liberal husband.
Anon. said
"a bunch of poor Hispanics"
It's not just poor Hispanics. It's Hispanics on all economic levels, and it's one influence (yes, one out of many - feel better? - sigh) that's underappreciated. Who owns the NYT? Who was W buddy-buddy with? What is the political influence of all those who claim to represent the "bunch of poor Hispanics"?
She sounds vibrant.
By the way, an unwritten part of the story of the mortgage meltdown has to do with quiet importation of Fiesta Culture attitudes toward saving and spending.
And it will probably always remain unwritten. When this hits the high school/college history texts, the Mestizoization of America will remain unmentioned.
Are Spaniards, Portuguese, or Italian prone to such behavior?
According to Tom Sowell (Migrations and Cultures), Italians at least are not. Supposedly Bank of America was founded as Bank of Italy (in the US) to lend to Italian immigrants, who were better credit risks than American bankers then believed.
I admit that I commented in the earlier thread on the woman's probable boob job, and the fact that she seemed like a complete deadbeat, but at the beginning of this post I started to think that we were moving dangerously into Joe Wurzelbacher territory - that McArdle had gone too far delving into this family's financial history. Once I read the synopsis I wasn't so sure.
$200 grand in back taxes? Good heavens - that's everyone's business. And with all their debts they've got private school tuition, too? I wonder why they thought, living in LA, that they had to send their kids to private schools...
But the truth is that it is the fault of the mortgage brokers and lenders - not the Andrews's personal financial problems, to be sure, but the financial meltdown, which is all we should really care about. Lenders were virtually falling all over themselves to lend to tens of millions of people with money habits just like theirs.
Lenders will eventually have to come to the realization that the amount of money the they can earn from American borrowers in the form of interest and fees is roughly fixed. It's not going to grow much faster than the overall economy (2-3% a year, tops). The problem is that CEOs who run banks like utiltiies are not going to be earning 8 or even 7 figure incomes, and every CEO wants to prove he is worth at least that.
I read once that fireworks manufacturers prefer to hire women because women have the patience to sit their all day and do the same thing over and over and over, and that when you're handling explosives that's exactly the attitude you need.
Maybe we need a little more of that attitude in the banking business.
My understanding is that both Chile and Argentina are pretty white. Certainly whiter than the US. They didn't have large native American populations to begin with neither did they have a lot of slaves. I believe a majority of Argentinians are either of German or Italian descent (I remember about some poor Argentinians migrating back to Italy). Unfortunately, they seemed to have adopted the Latin culture instead of the Protestant one. This includes a fiesta mentality and extremely bolshy workers.
"I read once that fireworks manufacturers prefer to hire women because women have the patience to sit their all day and do the same thing over and over and over,"
That didn't work out so well when they had Lucy put the whipped cream and cherry on top of the a-bombs, did it?
It sounds like she's taken two men down the road to ruin. so she probably has some serious sparkle and a bod that ages well.
"Serious sparkle..."
Yeah. I think the wife probably has a con (wo)man personality. A certain fraction of people are both personally fascinating and feckless. They tend to leave a trail of debt and worry behind them, but they always find new milch cows.
I marvel at the loyalty such people inspire. Andrews himself wrote that his wife was selfish and insouciant-- when he was having a sleepless panic-stricken night worrying about their (his) debt she scolded him for disturbing her beauty rest. He hasn't dumped her, though.
"We haven't had to default yet .." - apart from that time under FDR.
Argentinians, Chileans, and Uruguayans (like every other Latin American country) are less white than they claim. They are mostly white, but it is obvious that most have some Amerindian blood. Remember that most Mexicans in the USA consider themselves white. Dark-skin-chic just doesn't sell very well outside of N.Euro/Anglo cultures.
"she probably has some serious sparkle and a bod that ages well"
Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of her and Wonder Woman.
Look at this map at Transparency International:
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2008
The countries that are least corrupt (and least messed up) are historically Protestant countries in north west Europe, and places colonized and largely populated by people from those countries.
The Catholic countries in Europe definitely are more corrupt and have a different culture than the Protestant countries. If you don't believe me--look at the map. It is undeniable. And the places colonized by France, Spain and Portugal are mostly basket-cases now. (Especially places colonized by France).
Italy seems to be particularly corrupt. I have noticed that that a lot of sellers on ebay refuse to sell to anyone in Italy because the postal system is so screwed up there.
I don't know if the Protestant religions had a beneficial effect on the people, or if the people were different to start with, and decided they wanted to reform the church. Or maybe some lurking variables influenced things. But there definitely seems to be a correlation.
The effect seems to be almost impossible to overcome. For example, Quebec is still much more corrupt and dysfunctional than the rest of Canada, even though hundreds of years have passed since Quebec was a French colony, and despite the fact that the rest of Canada is constantly throwing money into Quebec and bending over backwards to accommodate them so they don't separate. Remember when that actress died after an accident at a ski resort in Quebec because they don't have air ambulance there? All the other provinces in Canada have air ambulances. All of them. The medical system in Quebec is seriously screwed up, and they pay doctors there less than anywhere else in the country.
I wonder if one of the reasons Louisiana is so corrupt and messed up is because it used to be a French colony. I've read that it is the most corrupt state in the union.
As immigration from 3rd world countries into Europe and Canada continues at breakneck speed, I'm afraid soon the whole world will be very corrupt and whatever it was about those Protestant countries that made them functional and good will be lost. Read "While Europe Slept" by Bruce Bawer.
http://www.amazon.com/While-Europe-Slept-Radical-Destroying/dp/0385514727
If birth rates continue at the current rate in Europe, the Muslim immigrants will be a majority before long. At least in Canada a substantial portion of the immigrants seem to be well educated. This doesn't seem to be the case so much in Europe.
Maybe most of the smarter/more functional European natives have already emmigrated to places such as Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand, and taken their genes with them. Europe is going to hell in a handbasket.
Lucius Vorenus said...
If it's just two [high-IQ] women making seven babies, and if bankruptcy is what it takes to get them to breed like that, then I say: Bring on the defaults.
Riiiight. Because character and cultural traits don't matter at all. And of course you're just assuming the two women are high-IQ because....
Hmm. Sounds like Lonely Lucius has been hypnotized by those big Argentine boobies.
My understanding is that both Chile and Argentina are pretty white. Certainly whiter than the US. They didn't have large native American populations to begin with neither did they have a lot of slaves. I believe a majority of "Argentinians are either of German or Italian descent (I remember about some poor Argentinians migrating back to Italy). Unfortunately, they seemed to have adopted the Latin culture instead of the Protestant one. This includes a fiesta mentality and extremely bolshy workers."
The CIA Factbook places these in the 95%+ range for white. I do have to question the claim of Italian and/or Germany ancestry. If this were the case, why do they speak mainly Spanish in these countries?
Wikipedia notes that in Chile, German and Croatia are spoken in the southern area, but how much? Is this like French in Louisiana?
Edmund L Andrews responds to Megan McArdle's expose here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2009/05/ed-andrews-responds-to-critici.html
The whole point is that the constant, grinding, never-ending status competition just drives up expenses far past income.
Look at both husbands, constantly having to churn out "enough" income to meet the status demands of the wives: private schools, expensive cars, and the like.
Status competition is deep and wide.
Both guys, as soon as the money stopped coming in to maintain the lifestyle, got divorced. That's the lesson.
Robust nuclear families don't die due to failure of status goodies. One more arrow pointing to the substitution of status competition for a real, traditional nuclear family.
This kind of abuse of the bankruptcy system on the part of the upperclass is what a debtor's prison could specifially target and stop.
If this were all true you'd expect to have seen lots of Latin American banks going bust (Indeed it would be a miracle to see Latin American banks at all). And yet the countries with the biggest bank problems, besides the US, are in such Latino counties as Britain, Ireland and Iceland. The Latin American financial institutions seem to have come through the crisis with barely a scratch.
Interestingly the Spanish country whose financial institutions have seemed to have fared the worse are Spain's.
(Anybody know what happened to mortgage companies in Mexico while the American ones were falling apart?)
PS I'd rather be part of the Chilean pension system than the American. Chile may have the best government mandated pension system anywhere.
Don't know where the 7 children come from, but not out of that body.
>fiesta culture
hahahahaha. yes it's so so sexy and warm and vibrant compared to cold fish gringo culture.
the northern europeans are so boring. see how the northern music and art and films are so lame and unimportant compared to exciting and vibrant latin arts and culture? latins love colors!
the new bronze age american flag will have a lot more colors than icy cold red white and blue. latins know how to live!
>fiesta culture
bring it on. the ice people give me the shivers. time for them to go. viva la raza. latins have come into their own in the usa and they're going to show the world just how boring the gringos really are. i really love latin music especially. the way it uses the same chord progressions and same rhythms over and over and over again. it touches my vivacious and tangy soul because i never know what to expect. i never know what is coming next.
the great latin culture worldwide can be summed with its famous 'what will they think of next?' spirit. that's why it's never boring to be sexy and warm and latin.
>fiesta culture
i spend all my time in los angeles and miami because this is the new bronze america cultural power axis. this is the new bronze age in american history and it will put to shame the boring white gringo nazi period from george washington to ronald reagan.
the new america speaks spanish and sways to a latin beat and is so so very sexy and vibrant and interesting and shiny. we love shiny objects and in the future the latin spaceships will have much more style than the gringo spaceships and the latin moonbase will be where the action is. that is inescapable.
>fiesta culture
please think about switching this blog to spanish steve. it's the language of the american future.
my comments would've sounded so much smoother and romantic and soulful if they were in spanish. but for now i guess we are still stuck in the reactionary anglo-saxon authoritarian cultural tyranny of the imperialist (and very boring) ice people.
Apropos of my favorite sub-prime one-liner: I wouldn't loan her a stick of gum.
Uhm. I hate to point out the obvious but from the picture here:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/05/17/magazine/17foreclosure.1.ready.html
It is pretty clear who runs the show.
Look at their stances. This (stock photo) image:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_238/1203186447spxU3J.jpg
signals a different dynamic.
Here is what it comes down to: She is fairly attractive as commenters on this blog have noticed as well as an alpha female, he is pure beta.
Not only looks like one, but he implicity tells us he is in his article.
“You can’t keep second-guessing me,” she told me angrily. “It’s small-minded and petty, and it’s not very attractive.
...
“How the hell could we have run through so much money so quickly?” I asked her accusingly.
Patty wasn’t sharing my shock. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she responded. “Let’s talk about it when you get home.”
Why would an Argentine MILF be with this beta? Maybe. Just maybe because she can push him around to bankrupting himself in order to support her and her biological kids lifestyles....
Nah....
Of course you can talk about Fiesta Culture in the MSM. You just have to go about it in the Correct Way.
"Vibrant Latinos cherish family and friends, and love to get together for freewheeling celebrations. Men take profound pride in their diverse heritage and express their heartfelt cultural stirrings with colorful customizations to their cars and stereo systems. Women are expressive and unafraid of their sensuality, and they don't hesitate to accentuate their natural curves with a little help from modern science.
"Fifteen-year-old girls are feted with a debutante ball called the 'quince años,' though some forego this fiesta in exchange for an overseas trip with their friends. Only by hosting the best quince años in the city can family-centered families expunge the hurtful daily reminders of (U.S. economic exploitation)/(Anglo-perpetrated job and pay discrimination) [ed. use first phrase if story is set in Mexico]."
You see, Steve, flinty Scots-Irish, aescetic New Englanders and Norwegian bachelor farmers are an ill-dressed gaggle of soulless fascists, so never ask if they have anything to do with the fact that this country became the kind of place that millions wanted to flock to.
"If I had a retarded son I would make him a banker."
So said Professor Krueger, once of undergraduate finance professors.
Oddly enough he was a German from Nicaragua!
Left unmentioned here and elsewhere: the whole thing about lending money is not just getting paid back, but earning an appropriate return for the risk involved. The whole minority mortgage meltdown was the risk factor being thrown out the window thanks to Wall Street's securitization programs. That and phenomenal levels of leverage thanks to futures.
Firms like Countrywide did not hold most of the loans it originated on its own books; they had been securitized and sold off in tranches on Wall Street. Who cares about being paid back if you don't own the underlying collateral against which you lent money? It was someone else's problem.
Lucius:
See this image:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/05/17/magazine/17foreclosure.2.ready.html
What I don't get about this guy is the same thing I don't get about Bill Clinton. If you're going to get in so much trouble, couldn't you at least pick a woman who was moderately attractively and didn't have a flat tire around her midsection?
The South Americans of European descent are much worse in this regard (i.e. Columbian, Argentinians and Euro-Mexicans). Steve once wrote something about how car salesmen found that they had the most "aristocratic insouciance" towards price.
It seems the other SWPL myth Andrews is trying to maintain is that of woman as the low-time preference anchor of the family, soberly restraining the male from conspicuous consumption.
I don't run in these circles so I don't know, but I'd bet women in their 30's and 40's are beginning to way outnumber their male counterparts in high-status displays like charitable gala's, the Kentucky Derby, and exotic travel.
We are still relatively early into this unprecedented social experiment of putting women into direct financial competition with men. And the more experiences I have and stories I hear, the harder I find it to disagree with testing99.
--Doug
The CIA fact book is wrong. Most of the "whites" Chile and many of those in Argentina and Uruguay are mixed. Simple physical observation will tell you this.
Anonymous: Hmm. Sounds like Lonely Lucius has been hypnotized by those big Argentine boobies.
Oh hell yeah baby, hell yeah.
Natalism is teh r0x0r.
Bring on the debt.
Fire up the printing presses.
We're making babies now.
PS: In all seriousness, though, if you cut out all the crap in your family's life [Montessori schools, dressage lessons, au pairs, birthday extravaganzas], and if you don't have some incredibly rare malady afflict your family - like a pressing need for a pediatric heart valve replacement surgery - then kids are basically free.
Heck, if you stick with homeschooling through college [and my prediction is that home-schooled college will be the next big wave in countercultural American pedagogy], and if you jump over the SATS and head straight for the GREs, and if your University has graduate student stipends in your chosen specialty, then you can "attend" school for free for your entire life.
Testing99: The whole point is that the constant, grinding, never-ending status competition just drives up expenses far past income... One more arrow pointing to the substitution of status competition for a real, traditional nuclear family.
Testy, you're getting so close to the answer.
[To the question which asks: What drives the desire for status competition in the first place?]
PS: I trust that you and NemifistX won't allow any of this nonsense in your household.
You know what makes me laugh?
The New York Times has been staffed by fraudulent liars (Jason Blair), crack addicts (David Carr), and now serial bankruptcy artists (Edmund Andrews).
I used to think that the Harvard overclass and the underclass were totally distinct, with the former using the latter as a pawn. But it appears some underclass values have seeped into the overclass -- that the constant drumbeat of popular culture is starting to take its toll.
Anonymous: Lucius: See this image
Dude, the chick is like half a century old, but even at her age, she is still totally IHI-able.
I'd bet that about thirty years ago, circa late 1970s/early 1980s, she would have made you weak in the knees and caused your face to get all flush and left you tongued-tied and stammering and whatnot.
Be for real, man.
If you're going to get in so much trouble, couldn't you at least pick a woman who was moderately attractively and didn't have a flat tire around her midsection?Uh, he's slightly built, nerdish, and nets lower-middle class income in a an upper class professional sphere. As far as Ed Andrews is concerned, she's effing hell on wheels. Lookswise, she's actually fine for her age and three childbirths.
I could tame her.
--Doug
This kind of abuse of the bankruptcy system on the part of the upperclass is what a debtor's prison could specifially target and stop.
Or like many other bankruptcy filers the couple in the article could be forced to repay part of their debts over the course of five years. Of course, if Andrews had to repay their (his) debts then this woman would probably walk out and milk some other man, leaving Andrews to pay back her debts and die in poverty.
Thanks Reactionary.
I do see this quite a lot: the status displays being often driven by women.
If you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, you get a good taste of this stuff. Or Home and Garden Television, with "House Hunters" series. I've seen it in older execs (plus 40, married) that I've dealt with. THEY mostly don't care what they drive, past a certain floor, a Toyota or Honda will do, but their wives MUST have the Land Rover. Or what have you.
She is fairly attractive as commenters on this blog have noticed as well as an alpha female, he is pure beta.
Yeah, the guy's not an idiot for getting an itch and following it. He's not an idiot for risking his entire financial wealth for a woman. He's an idiot for chasing after a woman who wasn't 20 years younger and reasonably free of baggage.
I don't think he's as beta as you guys do, but if he'd paid a few visit to the weight room (and maybe his locals teroids dealer) he could've gotten a better ROI.
What I don't get about this guy is the same thing I don't get about Bill Clinton. If you're going to get in so much trouble, couldn't you at least pick a woman who was moderately attractively and didn't have a flat tire around her midsection?
Are you speaking of Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones? 'Cause Lewinsky was definitely attractive, if clearly psychologically unhinged. Yeah, she was a little obese. I generally prefer somewhat slimmer women (though not walking sticks), but there are plenty of women with a little weight on them who are quite gorgeous.
Note that I picked another totally unhinged woman in honor of the Lew. Not that Lewinsky rose to the level of those two, but then it was the White House. Maybe the next randy president (who, I think, is already in office) should order his interns from Ford or Elite rather than Berkeley.
wonder if one of the reasons Louisiana is so corrupt and messed up is because it used to be a French colony.
There's another, more northerly state with a Mediterrean air and lots of corruption - New Jersey.
Here is what it comes down to: She is fairly attractive as commenters on this blog have noticed as well as an alpha female, he is pure beta.
I have no idea why the comment section of this blog is overrun by people who speak in this fashion.
One more time - the words "alpha" and "beta" do not mean what the Rossyians think they do.
And on a side note - no, dammit, she is not attractive.
Yeah, the guy's not an idiot for getting an itch and following it.
I correct myself: he is an idiot for chasing after another woman, assuming he was already in an even halfway decent marriage. But if he's going to risk it all to chase after another woman, he should've chosen a more worthy target.
And on a side note - no, dammit, she is not attractive.Precisely. Does this blog come with a free pair of beer goggles? 'Cause if it does, I didn't receive them, but it appears that a lot of other commenters here did.
You know, I think we should take some of it back. Perhaps the "nebbishy" Mr. Beta Male knew exactly what he was doing by writing this book and leaving out all the wifey details. Perhaps he knew (Jow Wurzelbacher, anyone?) well that some people would dig deeper and ask the pressing questions. He's a reporter, for goodness sake. So, for ruining his life, he pays Wife #2 back by writing this book, telling her that baring some of their souls will re-establish their financial future together, then watching as the media turns into a pack of wolves - going after her.
If that was his motive then it's absolutely brilliant. Better than an angry, tearful "you ruined my life" any day of the week.
Beta male my ass. This man's our new Iago. He's got cojones. Hell, I'd sleep with him, and I'm not gay.
If that's what he intended, then it was brilliant. If it's not what he intended then he should lie and say it was.
There's another, more northerly state with a Mediterrean air and lots of corruption - New Jersey.Almost all of the nations located in the geographic area that surrounds the Mediterrean Sea [on all sides] are highly dysfunctional.
None of them have won any major wars recently either.
t99 sed,
Thanks Reactionary.
I do see this quite a lot: the status displays being often driven by women.
This behaviour of women is as old as the hills. If you read up about pre-revolutionary Russia or France, its obvious that the more careless aristocracy mortgaged their vast land-holdings in order to show off in the capitals were all the action was. Maybe it was clever to hang around where the king was in order to get some political action. However I think a major factor was being at the parties, showing off, playing status games (women) and getting some sexual action (men). That's where the young folk were mated, and where the married aristocracy met their mistresses. Of course the family had to be as splashy as possible so the aristocracy borrowed the money against their derelict holdings, which were often run by managers and opportunists.
I think some clever and more mundane aristocrats took care of their estates and avoided the money pits in the capitals. Those are the ones whose offspring still hold family estates in the US and Europe nowadays. The rest are history.
This is the way to deal with these kinds of women. You have to ignore them and all their demands. Get on with your life, build it wisely and stay in your natural limits. Avoid women who get you into any type of financial trouble, or who make unreasonable demands, no matter how long the legs or impressive the "rack". They are doing it wilfully and are irresponsible, so why listen to them. If you are outclassed, move to a town with lower material/social standards, or find a crowd that fits in with your socio-economic level. The types of women you describe are not worth a nickel, and never have been. And trying to change them is a sure-fire waste of time.
I don't really understand all the excitement about this issue. It just takes a realistic assessment and a few decisions and this topic is a non-issue.
Anonymous: There's another, more northerly state with a Mediterrean air and lots of corruption - New Jersey.Almost all of the nations located in the geographic area that surrounds the Mediterrean Sea [on all sides] are highly dysfunctional. None of them have won any major wars recently either.
1948.
1967.
1973.
FWIW, Andrews has responded to some of his critics here. It's a PBS site, so take it for what it's worth.
And beer goggles? His wife is attractive for a 50-something woman. Attractive compared to Adriana Lima? Probably not.
Almost all of the nations located in the geographic area that surrounds the Mediterrean Sea [on all sides] are highly dysfunctional.
If you could spend all day at the beach you wouldn't worry if the accounts are balanced, either. Hell, we have the same problem in this country, starting with California.
"Why would an Argentine MILF be with this beta?..."
You see T99, there is hope after all.
> I'd bet that about thirty years ago
Sure -- 30 years ago. My point is that if Andrews was going to pay through the nose, he might as well have gotten a 30 something trophy, 10-15 years younger. Instead he got a peer well past her sell by date.
I mean, why would you marry an over the hill 50 year old when you can drop "I write for the NYT"? Andrews is a huge beta.
Will some moderately attractive, non-bitchy woman PLEASE sleep with Testy and Lucius? For the love of all that's holy, put them out of their misery so we can get on with this blog!
but the new attitudes towards saving and spending are home-grown.
How the hell can you tell? It's all been happening at the same time.
In the old days, at least, all the skinflints could live in neighborhoods with other American skinflints or with white trash who might at least occasionally be stirred to mow their lawns and remove their Christmas decorations by July. Nowadays being a frugal member of the middle class means living in a neighborhood that looks and feels like Upper Tijuana.
In all seriousness, though, if you cut out all the crap in your family's life [Montessori schools, dressage lessons, au pairs, birthday extravaganzas], and if you don't have some incredibly rare malady afflict your family - like a pressing need for a pediatric heart valve replacement surgery - then kids are basically free.
Heck, if you stick with homeschooling through college...I homeschooled without "all of that crap" and while spending money on children's parties is ridiculous, homeschooling a large family without childcare of some sort will destroy a woman's health, like it did mine. There are a lot of women coming out of conservative homeschooling circles beginning to tell the truth about this. Of course, they think the answer is better public schooling, while I think the answer is domestic help. The au pair program should be expanded and there should be a similar program without the international travel aspect, where young girls can get out of their parents' house, have health insurance and oversight, and learn useful domestic skills under the tutelage of an experienced housewife.
"FWIW, Andrews has responded to some of his critics here. It's a PBS site, so take it for what it's worth."
Andrews is a fool. Her previous husband probably didn't file taxes because he needed all the money he could get to satisfy that Argentine wife's demands. Further, he seems like a classic "whipping boy" by making excuses for her behavior. This woman, after all, did not really ever want to work.
Captain Jack Aubrey said...
Hell, I'd sleep with him, and I'm not gay.
You are now, Captain Peter Puffer. It's a brave thing you did, coming out on Steve's blog. Mazel tov!
Andrews' response is fascinating. What kind of woman files bankruptcy to avoid repaying a loan from her own sister?
Anyway, I agree with the others that this guy is pure beta for bankrupting himself for the sake of another guy's children. If he's gonna get divorced and re-married, he should find some hot childless 25 year old.
"Yeah, the guy's not an idiot for getting an itch and following it. He's not an idiot for risking his entire financial wealth for a woman. He's an idiot for chasing after a woman who wasn't 20 years younger and reasonably free of baggage"
I agree 100%. Besides, even if this hypothetical 25 year old hottie were high maintenance, she's gotta be much cheaper than a high maintenance 50 year old with 3 children.
homeschooling a large family without childcare of some sort will destroy a woman's health What? What do you mean, "destroy your health"?
"He's an idiot for chasing after a woman who wasn't 20 years younger and reasonably free of baggage"
Not all 50 year old men want to be with a 25 year old. And if he was one, what's to think a 50 year old boring-looking bald man could find a 25-year-old who wanted to be with him considering he is heavily in debt with kids almost the same age she is, and makes two grand a month in NYC.
You guys watch WAY too many movies.
I agree with those saying the woman does not look attractive in that photo, but I assume she intentionally "dressed down" to avoid looking like the man-eating, gold-digging, cock-teasing harridan that she obviously is. After all, once those book sales peak she's going to be back on the market, and the last thing she wants is high-profile tramp exposure.
Some other site had a comment that said the sister co-signed a car loan.
Here in LA, public schools aren't very good, and if she and the 1st husband were social-climbing in the media crowd, Campbell Hall was a good choice. The Olson Twins went there.
Some of her creditors in the latest filing were plastic surgeons and a dermatologist. Maybe she had acne scars.
As noted earlier on this thread, Mr. Andrews is defending the strategic omissions in his story and attacking Megan McArdle via a post on his PBS pal Paul Soman's blog, Ed Andrews Responds to Criticism in the Blogosphere.
I submitted the following to Soman's post, if it passes moderation it will follow #43:
--- begin comment ---
Despite his best efforts and the support of sympathetic PBS interviewers, Mr. Andrews has wound up telling the tale of his family's financial ruin. Whoops--THAT wasn't supposed to happen! To read the story, skip Andrews' self-serving book and go straight to McArdle's blog, Sailer's blog, and the comments at both places.
Meanwhile, keep spinning, Mr. Andrews & enablers. It adds more human interest to an already fascinating account.
--- end comment ---
McArdle's follow-on post from 5/22/09 is Edmund Andrews Explains His Decision to Omit his Wife's Bankruptcies.
The more that this story is fleshed out, the more Andrews is revealed as a mendacious narcissist. His media friends like him enough to provide on-air tongue baths. Maybe one of them could walk him through an explanation of the First Rule of Holes?
And the NYT pays this guy to be an economics reporter. Stranger than Fiction.
Can't speak for T99, but Lucius Vorenus is doing just fine with the ladies, thank you very much.
[Both Shiksa & Yidishke, he would have you know.]
Some of her creditors in the latest filing were plastic surgeons and a dermatologist.
Or a boob job? My first comment on the first thread was about her probable breast enhancement. I feel vindicated. A woman who's already had bankruptcy and who owes her sister $29,000 probably spent money on a boob job. Awesome.
You know that this family's financial trouble is our fault, don't you? You know that, right?
Not all 50 year old men want to be with a 25 year old. - "Truth"
Ho hum. I didn't say he should want to be with a younger woman. I wondered why he'd take such a huge personal financial risk for such a low potential return on investment. Such risk could be understood if he were a 50-year-old chasing after a hot young 20 or 30-something. But after another 50-year-old? It's like paying $50k for a '97 Taurus.
And I am not being sexist. If the genders were reversed the same would hold.
Argentines are definitely overwhemingly white. I've know lots of them, although I have not been to the country. Just yesterday I was walking down the street next to a family of them. Pale as could be.
Look at their IQ average - 98. That's white, not Indian.
If he's gonna get divorced and re-married, he should find some hot childless 25 year old.
Why do I keep getting the impression that typical commenter on this blog has never so much as been on a date?
Hot childless 25 year-old women are not noted for shacking up with poor ugly guys old enough to be their dads, in spite of whatever fantasies you guys have. Honest, it's true.
My first comment on the first thread was about her probable breast enhancement. I feel vindicated. A woman who's already had bankruptcy and who owes her sister $29,000 probably spent money on a boob job..
.
.
As I understand it, plastic surgeons require payment in advance for cosmetic work such as fake hooters.
Peter
Somebody posted the bankruptcy docs on scribd, here are the links:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15752959/Patricia-Barreiro-Sisson-1998-Bankruptcy-Filing
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15752809/Patricia-Barreiro-2007-Bankruptcy-Filing
Megan McArdle regular Yancey Ward comments and provides a link to NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt's 5/24/09 column.
The contrast between Hoyt's evasions and the Andrews Scandal as seen via McArdle and iSteve is instructive. One more inadvertant example of how J-school groupthink contributes to the collapse of the Slim Times and similar institutions.
I do see this quite a lot: the status displays being often driven by women.
If you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, you get a good taste of this stuff. Or Home and Garden Television, with "House Hunters" series. I've seen it in older execs (plus 40, married) that I've dealt with. THEY mostly don't care what they drive, past a certain floor, a Toyota or Honda will do, but their wives MUST have the Land Rover. Or what have you.This is precisely how it is. And first world nations are now living in an age of abundance when a very large portion of our money is spent on status goods.
This is why I can only imagine living under communism being much worse on the womenfolk than on men, relatively speaking. Men generally don't give jack shit about consumer dreck. Sex and alcohol beat that 10-0 for us. And high quality sex was available for much larger groups of men behind the Iron Curtain than in the West. Even today, 20 years post communism, ex-communist countries have young females in much better physical shape and with much better attitudes than the West.
Hot childless 25 year-old women are not noted for shacking up with poor ugly guys old enough to be their dads, in spite of whatever fantasies you guys have. Honest, it's true.
Didn't deny it.
Like I said: if he was going to take such a huge financial risk...
And reasonably attractive 25-year-olds may not hook up with middle class 50-year-olds all that often, but I've seen more than a few thirtysomethings do so. And not just on TV...
Even today, 20 years post communism, ex-communist countries have young females in much better physical shape and with much better attitudes than the West.
Possibly, but this doesn't aid your case.
Not many 25 year olds think a NYT writer in his early 50s is much of catch. He's not a movie mogul nor is he Ted Turner.
As she's been in the US since the 80s, I don't think her Argentinian roots have much impact on her day to day choices. Living in LA would be more relevant.
But why didn't she get another job after being downsized (or fired as a McArdle poster suggests). Surely someone in DC would like to do a favor for a writer at the NYTimes? Or is the story better if she's unemployed.
"If he's gonna get divorced and re-married, he should find some hot childless 25 year old."
"Why do I keep getting the impression that typical commenter on this blog has never so much as been on a date?"
i know, anonymous said. Sometimes this blog is very informative, what with the freedom from PC rules & regs, but it can make some commenters think they are in a souk where an exchange of gold can buy any white-beard a 15 year old virgin legal wife, allowing him the possibility of going to his grave with "bells on his coffin" --a Persian expression describing a man who fathered children in old age.
As for the "trophy" of a young wife--well, unless he has thick armor, he and the misses would likely be a kind of stereotype joke. When I was young, neither the guys nor the girls thought too much of that sort of couple for the most part, though I'm sure some were/are v. happy. I won't go into the choice descriptive names that often arose. In fact, I think the whole debris would be even ickier.
He's got kids already. He's hankering to change diapers, worry another 25 years about schools and adolescent angst, only to be assured of bells on his coffin?
So the NYT reporter would probably not be better off with a much younger woman. He would be better off with a better woman.
Do any of you ever actually read the articles? If you had you wouldn't wonder why Andrews didn't risk it all for someone "younger and better looking." He knew this woman in high school when they were "friends." I'm sure in those days she was a total fox and wouldn't have dreamed of sleeping with Andrews. The guys is basically living out his high school fantasy 30 years later, seen from that perspective it is a little more understandable why he bankrupted himself to please her. There could be a good movie in this story somewhere.
"Quebec is still much more corrupt and dysfunctional than the rest of Canada, . . . despite the fact that the rest of Canada is constantly throwing money into Quebec and bending over backwards to accommodate them so they don't separate. "
I would say 'because,' not 'despite.' Though your point about Louisiana is good. The other most corrupt states are New Mexico (a Spanish colony), which fits your theory, and, what, Illinois, which doesn't.
Actually I don't think Quebec is anymore dysfunctional than the Maritime Provinces, which are essentially welfare cases. Even after evicting most of the Anglos, Quebec still has some world class industries, decent universities and slugs way above its weight in terms of contribution to world culture for a population of 8 million. Louisiana is a different story...
Anonymous: Illinois, which doesn't
Chicago is a Catholic, Jewish, and Black town.
I don't know how you can get any more corrupt than that.
Some small corrections:
(1) Most Argentines are 100% Europeans. From 165 the Spanish-Portuguese settlers carried out successive extermination campaigns against the indians, the Campana del Desierto culminating in 1880 with the last ones killed in Southern tip of the continent. In Argentina there are no reservations.
(2) To Argentina arrived the same Italians and Spaniards that arrived to America, with many arriving to Argentina after America closed its borders to immigration in the twenties. The Spanish Civil War brought a million Spaniards, many Leftist intellectuals. WWII caused the immigration of about 1 -2 million Germans, some running away fromthe Nazis, some running away from the Allies or the Communists, most just looking for food during the post-WW famines (that no one is talking about). All keep low profile. Not a drop of Indian blood here.
(3) ARgentine mentality is consequence of the incredible natural wealth of the country. No amount of stealing, mismanagement, corruption seems to make a dent on the living standard of the people. Dios es Argentino - God is an ARgentine, that is, an Argentine has no need to worry because God will provide. And it is providing. The case that Steve is analyzing is a perfect example of the ARgentine mentality, like not paying the mortgage and to keep living in the place without a worry for eight months on. They have not a care in this life, because they are convinced that God, who is Argentine, will take care of everything.
(4) ARgentines are not a people of Fiestas. Argentines are a rather sad, depressed, introspective people. Steve, your commenters are confusing Argentines with Cubans or Puerto Ricans. Well, Americans are known for their ignorance of geography. Of history. Well, ignorance in general.
Actually Lucius Chicago is a Catholic, Jewish, Black and homosexual town. Chicago hosted the 2006 Gay Games.
Also, Chicago is a center of the labor union movement.
Lucius I see you got yourself kicked off Spengler's board for good... even little brains like Uche's manage to stick around there... you're the weakest link! Hahahah
I was born in uruguay (now I lived in australia)my mother is white,her father white spaniards family her mother white northern italian white skin like prcelain white all of them, my mother never tans with the sun and she and her brothers were silver blond as kids..she made the mistake to marry a dark man,I come out with dark brown hair and light skin that slightly tan in the sun..but in uruguay most people specially the upper classes and middle class ARE WHITE with many of them blonde with light eyes of many colors, but in summer in uruguay a country with the beach in our front door many of those whites they love to have a nice tan, is an 'it' thing to have a tan in summer,now in the poor suburbs where the low income lived you migth see the non whites or mixtures, but even the poor whites in uruguay they have and maintain their 'white pride' they will never married or waste their time with a non white men or woman..uruguayans we are not like in USA where many nice looking white girls they are having kids with blacks, very few white people will do something like in USA, the reason we still maintain our 'castillian pride' the castillians in northen spain they are even whiter than northern europeans..
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