Ruth G asks…
Archive for November, 2008|Monthly archive page
70th Ask Josh – Grandma Seeking Granddaughter in Law
In Uncategorized on November 27, 2008 at 10:19 pm69th Ask Josh – Courtesy Quote
In Uncategorized on November 27, 2008 at 10:06 pmBrenda asks…
68th Ask Josh – Overdraft Fees
In Uncategorized on November 27, 2008 at 6:14 pmWhy do banks charge silly overdraft fees? They make life miserable and sometimes banks charge you when you did nothing wrong! Please help me figure this one out.
Confused Banker
……
Dear Confused Banker,
If you spend money that does not belong to you, you should fully expect to be penalized for it. If you rather, you could have the banks not back you up when you want to spend more money than what belongs to you. While you may find overdraft fees inconvenient, I think you would be far more inconvenienced if you found yourself unable to fill up an empty car the day before payday, or to have a waiter come up to you in a restaurant to tell you that you are unable to pay for your meal, or if you had to leave a basket of groceries at the checkout counter to return home empty-handed. If you think overdraft fees make life miserable, think of how much better your life would be if you only could buy what you had cash for.
Here is what Dallin H. Oaks has said about those who overdraw their accounts, “It is dishonest to write a check with insufficient funds in the bank to cover the check. The check, being a false representation of fact, is a lie. It is also a crime and deserves to be treated that way.” [BYU Speeches of the Year. “Be Honest in All Behavior” 10 January 1973.]
Rather than prosecuting you, or refusing to continue to protect your hard-earned money, or instead of sending thugs to break your knees asking, “Where’s my money?” they charge you a fee and continue to cooperate with you in financing your life.
If you think that overdraft fees are silly, imagine how silly the idea of no overdraft fees must sound.
To not penalize you would force someone else to pay for your carelessness. Like a parent who does not punish an aggressive child, the rest of the children have to pay for it. Like a justice system that lets criminals go free forcing society to accommodate lawlessness. Like a government letting any old irresponsible businessman manage his company into financial ruin and then give him billions of dollars so he can continue doing the terrible job he has already been doing and continue to take an irrequisite amount of the market share and thereby keep more efficient businesses from emerging. Absurd, isn’t it? That kind of behavior means that everybody has to pay so that irresponsible manager can continue spending more than the business earns.
We can’t reasonably expect the banks to abolish their overdraft fees. But we can find ways to minimize our costs. According to the United States Federal Reserve, the solution for you to not have overdraft fees is to manage your account properly. However, if you insist that you should not be penalized for spending money that does not belong to you, the Fed offers this advice, “If you have a complaint, first try to resolve the problem directly with your bank, savings and loan, or credit union. If you are unable to resolve the problem, you may want to file a complaint with one of the state or federal agencies responsible for enforcing consumer banking laws.”
So, Confused B, sorry if I have no sympathy to offer you. I have been nailed by overdraft fees; sometimes unjustly. But banks don’t make life miserable. Banks protect your money. They keep you from having to spend hundreds of dollars to install your own safe in your house to protect the cash you would be forced to hold onto. They keep you from having to borrow money from loan sharks if you want to buy a home, start a business, or pay for emergency medical care. They offer interest as an incentive for people to save money. They penalize those who spend more than they earn through debt financing. Banks don’t make life miserable, people make themselves miserable and blame someone else for it for peace of mind.
Of course it is inconvenient to pay overdraft fees. But I would rather that overdrafters had to pay a fee every time they overspent rather than all of us having to pay some kind of an annual fee to a communal “overdraft protection fund”, or having banks require background checks to make sure that we will never overdraft and refusing to do business with us if there is any indication that we may overdraft, or just refusing to allow us to overdraft in emergencies and thus leave us in a bind when we may be strapped for cash.
If you take away individual responsibility, then everybody pays. “And also, if there was no law given against sin, men would not be afraid to sin” [Alma 42:20].
Happy Thanksgiving. Get back to work.
67th Ask Josh – What If
In Uncategorized on November 24, 2008 at 11:30 pmAt the request of the questioner, this post will not be posted after it was painstakingly written. But since I know some of you were hoping for a laugh. Here is B Money, one of my rockin’ rapper friends. He calls me J Sauce and texts me frequently. Whether I be chillin’ ballin’ or rollin’, B Money be right thurr, right thurr.
66th Ask Josh – Oh Deer
In Uncategorized on November 23, 2008 at 10:56 am
1) Why are deer able to know to jump over the barbed wire fences in our neighborhood? They gracefully jump over them..even at night. Do they each have to get tangled in it once to then know to jump every time? Do they have to get tangled in each one and then remember after that? I am puzzled.
65th Ask Josh – The one on The One
In Uncategorized on November 23, 2008 at 2:17 amby your most ardent follower
Dearest wise Josh,
How do you know if someone is “the one”?
…..
Dear Most Ardent Follower,
In the movie The Matrix, Trinity says to Neo, “The Oracle told me I would fall in love, and that man, the man that I loved, would be The One.”
I guess that’s the most obvious one.
In Disney’s Enchanted, one of the songs goes like this, “Well does he take you out dancing just so he can hold you close? Dedicate a song with words meant just for you? He’ll find his own way to tell you with the little things he’ll do. That’s how you know. That’s how you know he’s your love.”
In Meet Joe Black, Brad Pitt as Death asked Quince the same question, “How do you know?”
Quince answered, “Because she knows the worst thing about me and it’s okay. … There’s nothing [we] don’t know about each other, and it’s okay.”
In Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams’ character asks Matt Damon if he has a soul-mate. Matt asks him what a soul-mate is. Robin Williams replies:
“Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate.”
Elder Richard G. Scott said, “I suggest that you not ignore many possible candidates who are still developing these attributes, seeking the one who is perfected in them. You will likely not find that perfect person, and if you did, there would certainly be no interest in you. These attributes are best polished together as husband and wife.” [“Receive the Temple Blessings,” Ensign, May 1999, 26 (italics added)]
Janet Lee, widow of former BYU President Rex Lee, said this of finding her “one.”
“When Rex and I were dating at BYU, he surprised me one night by indicating that he felt our relationship was getting serious. But I had just begun to come to terms with my own feelings, and he was way ahead of me. All of my logic told me Rex had everything I could ever want in a husband, yet I needed that bolt of lightning to strike me and say, ‘This is the one!’ Well, it came in a very unexpected way. For one entire week my concern was that he was getting too serious. Then one evening he suggested that we should date other people again. I was stunned, but I agreed and said good night. I was not prepared for the emotion I was about to feel. As the door closed behind me, the fear of losing him was more than I could bear. I stood frozen in the dark, leaning against the door for support. The world seemed to have stopped, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted it to start again without Rex there with me. I cried as though my heart would break. How clearly now I could see the priceless gem that was almost mine, but it seemed to be slipping away from my grasp.” [“Overcoming Discouragement” BYU Speeches of the Year. 13 Sept. 1994]
In any case, I’ve given up on looking for The One. I’m not looking for her. I’m just going on dates all helter skelter (well, not helter skelter in the Bugliosi sense, I mean it in more of the willy nilly sort of context). I am not so much concerned with finding The One as I am with finding AnyOne.
In all seriousness though, I don’t know. If you haven’t figured it out yet, then lucky you, but if you’re like most of us, you will have your heart broken and you will likely break some hearts along the way as you go about trying to answer this question. Someone may be the one for you, but you may not be the one for them, or vice versa. Elphaba’s lament in the play Wicked in the song “I’m Not That Girl” comes to mind.
The most relevant quotation I find for your question would be from Elder Bruce R. McConkie:
“How do you choose a wife? I’ve heard a lot of young people from Brigham Young University and elsewhere say, ‘I’ve got to get a feeling of inspiration. I’ve got to get some revelation. I’ve got to fast and pray and get the Lord to manifest to me whom I should marry.’ Well, maybe it will be a little shock to you, but never in my life did I ever ask the Lord whom I ought to marry. It never occurred to me to ask him. I went out and found the girl I wanted; she suited me; I evaluated and weighed the proposition, and it just seemed a hundred percent to me as though this ought to be. Now, if I’d done things perfectly, I’d have done some counseling with the Lord, which I didn’t do; but all I did was pray to the Lord and ask for some guidance and direction in connection with the decision that I’d reached. A more perfect thing to have done would have been to counsel with him relative to the decision and get a spiritual confirmation that the conclusion, which I by my agency and faculties had arrived at, was the right one. … Well, do you want a wife? Do you want anything that’s right and proper? You go to work and you use the agency and power and ability that God has given you. You use every faculty, you get all the judgment that you can centered on the problem, you make up your own mind, and then, to be sure that you don’t err, you counsel with the Lord. You talk it over. You say, ‘This is what I think; what do you think?’ And if you get the calm, sweet surety that comes only from the Holy Spirit, you know you’ve reached the right conclusion; but if there’s anxiety and uncertainty in your heart, then you’d better start over, because the Lord’s hand is not in it, and you’re not getting the ratifying seal that, as a member of the Church who has the gift of the Holy Ghost, you are entitled to receive.” [“Agency or Inspiration—Which?” BYU Speeches of the Year 1973]
Happy hunting.
64th Ask Josh – Ask Josh earnings
In Uncategorized on November 23, 2008 at 12:35 am
So how much money have you made since you’ve “bought-in”? I’ve been doing my part.
……..
Dear Princess Mema,
In the language of business, my accounting books would reflect a debit to accounts receivable and a credit to advertising revenue. It would look like this
- Accounts Receivable 2.42
- Advertising Revenue 2.42
63rd Ask Josh – Nice Guys
In Uncategorized on November 21, 2008 at 1:26 amby one of the ladies
dear josh,
you say you love questions about relationships, so here goes:
why are all the confident guys douchebags and the nice guys ridden with self-esteem issues? this is a lose-lose for the ladies.
…..
Dear one of the ladies,
The good people of Procter & Gamble take all the confident guys to this factory and they take them to this ledge, and when the confident guys aren’t looking, they push them into this vat which leads to a processor that converts the confident guys into… oh wait, I get it, you mean it as a metaphor. Oh, that makes the second part of your question make more sense. However, I do see making female hygiene products out of guys really would be a lose-lose for the ladies.
You know why nice guys have self-esteem issues? Some kind of an outside influence made them that way. They try to be nice, and some kind of an outside influence doesn’t give them the time of day. Nice guys, often shy, are labeled as creepy when they go out on a limb to ask some kind of an outside influence out. Then they read articles like, “Signs You’re Too Nice.”
They hear the oft-misquoted Leo Durocher saying, “All nice guys. They’ll finish last. Nice guys. Finish last.”
In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the title character laments over the inevitable relationship failure of his friend Cameron. He says, “You can’t respect someone who kisses your [feet (for our purposes, let’s use the word ‘feet’)]”
James Franco gives a sad, but perhaps too true piece of advice to Shane West in the movie Whatever It Takes. Franco says, “Chicks dig [jerks].” We will label James as “Jerk” and Shane as “Nice Guy” just so you can see why jerks are the way they are, and why the nice guys are glum and insecure.
Jerk: Look, man, chicks dig [jerks], okay? … Remember in grade school when you always picked on the girl you liked? It’s kind of like that. Some girls are just insecure.
Nice Guy: You’re saying Ashley Grant is insecure.
Jerk: She’s the head cheerleader of insecurity.
Nice Guy: And if I treat her bad, she’ll go for it?
Jerk: Absolutely.
Nice Guy: Come on. That doesn’t make any sense.
Jerk: What, you’ve dated how many of these girls? That’s what I thought. … Simple question: Do you want her or not?
Nice Guy: Well, yeah, but– – Okay. … Even if everything you said is true, I don’t want to be mean to her.
Jerk: Right. Seeing as how she’s so sweet to you.
Extreme you say? While I wouldn’t say spot on, I must admit, the jerk’s words contain a kernel of truth. No, we don’t want to be mean, even if that does better our chances. But when niceness doesn’t work, and a part of me wants to say from experience that it does not, we must, like Alma, go “by another way” [Alma 8:18].
The same thing happens in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the play, Helena loves Demetrius, but Demetrius loves Hermia, and Hermia has no interest in Demetrius. Hermia is a jerk to Demetrius, and Helena loves him and declares it openly. Yet Demetrius does not care for the kind Helena, he goes for the ornery Hermia. No matter how much kindness Helena shows, Demetrius doesn’t care for her at all. This one is especially painful because close friends have compared me to Helena. In the following conversation Hermia and Helena both complain about how their actions toward the same man are both giving them unintended results.
HERMIA I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!
But your questions:
Why are all the confident guys [jerks]?
They are not [jerks] because they are confident, they are confident because they are [jerks]. They are [jerks], they get girls, and they wax more confident and then more [jerky].
Why do all the nice guys have self-esteem issues?
While I don’t believe self-esteem should have to come from the outside, I believe it wears down those kind fellas who just don’t have the heart to be [jerks]. They approach a girl and say she looks nice today, or they compliment some type of performance she had or something or other. She gets creeped out, for reasons we guys will never understand, and avoids the man. His confidence is bruised. He sees the same girl with an idiot boyfriend, how should he feel? The nice guy can only stand to hear, “It’s her loss,” “She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on,” “Don’t worry, you’ll find someone” so many times. After a while, he knows you’re just patronizing him.
Then again, what do I know?
62nd Ask Josh – What I don’t know.
In Uncategorized on November 20, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Is there anything you don’t know, and if so, what is it?
know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a
61st Ask Josh – Asking Josh
In Uncategorized on November 16, 2008 at 10:14 am