Gyroscopic Investing

From the article:

Updated, 7:35 p.m. | Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Puerto Rico’s general-obligation debt to junk status on Friday, intensifying a cash squeeze on the island and prompting some residents to blame hard-nosed creditors for their mounting troubles.

I agree, the people who lent them the money are definitely responsible for their having mis-spent it.

Pointedstick wrote: From the article:

...intensifying a cash squeeze on the island and prompting some residents to blame hard-nosed creditors for their mounting troubles.

I agree, the people who lent them the money are definitely responsible for their having mis-spent it.

Did you ever lend a friend money and have them make you feel like a jerk when you eventually seek repayment? I guess it works the same on a bank level.

dualstow wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: From the article:

...intensifying a cash squeeze on the island and prompting some residents to blame hard-nosed creditors for their mounting troubles.

I agree, the people who lent them the money are definitely responsible for their having mis-spent it.

Did you ever lend a friend money and have them make you feel like a jerk when you eventually seek repayment? I guess it works the same on a bank level.

Yes, unfortunately; in fact, it helped destroy the friendship. Another friend who I lent money to I forgave the debt because I didn't want to lose his friendship, and I could see that was the way it was going to go if I kept nagging him.

I don't lend money to friends anymore. And if I did, I would never lend money to a liberal friend; in my own personal experience they are the worst ones about introducing money into friendships. They're always broke, they hate money, they borrow it without thinking about how to pay it back, they get angry when you try to collect, they're totally neurotic about the whole thing… it's just not worth it. Not that this applies to every liberal, but I have never met a conservative or libertarian with these attitudes.

(file this post away in the "how Pointedstick came to abandon liberalism" folder)

So the ever-vigilant rating agencies which issued hymns of praise to losers such as Enron just before their collapse are now "shocked, yes, shocked" to (finally) discover there is gambling going on inside the Puerto Rican casino?

When will the rating agencies awaken from their slumbers to discover that all is not well inside the biggest casino of them all, located in that domed building on top of Capitol Hill, not to mention the Treasury Building and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

What a world! Thank goodness Harry B. warned us to buy the yellow stuff and to store some of it abroad, although I have my doubts whether foreign repositories will be able to resist U.S. arm-twisting when demands are made to send the yellow stuff back to the D.C. casino to solve "inequality of income" problem in the U.S.

Lots of talk about Puerto Rican bonds on Bloomberg this morning.

Pointedstick wrote: I agree, the people who lent them the money are definitely responsible for their having mis-spent it.

dualstow wrote:Did you ever lend a friend money and have them make you feel like a jerk when you eventually seek repayment? I guess it works the same on a bank level.

PS wrote:Yes, unfortunately; in fact, it helped destroy the friendship. Another friend who I lent money to I forgave the debt because I didn't want to lose his friendship, and I could see that was the way it was going to go if I kept nagging him.

I don't lend money to friends anymore. And if I did, I would never lend money to a liberal friend; in my own personal experience they are the worst ones about introducing money into friendships. They're always broke, they hate money, they borrow it without thinking about how to pay it back, they get angry when you try to collect, they're totally neurotic about the whole thing… it's just not worth it. Not that this applies to every liberal, but I have never met a conservative or libertarian with these attitudes.

(file this post away in the "how Pointedstick came to abandon liberalism" folder)

The two worst (and only?) ones for me were in college. Once, the friend was a housemate and a really cool guy, none other than a member of the band, Mr Bungle. He really made me feel like a dick, an evil Jewish banker keeping him down. (Not his words).
Ironically, he's now in finance, and doing very well I hear. 

I have never had a really horrible experience lending friends money thank God. But as  rule I don't do it anymore unless it's small amounts, and I don't really care if its paid back or not.