Finding Freedom

Many of you have probably seen or heard the commercials for Cash Call; they seem to be Gary Coleman’s predominant method of making money right now.  On a whim I went over to their site to check them out. The site seems pretty legitimate; it almost seems like they are just looking to help people out who are down on their luck.

However, in examining what users have said about them, that help that they offer comes at a great price. While I suspected that their interest rates weren’t kind, but I had no idea that they were as bad as they are.

Many of the people are locked into loans with an interest of at least 85%. You read that right; eighty-five percent interest, and that seems to be at the very least.  Some poor people are locked in as high as 99%. 

Can you say preying on those least able to protect themselves? This is horrible, and it makes me sick.

I know that this is silly, but I have a confession to make: I love the library.

For someone who enjoys reading as much as I do, I have found that reading can be a very costly habit. Though I normally wait for books to go to softcover, there are certain books that I want to read right away. And, even when I do wait for softcover, I still find myself shelling out ten to twelve bucks a pop.

Although the duration of enjoyment is perhaps commisserate with the price, if you buy too many books, you’re going to find yourself in the poorhouse pretty quickly.

And so, yesterday, as I ventured back to the library after a long time spent away, I remembered how nice it is to be able to read what you want for free.

Recommendation for the Day: Read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It gives fascinating insight into how we know things intuitively even before we can prove them empirically.