I’m Levered, and So Should you.

Nothing beats Sunday afternoon television without football. I’m going through withdrawal already and it’s only been a week. With the end of football nigh, I need to figure out ways to spend my weekends. Can’t spend them pounding Busch Light anymore. I actually have to be productive during the weekends. This is by far the worst aspect of trying to be a real person. Having to wake up at a reasonable hour, running around the city doing things you can’t do during the week because you spend 8+ hours a day exiled in some office building in front of a computer sucks. That, and putting away 10 Busch Lights over the course of a Sunday doesn’t exactly put you in the best state of mind for having to listen to the dumbasses that call your desk all day on Monday.

Enough about that and more about what I’m going to do to replace football. I’m leaning towards reading. Newsbreak: speaking of shitty Sunday television, I’m watching the Gospel Music Awards right now. Talk about some TACKY suits. Come one black people, four button shiny silver checkerboard suits with 6 inch wide lapels do not look good.

Anyways, I’m thinking of reading. Like books. I want to read Boys Will Be Boys, a book about the Dallas Cowboys 1990s dynasty. I don’t want to be judgmental and say they were a hedonistic bunch, but chartering stretch limos to drive from Dallas to Arizona so they could indiscriminately do blow and hookers for the 16 hour trip seems a little… fun actually. Need to read Outliers by Senor Gladwell. And some GMAT books, so I can end this pretense of being a real individual and can go back to school.

But I know I’ll end up wasting my Sundays with mindless television and great infomercials about how to get rich quick or consolidate debt. It was during one of these infomercials when the light came on above my head. This, and during a conversation with a friend who likens himself to a banker.

Men in black said it best “the person is smart, people are dumb” or something of the sort. I was watching this “get out of debt” infomercial that mentioned the average American has 8 credit cards. What the hell are people doing with 8 credit cards? Do we have no cash? No liquidity? Do we finance absolutely everything you buy? Do we have any sense of fiscal solvency? It honestly thought it was impossible to have more than four (Visa, AmEx, Mastercard, Discover) before I realized they have different types of cards (yah, I’m a little slow). Which means people have multiple Visas or Mastercards or, God forbid, Discovers. Do stores even take Discover anymore? You do realize it was introduced by Sears, right? SEARS.

But we can’t blame ourselves for spending all of our unearned money. We have to blame the financial corporations. Did you know for every $10,000 I spend on my Capital One High Reward Individual Frequent Flyer card I receive credit for 100 miles? Only need to spend 100K to get that free trip from NYC to Disney World!!!!! And I can’t forget about my gas card. I get a free gallon for every 20 times I fill up my Hummer, what a deal. Oh, and my GAP card. Because I do ALL my shopping at the GAP. And because I FINANCE ALL THE CLOTHES I BUY. After all, let’s be real here, it makes complete sense to pay double digit interest on that sexy merino wool cardigan if I got 10 percent off in the first place. Oh yeah, saving money left and right. My Gold Card? I’m still surprised I qualified for that 10K monthly spending limit, given that I only earn $2600 a month. But hey, if my credit is good enough for Countrywide financial, I’m sold.

And we wonder why the economy is falling apart. Maybe it’s because people making $42,000 a year are trying to buy$850,000 houses. Or maybe, just maybe, we should stop leveraging ourselves and not buy things we can't afford. Just a thought.