A person was talking to me about a segment that appeared on the Oprah show that talked about how there was a lady that kept borrowing money from her family members to live on and as a result everyone was then suffering financially. I did go to the website to read a recap of it and it was definitely a precarious situation. The lady who was borrowing money decided to do things such as buying a new TV instead of using the money to pay for her rent.

I actually knew a person who did something similar as he constantly complained he was suffering financially with no money to live. Sure enough, when he was given thousands of dollars from friends and family members he decides to blow it on high tech electronic gizmos and other unnecessary things just to go back to others again to say he needed more.

From what I read in the recap, it was kind of interesting as the way they were trying to get through to the person was to make herself realize and admit that every time she didn’t pay people back or say her bills that she was simply lying her way through life. Seems like it was to a point where it was implied that how one handles money is a reflection of their character in general. Unfair assessment? Fair assessment?

One thing that I read from the recap was how some people would look at your FICO scores for more than just money loaning issues. It mentioned that it could also play a factor in a person’s employment chances. That was kind of interesting I thought as I have never personally seen an employer request for such information. I personally have a score of 800+ for the longest time, but that would still be kind of weird I think to use that information for purposes other than credit issues and such.

At the end the family members decided to stop supporting the person financially and to let her fend for herself. That’s the only way to do it based on the people I have met who consistently rely on others financially. When you think about it, there is a difference between helping a situation and encouraging it to continue.

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This chapter was focused on the issue of money overall and protecting your assets. It was all based around marriages though and was titled “I love you, sign this”. Trump talked about his marriages in the past and how he had a prenuptial agreement for all of them which protected his assets.

He used statistics such as 58% percent of marriages end up in a divorce and mentions that while it might not be the most romantic thing to do, in the event of a breakup it can save you from the ugly legal battles over money that could arise. There was one example he used which was kind of surreal where a rich and powerful person kept marrying and divorcing women and each time the person had to pay $50 million. The money part didn’t surprise me so much as oppose to one getting married so many times with the same outcome.

While it can go both ways when you think about it where the prenuptial could be used as a way to take advantage of someone or to protect themselves from being taken advantage of, I guess the usual debate is the guilt factor it would play for a lot of people. Example, one of those “If you need that it means you don’t trust me” type of deal.

In many ways I always viewed various types of contracts as a good way to help discourage any rash decisions too. It’s like those times where people throw and break things when there are mad. If they knew for sure it would be costly throwing/breaking a certain item because of some kind of penalty/stipulation, they are more inclined to not do it which can provide the necessary time to really think about what they are about to do.

This is one topic that people can debate about all day depending on one’s philosophy. You either view marriage like a business partnership or a fairy tale I guess you can say.

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I was just passed this story that revolved around a contestant named Denise Martin that was on the reality TV show Survivor. I actually did watch the finale this past Sunday and she wasn’t the winner. At the end they had interviews with the contestants as usual. Denise mentioned how being on the show has forced her to lose her original job as a lunch lady at a school to being demoted to a role as a janitor.

The producer of the show, Mark Burnett, felt bad about her situation and it was announced that she would be given $50,000 to help her out. Soon after this happened, the school’s superintendent mentioned how none of it was true as she was a full time custodian prior to participating in the show and that her janitor job was actually a promotion with a pay raise.

Initially, the superintendent received a hoard of negative responses from the public on how the school was being a “scrooge” so to speak among other things. Obviously, that created quite a spark. Eventually, Denise Martin admitted that it was a lie. It was basically a fake sob story to get support I guess you can say.

In general, this whole Survivor season seemed to have sprung up topics on how the best liars are the ones that make the money in the world. One thing I definitely learned when it comes to people who lie for money or support is that when someone’s story sounds a bit too dramatic to be real it probably isn’t. As a kid I always saw lying to others for financial gain as like a form of credit. Basically, you are going to have to pay it back somehow down the road and the longer you hold it off for the harsher the penalty will be. So, it’s better to just earn it honestly.

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I was having a conversation with a person recently who was telling me about an experience he had on how there was a person whom he trusted a lot and as a result they had a mutual business agreement where he would aid the person in return for financial compensation that would be given to him down the road. Unfortunately, he ended up doing his part, but the other person got devious and attempted to weasel his way out from honoring his promises.

There was a lot of money involved too and I was kind of surprised that his decision was to move on while simply cutting contact with the person. His reasoning was a common one too though on how he could of spent his time to force the person to oblige to their agreement, but instead he felt that his time was better spent by recouping his losses through other means.

The other type of responses that I usually hear from people though in situations where there is a substantial amount of money involved is that they won’t allow the person to get away with it. A common reason is that it is the person’s intention to try and drag the situation on with as much drivel as possible so that you will hopefully just forget about it. So, they want to show that they mean business to prevent others from trying to do the same to them.

In my opinion, from a principles point of view, by not doing anything in these types of scenarios the person is essentially getting away with the damage they have done to you and thinking more long term that would increase the chances of them doing it to others as well. To me, that is usually the bigger motivator to do something as just thinking if they did that to someone else who is in a less fortunate position it would probably wreck a lot of people’s livelihoods.

I was told before that while obviously in a business you need to focus your time in doing what’s necessary to generate revenue, at the same time you shouldn’t forget about doing socially responsible things as well if possible.

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I was just passed this story that deals with a recent controversial firing of an 11 year staff member for a video game news site called Gamespot. Recently there was a highly anticipated game called Kane & Lynch that was released and the editor who was reviewing the game, Jeff Gerstmann, gave the title a less than admirable score of a 6/10.

From what I read, shortly after the person in question was fired and there were advertisements placed all over the site to advertise the game. This immediately made the majority of the public scream foul play such as concluding that the company who made the game, Eidos, was obviously paying Gamespot to help advertise its game.

As a result, people are saying that Jeff Gerstmann was allegedly fired partly due to some possible pressure from the advertiser that they would not do anymore business with them because of the review that was given. The company did issue this statement http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183666.html about it to hopefully tame it.

My personal opinion in general in regards to this is that there likely was pressure from the advertiser or that the company possibly wanted to get rid of the person for one reason or another. It just seems too odd that if you have someone working for you that long that you don’t at least give warnings if they are being unprofessional. Of course unless it was something serious such as stealing then that is a different question. What a story this will be if it was proven that money indeed played a big role in the decision making process.

I often hear the phrase on how everyone has a price. My personal train of thought is usually if there is a situation where you will be compensated financially to do something, at most money should only dictate your platform as oppose to your actions. Money can definitely help to facilitate you to do various deeds, but it shouldn’t speak for you.

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