After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the massive budget bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money we don't have. But, instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt, unlike anything we have seen in the history of our country.
Our money is bait money, and bait money is not to be used.
If money is tight, or you're on a limited budget, then consider DIY or used gifts. DIY could be something like baked goods for your friends, family, and neighbors. Plus, if you have children, it's a great activity to do with them during the holidays.
The way some papers write about me, you'd think I was some kind of gold digger. The truth is, I've always earned my own money. Before I became a model in Europe, I even worked in a bakery store - for $1.50 an hour. It's a big jump from a bakery store to driving a Mercedes in California, but I'm the same person inside.
Regardless of the gender of the highest wage earner, the balance of power in the relationship will suffer if the higher earner uses control of the purse strings as a system of reward and punishment. It will also suffer if the lower earner takes a chippy, haughty attitude to spending money they haven't actually generated themselves.
Throughout the industrial era, economists considered manufactured capital - money, factories, etc. - the principal factor in industrial production, and perceived natural capital as a marginal contributor. The exclusion of natural capital from balance sheets was an understandable omission. There was so much of it, it didn't seem worth counting.
People like RZA and DJ Premier are really on the balcony to scope my musical theories. They also help me focus on making sure I make money, making sure I get the notoriety I should, just regular stuff that friends do when you're in the business. And to call them friends is amazing.
Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn't thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I'm just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn't paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing.
I like to sing ballads the way Eddie Fisher does and the way Perry Como does. But the way I'm singing now is what makes the money.
My family didn't have very much money, so ballet wasn't even on my radar; I just found it randomly when I was 13 at a Boys & Girls Club. We were practicing in a basketball court in gym clothes with some old socks on. Even though it terrified me at first, I found that I really liked it.
Every now and then, I get a free ticket from someone, and I look at the price, and it says $800, and I'm thinking, 'A thousand dollars to see,' I said, 'There's no ballgame in the world worth that kind of money,' and yet the attendance for sports is more than it ever has been.
I wasn't brought up as a society girl to go to balls and be a debutante and marry the social set and money and go to parties. No one in my family lived like that. And I never wanted to live like that. I was brought up to believe in work. I always wanted a career. Always.
If you start comparing my practice of law to what I could have been - selling bananas - you'll know why I gave money to the University of Texas.
I thought 'Deliverance' was a very good film. But it didn't have the success financially that 'Smokey and the Bandit' did, although that film made more money than 'Star Wars' in the first week.
As a director, my job is to spend money, and the producer's is to save money. Masoom, Bandit Queen and the first Queen Elizabeth have been my most uncompromised films.
In my barrio, jobs work and money saves lives. When I have had the funds to place a gang member on a job site and pay his salary, I've seen him stop banging. When, on the rarest of occasions, an employer has offered a job to one of these youth, I've witnessed kids suddenly have a reason to get up in the morning.
I had no idea that I would ever get involved with something like lending money to poor people, given the circumstances in which I was working in Bangladesh.
I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.
I have a nice house, nice cars, nice watches, nice things. I've got money in the bank. I'm not in need of a few quid - as it stands. It's all irrelevant to me.
Don't bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don't feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.
