Thursday, September 25, 2008

In 1989, Percy Adlon (director of Bagdad Cafe) released a film called Rosalie Goes Shopping.

RGS is about a rural family in the South. The father (the late Brad Davis of Midnight Express fame) flies a crop duster for a living, and they have a big mess of children (or "bunch" as we say in Arkansas) and the oldest son (Alex Winter of Bill & Ted fame) is going to chef school. The mother (German actress Marianne Sagebrecht) secretly spends the family savings on equipment for the son's training, and then discovers CREDIT! Then she's really off to the races. She schemes and eventually ends up with about a million in credit. Her husband makes about $900 a month, btw.

So, anyhoo, lately this mortgage thing has reminded me of this movie, because the tagline in the commercial was "When you're $100,000 in debt, it's your problem. When you're a million in debt... it's the bank's." Well, this mortgage thing is just like that, only in this case the government is Rosalie and we - meaning you and me - are the bank. Woe unto us.

1 comment:

Ann diPomazio said...

Wonderful comparison. It is a sad state of affairs indeed. You know, I have made some bad financial decisions in my life. You know what I did? Figured out how to get myself out of the situation I put myself in.

Hmmm...Now I want to see this film.