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She made frequent pilgrimages from her one-room East 57th street apartment (at $1,950 per month) to the store's cosmetic counter, where she regularly loaded up on La Prairie products, paying up to $150 per jar. Then she'd bop around the shop, swathing her shapely size 6 figure in Prada, Gucci, BCBG, Theory and Shelli Segal clothes. She bought $400 shoes, $500 bags, $600 coats--"That's not a bad price for a warm coat"--and she never paid cash.

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Yeah. And it's leftists who are crummy with money.

also:

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On Aug. 16 she goes on the "Today" show, where she is interviewed by Matt Lauer. "He's a real dreamboat," she later said. Agents watch the show, find her telegenic, sunny, marketable. They call with proposals for her to do books and films.

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I am utterly baffled by what people will donate money to, and what they won't

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: audra estrones ]

What should have happened, and does happen to most people like Karyn, is that she should have gone into an orderly payment of debt where a trustee like Deloitte and Touche arranges settlements with the creditors and it is paid off in increments determined via percentage of your earnings. Again, your credit is fucked for a while, but you also get some counselling and hey, consequences are how nature helps us learn.

I also know my fair share of students who have been crippled financially by assuming large debt loads to complete their studies. Close friends of mine had to declare bankruptcy after a bank refused to work out a better payment schedule -- they were quite literally living on less than $700 a month for the two of them after making loan payments.

And I recognize that credit is easy to obtain at first. But why should this nit get special treatment instead of taking her lumps and working it out like the rest of us?

Besides, this is not a gal who wound up with student debt in the pursuit of wisdom -- she just liked shopping and lacked the self-control to stop. Getting out of it easily isn't going to make her any more cautious, isn't going to teach her a damned thing. She'll get her cards back and rack 'em up again. Why shouldn't she? Aren't there lots of nice people out there willing to pay off her debts and send her freebies?

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

Black Dog, I skimmed her sob story very quickly. 100k???? Then 20K is nowhere near crippling debt!!! Changes everything.

Not everyone can get out of crippling debt, though. Since they opened up the casino in Montreal, there have been several suicides by gambling addicts who've fallen heavily into debt. Unlike alcohol or smack, there isn't any "biological limit".

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: lagatta ]

They claim there are simply more bars in poor areas, which is utter bunk. For example, unlike Loto-Québec's claim, there are plenty of bars in Westmount - not upper Westmount, where there are no businesses of any kind, but plenty of swank cafés along Sherbrooke and Greene. Idem Laurier and Bernard Avenues in Outremont, and lots of chic watering-holes in the West End of the city centre. They would not stand for something as tacky and downmarket as VLT machines.

Not that it makes her any better, I'm just saying it's not like she makes a hundred grand now and is asking for money. $20,000 IS crippling debt if you are unemployed or working a much lower-paying job...

I have to admit my first reaction to the site was to laugh, and the second one was to say, "Geez, why didn't I think of that!?"

She also said something that was rather silly/amusing, but had a deeper ring of truth:

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Please help me pay my debt. I am nice. I am cheery. I am the girl at the office that MAKES YOU SMILE. I didn't hurt anyone by spending too much money. I was actually HELPING OUT THE ECONOMY.

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Isn't this what all good little consumers in high school and college and university are taught? Spend, spend, spend? Isn't that what Dubya was telling people after 9-11? Don't stop shopping folks, that would be unpatriotic!

I think the reason she gets so much response and (dare I say it?) sympathy is because I'm willing to bet most people have run up a credit card and learned the hard way that it's damn hard to pay them off. How many people here have never carried a balance on their cards, or have never let their credit card spending get out of hand?

Besides, it's absolutely ridiculous, the amount of credit companies will give people. Altogether, on all my cards and my line of credit, I have $17,000 credit. My highest paying job in my adult life has been less than 30 grand a year. Can you imagine?

When I was married and our family income was about $28,000 a year or so, while my husband was in college and I was a secretary, we thought it would be fun to see how much credit we could get between the two of us. So whenever we got sent applications for credit, we applied.

He was a student, remember. He got two VISA cards, both with $5,000 credit - so that's $10,000. He got a bank line of credit of $14,000. So that's $26,000 of potential credit to use up. I got two VISA cards, both $5,000. That's $36,000 of credit. Plus a bunch of department store cards, all of which would probably total another 10 grand.

All told, we had about 50 grand of credit between the two of us. That. Is. Nuts.

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I think the reason she gets so much response and (dare I say it?) sympathy is because I'm willing to bet most people have run up a credit card and learned the hard way that it's damn hard to pay them off. How many people here have never carried a balance on their cards, or have never let their credit card spending get out of hand?

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Maybe, but that's exactly why I don't have any sympathy. I did the feast-after-the-famine thing, had no credit in school, stayed in school a really long time, was underemployed and then finally got cards, and WOO-HOO! went shopping. I didn't rack up nearly that much debt, as I was used to living *very* frugally all those years in school, but I was too far in debt, and had to cut up the cards, make settlements and start over.

I'm not minimizing how hard that is, I know it's embarrassing and hard to work out of. People really treat you like deadbeat scum until you pay it all off.

This is a spoiled kid who should have to deal with the same consequences as the rest of us. This just teaches her she's above the rules the rest of us live with, and as Trisha noted, she hasn't learned to pare down her lifestyle much.

I have zero sympathy.

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: audra estrones ]

Sometimes you have to make difficult choices to get where you want to go. Sometimes it involves a level of personal sacrifice. This woman is working hard to rationalize that she's better than a panhandler, and she isn't. Just a little more sophisticated, in the technological sense. At least the guy on the street corner can make a clearer argument for not having options.

As I remember it back then, I got slammed for advocating "deserving poor and undeserving poor" ideas, and lots of people were asking, "Why should only the elite get to send their children to European ballet schools?"

If sending your kid to ballet school in Germany is a priority, take on a second or third job. Apply to the appropriate scholarship funds and arts funds. They're out there. Lobby for more of them, like the rest of us who want to make art do. Fraud is not the answer.

It's a fact of life that most of us can't afford to have private ballet lessons while growing up, just as we can't all the expensive things we want.

Maybe this woman had a very deep appreciation for fashion design. Maybe she felt inspired by it. Maybe she had an unusually gifted fashion sense and felt that buying fashion was at the level of an artistic pursuit.

Okay, I'm being silly. But what's "worthy" and what's not?

Eventually we all have to admit that "deserving" and "undeserving" comes into the equation somewhere. What we disagree about is where.

I remember also a long while back, I was jumped all over for suggesting that changing the baby bonus cheque system so that instead of every Canadian mother receiving $30 a month per child, low income parents would receive $200 per child was a good thing because the money was better off being given to poor women who needed it rather than rich women who don't need it. And then everyone told me I should read "The Rich Banker's Wife" and went on and on about how I was advocating "deserving" and "undeserving" when it comes to benefits.

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

And I believe it will continue to do so, because it is a "conservative value" to support "working families", and it's not just people on welfare that get this credit, but working class people up to something like $30-35,000 per year (or more depending on how many children they have).

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I think the welfare mom wanted her daughter to be able to realize her potential, and become a professional dancer, which she has. Result: The "Welfare Cycle" is broken.

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Oh, give me a break! If she didn't need welfare, was, in fact, ineligible for it, there is no cycle to be broken.

There are other places to get funding. It's harder work, you have to document, justify and write a kickass application, but damn it, if you're motivated you learn how. And there are also perfectly good schools in Canada, and they also have scholarships to gifted students who aren't able to afford the tuition.

I want to see my daughter reach her full potential, too (don't we all want that for our kids?), but I'm not willing to lie, cheat and STEAL -- 'cause that's what she did, Audra -- to accomplish that end. What will I teach her by doing that? Nothing positive.

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I also know my fair share of students who have been crippled financially by assuming large debt loads to complete their studies. Close friends of mine had to declare bankruptcy after a bank refused to work out a better payment schedule -- they were quite literally living on less than $700 a month for the two of them after making loan payments.

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As I understand it now, a bankruptcy no longer discharges the obligation to pay back student loans. I agree with the previous poster that Karyn needs to be put into the hands of a trustee to make good to her creditors. It certainly seems to me that giving her money is enabling her to go on a tear again.

Well, that's not true.

The woman who sent her daughter to german ballet school was using our money, money which came out of our little piles. As I understand taxation from the social democratic viewpoint, it represents a "community fund". In my opinion, she was taking money that was not meant for her. I call that theft. Karyn is not stealing.

As members of a community of taxpayers, we do (in theory) have the right to see that it goes to those who meet our criteria of "deserving". Of course, this is where theory and practice do a joint face-plant.

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I don't believe it. The rate has only been going up since I've been getting it.

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I'd honestly rather have my lazy money go to supporting this woman and her clever manipulation of a cold bureacracy than pay for the education of some quarterback meathead so he and his wife can copulate Saturday morning only to raise one more chubby litter of little Oshkosh zombies; quarterbacks and cheerleaders to cram into his Rover on a Sunday...

I pay a heck of a lot of taxes--no kidding--and I get pretty upset whenever I hear this shite about welfare fraud and so on, euphemistic obfuscations such as deeming these citizens as clients, or ever worse - consumers of an entitlement!

I call it fighting back and the mother of this young ballerina pulled off a masterstroke of sorts, and, well, I happen to love and admire anyone who grins when they fight.

You don't meet the deemed regulations for this entitlement?

Go to it.

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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Yeah, I guess I have less attachment to honesty than you do

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I don't know about that, Audra. I think you're selling yourself short. That's not what I meant, anyway.

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As I understand it now, a bankruptcy no longer discharges the obligation to pay back student loans.

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I believe that is the case now. It wasn't at the time. However, I watched the people in question live on that amount ($300 for rent, $400 for all else) for a couple of years before they just couldn't do it anymore. At least with bankruptcy, even student loan payments can be lessened to a percentage of income until they're paid off, something the banks are loath to do on their own.

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Yeah, the ballet lessons were an extreme case, but welfare recipients practically have to commit micro-fraud (odd jobs etc) to survive.

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I can understand somebody doing this to feed their family and keep a roof overhead. Hell, even to buy their kid shoes. And I know that a lot of people find themselves in a position where they have little choice in the matter. Actually know some of them personally. But a fancy-ass ballet school?! No way. That's beyond the pale.

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Isn't anyone grateful, as I am, that this 'welfare mother' (such a sweet-natured reduction, that) saw to it that our society was granted one more artist rather than some useless, cheating, lying, conniving and grasping scum of an MBA?

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Well, that's terrific, flotsom. So, can I take this to mean you would also condone me if I finance my next film by defrauding welfare instead of applying for grants from the Canada Council, Saskatchewan Arts Board, et al?

If the latter, that's just an increase that takes into account the fall in the value of money. No increase in purchasing power.