Credit Crrrrrrrrrunch

During college I had a shitty part-time telemarketing job I found via a Pennysaver catalog. It was for some real estate firm where we received a bonus if we got the social security number of the random person we cold-called. That way they could send them to step two of the "refinancing" stage. What we were advised to not do is to tell the poor sap on the other line that looking up your info in such manner is a strike against your credit score. This was perfectly legal to do so.

This real estate firm was located one the edge of the nation's capitol. This was 2001.

Don't know about you, but I didn't even know I had a credit report until it was too late. When the proverbial shit had already hit the fan as I found out that it was shot up more than a missing Columbian mastermind. And I'm not talking about someone from the school in Manhattan. Wish I was though.

Almost one half of folks my age (that'd be 30..) in America have at least one debt already in collections, which means more are likely on the way. I'm pretty sure that's a precedent -- and a predictable one too knowing that college tuition costs have skyrocketed by 37% since 1997.

Thats not good for folks like me who learned finances the hard way, coming from a broke household was one thing but being a Creative dude money-crunching isn't my forte. So I'm in financial dire straits right now, just like the current domestic economy. Got nothing for all my money and neither my checks nor my chicks are for free. Just like the current domestic economy. Like Uncle Sam and his son.

According to the feds, a U.S. consumer is legally entitled to obtain one free FICO credit report annually. (Equifax, Transomething, and some other one whose name escapes me...) A new report found that nearly 80% of these reports have incorrect info on them, which wouldn't be a problem if adjusting those discrepancies didn't take a painstakingly long time, which the report also found.

A generational peer of mine over at Salon did a nice write-up on trying to avoid death and debt at all costs.

Another growing plague in the States, if you've just joined us here in the 21st Century, is the health care thingamajig. I have gone without health insurance for almost five years now, and it really hasn't phased me. No choice but going Dr.I.Y. or bust.

Speaking of busting one's nut, my memories of the last time I was able to drop by the office of a PCP (primary care physician) are remembered quite fondly: I got checked out for testicular cancer for the first time. This was January of 2000 on the west side of Chicago. In my doc's office I was given the option for self-examination, but I laid down the hippo-critic oath and decided to let Dr. Dominguez's feathery Mexican-American fingertips do the trick.