In 1949, a 17-year-old girl named Connie Papurt wanted to buy a dress but needed $25. So, she asked to borrow the money from a relative ……….. Ayn Rand.
Here is Ayn’s actual response. It has some terrific financial advice for utes, and nice economic principles for a nation. But, at the end of the day, I think Ayn was One Tight Broad. heh heh
================================================
May 22, 1949
Dear Connie:
You are very young, so I don’t know whether you realize the seriousness of your action in writing to me for money. Since I don’t know you at all, I am going to put you to a test.
If you really want to borrow $25 from me, I will take a chance on finding out what kind of person you are. You want to borrow the money until your graduation. I will do better than that. I will make it easier for you to repay the debt, but on condition that you understand and accept it as a strict and serious business deal. Before you borrow it, I want you to think it over very carefully.
Here are my conditions: If I send you the $25, I will give you a year to repay it. I will give you six months after your graduation to get settled in a job. Then, you will start repaying the money in installments: you will send me $5 on January 15, 1950, and $4 on the 15th of every month after that; the last installment will be on June 15, 1950—and that will repay the total.
Are you willing to do it?
Here is what I want you to think over: Once you get a job, there will always be many things which you will need and on which you might prefer to spend your money, rather than repay a debt. I want you to decide now, in advance, as an honest and responsible person, whether you will be willing and able to repay this money, no matter what happens, as an obligation above and ahead of any other expense.
I want you to understand right now that I will not accept any excuse—except a serious illness. If you become ill, then I will give you an extension of time—but for no other reason. If, when the debt becomes due, you tell me that you can’t pay me because you needed a new pair of shoes or a new coat or you gave the money to somebody in the family who needed it more than I do—then I will consider you as an embezzler. No, I won’t send a policeman after you, but I will write you off as a rotten person and I will never speak or write to you again.
Now I will tell you why I am so serious and severe about this. I despise irresponsible people. I don’t want to deal with them or help them in any way. An irresponsible person is a person who makes vague promises, then breaks his word, blames it on circumstances and expects other people to forgive it. A responsible person does not make a promise without thinking of all the consequences and being prepared to meet them.
You want $25 for the purpose of buying a dress; you tell me that you will get a job and be able to repay me. That’s fine and I am willing to help you, if that is exactly what you mean. But if what you mean is: give me the money now and I will repay it if I don’t change my mind about it—then the deal is off. If I keep my part of the deal, you must keep yours, just exactly as agreed, no matter what happens.
I was very badly disappointed in Mimi and Marna [Docky]. When I first met Mimi, she asked me to give her money for the purpose of taking an art course. I gave her the money, but she did not take the art course. I supported Marna for a year—for the purpose of helping her to finish high school. She did not finish high school. I will take a chance on you, because I don’t want to blame you for the actions of your sisters. But I want you to show me that you are a better kind of person.
I will tell you the reasons for the conditions I make: I think that the person who asks and expects other people to give him money, instead of earning it, is the most rotten person on earth. I would like to teach you, if I can, very early in life, the idea of a self-respecting, self-supporting, responsible, capitalistic person. If you borrow money and repay it, it is the best training in responsibility that you can ever have.
I want you to drop—if you have it in your mind—the idea that you are entitled to take money or support from me, just because we happen to be relatives. I want you to understand very clearly, right now, when you are young, that no honest person believes that he is obliged to support his relatives. I don’t believe it and will not do it. I cannot like you or want to help you without reason, just because you need the help. That is not a good reason. But you can earn my liking, my interest and my help by showing me that you are a good person.
Now think this over and let me know whether you want to borrow the money on my conditions and whether you give me your word of honor to observe the conditions. If you do, I will send you the money. If you don’t understand me, if you think that I am a hard, cruel, rich old woman and you don’t approve of my ideas—well, you don’t have to approve, but then you must not ask me for help.
I will wait to hear from you, and if I find out that you are my kind of person, then I hope that this will be the beginning of a real friendship between us, which would please me very much.
Your aunt,
.
http://the-toast.net/2015/01/12/actual-letter-ayn-rand-wrote-little-girl/
I totally agree with Rand’s response to her niece. In MY family, you wouldn’t dare even ask- we had a very strong ethos that forbade borrowing money from family members. I wouldn’t have dared ask anyone but my mother for a loan, especially for something as frivolous as a dress. And Mom would have said no to anything but a dire necessity- she would help out if you were jobless, but you were let to know you were on your own, and amounts lent were minimal.
Note that $25 was a significant amount of money for 1950, when this letter was written, and girl’s sisters had already mooched significant sums off Rand. I likely wouldn’t have bothered with a letter like this, but would have simply said No.
$25.00, $2,500.00 or $25,000, a moocher is a moocher.
Well…????
Did Connie get the money? Did she get the dress? Was her date impressed? Did Connie get laid and have lots of babies?
Shakespeare had it right 400+ years ago:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–77
Some great ideas are eternal.
card802
A couple weeks later Ayn wrote another letter to Connie. From the gist of it, it does not appear that Connie took the moohlah.
[img
[/img]
I really like this line —– “Real success is never accidental, and real happiness cannot be found except by the honest use of your intelligence.”
Admin should print this out on a thousand leaflets, and throw them out the window on his next trip through the 30 Blocks Of Squalor.
Ayn Rand ,..says I despise irresponsible people….. have any of you read about her personal life. She was a sorry ,evil piece of shit.She lived her ideology out to fullness and caused much heart break in her life. To herself and others whom she led into her traps.
Looks like I’m once again Anonymous. Damn idiot phone .Don’t know why they call it smart.
Hey BB, haven’t you ever heard the saying you have to be smarter than what you are dealing with? You know your phone does that and the only things we can truly control are our own actions.
I wish I would have an aunt like Ayn. Dear god how I wish that. The things I might have learned decades before I did could have been put to great use during the boom. Ah well, if wishes were fishes…
I’ve been guilted repeatedly into supporting my family with little appreciation. For me it is just expected. Shame I didn’t have an Aunt Ayn to unguilt me. Everything I was exposed to told me that it was my duty to eat my family’s crap. My parents didn’t have the money, so they turned to the National Bank of TE, is it a wonder I moved 100 miles away?
Anyway I don’t consider her curmudgeonly, nor is she exhibiting the insanity that truly did rear in spots in her life, at least in this letter, to this individual.
Dropping the leaflets would be worthless. 30 Blocks Residents would never make it past the first paragraph where Ayn states there is going to be a test. Into the gutter it would go.
If those people read, or gave a crap about standards (tests), they wouldn’t live the way they do. Our entire world is pockets of intentional avoidance and outright insanity, all peppered with apathy and sloth.
I see nothing at all wrong with this letter and I think the comments by Stucky before the letter reveal what kind of person he or she is.
What a control freak. I would have just sent the 25 bucks. This kind of loan with conditions is just what the IMF does. When you loan a bank your money [deposit it] do you get to make the conditions? Check the banks employees records? Go NSA on their ass?
.Don’t know why they call it smart. -bb
It isnt, but it does have alot of memory but it cannot make sexual offerings on a rest-stop bathroom wall…that takes brains.
Robert Gore
Is it a genetic thing … that people name “Gore” are fuckin-retarded-as-shit monkeys?
I have nothing but the highest regard for Ayn Rand. Her letter is BRILLIANT advice, which is why I posted it.
Too bad libtard fuknuts like youself lack a humor gene. Blow me.
Just remember that Greenspan was part of Ayn Rands collective. People she dominated by her ‘conditions’ and no good came of that for the 99%
Ayn Rand brilliant? Yeh, if you like to be manipulated and read really bad fiction.
Robert Gore says: I see nothing at all wrong with this letter and I think the comments by Stucky before the letter reveal what kind of person he or she is.
Please tell us, Bob, we know so little about him.
Kill Bill
Your disdain for AR is well known around these parts. You are winning over no one.
You call her a “control freak”. I see an auntie who is teaching her niece about RESPONSIBILITY. I see lessons about KEEPING YOUR WORD. I see lessons about FRUGAL LIVING and avoiding DEBT if at all possible. What is wrong with that??
Your extreme dislike for Ayn is blinding you to the truths she speaks. Don’t you think that’s kinda sad?
I don’t need Ayn Rand to be responsible, that she is trying to control her niece for 25 bucks is reprehensible. Are you, Stucky, going to now promote Greenspan?
Ayn Rand
[/img]
[img
Totally looks like
[/img]
[img
Gee, is Ayn just Greenspan is drag?
Ancient Aliens say YES!!
Your extreme dislike for Ayn is blinding you to the truths she speaks -Stucko
OMG, this is what manipulators do. I don’t have a dislike for Ayn, herself, but for manipulative ideologies.
Listen to Greenspan speak, is that manipulative?
AR isn’t trying to control anyone. Her niece approached HER.
I don’t see any resemblance between AR and AG … except that neither is particularly attractive … which is irrelevant , to say the least.
And why does Ayn have such manly arms?
Greenspan learned his Orwellian speak, syntax, from AR.
To support AR is to support AG
KB, no you wouldn’t expect your bank to open its financials to you (though you should), but they sure as HELL would require it from you if you were the one that wanted the money.
Ayn states that this girl’s sisters had already tested the bonds of her patience and generosity. May I ask if you are adopting and just how far are you willing to bend over and take it up the ass for others to spend frivolously.
$25 for a freaking dress in 1949? Seriously? Considering the average wage was around $1300 a year, that would make the dress the equivalent of a $500 dress today. And that is using $25000 as the average wage. So it actually may be worse.
Does she seem so heartless now? Context, never forget the context.
I had a similar talk with my niece. She wanted $55 for her phone bill and she had just quit her job, again. I told her I would do it, but if she did not pay me back to never bother asking again. She paid me from her first paycheck.
Teaching financial responsibility is now considered heartless. There is no fixing us.
What things cost in 1949
By 1949 the United States had made giant strides economically. Gone were the severe shortages endured during World War II. People were beginning to buy not just what they needed but what they wanted.
Sugar, rationed during the war, was now plentiful for less than 10 cents a pound. If you lived in town, you paid about 25 cents a dozen for eggs, 80 cents for a gallon of milk, and 45 cents a pound for hamburger. Almost all Missouri farmers had their own eggs, milk, and meat and canned vegetables from their large gardens.
The prices in 1949 sound low today, but the average income was less than $3,000 a year. Most farmers made quite a bit less.
Almost everyone wanted a new car, even though it cost half a year’s pay. More people saved up and paid cash in those days. People paid cash for most things, although almost everyone had to take out mortgages for the $5,000 to $10,000 that bought a decent house.
In Missouri a teenager could expect to pay about $25 for a very nice store-bought dress or a passable winter coat. A candy bar or a bottle of pop cost five cents, and admission to a movie (a double feature on Saturday afternoons) ran anyone over 12 about thirty-five cents in small towns and about sixty cents in cities.
http://feedsackkids.typepad.com/feedsack_dress/2008/01/what-things-cos.html
Soon television would come along to show people more and more things to want.
But you can earn my liking…-AR
I wouldn’t borrow a wooden nickle from someone like this.
I got to go hang a ceiling fan and install some wi-fi router now, would love to stay and debate some more but I need to go earn some ‘liking’ from some people that don’t actually give a fuck about me.
Wow Stuck. That means that if the dresses and fabric and machinery were all still be made here, that we would pay the equivalent of $500 of our income for one simple dress.
No wonder they offshored. The materialism revolution would have NEVER happened has prices stayed the way they were back then.
Too bad they have fired enough customers where buying a $25 dress is becoming a luxury again for many.
TE
That’s just ONE person’s opinion piece. It seemed quite high to me also.
Here’s a late 1940’s Sears catalog …. dresses for a buck …. seems more reasonable, and inline with what you stated.
[/img]
[img
” …. some people that don’t actually give a fuck about me. ” ——- Kill Bill
Hey! I like ya!! I just don’t agree with you about Ayn. No big deal.
Kill Bill says:
“But you can earn my liking…-AR
I wouldn’t borrow a wooden nickle from someone like this.”
Banks are just as bad if not worse. What’s to like about financial irresponsibility? I don’t have an opinion on Rand one way or the other but her letter comes across as exactly the same kind of thing I’m trying to teach my friends grandson. I just want him to know all the things about money and debt that I now wish I had known at an early age. If every kid received lessons like this from a very early age (8-10 y/o) banks would be miniscule operations compared to the TBTF behemoths they have become today and our owners control over the population and planet would not exist.
Stuck, I think he meant he has some honey dew projects to do for folks whose liking he has to earn.
So based on the costs and the Sears catalog, the dress she wanted to buy must have been a fancy prom dress!
According to wiki, the average wage in 1950 was about $2500 and the inflation calculator I use indicates a $25 dress in 1950 would cost $245 today which represents inflation of 882%.
The USA went full retard during the Reagan years. Gold became cool again. Folks took classes from idiots who had them chewing dollar bills as a money-making motivator.
Credit lost the stigma of being broke, just as welfare did in the Clinton years.
“Folks took classes from idiots who had them chewing dollar bills as a money-making motivator.”
Is that true? Fuck that! Go to any moderately crowded or busy location and just sit quietly and watch people. After that, the idea of sticking circulated cash in your mouth will make you puke and you’ll definitely want to wash your hands after handling money! That is the only drawback I’ve found to moving back to spending cash exclusively.
About 14 months ago we made the transition back to cash. I have a large pure quartz container we throw change into. Over the holidays I counted out the change and my hands were literally black when I finished. I scrubbed the table where I counted it and the dishrag turned black as well. The container had just under $500 in it.
Yes, I saw them chewing away on a TV show.
Back in the day, casinos gave you a wet wipe to clean your hands after removing the coins from the hopper. My buddy John told me I could go to the Gold Strike in Jean NV to play at that old MGM property – the machines pay coins, I quickly saw why tickets are an improvement.
We are somewhat lucky that our currency is routinely removed from circulation for replacement, some of the crappiest bills were still in use in Hondo Land, they looked like old dishrags. I refused to exchange dollars for ‘Limps’ even at a favorable rate, besides, that was disallowed.
Did you ever read about the idiots who tried to get a bank in el paso to replace several millions of damaged dollar bills they claimed to have found but more likely buried for safekeeping?
My philosophy on loaning money is not much different than AR but actually a lot simpler. It’s just NO.
I one time cosigned on a car loan for a lifetime buddy which taught me to never do that again. I can’t tell you how many times I got a call from the bank that his car payment was late. He would always eventually make the payments but what a pain in the ass for me to be calling him all the time to get on him about making those payments.
My step-son asked me to cosign on a car once. It was a black Jeep Cherokee, absolutely beautiful car and I could see why he wanted it. But to begin with it was way over priced and way more car than he could afford, and the financing was such that he would be forever underwater on the thing. I tried to talk him out of it and that it wouldn’t be good for him. So I told him I couldn’t in good conscience help him make such a bad decision. I would not cosign.
But he wanted that car so bad he couldn’t see straight. He found someone else to cosign. Well too bad.
He paid and paid, year after year and eventually it started falling apart and when it got to where he was constantly pouring money into repairs he finally decided to sell it. Well guess what, it wasn’t worth anywhere near what he still owed on it. He had to pay quite a lot just to sell it.
He later admitted it was a huge mistake to buy that car; that I was right and he should have listened to me.
Jeebus, this was not like she was loaning money to a business. It was family. I gave three, wait four cars to my daughter, with no conditions attached. I have done a whole lot of work for friends of family, be it mechanical, or tilework, etc, and never ever was a condition that I will only like you if you don’t if you pay me back.
Fuck that. I do what I do because I wanted to. If Ayn didn’t want to loan the money just say, “No, I wont loan you money”
Hey! I like ya!! I just don’t agree with you about Ayn. No big deal. -Stucky
If your ever in Rockwall, Texas, I will buy the beer.
and never ever was a condition that I will only like you *if you don’t if you pay me back* -KB
That should have read ‘if you pay me back’
My bad.
Stuck, I think he meant he has some honey dew projects to do for folks whose liking he has to earn. -EC
TF? I work, on the cheap, because I happen to care about people whether they care about me or not.
KB, I think Ayn’s goal was to clearly teach the girl a lesson regarding integrity and debt. It was the girl who requested the loan. Re-read the post because your responses indicate you missed something.
I give gifts all the time never wanting or expecting anything in return. On the rare occasion that I loan money, I make it quite clear that it is a loan and that if I’m not paid back in full and on time, don’t come to me for anything again. I even draft a loan agreement that gets signed. In my own head I treat a loan as a gift essentially and never loan more than I’m willing to lose. Once loaned I never call or ask to be paid back. I never mention it again unless they come looking for more. I can count on one hand how many people I have loaned money to twice. I don’t co-sign anything for anyone.
It was AR s money. She could manipulate or not as she pleased. Was all up to the niece to decide. Why would anyone have a problem with AR about that?
What did i miss? Ayn would only give a loan if said recipient agreed to her love which wouldn’t happen until she repaid the loan.
Money is not love.
Think Bail-in Otc
I give gifts all the time never wanting or expecting anything in return. On the rare occasion that I loan money, I make it quite clear that it is a loan and that if I’m not paid back in full and on time, don’t come to me for anything again -IS
I agree with that, but, on a larger scale, when we have an out of control monetary printing press making demands on loans, the shizzle fizzles.
Me KB above
America once used to be the worlds creditor, now it is the worlds debtor.
Make a loan, or else I will revoke my likeness of you.
Love was never mentioned. Ayn “liking” the girl was not a condition of the loan itself.I suppose it could be interpreted that way. The way I read it, it was more like a reward for fulfilling the conditions of the loan. I don’t know much about her life, maybe she was a royal bitch.
Anyway, we sound similar. I’m always doing things for friends and neighbors with expectation of reciprocity but even that gets weird when someone adopts the idea I’m working for them instead of doing them a favor.
I don’t loan money. To anyone. Ever. I either give it away, or I don’t.
What could be simpler than that?
I meant to say “with *no* expectation of reciprocity”.