Vegas Sculptor’s Blog

I guess I’m lucky that my daughters are almost grown. They are too old to be interested in Hanna Montana.

If you have no clue who Hanna Montana is, then you too are lucky enough to have no preteen girls in your household. Hanna is by far the hottest star in the world right now for the girls. Her concerts are sold out within minutes of the tickets going on sale. Resale of tickets cause the prices to skyrocket, with some parents paying thousands for their little snowflakes to be able to attend.

In every city where Hanna performs, radio and television stations, department stores, and anything else that caters to young girls, hold contests to give away tickets. Parents camp out to be first in line for tickets. And, as I mentioned, parents cough up great wads of cash.

So how far should parents go to make sure their child gets tickets? What wisdom should parents impart about the importance of winning when attempting to get tickets?

One parent in Garland, Texas put it this way in an interview with television station KDFW, “We did whatever we could do to win.”.

Priscilla Ceballos has a 6 year old daughter. Like every other child in the U.S. she wanted to win tickets to see Hanna. Club Libby Lu, a Chicago based retailer that sells clothes, accessories and games intended for young girls, was holding an essay contest with the top prize of Hanna tickets.

Ms. Ceballos’ daughter was the lucky winner. Her essay told of how her father was killed in Iraq.

The only problem was, it wasn’t true. According to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, “Ceballos had told Club Libby Lu officials that the girl’s father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said. She identified the soldier as Sgt. Jonathon Menjivar.”

“But the Defense Department has no record of anyone with that name dying in Iraq. ‘We did whatever we could do to win,’ Ceballos told KDFW/Channel 4. ‘But when [Caulfield] asked me if this essay is true, I said, ‘No, this essay is not true.’”

Mary Drolet, chief executive of Club Libby Lu was quoted as saying “We regret that the original intent of the contest, which was to make a little girl’s holiday extra special, has not been realized in the way we anticipated. We are reviewing the facts in the matter so that we may determine an appropriate resolution to the situation.”

So what is an “appropriate resolution”? I mean, appropriate to me would be to sit the little girl down and explain to her in my kindly, fatherly way “Little girl, your mother is an asshole!”. But this child is obviously going to have real problems growing up in this woman’s care, so do you further her problems by pointing out what a waste of space her mother is?

You can’t reward lying by letting the child keep the tickets, but doesn’t someone need to explain to the child what was wrong with the way she won the tickets? If the retailer simply takes the tickets back, I’m sure the mother will cover herself with some story about how the big, bad meanies are to blame for them not getting to see Hanna. Isn’t this a case where someone needs to step in and get this child some professional help?

And what about the mother? Since New Jersey banned capital punishment, it won’t do any good to send her there, but what would be a good punishment? Should parenting classes be ordered? Should she be fined or maybe even charged with a crime for trying to obtain the tickets fraudulently?

It always amazes me that, as a society, we will wring our hands and moan about the lack of moral judgement in children, then we let women like Ms. Ceballos breed unchecked!

Well the good news is that Christmas is almost over. No more of my Christmas rants!

The bad news is that millions of people will come out of December with more debt than they can deal with. If you watch television at all you see advertisement after advertisement for mortgage equity loans, credit cards, selling your timeshare, anything and everything that can be done to create cash for paying off debt.

One of the commercials I have seen repeatedly lately is for a company named J.G. Wentworth. If you have missed the commercial, it involves people yelling “It’s my money and I want it now!”.

It seems that J.G . Wentworth specializes in purchasing structured settlements from people. According to one article I read, Wentworth pays about 57 cents on the dollar for these settlements.

Wentworth’s sales pitch is that they will give you cash up front and you will have the money to use now and not have to wait to receive it.

You know, I always wondered how people who win the lottery end up broke again in a few years. I’m sure companies like J.G. Wentworth have something to do with it.

Let’s say you win a million in a lottery. The payments are 33,333 a year for 30 years. You would pay taxes on your yearly income and have maybe 27,000 left (I’m not converting for dollars, euros, etc. because that doesn’t really matter for this discussion). Over time you clear somewhere in the neighborhood of 810,000.

Now along comes a company like Wentworth and they give you 570,000 for your future payments. You would have to pay taxes on the entire amount, probably at a higher tax rate. Let’s say you end up with 450,000. Not bad to be sure, but not enough to keep you going for 30 years.

So what? It’s often said “A fool and his money are soon parted”. What do we care if the lottery winner ends up broke again in a few years?

The problem, as I see it, is that while lottery winnings are set up this way, most structured settlements are from insurance companies. These are set up for the long term care of accident victims. If the money is taken in a lump sum and spent, who supports the victim then? I suspect it would be you and I through tax funded government disability payments and medicare.

A Google search for J.G. Wentworth reveals that the company has had several lawsuits concerning their business practices. An article in the Philadelphia Business Journal reports that 3 states “…moved recently to require a court to look at every J.G. Wentworth deal before it is signed.”

Apparently the government and the insurance companies are beginning to look into the practice of purchasing these settlements, but will they go far enough? Shouldn’t there be a law that says, in effect, that if you sell your settlement the taxpayers are off the hook for your future care? Shouldn’t there be some rule that you can’t file bankruptcy if you sold a settlement for pennies on the dollar? Or should there just be a law that these settlements can’t be sold and companies like Wentworth can’t do business anymore?