GoT S7E7: Petyr Baelish's Story

Petyr Baelish has been one of the important minor characters throughout Game of Thrones. Rarely a viewpoint character (at least in the TV series) he nonetheless has served as a powerful and scheming advisor to several kings, queens, lords, and ladies. Across the series increases his personal rank from being head to a very minor house to being lord of a medium house to being lord-protector of one of the great houses. He makes this climb by being thoroughly evil and sowing chaos.

"Chaos is a ladder," he memorably proclaimed. "If only you're brave enough to climb it." In previous seasons we've learned that he's a plotter responsible for the deaths of various nobles. In season 7 he tries to turn Sansa and Arya Stark against each other, hoping one sister might kill the other. Spoilers from the season 7 finale after the cut.

( S7E7 spoilers )

Burn Your Credit Cards, Says Out-of-Touch Billionaire

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban recently did an interview with financial advice writer Dave Ramsey in which the two agreed: Get rid of your credit cards. "If you use your credit cards, you do not want to be rich," said Cuban. "That's my favorite line, I tell it to people all the time." Example coverage: CNBC article 4 Nov 2022, Motley Fool article 6 Nov 2022.

Despite Cuban's confidence in telling people this all the time, it's actually poor advice. Oh, I imagine it probably works for him— as a billionaire. But does he even make decisions about whether to pay with plastic or hand over cash for normal, everyday purchases? I expect someone at his level of wealth (and even those with merely hundreds of millions of dollars net worth) has staff who manage how things like groceries and clothes, probably even cars, are paid for. I doubt Cuban gets involved with payments of anything less than $200,000. It's literally not worth his time.



So how should a not-billionaire handle credit cards? Especially if, as Cuban taunts, you want to be rich? Here's my advice, in the form of Five Things:

1) If you're not carrying a balance, you're good. The big financial danger with credit cards is carrying a balance. Interest rates on cards can be fierce, 18% a year, 21%, or higher. People who overspend their budget, leaving balances on their cards at the end of each month, find that interest on those balance adds up so quickly it's hard ever to pay them off.

2) Use your card as a bill consolidator. I haven't paid interest to a credit card in over 25 years. But even though I pay for all of my regular expenses out of my monthly budget I still use credit cards for almost everything. To me they're bill consolidators. I tap my credit card at the register because it's easier than keeping cash on hand and safer than using a debit card. Each month there's just one or two cards I pay from my checking account.

3) Borrow on a card... if you have to. There were times in the past when I needed to pay for things on a credit card I couldn't afford. When I was in college and graduate school I had uneven income across the year. During the school year I worked part-time while taking classes full time, and my income wasn't quite enough to cover even my ordinary weekly expenses, let alone anything unexpected like car repairs. I accumulate balances on my cards during the 9 months of the school year and paid them off with money I earned working 40 hours/week over the summer. Was it an ideal situation? No, but it was the best alternative available.

4) "Get a personal loan"? Yeah, once you're already rich! Cuban recommends that instead of using a credit card to pay for expenses you can't afford right now, you take out a low-cost personal loan instead. That's the most ridiculous part of his advice. That type of loan only exists for people who are already rich! For folks living paycheck-to-paycheck what you get are payday lenders— and if you think credit card interest rates and terms are bad, hoo boy, hold onto your wallet!

5) Credit cards establish your credit history— which you need. The biggest positive reason for using credit cards is that you need them because they help build your credit record. Even if you don't carry balances on your cards, just having them, using them, and paying them off each month establishes a favorable history of managing credit. Your credit history is taken into account when you apply for a loan. That might be a car loan, a house loan, or even one of those low-cost personal loans billionaire Mark Cuban thinks everyone has access to. Now, if you're already rich like Mark Cuban, the bank looks at your 9-figure or 10-figure net worth and gladly lends you money at their best rate. For everyone else, the bank looks at your credit history to determine not only whether or not to lend you money but also at interest rate. The better your credit history, the lower the rate you get. So you really want to establish a record starting with credit cards; it'll save you money later on when you're ready to take big steps forward with your finances.

Laptop Back from Repair. Surprisingly Bad Customer Service.

Well that fast. After I took my computer to the Apple Store last Friday for repair I thought it wouldn't be back from the shop until Thursday. I got a text message today around 3:15pm that it was back at the store, fixed, and ready for pickup.

I decided to wait a few hours before driving to the store. Meanwhile I already started composing in my head the glowing review I'd write about Apple's customer service, with how their repairs were so speedy and everyone who assisted me in the process was highly trained and took responsibility immediately without making me argue to get warranty coverage. Then I had a series of bad interactions at the store.

First, the door greeters were busy lip syncing songs on their headphones. They were so into their music they didn't notice I was looking at them, speaking to them, and waiting for a response. "Go sit over there," one of them finally said. Then when I sat where indicated, "No, not there, over-there over-there!"

After a few minutes another staffer came out with my computer. He had me sign for the repair and then disappeared. "Hmm, I should verify the computer works before I leave the store," I thought to myself. It's a good thing I checked— because it didn't. My password wasn't working, and there was no documentation about what it was changed to.

I flagged down another staffer, interrupting her from reading her Instagram. "I just got my computer back from repair, and my password has been changed," I explained. "I don't know what the password is now."

"Let's see," she offered. But then quickly argued, "They don't change the password."

We went back and forth a few times about how, no, really, I do remember my password and had tried (and failed) multiple times to log in already. She told me we'd have to reset it and went back to reading her IG while my computer reset.

It took a few minutes and a few reboots to complete the password reset process. The whole time I was splitting her attention about 50/50 with her social media.

During one of the waits I asked her to explain the way the repair was documented on the invoice. "This description of the problem sounds like they're saying I dropped or somehow caused severe physical damage to the machine," I explained.

She looked at the invoice briefly and, instead of explaining what the failure code meant or admitting that she didn't know, mocked my question. "Well, did you pay for it? ...No, you didn't. So obviously we don't think you dropped it, because if we did we wouldn't fix it for free."

Next I tried opening some picture previews to ensure that the display was fixed. When I tried opening an image file on local SSD the system hung with the spinning hourglass icon. No files would open in preview. I called the staffer's attention away from IG again and asked her for help.

"Oh, you're probably running too many applications," she shot back.

"I'm literally not running any applications. You just saw me reboot this machine."

"Okay, let's open your Activity Monitor and see what you're running."

"I'm literally not running any—"

"Well, you're running a Window Server," she said, seizing on the first name on the list of services. "That's your problem!"

"I'm not running any application called Window Server," I explained. "That's a built-in part of MacOS—"

"Hey," she interrupted, "It's your computer. I don't know what you're doing with it."

"I'm telling you, it's a part of MacOS, which you should know— You know what, nevermind, I'm good." I closed my computer and walked out of the store.