Image by JAS_photo via Flickr
Power & sex sometimes get mixed up with each other, leading to sexual indiscretions. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, recently accused of sexual assault, knows this all too well. As a member of the French Socialist Party, perhaps he was taking “from each according to their ability; to each according to their needs” just a little bit too personally.
Another man who recently got into heat with the media is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently was revealed to have fathered an illegitimate child. If he were not such a public figure, this might not be such big news, but since he is, it is. It must not be easy for the family to have the spotlight shone on them like that. I enjoyed watching his movies when I was younger, such as Terminator 2, and his story starting from Austria to California is pretty interesting. Sad to see him and the family get caught up in this, but surely he knew what he was getting himself into and he needs to take responsibility for his actions.
So, reader, what do you think? In another day and age, this might not even be news. After all, men in power commonly had mistresses or multiple wives, and sometimes the women did not have much choice in the matter. If the king wanted you to be his mistress, could you reasonably refuse? Thankfully our ideas of moral norms have evolved since then, but perhaps not enough. Do men in power still get somewhat of a free pass?
When technology can be too smart for its own good…
As an aside, we finally bought a TV for our condo, watched a movie on it, and man did it look weird! The movie was too “smooth”, like it was a TV soap opera or like it was recorded with a home video camera. It made the movie feel really cheap. We were missing that movie experience, and I figured maybe it was because the TV was just too good for the DVD we were playing. Well, in a way it was: apparently there was a “movie smoothing” option that increased the framerate from the default 24 to a much higher rate using motion interpolation. After we disabled that, the movie felt like a MOVIE again. It’s a neat effect, but why would the manufacturer enable that by default? :S
Posts of the week
Here are the most recent posts on Invest It Wisely:
- Why I Support Ron Paul for President 2012 – The one politician that will actually fight for you. He has opened my mind to what liberty and freedom really means.
- Weekend Reading: Evil Still Exists Edition – Evil still exists, and we should not grow apathetic to the plight of others, even if they do live halfway across the world.
- Future Imperfect: How to Prepare for an Uncertain Future – The world as we know it is changing rapidly. Keeping up with this change is not only easy. How can we better prepare ourselves for an uncertain future?
Weekend Reading
- Will Oil & Gas Stocks Rise Again? (Beating The Index)
Carnivals
- Canadian Finance Carnival #36 (Canadian Finance Blog)
- Totally Money Carnival #19: The New Oreo Edition (retireby40.org)
Health
- Grocery Store Seafood: What to Eat and What to Avoid (Mark’s Daily Apple)
Investing
- Can You Live Off Your Dividends? (The Dividend Ninja)
- Is the Bull Market In Silver Finished? (101 Centavos)
- Market Timing And The Myth of Loss Aversion (Financially Consumed)
- William Bernstein Praises Millionaire Teacher (Andrew Hallam)
Miscellaneous
- Bitcoin: a new “peer-to-peer currency” (boingboing)
- Conscription Is Slavery (Overcoming Bias)
- Dealing with Advertiser Criticism (Budgeting in the Fun Stuff)
- Highest Speed Limits (Frugal Zeitgeist)
- How To Trick An Employer Into Hiring You (Financial Samurai)
- Pyongyang and Mt. Myohyang (The forbidden railway: Vienna – Pyongyang 윈 – 모스크바 – 두만강 – 평양)
- Review: Teen Mom (The Ultimate Juggle)
- Tips For Setting Priorities And Getting The Right Things Done (Everyday Tips and Thoughts)
- The Man Who Successfully Challenged Five Speeding Tickets Using Traffic Photo Timestamps (GIZMODO)
- The Money Aspect of Piracy (The Amateur Financier)
Personal Finance
- April 2011 Financial Goals Update (Mom’s Plan)
- Getting Out Of Debt (Buy Like Buffett)
- Power Saving Technology that Helps You Save Money on Energy (Sustainable PF)
- When Being Generous Doesn’t Pay Off (youngandthrifty.ca)
- Wow..Debt Really is a Motivator (First Gen American)
- Why your financial resolutions might have failed (My Own Advisor)
The Economy and The Government
- Mises on Action (Mises Daily)
- So You Thought The Debt Crisis Was Over? (The Wise Buck)
- State or Private-Law Society (Mises Daily)
- The Economy Is Sliding Into A Stagflationary Spiral (The Daily Capitalist)
Video
This video raises quite a few interesting points, although it does have its own agenda and I believe it is too cynical as far as the value of college education is concerned. My own experiences were mixed.
So what’s going on with that debt-ceiling, anyhow? Is a ceiling really all that useful if it is always extended? Sure, it gets people talking, but can it actually force meaningful change?
Thanks for the support and the great comments everyone; I always appreciate it, and hope you all have a great weekend. 🙂
Thanks for including our energy saving tech article IIW!
I did include you in our Weekend Reading last week as well – editor pick!
http://sustainablepersonalfinance.com/weekend-reading-top-3-edition/
Yep, I am checking every now and then since I never get pingbacks from your site! Thanks for mentioning me as an editor’s pick. 🙂
That sounds like a very advanced TV 🙂 In regards to the power question, I think that those in power definitely have the ability to abuse their power, but in general, they probably would have tried to do the same without the position of power.
In a way, power attracts those that are most corrupted by it, so that makes sense…
Thank you for including BFS! I don’t know if men in power get a free pass – I personally have zero respect for anybody who cheats on a spouse…
It would only be OK if the wife knew and consented, then it wouldn’t be cheating, but it’s hard to believe that that would happen!
Thanks for the mention Kevin! Totally agree with everything you said about power & sex; sad for Arnie, but he’s an adult afterall. This won’t be the last media story like this, not by a long shot.
Have a great weekend!
Mark
Guess it just goes to show that the elected people are certainly not better than the rest of us… I did expect better from him though. Here’s an interesting writeup: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-abbott/arnold-schwarzeneggers-tr_b_865297.html
Thanks for the mention, Kevin.
I was pretty disgusted when I found out Ahhhh-nold cheated, let alone fathered another child! Men are pigs. 😉
If it weren’t for Maria, he wouldn’t have been able to get into political power (no one would give him any respect).
Have a great weekend anyway 🙂 Hope you find better DVD’s for your TV. Is your TV an HDTV?
Yep HDTV! We didn’t have a TV at all for about a year, so right now we’re enjoying it. 😉
Unfortunately I gotta agree with you, some men are pigs. Sure we can use the excuse that we’re biologically advantaged by having multiple wives (just like women are biologically advantaged by finding a reliable dependable guy to take care of the kids but sleeping with the “fittest” guy they can find — this is the biological explanation for female adultery) — but we’re not monkeys. We don’t have to follow our genes to the letter and it is a copout. 😉
Hi Kevin, thanks for the link. I wasn’t all that surprised hearing about Arnold, that is, only up to the point until I saw a photo of the housekeeper! I mean, with all due respect to the lady, I’m sure she’s got a great personality and all, but looks are not her strong suit. Arnold being Arnold, I was half-expecting some kind of Brazilian supermodel. I’m just sayin’….
One movie that explores this theme of power and sex and that is on my short list is “Vincere”, the early years of Mussolini and his mistress.
Ah-nold hasn’t been much of a looker himself in a loooong time, in fairness ….! Those flabby once-were-muscles and the red hair aren’t a good look :/
The cheating is one thing, I half expect most men with a smidgen of power to be up to no good, but the fact he concealed the kid’s existence from his wife until after she had her family raise funds for him and helped him get elected is really cold.
Someone like Arnold has access to opportunities everywhere; I guess it’s like a child in a candy store. Sometimes it’s hard to resist one’s natural impulses. I agree that it’s cold, and the repercussions will certainly cast a cloud over him and the family for a long time to come. I can respect that he’s at least made the effort to provide for the child as well as his own family. There are plenty of scumbags on this planet that do far less than that. He’s also a reminder that any of us can fall to our own fallibilities so we gotta watch out for them!
Haha, this one cracked me up as well. I don’t know… maybe she was just one of many…
I personally think it is wrong for a man to cheat and I don’t think it matters if they are in power or not. If a man is going to make the decision to have extra marital relations, it seems to me it won’t matter if they are in power or just a regular person. It happens all the time. We hear about it more often about men in power or who are in the press alot because the modern day media love stories like that. I personally feel that if the extra marital affair comes to light it should be kept between the wife and the person in question. Who are we to judge someone else. Splashing through the news and media seems more wrong to me.
That’s really the biggest downside of it for him, which is the situation he put his wife and family in due to the public media exposure. You’re very right though, it shouldn’t be any of our business. However he could simply have not cheated and then we wouldn’t have anything to talk about. 😉
Even the best of us can fall, I guess. I don’t think I would trade places with Arnold with that pallor of shame even with all of his wealth and fame.