Boy, this story just keeps on giving. I was enthralled by Andrew's Times article - by what a doofus he was in his marital and financial decisions, and by his willingness to air his dirty laundry in an effort to make some money.

I was suspicious of big swaths of his story already. For example, he tries to make it sound like his mortgage broker was steering him into a bigger loan than he could afford, but reading between the lines it seems like his wife found the $460,000 house first, and then he sought financing.

Regarding the first bankruptcy, we have nothing to go on but the account of the unreliable Andrews. I find it difficult to believe that the wife's ex-husband went to the elaborate ruse of preparing tax returns for her signature every year, and then junking the returns. Maybe the first year or two, but for five years? And didn't she see any evidence of nonpayment of taxes? Did they have a mortgage? Or apply for financial aid for college-age kids? (Both of these processes involve obtaining official records of your tax returns.) Sorry, but the story is just a little too convenient for the wife. I think this is a Madoff situation, where one bad actor is blamed for pulling the wool over the whole family's eyes, but really the wife knew what was going on (or should have).

The omission of the second bankruptcy from the account is utterly inexcusable. I can't imagine a circumstance more directly germane to the story. He describes how his mortgage broker discouraged him from disclosing his hefty alimony payments to his ex-wife. Are we supposed to believe they didn't also have a conversation about his current wife's financial situation, and how to hide this knowledge from the mortgage lender? Come on.

It's galling to me that she owed money to her sister, and even as they were scheming to borrow money to buy a house they couldn't afford, they were trying to get her out of that obligation. Why not put your efforts into raising funds to pay off your sister-in-law? Again, we have to read between the lines here. It is virtually certain that the debt to the sister wasn't the only debt this flaky woman had. The bills were probably all piled up. The sister was mentioned by Andrews in an effort to paint another person as the bad guy in their financial crisis (notice how he's always doing this - the ex-husband, the mortgage broker, the sister). He makes her sound like some sort of crazed debt collector out of an Anthony Trollope novel.

His constant theme: we were stupid, but other people were evil. I think it was the other way around. The sister idiotically advanced what was probably a substantial amount of money. She saw her sister marrying a man and about to buy a pricey house, and quite reasonably said, okay, will you pay me back now? Andrews seems irritated that she even asked for the money. Fiery, sexy, eclectic women shouldn't have to pay their debts!

What struck me most about the article was that even if the housing bust hadn't happened, there is no way Andrews and his wife could have made this work out financially. They were leveraged to the hilt and wasting money on frivolities like fancy cheese. Obviously nothing was saved for retirement or for college for their numerous children. How was he hoping this to play out? His house would just keep appreciating in value and he'd take $20,000 out of it every year?

How representative is he of the rest of the population that is in immediate danger of foreclosure? If the answer is very, then that would certainly inform my perspective about massive bailouts.

The capper on this story will be when his "memoir" sinks like a stone in the Amazon rankings and we never hear from him again. Had he played this better, he could have wound up with a best-seller.

No code about it. Cheese really is that pivotal in American financial security. Most of us are one Camembert wheel from our second bankruptcy.

To recap: Cheese is extremely expensive in America. Except American cheese.

I've read quite a few articles, and innumerable posted comments, about the "opt-out" revolution. Funnily enough, almost all of it has been on the meta-level of Benfer's post, the thrust being how dare anyone write about these out-of-touch rich women when there are so many more disadvantaged women being left out of the "narrative" (whatever that is).

Why get annoyed at the New York Times and others for discussing women in the professional class? If a subject is interesting (and this one is), isn't that reason enough to justify a lousy couple of articles? I think we all know what's going on here. Hearing about the well-to-do, most particularly well-to-do mommies, gets certain people crazy. They can't just admit that they resent these people's privileged lifestyles so instead they cast around for some noble reason to decry any attempt to portray them sympathetically. Hence the assertion of the existence of a single, all-encompassing "narrative" and the argument that those who focus it improperly are agents of injustice.

Do you think there is some rule that a fixed amount of time must be spent talking about women's issues, and every article about lawyers with flex-time takes away space that would otherwise be devoted to diner waitresses with no health insurance? If you really believe in this zero-sum construct, then why limit your ire to the paltry space taken up by the opt-out articles? Go for a fatter target. How about the movie reviews? Acres of space for something completely irrelevant to the plight of the downtrodden. And so elitist - most of what they review are expensive productions (even the indie films have multi-million dollar budgets) and let's face it, how many "real" people have ever made a movie? Focusing the narrative on movies just distracts us from our goal of universal healthcare and free daycare.