This interesting article on debt makes one classic mistake; it confuses Shakespeare with one of his characters.
As a Shakespeare scholar and credit expert, this was impossible for me to resist.
Shakespeare usually got it right. In the pantheon of advice givers, he will be remembered long after Dr. Phil retires alongside Dr. Joyce Brothers.But one thing the Bard of Avon blew was a line out of Hamlet. Delivering otherwise sound advice, Polonius mistakenly prescribed, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." This suggestion was so flawed that it almost didn’t matter that he followed it up with the fabulous, "This above all, to thine own self be true."
People generally misunderstand debt. Shakespeare clearly did. No matter how much money you have, an appropriate use of debt can enhance your financial life.
Mr. Levin is completely right about debt, but he's wrong about Shakespeare. Certainly Polonius didn't understand debt. But Shakespeare did.
Among the copious amounts of evidence that Shakespeare existed (we have more hard evidence that Shakespeare existed and wrote his plays than we have for any of his contemporaries; don't let anyone tell you different) we know of a couple of lawsuits in which he was involved.
Shakespeare's time was similar to our own in many ways; among them, debt was everywhere, and the society was deeply litigious. Shakespeare had to sue to collect on debts owed to him, and he was cited as a tax-defaulter during the peak of his success as a playwright. (In fact, the Shakespeare family had a tradition of not paying debts until the last possible minute--see this account of Shakespeare's uncle Henry, who spent many nights in jail for not repaying debts.)
Shakespeare has been accused of being a scrooge, and for all we know he was. What we know for certain is that Shakepeare understood the importance of being a borrower and a lender.
By the way, if you ever intend to waste your time with the Shakespeare authorship question, here is the only place you need to visit.
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