Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

And when we say–Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-ee ay!

We’re only sayin’ You’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma–O.K.

Okay, so I’m moving to Oklahoma. My choice was between Oklahoma and Tennessee, two states where you can’t go to prison for unpaid debts. I chose Oklahoma because it sounded better, and I think the weather is nicer. I also bet those cowboys are into debt bondage rather than moonshine.

I have debts but nothing that mirrors the magnitude of debt piled up by pop star Michael Jackson before he suddenly died last week.

Estimates put the value of his debts at between $400 million and $500 million. He owned more than the gross national product (value of all goods and services) of 15 nations! Before he died, Jackson, 50, was scraping by on $1 million a month and living in a rented mansion. If we could all be so lucky.

If Jackson had lived during the 1700s, he would have been thrown into debtor’s prison for running up bills he couldn’t pay. Except for Tennessee and Oklahoma, you can still go to jail for money management misbehavior, such as fraud, and the government means business. On Monday, disgraced financier Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his massive Ponzi scheme—the worst in history. Not paying child support or alimony will also land you jail time.

Us average Americans (almost half or 43 percent) should breathe a collective sigh of relief to know that we’re only about $10,000 in debt, not including our mortgage, if our house hasn’t gone into foreclosure.

That’s nothing compared to the debt of talented people, and I’m not talking about (I kid you not) the giant yodeling dominatrix on the fourth season premier last week of America’s Got Talent (now going to Las Vegas to compete for $1 million and a gig on the strip!).

Has-been movie star Burt Reynolds seems to be constantly in debt but always manages to hold on to his $2.5 million Florida estate.

He’s in good company with other famous and either bankrupt or once-bankrupt debtors. They include, in no particular order, Walt Disney, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Henry Ford, Ulysses S. Grant, Donald Trump, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Anna Nicole Smith, Natalie Cole, Mick Fleetwood, Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher, Loni Anderson and Lorenzo Lamas.