William McPherson won a Pulitzer for the Washington Post but now, in retirement, he lives in what he calls poverty, getting by on Social Security and a Post pension. The story of how he got to that point is a cautionary tale for anyone in the middle class: "I look through my checkbooks from twenty-five and thirty years ago and I think, Wow! What happened? It was a long, slowly accelerating slide but the answer is simple. I was foolish, careless, and sometimes stupid."
November 18, 2014
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