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http://alternet.org/workplace/49777/?comments=view&cID=628653&pID=628620Get out of debt without working!
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Posted by: DataDoc on Apr 3, 2007 12:48 AM
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Don't you love the slogans on those cheap loans? I got my first credit card in college, went over limit on a vacation, and cut up the card (after paying it off). When I wanted to buy a home at age 30, I was advised to develop a credit history, by getting a credit card. I was proud to pay the balance off every month.
Then I bought a house with my wife. We love it, but it did have some problems - a cat got in between the time we purchased and the time we moved in, and destroyed the carpets. Pulling the carpets and polishing the hardwood floors started my serious credit card debt. When the roof leaked, I replaced the shingles myself, but the expenses went on the card, same for the plumbing. As my card payments grew, I found I no longer had "spending money." I had to put any purchases on the card. I stopped dining out, and buying cd's. But I started to put food purchases on the credit card. They kept raising my interest rate, and I would call and get it back down, but my interest payments grew bigger and bigger.
We did take a pay cut at work, but got it back with the minimum wage increase. So my income has been stable over the last few years, however just the interest on my credit cards is now $200 per month. It's a good racket for the credit card provider! I now owe more than $15,000 to the credit card provider, and have no real dollars to buy food. Hey there's always the credit card! And government assistance.
I know many folks have even scarier stories, but I thought I should tell mine as a cautionary tale. A few thousand can grow to a few ten thousand quicker than you might think! It's called compound interest and it's assessed daily.
To keep folks in their homes we will need to create low-interest loan assistance on a large scale to relieve the debts of the poor with 2-3% interest loans. This is the future of charity - we can't build a house for everyone, but we can try to save the homes they have.
Posted by: edith on Apr 3, 2007 1:21 AM
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There is no soft landing unless the govt, already hundreds of billions of dollars in debt itself due to tax breaks and Iraq, bails out the cash poor middle class which has run up massive debt. Perhaps the govt should bail the middle class out; after all, if not for consumer spending, we'd be in a Depression, W would be in Paraguay, and we might have a military junta running the govt.
Well, if you can depend on Congress for anything is that it will bail out banks before people, so the "contraction" of the economy, just around the corner, will solve the problem as will skyrocketing inflation that will monetize our debts and reduce debt's real value.
Hopefully, as the defense/homeland security fueled economy contracts and printing of federal funny money slows down, some of us will still have the couple of hundred a month needed to pay the interest charges on our shrunken but still potent credit card debt. Of course this "happy ending" depends on the Chinese not foreclosing on our red inked dead-drunk debtor nation. If they do, we are drowned, drowned drowned.
Posted by: ateo on Apr 3, 2007 3:12 AM
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Before making this post I went ahead and paid off almost 3 grand I had on a credit card. I left the debt there because the first year of purchases had no interest applied to it but March was my last month.
Anyway, what does this mean, "If we accepted their argument and blamed the "gamers" -- the new welfare queens -- they promised us a dividend in the neighborhood of several hundred dollars apiece in the form of lower interest rates." Gamers meaning people who work the system as if it were a game or what?
I do actually think a big part of the problem is the prevailing culture in America. People want to live a life style they really can't afford and so they take on debt they can't pay back to achieve it.
On the other hand there is the fact that once you add children into the equation a "comfortable" life style becomes borderline poverty. The solution is simply to not have children. That is what happens in Russia and many former Soviet nations. However, unlike them we don't mind having people from other countries stream into ours and replace our "native" population (they seem to have some kind of problem with the idea of Chinese immigrants replacing Russians so they are trying to promote child birth among their people). Thus, our population will continue to rise even as birth rates among native born Americans declines. America has labor (though, perhaps non-English speaking labor), and the current generation gets to enjoy their pampered middle class life style. It's win/win.
We'll also get to see whether racist nations such as China, Japan, Russia etc. are correct in assuming the people actually living in their country culturally and racially is primarily responsible for the continued existence and prosperity of their country. When whites are a minority in the U.S. if we are still a superpower then good on us, we win. If not, then I guess it'll be time for the racist Chinese/Russians/Japanese etc. and their homogeneous populations to rise to prominence. The U.S. has never really had a cultural identity so there is much less protectionism on this issue.
consultant - ethics and the creative process / leadership development
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Posted by: crmcvin on Apr 3, 2007 3:51 AM
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This article gets it right. But lets be aware that the entire infrastructure of the owners of the society is aimed at getting our money at any cost. The credit bureau's themselves are an example , the torchbearer of the nearly fascistic financial conditons we live under. They actually grade you on your financial behavior for all to see, and most Americans accept this as normal. What if your job performance were monitored by a commerical entity and reported every month to the world? Get it?
Get in debt to pay huge health and living expenses, struggle with taxes, fall even a bit behind on any thing and your treated like some sort of irresponsible criminal. Then you'll likely get your home or business (if you are on your own - as more and more of us are) levied by the state or feds and loose your middle class safety nets - all of which safety nets are of your own making anyway, since the current regime in power has undermined any meaningful official ones.
In a world where most kids start their first job between 30-60k in debt for the educations, I recommend cancelling every credit card except the one you need to travel for business (and keep a small cap on that one) and don't buy anything you don't need to sustain a modest life or a soothed the soul. Spend more time with friends making good food together and laughing and stay away from malls and expensive vacations, restaurants and entertainment centers. See a good movie or play now and then or go to free concerts. Cut back on fueling the consumption of things mentality in self and others. If we all did that for one year, the whole bogus industry would collapse, and new economy of sustainable service and community involvement could evolve. Of course, the way it's been structured by the money hounds called banks and credit card companies - in collusion with the US government, you'll probably collapse too. Either way, they get ya!
Posted by: davidslesinger on Apr 3, 2007 3:57 AM
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One way to slow the credit promotion juggernaut is to complain to institutions which allow dishonest credit promotion at their venues. Most major credit cards have annual fees. Most in-person credit card solicitation invitations begin with the line "free gift". If there's an annual fee, it's not free. Duh. Offending venues include airports, fairs, colleges, home shows, auto shows.
Living la vida loca
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Posted by: bulbman on Apr 3, 2007 4:00 AM
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Never underestimate the vast capability of the American public to be deluded. Sure the financial industry has turned into the Sopranos under the Bush administration. But hordes of middle class Americans still believe that they are just a few years away from becoming Donald Trump (or Paris Hilton), and few among them even understand how the rules of personal bancruptcy were altered in favor of thems that hold the paper. No, its gonna take a lot more suffering before the middle class stops quaffing the soma.
Posted by: anonimus1 on Apr 3, 2007 4:00 AM
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The US dollar has been **intentionally** inflated for most of the last 100 years by the corporate-owned US Federal Reserve, to help the US government to pay for wars. The US dollar is now virtually **worthless.** It's just a piece of paper.
The only thing floating it are promises. Promises that it's backed by gold in Fort Knox -- gold that no longer resides there because it's been stolen and sold off to pay for war.
The thing to do is to get completely out of the US dollar, as much as possible. Buy gold coins (newer issue, not the old coins) and have them ready in a safe in your house that's bolted to your floor under your bed.
When the US economic collapse happens, you will then have money to barter with, to buy food and pay for healthcare. Or, in the probable event of pre-planned nationwide martial law (where most of everything you own will be confiscated by the US govt), you may be able to bribe your way out of the country. By then Mexico and Canada will already be part of the North American Union, so you will be wanting to bribe your way to Central or South America, or to Africa.
Worse than used car salesmen.
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Posted by: colinmeister on Apr 3, 2007 4:09 AM
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The writer seems to think that banks and banksters should be hald above used car salesmen. I think they are probably to be regarded as lower.
I receive an average of 4 junk mails a week offering me credit cards with various incentives. I do not currently have a credit card, and nor do I want one - I learned the hard way by responding to Capital One in a positive way. I never bought anything on that card, yet racked up huge debt from a monthly charge and penalties for not paying it. When I paid everything off, and the card had expired, Capital One tried to re-instate my card ownership, and it took a lengthy telephone conversation with someone from South Asia to finally get rid of it.
At least from a car salesman you get a car of some sort. From the banksters you are likely to get nothing, and pay dearly for it!
Isn't the issue bigger than these cards? Why are we enjoying a ....
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Posted by: Prophit on Apr 3, 2007 4:25 AM
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... lesser life style than our parents before us? We WERE an educated and creative people. We were number one in the advancement of science and applied science, we used our tax dollars to aid those with smarts but no money to enter school and obtain an education (I know, I got my education that way, without it, I would not be where I am today).
Our corporations literally had two things they no longer have or pay for : 1. a Research and development dept and budget. 2. On site educational and skills training for their workers. Both are gone and I just read we have slipped to 7th in the world in techology advancement.
There is a redistribution of wealth to the elite through many avenues, the least of which is credit card debt WHICH IS VOLUNTARY, but there are other ways they get our money which is NOT voluntary which is just as ominous and never discussed.
What are those ways that we have no say in?
1. 65 Taxes a year paid by everyone, which represents over 5 months of working straight for some gov taxation. What is the name of something where you work for 5 months and receive no pay??? SLAVERY!
2. Inflation is the other robber. Your money isn't worth what it was and that is how they get us.
Add to all of this our voluntary use of credit cards and you have a recipe for massive redistribution of wealth that is now at record levels
Its not wrong to want a good life style that is a responsible one, but it is wrong to "get" one through credit instead of exercising you right to keep what you make. If you could do that you would never have to be in debt. If the BANKERS, were out of the picture, we would have a great economy and great future for our children.
Posted by: shangrilalad on Apr 3, 2007 4:45 AM
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Economic Cannibalism as a fundamental precept in Conservative Ideology has been a hugely successful tactic for millions of American Plutocrats at the expense of multi-millions of other Americans. It defines “Survival of the Fittest” as their holiest concept, and illustrates the foolishness of Christian Values.
Join the “Survival of the Fittest” movement and reap the rewards of Economic Cannibalism. EAT THE RICH!
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...the bottom line is to stop consuming what you do not need. A major lifestyle change is in order. Climate change will force you to a do or die position for your children who will likely not think kindly of all this self indulgent bickering rather than DOING SOMETHING NOW and teaching them how to live sustainably.
