I just finished a book that's scared the everloving shit out of me. It's called Maxed Out, and it's essentially about how BAD credit cards, banks, the government, credit bureaus, etc are. It's a complex thing, and I can't really wrap my head around how it all fits together, but I think the basic point is that slowly, over a period of years, Congress has stopped making laws that protect people, because they like the money from corporations too much to stop them from preying on people. It's hard to know where to even start with a topic like this, because a) there's so much to say and b) I know so little about it to begin with.
We're in debt, as a nation, and as individuals, and far from encouraging us to NOT be in debt, the country and the corporations want us to be in debt. Credit card companies don't want you to pay your bill off every month, and will resort to shady schemes to make sure you don't. Credit bureaus aren't interested in truth, and the credit score is a crock of shit that has nothing to do with how much you earn. Let me repeat: your ability to get credit has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not you can eventually pay for everything you bought on credit. If that doesn't strike you as fucked up, perhaps you need to think about it some more. Credit card companies (and banks) mostly make money from people who DON'T pay things off in a timely fashion. Someone who carries a lot of debt is attractive as a client, because they'll keep accruing interest and so on. People who suck at banking will keep incurring fees and charges, and this is good for banks. It's really, really screwed up.
And the national debt? Thanks, GW Bush and co. for fucking up my future. Maybe you don't think about it all that much, but the people who are loaning us that money are going to want it back. And guess who our biggest lendors are? The Saudis and the Chinese. If that doesn't worry you a bit, I'm worried about you. The debt is scary. It's scary because one day, things like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and all those other social problems that ARE GOOD, are not going to exist, because we're going to be sending boatloads of money over to the Saudis and the Chinese. And whatever you want to say about it, how the debt has kick-started the economy, or something, whatever. It's untrue, because it's a kick-start and a healthiness that's based on a deck of cards that's going to fall down at some point. The economy is only healthy because people spend more than they earn, every year. We don't save any money anymore. You can say what you want, but all our government has done (every single fucking one of them, Dem or Rep.) is put more money into the hands of the filthy rich, and even more money into the pockets of greedy greedy greedy corporations.
It's going to eventually lead to something bad. It really will. Of course, maybe those that got us into the predicament won't be around. But we will, and if we have kids, our kids will. Is this what we want? We're leaving NOTHING to the future, nothing.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that so much of what drives people into debt are emergencies--lost jobs, medical problems, deaths--because we don't save. People file for bankruptcy because they get sick. People get fired (some economy, eh?), and can't afford their house or food, and have to pile those things onto their credit cards. It'll most likely be impossible for those people to pay that money off. Ever. And of course, now we've started punishing people for doing what the government wants them to do by making it nearly impossible for them to discharge their debts through bankruptcy. Let me repeat: Is this the kind of place we want to live? Where the rich are sitting pretty with three houses, five cars, and more money than they know what to do with, and yet where the poor can't even afford to have an illness treated with antibiotics? That's where we're going. I mean, hell, we're already there. We should be ashamed that we allow our elected officials to behave this way.
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