Our Habits, Our Yoke

As a child I grew up in Arizona, on the fringe of the Navajo Reservation. I saw many stores and bars that thrived by selling cheap alcohol. I am not an expert on this sort of thing, especially as a child. But the toll that the Indians paid was far in excess to the profit that was made by those who profited by selling alcohol, a bad business.

One afternoon in 1970 when I was 13, I watched two old indian women fighting over an old man who was passed out under a pinion tree. This was a really sad sight; but what was really wrong was the two dozen tourists who were standing around watching the fight, taking pictures and laughing. I had to walk away. These idiots HAD to know right from wrong – yet ignored it. I felt that the tourist were the true savages. I feel the same utter distaste towards any big company who enriched themselves at the expense of the less fortunate.

We hear much about the big banks that have made risky loans to millions who eyes turned out to be bigger than their wallets. They knew well what they were doing and deserve to go down. Let them be an example for other banks.

What about the millions of Americans saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt, paying outrageous interest rates to banks that had grown fat by sending out millions of credit card applications to those least able to afford to pay their ruinous fees and rates.

These credit cards have become a yoke around our necks, reducing us to being nothing more than slaves to billion dollar corporations. This is the hidden reason the economy is in ruins, the yoke on the consumer’s neck by all this bad debt is so heavy that they can’t even get up.

What banks really fear is the mass of Americans who long have been mindless aphids being milked from birth to grave by businesses with no heart or soul. They fear that these Americans will learn better and this will have a huge impact on any type of business that enriches themselves at the expense of the less fortunate.

What government needs to understand is that what is good for America is not necessarily what is good for business.

Let consumers restructure the Credit Card Debt they owe these banks. Limit total fees and interest to $200.00 per 1000.00 owed; stop the snowball effect that is killing consumers, once the ball gets a certain size it’s almost impossible to stop. Cap the interest rates that banks can charge consumers, after consumer debt reaches 40% of a person’s income – reduce the interest to prime. Don’t allow them to add to their debt (if they do – they become fair game to the banks again). Keep the interest rate low until the debt reaches 15% of a person’s income.

Give us a fighting chance to get up.