CREDITABLE BUT NOT CREDIBLE
Ed Barna
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A few days ago another credit card offer arrived in the mail, touting all the benefits that would accrue if I used it to make all my purchases or transferred any other balances. Among the “rewards” would be a chance to choose a more personalized style for the card itself: an American flag; a train rolling past amber waves of grain; the Earth from space; someone standing atop what I assume was meant to be a conquered mountain peak but which, from the scale of man to surmounted material, was probably a dirt pile from some construction project, with the glow of a sunset in the background; and so on.
My own preference would be to have a reward put out to bring in the people responsible for the credit card industry’s usurious interest rates, dead or alive; and to have some of the banks involved sunset if necessary to change our present monetary sharecropper system back to a sane and sound financial system.
Here’s my take on the economy, and we can see how the theory plays out in the next year: the current liquidity mess will not be cleaned up unless and until the nation comes to grips with its household liquidity mess. Partly this is a matter of individuals taking a different attitude toward acquiring stuff, but by now the situation has reached the point where interest rates and fees have become problems in and of themselves. Henry: “There should be a crime for this kind of predatory larceny.” Mr. Bones: “There is.” (Readers of John Berryman’s poetry will understand.)
Along the way, let’s give credit card holders a chance to put truly relevant images on their plastic fantastics. For starters, how about a reproduction of an engraved image from an old edition of Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” showing him in the workhouse asking for more? An image of someone straitjacketed and confined to an old-time insane asylum might be apt. A photo of a great white shark, taken by someone suspended in one of those protective metal tourist scuba cages, would do for those preferring a nature scene—or perhaps a flock of turkey buzzards, perched and eagerly watching while a down buffalo cashes in its chips. Some with a penchant for puzzles and subtleties might prefer a matching pair of Chinese finger traps.
If the current worldwide financial unraveling started with people being unable to meet their mortgage payments, it would seem to behoover us to find out why. It’s really not that hard a problem; in fact, it can be unlocked with a credit card.
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