... great, to be loved by spendthrifts and hugged by contract breakers, a good one
Oh, come on Jay, just think of it as "socialized debt." ;^)
Seriously, I used to think the same thing as you, if somebody wasn't in extremis due to catastrophe, like loss of work, or catastrophic medical bills, or divorce, whatever, they were deadbeats.
Then after seeing what lenders do to borrowers, how they jack $200 in borrowing into $2000 in debt, I wised up.
It's a very ugly business these guys are engaged in. Rapacious is putting it mildly.
And the people they extort are the weak, e.g., illiterate, semi-literate, uneducated, semi-educated, very young, very old, demented, they have no shame at all.
In the West there is a tradition where usury is illegal, and debts are forgiven every so often ("jubillee"). I have no idea how it works in China.
Usury is illegal because slavery is illegal, and these debts make these people into slaves.
I free slaves. That's what I do.
In America, the credit rating is like God. Nobody wants to give up their credit rating unless they are falling into a black hole.
Last year, when my brother was dying of terminal cancer, he couldn't stop worrying about his credit rating, and trying to pay his creditors even on his death bed.
Even though I told them he was dying and leave him alone, they wouldn't stop calling him on his cell phone, and he had brain cancer and couldn't remember what to tell them when I wasn't in his hospital room, and they never let up.
Citibank was the most aggressive, from their call center in Bangalore.
F' em.
Edit: and then the subprime lenders were sending him blank checks in the mail.
This isn't the first time I've seen this, my 80 year old client with dementia, same thing. Late fees, charges, late fees on the charges, charges on the late fees, and then blank checks in the mail.
It's a sick and twisted business and as long as it continues, I will do what I can. |
