I get mailings from my credit card company (which is also my bank) with "checks." You probably get them to. They're designed to look + act like "real" checks, but they simply charge whatever you're buying to your credit card. The verbiage that accompanies the mailings never ceases to amaze me. I paraphrase:
"Use the attached checks to PAY YOUR TAXES! NO, WE'RE SERIOUS!"
"Use the attached checks to BUY YOURSELF A BUNCH OF SHIT!"
"Use the attached checks to STAVE OFF THE COLLECTIONS AGENCIES until we SEND OURS AFTER YOU A MONTH LATER!"
The taxes one was especially amazing...right around tax time, they sent a six-pack of pseudo-checks and talked up paying any taxes you owed with them. Un-fucking-real.
This phenomena speaks to two things happening in American society that piss me off to no end. First is the general pattern of debt everyone, in particular people of my generation (b. mid-70s to early-80s) and younger, is embedded in. We're sold an image of the american lifestyle that involves new cars, new gizmos, 50-dollar shirts and 200-dollar pairs of jeans, and so on, but the opportunities to actually earn enough to buy into that lifestyle are all but nonexistent. Thus, millions of americans play the game of endlessly extending debt and deferring payment while maintaining an (ultimately unsustainable) lifestyle.
I'm less worried about that, because it's still possible to make ends meet and not go into debt if you just don't buy a lot of crap. A lot more threatening is the fact that it's nearly impossible to go to college without wracking up tens of thousands in debt. The whole point of public education is (in theory) leveling the playing field for people from different classes/income levels to have access to opportunities and societal resources. Now that college is mandatory, or at least sold as something everyone should aspire to, even as state funding is slashed and tuition climbs, an entire generation graduates with a B.A. in bullshit and 30K in loans to pay back.
(I was extra-depressed to read about kids going into comparable levels of debt in a vain attempt to be master chefs, thanks largely to the influence of the Food Network. As much as I enjoy Iron Chef and Alton Brown, it's unmitigated horseshit that food prep is now being sold as a kind of movie stardom.)
6.26.2007
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6 comments:
I just got a credit card email saying my limit has been raised by another $5,000. It really is ridiculous. Should I really be able to buy a car on a credit card?
hey now, seriously good food is very important. :) Austrian students were complaining about the 350euro charge per semester. I told them to shut up.
Not buying a lot of crap has many benefits. If the brainwashing of the American youth had not been so thorough perhaps actually living a frugal lifestyle would seem more attractive.
Definitely a huge problem. The way credit card companies prey on the working-poor families who cannot make ends meet without racking up debt is what worries me. There's a terrific documentary called "The Secret History of the Credit Card" that discusses this in depth -- though it's also pretty depressing. The breakdown of the consumer/labor alliance in the postwar period really screwed any attempts to push living wage demands.
Master Chef debt? That's just sad. Though I have a hard time taking seriously anyone with educational debt under 100,000. :)
working for a mortgage company and seeing people's credit checks was terrifying. People who would come in with 2 mortgages on their only home, making payments on 3 new cars and a boat and atv's....... and wanting to take out a 3rd mortgage.
Oh, and with the credit cards maxed! Not jsut your regular visa/mastercard, but the rest of the Sears and Macy's and Banana Republic/Gap/Old Navy axis of evil. (that card was a hard one to cancel and cut up....oh the rewards!)
I have a love/hate relationship with the show "The Fabulous Life" on VH1. On one hand, its amusing to see how frivolously the rich and famous spend their money; on the other hand, it glorifies this frivolous spending and the unobtainable lifestyles these people live.
Also, I saw a hand bag on Ebay for $10,000.00! Who spends that much money on a bag on Ebay?! We are living in truly strange (and depressing) times.
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