Credit Card Debt...Bush's tool.

[Raven]

Huge CC debt, people completely unable to pay...exactly what GWB wished for. Now people can't tap their equity to pay these big balances off and they are faced with double digit interest rates. There is just no other explanation for this complete irresponsibility on the government's part other than that this is exactly what they wanted and we walked right into it. "Spend, spend, spend" says King George and we followed his orders...did exactly as we were told...we actually liked it because we could buy fucking stuff, and more stuff and more stuff. And now we're paying for our doctors' visits and our food and all sorts of other critical necessities. I'd say shame on us except that we can't afford the price of milk or fuel because we are a subugated nation, a nation of slaves.

So, here's what I plan to do and I am aware that not everybody can do this, but...

- don't buy what you don't absolutely need

- pay off your CC balance and if you can't, ask family for help ( if you were planning to ask family for help to buy a house, ask them for this, otherwise you'll never be able to afford to buy a house)

- hunker down like this is the end of the world because it is the end of the world as we know it

This is all a part of a larger plan to make us all so preoccupied that we don't notice when we have really lost America (if we haven't already).

This is their plan, folks and it's working very well.

And don't respond by telling me we should impeach Bush and crew...we know that hasn't worked and I think the Dems we elected in 2006 are useless reprehensible hacks.

It is really time to retaliate...again, hunker down, don't spend another nickel on what you really don't need and begin to organize to help eachother.

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Smirk, smirk, smirk" - Commander AWOL

[Deja Q]

2. I don't think it was a big plan by GWB

Or if there is a plan, it's larger than what you are talking about - too large for even the :tinfoilhat: nonsense and too large to be thought of on a conscious (or otherwise) level.

In short, it's just greed on some peoples' parts.

I still need tools to do my job and my studying (a larger paying job would have no down sides), but I won't be buying DVDs and CDs for any old thing any longer.

I do know "liberals" who have noted companies moving offshore to China and wondering why Americans wouldn't want their wages to go down (assuming such workers had a choice in the first place)... what those peoples' circumstances are, I do not know... debt, basic necessities, et al...

But I've known "liberals" who've given death threats too.

In short, why pin everything on GWB? Credit cards, commercials, and other things started long before he had.

[scarletwoman]

3. It's not bush alone, he's just the chosen front man for the deeply entangled financial interests who

exert an enormous amount of control in our political system behind the scenes.

Getting the proles hooked on credit cards was a wildly popular idea among MANY segments of the Ruling Class long before *bush came on the national scene.

I've been posting on DU for years that if progressives really want to walk their talk, they will cease owning credit cards; cease collabarating with the corporatists and the financial elites who desire only to suck all wealth upward to themselves.

But it's never been a very popular stance here.

More to the point, to blame "Bush" for the credit card mess is to miss the long history of how the groundwork was laid, and by whom. Over-simplification of such an important issue is not helpful.

sw

(edited for missing sentence at beginning of post)

[backscatter712]

17. I'm done with credit cards.

I just use a debit card, and I'm continually building my reserve in my oh-shit fund.

I still have an auto loan and a student loan I'm paying off, but after my previous bad experience with credit cards and bill collectors, I paid off that card, and no longer owe them jack.

[Hydra]

4. Deliberate economic crisis

All of this was planned. What for, I don't know, but my guess is so they could roll out a new currency. Others have suggested debt slavery. Since we seem to be following a Monarchical model these days, I don't see why not. Can't pay your bills? Jailtime!

Any way you look at it, it's going to be a great show!

:popcorn:

[Deja Q]

5. Peak oil?

Moving infrastructure to locales where oil will be much easier to transport?

There are too many tinfoil theories; and since we don't know, it's just as possible that the law of Occam's Razor would be the ultimate and correct answer: The simplest explanation being the correct one. (in this case, monetary greed - indeed, why else would the Fed try to prolong events rather than just let things go *boom* some 3~6 months ago?)

[Hydra]

6. If you haven't, watch:

Money as Debt

Once you know how currency works, there's no way you can mistake what's happened in the mortgage industry.

Want Occum's razor? We owe too many countries too much. Of we devalue the dollar and replace it with a new currency, we basically flip those countries the bird...and since we think of ourselves as the world's only superpower, what are they gonna do about it?

Honestly, the fact that many countries are trading oil with non-dollars is more deadly to our economy. Oil used to be the quasi-backing of our currency.

[BuelahWitch]

7. Jailtime or serve in Iraq?

Possibly, maybe? :shrug:

[Hydra]

10. I hadn't thought of that

but with recruitment in the toilet, conscription is a common fix to that :evilgrin:

[Raven]

8. No tin hat here...I've been around a long time and have never

seen Credit Card debt where it seems to be now and I don't remember any president pushing it as much as GWB but, I've obviously run into some agenda here on DU so I'll just sit back and watch....

[stevedeshazer]

9. You are 100% correct.

Thanks for saying it.

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. Believe me, I blame * for most bad things happening. However...personal responsibility???

I won't give total credit for such a pheonomenon solely to our idiot in chief. We all remember the joy of credit cards when we were young and carefree...and in college! My wife and I have watched her nearly 80 year old mom fall for all of the find - them-in-the-mail credit card deals, and she has gone bankrupt once already, and well on her way again.

I think that our society is sick, and headed for a big time wake up call. Religion as a weapon, rule by fear, media complicity in all of the lies - and Television with its rampant, endless lies through advertising (and mind numbing near total lack of any intellectual content...note I said "near").

What is going to wake people up? To start caring for the world, their families, each other more than their possessions? I haven't any idea. All I know is that my only debt is my mortgage, we pay off the credit cards each month (and don't use them much anyway), find much more joy in nature and time spent with loved ones than in things. We read, listen to music, garden, are out in nature. We don't watch much television, and mute all commercials.

There is a way to not give in to the madness perpetuated by our out of control greed and enabled by the idiot in chief and his media enablers. It is up to each of us to retake control of our lives!

[Nye Bevan]

12. I bought my TV in 1996

and I drive a 1995 Honda Accord.

I also make sure to pay my credit card bill in full every month.

I don't want to sound heartless but if you drive a newish Lexus and own a flat screen TV, you only have yourself to blame if you have large credit card debt.

(About the only people with large credit card balances that I am sympathetic towards are people who have used their credit cards to pay for medical emergencies. These cases are heartbreaking and are more a reflection on how bad our healthcare system is).

[ShaneGR]

13. This has more to do with bad economic planning than proof of malice

The reality is that banks are losing billions and billions on these defaults, both in housing an credit cards. This has more to do with stupidity, everyone is losing on this deal.

[Zorra]

14. I disagree. The economically elite are gaining a democracy proof,

quite possibly a revolution proof, feudal/fascist type state.

For them, it is a long range plan from which they will lose millions, perhaps billions, now, and gain trillions later.

Understand this: These people are not stupid. Greedy and meglomaniacal, yes, but never stupid in the economic sense.

Financial institutions (particularly in the upper echelons of their heirarchy) are never going to do anything to willingly lose money unless they see a long-term profit/gain opportunity from a temporary loss.

Abraham Lincoln expressed the quote below. Some have tried to maintain that Lincoln never wrote these words. (What a surprise).

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.

God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

The passage appears in a letter from Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.
For a reliable pedigree, cite p. 40 of The Lincoln Encyclopedia, by Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY). That traces the quote's lineage to p. 954 of Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait, (Vol. 2) by Emanuel Hertz (Horace Liveright Inc, 1931, NY).

http://www.ratical.org/corporations/Lincoln.html

[NNN0LHI]

15. Yea but the Chimp has a program to help "some" people with their high mortgages

The thing is I can't figure out exactly who his program is supposed to help. Everyone who is in trouble with their mortgage payment doesn't seem to qualify for Georges program to "help" them.

Reminds me of a game of three card monty in a dimly lit parking lot. And people keep falling for it.

Don

[K Gardner]

16. I'm afraid I see too many threads coming together from strange angles, all heading

toward a center web. Things that seemed strange long ago now make sense. I do believe long-planned events are occuring. But then, I can find a conspiracy behind my kitchen door. What you say makes sense, to me at least.

:tinfoilhat: