What Did They Think Would Happen?
By James Donahue
I recently
read an interesting report in Al Jazeera that said collection agencies are doing a land office business attempting to collect
unpaid debts and bills from over 35 percent of the American people.
So what did the banks, corporations, legislators and other people in power think was going to happen after grinding
the American economy into the horrible state it is now in?
Most Americans that have jobs are working long hours in understaffed businesses for wages that fail to meet their
rising cost of living. People are forced to sell or vacate their homes and either pay rent that is over their heads or live
in tents. The cost of food, utilities, medical care, education and the basic necessities of a typical home are skyrocketing.
Of course, as the crunch closed in most American families lived
on credit cards, bank loans and sold their valuables just to maintain what used to be their standard of living. But when things
did not get better, they were left holding the bag.
Young Americans, gambling that a college degree would guarantee a good paying job, took the student loan bait
and went deep in debt. But when they graduated with the ink on a fresh college degree still wet in their hands, there were
no jobs to be had.
Now the collection agencies
are harassing people to pay off impossible debts. They are trying to squeeze gold from stones. The money isn’t there
anymore. It is in the hands of the corporate CEO’s who are living high on the hog with multi-billion dollar a year incomes.
The banks and lending institutions have created a vicious cycle in
all of this. Unpaid debt gets reported to the three big credit bureaus. People attempting to borrow money to buy new cars,
appliances or rent an apartment get rejected because of bad credit scores. Thus the corporations that want to sell their products
and services have cut off their own noses to spite their faces.
The picture gets worse. Those bad credit scores also are viewed by potential employers, and they are often used
to determine whether a job applicant gets hired or not. The logic in this has always escaped me, but that is how the game
is being played these days.
This is the
vicious cycle that has been created in America. Once a person falls into debt, it is almost impossible to ever get out again.
