But now it seems as if almost everyone is in the debt-selling business. Everywhere you look someone is offering a branded credit card with a cute picture most often from the big two in debt selling, MasterCard and Visa. It is a booming business. And it is a business that makes money twice on every purchase. First it takes a cut from the sale, so the merchant takes a hit. Then it makes money by selling you debt, tempting you with ridiculous minimum payments (albeit coupled with double-digit annual interest).
Just think, how come consumer credit rates didn’t go down when regular interest rates (i.e., the debt-sellers’ costs) dropped? The answer of course is: why should they? It is a seller’s market. So a few companies will offer you rates in the low teens -- big deal! We have been in single-digit interest rates for most other consumer offerings for a while. Mortgage rates, which are now inching back up, were at an all-time low, yet credit card rates barely moved at all.
The credit card business is too hot; you can make way too much money catering to instant gratification. Which brings us to another facet of our western money psychology, the belief that tomorrow may never come. We will always pay off our debts -- tomorrow, next month, when the tax refund comes in, when we get a raise, when the lotto hits, anytime that’s sufficiently far off into the future.
How else do you explain the increasing reliance on credit for “everyday” purchases? We “know” logically that we shouldn’t buy that movie ticket with a credit card, but our shadow steps in and insists that it’s “worth” it, nonetheless. Not because we “needed” to see a movie when we were short of cash, but because we “needed” to avoid facing some issue that our desire to see a movie we couldn’t afford would have brought up.
And, once you’re in debt, the monthly payments, even minimum monthly payments, can make it impossible to pay cash for things that are essentials, for those things like food and medicine that we really do need right now.
I kid you not; but you can now use a credit card to purchase bus fare. What madness is this?
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This reminded me of something I wrote a few months ago: http://eoma-p.livejournal.com/36134.html
Could be the start of a fun adventure - whatever words you find that fit you best, may you be blessed for it!
Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha