Seeing the world on the US taxpayers' dime
Gotta love a blog called Pedantry . Its author gloats :
You see, I’m in debt. […] What’s important in this is that I’m in hock to US banks, in US dollars and our incomes are in Euros. Every day that the dollar goes down is a day that I’m less in debt without having to pay a dime. My banks have to absorb the loss, not me, and those banks pass those losses onto their other customers - those residing in the US - in the form of higher interest rates. In short, the unemployed, mortgaged, up to their noses in credit card debt American middle class is paying for my three month trek through Asia to practice Chinese and my year of unemployment in graduate school, and I am not even paying American taxes to help them.
[…] But, the next time you run into a Bush supporter, thank them for me for subsidising my life. Remind them that, thanks to Dubya and his damn-foolishness, every time they make a mortgage payment or send money to their credit card, there is a liberal, non-American computer programmer who’s getting to see the world on their money.
Hey, it’s nice that someone can enjoy our economy.
(Via wood s lot )
Hey, at least that blogger is paying off his loans. I have nothing but admiration for someone who finds a way to beat the system at its own game.
What really annoys me is that American lenders threw caution to the winds during the 90's boom and lent money to people who would be considered unacceptable credit risks. Now that some of those people are unable to pay, the financial community wants to toughen up the bankruptcy laws to squeeze every possible cent from those unfortunates. They can't even call this a "responsibility" issue: the lenders took a risk, and now they are dodging their own responsibility to accept the consequences of that risk.
The problem is not that banks shouldn't lend to risky people. Some deserving people may be classified as risky because of unfortunate circumstances in their past, but still be fiscally responsible people who can provide the lenders with a return on their investment. (I can sympathize, having fallen into this category in my lifetime.) The problem is that lenders need to remember that, statistically, a certain portion of those high-risk loans _are_ going to go bad. That's why they charge higher interest -- the higher return on the good loans should cover the losses from the bad ones. By punishing consumers for the lenders' own risky choices, they are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Posted by Jimcat on March 13 2003 12:05
A good cartoon on the subject some years ago was titled Credit Industry Mass Mailings, with two panels. One was captioned "To Congress", and full of letters saying things like "Save our industry from lenient bankruptcy laws!". The other was labelled "To consumers" full of letters announcing "Pre-approved $10,000 credit line!"
I agree with you completely, Jim. If my tone was unclear, I wasn't implying any criticism of Sam, the Pedantry blogger. I'd rather the US economy didn't suck, but since it does, I really am glad some liberal non-American programmer is getting a tour of Asia out of it.
Posted by Zed on March 13 2003 12:20