Meet your new master: the credit card industry.
- Oct 21, 2005
- admin
- Investing
THERE ARE VERY FEW THINGS AS DISTURBING AS ARGUING WITH AN AGING HIPPIE.
I’m not talking about your smug friend from college who lives on
the Upper West Side and quotes Neil LeBute plays as if they were
gospel.
The moment his daughter goes through puberty and really tests his
boundaires he’ll be watching Jerry Falwell at night searching for
answers.
Nope, I’m happen to be talking about hippies – real hippies.
You know the type.
The kind who still drives that silly flower-power 21 Window
Volkswagon Micro-Bus he drove in college ten years ago.
The kind who has “evolved” so much that he scoffs at the idea of
working a 9-5 job because “We weren’t put here to be in a rat
race.”
The kind who eats granola by the truckload and shows off the hair
in his wifes armpits.
Yea those people.
Well I have a news flash for you:
You remember the conversation you had with that one hippie last
summer at your friends BBQ?
The one where he argued that most people who worked crazy hours
primarily for the accumulation of money were really “commercial
slaves.”
Well Guess what?
HE WAS RIGHT.
Confused yet?
Let me explain:
Something very disturbing happened in our nations capital this
week.
So disturbing that its mere occurance has literally changed the
way I think.
No, im not talking about Bush actually believing that his number
one fan is the most qualified woman in the country to sit on the
Supreme Court.
Nor am I talking about how comfortable Tom Delay looked doing his
perp-walk and smiling for his mug shot.
Today I happen to be talking about arguably the worst law to
hit this nations books in a generation.
I’m talking about that brand new piece of brilliant legislation
from Washington referred to as the new “bankruptcy” law.
The same bankruptcy law that has made it virtually impossible to
well, um….file bankruptcy!
Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.
Accountability for your debts is a good thing.
Especially with people that go on Paris Hilton-size shopping
sprees without Paris Hilton-size bank accounts to pay for
them.
Those poor credit card companies who took their record earnings
last year and pumped it into marketing to you should have a
right to collect their money.
But there is another group of Americans at risk due to the new
bankruptcy law.
And that group, according to President Bush, is the backbone of
this country.
And there is a 60 percent chance that this group includes you.
Let me explain:
As I mentioned before, according to President Bush himself, 6
out of 10 people in American owe their jobs to “small”
businesspeople.
Those risk-taking entrepeneurs who fail 90 percent of the time
when they start their companies.
Yup, these people are literally the backbone of this economy.
But banks don’t lend money to entrepenurs that start their own
companies.
And angel investors generally don’t invest unless the owner invests
a lot of money personally or their is proof of concept.
So, where do 70 PERCENT of people trying to start a new business
get their money from?
You guessed it: Credit Card debt!
Now think about it for a moment:
Let’s say you’re in your 40’s and you decided to leave that soul-
sucking 9 – 5 job you’ve had for the past decade to claim a piece
of the American Dream and start your own company.
You have a wife and two children and, like most people, between
health care costs and education you have less money in the bank
then you thought you would ten years ago.
But you have a dream.
Maybe you want you want to start a home nursing company to take
care of the growing population of the elderly.
Or maybe even open up an online internet bookseller.
Either way you’ve spent years during your commute to work studying
the market. You believe you can pull it off.
But first you’ll need to buy a new computer.
Then you’ll need to have your next door neighbors reclusive,
pimply-faced, know-it-all nerd child build your website.
Then you have to start marketing to get the word out.
Of course you have some money in the bank. But after much discussion
with your wife you decide to hold onto that cash in case things
go wrong.
Ultimately you decide to do what COUNTLESS SUCCESSFUL ENTREPENEURS
I KNOW HAVE DONE – YOU BORROW FROM YOUR LOCAL SHYLOCK, UM…
I MEAN, CREDIT CARD COMPANY.
But as of this Monday you’ll have to think twice.
Because now, if you happen to be as astute a businessperson as
our current President, you may very well fail at your new endeavor.
And unless your parents have a rich network of friends to help
you, you will not be able to start over again so easily.
Nope, as of Monday, your business failing would be almost like
having a child support payments – you’ll spend the rest of your
life sending in payments to the credit card companies (but your
new “child” will never even smile at you).
Maybe that extra burden every month will limit the schools you
can send your children to.
Or maybe it will force you to have to take a second job to pay
for your sick mother who is five years away from Medicare
eligability.
Like I said before – I’m not here to defend deadbeats.
BUT IT’S ABOUT FRIGGIN TIME SOMEBODY DEFENDED TWO OF THE MOST
IMPORTANT THINGS TO ALL AMERICANS:
THE AMERICAN DREAM AND OUR ECONOMIC GROWTH.
You see, whether you succeed at your new venture or not, just
the act of starting a new business and buying materials provides
jobs for countless people (not to mention the entire lunchtime
staff at Office Depot).
But many entrepeneurs I know – folks like a certain CEO friend of
mine who runs a very successful $100 million dollar public
company – couldn’t have put his children at the risk he did.
That’s because he ran up $100,000 in credit card debt before
his business started to take off.
But if you happen to be like my former Republican friend you
wouldn’t have taken that risk.
Yup, our business friendly folks in Washington just passed the
one law that could stunt economic growth in this country in a big
way.
From now on, anybody who takes that kind of risk and fails will
spend the rest of his or her life working for the credit card
companies to pay for their “mistake.”
(While the rich keep getting larger and larger tax breaks).
Yup, last summer my granola-eating hippie friend was 100% right.
What makes this country great – our economic freedom to take risks,
fail and bounce back – has been permantently damaged.
Our government has sold us into Commercial Slavery to the very
same people who defy gravity year after year with record earnings.
So, to those of us who decide to risk all on their vision of the
American Dream and fail I have one thing to say to you:
Meet your new master: the credit card industry.
— By Dylan Jovine