Sunday, October 2, 2011
Rewarding Stupidity
Well, I guess that this was inevitable in a society which is willing to wait in line for 20 minutes for coffee, pay big money for bottled water, and can't find it's way across the street without consulting a downloaded, personalized map from the APP store.
And what exactly was inevitable? That we'd be "treated" to commercials for a credit card which charges anywhere from 9.9% to 14.9% interest in which people crow about getting 1% of their purchase amounts back in cash. Cash which can be sent to you by check or (and this is the best part) applied to your card balance.
Seriously, where is the Red Queen in all this? Have we all lost our freaking minds here? Or are we just so wedded to credit that we are willing to swallow pretty much any insane, illogical nonsense fed to us by the wonderful banks that allow us to live beyond our means?
"I love this card"- please, help me out here. You "love this card" because.....if you buy something that costs a thousand dollars, the issuing bank adds at least $100 over the course of a year in interest....but gives you $10 "cash back?" In other words, you "love this card" because YOU ARE A FREAKING LUNATIC WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HOW CREDIT WORKS?
Why is it that every commercial for every credit card looks like a scene from "Idiocracy" that didn't make the final cut? Oh wait, I remember now- it's because every actor in every commercial for every credit card depicts a person who is so utterly, impossibly clueless, that it's hard to believe they managed to get themselves to the store in one piece.
Oh wait. I forgot about those downloadable maps.
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Welcome to America, my friend. The nation is a teenager and the behavior of its citizens reflects that. There are a few who are smart enough to pay most or all of the balance each month on their card, and those people will actually profit from this (yes, I know they're the exception).
ReplyDeleteYou do understand some of us pay off our balance every month and get the reward money, right? Stupid people leave balances. Smart people use credit to their benefit.
ReplyDeleteWhat really hurts is that these people seem to think that they're providing a service; to their way of thinking, it's their patriotic duty to fleece dunderheads and thus indebt the nation all the way to salvation. As has been noted many times, bankers are as stupid with money as everyone else; since they can't remember the other times that this sort of tactic has failed (Dirty Thirties, anyone?), it's time to dust off the aphorisms about the banality of evil.
ReplyDeleteAnd we are at an early age conned into becoming obsessed with our "credit score," which can only be brought to some magically high number by BORROWING MONEY and paying it back. Saving for what you want, and not borrowing it? Does nothing for that Sacred Credit Score. Therefore, Saving=Bad, Spending=Good.
ReplyDeleteWe've come a long way from those little bank books we got in first grade, which we used to deposit a dollar a week--I remember how proud I was to have an actual savings account. What do they do now, help first graders open a VISA account (using their own cell phones?)