September 2009 Archives

I really could not think of a better title for this so I kept it very simple. I just watched a few videos on YouTube that have reached top rankings and center around the theme "Debtors Revolt Begins Now."

Basically it's a bunch of people very upset with Bank of America charging an APR of around 35% on their credit card accounts and they are angry.

This confuses me tremendously.

First, I am no friend of Bank of America but I play by the rules. The reasons I hate Bank of America are:
1. In 2008, every time I went in to deposit my check they hit me up for a credit card. AND every single time I asked them to please stop doing that. Sure enough it never ended. They would look up my account, put a surprised look on their face and say "OH, Mr. Curtin, you are eligible for a credit account with us!"

No matter how many times I denied, they tried to keep selling it to me until I confronted them and the clerk replied with, "Maybe the next time you'll look into the details!"
So badgering me wasn't enough, they had to be rude as well.

2. When activating the debit cards for me and my wife on the phone the automated prompt told me how I should be very afraid of the boogeyman and buy the Theft Identity Protection Service. I pushed the number corresponding to "No." Then the prompt IMPLORED ME TO "NOT LET THE CRIMINALS TAKE AWAY WHAT I HAD WORKED SO HARD FOR."
The prompt was actually begging me to buy a service!!! To say the least this annoyed me. I imagined if this was even real or if I had been transported to absurd land where nothing makes sense and money just flies out of my wallet for services that are unneeded. What I heard was "GIVE US MORE OF YOUR MONEY."

Now for the debtors on YouTube.

Let me understand this properly. You have taken out a loan to buy something with money that is not yours. You are angry because the banks have changed the agreement which in the fine print they are able to take as much as they want from you should you owe a balance.

I understand this makes you very angry but you should have known that in a Capitalist society the point is to make money, not give it away. What they are doing is called "Usury," and has caused all sorts of havoc throughout history. There is nothing in the agreement which talks about "fairness."

There used to be a time when people spent money they had or even saved it. Now the society has become about spending everything and when that isn't enough, people are borrowing to spend. The problem is society keeps telling us to spend and unconsciously we trust the system, the sales pitches and agree that everything is a "good deal." We learned to trust the system and bought everything.

It is now time to start using our heads. The first thing to do is to stop spending. Money going into the wallet = good, money going out of the wallet = bad and if this is not the case it is time to quit that game. Start playing the game when your assets go up, your liabilities go down. Society tells us we need this and need that. We do not need any of that junk.

Should borrowing be absolutely needed, credit cards are the WORST way to do it unless you know how to play the game to win. I pay with my Amex for most things then pay off the entire amount every month. To the credit card companies, I'm known as a dead beat, the worst type of customer because they do not make any money off me. Actually, they pay me money with the cash back program!

The reason cash back is successful is they know people will not control their spending, get into debt and then have to pay the interest on the loan. They are using human greed to make a profit. It's time to play the game differently. Spend only what you have, pay by credit card, and let the company pay you.

Therefore, the companies can charge me an APR of 10 billion percent if they want. I don't care because they won't ever make any money off of me. As for BofA, I lend them money in terms of a CD and now can make money off of them!

I often hear that people have to pay a lot of bills and that is the reason for not having any money. But what is a bill? It doesn't just magically appear for no reason! It is a request for payment for some service or good. The trick is to ask ourselves if we really need that service or good, could we get it cheaper or perhaps just do without it completely.

Coming back to America I found that there is intense pressure to continually spend and fees for everything. It was almost too easy to spend money. However, the country I was coming from was Vietnam and those folks know how to save! In fact, a good part of the population do not even use banks! Therefore, if the bank told me there was a fee for this and a fee for that I looked at them like they had three heads. Then they kept telling me about services that magically appeared out of nowhere and gave me no tangible benefit. As for Identity Theft, my logic was if you lose my money that is your problem not mine. What I am hearing is that it is safer to keep my money under my mattress at home?

When I replied with keeping money under my mattress the clerk got a deer in the headlights look and wasn't sure how to respond. I do take reasonable care as well to check my balance, guard my cards as though they were gold bars and make sure nobody suspicious is around me when I'm at the ATM.

In my opinion, we should take care of ourselves and not trust the system to do it for us. That is why people who borrow money then get upset over the terms make no sense to me.

As usual, I woke up this morning, grabbed my Iphone and read through the WSJ, New York Times and Google News reader. And frankly I have a lot of questions on issues that either the right or left seem to be so sure on. What I need is a kind of referee that would penalize half-truths, exaggerations and be unbiased to the point of being boring. So many thoughts popped into my head that I had to write about them.

I do not get my news from Fox, CNN, conservative radio, nor any blatantly "liberal" outlets that I know of. Google aggregates everything and I suppose the NYT or WSJ might be a little left? The Economist is even a little left on social issues but it's no where near the bias from the conservative outlets. I actually do listen to Rush from time to time just to get my circulation going but this isn't about how biased the news outlets are.

Where I am going is that I make my decisions from a variety of sources and it would seem to me, through my own lens the following:

1. Healthcare
- I don't believe that either side willingly wants to deny people without healthcare (46.6 million) even though it would sometimes seem that way. On one side it appears the Democrats cannot reassure people that the system would not go broke while on the far right people do not care about the uninsured. Just calling them uninsured seems a little crass, let's call them "other human beings."

People are saying they don't want "socialism" or that we would "be like Canada!" I highly doubt these people actually know what socialism is or have even been to Canada. It would do well to use a better argument and for the former argument one could reply by asking "What is Socialism?" I know the response will be unsatisfactory to say the least.

After reading today's news it seems that there are two sticking points which are "the Public Option," and "Illegal Immigrants."

Concerning the public option people are afraid the government would have too much control and private insurers would go bust. This is a fair argument. However, something must be done as costs in this country are entirely too high and the drug and insurance companies make billions. People are going to the emergency rooms anyway so there has to be a fix one way or another. Why is it we are required to have auto insurance but not health insurance? Seems a little fishy and like unfair politics due to large corporation influence to me.

Morally, everyone should have healthcare and those that can, should help out others in need. This is a very important tenant in the Bible (and central to most religions) and it amazes me that those who are against universal healthcare seem to ignore. It would seem that the logic is to help as long as I'm not the one that has to do it. Or rather, helping others is a wonderful idea and we fully support it until someone (that someone being the government) asks us to. Or perhaps, I'll help when I want (which is usually never), just don't force me to do it.

I personally do not like being forced by the government on anything so I really do understand the point here. But at the same time it is disappointing that the "religious right" doesn't seem to give a rats about the down and out either. I guess I just do not like being stuck in the position where I have to choose to either give more power to the government or look the other way on human beings in need. If I have to choose it would be to trust the government (never good) and should they do not do a stellar job (unlikely) switch parties promptly.

From everything I've read however, I just cannot subscribe to the policy of "no" when so many people need assistance and would rather have less money due to helping others out even if the manager of it (government) is a bumbling fool. Until the right can come up with a plan where everyone is insured (which they haven't) I'm definitely on the left on this issue.

The second issue is if the public option would cover illegal immigrants. The right does have a point in that we as a nation do not want to cover anyone who may come here seeking health care which is understandable. The policy could not be sustained.

However, it still leaves me feeling a little uneasy and selfish. There are millions of Mexicans here working "jobs Americans do not want to do" which were fueling our economy and making it so Americans could pay others less, get richer and not give a crap for the welfare of these workers. When times get tough, those that came to work are left high and dry. This seems reprehensible to me.

When we look at the big picture it would seem that they are here only so long as Americans get rich off of their labor and the economy is going well but should we have to pay back America becomes irate. Again, this does not sit well with me. I've heard the phrase that people who come here should want to be American which is false. Many people the world over prefer to live elsewhere while retaining their own nationality. There is nothing wrong with this. The mentality here seems to be that everyone in the world should want to be American and Americans cannot understand if someone would like to work here but not take on nationality!! Would logic not follow, that if we wanted to go live in China they we should want to be Chinese? That makes no sense to the American mind, it only works the other way.

Further, one aspect the right has not thought of is that they should NOT want more checks by the government! To solve this situation, we should all be issued governmental identity cards which state our nationality, driving status, if we've payed our taxes or not, and for good measure, let's throw in our health status and any genetic defects as well. This would solve all the issues in one big sweep! Illegals would not be covered, the insurance companies could choose weather or not to insure us because we might be defective, and to be sure we are playing fair, our taxes to see how much we should get out of the system by how much we have put in!

But, of course we don't want that. I enjoy finding loopholes internationally which allow me to work, skip some rules and so on. Less control is better people, be careful what you wish for!

2. Joe Wilson
It is absolutely ok to disagree with the president but NOT like he has done in a formal setting. Do not disrespect any president from either side in that manner. If that was allowed to slide then those formal meetings would turn into a circus and shame us all. Might as well give the audience rotten tomatoes and other vegetables to throw.

I think both sides agree he made a big mistake. He has apologized and the government should decide whether or not to give him a formal censure or drop it. The Dems in asking for another apology after he has already are incorrect. Personally, I'm on the side of a formal punishment then letting the matter drop. Just decide one way or another and move along.

3. 9/11

We marked the 9/11 anniversary last week which was one of the worst days in the history of the United States. The news was filled with ceremonies of remembrance and patriotism. It leaves me asking the question however, what in the world would make any human being do such a thing and wish the media would spend more time on this.

It is true that any superpower in looking after their own interests are going to make plenty of people angry around the world. This is what superpowers do. This also opens up America to attack which it should guard itself against. However, what precipitated this attack in the first place?

This issue is so sensitive, I really do not want to touch it with a ten foot pole. But I think it would do well for the American people to become more informed about what their country does around the world and to have more debate about it.

It seems on the far right that America is just in their foreign policy 100% of the time. For anyone who has spent any time abroad they will quickly realize that is not the case. People should not be left in the dark about this. To say anything against American foreign policy would be met with a serious barrage of hate. (on both sides) It's almost like living in a communist country in that we cannot discuss such things except it's the people discouraging dissent instead of the government. The issue that is forbidden, is how could have America made people angry enough to get on a plane and kill so many innocent people. The easy answer is they are crazy terrorists and that could very well be true. I want more information though in how they became so "fundamentalist" and why they direct their anger at us. There are plenty of other targets to attack, why did they choose America and why the World Trade Centers? Further, "they do not like our freedoms" is not a good enough answer. The real answers are not suitable for public debate really and the best answers I've heard came from government officials from both the USA and various other countries when I lived in Vietnam in informal settings. For real insight, you should have a talk with those guys, it will knock your socks off.

As for security, the intelligence community has done a stellar job in stopping further attacks. There has been some debate between Cheney and the government on if America is more secure or not. If I was in the intelligence community, I would want everyone to be required to take a security clearance (Americans and foreigners) which determines your psychological profile and will issue a clear pass or not. Foreigners would all have to wear ankle bracelets and log exactly where they are going and what they will be doing with more enforcement for those of certain countries than others.

Of course this is ridiculous but just shows the balance needed to keep America 100% safe or not. How much control do you want the government to have? It does not make sense for the right to encourage more surveillance but less government control? Or perhaps it is only more government control is allowable when the president is Republican? I prefer less control, more safety and I don't care which side makes it happen.

Final thoughts

When living abroad there were certain issues it was better not to mention and sweep under the rug. Returning to America I've found there are certain issues it is better not to mention and sweep under the rug.

For real answers, do not watch or listen to the media. Make friends with consular officials and chat with them in an informal setting. Real answers come out but one must speak with 3 or 4 of them preferably from countries that are not seeing eye to eye and a clearer picture becomes available. The level of debate being played out in the media is appalling.

---END POST-----

One final question remains however after my "official post" however.
What exactly hit the Pentagon?
I came back to America well after these attacks and although I saw the planes hit the World Trade Center there hasn't been even one picture or video showing a plane, wreckage or anything at the Pentagon site.
I don't believe one way or another at the moment but in some countries I have lived in/visited there is an official story which everyone knows is not correct but you just go along with it because that is how things are.
If I look up this question on Google, all I see are the conspiracy theory pages. Does anyone have any links to pages that show otherwise?
My feeling is that something hit the Pentagon, the Government tells us it's a plane, there are no pictures or video showing a plane, but the country accepts the story and moves on. All the documentaries and websites could be classified as crazy conspiracy theorists, but the question remains?