[Editor's note: Sepoy is at an undisclosed location. He's working overtime on strategies to Keep Our Children Safe. He will return next week.]
Yesterday I took a case for a fellow whom a major lender claims "owes" them several thousand dollars in "lost interest" on a repossessed vehicle the lender has since resold, again at interest. He is concerned because, if forced into the newly-popular-with-Congress Chapter 13 Bankruptcy (where one repays over time in lieu of returning To Go), he'll be unable to negotiate with another major corporation, this one a "health care provider," to secure a major organ transplant for his spouse.
I lay awake all night thinking about my meeting with them, and how distraught they were, and how someone's purported right to make money on money had placed them at the decisional juncture of life and death. I also thought of the dissonance between what we're told of the world's economic health, and what I see around me. I kept hearing Noam Chomsky's voice in my head, reminding me that the only way to make sense of financial news is to replace "economy" with "market" and "market" with "financial well-being of major shareholders of large corporations." (N.B. the same trick works if you use "profits" instead of "jobs" and "our pockets" for "America," anytime a corporation makes a move it promises will bring "jobs" to America.)
This flickering box assures me the "economy" is doing well. But consider these jewels: General Motors is looking to axe a big swath of white collar folks. Warren Buffett says the skewed American credit ethos could eventually lead to civil disorder. There are fewer jobs for smarty pantses. Oil speculators continue to drive sweet crude prices to record highs, even adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, the nation's credit card companies, who have in the past attempted to ply my toddler with credit cards, have convinced Congress to rewrite federal laws to prevent people to whom the credit card companies extended credit, presumably at their own risk, from enjoying the traditional protections of bankruptcy. Can debtors prison be far behind? Orphanages-as-policy made a comeback at the dawn of the Republican era, so why not? Meanwhile, Wolfowitz continues his ascent to the pinnacle of global geopolitical finance.
It is perhaps my weariness, or my natural inclinations toward paranoia, but I think money might make people misbehave.
On a wholly unrelated note, David Spade has a penis on his face.
So what's new, chicken little? How long can the culture of debt and skewed wealth distribution last? Indefinitely, me thinks.
Ahhh, that Spade picture is scary. He could be the new Joe Camel.