Trapping People in Debt. The Republicans are about to "reform" the bankruptcy laws to make it almost impossible for ordinary people drowning in debt to erase that debt by declaring bankruptcy. Instead, they will be required to pay off everything — or be driven to suicide (which might leave their debts to their children). In making bankruptcy unavailable to the little guy, while retaining it for huge corporations that want to void labor and supply contracts that carry unfavorable terms, the Republican Party is attempting to impose crushing economic injustice upon society. We will either accept being reduced to slaves of the rich, or erupt in violence. The Republicans are setting us up for revolution.
+
Consider this statistic:

FACT: As of 1994, 44 million Americans owned more than 192 million firearms, 65 million of which were handguns. Although there were enough guns to have provided every U.S. adult with one, only 25% of adults owned firearms. Seventy-four percent (74%) of gun owners possessed two or more firearms.
— National Institute of Justice, May 1997

Are people oppressed by debt among the 44 million who own guns? I hope so. Because it would seem that ultimately this country will have to start killing off the rich who are doing everything in their considerable power to reduce the rest of us to wage and debt slavery. The rich, and their servants in the Republican Party, are convinced that Americans are too cowardly to fight back, and too guilt-ridden to understand that they are being wronged outrageously by the rich.
+
The credit industry portrays people oppressed by debt as irresponsible spendthrifts who knowingly incurred thousands upon thousands of dollars of debt in spending sprees from materialistic gluttony, and now want to turn into deadbeats to cheat the decent, honorable folks at banks and credit-card companies who lent them the money for their irresponsible shopping binges.
+
However, The New York Times reported today that:

Supporters of the new law point to the rise of bankruptcy filings, from 200,000 in 1978 to 1.6 million last year, as evidence of abuses.

But critics of the measure say that the rise in such filings is not evidence of unfair filings. Rather, they say, it is symptomatic of broader economic problems — the growing distress in families plagued by high health care and education costs. A recent study by bankruptcy and medical experts at Harvard University found that more than half of the 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts cited medical bills as a primary reason they filed.

Interestingly, the Times reports that the people of Red States are likely to be hit harder than those in Blue States.

In a letter to Congress two weeks ago, 104 bankruptcy law professors predicted that "the deepest hardship" would "be felt in the heartland," where the filing rates are highest — Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho.

Every single one of those is a Red State. (See, for example, the several fascinating graphical maps at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/.) The people who empowered the Republicans to ram thru this bankruptcy reform are being attacked by the very people they elected! In the Times story, one Red-State Senator tried to pretend that this bill is fair, in these words:

"We are a compassionate nation but we should not be fools," said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican who has fought for the measure for eight years. "We want to give our neighbors who get in over their heads a chance to get out of their financial troubles. But for some it is a way to avoid personal responsibility. There is something inherently unfair about denying full restitution to creditors."

Oh? That might be true if lenders were charging reasonable interest rates and minimal fees.

Arkansas' state constitution has kept a tight lid on interest rates for more than 125 years. Amendment 60 to the constitution, approved in 1982, caps interest rates at 5 percent above the federal discount rate. Because of this, Arkansas banks offer some of the lowest credit card rates in the country.

If all states had such a law, we might agree that people should make "full restitution to creditors". But in fact the bulk of people who feel forced into bankruptcy are assaulted by extraordinary interest rates and huge fees. Still, Americans are made to feel it is dishonorable to escape usury! Usury is an evil, so paying usurious interest rates enables evil. It is dishonorable not to escape usury but to co-conspire in your own victimization.
+
Every single person in this country who is oppressed by debt and paying outrageous interest rates should rebel and declare bankruptcy NOW, before the new law goes into effect!
+
Republicans are trying to sell the public on this 'bankruptcy reform' (actually anti-bankruptcy revolution) as a good thing even tho it will smile upon predatory lending practices, usurious interest rates, and fee after fee after fee that can raise the effective interest rate to astronomical levels. Consider this quote from the Associated Press March 3rd:

The Republican-controlled Senate refused to limit consumer interest rates at 30 percent Thursday as it moved methodically toward passage of legislation making it harder to shed personal debts in bankruptcy.

The vote was a bipartisan 74-24 to scuttle an amendment by Sen. Mark Dayton ..., D-Minn., who said consumers must pay interest rates as high as 1,059 percent when they borrow money. "That goes way beyond what we call predatory lending. That is `terroristic' lending," he said.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch ..., R-Utah, said Dayton's proposal would pre-empt state laws, including those that fix an interest rate ceiling below 30 percent. "There's no reason to touch the state usury laws," he said.

What a load of crap! Obviously a federal law could be written to provide that no interest rate may be greater than the lower of the applicable state usury limit or a federal limit.
+
Even more to the point, and as Senator Hatch (one of the most evil men in government) knows full well, 26 states don't HAVE any usury law!

There are 26 states that have no limit on what bank credit card issuers can charge for interest rates, according to the American Bankers Association. Issuers in 27 states have no limit on what they can charge for annual fees.

California, Delaware, South Dakota and Tennessee are among the states offering the least protection. These four states currently have no maximums on the following:

 delinquency fees
 cash advance fees
 over-the-limit fees
 transaction fees
 stop payment fees
 ATM fees
 mandatory grace period

This is all fine with the Republicans who dominate Congress. They're all rich, after all, so don't need consumer credit. They pay off their entire credit-card balance every month so pay NO interest. It's absolutely fine with them if you have to pay 19%, 25%, 34%, or 16,000%, for that matter! They don't care. Indeed, some of them may own stock in credit-card companies and banks, so are very happy to make money off the crushing usury that is destroying the lives of tens of millions of Americans.
+
The Bush White House is fully in cahoots with the cold-blooded monsters in Congress:

"The administration supports the passage of bankruptcy reform because ultimately this will lead to more accessibility to credit for more Americans, particularly lower-income workers," said Trent D. Duffy, a deputy White House spokesman. "The fact that the Senate was able to set aside those issues and move toward passage shows it's another bipartisan accomplishment. Coupled with class actions, it shows we're off to a good start."

The sponsors of the bankruptcy legislation say it is a badly needed measure to curb a growing number of abusive bankruptcy filings by individuals who ought to be able to meet their obligations. Those cases, supporters of the measure say, have added hundreds of dollars in annual costs to other consumers who wind up having to pick up the unpaid debt

But what interest rates will those "lower-income workers" the White House pretends to care so deeply for, have to pay? 8%? or 21%? 27%? — 34% if they miss a payment? And what fee will they have to pay if they are late? if they go over their credit limit? if they remain over their credit limit and become unable to make timely payments — whereupon they will be charged with BOTH a late fee AND an overlimit fee EVERY MONTH!? If the late fee is $29 and the overlimit fee is $29, each month they will be charged $58 in fees alone! And then they will be charged INTEREST on those fees as tho they were loans! And the interest will be at the "default rate", as high as 34.9%, maybe even higher in some cases! That's the Republicans' idea of "more accessibility to credit for more Americans, particularly lower-income workers".
+
Since in this past election the Democrats did not so much as mention debt nor the Republicans' openly stated intention to make bankruptcy virtually impossible for most Americans, the Republicans are now in position to victimize people permanently with a bankruptcy "reform" (part of the Plutocratic Revolution that is fundamentally transforming this country into a Nation of a few "haves" but an overwhelming preponderance of "have-nots") that traps people inescapably in debt that accrues interest and fees at astronomical levels.
+
There would appear to be no out but violence.
+
It will become necessary for people to start shooting Republican Congressmen and Senators, and the President who signs their evil legislation; to blow up or burn down banks and their executive offices; to kill banking and credit-card executives.
+
That's what happens when you trap people. If they can see no way out, they will fight to the death. As the Virginia state motto (proposed by George Mason in 1776) proclaims, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" — Thus Always to Tyrants!
+
Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, said,

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

I hope the patriots don't get killed, just the tyrants.
+
Republicans don't believe that Americans today have the guts to fight. I hope they're wrong. Let them understand that if they insist on inflicting usury upon the poor and middle class and trapping them inescapably in deep, deep, profoundly disturbing and oppressive debt, they are setting the stage for omnipresent violence, which may start as individual crimes of desperation but end as well-coordinated revolution.
+
So let me urge people who are becoming hopeless and agitatedly frantic: don't steal from your equally strained neighbors or victimize other poor or middle-class people. Target the rich. Steal from them. Target the banks and credit-card companies that oppress you. Burn them to the ground. Blow them up when all the customers have left but the managers are still in them. Target the executives of banks and credit-card companies who charge astronomical interest rates and fees. Steal from them. Beat them. Kill them.
+
The instant even a single abusive executive is killed, all the others will stand up and take notice. Overnite they will call emergency meetings to consider whether to lower their charges. If they refuse, a second death will make them reconsider. Some will still refuse. A third murder or the first fire that races thru the executive offices of a major credit-card company, killing or injuring dozens, will force rates and fees down. The next execution — for that's what these 'murders' of abusers will be: executions — will terrify other abusers into repenting their ways. The next execution will cause them to reverse charges retroactively, to give people lower interest rates on earlier debts, not just future debts. The next execution will induce them to reverse fees already levied, not just drop or eliminate abusive fees into the future.
+
In short, two dozen assassinations of banking and credit-card executives, a few state legislators, a Congressman or two, a Senator or three, and we will see Congress and state legislatures rushing to pass usury laws, forbid abusive fees, and otherwise act to end the rage that threatens social order.
+
100 assassinations could achieve in a matter of weeks a total reversal of the debt-enslavement that has been growing greater and greater, more and more pervasive and oppressive, over the past 20 years.
+
Violence is extremely effective. And I would rather see every bank and legislative building in this country burned to the ground than see the American people reduced to debt slavery.
+
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,512.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 12:16 PM