Poverty Business

One of the biggest concerns arising from the scandalous subprime fiasco (which is still occuring) was the revelation that creditors often prey on those who do not have the money. These impoverished people could never hope to earn the money needed to repay debts that were agressivley marketed to them. No offense, but a lot of people did not even have the brain capacity to really understand what they were agreeing to in the contract they signed with the creditors.

Along come BusinessWeek. In its recent article
The Poverty Business Inside U.S. companies' audacious drive to extract more profits from the nation's working poor, the magazine does a good job in covering this depressing scene.

In recent years, a range of businesses have made financing more readily available to even the riskiest of borrowers. Greater access to credit has put cars, computers, credit cards, and even homes within reach for many more of the working poor. But this remaking of the marketplace for low-income consumers has a dark side: Innovative and zealous firms have lured unsophisticated shoppers by the hundreds of thousands into a thicket of debt from which many never emerge

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THIS MUST STOP NOW. One can consider this as a violation of human rights. Being hunted down by abusive creditors is not what America's working poor need. They need their rights protected.

As America diplomats are running around the world asking for countries (which are in debt themselves) to forgive the debts of various African states, Iraq, and other countries, a blind eye is turned to American citizens who are themselves in need of debt forgiveness.

Of course, the reader of this blog should not for a second think that debt forgiveness will come along any times soon. It is always up to you to work hard and get out of debt yourself.

Dealing with the abusive creditors is another topic for another post.