We are Being Enslaved by a Debtcropper Society

A Debtcropper Society

Thursday, 11/18/2010 - 2:16 pm by Matt Stoller |
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Today, we are in the midst of creating a second sharecropper society. I first heard the term “slaves to the bank” from a constituent fighting a fraudulent foreclosure. The details aren’t so important — this couple had been illegally placed in a predatory loan — but at one point, the wife explained that she and her husband were so scared they would have “given their first born to the bank to keep their home”. That was fear speaking, total unadulterated panic. And as we watch debt-holders use the ornaments of fear, such a loan sharking company that set up fake courts to convince debtors they were losing cases, we should recognize that what the creditor class wants is what they’ve always wanted: total dominance of our culture.

Today, the debts do not involve liens against crops. People in modern America carry student loans, credit card debt, and mortgages. All of these are hard to pay back, often bringing with them impenetrable contracts and illegal fees. Credit card debt is difficult to discharge in bankruptcy and a default on a home loan can leave you homeless. A student loan debt is literally a claim against a life — you cannot discharge it in bankruptcy, and if you die, your parents are obligated to pay it. If the banks have their way, mortgages and deficiency judgments will follow you around forever, as they do in Spain.

Young people and what only cynics might call ‘homeowners’ have no choice but to jump on the treadmill of debt, as debtcroppers. The goal is not to have them pay off their debts, but to owe forever. Whatever a debtcropper owes, a wealthy creditor owns. And as a bonus, the heavier the debt burden of American citizenry, the less able we are able to organize and claim our democratic rights as citizens. Debtcroppers don’t start companies and innovate, they don’t take chances, and they don’t claim their political rights. Think about this when you hear the calls from ex-Morgan Stanley banker and current World Bank President Robert Zoellick and his nebulous mutterings pining for the gold standard. Or when you hear Warren Buffett partner Charlie Munger talk about how the bailouts of the wealthy were patriotic, but we mustn’t bail out homeowners for fear of ‘moral hazard’. Or when you hear Pete Peterson Foundation President and former Comptroller General David Walker yearn nostalgically for debtor’s prisons.

http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/11/18/a-debtcropper-society-27559/

a mortgage, if you can afford it on a reasonable home for your income level, I have no problem with a person assuming. Reasonable debt around education right now, if possible is alright as well, however, there is a diminishing return for education right now with the prospect of underemployment or unemployment out there for time invested.

I am not one who believes that we should return to a system in which only the aristocracy/weathy are able to own real property.

If you are still living on credit cards after the lessons of the past few years, you did not learn a thing.

1. Americans have not had an increase in wages since Reagan came into office.

2. They have been encouraged to buy on credit to maintain an approved lifestyle of consumption.

3. The companies extending credit have know all along that most of their cardholders cannot pay them back in a timely fashion and have gleefully piled on late fees and usurious interest charges and penalties because they are so g-d profitable.

lifestyle consumption, then I would say the problem is yours.

We paid off our credit cards several years ago, and only use them for emergencies now. They are never used to purchase wants, only needs, and are paid off promptly before interest accrues. It is a choice we made. We also made a choice about how much "stuff" we need.

Yes, finance companies are predatory, but it takes two to do this tango.

Quit buying stupid stuff on credit. I refuse to give them steady business.

aren't they? And the courts don't excuse them because of the stupidity of their victims.

Not saying not to.

However, you have a choice to use a card or not when making a purchase as well.

Are we claiming victimhood for EVERY person who has a credit card??

over ten years ago. Had one during my marriage that got racked up exponentially due to hard times and my then husband being chronically unemployed. Debt and fights about money was one of the things that ruined that relationship. He also had pricey student loans even then. But I had a card and stupidly financed a good deal of my wedding on it, including the honeymoon. Ex contributed nothing.

So, when I left I had about $5400 in cc debt and paid it off within three years. I said good bye to the cc companies and haven't missed them since. debit card does just fine for what I need. I realized then it was a huge racket designed to keep people in continuous debt. It was even more telling to me a couple of years later when I went to work in the credit card dept of a very large national bank and learned that what consumers call "debt" banks call "assets."

Fuck that.

There has to be a way to let them be discharged during a bankruptcy without making college inaccessible to young people from low-income families. Any debt that's so severe as to make suicide seem like a positive option for relief is NOT something we should be embracing.

:kick: & R

ASAFP.

Thank you for an outstanding post, rfranklin. K&R in every way.

Excellent find

They are trying to create an underclass with no civil rights.