Friday, April 19, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Credit Card Cruelty

OCTOBER 18, 2005 --

If only this writer had taken an anagrammatic look at the name Chase, in Chase bank.

Last week, LPR noted that this bank is pummeling with a 27.4 interest rate. A few days ago, a notice arrived from Chase. It began by calling the addressee "a valued customer." It went on to announce that from December on, the interest rate will be no less than 27.99%

It seems that Chase intends to take all the value out of this customer.

This is where the anagram comes it. Chase is just "aches" jumbled up -- and it appears that Chase intends to cause as many financial aches to this writer as it can.

It would have been preferable not to experience the "economic scourge" (the words come from Connectiocut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in a different
context) of intgerest rates close to 30%.

But then, had this writer not been subjected to credit card cruelty, he might not have known such cruelty exists.

Certainly it is not mentioned in the media. Politicians are not heard denouncing such cruelty.

And so, it falls to LPR to ask: What kind of person puts a 30% interest rate on aq credit card? And, what kind of media ignores this cruel twist? And what kind of government gives free rein to banks to
pauperize consumers?

Another anagram comes to mind: owe is woe jumbled. If the American media ignores the aches caused by Chase, among other banks, perhaps LPR clicksters here, and overseas, will take notice.

Let the Chase aches be known in Amsterdam as well as Atlanta, Paris as well as Princeton, Sydney as well as San Francisco.

Again, what kind of person charges 30% interest?

Someone intent on the "ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few," perhaps?

How relevant that Federalist 57 observation is to our day. Not exactly a formula to yield prosperity for all.

Not precisely a signal to the world that capitalism in America has a human face.