The sub-prime crisis has been in the news much of late, but I get the idea that the story and its’ repercussions are going over most people’s heads. There is a vast array of enterprises that arose in recent years to screw the poor out of yet another buck, which is really the broader world of sub-prime debt.
In 1990, there were no Starbucks. In 2002, there were no payday loan/check cashing-for-a-fee storefronts. Today there are about 8500 Starbucks. Today there are over 22,5000 payday loan stores. I entered a payday loan store today and asked a woman behind the counter how it worked.
She explained that if I couldn’t make it to payday next Monday, they could loan me up to 70% of my paycheck, after taxes and deductions. I asked what this would cost me, and apparently I’d pay them what they loaned me plus 16%. That’s not an annual rate of 16%. It’s for 5 days. That’s an annual rate of 1,168%. At that annual rate, if I borrowed $1,000 today and kept it for a year, I’d owe $12,680 at the end.
The joys of deregulation are responsible for the mortgage collapse, resulting skyrocketing foreclosure rates, and usurious payday loans. You can thank the small government, free markets rule, heartless bastards of the Republicans and their ReligiousRightTM syncophants. Did someone cut the red letters out of their Bibles?
How do they square it with this:
Matthew 19:21
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
How can you promote laws and legislators that allow businesses to charge a poor person in a tight spot over 1000% annual interest and call yourself a Christian?
5 comments:
Payday loans...isn't that simply extortion?
WTF!?
Obviously, you know what Jesus thinks about this.
I just want to tie this post with one you wrote about 2 or 3 ago, reminding us that all Muslims, indeed, the majority, are not fascists or terrorists...simply people who want to be good and do the right thing. The extremists give the majority a bad name, but because the extremeists have claimed Allah, the moderates have a hard time deciding how to respond ( especially in the areas where the extremists...who are no more religious muslims than Hitler was a religious christian, rule)
That is what is going on also in Christianity...and I think it is time for two thinsg:
1) people who really revere Jesus need to call the idiots idiots.
2) Reasonable people of all presuasions need to differentiate between the teachings and actions of Jesus, and the usurped use of his name for ulterior ( get rich quick nonsense, like the loans you refer to) motives.
An interesting thing I heard recently explaining why traditional "Shylocks" in Europe were always Jews is that the church had said that Christians could not charge interest when loaning to Brothers...as is the Biblical requirement ( do you hear me, "Christian Right" Polititians?)But due to the inabiltiy to love your neighbor as yourself, folks who needed a loan could find no Xians to lend, and so the Jewish goodmen filled the gap for reasonable interest.
The folks who do this, and allow this to be done ( the usury) are in no way in line with the bible. NO WAY. Old and new testament alike have extremely strong promises of judgement...as they have chosen their true God(Mammon), even if they give lip service to Jesus.
Again, Jeff, you are aligned with Jesus, in your frustration at those who do these things, and yet try to cover their religious bases.
It seems, whewn you read his words, that he was ranting much like you!
As for these store Front Lenders; i seems to me they have been around longer than you think. If you had visited any military installation,m there they were, charging ridiculous amounts to the soldiers of our freedom because, since I was in ( mid 70's) soldiers were hard pressed to make it from payday to payday, and so these places flourished. Yet an other example of the wierd priority given to who does what in this (God Forsaken?) country.
I think the primary scriptural basis for supply-side Jesus is the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. (especially 25:29-30):
"29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. 30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Jesus just isn't completely consistent on this stuff. Sometimes bleeding heart, sometimes chainsaw Al.
STS: Yes, Jesus "just isn't consistent on this stuff". He is not a tame Lion, so to speak. Unless you allow him to say what he means, and not put ideas into his words that he was not meaning. He was pretty clear about money and rich people in his "Proverbs". This section is "Parables" incorporating similes, anaolgies and stories about fictional people.
The section you referred to starts with the phrase "The kingdom of God is like a man...." as does a number of section prior to that. So this brings up the point that Jeff asked before: how do you know what is law, or ceremony, or etc? The answer here is so simple, you would have to go to seminary to call Jesus an economist because of this passage. Indeed, we have since incorporated the unit here to mean ability, and that is the predominant way people through the ages have interpreted what Jesus is talking about...those who use their abilities responsibly will be given more responsibilities ( ten cities in paralel passage) and also, the abilities to handle them.
To try to make this a treatise on economics requires a preconceived ( and wrong) approach. It is just as valid to say that Jesus would want his practicioners to stand around with full lamps waiting for parties, as part of the liturgy. This is how this kind of logic could be applied to the first verses of that chapter
A more interesting discussion might be about what he was saying about corruption in the story about the unfaithful Steward. It sure seems like he was saying ti was OK. BUT I don't see folks overtly using that passage to justify skimming and corruption. (although in practise....?)
I hoped my reference to Al Franken's Supply Side Jesus would be indication enough that I don't really take the economic libertarian interpretation all that seriously.
The notion of a (singular) literal interpretation of any part of the Bible (or any other holy book) is too incoherent to be the subject of anything but ridicule. I thought it might be amusing to inject a particular example of Jesus taking a tone that resembles (even superficially) the contemporary Republican/Plutocratic frame of mind. Those passages do exist and might eventually get trotted out in defense of the God-and-Mammon coalition at some stage in the 2008 campaign ;)
Post a Comment