Less Than Zero
The worse thing that ever happened to this country is the invention of the credit card. Or the idea of a credit line for that matter. It’s bad enough to have zero, but now you can be financially worth less than zero!
Our citizens have become dependent on getting whatever they want “now” because they are used to paying for it with invisible money. From the 18-year-old with their first credit card buying college textbooks at 21% interest all the way up to the Federal Government and the Banks giving out home mortgages based on money that they don’t actually have and then charging high interest and late fees or borrowing from China just to get it back. How scary?
What happened to the days where if you wanted something you saved up for it until you could afford it? Or if you were afraid it wouldn’t be there when you did, you put it on layaway? Not today’s citizens. No way. They want everything now now now. They’ll even stand in line at 4am on black Friday to get a big screen TV that they don’t need just because it is on sale. Really? My parents had the same television for 40 years. They didn’t have cell phones yet we communicated just fine. My parents didn’t have to worry about whether or not to pay off their student loans versus putting food on the table because they didn’t take out loans. They only loan they had was on the house which they had been paying off for the past 25 years.
I remember when I was 20 years old, I had just moved to Los Angeles and opened a bank account with Bank of America and without even asking for it they gave me a $10,000 line of credit. Again I was 20… living alone… in Los Angeles. Seriously? What where they thinking? I don’t have to tell you how that tragic story ended.
I’m done with credit cards, bank accounts and mortgages. “If I ain’t got nothing, then I ain’t got nothing to lose”. Everyday I work, I make a profit and I don’t have to worry that my money is only going to pay off a negative balance. I will never again be less than zero. This country thinks we are in a recession headed for a depression. It is our own fault. We don’t value the dollar anymore. We don’t appreciate how to stretch it and we no longer have the ability to ‘wait’ for what we want. Until that changes, we will all be less than zero sooner than later.
