The Bankruptcy Boondoggle

You, yes you: you're so proud of your vote and your right to vote. Don't be. That is peanuts compared to the power you need to deflect the wrath of Washington. It's almost as if giving "we the people" the vote is like feeding baby food to an infant while the lobbyists dine on zebra and lion flesh.

In their Lear jets.

In its greater greed (for more posh dinners with the lobbyists), the Senate is creating a new bankruptcy boondoggle as we speak. Credit card debt rankling you at 25%? No problem: soon it could go over 30%, and the Senate had a chance to stop that and cap it and said no. John Kerry let it go. Barack Obama voted for higher limits.

Seems the mega-wealthy credit card companies own this country already, and that's the way the insiders want it. Wouldn't want to hurt the banks, now would we? Screw the people who've been understandably sucked into the buy-Buy-BUY syndrome that is the essence of this great nation slash bargain bin.

Sure, bankruptcy might seem like a way to "game" the system, maybe even "an easy way out." Think so? Who in their right mind would want to file? Bankruptcy is a wreck, but it can keep a person's financially wrecked life afloat. Why let them drown?

And most bankruptcies filed in this country are due to these three things: the loss of a steady, divorce and, most often, large medical bills. So significantly tied into this is the fact that Americans pay more for their fat so-so health than anybody else on Earth. So who's really "gaming" the system? Seems to me the banks and property elite and wily investors and tax haven-types and medical pros and lawyers. They get you coming and going, and your duly elected Senate is on their side.

"We the Powerful" always rang a little more true than that dreamy old "We the People" anyway. But does it have to stay that way?