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We're Getting Jacked by 'Conservative' Pickpockets

By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted September 12, 2006.


Author Nomi Prins says it's time to stop letting so-called conservatives pull the money right out of our wallets.

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Driving cross-country recently, I tried my best to catch as much local AM radio as possible to find out what was going on as I passed through the states. The biggest surprise for me were the debt-focused radio shows in practically every county.

I listened to debt-beater radio host Dave Ramsey bash the credit card industry for hours as suicidal caller after suicidal caller moaned about staggering interest payments on credit cards. On other shows, callers griped about not being able to see their way out of surging mortgage payments plus higher health care costs plus car insurance payments plus their children's college loans plus the credit card debt that -- temporarily -- alleviated the former monthly bills, only to find that the credit card debts were the hardest and steepest of all to pay.

Author Nomi Prins saw enough of this phenomenon to write a book about the increasing strain that living in a business state has put on the wallets of ordinary Americans. "Jacked: How 'Conservatives' Are Picking Your Pocket" (PoliPointPress, 2006) is Prins' new book, and it gets right at the heart of the economic pain that many of us are feeling. AlterNet caught up with Prins to discuss her book and what she thinks regular people should do to stop getting "jacked."

Jan Frel: In writing this book, you traveled across the country to see how conservative policies in Washington have affected real lives. What made you take that path as opposed to the usual wonk and policy-filled fact book researched out of D.C.?

Nomi Prins: Well, some of my best friends are wonks, but I think they should get out more. Jacked is more about people than policies. You can't understand what anyone's going through without talking to them, meeting them or hanging out in their world. Nonwonks, or most of the public, don't speak in general statistics -- they speak in miles traveled on a tank of gas, in fights with insurance companies over claims after hurricanes, in college tuition hikes.

I have a master's degree in statistics and spent years working with numbers as a banker before becoming a journalist. They are useful, but figures don't cry, or laugh, or bleed, or struggle, or win, or curse, or drive trucks, or balance community college and child rearing, or drink strawberry milk shakes with you in diners. People do. Seemed to me, you can't talk policy without starting with the people that policy impacts. I wrote Jacked about and for the people in it.

Frel: You do your best to show how common activities in regular American life are shaped by D.C.'s positions on foreign policy or corporate welfare. Did the people you spoke with get the connection?

Prins: It was a mixed bag. When I interviewed people, I didn't ask them what they thought of politics, D.C. policy, or corporate power. I let them lead me on a tour through their wallets and hit the issues their cards represented in their own styles. My first question was "What's the most important card in your wallet?" My second was "Why?" It went from there. The top card was the driver's license, then ATM/credit, then health insurance. Employee and student ID's were next.

Most people went from talking about their driver's license to talking about gas prices, which have doubled in the past three years. The first person mentioned in Jacked is a tour guide from New Orleans, Ozzie LaPorte. After Katrina, he balanced highly reduced tour sizes and highly increased gas prices for his vans at the same time. His take on gas company exec profits and D.C. was simply, "I don't happen to have my own lobbyist."

With the health insurance card, people were keenly aware of their jacked premiums and reduced coverage, and the direct link from activities to corporate behavior. With respect to foreign policy, the place where I had the most people bring up the war in Iraq without prompting was the red South, particularly the Gulf Coast. Even for Bush supporters, there was a real dissatisfaction with the way the government handled Katrina when it happened, and a year later, the idea that they could spend so much money on Iraq and not give the same care and focus to their own citizens. With credit and ATM cards, people tended not to see the connection as clearly.

Frel: Who are the "conservatives" you talk about in your book title?

Prins: The "conservatives" are the politicians that consider themselves "fiscally" conservative, but don't get the irony of the financial mess they've made of this country's balance sheet during the past six years. They're the Republicans who talk a good game about small government, and individualism, and the budget being more "efficient" (by cutting domestic social programs) but at the same time have let this country build up its highest deficit, amount of debt owed other countries, and trade imbalance ever. The dollar is embarrassing, and respect for us around the globe has diminished.


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Jan Frel is an AlterNet staff writer.

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View:
regulated
Posted by: rsaxto on Sep 12, 2006 12:42 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Credit cards should be regulated to prevent usurious interest rates. The fact that they are not so regulated is proof that we live in a nondemocratic society run by corporate greed. We need to disconnect politics from corporate greed by whatever means necessary. Dump all the politicians who serve greed instead of need.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: regulated Posted by: PJH67
» RE: regulated & Peter Posted by: rsaxto
» RE: regulated & Peter Posted by: kelly.nickell
» RE: regulated Posted by: willymack
» RE: regulated Posted by: colinmeister
» I hate freedom Posted by: mat38
Wrong
Posted by: Lincoln fan on Sep 12, 2006 4:13 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In my opinion Ms. Prins is only partly right. It's true that the banking and credit card industries are enemies of the working class but so is the pharmaceutical industry, the defense industry, and the insurance industry. Click on Open Secrets there you'll see that these industries all invest heavily in the campaigns of both parties. It's true that the conservatives are enemies of the working class but so are the Democrats.

Our country, our government, and both our political parties are controlled by the corporate establishment. We can't vote the corporatocracy out of power. Writing to your congresspersons is futile as anyone who's tried and gotten their form letter replies knows.

I think that we need a new approach. The corporate establishment owns both parties; we the people have to take control of both parties. We can't vote the corporatocracy out so we have to use our votes in a new way. Not in an election but before the election. Not by voting for the lesser of the evils but by threatening to not vote for either party. To threaten to cast a write-in protest vote if neither of the parties will represent you.

This is a bold and untried move but it is the tried and successful strategy of the labor unions. Make your demand and present an "or else". It will take nerve to refuse to vote for the "lesser of the evil" party but it will have to be done someday. Things won't get better unless we act.

It's high noon; time for the showdown. Look into The Lincoln Initiative. Thanks to the networking power of e-mail I believe we can take control of our government before November. If you've visited the web page before and didn't join, try it again. We have a new streamlined page. The Lincoln Initiative costs nothing. It takes only the "guts" to win and five minutes of your time.
Bob Reichenbach
Director, The Lincoln Initiative.

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» RE: Wrong Posted by: BJT
» RE: Wrong Posted by: willymack
» Two questions BJT Posted by: Lincoln fan
» RE: Two questions BJT Posted by: willymack
And once you file for bankruptcy
Posted by: Lizmv on Sep 12, 2006 4:49 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Or get so far behind that your credit score is hurt, just try and get a job or rent a home. The all-holy credit score is being used against people seeking employment or trying to rent or even trying to set up payment plans to heat their homes this winter.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

huzzah!
Posted by: orwellwasn'tdreaming on Sep 12, 2006 5:27 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This post should be posted, printed, and mailed to everyone in this country--and tattooed onto legislators' foreheads. Bushco has been very good at the magician's trick of waving a scarf (a bloody, bloody scarf) to take our focus from the real issues.

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The plank in the Democrat's eye
Posted by: BJT on Sep 12, 2006 5:29 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Don't say to someone "let me get this splinter out of your eye" when you yourself have a telephone pole sticking out of your own eye.

If you're going to post a headline on a clearly partisan Democrat website about the pickpocketing Republicans, don't ignore the fact that the Democrats' welfare state requires just as much state-sponsored theft and coercion.

Is economic justice at the barrel of a government gun still justice?

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» No ... it doesn't and Yes it is. Posted by: AdamSelene40
» Bush and Crony Capitalism Posted by: ReallyBearish
Multi-level Debt
Posted by: NoPCZone on Sep 12, 2006 8:21 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If the house of cards that the US economy is built upon gets a good hard jolt, it won't just be the working poor that are in trouble. Not only has our Federal Government racked up debt like an addicted Vegas gambler, many lower levels of government and companies have as well. Add in the average 15k+ personal debt of citizens and you begin to see the problem.

It goes even deeper. Many supposedly sound and 'debt-free' companies carry significant numbers of very marginal or non-performing accounts on their books. In a severe economic downdraft their books will go from black to red quickly. Another exposure is supposed assets that are purchased on margin as well as high risk financial instruments issued by wall street. All could vaporize massive amounts of money in a day, week or month.

Then we have real estate, the number one asset of the individual in America. How many 'homeowners' would find themselves 'upside down', in default, or with zero equity in a steep recession? Tens of millions have been suckered into interest only mortgage loans, playing the overheated real estate market like a quarter slot machine.

Take some very good advice:
Pay down your debt, get out of high risk financial instruments, get as liquid as you can. I'm no chicken little, but the potential for things to get ugly are very significant and it is prudent to be prepared. Credit is a tool- not a shortcut to wealth. If and when the Sh*t hits the fan those who are liquid will be able to take care of their own and even prosper as the majority flounder and wallow in the debt bomb of their own creation.

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» RE: Multi-level Debt Posted by: Sleepingcobra1
Great article.
Posted by: ABetterFuture on Sep 12, 2006 8:41 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Great article, for the most part, anyway. I'd take just a little issue with this:

But if people understood the extent to which they are victims of banks because of their debt, they'd shop around more for their credit, be wiser consumers, and demand better treatment from their providers and their political leaders in controlling them. Whatever it takes.

The average Joe (myself included) almost doesn't have any good reason for credit. Student loans (if they aren't treated frivolously), home loans (if one isn't buying a McMansion on a Mikky Dee's wage), and a well-thought out business plan are about the only good reasons to take on any significant debt load.

It is a little frustrating that folks are running their families into the ground over debt to afford "the good life", raising demand (prices) for the rest of us who actually pay green money for necessities. Especially with credit cards, people are voluntarily transferring their wealth from themselves and their families to Mastercard. How much better would life be for these folks if they were working for themselves and not working for their Master(card). Immeasurably, I imagine.

More on topic, there is a very small cadre of true fiscal conservatives left. They are certainly not all republicans, and they all have their own quirks on other issues. But financial accountability would be a very, very big step forward for our government, and it's up to us to hold them accountable. We desperately need an independent office of budget accountability. Such a proposal is in Congress, but most of the dems and the repubs don't like it one iota.

After all, you are not supposed to ask questions of your Government, least of all how it is spending its own money, which it worked hard for and rightfully earned.

Now move along, citizen, and stop trying to embarass big government with your "bridges to nowhere" and such.

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» RE: Great article. Posted by: drmeow
» A season for all things... Posted by: ABetterFuture
This is cool
Posted by: popsicle67 on Sep 12, 2006 9:28 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I haven't had a job in 3 years because I provide daycare for
my ex-wife while she works as an L.P.N.(I also did it when she was in school)so my back child support is over 20,000.
Now I can't get a job because employers think I'm flaky for being in hock that far but I wouldn't trade the security of knowing my kids are safe from predators for any amount of credit or a job.

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» RE: This is cool Posted by: astudent
Close the Legal Loophole
Posted by: edhowes on Sep 12, 2006 9:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If we would reclaim citizen and state sovereignty from an imperial government in the service of the super rich, we only need to close a two word legal loophole which has made corporate dominion the unofficial law of our land. Article One, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. "Section 8 - Powers of Congress The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"

The words general Welfare, leave the determination totally in the hands of the United States Congress and effectively transfers citizen and state sovereignty to big brother. It was not tested until bloody father Abraham Lincoln decided a civil war against separatism would provide for the general welfare. The U.S. Congress approved his reasoning and we went about slaughtering one another for own own good. Today, bloody George and company have decided to violently attack every possible threat to the general Welfare, Congress agreed and nobody can do a thing about it because bloody George and his corporate puppet Congress are fully within the law. Strike this two word legal loophole from our corporate law and we return the sovereignty stolen when the loophole was originally ratified.

Eliminate the loophole and the Constitution will bind the Congress with the chains it claimed to be from the beginning. An Email campaign to lap dog state governments is all it should requre to close the loophole. But I doubt we could find 10,000 pseudo citizens who would bother sending Emails, which is why we not only deserve the status quo, we deserve worse and we see it coming.

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» No Taxes, no problems ? Posted by: AdamSelene40
» RE: No Taxes, no problems ? Posted by: edhowes
» RE: No Taxes, no problems ? Posted by: willymack
» RE: No Taxes, no problems ? Posted by: bornxeyed
Cut and Run Republicans
Posted by: rac on Sep 12, 2006 11:58 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"They're the Republicans who talk a good game about small government, and individualism, and the budget being more "efficient" (by cutting domestic social programs) but at the same time have let this country build up its highest deficit, amount of debt owed other countries, and trade imbalance ever."

That's what they are, no? Let's start calling them that!

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jl
Posted by: alterme on Sep 12, 2006 1:00 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Half the country doesn't vote, partly because we have been swindled out of our secure votes by the electronic voting systems industry that have succeeded in spreading the cancer of corruption. We've got to work harder than ever before to make public financing of elections a reality, press Congress to repeal HAVA, return to paper ballots with publically monitored hand-counting, etc. from beginning to end.

Also, let's not use the adjective conservative, even with quotation marks. They are radical, extremist, fundamentalist, wolves in sheeps' clothing posing as Christians.

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» Agreed. Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: jl Posted by: ConnecttheDots
» RE: jl Posted by: Bbear41
» don't blame e-voting Posted by: Lilah
The money market is a shark-infested pond
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Sep 12, 2006 7:22 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is interesting that the debt recovery talk shows never address one way of dealing with debt - walk away from it! Now, if everyone refused to pay their debts, the economic system would collapse, and that would hurt everyone (the credit card companies the most, but still). However, if the debt was a ripoff in the first place, why pay for it?

It's like the situation in Lebanon today - the the Lebanese are being offered loans to rebuild their bombed-out country - Loans! That's like the mafia firebombing a local bar, and then offering the bar owner a loan to repair the damage. The American people are in similar straits - get a credit card to pay off your helath care bill, and then get another credit card to pay off the old credit card, and so on.

Still, loan programs for small businesses and homes are not such a bad idea. Rural development loan programs can be self-sustaining if a smart manager is running the show; this kind of setup is still 'banking' but it is a world away from criminal dealings of international financiers who keep their assets in the Cayman Islands. The credit agencies are more like the latter and less like the former.

Keep in mind that loan brokers are paid by banks for the sole purpose of dealing with the customer, and they take a percentage, so they have a high incentive to get you the worst deal possible. This is why loan officers and mortgage brokers are always advertising their honesty and professional and ethical credentials. Credit card agencies work the same way - their ideal customer is honest and ignorant.

So, if you have a problem with debt you can always just walk away from it. We have no debtor prisons in this country, and a loan entails a certain amount of risk on the part of the lender, doesn't it? The lender is not selling you money out of some notion of benevolence, after all. Turn all your assets into cash and take a South American holiday - it's what our fearless government and business leaders would do in your position.

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CounterCorp
Posted by: CounterCorp on Sep 13, 2006 3:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
www.countercorp.org

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A small suggestion
Posted by: sterlingwisdom on Sep 14, 2006 11:41 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just a small suggestion on how to fight back without hurting yourself. If you can get many credit cards. Spread your debts out over them so each individual balance is low enough that you can pay it off. If you receive a bill that contains a late fee or an increase in your interest rate write the company a letter (I have a template permanently installed in my word processing program) explaining that you do not pay such fees and that the company can either 1) eliminate or change it or 2) send you a final bill and cancel the card. Using this strategy I have never received a final bill and never paid a late fee or rate hike. The cost of paper, envelope and stamp is a lot less than even a reasonable late fee.

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