Hitting the Reset Button on Lenders

It happens every day, almost without thinking we run our credit cards making purchases here and there with the intention of someday paying them off. We have become so indebted to credit card companies we find ourselves drowning in a sea of credit card debt, no life raft in sight we simply tread water, searching for a fleeting glimpse of hope somewhere on the horizon. As you know, credit card debt is a major problem in the United States, but is a solution staring us right in the face? Has the time finally come to wipe the slate clean? Maybe, just maybe.

We all know of the bailouts handed out by this and the previous administration to financial institutions. Some of these same companies receiving tax payer money to keep them afloat are issuers of credit cards. Citibank, which has received billions in tax payer bailout money maintains and issues credit cards. Citibank, while borrowing from us, the tax payers, is also still requiring their card holders to pay back their outstanding debt. Anyone else see something wrong with this picture? We borrowed from them, with the intent to pay them back. They in turn borrowed from us, but with a fuzzy, at best, repayment schedule. On main street, where the real people in crisis can be found, we have been forced to "lend" money to the lenders. At what point do we say OK, now we're even? If I borrow $100.00 from you, and a month later you ask me to borrow $100.00, well am I not just paying you back the money you lent me? Are we not even at that point?

Thus my thought, why are we still paying our credit card bills? At what point are we even with the credit card companies, and when can I, or my grand children or great grand children for that matter expect their check from Citibank and the rest of their ilk? I won't hold my breath, and I suggest you don't either. The truth is it will not happen. You will never be paid back, nor will I. No, instead you will continue to tread water with the rest of the real world, you will chip away at an ever expanding credit card debt while your tax money is poured into credit card companies that you owe money to. They are too big to fail, mind you, and too big to have a shred of moral fiber.

So here is my proposal to all of you. Lets hit the reset button. Start from scratch and wipe the credit card debt slate clean from these companies that took the bailout money. It only seems fair in my book. They have our money, which we borowed to them, after we borrowed from them. Even Steven, as the saying goes.

I am no brilliant economist, I am not even an average one. But this seems to me to be one of the biggest injustice's ever to be perpetrated on the citizens of this country. By and large this flies in the face of fiscal conservatism, some thing most house holds now practice without even knowing it. We may have a hard time borrowing $20.00 to a friend, let alone billions to a company that will never pay us back. And yet still they demand that minimum payment every month. Like clockwork they wring their hands and with the sound of the till still ringing freshly in their heads, they sleep well at night. Their pockets fat with tax payer money, heaven sent, and perhaps best of all, free.

Their bottom line is this - Beg, Borrow, or Steal. I think we know which one the credit card companies prefer.