Why I'm a conservative!

[Pinkman]

Now, back to me!, particularly my being conservative of habit. Well as far as my credit card supplier is concerned, that's very bad news indeed. In fact they hate me! Why? Well simply because I'm a careful, prudent sort. And that's no good for the financial sector. In fact it's so bad that they have a name for me – they call me a 'deadbeat'.

 

Surely that's upside down – isn't deadbeat a US term for someone who's poor? Well, yes it is. And am I poor? No, I'm not. But to the credit sector this term means something else entirely, it signifies 'someone you can't make money from'. It means someone who settles their monthly bill before any interest becomes chargeable. They want me and you in debt to them, and the more in debt the better, because they just love all that interest we'd have to pay them.

 

Interesting Staunton.

 

May I be so bold as to ask who you bank with? Because you see, every time I make a purchase with my card an interchange fee is charged which makes my provider money.

 

I too am a "deadbeat" because I pay my bills on time. However, the banking sector most certainly does not hate me because I never default. That means they don't have to pursue me through debt collection agencies or the courts and they don't have to worry about writing off my debts if I default.

 

Need we pick the bones from the rest of essay?

[Staunton]

Interesting Staunton.

 

May I be so bold as to ask who you bank with? Because you see, every time I make a purchase with my card an interchange fee is charged which makes my provider money.

 

I'm sure no one on sheffieldforum will be surprised to learn that I bank with the Cooperative - or at least that's the name on my check book. Who actually administers the Cooperative Bank is another question, one that a simple internet search isn't going to answer - all rather murky, I'm afraid.

 

As for the deadbeat aspect of credit card debt, they don't want us actually defaulting, just as long as we're stacking up debt on our cards, paying the resulting fees, subject to churn, etc.

 

---------- Post added 19-06-2017 at 19:43 ----------

 

Have you watched "The Big Short"?

 

Have you seen the film Cyclone?

 

I'm not planing to cover shorts or Credit Default Swaps since it would just complicate my narrative. But if you have some insight into the theme then please contribute.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Staunton

[area 51]

I'm essentially very conservative. I value education, and I'm careful with money – I save for the future, pay off my debts promptly and generally adhere to the goods of family, friends and tradition. I mention this as a 'way in', a preamble to my argument below. I could start with 11 September 1973 when Augusto Pinochet, with the support of a number of US agencies and institutions, took control of Chile. I could go back earlier to US president Richard Nixon's going off gold in 1971, or right back to President Woodrow Wilson's Great War adventure. But, if you don't mind too much, I think I'll start with me!

 

My ambition in this thread is to reveal something of the nature of neoliberalism. And in doing so I shall be addressing themes that are far too difficult for people on sheffieldforum to understand!

 

Or at least that's what the economic masters of the neoliberal project would like us to think. But thankfully it's entirely untrue!

 

Their next line is to make sure we are very, very bored if we do try to make sense of their arcane world. Bonds, derivatives, subprime, FICO scores, Consolidated Debt Obligations, tranches, ratings, Credit Default Swaps, short and long investment. Yawn, it all sounds tedious – well that's the plan. They want us to go back to sleep.

 

What the economists and fixers really want is for us to just go away and leave them alone!

 

So, let's not!

 

Now, back to me!, particularly my being conservative of habit. Well as far as my credit card supplier is concerned, that's very bad news indeed. In fact they hate me! Why? Well simply because I'm a careful, prudent sort. And that's no good for the financial sector. In fact it's so bad that they have a name for me – they call me a 'deadbeat'.

 

Surely that's upside down – isn't deadbeat a US term for someone who's poor? Well, yes it is. And am I poor? No, I'm not. But to the credit sector this term means something else entirely, it signifies 'someone you can't make money from'. It means someone who settles their monthly bill before any interest becomes chargeable. They want me and you in debt to them, and the more in debt the better, because they just love all that interest we'd have to pay them.

 

So. Here's the first contradiction – finance hates conservatives.

 

I have never voted tory and never thought of myself as conservative but i have the same values as you and i am exactly the same with my finances as you so perhaps i am,all the who should you vote for websites told me i should vote tory.The problem is that even though i think conservative i could not bring myself to vote for them.

[Pinkman]

I'm sure no one on sheffieldforum will be surprised to learn that I bank with the Cooperative - or at least that's the name on my check book. Who actually administers the Cooperative Bank is another question, one that a simple internet search isn't going to answer - all rather murky, I'm afraid.

 

As for the deadbeat aspect of credit card debt, they don't want us actually defaulting, just as long as we're stacking up debt on our cards, paying the resulting fees, subject to churn, etc.

 

The Co-Op issues your card, but is it Visa, MasterCard, Amex? All of whom will receive interchange fees every time you use it. Do you pay an annual fee for your credit card? Maybe not, but many people do.

 

You say the finance sector doesn't like deadbeats because they don't make them money. That is wrong. So the rest of your essay is not worth reading.

[woolyhead]

dutch I notice you said, amongst all your other ravings, that everybody dies and leaves their money behind. I can tell you this:- if I can't take it with me then I'm not going!

[Staunton]

I have never voted tory and never thought of myself as conservative but i have the same values as you and i am exactly the same with my finances as you so perhaps i am,all the who should you vote for websites told me i should vote tory.The problem is that even though i think conservative i could not bring myself to vote for them.

 

The trouble is that the Conservative Party is no longer conservative. They are now neoliberal, which is an entirely different form of politics, and have been since the early 1980s. Indeed, neoliberalism is significantly at odds with traditional small 'c' conservative values.

 

It gets even more bewildering if we turn our gaze towards Tony Blair and New labour. Whilst the Conservatives had transformed themselves into neoliberals, Blair's project was, of all things, fundamentally neoconservative.

 

And the difference? Well, neoliberals are strangely utopian - they believe that neoliberalism, or free market economics, is inevitable and unstoppable, it will come about of its own momentum. However, neoconservatives are slightly more pragmatic and believe that the road to the globalised free market needs a helping hand - a few wars, misuse of state power to weaken the laws of the land, political policing...

[dutch]

dutch I notice you said, amongst all your other ravings, that everybody dies and leaves their money behind. I can tell you this:- if I can't take it with me then I'm not going!

 

Don't worry, if you look even deeper, what we call "I" is just an illusion. When you clearly see that all that money business and financial philosophising becomes meaningless.

[Staunton]

The Co-Op issues your card, but is it Visa, MasterCard, Amex? All of whom will receive interchange fees every time you use it. Do you pay an annual fee for your credit card? Maybe not, but many people do.

 

You say the finance sector doesn't like deadbeats because they don't make them money. That is wrong. So the rest of your essay is not worth reading.

 

Indeed the Cooperative Credit Card is a Visa Branded Payment Service. I do hold such a card, fee-free, though I never use it - I have one just in case of emergency.

 

Pinkman's point about interchange fees is correct, with Visa Europe charging 0.3% on transactions. But just like prime mortgagees, we're not where the big money is made - that comes from debt, and that's where they want us - in debt to them. The Visa interest rate is usually around 20%, and credit card debt in the UK at the end of the 2016-7 financial year was £68 Billion, and that is generating an enormous amount of income for the finance sector.

[Pinkman]

Indeed the Cooperative Credit Card is a Visa Branded Payment Service. I do hold such a card, fee-free, though I never use it - I have one just in case of emergency.

 

Pinkman's point about interchange fees is correct, with Visa Europe charging 0.3% on transactions. But just like prime mortgagees, we're not where the big money is made - that comes from debt, and that's where they want us - in debt to them. The Visa interest rate is usually around 20%, and credit card debt in the UK at the end of the 2016-7 financial year was £68 Billion, and that is generating an enormous amount of income for the finance sector.

 

Do you think the people or their banks are responsible for spending within their means?

 

Re housing: Do you think the CRA was bad legislation? Misguided? Nefarious?

[Staunton]

Voices of concern had been raised by financial insiders, but the banks were making $Bllions and paying enormous bonuses to their executives. And the government was in the hands of the finance sector, who vigorously rejected any call for regulatory action. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Alan Greenspan, chair of the Federal Reserve, denied that there was any danger and refused to even contemplate regulation.

 

Furthermore, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the government agency responsible for enforcing US federal securities laws, devising effective securities rules, and regulating the securities industry generally, was subject to dramatic cuts. Indeed, their enforcement division was reduced from a staff of 146 to just one person. That is quite some cut. So, the government securities watchdog was effectively silenced.

 

So, when those subprime mortgages began to fail, and fail they did, spectacularly, in 2007, foreclosures on properties shot up. Hundreds of thousands of houses across the US were either formerly repossessed or simply abandoned by their occupiers.

 

The housing market was suddenly flooded with vacant properties - too many for the market to process, and homes stood empty. Whole neighbourhoods were affected. House after house was left vacant, and neglect lead to decay, gardens growing out of control, petty crime and vandalism became an issue, and house values tumbled.

 

This triggered the the financial scandal that eventually broke in 2008.