Education Matters:

I reiterate here that this was a woman of advanced age living on a bare-bones Social Security income and struggling with two banks, one arbitrarily changing the status of her loan and gouging her with penalties and interest rates that were once against the law in this country, and the other joining hands with that bank.

For many years I have told my students to beware credit card companies and the banks that sponsor them. Beware their seductive introductory rates in the same way that you were once told to beware the man in the car who beckoned unsuspecting children with an enticing, “Candy little boy/girl?”

They are equally insidious for the harm that they mean to do. Young adults are enticed with the sweet prospect of greater purchasing power with zero percent interest and then gradually enchained by a sizable debt and a whopping 31% interest.

Avoid these companies, I tell my students, for they, like the purveyors of tobacco, seek to lure the young into a lifetime of dependence.

How is it, I wonder, that credit card companies are allowed to charge usurious rates to the people who have become indebted to them?

Why is it that the word “usury” has disappeared from our common usage and discourse?

How have these companies been allowed to gouge debtors with interest rates that exceed 30% without someone in government stepping in and saying that they are unjustly enriching themselves?

The answer to all of the above is that government has been heavily lobbied and then paid off by the banks and issuers of credit cards.

Most of the laws that govern lending institutions are based in fairness, but some are tainted with the foul odor of financial inducement, or to be more succinct, the stink of bribery.

This appeal will likely be decided in favor of the bank because laws have been passed (note paragraph above) in favor of banks to continue their practices which, in her case, clearly breached a fiduciary obligation that a bank has to its depositors.

But the phrase “fiduciary obligation” is going/has gone the way of the word “usury.” We are at the mercy of corporations whose monetary clout supersedes the voices of individuals looking to redress grievances or just get a fair shake.

What this country needs is a Roosevelt — Teddy or Franklin, take your pick — to tackle this head-on and then rein in the moneyed monsters that have grown fat by financially driving millions of Americans to the wall.

Come November, We the People will use our clout to remind our lawmakers just who is in charge in this country. In campaign speeches so far, the word “change” is in the air, and that is a welcome word to both parties. For the very young who need to know that their voices count, for the very old who need to know that their rights will be protected and for all of us in between, we’re due for a change.

 DAN KIMBER is a teacher in the Glendale Unified School District, where he has taught for more than 30 years. He may be reached at DKimb8@sbcglobal.net.