Balances

By SKIP MENDLER

I was about ten or so, I guess. We were in Gettysburg, visiting one of my dad’s army buddies, and he had a son about my age. “Hey, wanna play Monopoly?” the kid suggested. I had recently learned the game and I enjoyed it, so I said “Sure!”

It soon became apparent that I was in trouble. As soon as he had bought Park Place, he started buying houses to put on it, even though he didn’t yet own Boardwalk—and as you know, that was clearly against the rules.

“Hey, wait a minute!” I said. “The rules say you can’t…”

“This is my game,” he said. “We’re playing by my rules.”

Oh. Well. There it was. Being the polite little house guest that I was, there wasn’t much choice.

So it wasn’t long before I landed on a Park Place that looked very much like a developer’s fantasy, stuffed with three or four hotels and a passel of houses all stacked on each other. Total rent due: in the thousands. Game over.

“Hey, that was great!” the kid enthused. “Wanna play again? Let’s play again!”

On March 27, the National Public Radio program “Fresh Air” featured an interview with Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, an expert on consumer debt and bankruptcy law. In a presentation that was by turns entertaining, infuriating and deeply alarming, Professor Warren proceeded to systematically expose all manner of nefarious tricks and stratagems evolved by the credit card industry since its deregulation back during the Reagan years.

Or in other words, all the ways that they, just like that tycoon wannabe in Gettysburg, change the rules so that they can win more.

The difference is, of course, that I didn’t have to play Monopoly with that kid—and in fact, I don’t think we ever visited that family again. (I don’t remember how that visit ended, but there’s a distinct possibility that it wasn’t a pretty exit.) But it’s pretty hard to avoid playing the credit game in some form or another.

Warren made the point that the extra fees and interest tacked on to credit card bills amount essentially to a tax being levied on consumers—not by government, but by industry. This tax isn’t there to pay for services, mind you, but simply adds to the coffers of executives and shareholders—mostly executives. It’s a highly regressive tax, hitting folks harder the lower their incomes are. And of course, it is also taxation without representation—in a deregulated industry, we have little or no voice in how this game is played, even though we are practically required to play it.

It’s not the only “industry-inflicted tax,” of course: ATM fees, payday loans, check-cashing services and other mechanisms all serve to redirect income and wealth upwards, increase the concentration of wealth and exacerbate the imbalance between rich and poor. As that imbalance becomes more and more pronounced, and more unsustainable (and it will, unless steps are taken to address it), the nation will teeter closer and closer to becoming… well, I don’t know what, exactly, but certainly not a Constitutional, democratic republic.

Here are some relevant websites for further research.

• Coop America: coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/creditcards.cfm

• Center for Responsible Lending: responsiblelending.org/issues/credit/

• United for a Fair Economy: faireconomy.org