View from the middle

Dear Government,

I’d like to thank you for the credit card legislation that you enacted last year that takes effect last month. We all know that credit card companies prey on customers providing them with more credit than they can handle and allowing them to dig themselves into credit holes which they cannot get out. And it was sure nice of you to give the credit card companies so many months before they needed to comply. Without that lead time they would not have been able to make sweeping changes that they couldn’t make after the legislation takes place. I’m really glad that you gave them the opportunity to terminate my 7% fixed rate credit card and replace it with a variable rate card. And it is so much better paying prime + 10% even though my company agrees I have an excellent credit rating and payment history. Good thing that you allow them to charge us citizens 11% interest when they can only have to pay 0.25% on the money they borrow. Thanks for stepping in and fixing things.

While we are talking about banks, you should continue to keep portraying banks as evil corporations who stole tax money to give to their executives. Never mind the fact that they are paying interest on that money or that the interest rate is 5% higher than it would cost them to get it from the reserve bank. Keep on ignoring the fact that you forced many banks to take the money on the basis that it is their “patriotic duty”. Your undermining of the financial institutions will undoubtedly boost confidence in our economy and lead us out of this recession.

Speaking of bailouts, good job helping out the automotive industry. Way to think through your stipulations about giving them money and not give them any direction. Forcing them to cut costs immediately, I think you gave them 30 days, was an excellent way to drive them to cut 30,000 employees. It’s not like unemployment is an issue in this country. We sure are glad you didn’t get involved and help them fight the unions. Instead, employees and retirees get to keep their “gold plated” health plans and furloughed employees still get paid 80% of their salaries for not working. Nice job.

I can’t wait to see the impact on your health care reform. Who cares that by not allowing insurance companies to charge more for higher risk people and forcing them to cover everyone they’ll have to increase the cost for everybody. And I am glad you didn’t bother attempting to decrease the cost of healthcare by limiting the amount of profits of pharmaceutical companies and hospital corporations. Don’t bother worrying about their CEO bonuses like you do the evil bankers. And don’t worry about increasing competition by allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. I am sure that we’ll all be much better off with this plan.

Thanks for helping out.

Sarcastically,
The View from the Middle