NONSTOP NUTTINESS CONTINUES

Every week it happens, cataclysmic recession or not. The come-ons keep a-coming. Maybe we ought to be grateful that somebody is still using the Postal Service, and quietly thankful that our e-mail addresses haven't been tapped - okay, well, they have too, its just that it is still kind of fun deleting the ads for cheap Rx, "wonder bras," and linguistically-challenged Nigerians whom we've never met promising us seven figure rewards for the mere privilege of borrowing our bank account wire transfer numbers for a few moments.

I'm talking about the nuttiness of credit card come-ons. Every week, like clockwork, they roll in. Sometimes they're the product of existing bank relationships. Sometimes they sneak in, cloaked in the guise of an organization we've belonged to in the past (or still do belong to); sometimes they're from the existing accounts we hold - little checks we can use - 'like real money" to pay off our bills!"

All suffer the same fate. Meet the shredder, prep yourself for the long ride to the landfill. That is our approach anyway, but its hard not to wonder about what happens everywhere else, and why are these things stil being sent. It isn't like someone turned the lights out in the junk mail machine room at CHASE (yeah, let's pick on them) without throwing the "OFF" switch. No, this stuff is still being sent because it works. Because, despite the recession, the people who have lost homes, cars, retirements, etc. from the orgy of overconsumption and spending like there is no tomorrow (sad, self-fulfilling prophecy that this is), people are still using more credit than they should be - and that is why the amoral institutions are stil behaving like the proverbial pimp - handing out free samples of his wares until one gets hooked. Yeah, it's not just the banks' fault - like the drug situation, somebody on the other end of the transaction is just saying "Yes" (actually a whole lot of somebodies, hence the volume of the unsolicited invitations), but it is ensuring that the damage will continue, the debts will continue to pile up, until there is nothing left to squeeze out of people. It's sickening, its' wasteful as hell, and it is and remains dangerous for too many people with not enough impulse control. Just like drugs, nicotine, gambling, alcohol, name your vice. Sometimes it seems like this blast of junk mail is the only reward for maintaining a so-called "high" FICO score, or credit rating. Hosanna and Hallelujah for the god of Wall Street, the great invisible hand of Capitalism.

Time to go fire up the shredder for this week's landfill installment . . .