Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Short-Term Poetic Justice

Avarice, sphincter of the heart.
Matthew Green (1696–1737), English poet

The banks and credit card companies worked long and hard to get the new bankruptcy bill passed. President Bill Clinton would not sign such an onerous piece of legislation that would hurt the working class. But, get a president who sides with the greedy corporate world and the people will suffer.

Har, har, har, I thoroughly enjoyed the New York Times article that reveals the gluttonous money-grubbers, who make organize crime blush at the high interest rates they charge, may have overreached and will now lose money. I realize it’s only short term, but I love it because the suits think mostly short term.

In recent days, the five biggest bank issuers of credit cards have said that the unexpectedly large flood of filings shaved hundreds of million of dollars off their earnings in the third quarter.

But with tens of thousands of petitions still being processed and Hurricane Katrina's impact on cardholders still being sorted out, the bankruptcy rush is likely to result in well over a billion dollars worth of losses by the end of the year.

Sallie L. Krawcheck, the chief financial officer for Citigroup, said, "It's clearly done some short-term earnings damage to the card industry."

We’ll get it in the end, but it’s worth gloating now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

But you're right we will pay in the end

The Misanthrope said...

Rags, I think it will take a long time to undone all the damage done during this administration. It will take years for the Democrats to eventually take back the Senate and the House. And, without a doubt, the Dems will also bow to greed and power and screw things up, just not as badly (I say with my fingers crossed). It's sad that commonsense rarely comes into play; it's always one interest group or another.