Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Credit Card and the NRA
Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.
— H.L Mencken
The most surprising thing during the week of May 17th was not Dick Cheney slithering out of his Jackson Hole in order to affix blame for the next terrorist attack (whose advent he breathlessly awaits so he can say “I told you so”). It was the success of the National Rifle Association in securing passage of the bill that gives all American citizens the right to bear loaded and cocked arms in national parks in the United States. This was not a success that was easily achieved since in order to get passage of this bill the NRA had to agree to some incidental arcane provisions dealing with the credit card industry that, though unpalatable to many NRA members, proved acceptable to them in order for them to achieve their overarching goal of restoring the right to bear arms in National Parks, a right that had been taken away by their former idol and president, Ronald Reagan.
President Reagan believed there should be some places where citizens did not have to fear being shot by careless gun owners. In 1984 his Department of the Interior issued regulations that protected the public from gun owners while traveling through their national parks. Under the Reagan era rule, gun owners were permitted to transport firearms through national parks so long as they were unloaded and reasonably inaccessible.
As George Bush was preparing to return to private life, his Department of the Interior issued a new regulation overturning the Reagan administration rule. The new regulation said if the gunslinger had a valid state permit, he or she could carry a loaded gun into a national park.
Commenting on the proposed new Regulation prior to its issuance, seven former National Park Service directors sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior explaining why they opposed changing the Reagan rule. In part the letter stated: “The current regulations have served the Park Service and the public well for the past 25 years. These rules, promulgated during the Reagan Administration, are essential to park rangers in carrying out their duties of protecting park resources and wildlife, and in assuring the safety of visitors to the parks.”
The Bush Interior department had a different take from the former directors. It believed the park rangers were incapable of carrying out their duties. As reported in Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence V. Salazar, the court decision enjoining enforcement of the December Bush Regulation, the Interior Department said: “We [Interior Department] . . . recognize that the NPS and FWS [Fish and Wildlife Service] together employ approximately 3,000 full and part-time law enforcement officers who are responsible for patrolling and securing millions of acres of land, a substantial portion of which is remote wilderness. In these circumstances, NPS and FWS law enforcement officers are in no position to guarantee a specific level of public safety on their lands, and cannot prevent all violent offenses and crimes against visitors.” The Bush Interior Department believed that a sort of informal deputization of the citizenry could be effected by permitting it to march about in national parks with loaded weapons, confident that not all would prove as incompetent as former vice president and now official doom-sayer, Cheney, who inadvertently plugged a hunting companion.
When the judge in the Brady case issued a temporary injunction against enforcement of the Bush Regulation, the NRA got busy. It asked its Congressional supporters to pass a law that would supersede any court opinion or Federal regulation and it didn’t matter to the NRA if other matters had to be addressed in the legislation in order to get it passed. And that is how it came about that credit card reform occurred.
The coupling of credit card legislation with a bill permitting guns in national parks might seem odd since the two issues have nothing in common. One bespeaks increased governmental control in the private sector (credit card rules) whereas the other bespeaks less governmental control (guns in national parks). The NRA, however, is never concerned who its legislative companions are so long as it gets what it wants. It did. Incidental beneficiaries of its efforts, of course, are those who while in greater danger in the national parks from careless gun owners, will be at less peril in the commercial world, from unscrupulous credit card issuers.
(A few people have expressed concern that tourists will be able to tour the White House, a national park property, with loaded guns since the District of Columbia has no law prohibiting guns in its national parks. The Secret service has let it be known it will not permit visitors to that particular national park to bring along loaded guns. That probably comes as a disappointment to the NRA which probably figures there are few places where being able to protect oneself is more important than the White House.)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Baptism, Bees and Salvation
I’ll convert YOU!
Into a stew.
A nice little, white little, missionary stew!
— T.S. Eliot, Sweeney Agonistes
They’re still at it. I’m referring to the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Colorado Springs. They’ve probably learned that it really works. How else to explain its practices. We examined its practices in 1993 and 16 years later it’s still going strong. It’s called involuntary baptism.
In 1993 the Cornerstone Baptist church advertised a kids’ carnival that featured, among other things, a water fight, free balloons, squirt guns and candy. The carnival was obviously directing its advertising at children since most adults are not attracted to an event just because it has water fights, balloons and squirt guns. Unadvertised, but nonetheless a big part of the festivities, was a spontaneous (as far as the kids were concerned) baptism. Reports suggest that the pastor encouraged the carnival attendees to become baptized by telling them that without the baptism they could be killed by bee stings. If he was right, those accepting the invitation were permanently inoculated against that particular peril. Right or wrong, most children would probably find that appealing since any inoculation one can obtain without being given a shot seems like a very good kind of inoculation indeed.
Baptism in carnival like surroundings was not the only type of surprise baptism engaged in by the church. In at least one case it was sued by a parent whose child had not gone to the carnival but had gone to the church with two women from the church. Aware of the church’s tendency to surprise young attendees with baptism, Audrey Ausgotharp told the two women that she did not want the children to come home baptized. As it turned out, the church did not have a hair dryer. When the children came home their hair was wet. Their mother figured out instantly that either they’d been given a shampoo or they’d been baptized. Given Cornerstone’s reputation she put the notion of a shampooing out of mind and settled on baptism. She was right and righteously angry.
When the two women who had picked the children up were confronted they were apologetic and said the children had been baptized by mistake. The Cornerstone Baptists were not the only denomination that increased the church rolls by involuntary baptism.
In 1996 it was reported that the Anchor Baptist Church in Woburn, Massachusetts had taken to the same practice. It wasn’t as much fun for a couple reasons. The first was that it violated all truth in advertising rules and the second was the actual event was preceded by a long and presumably predictably boring sermon. The Anchorfolk reportedly attracted hundreds of kids by promising pizza and basketball. The Anchormen, notwithstanding their love of the Lord, were not infected by the truth in advertising bug. There was, as it turned out, neither pizza nor basketball. Instead of pizza there was a sermon and instead of basketball, swimming-sort of. The swimming was a full body immersion and to participate the children had to disrobe and put on church garb. That is, of course, history, having taken place in 1996. Who’d have thought that a practice from the dark ages of 1996 would still be in vogue today? The answer is it is.
In early May it was reported that representatives of the Cornerstone Church tried to lure a seventh-grader at Russell Middle School in Colorado Springs into a van. Most children lured into vans face consequences far more drastic than a simple hair washing and promise of salvation. The 7th grader refused to enter the van and upon learning of the encounter, the school principle cautioned parents about the threat and reminded them to remind their children not to talk to strangers, even if carrying bibles. According to reports church members have also been approaching children on the playground and outside the school grounds preaching the bible. Van luring is not the church’s only method of capturing souls. The carnival is still a favorite.
On May 1 the carnival was again announced but before the attendees could do the fun stuff they were required to be baptized by total immersion. Whether the very tangible benefit of immunity from bee stings was offered, in addition to the promise of salvation, was not stated. Asked about the practice, assistant pastor Ford Glover said he would have no comment. Dan Irwin, an associate pastor said: “No one can show me one passage in the Bible where it says parental permission is required before a child is baptized.” Pastor Dean Miller of the church says the church is merely pursuing the Bible’s “great commission” to baptize lots of people.
On Cornerstone Church’s home page there is a pretty picture of clouds and blue sky. Across the sky in block letters is written “Salvation” and beneath that in cursive, “Easy As 1. 2.. 3…” One probably stands for the carnival, 2 for baptism and 3 for bee sting immunity. Getting 1 and 3 for free would seem to make 2 no big deal. It’s hard to understand why parents object. Christopher Brauchli can be emailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page at http://humanraceandothersports.com
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
U.S. Credit Cards and Spanish Debt Collectors-A Contrast
Having more credit than money,
Thus one goes through the world
— Johann Wolfang von Goethe, Claudine von Villa Bella
April brought the prospect of changes to the lives of two different kinds of creditors in two different countries. The changes were radically different from one another. In the United States it was proposed changes to the rules governing institutions that issue credit cards to the consumer.
For years, issuers of credit cards saw themselves as the consumers’ friend. They provided the consumer with the means to instant gratification in the world of acquisitions in which we live. Being self-interested, as well as generous, however, they appropriately believed they should get some benefit from their good works as well. In doing so they took as their tutors the lame fox and the blind cat in Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio.
When Pinocchio was befriended by the lame fox and the blind cat he was persuaded by them to bury the remaining four gold coins he had been given to help his poor father, Geppetto. The two animals assured Pinocchio that the coins would grow into a tree with a thousand gold coins. When Pinocchio returned to the burial plot a short while later he discovered that not only had the tree failed to sprout but the four coins had joined the cat and the fox and left the burial place.
The credit card companies are no different from the cat and the fox. They fill the mailboxes of the consuming public with the enticing prospect of credit at little or no interest for the first few months, only to begin charging much higher interest at the end of the free period. (In 2008 the industry sent out 4 billion invitations to prospective customers urging them to accept the solicitor’s card.) In addition to the interest rate rise that is explicitly described in the solicitation, many issuers provide for increases in fine print where its cardholders may not notice.
Wilma Erwin can explain. She has had a Discover Card for 18 years and always made timely minimum payments. On March 13, 2009, Discover Financial Services received TARP funds of $1.2 billion. Inspired by its windfall from TARP and eager to further enhance its financial position, on April 15 it raised Ms. Erwin’s monthly interest rate from 10.99 percent to 15.24 percent for no particular reason, she having paid her bills on time for 18 years. Discover was able to do this because buried deep within the fine print in the credit card agreement were provisions giving the issuer the right to raise the interest rate for a multitude of reasons, many of which, like Ms. Erwin’s, are unrelated to the holder’s payment history.
If the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009 becomes law, many of the abuses enjoyed by the card issuers will be outlawed. The Bill has passed the House and gone to the Senate where a stronger version and a doubtful future await it. To date no Republican in the Senate has announced support Opponents’ reasons are no doubt legion but are probably best summed up by Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas who said: “People who get credit cards have a responsibility, when they sign a contract, to live up to that responsibility. It’s not a right.” He may want to mention that to Ms. Erwin.
In Spain, reforms took the form of taking some of the fun out of debt collection practices that have been followed there since the 1980s. According to a recent report in Time, on March 10 a committee of the Spanish lower house of parliament unanimously approved a bill that a spokesman said was designed “to protect citizens against those acts that attack their dignity or invade their privacy.” It was not referring to arbitrary increases in interest rates that American citizens enjoy. The acts that were complained of had to do with collection practices. According to Lisa Abend who wrote the story for Time, Spanish debt collectors have employed the tactic of publicly humiliating the debtor. To do this, they dress up as if they were actors in a theater.
Ms. Abend reports that Monserrat Vila, who fell behind on her mortgage payments, received a call from a collection agency advising her that the next day people dressed as bullfighters would visit her neighborhood and take up a collection from the neighbors to help her pay her debt. The embarrassment for Ms. Vila was probably more certain than the likelihood that any funds to apply to her debt would be received. One agency’s collectors dress up as monks and another’s appear in tuxedo. Sometimes the costumed collectors follow the debtor into restaurants sitting near the debtor hoping thereby to embarrass the debtor. (The owner of one collection agency with 400 employees around Spain says his costumed collectors have a 62 percent success rate.)
If the Spanish law passes, Spanish debtors will no longer be surprised by costumed debt collectors. If the Cardholders’ Bill of Rights passes, American taxpaying card holders and taxpayers will no longer be surprised by the sleazy practices employed by the very banks that have just been saved from extinction by their taxpaying cardholders.