This is how I feel these days, watching any form of media or visiting any website.Source.
All my banking apps and websites have "updated" recently. Of course, the big new feature I am supposed to love and cherish is the new AI assistant! He will tell you your bank balance and whether a payment was made! You know, stuff you can find more easily with a click of the mouse or a swipe on the phone. But its AI, so it's better, right?
Bank of America cheerfully announces they've "improved" the payment feature for your credit card. Instead of hiting "make payment" you have to "initiate a transfer." Hey, we don't want people actually paying off their credit cards now, do we? If you do make a payment, the system acts like you ruined their day. "But, but, your payment isn't due until July 3rd! Are you sure you want to pay now? Maybe buy a new pair of shoes instead!"
That tactic not working, they try another angle - "You are already signed up for autopay! Any payment made today will surely cause catastrophe!" Or something along those lines. The message is not very subtle - here you are, offering to pay back a loan in full and they act like it is a horrible thing to do. And from their perspective, it is. Banks make more money today by ruining their clients than by working with them. In the old days, when loans were used to buy a house or start a business, when the bank profited, you profited as well. Today, they want you to run up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, consumer debt, and student loan debt, and then watch you struggle for years to pay it all off - at exorbitant interest rates, or course - before you throw in the towel and declare bankruptcy. Even then, they get their pound of flesh as you have to "work out" the debt over a number of years.
Welcome to The United States of Go Fuck Yourself.
And it isn't just BoA, but other banks as well. Capital One has similar roadblocks to payment - reminding you that payment isn't due yet and hey, you're already in autopay anyway, so why bother? We took out a bridge loan with BMO - the Bank of Montreal. What a shitshow that bank is. They have offices all over the place and no one seems to know what is going on. They lost the title to the van and then accused us of having it. I had no luck trying to call anyone, but finally got someone in Dallas (I think) who knocked some heads together in Idaho (?) and figured it out.
I sent in a big payment to reduce the balance on the account and they sat on the check for a month before cashing it. There is no way to make a "principle reduction" payment online. If you pay online, they just assume you are prepaying for the next ten installments (!!). Gotta get those interest payments, right? Worse yet, on two occasions, I sent in payments (to the correct "principal reduction" address) with the "principal reduction" box checked off and written on the check, only to discover that, once again, they applied the amount to future installments. Bastards.
The comic above summarizes how I feel about America these days. Watch any streaming service with ads and you will be bombarded with pleas to play online casinos - everyone is making money this way, why not you? Gamble! Gamble! Gamble! Are there really that many gamblers in America? How many casinos can our country support? How can the economy survive if everyone is gambling themselves into the poorhouse, particularly those who are already poor?
The Supreme Court decided that in the name of "freedom" we should be allowed to gamble on sports - or just about anything from a coin toss to whether it will rain tomorrow. Of course, it quickly became apparent why sports betting was illegal to begin with - it is a trivial matter to fix sporting events by bribing players or blackmailing them. And of course, when players bet on their own games, what's not to like?
You might as well bet on professional wrestling - where the outcomes are predetermined. Oh, wait, apparently you can - the height of idiocy!
The messages in these ads are clear - they want to normalize gambling as a fun activity that ordinary people engage in, and not some life-destroying monstrosity that can bankrupt you and cause you to lose your family and everything else you hold dear. The upside? Occasionally they let you win - just enough to keep the addiction strong and the dopamine flowing.
Yes, dopamine. I recounted before how a drug tested to cure Parkinson's caused some users to gamble compulsively. We like to think we are in control of our destiny, but we really are just a bag of chemicals. Funny, too, that at the Mayo clinic, they asked me whether I was gambling or made any major purchases lately. I didn't tell them about the Mercedes van.
But seriously, it seems that more than ever before, our society is catering to our weaknesses. Advertisers want you to order out for food using Doordash or Uber Eats - financial transactions that make no sense whatsoever. $15 fee to deliver $15 of food? Stupid! Or how about our neighbor at the condo in Virginia ordering one donut delivered, from a donut shop across the street from our condo?
We are weak, to be sure, but trying to be strong is what makes our lives better. It takes willpower to get your finances into shape - and keeping them there. The things that are good for you are hard to do, while the things that destroy us are as easy as falling off a log.
It is akin to the casino we visited in Vegas, some 20-30 years ago now. A conveyor belt whisked us from "the strip" right into the heart of the casino. After some time, we tried to leave, and could not find the exit. We asked one of those beefy-looking guys in a suit who was wearing an electronic earpiece. "You see that next room? Go in there and then the room beyond, and beyond that, two other rooms. On the last room, on the left side, behind the large potted plant, is the exit, behind a curtain. Good Luck!"
No wonder so many die in casino fires - they are roach motels.
Time was - in my lifetime - that Vega was the only place where gambling was legal. Now there is a casino of one sort or another within 30 minutes of your home - or on your phone. It is easier than ever to ruin yourself. Or ruin yourself at the ultimate casino - the stock market - where speculative stocks trade at hundreds of times their earnings, and stocks are hyped online and CEOs treated like celebrities.
And of course, there is good old fashioned predatory lending - something that also didn't exist when I was young, as consumers could stiff the banks by declaring bankruptcy.
Of course, you could argue - and I do - that one can avoid all these financial traps by being smart. You can avoid gambling debt by not gambling. You can avoid credit card debt by not spending on stupid things like delivery food and $5 $10 coffee drinks, and by paying off your credit card balance once a month. If that requires too much discipline, use a debit card or pay cash - I see many people do, and there is no shame in it, only virtue.
But alas, not everyone has that level of self-control, and even those that do, rarely have it all the time. We all fail at life from time to time - no one is perfect. And when you fall, the banks and casinos won't be there to cushion the blow, but rather kick you in the nuts and steal your wallet.
We no longer, as a society, look out for one another.
