With Gutierrez's new venture (after a healthy stab as founder of Magic Beanstalk executive recruiting firm in 1999 - a little late on that tech-bubble venture, no?), Progreso Financiero, helps the underbanked by charging a 36% APR on short term loans to non-English speaking, low-income Americans in Texas...
...and Chenault's American Express - after trashing 11,000 individual's jobs last year (17% of the CEO's workforce) - further cultivates the underbanked by looking to find new ways to increase 'plastic penetration' in places like Brazil, with high GDPs, an expanding middle class, and plenty of room for further growth in wage slavery-style indebtedness. All just for us. We didn't even have to ask for it. So we can now all feel better about the wholesale implosion of civilization and progress.
Why not just make low or no interest loans like those Bernanke gave to the bailed-out banks available to everyone? Now there's a way to help the underbanked. And while we're at it, make it illegal to charge exorbitant fees, and of course, fees upon interest and/or fees (e.g. your finance charge sent you over your limit on your credit line, then you get charged an 'over limit' fee, further increasing the amount you are over your credit limit!?).
I'm sorry to say folks, all the silk ties and white pearl necklaces in the world are not going to get us out of this one, not while we continue to allow corporations to financially rape the public at large.
sources: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aErIZXt7wkJs http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKlJU312bTS0 http://www.progressfin.com/en/team/ http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aErIZXt7wkJs http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/media/view/?id=c6d2164a-797d-4338-8826-0c47e38e63c9
Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D NRIII for Congress 2010 http://intertheory.org/nriiiforcongress2010.html ____________________________________ Editor, Kritikos http://intertheory.org