Rip off

I’m going to set a schedule. Once a week I will write on a topic of which I have no expertise but my own meandering experience. I will make zero cogent points at best and will insult and/or confuse readers at worse. I expect this to be a lot of fun.

Some call the 1950s the Golden Age of Television. I think it’s now, but either way in most aspects of American life there is a period of unprecedented growth. It never lasts forever, but since old people are around to tell us about it, we’ll never forget.

This is the Golden Age of ripping people off. In American history there has not been a bigger percentage of the economy based on screwing people over. There are times when we are taken by the small print. There are times when we are just dumb. We have been inundated with fees and restrictions that affect our every move.

Recently banks have complained because people have to “opt in” to be charged a fee when a person makes a debit card purchase that exceeds the balance. This is, of course, referred to as a courtesy and something the bank is doing to help the customer and encourage commerce. You’re getting ripped. See, banks used to make money by interest on loans. Their CEOs probably didn’t make eight figures. You could go into a branch and not be charged to talk to a person. I’m surprised that they haven’t created a “look at your account online” fee. They might have and I wouldn’t know about it. It’s not enough anymore for them to make interest money off of the so-called cash in my checking account.

Credit card companies are big fans of the fee. Now that people are using credit cards less and less, the companies have to be more creative. You can be charged for not using your card. There are enough double billing cycles and holds on your funds to make sure that people never pay the card off.

I have a gym membership. I signed up on a simple contract. I was to pay $20 a month. No problemo. There was one problemo. They charge each member a $29 fee at the beginning of the year for “equipment upgrades”. Isn’t that why I pay the monthly fee? Instead of building the annual fee into the monthly charge, they throw it in there. They could just kick me in the balls instead. The feeling wouldn’t last as long that way.

Speaking of my banking example, could the economy survive without these rip-offs? I wonder. We don’t sell products anymore in this country. We sell services. Services are nebulous and so are the charges.

The ultimate rip-off is the double wars we’re in. Since we seem to add a new country to the list of “recently bombed” every month, maybe we’re at war with everyone. If we decided to pack it up and go home, what would the contractors do? How would they survive without charging $100 an hour for a job that a solider used to do for $12 an hour? What will the stockholders think if they can’t charge $10 for a bottle of water?

I’m being tongue in cheek, but this is a serious issue. We understand that we’re getting ripped off, expect it, and quite possibly enjoy it in a perverse way. It’s because beating the system is the American way. And if someone else is doing it, even at our expense, at least they’re sticking it to the man.

As my final thought, I'm totally cool with Ronald Reagan kicking Ulysses Grant off the $50 bill. I have one caveat. The $50 should only be worth $20 in honor of Reagan tripling the federal deficit while he was in power.