Food for Thought 2

On Dec 12th. the Toronto Star printed an article on credit card debt which is up $2 billion to $78 billion and credit card delinquencies (bills at least 90 days overdue) are up 53%. Are the credit card companies worried? Not a bit. Apparently, most of those who can't pay are counted among the poor and, to them, low income consumers are the most lucrative customers because they never get out of debt and keep on paying interest for ever.
 Lastly in our investigation into whether poverty is still among us, the Star tells us (Dec 6, 2009) about the Dixon Hall soup kitchen which continues to do a roaring business after 80 years in service. In fact, it began in the Great Depression. We have come a long way indeed So it seems, Mr. Broadcaster, that we have plenty of poverty right here in Canada and will continue to do so while we have a system where the social product is divided into 90% for the richest 10% and 10% for the rest, and until we have common ownership and free access. It's not all doom and gloom, though. The Royal Bank recorded a 10% Increase in profits for the third quarter at $1.24 billion, but was still disappointing as over the whole year, profits were $3.86 billion down and compared poorly to other banks. Maybe the poor would like to be that poor. John Ayers