Adventures in Credit: An Immigrants Tale
Once upon a time, there was an immigrant living in Massachusetts. He had big dreams. He was brought up in India and grew up in a place where money was valued and people lived within their means. There were no credit cards, loans or mortgages that he knew of. People bought stuff and cherished it for many years. People fixed things. This immigrant came to America, the land of plenty. He understood the people, the culture and the attitudes. While in college, he often wondered how a 20 year old drove Lexus's and Mercedes not bought by their parents, neither did these kids have any jobs. He wondered how 16 year olds had credit cards under their name with limits up to $10,0000. He also wondered why was it necessary to own 40 pairs of shoes, 10 pairs of jeans and a 'walk-in' closet. A concept foreign to this poor immigrant.
Years went by, confusion still reigning on him about the standard of living vs. incomes compared to everywhere else in the world. He often questioned his near and loved ones, who were Americans, as to what was he doing wrong. It always seemed like the other guy had a better car, better house and a bigger TV, no matter how hard the immigrant worked. He could never justify such spending. He also wondered that most of these people made far less than him. He once asked a 'bagger' from a local store as to what car he owned - "a Hummer of course" - the bagger replied as if this immigrant was foolish to even ask him or assume anything less. This bagger must have been no older than 21. Baggers made minimum wage!
Few more years went by, and all his fellow immigrant friends bought into the American dream of owning monstrous cars, big houses and a plush 'Bloomingdales' lifestyle - while he continued to save. Ads like 'No credit, bad credit, no money down - sign and leave . . . . " used to make him feel really dazed in amazement.
One day, he woke up, only to find himself listening to the housing 'crises' and the credit crunch and big banks going under and companies announcing lay-offs and financial scams. "Viola . . " he exclaimed! "Here we go. I have my answer".
Few months went by and things started to go really awry around Christmas of 2008. " . . people have stopped buying" the media said bullishly. Did that mean people were roaming around without clothes or shoes . . . no! It purely meant people are not going to buy 5 cashmere sweaters this year and that 6th scarf they don't need. Neither are they hoaring plastic junk to fill their over sized house.
This immigrant needed a car - a much needed purchase he hadn't made since his college days. His confusion was clarified even more. The car dealer dropped $6000 in the first 3 mins of the conversation. What do you know - the dealer even verified where the immigrant worked and checked his credit history. The car dealer was more than pleased that he sold a car that day.
The immigrant collected credit card offers since many years. He went home and saw that companies like Chase, Citibank, BoA & others had offered him over $4 Million in credit over the past many years, without verifying his income or otherwise. They had after all "pre-qualified" him! He looked at those ads and was thankful that he had only saved them to make a 'shredding project' for his son. The immigrant used to get at least 1 offer every 2-4 days.
The story has only begun . . . . . and will continue to get interesting as weeks, months & years go by. Tune in every now and then . . . you never know what the next sequel of "Adventures in Credit - An Immigrants Tale" might bring.
Meanwhile, the immigrant is trying to find jobs for people who used to give away money to others by the millions and helping friends get rid of crap they bought at stores like Sharper Image, Circuit City & Brookstone.
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posted by Janak Joshi @ 1/16/2009 02:27:00 PM
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