The following op/ed submisison was rejected by the Los Angeles Times in September.
Back in 1986, when I was 21, I drove up from Santa Ana to visit my mother in Huntington Park. I'd been living on my own for a year, and, having managed to scrape together a year's worth of rent and bill payments without the family's help, I wanted to take Mom out to dinner and a movie so she could see how wrong she'd been about my ability to survive without her.
As she got into the car, she asked if we could stop at "the bank" on the way to the restaurant; she said she needed to sign some papers and that it would take just a few minutes. Mom had an account with BofA, but the "bank" she directed me to was just a storefront office with a name on the window that I'd never heard of -- Something-Something Financial Services, the full name escapes me. It resembled less a bank than an Off Track Betting site.
Instead of the rich, sterile decor of an actual bank, it was filthy and drab, furnished with what looked like plastic patio chairs and cheap pasteboard desks. Mom led me straight to a desk at the back of the office -- it occurred to me she'd been here several times before. We sat down on the plastic chairs in front of the desk, and soon a man -- a baby-faced kid, actually, probably younger than I was -- walked up and warmly greeted my mother by her first name and introduced himself to me as Javier before taking his seat on the plastic chair behind the desk.
"Did you bring the documents we discussed?" he asked, and Mom pulled some folded papers from her purse and handed it to him.
Javier unfolded the papers and examined them. "Perfect," he said, and like a magician produced from under the desk a stack of papers about a half-inch thick and placed it on the desk front of us. "Go ahead and look these over while I make some photocopies, and then we'll get you all squared away." He got up and left.
"What's going on, Mom?" I asked.
"Nothing, mijo," she said. "It'll just be a few minutes, don't worry."
She glanced at the stack of papers, and looked away.
"Don't worry about what? What's going on here, Mom?"
When she didn't answer, I picked up the stack and looked at it. "What is this?" I flipped through the pages. "These are loan papers, aren't they? Are you borrowing money, Ma?"
"Just a couple of thousand," she said. "It's just a small loan, don't worry about it."
"A couple thousand -- two thousand dollars? Why?"
"Because I need it, that's why."
"How much interest are they charging you?"
She looked away. "Mom?"
She said nothing. I looked back at the document in my hands, and for the first time in my life began scanning the details of a contract fearful of what I might find. Finally, on the last page before the page with all the signature lines, I found it. Thirty-six percent.
"Thirty-six percent?" I said this so loud that heads turned to look at me.
"Keep your voice down," Mom said. "What are you getting so upset about? It's just $2,000. I'll pay it off in no time."
"Not at 36 percent, you won't," I said. "You'll be paying on it for years. Mom, you can't sign this!"
"Give that to me."
"Ma, you can't sign this."
"Give that to me!" Now heads turned and looked at her. I saw in her expression that there was no point in arguing, so I handed the papers to her.
My mother was always terrible with money. She paid her bills -- most of her bills -- and she got by -- barely got by -- but words like "interest" and "principle" and "percentage" meant nothing to her. Those were bankers' words, of concern to bankers and not to regular people like my mom -- people without money. If a banker was willing to lend my mother money, then the loans had to be right and fair and repayable, because bankers clearly were smarter than regular people or they wouldn't have money to lend.
What my mother didn't understand, couldn't understand, was that in 1986, as in the years just before this latest financial calamity, bankers would lend money to anyone who asked. Smart had nothing to do with it.
This is why my mother still works at 77. She has no retirement fund other than Social Security, no property or investments or savings of any kind. Every dollar of every paycheck she ever received was consumed entirely by rent, food, taxes and debt.
"What did you give him, anyway?" I said in that OTB of a lending institution 22 years ago in Huntington Park.
"Give who?" Mom asked.
"Javier," I said. "What were those 'documents' he asked for?"
"Electric bills," she said. "He wanted to see a couple of electric bills to prove where I lived."
All she had needed was a street address.
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My ex-wife's mother died in 1992 and we flew to Sacramento to clean up her estate. It was a real mess. She had no financial sense, either. She died broke save for the house she had lived in, which ultimately sold for $26,000 to Kevin Johnson, then of the Suns, who'd grown up around the corner.
ReplyDeleteAmong her bills were three loans from AIG on the value of the house. One of them had a life insurance rider (thankfully), which paid off the $9300 balance, but there were two much smaller loans that didn't. The loan place didn't care; they just saw a chance to mulct bucks out of someone with a little equity.
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السلام عليكم عملائنا الكرام مما لا شك فيه ان كلنا نعلم اهميه برك السباحه والمسابح فى حياتنا لما لها من اهميه كبيره جدا فى حياتنا اليوميه خاصه
ReplyDeleteفى فصل الصيف تعد المسابح من افضل وسائل الترفيه في وقتنا المعاصر حيث ان الاطفال والكبار وكل الناس يستمتعون بالمسبح عندما يكون الجو حار لى يخفضو من درجه حراره الجسم والاسمتاع بالحياه هناك انواع كثيره جدا واشكال متنوعه من المسابح اصبحت فى بيوتنا بكثره خاصه هذه الايام واص
بحت منتشره جدا فكل منا يعلم اهميتها ومن ثم ذالك يجب علينا الاعتناء بالمسابح والحفاظ عليها من اى شوائب او جراثيم لان الشخص عندما يقوم بالنزول في المسبح فأن مسام الجلد تتفتح وبالتالى عند وجود اى شوائب او جراثيم فسوف تقوم بأختراق مسام الجلد وتسبيب الكثير من الامراض التي لم نشعر
بها إلا علي المدي البعيد لذالك يجب علينا جميعا الاعتناء بالمسابح للحفاظ على صحتنا وصحه اولادنا من اي امراض ولكي يستمتعوو بصحه جيده كانت المسابح فى قديم الزمان غير منتشره كما فى وقتنا المعاصر وذالك بسبب الخوف من الفيروسات التى كانت منتشره والخوف من البلهارسيا........الخ
اما في وقتنا الحاضر لم يعد منزل لا يحتوى علي مسبح الا قليل جدا اصبحت المسابح منتشره جدا فى الفلل والاماكن التى يوجد فيها درجات حراره عاليه للتلطيف من درجه حراره الجو والاستمتاع ب الجو اوصيكم جمعيا الحفاظ علي صحتكم من كل سوء وشر _ كل ما عليكم احبتي الكرام ان تتواصلو مع شركتنا شركه زين لتنظيف
المسابح حيث ان شركتنا تعد من افضل الشركات المصنفه فى تنظيف المسابح تواصلو معانا للتخلص من اى شوائب او بكتريا داخل المسبح كما ان شركتنا تمتلك افضل واحدث وسائل التنظيف وافضل المكينه والعماله الماهره المدربه هناك بعض الاشياء التى تقوم بها شركتنا اثناء التنظيف اولا
تقوم شركتنا بتفريغ المياه من المسبح
ثانيا....
نقوم بوضع بعض المواد الكماويه الأمنه على صحتنا وصحه اطفالنا
ثالثا....
نقوم بتنظيف البقع التي توجد فى جدران المسبح
رابعا...
نقوم بوضع بعض وسائل التنظف على مواسير الصرف للتخلص من اى رواسب
خامسا...
نقوم برش المسبح بماده جاليه للتخلص من الاشياء المترسبه على حواف المسبح
..............إلخ
هناك امر اخر تقدمه شركتنا لعملائنا الكرام وهو عرض خصومات هائله فى فصل الصيف وضمان تنظيف المسبح
وايضا هناك بعض الاشياء يجب علينا تجنبها من اجل الحفاظ على المسبح نظيف وأمن من اي شوائب وهى
1_عدم ترك اوراق الشجر تغرق فى المسبح وتترسب
2_عدم ترك مياه المسبح مده طويله بدون تغير
3_عند الصرف نقوم بوضع ماده منظفه لتعقيم المسبح
4_عدم ترك اكياس او اوراق متسخه تغرق فى المسبح
كل ما عليكم عند وجود اي عطل او مشكله او رواسب فى المسبح عليكم بالاتصال بشركه زين لتظيف المسابح المصنفه من افضل الشركات عالميا والتى تقدم افضل خدمه متميزه لعملائنا الكرام وتقدم افضل الخصومات ووسائل التنظيف المستورده كما ان شركتنا تقوم بالوصول لكم فورا عند التواصل مع مندوب الشركه على الارقام الظاهره
وايضا تقدم شركتنا عند التظيف جميع الاشياء ولا تتطلب من العميل اي شئ تقوم شركتنا بتنظيف المسبح على اكمل وجه سواء كان كبير او صغير مهما كانت مساحته شركتنا تضمن لك ان تستلم المسبح بعد التنظيف على اكمل وجه وكأنه جديد
تقوم شركتنا بالتواصل مع عملائنا الكرام فى الحال كما ان الشركه تقدم رقم خاص بالشكاوى من العماله المنظفه عند التقصير فى اي شئ عند التنظيف
عليكم جميعاً عملائنا الكرام التواصل مع مندوبين الشركه للحصول على مسبح نظيف وكأنه يبدو جديد شركه ليست الشركه الوحده المنظفه للمسابح ولكن هى المتميزه فى تنظيفها نذكركم بأن شركتنا تقدم افضل العروض خاصه فى فصل الصيف لا تهملو فى صحتكم وصحه اولادكم وسارعو بالاتصال بشركه زين لتنظيف المسبح وسوف يصلون اليكم فى الفور......دمتم فى سعاده وصحه جيده وحماكم الله ورعاكم من كل شر عملائنا الكرام
(والسلام عليكم ورحمه الله وبركاته)