Credit Cards and Greedy People

There is a saying that what goes around comes around. Its akin to credit cards. Once we get our hands on it, it becomes addictive We never thought of paying back as the initial amount used to be only 5% of the outstanding balance, so we lived life as lords with bottles of Black Labels galore scattered all over our tables, defining our status to those who could only afford miserable jugs of beers. There lies the misconception. Those guys with jugs of beers were living within their means, we were not. Sooner or later, we had to pay the Piper where even 5% became a hindrance as we now had to secure more credit cards, just to roll the payments.

Basically what we did then was that we lived on other peoples' money and we ended up paying a dear price for it especially during the recession of 1997, when some people became virtually bankrupt, some which destroyed the very fabric of their families. Gone were the people who claimed to be our buddies over free Black Labels and hugged us and danced with us and promised to be there for us through thick and thin. After 1997, upon mysteriously finding out that some of the artificial big spenders were in the doldrums, the OCs' or freeloaders disappeared, citing some really creative and imaginative excuses.

But what if the situation was reversed and i actually lived the life of a lord on other peoples money and misery without having to pay a single sen back. No bank would dare take action against me and neither would any authorities initiate investigations on me. So the bank might probably write it off as bad debts and find an ingenious way to recoup the loss of millions which i had borrowed. One day, say for example, this NPL banker dreams of an idea. Hey!, the banker says and shares this idea with his brethren, why don't we charge people to withdraw their very own money, a nominal sum, when they use the ATM machines. Ingenious, imagine at 50 sen per withdrawal, WOW, the figure is mind boggling, the profits are awesome and all is well in the hunky dory land of finance.

So who suffers once again, probably the normal guy in the street, who on average goes to the ATM at least 8 times a month and has to fork out RM4 extra per month. Lets' now multiply that with an average of say 10 million ATM cardholders (just an example, don't get your knickers in a twist), well go figure it out! I hate figures unless you are of the fairer sex.

In the first instance, we paid for our folly dearly and learnt a bitter lesson to live within our means as we had no political clout or connections. We did not take or rebut anything from anyone and we eventually paid our debts, albeit reluctantly as the debts had ballooned to unimaginable proportions. It was either that or get blacklisted, no more loans for a car, house or anything else for the matter. Basically the banks had us by our balls and even today they still do.

In the second instance, the guy was heavily connected and a political heavyweight. He could ride roughshod over anyone, even for example buy valuable ancestral land for a pittance. So, who would he have to answer to?. No one i suppose! Surprisingly i believe that what goes around comes around, it could affect his family because of the duit haram he took to feed them and to live the luxurious life without any remorse from where he took it from. But the tears of poverty has a damning way of dealing with such people. Sickness, ill health and deformity could manifest itself to his family and the person above would probably live to be a 100 years to witness the punishment for his greed dished out to his loved ones.

So what is the moral of the above story, well it is something you have to figure out yourself as Punjabiminds can be very confusing but please read carefully between the lines, and you will get my drift.

SOME CHAPATIS ARE ROUND AND SOME ARE SQUARE

My articles are meant to be read with a pinch of salt, it is meant to create humor as well as to enable us to laugh at each other as we marvel and dwell in our universal differences. It is not meant to insult or degrade so don’t get your knickers in a twist if it touches on the fairer sex, I wonder what they mean by fairer sex coz there are a lot of dark women around as well as a lot of fair guys around just like me.

For example, women today are so proud to be single mothers, probably because they are financially independent, strong willed and not willing to compromise or maybe is it because there are just too many effeminate men around huh. It’s like this, you meet this woman for lunch and you say, hi I am Manjit, what’s your name” and she goes, “Well I am Suzy and I am a single mother”. I am flabbergasted; I did not ask her that! I am dying to ask her if she had a one night stand and things went wrong but I swallowed my tongue as she was wearing high heels. They can be very painful. She could have said I am a divorcee, a widow or a single mother but I guess she felt saying “single mother’, gave her an aura of power or it was more in keeping with the times.

In those days, that statement would have been frowned upon and the woman would have been considered a harlot but here was a woman holding her turf and being proud of it. I salute her, luckily I did not remind her the evil practice of sutee in India, where a widow was immolated (it means burnt alive, guess not everyone has a dictionary rite) upon the death of her husband, ouch!

Let’s look at the other side of the coin, you meet this bloke in the park and he is playing ball with his son. He comes and sits on the bench and you make idle conversation and he says his wife left him and he now takes care of his son, mind you he does not say, “I am a single father”. He could have said well he had a good time with a foxy lady and nine months later the package landed on his porch with a tag saying, “ Here is your unit trusts returns after nine months, enjoy the fruits of my labour”.

What we say and how we say things is how people perceive us, it is like you see a typical Chinaman drive past in a Mercedez Benz , the perception is that he is a drug pusher or a pimp. You see a Malay chap pass by in the same car and some people will say, “angkat gomen punya contract tak bikin beli kereta, bungalow and kawin lagi’. See an Indian guy and they will say sure gangster one, this dirty fella. That is perception, while all of the chaps above would have worked their butts off to earn that status, sit lazily back…mostly failures or losers and pass judgements.

Now that is perception and we pass this perception to our kids and they photocopy what we say and when we hear them saying things such as the above, suddenly we are aghast and we reprimand them so righteously as responsible parents. We forget that we planted the seeds of perception in their fertile minds a long time ago.

Time we stopped judging people and started looking at ourselves, people in glass houses should not undress.