Capital One & The Hollowness of Credit.

We got the below letter in the mail today from my credit card company. They kindly increased our credit line (without our asking of course). I’m not complaining because as long as we don’t use it and jack it up, it helps our credit score. Crazy how you have to take on the potential for debt before you can boost your score but that’s another story for another day. The letter bothers me on multiple letters. Read below for my airing of grievances.

Numero Uno: Follow the top arrow. I hate these 3 phrases and am quite confused as to what they have to do with my finances.

- You’re ready.

- You can do it.

- Grab it while you can.

Naturally, this leads into the text near the 2nd arrow where I’m imagining they are attempting to connect those 3 phrases with what I need to do in regards to my clothing and athletic events (?).

Numero Dos: I find this whole little series of sentences troubling.

Get more. You’re ready now to hit the mall for new clothes or back-to-school items. Or how about those tickets to the big game?

Really? What is “more”? More being directly related to my new clothes? I’m not sure how new clothes, back-to-school items, or tickets for the big game would ever necessitate credit card use. I mean I know I’m conservative when it comes to credit but are you kidding me?!? And have we as a culture devolved to the point where it expected that this “sales pitch” will work on us? That we actually embrace our credit limit bump so that we can now go buy new clothes?

Anna and I were talking last week about how the generations directly in front of us will be the first to probably end their lives with credit debt, passing it on to their children. I can’t imagine that our grandparents would ever take on the amount of debt that most in our culture have. I mean I’m sure they had their mortgage and a few loans here and there. But it’s hard for me to imagine that it would be the norm rather than the exception that Brokaw’s greatest generation would approach the final years of their life and their consequent death with massive amounts of debt hanging over their head. And to think that my parent’s generation will be the first to begin the swing in the other direction and that our generation will be the first for it to be the gross majority is kind of scary.

My grandparents took on debt for necessities like housing, basic transportation, and equipment for farm and home. My parent’s generation took on debt for their children like college, education, larger homes, larger vehicles, second homes, etc.

My generation . . . we’re running up debt on O’Charley’s, clothes, and football tickets.

And somewhere there is a disconnect.

WE GOT MENTIONED ON OPRAH!.

Just kidding. But it would be a whole cooler if we did. But Kiva represented well. It would have been a whole better had Bill Clinton not been there whoring out his new book on “giving” considering that his creation of NAFTA and empowering of the IMF, WTO, and World Bank creates half of the economic instability in the world. It’s just ironic that’s all. But it’s not Kiva’s fault. Just Oprah and her feel good felt need what not. But I digress. Because I did cry once.

Check out Kiva and become a loaner today.

[tags]Kiva, Micro-Loans, Oprah[/tags]

New Podcast, Scooping Oprah, & Kiva.

Well it was bound to happen and one night it did. The podcast came home and it was just us kids. He had a dozen roses and a bottle of wine. If he was looking to surprise he was doing fine.

Sorry. Not sure how Garth Brooks just came out of me like that.

Anyway . . . IT WAS BOUND to happen. The Nick & Josh Podcast scooped the Almighty. Oprah that is. Last Tuesday I recorded a podcast with one of the co-founders of Kiva. And Friday they went into Oprah’s studio to record Tuesday’s Oprah television show. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they mentioned just how cool The Nick & Josh Podcast was/is.

But besides scooping Oprah, I had a great conversation with Jessica Jackley Flannery of Kiva (co-founder with her husband Matt). If you’re not familiar with Kiva . . . this is a great chance to get to know them and what they’re about. And if you’re already a fan and partner . . . then you can hear Jessica talk about a variety of things including social networking in giving, flattened relational models, the power of women in power, and Kiva’s leveraging of their relationships with big business Silicon Valley giants for their role in micro-loans.

Unfortunately, Nick couldn’t make this podcast and as usually is the case when I fly solo, I struggle to sound coherent and intelligent. He is truly worthy to be Wayne while I am nothing but Garth. But despite my suck-i-ness in “interviewing” . . . I did get to talk to somebody whose going to talk to Oprah . . . and that’s got to count for something right?

Check it out.

[tags]Kiva, Micro-Loans, Oprah[/tags]

Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

Here’s another story from the margins. That you won’t hear about in the marketing campaigns that flash across our screens and sell our magazines.

From Samima.

My name is Samima Akther. I am twenty-one years old. I have been working in garment factories for three years. Since February I have been working in Shah Makdhum as a sewing operator.

I produce shirts including Disney’s “Pooh” label. My operation is joining the side seams of the shirt. In my factory, each line has thirty-three machines. Each line produces 120 shirts per hour, a total of 1,320 shirts a day if we work eleven hours.

Until recently, I had to work from 8 am until 10 pm each day. We get only two days off a month. I walk to work and back because I cannot afford to take a bus or bicycle rickshaw, which would cost 450 taka a month. In dollars that would be $7.84 or 27 cents a day. The factory is three kilometers away, and it takes thirty minutes to walk. I normally get home at 10:30 pm.

I get a regular wage of 1,650 taka a month, not counting overtime. In dollars this comes to $28.75 (a month), or 14 cents an hour.

Because we have to work very long hours, seven days a week, we have no family life, no personal life, no social life.

If the last sentence doesn’t remind you of slavery, then you’re blind. Samima is nothing more than a cog in a machine that produces “fluff” for us. We buy our kids toys. We buy ourselves toys. We buy ourselves clothes to make ourselves look good. Meanwhile, people . . . real people work 28 days a month, 12 hours a day, for $28. Meanwhile Disney’s shareholders and executives reap insane profits.

Perhaps both the consumer and the producer are just cogs in the machine.

[tags]Corporate Responsibility, Globalization, Disney, Colonialism, Sweat Shop Labor[/tags]

New Podcast With Ariah Fine.

We’ve got a new podcast up. It’s a short little conversation between Ariah Fine (pronounced a-RYE-ah) and myself about corporate responsibility. It’s sort of a continuation and development of some of the themes that we discussed in our collaborative blogging effort called Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

This will also be a new monthly feature where we will devote a whole podcast to a conversation between Ariah and myself. We’ll try to highlight companies that have practice sustainability while hosting conversations between various entrepreneurs and companies that are playing a positive role in the world.

Ariah is also an active and thought-provoking blogger who lives in intentional community in the city of Nashville. He’s a Wheaton grad, former Americorps, and a good podcaster in his own right.

In this episode we briefly share how we are trying to integrate the spiritual into all of our lives, including our spending and purchasing habits. Within the last week, Ariah also became a father, and shares some of the obvious and not so obvious tensions and fears with raising a kid in by the ethics and values of simple living. So stop by and introduce yourself to one of my new friends and the newest member of The Nick & Josh Podcast family.