Credit, No; Cash/check, Yes says Ralph Nader

Self-Emancipation from 
Debt Slavery

Excerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett

“Ten reasons” Nader prefers “cash or checks over plastic”

PAY LATER slavery

1.      Plastic lays the groundwork for massive, daily invasions of privacy.

Personal purchasing data now floats around the world without controls. The data mining industry is everywhere and both government and hackers can get into peoples’ files.

As Facebook and Google demonstrate, it is almost impossible to keep up with the sharing of your personal information.

2.      Once you enter the credit economy you fall under the controls of arbitrary credit rating and credit scoring merchants.

Thus, if you complain strenuously to an auto dealer or insurance company, if you are a victim of false information in your credit file, or even if you have too many credit cards, your credit can suffer so that you pay more or are denied loans.

3.      The credit card economy, with its anti-competitive no-surcharge rules, etc. is inflationary and affects negatively consumer purchasing power as well as lower savings rates.

4.      Credit card issuers often approve consumers for credit cards with maximum spending limits that are too high considering their salary or lack thereof.

5.      Credit cards encourage impulse buying. The industry knows this very well.

Swiping a plastic card – rather than opening a wallet and directly taking out cash – creates, in the consumer, a disconnecting of purchase from loss of money.

6.      Credit card ‘terms’—what Senator Elizabeth Warren calls ‘mice print’—are mostly inscrutable and non-negotiable.

You sign on the dotted line, shut up, and shop.

Companies rarely compete over fine-print ‘terms’ that favor the consumer.

Compare, with a suitable microscope, the standard form contracts of Visa, MasterCard or Discover or GM, Ford and Toyota, or Bank of America, Citigroup or Wells Fargo.

Consumers have been driven into a choice-less contract of peonage or contract servitude.

PAY NOW freedom

7.      Using cash/check encourages consumers to live within their means and not get caught in an ever deeper cycle of debt.

For instance, if you are out shopping with cash and set a budget for yourself, it is impossible to overspend – if you simply do not bring more than has been allocated for your purchases.

 

8.      Paying by cash/check avoids the gouging of fees, penalties, termination charges, and of course, sky-high interest rates for consumers.

Corporations, on the other hand, enjoy low-interest rates across the board. (Remember, however, checks have a fee if they bounce.)

9.      Paying by cash/check—say in a restaurant—saves time and follow-up monitoring for errors.

Furthermore, it prevents the addition of any fraudulent charges to the bill.

10.  Paying by cash/check avoids having to give away your personal property to the likes of internet companies that turn around and very profitably sell this free information to advertisers with such specificity that the latter knows what ailment or craving you have.

O

bserving the growing trend if limiting “what legal tender can actually buy in America because of exclusionary fine print contracts (see faircontracts.org),” Ralph Nader declares that “there should be no discrimination against consumers based on their choice of legal tender” and “vendors should have to accept all methods of payment.”

Despite current obstacles, Nader says he does not use either “a credit card or a signature-based debit card.”

Sources and notes

“Ten Reasons Why I Don’t Have a Credit Card,” Ralph Nader, December 5, 2014, https://blog.nader.org/2014/12/05/ten-reasons-why-i-dont-have-a-credit-card/

Long time social critic and political activist as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney, Ralph Nader is a five-time candidate for the US presidency, having run as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008, Green Party nominee in 1996 and 2000, and a write-in candidate in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic primary. Nader rose to prominence in 1965 with the publication of his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a critique of the safety record of American automobile manufacturers in general, and most famously the Chevrolet Corvair. In 1999, a New York University panel of journalists ranked Unsafe at Any Speed 38th among the top 100 pieces of journalism of the 20th century. Nader’s areas of particular concern include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government. Born February 27, 1934, Nader is an American of Lebanese origin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader

See also The Essential Nader, https://blog.nader.org/2009/05/06/the-essential-nader/

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A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora

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Dump Obamacare, institute “single-payer-everybody-in-nobody-out”: Ralph Nader

Obama’s care calls thousands to die for lack of health insurance.

Canada’s care calls no one to die for lack of health insurance.

Excerpt, minor edit by 

Carolyn Bennett

U.S. Obamacare penned in 2,500 pages plus regulations; Canadian Medicare Bill penned in 13 pages

U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson in six months in the early 1960s enrolled 20 million elderly Americans into Medicare ─ achieved without websites but with index cards!

R

alph Nader is an American political activist, an author, lecturer, and attorney (b. Winsted, Connecticut, February 27, 1934). His areas of concern: consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government. 

Nader came to prominence in 1965 with the publication of his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a critique of the safety record of American automobile manufacturers in general, and most famously the Chevrolet Corvair. 

Nader is a five-time candidate for the U.S. presidency, having run as a write-in candidate in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic primary, as the Green Party nominee in 1996 and 2000, and as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008. He holds academic credentials from Princeton University (A.B.) and Harvard Law School (LL.B.).

 This week Nader penned “21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare”

Number 21:  In Canada, everyone is covered automatically at birth – everybody in, nobody out. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, 31 million Americans will still be uninsured by 2023 and millions more will remain underinsured. 

Number 20: In Canada, the health system is designed to put people, not profits, first. 

• In the United States, Obamacare will do little to curb insurance industry profits and will actually enhance insurance industry profits. 

Number 19: In Canada, coverage is not tied to a job or dependent on your income – rich and poor are in the same system, the best guaranty of quality. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, much still depends on your job or income. Lose your job or lose your income, and you might lose your existing health insurance or have to settle for lesser coverage. 

Number 18:  In Canada, health care coverage stays with you for your entire life. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, for tens of millions of Americans, health care coverage stays with you for as long as you can afford your share. 

Number 17: In Canada, you can freely choose your doctors and hospitals and keep them. There are no lists of ‘in-network’ vendors and no extra hidden charges for going ‘out of network.’ 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, the in-network list of places where you can get treated is shrinking – thus restricting freedom of choice – and if you want to go out of network, you pay for it. 

Number 16: In Canada, the health care system is funded by income, sales and corporate taxes that, combined, are much lower than what Americans pay in premiums. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, for thousands of Americans, it is pay or die – if you can’t pay, you die. That’s why many thousands will still die every year under Obamacare from lack of health insurance to get diagnosed and treated in time. 

Number 15: In Canada, there are no complex hospital or doctor bills. In fact, usually you don’t even see a bill. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, hospital and doctor bills will still be terribly complex, making it impossible to discover the many costly overcharges. 

Number 14: In Canada, costs are controlled. Canada pays 10 percent of its GDP for its health care system, covering everyone. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, costs continue to skyrocket. The U.S. currently pays 18 percent of its GDP and still doesn’t cover tens of millions of people. 

Number 13: In Canada, it is unheard of for anyone to go bankrupt due to health care costs. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, health care driven bankruptcy will continue to plague Americans. 

Number 12: In Canada, simplicity leads to major savings in administrative costs and overhead. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, complexity will lead to ratcheting up administrative costs and overhead. 

Number 11: In Canada, when you go to a doctor or hospital, the first thing they ask you is: ‘What’s wrong?’ 

• In the United States, the first thing they ask you is: ‘What kind of insurance do you have?’ 

Number 10: In Canada, the government negotiates drug prices so they are more affordable. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, Congress made it specifically illegal for the government to negotiate drug prices for volume purchases, so they remain unaffordable. 

Number 9: In Canada, the government health care funds are not profitably diverted to the top one percent. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, health care funds will continue to flow to the top. In 2012, CEOs at six of the largest insurance companies in the U.S. received a total of $83.3 million in pay, plus benefits. 

Number 8: In Canada, there are no necessary co-pays or deductibles. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, the deductibles and co-pays will continue to be unaffordable for many millions of Americans. 

Number 7: In Canada, the health care system contributes to social solidarity and national pride. 

• In the United States, Obamacare is divisive, with rich and poor in different systems and tens of millions left out or with sorely limited benefits. 

Number 6: In Canada, delays in health care are not due to the cost of insurance. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, patients without health insurance or who are underinsured will continue to delay or forgo care and put their lives at risk. 

Number 5: In Canada, nobody dies due to lack of health insurance. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, many thousands will continue to die every year due to lack of health insurance. 

Number 4: In Canada, an increasing majority supports their health care system, which costs half as much, per person, as in the United States. And in Canada, everyone is covered. 

• In the United States, a majority – many for different reasons – oppose Obamacare. 

Number 3: In Canada, the tax payments to fund the health care system are progressive – the lowest 20 percent pays 6 percent of income into the system while the highest 20 percent pays 8 percent. 

• In the United States, under Obamacare, the poor pay a larger share of their income for health care than the affluent. 

Number 2: In Canada, the administration of the system is simple. You get a health care card when you are born. And you swipe it when you go to a doctor or hospital. End of story. 

• In the United States, Obamacare’s 2,500 pages plus regulations (the Canadian Medicare Bill was 13 pages) is so complex that then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said before passage ‘we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.’ 

Number 1: In Canada, the majority of citizens love their health care system. 

• In the United States, the majority of citizens, physicians, and nurses prefer the Canadian type system – single-payer, free choice of doctor and hospital, everybody in, nobody out.

“

Repeal Obamacare,” Nader says, “and replace it with the much more efficient single-payer, everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital.

Sources and notes

“21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare” by Ralph Nader, published Friday, November 22, 2013 by Common Dreams,

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/22-      

Nader bio in brief, Wikipedia,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#Works

Books by Ralph Nader

Unsafe at Any Speed. Grossman Publishers, 1965.	Action for a Change (with Donald Ross, Brett English, and Joseph Highland). Penguin (Non-Classics); Rev. ed edition, 1973.
Whistle-Blowing (with Peter J. Petkas and Kate Blackwell). Bantam Press, 1972.	Ralph Nader, Joel Seligman, and Mark Green. Taming the Giant Corporation. Paperback ed. Norton, W. W. & Co., Inc., 1977.
Nader, Ralph, and John Abbotts. Menace of Atomic Energy. Paperback ed. Norton, W.W. & Co., Inc.,. 1979.	You and Your Pension (with Kate Blackwell)
The Consumer and Corporate Accountability	In Pursuit of Justice
Corporate Power in America (with Mark Green) Penguin Books, 1977.	Ralph Nader Congress Project
Ralph Nader Presents: A Citizen's Guide to Lobbying	Verdicts on Lawyers
Who's Poisoning America (with Ronald Brownstein and John Richard)	The Big Boys (with William Taylor)
Nader, Ralph, and Wesley J. Smith. Winning the Insurance Game: the Complete Consumer's Guide to Saving Money. Hardcover ed. Knightsbridge Pub., 1990.	Nader, Ralph, and Clarence Ditlow. Lemon Book: Auto Rights. 3rd ed. Asphodel Pr., 1990.
Nader, Ralph, and Wesley J. Smith. Collision Course: the Truth About Airline Safety. 1st ed. McGraw-Hill Co., 1993.	"Children First! A Parent's Guide to Fighting Corporate Predators" (with Linda Coco) Corporate Accountability Research Group, 1996.
Nader, Ralph, and Wesley J. Smith. No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America. Hardcover ed. Random House Pub. Group, 1996.	Canada Firsts (with Nadia Milleron and Duff Conacher)
The Frugal Shopper (with Wesley J. Smith. )	Getting the Best from Your Doctor (with Wesley J. Smith. )
Nader on Australia	Nader, Ralph. Cutting Corporate Welfare. Paperback ed. Open Media, 2000.
The Ralph Nader Reader. Seven Stories Press, 2000. ISBN 1-58322-057-7	Crashing the Party, 2002. ISBN 0-312-28433-0 [1]
Civic Arousal Paperback ed. Harper Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-06-079325-2	"It Happened in the Kitchen: Recipes for Food and Thought"
"Why Women Pay More" (with Frances Cerra Whittelsley)	Nader, Ralph. The Good Fight: Declare Your Independence and Close the Democracy Gap. Paperback ed. Harper Collins Pub., 2004. ISBN 0-06-077955-1
"The Seventeen Traditions" Regan Books, 2007. ISBN 0-06-123827-9	Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change by Mike Gravel, 2008. Foreword by Ralph Nader.
Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! Seven Stories Press, 2009. ISBN 1-58322-903-5	Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism Common Courage Press, 2011.
The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future HarperCollins, 2012.	Told You So: The Big Book of Weekly Columns. Seven Stories Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1-60980-474-9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_Ralph_Nader

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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