Current economic worries focus on predatory lending to sub-prime borrowers in the housing market. That’s certainly a serious problem. But it pales compared to the likely consequences of predatory lending to sub-prime borrowers in the credit card market. You might not know anyone threatened with loss of a home because they should never have qualified for a mortgage in the first place. But you almost certainly know a dozen sub-prime credit card borrowers walking around with $30,000—$40,000 in plastic in their pockets who will never be able to repay this debt. Some of these borrowers will succumb to American-style peonage quietly. But as the following poem, rendered in the style of Henley’s immortal "Invictus" suggests, many others will go down spending...

Debt Rictus
(A heroic debtor’s
last hurrah)

Sunk in the pit of sub-prime debt,
Hounded by dunners night and day,
I’ve still some cards that ain’t maxed yet,
I still the shopper’s game can play.

In the fell clutch of usurers,
Whose kinky fees have brought me rue,
Is it a wonder I demures,
And plan to redirect the screw?

I know my debt woes will ne’er cease,
I’ll ne’er escape through bankruptcy,
These days no court provides release,
They’ve taken that way out for me.

No longer master of my fate,
No more the captain of my cash,
Soon I’ll pass through the peon’s gate,
But until then—a plastic bash!

*******