Of Credit cards

Credit cards. Plastic money. Love those things. No need to carry bundles of green paper on person. No need to even have money in the first place. Just buy stuff on credit. Helping the common man to shop more, to spend more, to become more consumeristic. Helping the retail chain to make millions. Hats off to the individual who invented this concept. I think that Mr. Sam Walton (his relatives now) owes this person half his fortune.

The problem is not in the concept itself but in the way it is being used. People don't realise that they are borrowing money to pay for things. So they go ahead and buy things for which they can't pay for. And once you don't pay your bills in time, you are ruined. Your interest rates go higher, so you actually pay more for the same amount you borrowed, your credit history goes bad, so you can't borrow any further and a host of other things. The problem is at such a large scale that there are professional companies that help/advise people to reduce their credit. So you end up paying money to a company to help you reduce the credit that you accrued because of not having money in the first place.

Quoting from a Shania Twain song "Ka-ching"
"We've created us a credit card mess, We spend the money that we don't possess
Our religion is to go and blow it all, So it's shoppin' every Sunday at the mall."...

"When you're broke go and get a loan, Take out another mortgage on your home.
Consolidate so you can afford, To go and spend some more whenyou get bored."

If the credit cards were used just as substitute for cash....Ah yes like debit cards. But now how many of us do that? One would think that since it is a profitable business for the credit card lenders, getting a credit card would be easy. Well think again, because it is tougher than climbing Mt. Everest unless one has a good credit history, implying, if you want to borrow money, show proof that you have borrowed before (and returned the money of course). And once you get a company's card, the marketing guys from that company or their BPO office will get you to enrol in every possible scheme.

Some of the tricks that i have myself faced :- A call at 9:00 AM when you are leaving for office and don't have time to have cereal. The caller(trained to talk fast and in an incomprehensible manner) will ask you if he/she can send you some brochures. Since you hardly want to hear him, you will say yes in a hurry and three days later you will find a letter in the mail, saying that you have been enrolled in a trial program, which if not cancelled within 30 days, will make you pay $30/ month.

Another common trick is to send you a check of 20 or 30 dollars. If you are careful enough to turn the check around you will notice that it says in type 4 font that cashing this check will enrol you in the program that the marketing guy had called about. Of course there are hundreds of plans under different names, and different people will call you at different times too. So if you make the mistake even once, the company has made its money.

I would like to use cash or checks all the time, but some things just can't be done with them (online shopping). Credit cards. Love them, hate them. Whatever you do, if you use them, don't forget to pay your bills on time.

Unfathomable: Brain or Universe

The nature of man (homo sapiens sapiens) to give structure and sense to all things around him, has made him question and understand the universe for eons. Though much has been unravelled and understood, the rabbit hole has just kept getting deeper. We still don't know how much we don't know. We don't know for certain about the starting of the universe, its evolution, or its end. We don't know whether there are life forms (as we know it), anywhere else apart from the blue planet. We don't even know whether the other species on this planet have attempted to answer these questions and whether we can ever learn something from them, since they have been around longer. The complexity of the Universe is unquestionable and even difficult to percieve.

Our ability to question, think and understand the processes around us depends on our brain. The Brain makes us see that the sky is blue, makes us think that there might be life in outer space, that happiness and sadness are two different emotions. It allows one to dream, hallucinate, believe, cry, smile, write, read, .....the brain makes us believe we have a brain and its the most important organ (too recursive?). Isn't it the Brain that gives us a perception of a Universe in the first place? There are 6.5 billion people in this world and 6.5 billion universes that their brains have created for them ?. The Brain and its functioning remain as much shrouded in mystery as the Universe itself.

Though it is difficult to consider the brain as a separate system outside of the Universe, how do we then resolve the issue that the Universe is, as seen by the Brain? If we consider them as two different systems, then which one is more complex? Can a less complex system fully understand the workings of a far more complex system? Can a subsystem understand the whole? Is the Brain a subsystem of the Universe or vice versa? Is the Universe more complex than the Brain or vice versa?

Welcome

Read my ramblings at your own risk!