February 22, 2004
Jesus said, "Don't Do Nothin' Fer The Poor."
This is from a letter sent to H&R Block by Consumers Union:According to your website, a Refund Anticipation Loan takes approximately two days. If the same consumer filed her taxes electronically and had the funds deposited directly into her bank account, she could receive the funds in approximately ten days. Therefore the consumer pays these high fees to receive her refund eight days earlier. According to a recent report by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and Consumer Federation of America (CFA), the fee for a RAL for a $1,900 tax return, the average federal tax return in 2000, is $74.95. The interest rate on such a transaction calculated as an annual percentage interest rate is 149.9%.One hundred and fifty percent! Square that with the Bible, dingers. You read the Bible literally until it conflicts with some other dearly held mythology like, f'r instance, capitalism. The H&Rat Bastard tax preparers are plumpin' their profits by fuckin' low wage workers. But iss OK, cuz I remember Jesus sayin, "Screw the least among you, for God don't like 'em much anyways."
ACORN has a petition to stop these practices which reads, in part:
Arranging to loan people the money they are owed back by the government for a week or two at triple digit interest rates is predatory; aggressively promoting products which skim off hundreds of millions of dollars which are supposed to go to low wage workers is unconscionable.I just became the 599th person to sign. We can do better than that, peebles.
Sign the petition and spread the word. Purty please. And have a look see at ACORN. They're doin' good work, and doin' it by organizing.
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Help California's homeless mentally ill. Help yourself. Search this site Use Edit|Find to scan page. My Manifesto "For Progressives: What We're Gonna Do" A blueprint for progress while confined to a two-party system. Fat Poppa's (Phaedrus') Political Ditties (mp3s) Me on the harp and vocals "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty." "There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility." Edward R. Murrow "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are Conservatives." John Stuart Mill And if ya listen ta Rush Dimbulb . . . . 
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Search4Blogs The Me What I Am I took the name Phaedrus from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not that I'm as smart as that Phaedrus, but I am a ghost. Sort of. I started doing odd jobs at a motel when I was 14. I lasted one day at a McDonald's, quit, lasted a lot longer at Taco Bell. I've been a gas station attendant, janitor, die cast production worker, day laborer, course maintenance at a miniature golf course, warehouse, union janitor, cabbie, statistical clerk, pool cleaner, working homeless for a few weeks (day labor), and several other things I can't remember. And I've survived. Sort of. I'm not a Marxist, but I am a genuine member of the lumpen proletariat. Largely paraphrasing the secular saint Woody Guthrie: "This shit is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 000000 (cuz this part's not true), for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught using it without my permission, will be considered mighty good friends o' mine, cause I don't give a dern. Publish it. Twist it. Rewrite it. Swing to it. I wrote it, that's all I wanted to do."  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |