Coco on the Credit Crisis

The talking point of the week is that one in twenty Americans are behind on credit payments at the moment. Conservative pundits are blaming the consumer and the education system that fails to teach basic financial common sense.

I wish to bark in on this issue.

I blame the banks.

I say the banks are at fault. They were so intoxicated with the ability to make money from credit default swaps and derivatives that they failed to realize the loans they made were bad.

Anyway, for the bank clerk charged with credit approval process, I've made a list of indications that should watch for when approving credit.

1. The application gives the location of a bowl, and not a house address.
2. The blanks for the three references have a really smelly stain in lieu of names.
3. I realize that banks are not allowed to do social profiling, but if the applicant has only a first name and that first name is something like "Fido," "Fang," or "Coco."
4. The application lists a rabies ID tag in the place of a social security number.
5. The smudge on the signature line is a paw print.
6. and the card is used to make extremely large purchases from the pet store.

When the above criteria are true, the bank should simply accept that they issued a credit card to a dog. Furthermore, any bank lending money to a dog should not expect to see their money returned.

Finally, in this dog eat bank world, any bank foolish enough to have made loans to a dog should take the money lost out of executive bonuses before crawling to the government for bailouts.

It's basic common sense: If you give a dog a bone; it will get chewed up. If you give a dog a loan; it will get chewed up as well. But, who am I to say. I am just a dog.