The Second Front against the Working Class: Congress is about to pass a bill to curtail working people's abilities to protect themselves, by limitting our chances of being able to escape credit card debt by declaring bankruptcy.

Most of the bankruptcy cases initiated to escape credit card debt are the result of medical emergencies, job loss, and divorce, catastrophic events in real people's lives. The banks would have us believe that wastrel consumers are running amuk in the malls, or perhaps downloading tons of porn.

Don't feel sorry for the banks/credit card companies. They are awash in cash, so much so that they make the cash rich oil companies look like pikers. A quarter of a century later (that's 25 years), we're still waiting for that "trickle down economy" thing to kick in.

The ownership society: Both of my grandfathers worked in the coal mines in the good old days. That was an ownership society. Workers were private contractors, forced to purchase all their own tools and goods, including food, from the company owned store. They were perpetually in debt and unable to extract themselves from their jobs with the mine owners.

In the south, sharecroppers were in the same situation. You contracted with a large landowner to raise crops on his land. He got rich off your labor while your debt to him grew in perpetuity. The landowner was assured of cheap labor forever without any responsibilty for his workforce. The forces at play here are the same as in that "by-gone day."

And you say you don't believe in vampires. (Insert incredulous facial expression here.)