Banks Love Layoffs

I’m broke. You know you’re broke when you walk pass the Lotto stand and see petty gamblers waiting in line to buy tickets. Hope is the operating word. They scratch the ticket, hope, scratch the ticket, hope again, scratch until hope walks out in a rage.

Banks don’t scratch. They get good news alerts that a certain industry has laid off 3,000 workers. The computer magically pulls out names of people who bought their ‘homes’ by borrowing money and the interest they’ve paid so far. Yes interest. Monthly payments are interest, not actual numbers to shave off the $440 000 loan.

Banks don’t scratch. They capitalize on amnesia. We buy houses based on swimming pools and number of rooms. Banks give us loans based on the land the structure sits on, despite possible danger from mother nature, like the January floods in Santa Barbara California. Montecito, a wealthy suburb was also massacred by heavy rain.  Banks made a note, but Montecito will still be prime land after the clean-up.

Amnesia is totally our fault. We know there’s a difference between home and property, but somehow we get carried away with the plum job that made us buy a house we call home. Banks call it property and wait patiently like a tiger on a tree. We lose our jobs and they pounce, take away the house. 

Banks don’t scratch. They buy land.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.