If you read my blog from time to time, you know that I am prone to occasional spouts of opinion in matters about which I have no particular expertise or knowledge. Today’s post may be one more in that series. I don’t know much about economics in general. I don’t understand all of the nuances and dynamics of the eurozone. I don’t know much about the history of modern Greece (although I do know a bit of its ancient history). I don’t know the rules of the European Central Bank.

Furthermore, there are plenty of pundits and economists with a lot to say about Greece. You can find out a great deal more about Eurogroup and IMF and VAT by reading other writers.

Here is what I do know: I have worked with a lot of people who have very little money who have gotten themselves behind the curve to creditors. I have enough experience to know that blaming the debtor is rarely a solution. I have seen enough cases to be suspicious of those who call for austerity.

Here is what happens in our neck of the woods. People with very small incomes run short of cash. That’s pretty easy to do. The purchasing power of a minimum wage job has gone backwards at a pretty steady pace since 1980. There are plenty of people who are working two or more jobs and still don’t have enough income to make ends meet. They might have enough for rent and groceries, but then something happens - a car repair, a trip to the doctor’s office or the emergency room, a family funeral that requires travel out of town and missed days from work - and suddenly they don’t have enough money to meet their obligations. Because of the low income, they don’t have a line of credit and don’t qualify for conventional borrowing. So they turn to a pawn shop if they happen to have something of value that can be pawned, or to a car title lender if they happen to have a car title, or to a payday lender. These lenders charge exorbitant interest rates which means that it is nearly impossible to get them paid off.

Another scenario: a furniture store in our town regularly advertises “0% interest, $0 down, 3 (or 4) years to pay.” The fine print in their contract has all kinds of interesting penalties, however. If the loan isn’t repaid in full on the day due, the entire amount of the loan is subject to more than 20% interest. That’s right, if the people owe $1 on the last day of the term of the loan, the next day they’ll find they owe thousands. And it is easy for them to end up owning money because there are loan origination fees and other charges built into the loan which means that the final payment is higher than the previous payments. People believe in good faith that they have met the terms of the loan only to find out that they had signed a contract with terms of which they were unaware.

Banks charge outrageous overdraft fees. I’m not condoning writing checks when you don’t have the money. But I know that banks routinely set up lines of credit for their credit-worthy customers, or create auto transfer systems for checking accounts for customers who have multiple accounts. The ones who get stuck paying the high fees are almost always the ones who can least afford to pay the penalty. Lenders often justify this upside down system by saying that there is more risk involved in loans to people who have less income. However, micro lenders report that in fact the poorest people not only borrow the smallest amounts of money but are far less likely to default on loans that those who are rich.

You can say what you want about all of these things - and mostly you should understand that there are terrible ways to borrow money - but the bottom line is that people who get caught in these schemes usually feel that they don’t have other options. They find themselves backed into a corner and unable to have the things they want or need and try to figure out how to solve their problems.

As someone who occasionally listens to the stories of the people in these situations, I know that it isn’t the wealthy in our community who are taken in by these plans - they have access to reasonably priced credit when they need to borrow money. In our town it is the people who are barely getting by - often those described as the working poor - who end up paying the high fees that make the money lenders even more wealthy.

This isn’t a new problem. It was an issue in Biblical times. In the book of Ezekiel, charging interest is closed as being among the worst sins. Ezekiel calls it an abomination and portrays usurers as people who have shed blood.

I don’t know if any of this applies to the credit woes of Greece. But I do know that in any society austerity measures work to the advantage of the richest in the society and the disadvantage of those who have the least. Years of austerity measures virtually always results in a widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. The solutions being proposed virtually all share one thing in common - they aren’t good for the poorest of Greece’s people.

It is certain that the rulers of Greece and the bureaucrats of the European Union and international financial institutions will not be turning to me for advice on this situation. I don’t think I have answers if they did. But it seems to me that it would be good for business for potential customers to have enough money to make purchases. Giving more money to the rich isn’t going to make that happen. A little relief for those who are least able to pay would be better for the economy than increasing the benefits to the most wealthy.

FINAL NOTE - Don’t turn to your minister for financial advice. There are those who are much more qualified!

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