Credit-Card Swipe Fees: Protect Consumers

Posted on March 10, 2024 by msw blog

I love the Op-Ed section of the paper. I believe we all need to write at least one letter on something we’re passionate about in our lifetime. In saying that, I applaud this reader

The average American family incurs over $1,000 in additional expenses annually due to inflated prices resulting from credit card swipe fees. These fees, which can be as much as 3.5%, disproportionately affect middle- and lower-income families.

Visa and Mastercard have over 80% of the credit card market share. This control allows them to increase swipe fees at their discretion. These fees compel businesses, nonprofits and health care providers to raise prices for their products and services.

The Credit Card Competition Act, a bill in Congress, addresses this problem. This bipartisan act would require that credit cards issued by the nation’s largest banks be enabled to be processed over at least two unaffiliated networks — Visa or Mastercard plus an independent network. The availability of more affordable alternatives to process credit cards would incentivize Visa and Mastercard to maintain reasonable swipe fee rates to remain competitive in a free market.

Many Americans are struggling with the impact of high inflation and high interest rates on their household budgets. Congress can do something to help by passing the Credit Card Competition Act.

Richard Kromm, Seattle

Posted in Reading | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Last Moment of Self-Care

Posted on March 10, 2024 by msw blog

Last moment of self-care…whenever I exercise. I try to four times a week. Getting a sweat, hitting a certain heart rate so you feel like you’re getting a little renewal. Prayer, meditation, reading scripture. That’s all very much self-care for me as well. – Danai Gurira

  Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something…

Posted in Reflections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Family Boundaries

Posted on March 9, 2024 by msw blog

 My son revealed to me that years ago, an older male family member propositioned him to have sex.

This apparently took place at a holiday dinner where some heavy drinking had occurred (which was not unusual), and after his father and I had left.

My son confronted this person two years ago, and it didn’t go well.

The family member appeared truly shocked and denied all involvement.

At first, he was open to discussion, but then became very angry and lashed out.

My son has cut off all contact with him.

This has caused me a lot of pain and confusion.

I find it very hard to reconcile this person’s behavior with the person I know, but I can clearly see that my son has been traumatized.

We have a small extended family and he’s an only child, so I truly wish there could be reconciliation.

Is it wrong of me to want him to forgive this family member and have some semblance of a relationship going forward?

How should my son go about it– Mother in the Middle

You should not ask me how your son should forgive this family member who propositioned him. Forgiveness cannot be forced through the pressure of a third party.

Furthermore, this family member has not explained, acknowledged or apologized for this incident; in fact, he is aggressively denying it.

Sexual aggressors rarely own up to their behavior or acknowledge the devastating impact on others. This defiance and denial does not lay the groundwork toward forgiveness and reconciliation.

I think you should examine your own motives for basically wanting this to go away. You say your son is clearly traumatized. You seem to believe his account of what happened. And yet you also seem eager to use the concept of forgiveness in order to sweep this episode under the rug, mainly to ease your own discomfort.

Your son doesn’t seem to be asking you to cut all ties with this family member, but his trauma might be more manageable if he knows that his mother is in his corner, and not expecting him to do something that right now might seem impossible.

Take your son’s anguish seriously, and urge him to seek professional therapeutic help in order to process this disturbing episode.

Posted in Clinical Supervision, Reading | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

We Are What We Eat

Posted on March 9, 2024 by msw blog

When is food ever just food? My answer: never.

No matter what you are eating, there is always something else … there. The people who grew it or made it. The memories you have from your past, the hopes for your future.

Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something…  

Posted in Reflections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I am sorry but…

Posted on March 8, 2024 by msw blog

Soaking Dishes in the Sink

Your ability to make life more difficult is unmatchable. If an easy solution is available—and I mean a mind-numbingly obvious one—you decide that maybe the fix can’t be so simple and that you’d better let things marinate for a few days, at which point, yes, they’ve now become the nasty thing that you imagined, seeped in a rancid cesspool of indecision and procrastination (and, literally, rotting food). By the time you get ready to take any form of action, someone has come along and done the cleanup for you, which is what you wanted all along.

Letting Unopened Mail Pile Up

Typically, you are one of those people who doesn’t check voicemessages because they make you anxious. You have an extreme fear of the unknown and are marginally equipped to navigate adult life. Like the Soaker, you avoid making decisions, but, rather than acknowledge problems and put off solving them, you delay identifying the issues altogether until you have no choice—because, well, you’ve run out of places to eat your breakfast. Besides, if a bill is mailed and no one is there to open it, does it even exist?

Posted in DIY💭 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments