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Alabama Couple Wants World Bank to Forgive Their Credit Card Debt
After hearing about the Group of 8's plan to erase at least $40 billion in debt owed by some of the world's poorest countries, a couple from Tocino, Alabama, is pressing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to cancel their credit card balance.
"If they can wipe the slate clean for heathen countries like Ethiopia and Ghana, why can't they cut us some slack on our lousy $14,000 Visa bill?" asked Billy Clemson from the front porch of the trailer where he lives with his wife, Lurlene, and their four children. Both the Clemsons were let go from their jobs at a local pig farm run by Puerco Industries, one of the largest pork suppliers in the U.S.
Lurlene, sitting next to him, said "It's not our fault the state shut us down because the runoff from our pig [expletive deleted] sewage pond was polluting the next county. Now we're just as poor as those Africans."
The Clemsons, who together earned about $19,000 a year with overtime, were unable to find work and found themselves quickly falling behind on their bills. And according to Lurlene, the timing of their job losses couldn't have been worse, as they had just been hit with a large medical bill.
"If I knew the layoff was coming, I never would have had the boob job in the first place," she said, dragging on her cigarette and looking quite fetching in her red tube top.
"She'd just had the left one done and then they fired us," Billy said. He insisted that they charge the right boob on their credit card. "I couldn't just leave her all lopsided like that," he said. "The neighborhood kids were starting to make fun of her."
"Children can be so cruel," Lurlene noted.
Wolfowitz released a statement saying he sympathized with the Clemsons' plight, but was unable to help. "Maybe if they could get Bono to lobby for them I could do something," Wolfowitz said. "But right now, they're just not a 'sexy' enough problem."
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and an advocate of debt forgiveness, could not be reached for comment.
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