A great comment

from Candorville...

"The Freeloader Myth
May 19th, 2009

More BS from the credit card companies. From the NY Times:

Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

Two things:
(a) I thought blackmail was illegal, and (b) those that manage their credit well will NOT be in any degree subsidizing those that have credit problems. The banks are trying to divide the middle class from the poor. Right now there’s a united front, a coalition of poor and middle class Americans who’re fed up with the credit card companies’ piracy. For the banks, it’s divide-and-conquer time or their ride on the gravy train is over. No, those that manage their credit well will not be subsidizing those who have credit problems. Those who have credit problems would ALSO be paying these new annual fees and the immediate interest, and they’d also lose their bonuses. What we would ALL be subsidizing are the banks’ profit margins.

In that article, they describe the responsible credit borrowers as “freeloaders” because they generate few fees while enjoying the benefits. But after years of sky-high interest rates giving the banks astronomical returns on the loans they make to the millions of Americans who can only afford to pay the minimum each month, I think most Americans know who the freeloaders are. "

Imagine, considering conscientious and disciplined borrowers as 'freeloaders'. They're saying that unless you behave as irresponsibly as they have been behaving, you're doing something that requires a penalty. My, how times have changed. Here's the article: Credit Card Industry Aims to Profit From Sterling Payers. I think it's time that governments the world over start to see banks as the rapacious bloodsuckers they really are and start to deal with them properly. Isn't the current economic crisis proof enough of their greed and exploitation?