Herbert: Caught in the Credit Card Vise

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/opinion/22HERB.html

I'm still paying for groceries I bought for my family years ago," said Julie Pickett.

She meant it literally. Mrs. Pickett and her husband, Jerry, of Middletown, Ohio, are trapped in the iron grasp of credit card debt. Except for the fact that no one is threatening to damage their kneecaps, they're in the same dismal position as the classic victim of loan-sharking.

People used to get thrown in jail for the very things credit card companies can now do legally. While banks and money markets are paying pittances in interest, it's common for the annual percentage rate on your friendly Visa or Mastercard to approach 30 percent.

This used to be called usury.

<snip>

Families like the Picketts are indeed responsible for the payment of their debts. But the credit card companies are engaged in one of the many big-time legalized rackets that are flourishing in this age of deregulation. The Picketts are profiled in a new report, titled "Borrowing to Make Ends Meet," by a nonpartisan public policy group called Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action.

[MercutioATC]

1. Spend responsibly and this isn't an issue.

Customers of credit companies know the deal. If they choose to spend beyond their means, how is it the credit companies' fault?

[Girlfriday]

2. Seems to me...

that if you are reduced to buying groceries with a credit card, your hurting, bad! I feel sorry for them.

[MercutioATC]

3. I do too, but if they really NEEDED to buy groceries with a CC,

the alternative was starving. Seems to me it's a good thing the credit card company was around.

[The Zanti Regent]

4. Herbert still sees nothing wrong in loansharking

His pro-deregulation BS makes me sick

[RamboLiberal]

5. Excuse me - this article sure doesn't read like he's in favor of letting

these credit card companies get away with loansharking rates.

Could you give me an article of Herberts where he argues with letting these sharks get away with it?

[Charlls]

6. ironic....

that usury was decriminalized and they managed to do it so no one realized when that occured....


Thats what i call "public's opinion management"

[Skittles]

7. gawd

I've never paid a cent in interest on a credit card and I swear I would sh** bricks if I had to. I have some sort of phobia about debt.