Credit Card Interest Rates to Trend Higher

[Joanne98]

Amidst the continuing stream of bad news about volcano eruptions, a worldwide string of earthquakes, and Tiger Wood’s marital woes, one piece of news, which may have much more far-reaching implications for Americans, has gone all but unnoticed: interest rates on mortgages, credit cards and other types of consumer loans are set to go higher.

We’re not talking about a temporary spike in rates. Rather, economists, who don’t often agree on many things, almost all agree that the golden age of easy credit, which Americans have enjoyed for the past several decades, is drawing to an end.

For most anyone born after 1980, it’s hard to imagine that barely 30 years ago, 30-year mortgage rates stood at 18.2 percent, more than three times as much as the current rates, which lie just above 5 percent.

Since 1981, interest rates have been steadily declining, fueling a partly credit-driven economic boon. Buoyed by easy and cheap credit, American consumers have enjoyed increasingly affluent lifestyles with only modest increases in income. Now, however, according economists, the time has come to pay the pied piper. The combination of high deficits, our nation’s burgeoning debt, a continuing weak economy, a weaker dollar, and renewed fears of inflation all combine to push interest rates higher—even as the Fed Funds rate has held mostly steady at record lows for more than a year.

http://www.creditcardguide.com/creditcards/credit-cards-general/credit-card-interest-rates-trend-higher-259/

[Paper Roses]

1. You'll be glad to hear that B of A wants me to transfer any balances

I have from any other Credit Card to them for a year at 2.9%. Then it will go up to whatever they are charging at the time it expires. What a farce. I am thankful I only have one credit card active and don't owe them much. My bank advised me to take my meager savings and pay off a Chase card I had that was charging me $25.00 a month on my balance. I was getting only about 1% from the savings account.

Now I have very little savings but I guess it is better in the long run.

If I get sick, forget it, I'll jump off a bridge. I cannot believe how far we have sunk.

My new mantra. "I will not charge."