Finally!

At long last someone seems to be poised to do something about the credit card companies. After years of bait and switch tactics, and billions in excess fees and usery, Obama appears to be calling for a another change for the good. Will it take? Probably not, at least not in any substantive and useful form.
But here's a bit of truth for the credit industry. I myself have some bad debt in my past (well, to judge from the letters that still show up, not so "past"), debt which I simply abandonned. Yeah, it was a bad thing to do, but I finally got to the point where I was tired of pouring money into the rathole and watching it all be absorbed by interest and fees. It was a perpetual money machine for them, and a crop-sharing arrangement for me. Nine years later, that debt might have been paid off had they been reasonable (the school loans are), but not the way things were structured then (and continue to be now for millions), and since that time they've amended the bankruptcy laws in their favor also, so there's no relief in that direction* either. End result: they get nothing except a bill for postage wasted on trying to get me to pay back amounts that are now two or three times what they once were, due to fees and interest. Guess what? It aint happening.

How many other people would be debt free now, and how much money would not be "bad" debt, were it not for the shackles of $35 "late" fees and 28% interest rates?

I'm thinking it's a lot.




* remind me to check my old statements some time and figure out just how much I borrowed versus how much I sent them.