A Consumer Rip-Off: Credit Cards

Credit cards for the most part are a consumer rip-off. Some companies charge the credit card holder an annual fee for having the credit card, charge the vendor a fee (usually a percentage of the amount placed on the credit card), and then proceed to assess the credit card holder an outrageously high interest percentage when making monthly payments. Some of the minimum payments on these credit cards are such that a person may never pay off the principal amount on the debt.
Many people have created an entire life-style dependent upon their credit cards, racking up debt after debt after debt. These consumers have actually built minimum payments into their family finances. They figure they already had been making that amount of payment in the past, so why not just build that payment into present and future monthly bill payments. Now, with that kind of attitude, how would anyone ever get out of debt???!!!! DUMB, DUMB, DUMB. And, that is just what the credit card companies and banks want and play upon.
Credit card companies and banks love to prey upon people and practically beg people to take another credit card and start accumulating even more debt. I don't know about anyone else, but I am sick and tired of being deluged with unsolicited requests to sign up for credit cards.
Bankruptcies are at an all-time high. While the consumer bears the biggest share of blame for that, I fault the banking industry for encouraging and enabling financial mismanagement by consumers. The banks, credit card companies, lending institutions, and others have pounded it into our heads that we need no more than to get a credit card, take out an adjustable-rate mortgage with balloon payments, take out a home-loan or second mortgage to pay bills, lease a car or purchase at a low-monthly rate (they hardly ever advertise the purchase price itself anymore), go to the local payday loan company, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum.
NUFF for now cuz my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.
For more about credit cards, visit these two specific entries on
Hooda Thunkit's Therapy Blog
and
Judy's Jewels.