Glenn Reynolds has a piece on the current bankruptcy bill before Congress. He sees it as nothing more than a giveaway to the credit card companies, which wouldn’t be surprising. I’m getting at least one credit card offer in the mail per day (Note to BankOne and CapitalOne – No I don’t want your cards. The 500th mailing won’t change my mind either…) If one actually accepted those “pre-approved offers” one could easily get in over their heads in a very rapid amount of time.
I can understand the desire to make easy access to credit part of the ownership society — having credit is A Good Thing™. However, giving credit to people who can’t handle it is most certainly not. We’re already seeing too many bankruptcies and too many people who are getting too much credit. Companies that prey on consumers (I’m looking at you, Mr. Payday Loan Companies…) only increase the number of bankruptcies and ruin credit histories. There’s nothing illegitimate or non-conservative about Congress not letting banks and lending companies screw consumers over. Congress should kill this bill in order to ensure that consumer rights are protected.
Congress should kill this bill in order to ensure that consumer rights are protected.
That would be a start; it’s time to start regulating bank/credit card fee structures, too.
But the problem isn’t people losing their heads in the presence of a new credit card; 50% of the personal backrupcies in America are due to medical expenses; half of those are to people who have insurance. There’s an awful lot of corporate business models that involve charging you money to provide nothing at all – like insurance companies that charge premiums but don’t pay out claims – and as long as those are the people to whom our politicians listen, we have not a democracy but a kleptocracy.
Maybe a bill should be passed to stop this junk mail from credit card companies. I really get sick of it too.