I am not a fan of credit card companies. And frankly one of those I dislike the most is Citibank. And we are rescuing these robber barons?
I had been playing credit card roulette before my head injury. That is where you roll over your balance to the lowest interest rate whenever an offer shows up in your mail box. I had even developed a spread sheet to keep track of when the "introduction rate" would go up.
I had excellent credit and balance limits I figured I would never max out. I could have bought a Hummer and a vacation home with credit cards and not come close. Then the accident that altered my life. When I got conscious I realized my credit card companies were tripling my interest rate and charging me $25 to $35 late fees. I wrote all of them and explained my head injury and I would soon be back on top of things. They doubled my interest rate again.
Taking Oprah's advice I called them all and asked if they could lower my rate for six months to allow me to get a handle on things. Now mind you at that time I was not late on a single card. But two or three things had begun to transpired in the credit card business: make up for the low rates by changing high penalties for a single minute late, and shorten the day between mailing the statement and when it is due.
This last little trick since I live in a rural area and only get mail three days a week was deadly. I frequently got statements after the due date. So I switched to on line billing and payments. It was Citibank that developed this little ploy that you could not pay on line without a penalty within three days of the due date; they needed processing time. Or you could avoid the $30 penalty by paying them $10 for fast processing. Mind you I sat there one day with two windows open - one to their website and one to my bank and watched the money vanish from my account the minute I authorized payment.
Listening to my friend last night they evidently have not gotten better. Citibank just raised her interest from 10 to 24 percent because she called and asked about an auto loan. That is all it takes. Just have someone run a credit check on you. I give prospective renters the option to get a credit report for me to save them the predatory practices of credit card companies.
Some leaders of the congress have been trying to get a consumer bill of rights to restrict the activities of the credit card companies after Bush deregulated all banks. I say if we are going to give Citibank money they have to clean up their act. If they are going to stick to their same game plan I say let them fail.
I'm getting pretty sick of the give-aways myself...and now they want us to hand over some more. "There isn't any left: you guys took it all last time!"
ReplyDeleteIt's the "free market," as so many republicans and consevatives told us these past several years. If you fail, well, you fail. You have to learn to pick your own self up. Isn't it funny: now that we can say the exact same things to these business failures, they get the bailouts? I'm all for letting every single one of these fail due to their OWN bad decisions. And the ones left standing in the end need to be regulated. Heavily. (...the airlines could use some regulations too...) There's a reason why I don't think the free market needs THAT much freedom.
Of course, since this was pointed out to me, I've noticed how white-collar business is given a blank check, but the blue-collar ones are told to come back later, with a plan in hand. I'm not against plans, I'm all for it since the automakers made plenty of poor decisions too. I just think if one is going to be held accountable, shouldn't they all then?
Where Citi's plan? Other than hiking their fees and laying-off employees?
I think you pretty much summed up Citibank's plan in your last sentence. Mind you none of the CEO's are foregoing bonuses or golden parachutes.
ReplyDeleteCourse Bush says we need to bailout Citibank to free up the credit market. Frankly I think far too many of us were entirely too free with using credit. We need to learn to save up for what we want.
And there are those economists that say our pain would be less if we do let them all fail. We would go down quicker but also up faster. This way is just extending the pain.
But bailout or no I think they all have to let go of some things like deregulation and big bonuses. They have proven they cannot regulate themselves.
Oddly I was at the local library book sale recently and some of our emigrant Texan Republicans were holding sway on how Obama would ruin the country. I turned around and said, "Like Bush didn't?" You could have heard a pin drop on the carpet.
Oh no, gee forbid should the CEO's go without! And they gripe at us for not sacrificing enough.
ReplyDelete*applause* There's been plenty of times I would have loved to said such a thing...here in Texas! But, then, I realize that most of these yackity Republicans are the last ones to really realize what's going on...the rest of us have already figured it out.
Interesting, how it's already a failure and the new guy hasn't even been sworn in yet!
Citi kept buying and merging with everything in sight like a glutton and in the end choked on its own greed. The attitude is that these companies that export jobs to India can do no wrong. They'll do anything in this country including destroy this country rather than let the little guy have universal health care or an affordable house to live in.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet instead of punishing them for felonies the FBI is investigating we reward them by paying their bad debts and the executives continue to get the big bonuses.
ReplyDelete