Taking your Bankers for a Ride

This article is short, sweet, and not all that deep—perfect for it to appeal to a mass of readers.

I like it because I'm sick of reading all the articles of how credit-card companies are robbing us and how banks are robbing us with their fees and how "poor us."

Enough.

Here is what a responsible person can do.

- Pay with your credit card all you want, but pay it all off and enjoy the various rewards programs available (HINT: Cash is always your best option).

- Keep your money in a high-yield savings account that earns between 4-5 percent.

Just those two things. It's a start, so if you don't do this already, master it before you move on to investing that money.

Credit Cards and such

There is so much out there on how terrible credit-card companies are, how they are basically scamming people out of so much money by creating fees and penalties that are suspect, sneaky, and downright tricky.

OK, I get it. I'm sick of it. People can keep bitching and complaining about how unfair it is. Or they can do something about it.

In this article about how credit-card companies refuse to change their ways (without fees, penalties, and obviously interest there would be no profit), there was a bit of sanity thrown in there:

"The costs people are concerned about, whether it's higher interest rates or fees for late payments, are within the control of the consumer," says Clayton of the bankers association. "They can avoid these fees and avoid interest rate increases. One of the challenges we have is getting across to people that this is a loan. If you pay it back, it doesn't cost you a cent."

Granted, that's a corporate-interest response, but it's still valid.

It is a loan. If you pay it back, it doesn't cost you a cent.

It always gets me thinking about the issue of taxes and Republicans—how so many people fear Big Government, how the government should stay out of "our" business as much as possible. Here is the thing: sometimes we need someone to save us from ourselves.

But people are stubborn and don't want to hear, and this kind of stuff will keep happening. If people only took the time to actually vote for leaders they can trust, then they could allow those same people to protect them from these kinds of problems. Things commonly filed under "saving us from ourselves."


OK that started in one place and ended up in a totally different one.

Minting money off poverty

This is the name of a heart-wrenching article over on MSN Money. Check it out here.

It's basically a bunch of stories of people who, once down on their luck, had only credit-card companies to turn to for help in getting through the day. It's extremely sad because these people come off as having no other choice but to go into debt to keep living day to day.

I should also note hear that, even though I haven't reviewed it, the topic of personal debt and how credit-card companies do their business should watch Max'd Out, a documentary about debt and how people get fucked over once they start in on that slippery slope without understanding the terms.

One thing I did notice about the stories in the article is that most of these people had a strike against them before debt started to screw them over. Most of them already had several children from a very young age. They were already on the brink, and then debt simply nudged them over the edge.

Cliche as it may be, this all goes back to education and the lack of it at the school level. Kids should be warned and protected from this kind of stuff, especially low-income kids. They simply won't be able to afford making mistakes like these. In college, I had a bunch of friends that probably went into credit-card debt and once they figured out how deep they were, probably just got scolded from their parents, who promptly paid it off, and then kept right on living. No sweat. That's how they learn about credit.

But if you don't have the money to learn the hard way, you enter into indentured servitude and wind up working the rest of your life to pay back all the interest and late charges. It's crazy.

One thing you have to listen to about Robert Kiyosaki is his point on educating young people in schools about financial matters. Why doesn't it happen?

As you read the article you'll realize that education in a more general sense is what's missing here.