Put a cap in place to keep the big banks from taking advantage of those with poor credit. Predatory lending needs to be regulated. RIght now any state that wants to remove all the regulation on interest caps can, and no matter what your state has in place to protect you, you can be charged that rate. People should not have to pay 30% APR, thats loan sharking.
Put a National Cap on interest that banks and Credit Cards can charge
Tags: credit cards
Comments (4)
The government needs to stay out of our personal business and this means with banking and with credit cards. No one HAS TO USE CREDIT CARDS. If credit cards are charging too much in interest, cut them up, pay them off and don't use them anymore.
Buying things we don't have the money for, borrowing money we cannot pay back are the reasons this country is BROKE. If this country were a person, it would be bankrupt. In fact, we are bankrupt. We are borrowing money from ourselves. We are monetizing our debt. This means in a few months we are going to see astronomical inflation. Perhaps hyperinflation. Do you want to pay $10 for a loaf of bread? Well get ready to do it. And you can thank President Obama for this. He cannot blame it on President Bush. This is HIS policies that have done it to us. Remember this post. And remember these words.
Cathy you are a bit unrealistic, credit cards are allowed to lure millions of Americans in with a 9% APR then if you make a late payment start charging 30%APR. Your right no one is making them use them, but you are also are thinking of this form a privileged point of view. Many are too poor to have health insurence and if someone in there family has a medical emergency they might have to use credit to get by. What if you lost your job, like many other have now, and can not afford to feed your family between jobs? In some states(Indiana for example) the unemployment money has run out and is not being paid out to all. Is it so much to ask to put a 25% cap on interest? Is that not to greedy? Are you in favor of removing other loan sharking laws? Why should big business be allowed to take advantage of people, yet you blame Obama for the greed of big business. I think its funny that you blame others and claim that in 6 months he killed the economy. Corporate greed killed the economy. Look at GM, a company that has 1.5 million car sales a year, but is losing billions because they thought they had to keep growing? At any rate this is an unrelated discussion and I feel you are using the comment section as a place to post other ideas. No one said a word about buying things, please start your own post about that, and we can discuss it further.
Interest rates are the price of credit. If you support government price ceilings, you don't understand how markets work.
I will teach you.
The laws of demand and supply are:
- All other things being equal, the quantity demanded of a good will be inversely proportional to the price.
- All other things being equal, the quantity supplied of a good will be proportional to the price.
These laws are intuitively true.
So we have a "demand curve," which is downsloping, and a "supply curve," which is upsloping. The point where these curves intersect is the market price, or "equilibrium price." It is the price at which suppliers will be willing to sell exactly as much as consumers are willing to buy.
If the government sets a price ceiling which is above the equilibrium price, it will have no effect. If the government sets a price ceiling which is below the equilibrium price, it will create a permanent shortage, because at the lower price, less will be supplied and more will be demanded. Black markets will emerge. Conversely, a price floor which is too low will create a permanent surplus.
Interest rates need to go up right now. We have been spending too much and saving too little. Production needs to match consumption, and people need an incentive to save.
I don't think it's greedy to charge a high interest rate to someone with poor credit; it's wise. Incentives to give mortgages to people with poor credit were a major cause of the current financial mess. You think high interest rates are caused by "corporate greed," but they are determined by market forces, like the cost of everything else. Banks compete, and consumers will apply for and keep the credit card with the lowest interest rate, or a somewhat higher interest rate with a lower annual fee, or a rewards program. Whatever they judge best.
Do you understand this? Corporations do not "take advantage of people," because they can only engage in voluntary transactions. Voluntary transactions which do not benefit both parties do not occur, because no one would consent to a transaction that did not benefit them.
Gee another good idea that should have been implemented in the recent Credit Card Holders Bill Rights. Why wasn't a interest cap added to this bill? I understand it was taken out for some reason that was NOT beneficial to the American people but instead benefits the Credit Card Companies. I thought this bill was suppose to HELP the American people not help the credit cards companies gouge Americans with predatory interest rate hikes. Which is exactly what they all are doing. Credit Card Companies should have NEVER been deregulated in the lst place just like the Mortgage Industry should have NEVER been deregulated to allow creation of criminal Sub Prime/NINJA Adjustable ARMS Mortgage Loans. Credit Card Companies should not get more that 12% interest EVER any more would be criminal robbery of the American people.