Credit cards proudly NOT accepted here...

"By the end of 2007 Americans carried $937 billion in credit card debt - up $90 billion from 2006 according to CardTrak. The Federal Reserve reports that in just the first six weeks of 2008 consumers' revolving credit debt carried over month to month increased $68 billion."

I got my first credit card when I was 18 years old. I was a freshman in college and I still remember the really sweet looking woman at a folding table explaining to me that it didn't matter that I was a student and not currently employed, that establishing my credit and having a "safety net" for emergency expenses was reason enough to have a credit card. Her advice was probably sound for someone who understood the severity of monthly APR rates and finances charges, but I certainly didn't. And fairly quickly I used that card for "emergency expenses" like a road trip with friends up to Vancouver, BC and a whole slough of new clothes from the Bellis Fair Mall. It felt like a bonanza to have someone give me all that accessibility to money.

The debt I accrued on the card in the 6 months or so it took me to max out the $800 limit stuck with me the rest of my college career and with all the added interest probably ended up costing me thousands in the end. I wish I could say I learned my lesson and never took out another credit card, or that I maintain a card just for emergencies but in the ensuing 15 years I've gone through more cycles of debt and repayment than I care to mention. In my marriage we've gone through years of being debt free and many years of being saddled with big credit card payments. We've done balance transfers and taken people up on the "0% until..." offers all in attempts to juggle payments and outsmart those sometimes astronomical charages and rates.

I know that no one holds a gun to America's head and says spend money on this card or else!, but there really is a lot to be angry at credit card companies for. They have facilitated a culture of instant gratification in under 25 years, since credit cards have only been in widespread use since the early 1980's. The reason for the sudden increase was the perfect storm, it seems, between the rise in standard of living which gave everybody more personal income, the increased availability of consumer goods and the new and improved prowess of marketers to shape consumer desires, but also the fact that the credit card companies found a giant loophole in the law that allowed them freedom from government regulations on controlled national interest rates simply by relocating to states like South Dakota and Delware that had repealed their anti-usury laws (which maintained a set interest rate.) This meant that credit card companies could suddenly make ALOT more money (credit cards are the most profitable part of the banking industry) and more and more companies started springing up and preying on consumers. I say prey because another aspect of the giant loophole is that credit card companies suddenly had carte blanche to control the way the game is played. They can change their terms without regard to the consumer and with no warning. Their interest rates remain unregulated and they can make unreasonable rules such as doubling a consumer's interest rate overnight for being hours late on one payment.

The cards are heavily stacked in favor of the big credit companies and for that reason I am saying a big thank you to Obama and our lovely democratic congress for passing legislation today to begin to hold the credit card industry accountable for their practices. In a nutshell the new bill will work to protect consumers by requiring credit card companies to give credit card holders 45 days notice before their rates change and by helping to prevent people under age 21 from obtaining cards so ridiculously easy. Maybe by the time Cleo is cruising around a college campus that lady at the folding table won't be lying in wait for her too.

If you are curious about the true nature of credit card companies you should check out a great piece produced by Frontline and the New York Times a few years back called Secret History of Credit Cards and happily when I just searched for it I found it is available to view for free online. Check it out at the above link. It is definitely revealing and makes you want to cut your cards up right quick.