Credit card firms try out new squeeze tactics

[justbroke]

I was a born and bred republican. After going through this, I never want to hear the word republican in my house. I realize what a bunch of self-serving crooks they are. Country first my ass. Whoever lines their pockets is who comes first. After all, it was these morons who passed the recent bk changes.

I don't disagree, but I also don't blame it on one party at all. The whole lot of Congress needs to be booted (period). The reason we have laws which protect the banks and big business, in general, is because we allow the Congress to receive large "donations" for their war chest and campaign so that they can stay in power. It's all about favors and a very very powerful lobby... no matter what the cause it.

I just ask everyone to remember who the "morons" actually are. Look at how your congressman/woman voted on the issues you care about. But many don't do this. Most only care about one party over another. Party affiliation means nothing to me. I've voted Democrats, Republicans and Independents... all in the same voting day.

For the record, the Senate Vote on the BAPCPA of 2005 was 74-25. Could the BAPCPA had been better, yes indeed... however a Democratic majority can't even pass a modification provision for bankruptcy judges to use.

Purposefully, I don't believe bankruptcy is the avenue to go after predatory lending or other issues related to financial services. If you use it for that, not everyone has access to bankruptcy and those types of remedies. Perhaps that's why the Senate couldn't get the mortgage modification clauses in the Code this year. Would make a good excuse, but I don't buy it.

I trust a used car dealer more than I trust anyone in Congress. At least you know the used car salesman is lying to you and, at least, you get to look under the hood and check out the car before driving it off the lot. With Congress, they can't even read a bill... or love to squeeze in things last minute, so that no one sees what they added or removed... until AIG is getting bonuses. Then they all get quiet like they didn't know how that got into the bill. Right. (FYI, the AIG bonuses are coming up again, and Congress already approved more than $250 million worth. Where is the outrage at CONGRESS... don't direct it at AIG.

Okay, I need to get off my soapbox because I'm frustrated with Congress and have been for years.

I did live in London (Ealing) for a while and yes, I generally liked living there more. Sure, I had a nice townhouse, but I didn't live in a McMansion. Sure, I made far more than any average person in my type of job, but I appreciated that and would always hang out with people from work. I didn't go to fancy restaurants. I hung out at the local pub, and then a nice Indian restaurant afterward. It taught me a lot about being American, what the world was like, and about being just a person. I also spent a lot of time in France.

The strangest thing, though, was my 100 pound deposit for my phone, because I was an "alien".

[momisery]

Growing up my Dad worked for the machine tool industry in a factory. There were 7 kids in the summers and 5 in the winters and Mom did not work! We had a modest home, and Dave saved up on his job alone to buy a FARM! We had about 80 acres and Dad bought cows and chickens and tractors mostly at farm sales and used. Back then I remember Dad working on his own cars in the backyard under a shade tree, or for more complex jobs in the garage. We had a freezer, washer and drying but did use the clothes line in the summer in the upper midwest. We did not have a ton of clothes but enough to go two weeks for each of us, and yes we did wear handme downs a little bit. We had a TV when most had one too. Mom did go to work in retail because she hated the farm. She bought a new car every three years to drive back and forth to work. She then bought brand new dining and living room furnature. A couple beds, repainted the inside of the house too. China, silver, an clothing. We dressed up pretty well back then for work even had a hat everyday for work. My point is that There is no way a man could work in a factory, raise 5 kids, and afford to buy a thing with CASH.. which is what we used! He made enough to buy a farm for gosh sakes and we only owed on the one car for only THREE years, and the farm for 15 years. Roll forward to today an the wages are so horrible that you can not live with 2 kids and not use 5-7 years to buy a car, 30 for our homes, and we have nothing in the bank and the factory no longer offers free healthcare and a pension. Any wonder why our nation is stuggleing? They blame it on us having to have it NOW.. but we pay for it for a longer period of time then we ever have and both people are working in a marriage nowdays instead of one. THINK back.. we are being ripped off by retailers and industry that want our tax breaks to outsource jobs so they can cut labor costs and increase their profit by selling the goods back to us the very people they don't want to pay! I do not blame the public, I blame greed. And of course the economic down turn hits and it is much worse this time because we allowed retailers, cc, banks and frankly anyone that wanted to turn a profit to rape the public freely. Years ago they stopped the sale of "snake medicine" meaning you could not misrepresent. Somehow Washington uses our freedom of speech to lie to us, and business uses laws with lowered regulations to destroy us. This is just starting, the boomers do not have the pension plans their parents had, nor the great economic times of the post war era. We had a recession in the late seventies early eighties and then the dotcom bust, and now this. The future does not look pretty to me and I do not blame the public, I blame the direction we are headed. For me.. I will not be using credit in the future... until they give me my bailout.

[justplaintired]

The future does not look pretty to me and I do not blame the public, I blame the direction we are headed. For me.. I will not be using credit in the future... until they give me my bailout.


Us either. I liked your post, it reminded me of my parents and how they were raised. Somehow things went wrong, I don't know who we blame, but either way, it's a mess. I learned my lesson, but my fear is others have not, and without all of us learning, things will not changed.

I do believe greed is the root of this mess. I look around me and I see it everywhere. My dh works for a factory who cut hours to 32 a week for all employees, however it is a family owned factory, they have taken 2 vacations this summer as a family, 3 generations, while the employees struggle to pay bills. Next door to me is people making double what we make and yet they can't pay their bills, they use the money to go on vacations and buy new cars. The other neighbor who is currently laid off decided rather then work part time and draw only part of his unemployment he would just ride out unemployment! What is wrong with this country? Where did we lose our common sense? Where did we lose our caring for our fellow man?

[Flamingo]

A lot of this started with the appearance of the credit card back in the 1960's. As time went on and more and more people obtained cards, the lenders realized the cash cow they had and soon all sorts of fees appeared in the picture along with cash advances and fees. Need money? Here are some checks you can use (but who ever read the fine print?). During that early time, most people did not have financial courses in high school or college geared to credit and unless they took accounting or majored in financial business the general population really had no clue how to manage credit and their financial present and future picture. Credit offerred opportunities never before imaginable...trips, decorate that new house, etc...things most people used to save for, buy used or do without. Advertising led everyone to believe that if you don't have that new gizmo that Joe Jones has down the street, then you had better throw out your old gizmo and go get that new one on the credit card you can obtain at the time of purchase and get that big 10% discount! Geez, when you think about all this, it was a time bomb waiting to happen which eventually exploded and affected everyone...Some folks saw it coming; the majority of the population did not.

My parents lived on what my dad earned and our family of 4 did well. My mother never worked and volunteered at our church and other social functions to a few organizations where they were members and raised me and my sister well but there was never discussion from my old school dad how he worked the bills or paid things from his salary and I remember the credit cards appearing and my mother getting one from a new local department store. My dad was irritated but he got it for her. He was mad whent the first bill came in and it as not that much but he knew it would put a dent in his budget. I was too young then to understand what was going on but I knew my dad was not happy with the new appearance of credit.

There are still many people out there that don't have nor want credit cards. Now everyone can see why.

[shabam]

What is wrong with this country? Where did we lose our common sense? Where did we lose our caring for our fellow man?

Which basically sums up 2009 America. Somewhere over the last 35 years we lost our unity and turned to a third world like each to their own state. Something you notice quite a bit once you have lived overseas. What you notice most of all is that the government there looks out and protects their people. This does not mean handouts, it means protecting them from unscrupulous business practices. For example, they regulate bank fees in the EU. Here we are lead to believe the free-market will take care out of. It sure has, thus, our nations pathetic financial state. We used to laugh at Canadians yet they can now buy and sell 5 Americas. Probably with cash too. What do we have to show for our less government and pro-corporation stance? crumbling city after city combined with ghetto after ghetto.

After going through this I have been looking at moving overseas. I have been to the UK and really liked it, especially the people. My top two choices are Canada and Australia. Their unemployment rate is half ours. When you look and compare them to us in numerous aspects, they also seem to be kicking our ass.

[momisery]

I guess the point of my post was how much our incomes have dropped. We no longer have such large familes, and yet we are in debt until the day we die. My parents when we were kids at home did not do without. I could never buy 80 acres and all the stuff my dad did.. geesh.. from a factory job? There is some public greed, but when you see profits going up, and people who use to make 40 times more than the average wage earner now making 350 times more.. there is something wrong. We like to relocate too, but our age would not allow that now I am sure. I love our country, but I am begining to really think we are not the UNITED states, we are the rip you off states.

[Flamingo]

I guess the point of my post was how much our incomes have dropped. We no longer have such large familes, and yet we are in debt until the day we die. My parents when we were kids at home did not do without. I could never buy 80 acres and all the stuff my dad did.. geesh.. from a factory job? There is some public greed, but when you see profits going up, and people who use to make 40 times more than the average wage earner now making 350 times more.. there is something wrong. We like to relocate too, but our age would not allow that now I am sure. I love our country, but I am begining to really think we are not the UNITED states, we are the rip you off states.

It is (or was) the "gravy train" of corporate America. The average American was not a part of nor knew about how to open a for profit business and make a bundle. In the Corporate world, the corporate "families" take care of their own families and their relatives and also their friends who they bring on into the fold. Those are the folks who make the big money. Most of the corporate giants are passed on to generation to generation but there are some that come from hard work and sweat. Think of the corporate world as a bee colony and that is a good way it can be described. This includes all your banking, credit and other big corporate industries. Many of these giants took great care of their employees, hiring generation after generation of famlies. Pretty soon profits meant more than taking care of their own and layoffs started to occur in the 80s with corporations severely changing their ways to make more profits for them and the shareholders. Families and taking care of the employee did not mean that much anymore. Changes as to what you describe have have been in the works for a while; those who saw it went and got their high degrees in business/finance to jump on the gravy train. During that time, as I mention prevoiusly, the hype was for families to basically live beyond their means by buying things right away (impulse buying), being able to charge expensive vacations, trips, meals, etc. with ever expanding credit limits on credit cards. This was not offered to our parents' generation (boomer parents). Boomers grew up with the start of credit cards and that you need to outdo the Jones' down the street. We raised our kids in somewhat the same way to the point that they cannot survive on their own in their 20s/30s and continue to come back home to live. It has just been a very large all-encompassing cycle to put us where we are now. And, yes, greed/profits are at the center core.

[justbroke]

it was, and still is, and will probably continue to be, chasing after the Jones'. I don't think we can actually break this cycle without a total collapse, though. It's summed up quite nicely by the following saying. I do like some aspects of the system where a person could have their own business and make their own way. But greed wins in the end.

What do men with money and power want? More money and more power.

[momisery]

You're both so right... at this point I am dropping out of the real world. i will of course work, but i will not be buying a home and all the furnishing ever again. My furnishing are from garage sales, so I guess I never totally stepped up to the plate. We did charge of course but our dental, medical, and the things we charged due to the job loss did us in. I have seen many people get into the situation by buying too much but it would be hard for me to point a finger at them. They were doing exactly what they were told to do over and over on TV, RAdio, in the paper... driving the economy.. our economy depends upon it, 2/3 of the economy is driven by buying.. sad, but true. I hope it turns around soon so more don't have to suffer like we will.

[Aaaaah!]

I thought I was the only one on this board who had this sentiment. I feel really beaten up by America in all sorts of ways. I'll spare everyone the details, but suffice to say that I really thought I was playing by the rules.

Whatever. I'm really done with it all. I filed last month and my 341 is in a week. I've scored a residence visa abroad, so the first thing I'm going to do after this is all over is to leave and start over in a country where I don't have to worry about health care or education and where I can't be fired for no reason and with no recourse.

[lrprn]

I thought I was the only one on this board who had this sentiment.

There are plenty of us hanging out here who think that personal and corporate greed spurred on by the need to pay stockholders a bigger profit every quarter no matter what, unwillingness by both political parties to insist on increased taxation to pay for two undeclared wars over the last six years, and poor to no enforcement of existing financial regulations are the major contributing causes of the recent economic crash in the US.

Welcome to our less vocal but still sizeable group of middle-of-the road moderates and independents hanging out here

[justbroke]

Welcome to our less vocal but still sizeable group of middle-of-the road moderates and independents hanging out here

Unfortunately, our voices don't seem to be louder than the voices to the left and right of us. It's like we're on the sidelines watching the fight and asking what all the fighting is about because there are more important issues.

[justplaintired]

I thought I was the only one on this board who had this sentiment. I feel really beaten up by America in all sorts of ways. I'll spare everyone the details, but suffice to say that I really thought I was playing by the rules.

You are not alone at all. We played by the rules, but, when the cc company decided to change the rules, we just couldn't play anymore.

America has lost it's way. What was once the greatest country in the world, was overtaken by pure simple greed. Too bad there are still so many who don't see that. Wonder what it will take for those to see? Do they have to end up where we are?

[justplaintired]

There are plenty of us hanging out here who think that personal and corporate greed spurred on by the need to pay stockholders a bigger profit every quarter no matter what, unwillingness by both political parties to insist on increased taxation to pay for two undeclared wars over the last six years, and poor to no enforcement of existing financial regulations are the major contributing causes of the recent economic crash in the US.

Welcome to our less vocal but still sizeable group of middle-of-the road moderates and independents hanging out here

I could not agree more!

[Itsbel62]

Same here

This is exactly what pushed us into BK. I know we spent the money I never have denied that. We probably would have kept paying min payments forever, but when the first card upped our rate we knew the others would follow. So we learned our lesson, never again will I trust a cc.

When I discuss credit ratings with people, I always say I don't care about that. We had excellent credit, we had great rates, we paid on time faithfully, we went hungry but we never missed a payment and still they raised our rates. I thought cc were our friends until then, they aren't. They are nothing more then loan sharks, only difference, the government made them legal loan sharks!

That is very close to our story as well. Paid before the due date, above min due, blah...blah...blah. Before I knew it, BOA lowered my credit line by half, raised my interest rate and began the turning of the screws. The others followed shortly after that.

Will be signing petition July 20th, 2009 (hopefully) still have questions