Two rants for your pleasure:
I was watching the Food Network and they had some food cooking contest of some sort on. It’s not like I was paying attention. That would require an attention span, which I’m seriously lacking these days. So anyway, I did hear that this one woman was participating again to see if she could win first place for the third time. Ok, maybe I’m out of line here, but my first thought was, “You selfish bitch, give someone else a chance!” How exciting can it really be to win the same award three years in a row? Seems like someone needs to get a life.
Earlier today I came across a weblog where the author was bemoaning her poor credit rating due to running up credit cards and not making payments on time. Oh no, you mean, like, there’s consequences to being irresponsible? No way! Will people just grow up already? I was ready to flame the person who commented that Discover Card is evil. Um, no. The credit cards aren’t evil, you’re just bad with your finances. If you can’t control yourself, don’t blame it on anyone else but yourself. It’s like suing the tobacco companies for getting lung cancer after you’ve smoked for 20 years. Come on, let’s take responsibility for our actions for a change.
I want to write about the cool new *free* service we have through the cable company, but I’m too tired. Maybe tomorrow.
Wouldn’t happen to be talking about me, would you? I remember saying Discover sucked ass.
People make mistakes, especially when they’re young. Especially people who are trying to pay their way through college and credit card companies like Discover come along and dangle a carrot on a stick by giving them WAY more credit than they can afford or even begin to understand. Sometimes they’re eating Ramen noodles and can’t afford their tuition or pay for their books– what the hell else are they supposed to do? You should watch that show I saw a while back that prompted this argument– about how impossible it is for college kids to get out of debt (most of them would be 40 before they could do so), and how it’s so bad there’s an epidemic of graduates who can’t find jobs, pay their cc bills and who are killing themselves because of it.
If you don’t have sympathy for people like that.. man, you are harsh sometimes, girl. Even by my standards.
Candi, I wasn’t speaking about you, but I do stand by my opinion. When I was in college I was bombarded with credit card offers and to this day I still have and use the Mastercard I signed up for back then. I used it to charge books, and that’s about it. I let the balance carryover for awhile, but not for long because it ate me up inside to know how much I was paying in just finance charges.
I don’t have sympathy for people who spend money they do not have. Credit companies offer huge credit lines so that they can make money on the finance charges. Likewise, you can take out a home loan for more than you can really afford. Does that mean that your bank should be held accountable if you fall behind in the payments? It’s up the user to be responsible with their money and devise a reasonable budget for themselves. The credit card companies aren’t holding guns to these people’s heads and forcing them to put themselves into debt.
Now, if the charges are due to medically-related issues, that’s a different story, and I can totally sympathize. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across people bitching and moaning about their poor credit and blah blah blah, but yet they go on vacations they can’t afford (“let’s just charge it!”) and when their tax return comes in, instead of using that money to pay off loans, debt, or just bills, they spend it on vacations or toys.
It doesn’t make sense to me, and it never will. If that’s harsh, so be it.
I agree about the irresponsible people who go on vacations or charge everything like it’s their right when they can’t afford it. They’re the same ones that file bankruptcy and then turn around and run all their credit cards up to the max again within a couple of years. But a lot of people in credit card trouble aren’t like that.
A lot of them are people who have or are trying to put themselves through college (or medical problems, like you mentioned). They’re trying to better themselves so they don’t end up making $10 an hour at some lame ass job they hate.
I don’t blame anyone for reaching for better. Especially when they have parents that won’t or can’t afford to help. They don’t have any other options because the financial aid offices count your parents’ income against you whether they’re helping you or not. I’ve worked for a financial aid office and have seen first-hand how much they fuck the college kids over. That’s why I said it was harsh to favor a billion-dollar industry that INTENTIONALLY preys on college kids over a naive kid just trying to do what they think will improve their lives. There should be restrictions on the amount of credit they give to college kids so they can’t get themselves in a situation where it’s impossible to pay it off.
I feel bad for anyone who makes a stupid mistake as a teenager. They aren’t mature enough to handle the responsibility of having that much credit, and yes, I hold the cc companies partially responsible for dangling the carrot. So do most of the top financial advisors in the world, like Suze Orman. Banks are different– they require a co-signer and don’t usually give large amounts of credit to kids.
I wasn’t expecting you to retract your opinion. Just hoping you’d see there are gray areas and not everyone deserves to be judged so harshly. I’m sure you’ve made a few mistakes when you were younger that you regretted, too.