Treasury to force credit card companies to DOUBLE minimum payments!!!

[bribri16]

Outrageous! Instead of making the credit card companies lower their usury interest rates so that more of a payment can go towards the principal, they are going to double the minimum payments. To be done by the end of the year, at a time when gasoline prices, home heating prices are at record highs and profits for the credit car and oil companies are also at record highs! And just after the bankruptcy laws make it impossible for middle income folks to claim bankruptcy. I am losing my mind.

People, we must unite to fight these outrageous policies by the Bush administration. Millions of families will go under...look for increases in suicides, shootings, child and wife abuses because that always follows when men can't see themselves being able to take care of their families.

We need signs about this at the Sept 24 protest also, because I believe this is slipping under the media radar and is going to hit people like a brick! I can't believe what I just heard on Lou Dobbs.

[texpatriot2004]

1. That sucks, that really sucks just like this economy. I mean those

poor people who are barely gettin by and haven't been able to find a job even though, as in my case, I have a college degree. That will really make it hard for them right now.

Oh, well, you know what the silver-headed-lizard says, "well we're movin' on up, to the East side, we finally got a piece of the pie"

[bribri16]

5. It's not just the poor...the poor don't usually have credit cards, it's

the working, struggling lower-middle class that is going to be hit really hard by this. The reason behind the ruling is to enable people to reduce their debt faster but this IS NOT the way to do that. All that does is allow the credit card comapnies to collect their interest faster. If the interest rates were lowered from those 24% rates to 9% or 7%, more of the payment would be going toward the principal. But it just shows the insensitivity of this administration and how the rich could care less about the have-nots. At lease Congress should allow credit card interest to be a deduction from income taxes as it was before good ole Ronnie Reagan removed it.

[texpatriot2004]

6. Yeah, IT'S ME FOR PETE'S sake. The working poor...borderline

middle class. I know you are so right that the poor don't even have this much. It's too bad that our Government won't raise the minimum wage or better yet, support the efforts to be paid a "LIVING WAGE."

[rzemanfl]

2. I have been posting about this on DU for at least a couple of

months. If search works I'll provide the links. These changes, coming just before Christmas and after Katrina, will in my opinion be the start of the coming depression.

[MissMarple]

3. Did Lou cite a source for that?

Dayum.

[NMDemDist2]

4. I saw that, I thought it was part of the bankruptcy bill passed last

spring. Not sure how it got blamed on the Tres Dept :shrug:

[izzie]

7. How do you fight it? Big corp get what they want.

Darn I just cuffed part of the cost of this new PC on a card. My food bill will really be interesting from now on. I am lucky as I can give up my car and take a cab to market once a week. Most people can not do that.Would it be because the bankrupt laws have just changed or maybe these corp. want to get as much before a large crash?

[NMDemDist2]

8. here's a good article on it

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/creditcardsmarts/P117014.asp

SNIP...

Why it's happening
Over the past few years, low minimum payback rates of between 2 and 2.5% have encouraged Americans to spend, spend, spend -- and to rack up an average credit card debt of close to $10,000 per household. For the estimated 40% of cardholders who carry a balance from month to month, the low minimums free up cash. But paying off a big charge little by ever-so-little also means that a $1,000 debt can turn into a 22-year commitment -- and that you'll accumulate thousands more in interest in the meantime.

"People are now in a revolving debt cycle that they'll never escape," says Adam Brauer, a debtor advocate and in-house counsel for Debt Settlement USA in Scottsdale, Ariz. "So the government nudged credit card companies into saying, 'This isn't working.'"

Specifically, regulators with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency began pressuring credit card companies to raise minimum payments. Another incentive for change: The newly enacted Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which requires credit card companies to post a kind of Surgeon General's warning on monthly statements that notifies consumers about how long they'll be in debt if they make minimum payments.

Snip......

[Deja Q]

9. If you are in credit counseling, the numbers won't go up.

Just so long as you stay in the program.

[Der Blaue Engel]

10. I'm not so sure this is a bad thing

Credit card companies universally charge minimum payments that ensure that the card will NEVER be paid off. I have one new card that charges me $6 on a $300 balance. That's utterly ridiculous. They actually take advantage of the working poor by giving them/us credit we can't really afford. Especially now that it will be very difficult to declare bankruptcy, they know they have you for life and it's not in their best interest that you be able to pay the card off in a timely manner.

Of course for existing credit, this would be a great hardship for most of us, but I think it's an excellent idea for new credit.

[Deja Q]

13. Overall, I **AGREE**.

A pity good jobs leave this country to be replaced with crap ones, if any at all. Many people will kill themselves just to be free. And it's just a writeoff to the credit card companies anyway.

[1932]

15. It's kind to be cruel. People will save a ton in interest charges by being

forced to pay more principle each money.

[TahitiNut]

17. I agree ... but it's very difficult to change back.

Credit card companies should have NEVER been permitted to charge usurious rates (i.e. anything more than twice the prime rate), and should have NEVER been allowed to set a minimum payment that was less than a 2-year amortization rate, with a minimum of something like $25. Even 3 years is too low, considering it's recalculated each month.

At the same time, contractually prohibiting merchants from offering a cash discount should be illegal - prohibited as a 'third-party interference between buyer and seller.'

[bribri16]

11. Please keep this pumped and recommended until we get attention from

a lot of DUers about this. If a working family of four, with credit card debt around $10,000 has to have its minimum payment doubled, think of the penalties that these companies are going to collect for late payments. I just filled up my car today ($68), five months ago that same tank of gas would have been $31. How will a working family be able to survive this administration?

And it is all about the WAR IN IRAQ. Don't be fooled. Gasoline was at an all-time high BEFORE Katrina. this war is bankrupting the nation and the Republicans don't give a damn, they just want to hide it from the dittoheads. When you have or control all the money, you just lose touch with working and struggling people and tend to look at them as disturbances to you own comfort zone.

[HereSince1628]

12. More and more I feel dumping my credit cards was a good thing.

My "debit" checking card works in China, England, and Russian (and probably other places).

[OneGrassRoot]

14. I know..........

I was fortunate enough to be reading here last month to learn about this. For the same reasons most people end up living off of credit cards (divorce, no health insurance, workload decreased after 9/11), I found myself in this situation, and once minimum payments double, I'd be dead in the water. Absolutely.

Even though I have good credit and have never been late, I'm in the midst of filing bankruptcy; otherwise, come October when the new bill takes effect and the double payments take effect, I'd risk losing my home.

Yes, it is going to hit a LOT of people like a ton of bricks. The general idea behind this may be good - to encourage people not to overextend themselves - but, hell, we already know that. We simply haven't had a choice.

[Peace Patriot]

16. We can't do anything about it until we recover our right to vote...

Two Bushite electronic voting machine companies now control the tabulation of our votes, with SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code--code so secret that not even our elected secretaries of state have the right to review it. Our elections have become completely non-transparent and unverifiable, as of 2004.

Neither Bush/Cheney, nor much of Congress, has been legitimately elected. That is WHY they so clearly are not representing the interests or opinions of the majority of Americans. They don't have to any more.

But...we still have an opportunity to get back our right to vote, and that is what we must do. That is the mechanism of power of the American people--the only way we can exercise our sovereignty directly. We MUST get it back. There can be no other reform without it. Without it, our leaders have NO REASON to listen to us.

The power over election systems still resides in the state/local jurisdictions, where ordinary people still have potential influence. There is A LOT OF corruption--bipartisan--in the new electronic voting boondoggle, but these state/local venues are still our best chance of reform. (Bush's Congress is of course in favor of our corrupt election system, and funded it with $4 billion of our taxpayer dollars--no hope there).

So, here's the program. Join your local election reform group--or form your own--and start demanding transparent, verifiable elections locally. Our rallying cry: Throw these election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' now! (--or a Louisiana levee might do).

We need:

Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)

or, at the least

Paper ballot (not "paper trail") backup of all electronic voting, a 10% automatic recount, very strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code! (...jeez!).

[Speck Tater]

18. As I understand it this was part of the bankruptcy bill.

The deal used to be minimum payment was the amount to pay in order to pay off the debt in 20 years. They changed it to the amount required to pay off the debt in 10 years.

With the price of fuel going through the roof it couldn't have come at a better time. NOT!

Maybe some of the conservative SUV driving idiots will begin to feel the pinch of the polices of their dear leader as he continues to pick their (and our) pockets. Maybe, just maybe, some of them will see the light and stop voting against their own best interests?

[AzDar]

19. We know who REALLY runs this country,now, don't we?? IIRC,

the banks were pretty much allowed to author this legislation....
SICKENING!!!