[xzins]

I agree that stupid people shouldn't use credit cards, but get this.

My son starts college shortly and he's been deluged with half a bazillion offers for cards. No credit check, no nothin'. I've been a counselor for years, and I'm amazed at the number of broke, no-income people who get credit card offers (no credit check) and then get the cards.

The kids and the unemployed then run up debts, and banks act wounded and want the authorities to enforce for them when these essentially income-less people don't pay.

I don't think it's any different than those who bought Cisco at hundreds per share. It was an unwise investment. There was all kinds of evidence it was an unwise investment and now those who bought that stock are suffering for their lack of wisdom.

Imagine if those who lost from unwise investing could get the police to go force their money out of either Cisco or those they bought the shares from.

Banks who throw these credit cards at folks who aren't credit worthy should sink in their own mire with no one to help them. Any parent knows you don't dump cash on a kid at college....and God knows you don't expect to see it back.

Let 'em file bankruptcy and let the banks suffer on this kind of unwise investment on the part of the bank. They'd never dream of financing a home loan without income, collateral, and credit history.

[taxtruth]

Anyone who has credit card problems or mortgage problems should go to www.dueprocess.org because they can help you in ways that you have never dreamed.

[taxtruth]

The credit card companies make more money if you don't pay than if you do.Not to many people understand the money system in this country except a handful and the sleezy federal reserve "greenspan and his croonies".

[taxtruth]

If you understood how money is created you would understand that the banks never loaned anybody anything!You created the money that you were lent via borrowing so the banks never lose a dime because they are protected via of their own fraud!Your promise to pay creates the money not the banks assets.They risk NOTHING.

[Bella_Bru]

Xzins, I work on campus of the university I attend. One of the things I do every semester is go to the dorms and talk about financial responsibility.

This is most important in the fall because the credit companies line up around the quad and bookstore to rope in 18 year olds and their unsuspecting parents. The parents sign on as co-signers for their kids who have never worked a day in their lives.

The end result is usually a $5000 debt and parents with bad credit.

[membrsince]

Worse than a bazillion credit card applications to kids -- the CHECKS I get in the mail, saying all that I have to do to activate a credit card account is to deposit the check. Fleet Street Bank is the worst for this.

What happens when a clerk in the mail room steals about 500 of these and sells them to somebody who can launder them? 500 people get their credit blasted.