Emerson

Credit Card Crunch: Creating a New Generation of Subprime

You, like many people writing today, take an insolent approach to those who use credit. My wife has been sick for over five years and our insurance doesn't cover everything. As one small example, her medication costs me over one thousand dollars a month. I'm retired and my retirement fund has been cut in half. Now tell me, where am I to get the money every month? How dare you compare that to a "sacred flat screen TV." And I'm sure I'm not alone. There are probably millions of Americans, from single parents to the elderly, struggling to make ends meet who need credit to just make it through the day.

2009's House of Pain: Consumer Loans and Credit Card Debt

To that end, I have perfect credit and many of my credit cards have either no balance, or a low balance. There are a couple that have high balances on them but that's because I use them for work or health care in an effort to simplify my taxes. Without exception, each card has sent me a letter saying that they are lowering my credit limit and in two cases, they closed my credit cards for no reason. I'm sure I'm not alone in this but in an effort to protect themselves from credit card defaults they are, in effect, shooting themselves in the foot. Why? Because if they lower my limit then that means that I'll have to spend more cash for things I need. More cash spent means less cash to pay my bills. In addition it means that I will opt to buy less thereby causing the recession to deepen and we all know where that will end up. My wife has been sick for the last five years and, while I have health insurance, they certainly don't pay for everything she needs. Do you really think I'm going to let her do without? If this means having to pay cash for her medicine and health care and neglect my credit card bills, then so be it.

Visa, MasterCard: A Chance to Profit as Markets Go Mad

V Winner

I agree with you about the amount of people who post comments who no absolutely nothing about stocks or the stock market. I guess we have to use mental filters here as we do with the analysts. So, to that end. I have no problem admitting I know nothing and I'm intrigued by your comment that you've sold V shares and made money doing it. Is it possible to explain that to me in more detail as it's something I haven't done yet--(sell shares and lose money? Oh, I've done that!). Thanks, Emerson