Chicken Littles

I will bet a chicken dinner that not one reader of this blog, who also owns a credit card, received notice from your issuer that you now have the option to opt-out of over-the-limit charges, with instructions on exactly how to opt-out.

Right.

A few of you received notices that your rate was arbitrarily and capriciously raised and that if you didn't accept it you were still screwed; even if you canceled the card you'd still be on the hook for your balance at the new, higher rate. This was all in anticipation of Monday's law that prevents this exact thing, because our Republican representatives in Congress would have killed the bill in committee if an 8-month period between the time Obama signed it and when it became law wasn't inserted into the final bill.

Our friends, the bankers, had a good eight months to find ways to work around all these sets of specific laws, and they did. I don't blame them. No. In fact, they did what any one of us would have done knowing that there's a looming $13 billion loss coming on February 22nd -- they jacked up rates, lowered credit limits to minimize risk, and established new fees and other restrictions to get that $13 billion back. They did what banks are supposed to do...make a small pile of money into a bigger pile of money. And God bless them, too.

Come on, didn't we all do the same thing? When housal unit values were going up 20% per annum ad infinitium we didn't say shit, but as soon as they started dropping we turned into Chicken Littles -- prop up housal values at all costs, $8,000 tax credits with borrowed monies, loan modification programs, first-time buyer credits, on and on.

One of the more interesting arguments the left makes regarding this new law is that it will unfairly restrict hundreds of thousands of Merikans from gaining credit because it's now much tougher to qualify. Well, no shit. Banks are finally lending to those who might, just might, pay them back. We bitched about banks handing out $450,000 NINJA loans (No Income, No Job, No Assets) in 2006, but now we're bitching about banks restricting credit to the creditworthy in 2010. Only in my America.

I love to follow these sorts of things on my Monologues because it highlights the lunacy and stupidity of the American people -- and I'm all for writing about that, 'cause it's fun. We have an interesting culture, full of fantastic potential but completely, totally unable to exercise it. How we elect to manage our personal finances is in lockstep with how we manage our energy use, our foreign policies, our Wars for Freedom. They all go hand in hand, yet we fail to ever put them into the same hand, fail to see them as inter-related. We probably never will.

Back to my first sentence -- take note that you, today, have the right to opt out of over-the-limit fees -- you have the right to deny the point-of-sale if your purchase takes you over your limit, so that you are not subjected to $65 overdraft fees or whatever. Granted, that is as shameful as anything we do in America -- to be DENIED at the check-out counter, with other consumers watching, is as denigrating and demoralizing as anything else imaginable. Hari-Kari is preferable to the SHAME of having your card DENIED in front of others. But, if you're willing to accept that SHAME and opt-out of getting hit with outrageous fees, well, God bless you.