I am a firm believer in capitalism. It has produced the richest country the world has probably ever known in the United States. It has produced a phenomenal standard of living for the citizens of this country. But, as was once said before although I do not recall by whom, 'We have the worst form of government in the world...with the exception of every other form of government in the world!' That is in my mind simply to say that yes, there are many flaws in our governmental system, but they are far better than those systems which the rest of the world endures.

Our government tends to have a limited amount of effective focus. It can concentrate its power and might on only so many things at once without diffusing the force it is capable of applying until it simply becomes at best only poorly effective in all areas.

Presently, that focus is not only divided in two fields of conflict, but in addition there are two countries - i.e., North Korea and Iran - who seem to be taking advantage of the fact that our plate is very full with the problems caused by trying to conduct military operations on those two fronts simultaneously.

But here at home, it would seem, we also find a very subtle version of the same thing - the threat of dropping a nuclear bomb, figuratively, with the target being our pocketbooks:

While we have been focused on those two battle fields, while our President has been forced to immerse himself and all other branches of the federal government in these wars, behind his back our own credit card companies have created a business practice the likes of which has never been seen and I must assume were it not for the distractions of those two wars would surely have already been modified by new government regulation if not outright banned.

Just what am I leading up to?

I read somewhere that most middle class American have an average of 3 credit cards.

If your credit is strong, you probably do not have a problem making your monthly payments, but increasingly, Americans find themselves unable to save money. They are living from paycheck to paycheck. Part of the reason for this, I strongly believe, is that credit card companies are hitting us with a double whammy, and the federal government is too busy to notice.

First, for the rest of us who's credit score is NOT strong, the credit card companies assign exhorbitantly high interest rates should we decide to accept their service. True, no one forces anyone to accept those rates. But often what occurs is an almost daily bombardment via snail mail of credit cards that are 0% interest to which we are 'preapproved'. The credit card issuers anticipate that they won't stay at 0% very long, or at least they won't more often than they will. Because any more, if you are late with a payment to ANY of the credit cards you presently own, it is highly likely that your interest rate will be moved to the 'bad boy' rate of 27%!!! And not just the card to which you were late, but EVERY OTHER CARD YOU OWN can, 'in lieu of' that delinquint payment, raise your rates to this level, all at once.

The rationalization is that the missed or late payment causes your credit score to go down, therefore changing the risk to the credit card company, and therefore justifying this drastic increase in interest rates. As long as no one - like, say, Congress, for instance, or maybe the President - happens to notice.

Obviously, they haven't noticed.

And just as obviously, however, is the real motivation: greed pure and simple.

It is high time our government reins in this behavior. This interest rate - 27% - was at one time the sole property of pawn shops. At least in their case, when you walked in the door you knew you were going to take a beating. But the negotiation over what you were loaned for the particular item you were using as collateral was all up front, the payment schedule explained, and the very real possibility of losing this piece of personal property if the loan was not completely paid for in 90 days made the transaction short lived, however painful it might have been.

But suppose these pawn shops began interconnecting so that should your name come up on a 'bad boy' list of individuals who had pawned something and never retrieved it, or were slow to pay off the loan with ANY other pawn shop, then the pawn shop you presently are trying to obtain a loan from is permitted to offer you a draconian interest rate of 35%. Or, even worse, you have already pawned your wedding band or your video camera and have a set rate of 27%, but because you were late on one payment to another pawn shop, this pawn shop which presently holds your wedding band ransom is permitted to suddenly jack your interest rate to the aforementioned 35%! Yet you have never been late in making your loan payments with THIS pawn shop, so why should they be allowed to manipulate that interest rate in connection with your less stellar payment practices with some other pawn shop? Your original agreement with them made no mention of this consequence caused by a late payment to ANYONE IN THE UNIVERSE. Your agreement was in light of how you conducted your payment practices with this pawn shop and this pawn shop alone. So in order to get around this minor little detail, the pawn shop sends you a notice shortly after you take the loan that declares that this will be their new policy, and if you disagree with it, then simply come down and pay off your note on the ring and everything will be fine. Otherwise, this is simply the way things will be - you will accept it, or get out.

Let's call a spade a spade. This is nothing less than highway robbery. And we have to take a stand, we have to petition our woefully distracted government officials to put an end to this outrageous approach to credit card policy.

That is why I have attempted to initiate a petition on this website addressing the twin issues of capping the interest rate at 21% for credit cards PERIOD, and disallowing the blanket instant increase of ALL credit card interest rates to the maximum interest rate as punishment for failure to make one timely payment with ANY of your credit cards. See the 'Reign In Credit Card Companies' petition here, should it meet the approval of the FireSociety overseers.

Kelly King
Wichita Falls Texas

Sign the Petition Here!