Financial education key to nation’s credit card addiction
Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 17, 2005
I agree with you (Editor’s Blog, www.suffolknewsherald.com, March 9) about the little guy getting slammed by the bankruptcy bill.
I feel if the law is the law, then it should apply to all, rich or not.
I do believe that the credit card companies should bear a larger burden. Very rarely do they try to work with customers when overextended or an emergency comes up. Many individuals would be happy to pay the amount owed or pay on it but when the interest rate gets jacked up because you are late or miss a payment, it is easy to get in the mindset of &uot;forget it&uot; regarding making continued payments. Especially when you read about executives and their obscene bonuses and such.
However, that does not excuse the individual from the responsibility they took on when they got the card. I don’t believe taking someone’s house over a credit card debt is the answer. That only creates more problems. I believe people today are so ingrained with an instant gratification mindset that they don’t really understand the debt
they are taking on with a credit card.
They use the cards for what they want, not what they need. If credit cards were used only for what you actually need and cannot live without then there would not be the staggering debt owed by millions to the credit card companies.
More financial education is key to understanding how easy it is to get burned by the credit card system.
And if there are going to be any loopholes it should be to protect those with unforeseen events such as medical emergencies. This is not a want but a need.
Not too many people plan to be ruined by a medical catastrophe.
Perhaps if the medical insurance companies weren’t allowed to run fast and loose with their methods a lot of these problems would not be happening.
But that’s another issue for another email.
Christine Santsaver
Suffolk