Monday, April 29, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Two Aspects of the USA:
the Hard -- and the Homespun

AUGUST 8, 2005 --

LPR had an interesting conversation with an agent for the Chase credit card August 1 about very high interest on some customers, including this writer.

Apparently, the aim is to force the customer to rush to swtich to another credit card or raise funds to pay off the
balance real fast.

Apparently, rates like the 27.24 percent that should on this writer's August statement are declarations that the credit card company wants to get rid of your
business.

LPR wonders where this practice originated? At a prestigious business school? Or perhaps insprired by
the ficitional villainous banker Henry F. Potter in the now classic Frank Capra movie "It's a Wonderful Life"?

It was of course Mr. Potter's business
philisophy to squeeze people as hard as possible.

The practice at credit card companies, including Chase, to crush customers with onerous interest rates has, so far as LPR can tell, drawn no comment from government officials, much less criticism from the mainstream media.
Perhaps talk radio has a role in the partisan wars between Democrats and Republicans; LPR is not confident, however, that talk radio is ready to stand
with the people without regard to partisan issues. (Where are the politicians on 27.24 interest rates hitting people who have sent payments on occasion a few days late.)

LPR has a hunch that when it comes to heavy-handedness on the people -- by credit card companies, by oil companies, by parking fines, the response has to come from the grass roots, generated by websites, and clicksters -- that is to say,
by the internet.

Recently, Lonely Pamphleteer Review has been getting more visit from clicksters -- and certainly appreciates these hits. I think we need even more hits, though.
If anyone visiting this site thinks credit card companies ought to explain their onerous interest rate practices to the people, to Congress, to the presently - distant mainstream media, please tell
friends about LPR.

Would that the powerful do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. First, it appears, the powerful have to see significant numbers callling on them to do the right thing. Well, for that good purpose, we have the internet, don't we?