Maxed Out

See this movie. It's one of the best documentaries I've seen in a long time. I don't even have any credit card debt, and parts of this movie puckered my sphincter.

We are so f**ked.

It reminds me of an important point that Atrios made a couple of months ago, the long and short of it being that people implicitly trust financial institutions more than, say, used car salesmen, but nowadays that trust is badly misplaced. Millions of people are paying dearly for assuming that Bank of America wouldn't intentionally push them to take on a loan or credit line they aren't equipped to handle.

the truth behind the housing/lending crisis

Bob Herbert tells a story, and it's unbelievable.

These companies will, in all likelihood, be saved by the government when they should be allowed to drown (or perhaps even thrown an anchor), and Ms. Dailey will get the opposite treatment.

But don't worry, Senate Democrats will burn a couple of weeks strongly demanding George W. Bush accept completely voluntary, advisory timetables for withdrawal in Iraq before completely caving and writing him another hundred billion dollar check.

"Strength and Opportunism"

Funny.

out of the frying pan...

It appears that credit card are getting in line to screw the people who just got screwed by their housing lendors. From Salon:

If you're underwater on your subprime mortgage, you've still got friends. Naked Capitalism, by way of the Prudent Investor, points us to a terrific Boston Globe story breaking the news that even as the mortgage mess started accelerating, credit card companies began targeting subprime mortgage holders with a deluge of direct mail offers pitching new credit cards! Because if you can't refinance your way into some quick cash, then pulling out some brand-new plastic is clearly the smart way to go.

As explained by the Globe's Robert Gavin, credit card companies are quite fond of subprime mortgage holders in distress, because they're likely to make only the minimum payments on their bills, allowing the credit issuers to rack up big interest fee windfalls. Direct mail offers to borrowers with good credit, in contrast, are falling, because people who pay off their bills every month are, well, icky.

I guess I should've expected no less from these vultures. On the bright side, does this mean that if I keep paying my bills every month, I won't get as much junk mail from credit card companies? And if true, does that mean these companies accidentally incentivized getting on top of your account balance?