Not too long ago I ranted about the chintzy interest rate I was receiving on some cash I stashed at my longtime financial larcenists, USBank. Now I’m being assailed (yes, assailed), by the folks you love to hate—the credit card companies.
Let me quickly regurgitate the savings bank gripe.
I opened a savings account at US Bank, just to tuck away a few rainy day bucks—just in case. My thinking was that, although I knew I’d get a better rate from the online banks (like Ing, Ally, etc.). But if I needed the cash in an emergency, I didn’t want to wait a couple of days before those bucks had miraculously gurgled through the ACH pipeline from their bank to mine and downloadable at my local ATM.
I knew the interest rate was lousy. I knew going in it would only amount to a half-percent but it didn’t look so bad—until I got my first statement. Then I was in for a shocker. I earned a lousy 69-cents. Crapola, that’s not even enough to buy a Big Mac, for crissakes.
I added another 5-grand and now, wowie-zowie, I accrued a grand total of $2.48 on $10,000 for, like, 4-5 months.
So here’s the complaint. These inglourious basterds are paying me a lousy half-a-percent on my money, then they’re loaning my cash to some other poor soul and charging them 15%, 20% or more interest for the privilege. Not a bad scam, huh?
Of course, it’s not just US Bank. Most all of the banks are paying next to nothing on savings accounts, CDs, money-markets, and the like.
And Now to Those IB’s at the Credit Card Companies.
First, a confession. I am what is known in the argot of the credit card empire as a “dead
beat.” That is, I charge what I like, but ALWAYS pay my balance in full every month. I haven’t paid an interest charge in years.
But it’s obvious that credit card companies don’t like schlubs like me and couldn’t care less to keep my business. Why else would they keep jacking up my interest rate if I had a credit balance?
Check this out: I used to have a Providian (Washington Mutual) credit card. My interest rate was about 13%-14%/ Then along comes Chase Bank who buys the company. The first thing they did was raise my rate to 15.24% and this past month it zoomed to 27.24%. Doesn’t that make you feel all cozy and warm about Chase Bank?
Again, let me remind you, I pay this bill off in full every month. I have NEVER been late paying this or any other account. My FICO score is consistently in the 800s. And yet they practically double the interest rate. So guess who’s first in line to be cancelled when they try hitting me up for an annual fee or hobble me with some other charge?
But it gets worse.
I also have a Citibank credit card. At the close of business a year ago, my interest rate was 5.49%. Then, when the Credit Card Act was passed, Citicards quickly hit me with a $30 annual fee AND raised the interest rate to 14.99%.
I suppose I shouldn’t care. After all, I don’t pay any interest fee. But it is irritating as hell. You’d like to think that if you scrupulously maintain a decent credit profile you’d get matching low rates. But not anymore.
And I know that there are millions of others whose financial situations don’t allow them to pay off their balances each month and they’re getting gouged like hell by these turds.
And we’re all getting ripped off to cover their financial mistakes made in an arrogant rush to make more money.
It’s really quite shameful, is what it is. And some of these are the same A-holes we taxpayers bailed out not so many months ago. So much for reciprocity.They can all rot in hell, for all I care.
And you can tell them I said so.,
Charlie, the Runaway Trader


so often sell on TV and on some Internet sites, these are brilliant uncirculated coins which will be released by the mint (yeah, the real one) sometime this month or next.They look a lot like the old walking liberty half-dollars. Beautiful coin.
dawned on me (yes, dawned) that soon, smartphones will enable you to do most anything: start your car when it’s -20 degrees outside and you’re still 3 blocks from the ramp where you parked; buy a bowl of soup from a passing dabbawalla in remote India, or record a TV program back home in Minneapolis while I’m digging for gold with those garimpeiros at right in Brazil’s Serra Pelada.
frequently, as some firms are victims of mergers, others drop off the radar, and smart new ones join the fray. I say that because my comments are based on brokers I’ve used over the past 15 years and I’ve developed a very narrow trading strategy which does not take full advantage of what many brokers offer. Things change. And my readers are more up-to-date on what other brokers are doing than I am.
iStockManger which, while it isn’t perfect, is pretty damn good. I recently wrote a