Truth in Credit Charges

apparently congress is just getting around to looking at the credit card industry and all of its fees [link at bottom]. That's good, but everything they're doing is hacking away at the branches of this evil tree, and not the root. The root of this is un-information. The credit card companies make goo gobs of money by using un-informed people to fatten their paychecks. What we need is more information.

Remember when the FDA mandated nutritional information to go on foods. The food industry gulped, yelled and eventually relented. We need the same thing for credit card companies. I think something like this should be mandated:

Total principal You owe:	Monthly payment	Months to pay off the debt	Total interest to pay
	Minimum: $XXX.XX
	Min + $10
	Min + $25
	Min + $50
	Min + $100

and that should be placed prominently on any bill that you get that charges interest.

I think that if/when people see this on a monthly basis, they'll get perturbed and start paying down their credit a lot faster.

Sure, just because we have the nutrition information on the sides of boxes hasn't actually decreased the average weight of americans, but at least that information is a step in the right direction.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070307/ap_on_go_co/congress_credit_cards;_ylt=Aq3dUdPBvR1lL0ZDk_cBvfKs0NUE