Guess what America? You don’t need a credit card. Pay for everything in cash. I’ve always found the banks to be hypocritical on credit cards. On one hand they want you to get a credit card so you can be enslaved to them through interest payments, no matter how much of a risk you are. While on the other hand they sought to change bankruptcy legislation because these “risks” turned out to be going into bankruptcy. If someone is a credit risk why are you lending to them?

Elizabeth Warren once went to a Citibank meeting and talked about some measures to change the way CITI did lending via credit card and Sanford Weil said something along the line of “but that’s how we make money.” Indeed, that’s how they make money.

From The Consumerist:

Reader Chloe is a teenager, a college freshman, and she is creeped out by the ads for Chase credit cards that keep popping up on Facebook. Why? Because they want to give her "points" toward Twilight books in exchange for applying for, and using a student credit card.

So like I said forget the banks you don’t need a credit card. It’s rather pathetic that JP Morgan Chase is stooping to using tween movies to try and get to these kids. Next they’ll offer an American Idol credit card.

So even after they were bailed out with all of that tax-payer money they refuse to lend.

While inter-bank lending rates have fallen since Congress approved the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program on Oct. 3, most bank lending to consumers remains tight and interest rates high. The average credit-card rate was 14.33 percent on Dec. 16, according to IndexCreditCards.com in Cleveland, almost unchanged from 14.41 percent in October 2007.

This is absolutely pathetic. Just think of how Washington grilled the auto industry executives but have let the banks have a free lunch. I’m not a fan of the big three automakers either, but seriously the government is going to have to open these banks up. If they don’t start lending then I’d say don’t reward them with your deposit accounts.