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The Freeloader Myth

More BS from the credit card companies. From the NY Times:
Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit. Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups. “It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”
Two things: (a) I thought blackmail was illegal, and (b) those that manage their credit well will NOT be in any degree subsidizing those that have credit problems. The banks are trying to divide the middle class from the poor. Right now there’s a united front, a coalition of poor and middle class Americans who’re fed up with the credit card companies’ piracy. For the banks, it’s divide-and-conquer time or their ride on the gravy train is over. No, those that manage their credit well will not be subsidizing those who have credit problems. Those who have credit problems would ALSO be paying these new annual fees and the immediate interest, and they’d also lose their bonuses. What we would ALL be subsidizing are the banks’ profit margins. In that article, they describe the responsible credit borrowers as “freeloaders” because they generate few fees while enjoying the benefits. But after years of sky-high interest rates giving the banks astronomical returns on the loans they make to the millions of Americans who can only afford to pay the minimum each month, I think most Americans know who the freeloaders are.

Michael Steele is a human lie diagram

We instinctively know when someone’s lying to us. That’s why, when you tell your significant other “no, I don’t think you’ve ballooned up, that button that just popped off your pants must’ve been defective,” they squint a little and stare into your eyes. They aren’t conscious of what they’re doing, but part of their brain is measuring your eye movements. At that moment, they’ve become a human lie detector. It’s part of the whole “survival of the fittest” thing. We’re all descended from the people who lived until they were fertile because they didn’t fall prey to liars. It probably began when every caveman who fell for the “no, there’s no sabre tooth bison charging at you” practical joke died off. There’s a helpful diagram online. If you visit that page and go to the “Up and to the left” section, and then look at 0:47 of this Youtube clip, you’ll notice Michael Steele is auditioning for the diagram’s live action adaptation: The lesson, of course, is every time your S.O. asks if he/she’s porked up a little — or every time you go on national TV and pretend your cowardly capitulation to Rush Limbaugh was part of some chessmaster-like strategy — put on sunglasses before you answer. They’ll never know you’re hiding anything.

Sarah Palin Bush Cheney Rove’s speech last night

The talking heads on my tv are telling me Sarah Palin was very funny last night, and I have to agree. The funniest line in Palin’s speech was when she said something like “Let me tell you exactly what the mayor of a small town does,” and then she didn’t.

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