Credit: Because it's so damn current-eventsy right now

Or ... honesty as a best policy or the only term or condition.

Okay, admittedly some portion of my credit debt is due to my own overspending. Youth is not without its pitfalls. Most of it is due to the fact that I only made 16k a year for a while when I was trying to sneak my way in to the music industry. So be it. Let me tell you a quick story ...

One day, about five years ago, I got a credit card from Suntrust Bank through FIA. It was an 8.99% fixed rate Visa - a good card to start on, for sure. During this five-year span, I paid this credit card on time on all but four occasions with no penalty assessed for my lateness (it was usually only by a day anyway) until the very last time, this past January, when they saw fit to triple my APR. It's in my terms of service. It's in all of our terms of service.

Apparently, they don't really care to get their money back. You could carry a balance your whole life and never get it paid off. You would then, in death, drop that debt on your survivors who could then drop that in to another card and never pay that off either. It's meaningless to the banks to a large extent and certainly less meaningful to them than it is to you. You get penalized for doing the wrong thing. They, on the other hand make all the rules and penalties and are never taken to task for all of the rotten, evil things they do.

The fact of the matter is that now I'm in a better financial position and I don't need their card. I can also afford to pay my bills to them and know that one day I will be paid out of their scheme. There are millions of people in this world who don't have that option. They're stuck with this system unless someone changes it. Unless someone makes them, the credit card companies and all those other financial institutions complicit in this oppression of consumers, play nice.