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For a lot of Americans the credit card system is another tax on being poor: People with stable jobs and good credit qualify for no-fee credit cards with reward
by awongh 3mo ago
For a lot of Americans the credit card system is another tax on being poor:
People with stable jobs and good credit qualify for no-fee credit cards with rewards / cashback. As a consumer you benefit financially from having a credit card. Those elsewhere in the thread worried about "debt" - you just set to auto-withdrawl the entire balance of the card every month from your bank account. Now you have free money. I can't think of a reason not to take advantage of this system in some way.
But people with unstable jobs and poor credit help subsidize these "higher-end" credit cards when they pay high interest rates on their because they missed payments or hold a balance over multiple months. For those people credit cards could help with monthly cashflow issues but are essentially a scam and not much better than payday loans.
Yet another system that American consumers are kind of forced to participate in that's a sort of tragedy of the commons (high-reward cards wouldn't exist without the exploitation of other people not savvy enough to avoid high interest and fees)
- gpvos 3mo agoThere is no such thing as free money, you're paying for it somehow. Maybe higher processing fees, maybe beggars on the streets and a society out of whack.
- kevin_thibedeau 3mo agoWith autopay, you end up with two months of utilization stacked up. Even with a higher limit, you'll be penalized versus paying off completely like a charge card.