I was done with the Signs of the Times series until I saw this while pumping gas yesterday. Here is my final offering:
According to creditshout, “The CITGO PLUS Credit Card … has a very high APR and no rewards program.”
Yet the claim on their ad is “more good for people.”
Have you ever wondered what people they’re talking about?
Certainly not their card holders!
The Federal Reserve’s G.19 report on consumer credit shows a total U.S. revolving debt (98 percent of which is made up of credit card debt) of $813.9 billion as of September 2010.
Another report claims the average credit card interest rate is 12.4% APR. At simple interest, with no compounding, then, consumers pay at least $85 billion annually in interest on credit card and other revolving debt.
I’m not an economists.
I’m not Dave Ramsey.
I even carry a credit card or two.
But I can’t help wondering how much “more good“ could be done “for people” with the $85 billion annually we’re currently paying in interest alone.
If you had $85 billion dollars a year to spend on eliminating one global problem and doing “more good for people,” where would you start?
I think I’d start by providing clean drinking water for the entire plant. Or maybe helping the 143 million orphans in the world. Or the homeless. Or the hungry. Or battered women and children.
I can’t decide.
What would you do?
Catalyst has “
