ProudToBeCanadian.ca

Spoken like a true fascist…

Banks told to ease credit card terms or face new rules

Updated Thu. May. 28 2009 6:05 PM ET
The Canadian Press

OTTAWA—Canada’s banks have been warned to work together to respond to customer complaints about credit card practices or face regulations they ‘are probably not going to like.’

— Conservative MP Ted Menzies, the parliamentary secretary to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, as reported at CTV.ca

And here’s a random, gratuitous picture of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

A little advise for the Conservative secretary — and I hope I can live up to the abilities of the ingenious Conservative Party “strategist” Geoff (“cancel Fox News Channel!”) Norquay:  An actual conservative might have suggested that those poor, poor, helpless customers who have been trained to suck on the teat of the big, growing, savior government, and who are now obediently totally reliant upon that big, savior government to fix every personal problem they ever come across, thereby enabling them to shirk any personal responsibility and help further destroy capitalism (as they all collectively seem to be totally bent on doing), could simply shift their credit card needs to a competitor which is offering a better deal.  You know, kind of like capitalism in a free country, rather than like fascism in, say, Venezuela or Cuba. 

What is these people’s problem anyway?
Here’s the way I’m personally organized, credit-card-wise:  I have a credit card in my name, my wife has one in her name, and we have one in joint ownership.  They’re from three different banks.  They each charge a relatively low interest rate of about 11% (yes that sounds high to some, which is why we don’t carry any balance, but it’s lower than many others that charge 20% and more, which we’d never carry in our wallets). 

We also have an American Express card account which we use for everything possible, because we get airline points (we have enough points to travel for free to anywhere in the world now), and we have to pay it off every month (American Express cards are not “credit” cards, they’re really just charge cards.  If you don’t pay it off every month, they literally take it away from you, explaining that perhaps this card isn’t right for you). 

We pay the amount owing on time. 

And if we didn’t, we wouldn’t phone the government for help.

We call this strategy “personal responsibility”.  In a marvelous, free, “capitalist” world.  And let me tell you something else:  I learned about this the very, very hard way:  by failing on a massive scale, picking myself up, and learning from it. And I’m the stronger for it.

Hope that helps.