All financial institutions to be run by the federal government.

[HappySqurriel]

akuma587 said:

HappySqurriel said:

ManusJustus said:

De85 said:

The amount of naivete in this post is baffling.   First off, banks and credit cards do not and can not prey on anyone without that person first royally screwing the pooch.  It's not the fault of the credit card company that you made more charges than you can afford to pay for, and must now pay the high interest rates that you knew you would have to pay if you didn't keep your balance current. 

Secondly, it would be great if the sole purpose of government agencies were to protect the consumers, but sadly that's not how it works out in real life.  One word: bureaucracy. 

Akuma summed things up nicely.  To put it simply, many low-skilled workers cant effectively read through a 20 page contract and completely understand all the legal and financial jargon.  Even if they realize that they are being wronged, lawyers arent a cheap and quick alternative.

"Can't read through" or "Don't read through"?

If they don't have the ability to read the contract wouldn't it make sense to provide better education, training and or services to help people understand the contract? If they are simply too lazy to do the work to protect themself and read a contract why is it anyone's problem but their own?

Even if you DO read the contract, its not like you can call them up and tell them to change the terms.  They will just tell you no.

And, not surprisingly, most credit card companies use almost identical contracts in terms of how favorably they draft the contracts to protect themselves, so you don't even have meaningful alternatives.

Is a credit card a necessity?

Therefore you have at least one meaningful alternative which is to not have a credit card ...