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Highway to financial Hell

Bob Morris, on Jan 16, 2008, 7:32 am

Nearly 10 million American households, or 9.2 percent, don’t have bank accounts of any kind, according to Federal Reserve data.Those folks rely on payday lenders, pawnshops, rent-to-own stores, tax-refund lenders and other high-cost, quick-cash lenders to get by each week.

Thus, the reason they don’t have a bank account is not ignorance of them, but probably  because they don’t have any spare money to deposit into one.

Americans spent more than they earned in both 2005 and 2006 by charging the difference on credit cards.

At 18-30% too.

Tags: | Category: News | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)

  • http://homelessonthehighdesert.wordpress.com/ Ten Bears

    I don’t do business with banks. Nor do I do business with payday lenders, pawnshops, rent-to-own stores, tax-refund lenders and other high-cost, quick-cash lenders to get by each week. Such generalizations smack of propaganda, or the criminalizing of those who refuse to do business with criminals.

    The Federal Reserve and the American banking system, like the IRS, are unconstitutional, contrary to The Founders’ intent, and under the control of those who do not have my, or Oregon’s, or for that matter the so-called united states’, best interests at heart.

  • http://www.asymptoticlife.com DJ

    Personally, I limit my business as much as possible to my local (locally-owned, locally-staffed, locally-managed, ten-branch) bank. I trust them. They live here and work here– they even know my name. They service their own mortgages– and even issue their own credit cards. If they’ve got anyone’s interest at heart, it would be the communities of Southern Utah.

  • http://polizeros.com Bob Morris

    Hmm, I bank with BofA and invest at Fidelity – both about the biggest dogs in their field.

    Fidelity has a well-deserved rep for being conservative with money and reliability. BofA has ATMs everywhere, which is handy, although I wonder if they threw good money after bad with their purchase of Countrywide. But they really are too big to be allowed to fail (not that I think there’s any chance of that happening.)

  • http://www.asymptoticlife.com DJ

    “they really are too big to be allowed to fail…”

    They really are to big to have to worry about customer sevice. Even my wife, who used to have accounts with them and still likes them, has her share of nightmare stories.