A fool and his money soon part

By Thomas Oliver

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The new credit card law can't protect us from ourselves.

Congress has created law where the Federal Reserve had created policy. The Fed's rules are to take effect July 2010. The politicians are rushing their version into place four months earlier.

The real difference? Politicians get to claim they socked it to the big bad credit card companies.

No doubt, credit card issuers bought some of this on themselves. Raising the interest rate on a balance incurred under a different rate is wrong. Don't care if it is allowed for in the fine print. Fine print is where dishonorable intentions hide.

But such questionable practices didn't create the balances to begin with.

We can't blame others for our addiction to debt. Any more than we can blame the foreclosure crisis on unscrupulous mortgage brokers. If the housing crisis were all about predatory lending, the re-default rate on modified mortgages wouldn't be so high.

If this mess with debt is anyone's but our own fault, it's our educational system's fault for graduating so many with so little understanding of economics. Come to think of it, that's our fault, too.

The bottom line in all things financial: If you don't assume responsibility for your own money, assume someone will take advantage of you.

A fool and his money are indeed soon parted.

And until they started giving away mortgages, credit cards were where most folks acted the fool.

The average consumer carries four credit cards and owes $9,900 on them, according to CardTrack.com and Experian. While many have the good sense to pay their card bills in full every month, one out of eight debtors carries balances in excess of $25,000. The average interest rate is 13.5 percent.

At that rate, if you cut up the cards and never charged another dime, it'd take you 10 years at $150 a month to pay off $9,900.

Another way to look at it: A 2 percent minimum payment on a $25,000 balance at that rate would blow a $500-a-month hole in your budget. If you kept it up and disavowed plastic, it would only take you six years to rid yourself of the evidence of your past.

No wonder we have so many bankruptcies and foreclosures.

If you're lugging a $25,000 balance and your mortgage adjusts up or your spouse who loses a job, your days will become dark nights of the soul.

Suzanne Boas, president of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Atlanta, says unsecured debt, of which credit card debt is the largest item, is the No. 1 issue her counselors deal with.

The 47,000 Georgians who called her shop last year for help with foreclosure prevention averaged $19,000 in unsecured debt, of which most was owed to credit card companies.

Congress can't limit the number of credit cards you carry. And Congress can't go with you when you shop and spend more than you intended, which is plastic's temptation. Nor can Congress make you pay off those balances sooner rather than later.

If you're looking to government to keep you out of debt, you're going to love that oceanfront property in Arizona.

Thomas Oliver is a business columnist. He can be reached at toliver.writeright@gmail.com