Credit card companies have acted like knee-breakers and thugs. When you pay by phone there's a fee. When you miss a payment, even by a day, you can see your interest rate go from 8 to 30 percent. Even if you pay responsibly they are forever changing the due dates and rates. They send out credit offers to children. So I don't feel sorry for them if they have to eat it.

Sure but is it ok to give a trillion to the banksta' ?? OHHH their Bush people, now I get it!

If the government starts bailing out dumb people who charged more on their credit cards than they could afford, what is the government going to do for me?

Since everything we do these days must be "fair", how is it "fair" that I pay my bill on time and don't get any sort of bail out or government assistance. Yet people who make a lot of bad choices get bailed out. How is that fair?

It seems to me that the credit card companies are doing the same thing that the mortgage companies. They will run up huge loan balances and then expect the government to bail them out under the pretext of helping the debtor. I just received a notice from a credit card company advising me that they are raising their rate to over 20 %. Fortunately for me I don�t have any balance with this card but I sure feel sorry for those people who do. Perhaps it�s not that they have charged more that they could afford but that they have been sucked into a scam where their balance owed is made up of interest and fees and not what they have bought.

What's becoming more and more obvious is that the "American way of life" is not sustainable - none of it! Not the way we use energy, not the way we use credit and certainly not the way we spend money. Personal responsibility is the need of the hour! The measure of a good woman/man is not how many material things we own. We don't need 5,000 square foot homes, RV'S, or $50,000 trucks to haul our toys. We don't have to make a killing, just a living! Until we become sustainable in the way we live, we will continue to see this "domino effect" in all of the wonderful institutions that we set up as pillars of our society. Don't think so? Let's just keep on living the way we are. You know, we don't have to hit a brick wall first before we wake up. Now is the time!

It sounds to me like they just want to mark down the unrecoverable debt and let the debtor pay off over time what they think they can afford. Are they actually talking about being reimbursed for the markdown by the Fed? If so then I am vehemently opposed. Or, is this just a markdown to save money on Corporate taxes? It doesn't seem clear.

Again, the DN editorial staff hastily grabs a couple of low hanging talking points and builds an uninformative article.

Massive credit card debt happens for several reasons:
1-Loss of middle class purchasing power. Compared to 30 years ago it takes two incomes for a family to get by with less discretionary income.
2-Medical costs continue to skyrocket and this expense is the largest single reason responsible for filing bankruptcy.
3-Aggressive advertising and promotion has turned this nation into consumers instead of savers.
4-Federal usury laws were eliminated.
5-Banks and credit card companies relocated their main offices to states that allowed the highest interest rate charges and addition of a cornucopia of various tricks and traps to add fees, additional expenses and increase interest rates without prior notification.
6-The profit to banks and credit card companies when people run up large debts and only pay the minimum amount over long periods of time is enormous.

Understandably, wholesale cancellation of these large debts is problematic and not necessarily the best solution, however, just like the mortgage brokers who pushed the sub-prime mortgages on unsuspecting applicants, the credit card companies are complicit, if not responsible, for this mess.

To "kv2 | 10:22 a.m." actually, the US has the resources to sustain its energy use for 60 to 100 years, depending on which report you read. We are just banned from developing our own resources. We could actually produce a lot of energy quickly if we took the advanced reactor designs from other countries and buil them here.

What we have going on is businesses leaving the US because the tax rate on businesses is one of the highest in the world. Since a buisness is not a citizen, and can easily re-locate to where it isn't taxed so much, they leave.

What would you define as making just a living? Do you realize that beyond a house, food, and clothing, everything you have is considered a luxury?

I agree that we need personal responsibility, but some people can be responsible with more money than others.

IF credit card companies would stick to the terms they offered consumers and under which consumers charged things, this discussion would be moot. But you charge something thinking you'll be paying 10 percent interest and then it's suddenly 18.5. Shame on them. Quit lecturing consumers who are struggling and demand some decency from those who are shoddy in their business practices.It's one thing to make people pay their debts, and another to keep adjusting it up on them.

The blame is with both; the consumer and the credit card companies. If you, the lender, are willing to grant credit, then you, the lender must assume risk. Too darned bad if you chose to lend and allow the credit card limits to raise. It's unsecured debt and if one needs to file for Bankruptcy Protection, then tough. It's already figured into the rates.