There are quite a few credit card companies and banks raising rates right now on many customers.  Even those with high credit ratings have not been able to escape the flood of interest rate hikes, all timed to go into effect before the new laws that restrict the companies even further come into play in February.  Millions of consumers have been up in arms and voicing their feelings about these rate hikes, and I’m certainly one of them.  I don’t like how companies are trying to milk every last penny out of consumers before they have to limit their out of control behavior.  But there are a couple of caveats to the argument against the credit card companies raising their rates and treating their customers poorly.  While I don’t think any company should abuse their customers or treat them unfairly, all of the credit card debt people are finding themselves in has its roots in their own fiscal irresponsibility.

Credit card companies cannot raise rates or otherwise hurt you or your credit score if you do not use their crappy product to buy anything.  I will repeat this: credit card companies can’t hurt you or your credit score unless you first give them the opportunity to do so.  The consumer culture we have found ourselves in for the past two decades has lead to much higher levels of consumer debt than people are able to comfortably pay off.  Whatever happened to the rule about not buying something if you can’t afford it?  When did Americans become so greedy that they were willingly (or unwillingly) allowing credit card companies the power to financially enslave them for years after a purchase?  All of this noise being made over the “unfair practices” of credit card companies is fine and dandy, but it’d be a non-issue if people lived within their means.  This is a lesson that was least learned during the Great Depression, and I hope this time around it sticks with people for another generation or two.

Sure it’ll be tough for American consumers to pay down their credit card debt with higher rates, heck, may of these consumers can no longer make the minimums required by the credit card companies, but is it really the credit card company’s fault that the person used their card at a time when they were unable to pay the money back?  Sure credit cards are awesome in emergencies, or when there are absolutely no other options, but how many of those people who are bickering about the higher rates actually got behind because of an emergency?  I’d be willing to bet that most of them got behind on purchases that were unnecessary, or could have lived without a purchase for long enough to save up the cash to buy it outright.  When people complain about the credit card company’s practices they are essentially complaining about their own bad fiscal planning and purchasing decisions.  And I don’t feel very bad for those people who went out and bought a 60” plasma screen TV and are now whining that they can no longer afford the minimum payments on their credit cards.  It’s very expensive to be financially incompetent or ignorant in America.