I noticed a news article about some banks raising the interest rates on credit card balances despite the current very low prime rate percentage. A bank representative explained that since so many people had defaulted on credit card payments, the remaining customers would have to pay more interest to offset those losses – and this particular bank was specifically targeting long-time card holders with good payment records, presumably because those customers would be more likely to continue to have the financial ability to make their payments.

I seem to recall that a short time ago, we (meaning we the working people who pay taxes) gave the largest banks a big pile of our money to get them out of debt, and it was unpaid loan debt from those who couldn’t pay for their houses (and many other things). Now it appears that if we want to use a credit card, those of us who actually can must subsidize those who could not. This time we just pay the bank directly rather than pay the government that then gives money to the bank.

This is an extremely simplistic view of what is actually happening, I understand that. It just seems like I might be in a better financial position if I stopped making my house payment, then buy enough of something to reach my credit card’s limit, then throw away the credit card and any subsequent correspondence I might receive from the bank. Other people would be making my payments for me, so it’s likely the bank won’t even bill me anyway. This must be a path to success since so many other people are following it. With all my debt gone, I might not even have to work at all. Maybe the government would pay me to do nothing. The people in government pay themselves to do nothing. There’s no reason they can’t do the same for me.

I wonder what will happen when everyone decides to just walk away from their debts and not work. I suppose the government could just print more money to pay all of us to do nothing. Unfortunately, some of us just won’t do any of those things even though we pay for those people who do. Is that the price for being responsible?