05/05/2009 - Workers at the largest financial institutions are on pace to earn as much money this year as they did before the economic collapse, according to a recent article in The New York Times. Goldman Sachs just set aside $4.7 billion for bonuses and compensation in the first quarter. And traders and investment bankers at JP Morgan Chase are projected to earn an average of over $500,000 this year.
I think it's safe to say that these guys just don't get it, no matter how many times they get hauled to Principal Obama's office.
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To be fair about this, we should set up some parameters. Let's continue to make payments on cards with interest rates at or below 10 percent (which is still exorbitant, considering the Fed has brought short-term interest rates close to 0 percent). And let's reward lenders who don't charge gargantuan late fees (a recent Pew Charitable Trust survey found that 87 percent of cards allowed automatic late penalty increases with a median rate of 27.99 percent).
Read the full editorial Stop Feeding the Loan Sharks on the The Christian Science Monitor's Web site.
Pew is no longer active in this line of work, but for more information visit the Safe Credit Cards Project on PewHealth.org.