Originally Posted by Snake Doctor

Living within your means and being frugal are of course important things, but when making that statement also realize alot of people are in this situation.

They get a credit card at 9%.
They want to buy some furniture for $5000.
The minimum payment on that is $87

Then they get sick, miss a week of work, and are late on their car payment.
They pay the late fee and catch up with the car payment, but then the credit card company finds out, raises their rate to 28%, and lowers their limit.
Now the minimum payment has doubled, to $165, plus the $35 over the limit fee that was triggered when they lowered the limit.
So now you're paying $200/month.

Do that on a couple of accounts and it's not hard to see how people can get in over their heads, especially in an economy like this one. Alot of people may have borrowed last year or the year before when things were great, and now they've lost their jobs and their CC payments have tripled because they fell behind.

Add to that the recent changes to bankruptcy laws (which were literally written by the credit card company lobbyists) and consumers have even less of a chance to get back on their feet if they ever fall behind.