US banks urged to 'clean up' credit card practices

Jesus H Christ in Doc Martens, this pisses me off about as much as anything can these days.

US lawmakers urged some [some? non-contributors?] of America's largest financial companies to "clean up" their credit card practices Tuesday, amid an ongoing congressional probe of charges and fees imposed on consumers.

Unless these fuckers have had their aides shit-can mailings from banks, they had to know about these predatory banks. This isn't some recent phenomenon. Hell, I get several mailings weekly offering credit cards. Sometimes the debt limit is more than half my income.

So, either they ignored such information, didn't give a shit about their constituents or condoned such practices.

They should have dived into this mess long before people were destroyed.

Via AFP.

KENYA: Credit key to breaking cycle of poverty

This is all fine if consumer credit, which is killing Americans, isn't included.

Besides education, health and good infrastructure, access to credit ranks high among the priorities of millions of Kenyans living in informal settlements in urban and rural areas.

Even small amounts can be enough to break out of the poverty trap.

"I started this business of selling chips [French fries] two years ago using money we raised as a group of 30 women," Mary Mwihaki, 27, a resident of Mathare, one of Kenya's large slum areas in the capital Nairobi, told IRIN.

Every day, each of the women in Mwihaki's group contributes Sh20 (30 US cents) and the resulting Sh600 ($9) is given to a different member of the group on a rotating basis. Mwihaki had to wait three months to raise the $27 she needed.

Please read the snippet again and look at the amounts of money these people are working with.

Then its fine to cry.

Via Reuters.