[Army_of_One]

Originally Posted by Detector

Allow me to play the Devil's Advocate

First let me say I agree with whats been posted so far.

Yes we should be responsible for our own decisions, but we are also responsible for our own eating habits, drinking habits, gambling habits, smoking habits, school fees, food to feed our families and the list goes on and on. Yet we don't have a problem bailing these people out because of a lack of frugal'ness.

We have these companies that are more than happy to hand out credit to those they know will struggle and more than likely fail to pay back. These money lender types come to mind. Car dealers at times will drop their qualification standards for the sake of a sales increase. Even though they know chances are the loan will not be payed back.

These people pray on those who don't have the willpower to say "no I can't afford that." It's no different than a person offering a drink to a person they know is an alcoholic for the sake of selling booze. Or offering a drug addict drugs they know they won't refuse.

Hold the dealers responsible as well as the users

One of the things about "bad credit" I've never understood is why those with bad credit pay a higher interest rate than those with good credit. I understand the "higher risk" and "reward for good financial practice" but doesn't this seem a bit like taking advantage of an alcoholic? They should of course limit the amount of credit based on credit rating, but to tack on more interest making it harder to pay back seems a bit whacked.

In a way they are being taken advantage of but it's "buyer beware". The gov't can't regulate stupidity. I would say that most of us have made a dumb financial decision or two in our lives...some of us learn from them and some of us don't. The great thing about having a capitalist society (one of greed as Wordy would say) is that people have the freedom (wonderful word) to succeed or fail. It IS unfortunate that there are institutes out there that "take advantage" of the situation but the person can also not patronize the business. EXAMPLE: Rent A Center, It's a place that sucks off of people but they still go into the place and do business. People think they can't do without that new tv or couch so they go there. Is the business wrong or is it the responsibility of the person to make decisions?