Marty Floyd’s Weblog

May 2009, Memorial Day, is a good time for reflection. In this post I am referring to a post I made in 2007 mostly about technology. I also discussed the consumer situation that was going on in America.

Obama is the hot topic these days. A president articulate in speech and good at planning to get “immediate, correct” quick and popular results.

There was also a mountain of bank, finance, corporate, and personal greed and failure.

The financial solution seemed to be bailout, poor decisions, and “criminal” action.

My 2007 post also mentioned a then hard to believe credit card debt.

United States consumers have an eight trillion dollar ($8,000,000,000,000) credit card debt!

So here we are today having heard of “stimulus” plans to help the consumer economic situation.

Hear I am today with my credit card companies (those same banking bailout recipients) reducing my ability to plan the best way to help myself get my finances under control. After agreement on my limit and rate interest things have now changed.

Now I receive letters stating “due to the economic situation” my limit has been reduced and my minimum payment must go up, as well as, my percentage rate has been increased.

What kind of “relief” is this? No negotiation, and in some cases, causing problems when paying for something and being told the card has been rejected.

The worst I have had happen is that my interest has been raised and it applies to my current balance, as well as, any new purchases! But wait, they also are going to start charging an extra one percent on the balance. I thought that purchases were made at a given percentage. How can they now say that I have to pay more that I paid originally. Especially if it were a sale item that helped me and the seller by moving money around (helping the economy).

Was it not our federal government that started the “credit card capability”? Is it like us carrying an ever increasing federal deficit? Is it like social security that was not supposed to ever go higher that two percent? Is it like the government?

United States consumers have an eight trillion dollar ($8,000,000,000,000) credit card debt! I still find that figure unreal. Our federal government is adding some three trillion dollars to our debt. How are we consumers going to keep up with this when there is an approximately ten percent of us unemployed right now.It seems to me that the boat (US) is definitely headed into an uncharted journey that will possibly go down in the history of the world as a once powerful nation where anyone could succeed with ingenuity, hard work, and a government that supported all people.

I remember reading once that to find the real problem or the source of it is to ask why five times.

Why did this happen? What happened? What could I have done to circumvent the event? What can I learn from this to go foreword in my life’s journey?

Why did I think that the answer required five “why” questions and did the previous paragraph change my thinking?

Perhaps there is another way to approach the problem. Seek counsel!