So in India Jobs grew more then expected, while in the US less then expected. OK the good news is of course that there was Job Growth. And it appears that we are also to blame for some of our slow down. This mortgage bubble bursting is affecting us all.
This Mortgage bubble is being caused by greedy mortgage firms and greedy borrowers that know their property is not worth what the took out on it to pay off other debt. Come on Americans use your heads a little more (myself included)
Buy American and don’t use as much credit!
May 5th, 2007 at 6:22 am
I almost always pay with cash. I even pay for gas with cash. It’s amazing how many of my friends use plastic and I’m not just talking about $80 of groceries. Many of them will use plastic to pay for fast food. It’s ridiculous! How hard is it to carry $5? I wish more gas stations would offer a discount for paying with cash like they did in the 80’s.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:34 am
The reason for no cash discount is Visa and MasterCard. It is against their rules if you offer a discount for cash, which of course give you a reason not to use plastic. They do enforce the rule where there is volume.
Visa and MasterCards profits make Exxons look small.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I thought the reason they stopped the discount was because the gas stations realized that the cash discount did not significantly increase their cash sales.
May 5th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
That may be another reason, although I think the credit card companies also saw that it was making customers use cash so I think that was one of the factors they used in making the rule. I think they also gave the petro industry a sweet deal on transaction cost as well. So the gas companies just raised all the prices to credit and we all foot the bill.
Credit is easy to use and even seems to be cost effective when you pay it off, however I have clients that pay well over $100,000.00 a year in credit card fees a year, which of course must be passed through as a cost of doing biz.
All credit card merchant services fees went up a couple years ago when Wallmart sued Visa/MasterCard over the check card issue. The merchants won, but the industry saw a huge price spike right after the suit. So we all lost!