You've got THAT right. I wish it were possible to jail for 130 years every politician who acquiesced to this Ponzi scheme. It makes everything other financial crime tiny by comparison.
If the free market is such a good thing (and by and large I believe it is) then why can't interest rates be subject to free market pressures as well?
Credit card companies charge whatever interest they can get their customers to tolerate. Why not so for banks?