Free Republic

Debt Is the New Chains: A Warning for Young People About Modern Financial Traps Imagine being forced to work for years just to pay off a debt. Not because you chose the job, but because you had no other way out. This was the life of an indentured servant—a person who signed a contract to work for several years without pay in exchange for something they needed, like passage to America back in the 1600s or 1700s. It sounded like a fair trade. But the truth was, once you signed that contract, your freedom was gone. You were stuck working...

Major airlines said Monday they oppose a new effort to advance legislation that would reduce fees charged by Visa and Mastercard on transactions, saying the bill could force them to stop offering rewards credit cards that give consumers frequent flyer miles for making transactions. American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others including Boeing, Airbus and GE Aerospace, said in a letter to senators the legislation sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) could sharply reduce air travel and harm overall tourism. Airlines generate billions of dollars annually in fees for branded credit cards. Durbin has called...

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) provided an update to one of the biggest scams uncovered by Elon Musk’s team on Wednesday evening. DOGE says it has saved approximately $105 billion in a “combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings,” and other workforce reductions. The Democrats are angry that DOGE is saving American taxpayers money, so they devised a scheme to stop Elon Musk and his team. There are currently nearly a dozen lawsuits challenging DOGE over its authority, data access, and privacy laws. There is also a secret resistance...

Millions of Americans love using their credit cards – the most secure, hassle-free, and worry-free way to pay. Credit cards alert customers to potential fraud, giving them financial safety and peace of mind. They also provide convenient payment options and rewards families use to pay for everyday goods like gas and groceries or trips to see friends and family, all supporting our nation’s economy.The Durbin-Marshall Credit Card Bill would mandate your credit cards can run on alternative networks – not the trusted and stable networks you probably use today – and there is no guarantee the convenience, zero-liability fraud protection,...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed three gun control bills on Thursday. The bills ban certain gun mods, make gun shops post clearer warnings, and change how gun sales are tracked. “New Yorkers are sick of weapons manufacturers ignoring their role in the gun violence epidemic,” said Democratic Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, who sponsored the bill in the Assembly. “Glock has known that its pistols can be easily and cheaply converted into illegal fully-automatic machine guns. It’s time to put people over profit.” S745/A439 changes how credit cards categorize gun vendors, requiring the companies to use new merchant codes for...

The Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) issued a new update in its ongoing audit of government credit cards. This has been a significant focus for the department, and DOGE has issued updates on its findings weekly on X. Their most recent post announced the cancellation of over 200,000 government credit cards. According to their post, DOGE has continued its pilot program with 16 federal agencies to audit unused cards. They say that while hundreds of thousands of credit cards have been deactivated, millions more need to be deactivated. For context, DOGE acts on the president’s authority, and Trump directly addressed...

In a bombshell revelation, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has exposed a shocking level of federal spending abuse, revealing that the U.S. government has over 4.6 million active credit cards in circulation, processing a staggering 90 million transactions worth nearly $40 billion in Fiscal Year 2024 alone. “The US government currently has ~4.6M active credit cards/accounts, which processed ~90M unique transactions for ~$40B of spend in FY24. DOGE is working w/ the agencies to simplify the program and reduce admin costs – we will report back in 1 week,” the account wrote.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) pledged to “simplify” the federal government’s credit card program on Tuesday which cost taxpayers nearly $40 billion last year. “The US government currently has ~4.6M active credit cards/accounts, which processed ~90M unique transactions for ~$40B of spend in FY24,” read an X post from the cost-cutting initiative’s official account. “DOGE is working w/ the agencies to simplify the program and reduce admin costs,” the group added. DOGE said it “will report back in 1 week” with its plan to disentangle the system. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that the federal government...

The lame duck Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a rule in December to curb overdraft penalties in what experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation is an example of government overreach that will ravage low-income Americans. The CFPB — an agency that is considered the brainchild of Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — finalized the rule just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, with the aim of forcing banks to either cap overdraft fees at $5, far less than the $35 average, or to provide the overdraft as a form of credit rather than a penalty....

Consumer stress has intensified, with an escalating share of credit card holders making only minimum payments on their bills, according to a Philadelphia Federal Reserve report. In fact, the share of active holders just making baseline payments on their cards jumped to a 12-year high, data through the third quarter of 2024 shows. The level rose to 10.75% for the period, part of a continuing trend that began in 2021 and has accelerated as average interest rates have soared and delinquencies also have accelerated. The increase also marked a series high for a data set that began in 2012. Along...

It’s no surprise that Americans often rely heavily on credit cards to make ends meet. And with a recent period of rampant inflation, it’s equally unsurprising that credit card balances are on the rise. In the third quarter of 2024, U.S. credit card balances rose by $24 billion, reaching the $1.17 trillion mark — the highest level recorded by the Fed in 20 years.

NEW YORK — Your wallet may soon be getting thinner. Visa on Wednesday announced major changes to how credit and debit cards will operate in the U.S. in the coming months and years. The new features could mean Americans will be carrying fewer physical cards in their wallets, and will make the 16-digit credit or debit card number printed on every card increasingly irrelevant. They will be some of the biggest changes to how payments operate in the U.S. since the U.S. rolled out chip-embedded cards several years ago. They also come as Americans have many more options to pay...

The rates of Americans behind on auto loan and credit card bills continue to rise — in fact, both are at the highest levels in more than 10 years. Rising delinquencies indicate that more people are in financial distress. When auto loan or credit card payments are missed, consumers dig themselves deeper into debt and see major drops in their credit scores, so it’s usually an outcome people try to absolutely avoid.

ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith may be a left-winger, but he does not seem to be on board with the Biden regime’s open-border policies. On his Tuesday podcast, he ripped the millions being spent on illegal aliens while natural-born Americans are left wanting. As Smith wrapped up his show on Feb. 6, he left sports and entertainment behind to address politics in America. And he started his segment by saying that Donald Trump will be reelected as president in November “even if he’s a convicted felon” by that time. The commentator went on to explain why he feels that...

CV NEWS FEED // An agency of the federal government “flagged” Bible purchases as an indication of “extremism” in communications with banks following the events of January 6, 2021. “We now know the federal government flagged terms like ‘MAGA’ and ‘TRUMP,’ to financial institutions if Americans completed transactions using those terms,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-OH, wrote on X. “What was also flagged? If you bought a religious text, like a BIBLE, or shopped at Bass Pro Shop.” Jordan serves as the chairman of both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal...

Under Bidenomics, with its high inflation rate and crushing negative wage growth, consumers are draining their savings and living on a prayer …. and consumer credit to cope. US consumer credit just rose to $17.3 trillion, up dramatically since Biden’s inaugaration as El Presidente of the United Banana Republics of America. ffffff A closer look at credit card delinquency rates on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, showing the fastest growth in delinquencies since the Covid economic lockdowns. Then we have commercial real estate delinquencies are now the highest the have been since 2013. Meanwhile, University of Michigan consumer sentiment about inflation...

Is Biden trying to burn down the economic house? Under Bidenomics, America’s middle class and low wage workers are suffering from a wild, wild life in terms of inflation. First, food prices are up 20% since December 2020. Talk about destruction of middle class wealth! That is in addition to gasoline prices are up 64% under Biden while rent growth is up 252%. Well, Biden waived through millions of illegal immigrants and rent had to rise. Biden and Washington DC’s broken borders is Livin’ La Vida Loco. To cope with inflation (that Paul Krugman claims is over but the last...

Square, a company that supplies point of sale (POS) systems to small businesses that allow for credit card processing, has been down all day Thursday, affecting users in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France, and Spain. Square is one of the largest suppliers of POS systems to all kinds of businesses, like restaurants, salons, tattoo parlors, boutiques, and much more. According to the website, Square is “Trusted by millions of businesses worldwide.”Without the ability to process credit cards, many businesses have reported turning away customers who don’t have cash—or taking an enormous risk and writing down credit card...

U.S. consumer credit card debt has reached a record-high $1.03 trillion, according to the New York Federal Reserve’s latest quarterly household debt report released Tuesday. In the second quarter of 2023 alone, credit card balances grew by more than 4 percent, a possible sign that consumers are relying on their cards more than ever to get through a period of relatively high inflation. But even though credit cards can be helpful tools for building financial security, carrying a balance month to month can quickly become overwhelming and lead to expensive debt and a tarnished credit score. Here are three methods...

Americans are increasingly turning to their credit cards to cover everyday expenses, with debt surpassing $1 trillion for the first time at the end of June, according to a New York Federal Reserve report published Tuesday. In the three-month period from April to June, total credit card debt surged to $1.03 trillion, an increase of $45 billion, or 4.6% from the previous quarter. It marks the highest level on record in Fed data dating back to 2003. The rise in credit card usage and debt is particularly concerning because interest rates are astronomically high right now. The average credit card...