A most appropriate quote ...

... via digby.

"The top 1 per cent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 per cent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 per cent eventually do learn.

Too Late."

--- Joseph Stiglitz

Bush the Lesser strutted in cowboy boots, Obama blows smoke at us ...

Smoke and mirrors, but no legislation and no accountability.

Obama might as well hold his breath, stamp his feet, hammer his shoe on a table or strut across an aircraft carrier.

'Start lending,' Obama tells the bankers

Does American Express still have status? ...

I have one credit card. I didn't have any credit cards until the bank (Bank of America, just a few long years ago a very customer service oriented bank) charged me a usurious fee when they claimed that they paid a charge on my debit card when there was not enough funds to cover it. My statement said they were lying. After three calls they still refused to reverse the charge so I cancelled the debit card, opened an account at another bank and applied for a credit card.

The credit card (a special label card from USB) just raised their interest rates. I don't carry a balance so this doesn't impact my monthly expenses in any way, but there is just NO reason for them to raise the interest rate (as well as various fees).

So I applied for the "TrueEarningsSM Card from Costco and American Express." I received an email that said I have been approved and also provided some links such as:

learn more about your new card right now, click here ...

I copied the link address, went into another browser and attempted to go there. The there transfers me to their signup page, which I certainly don't need to see again.

So I decide to respond to

"Was this email helpful? Please click here to give us your feedback."

In this case opened a new window with the offered address in the same browser in which I was viewing the email. Didn't work.

Next I call their 800 number. The canned message (not one of the newer, improved automated systems) is at first garbled, but of course that could possibly be my phone though I have not had any problems with other calls. After repeating 'customer service, customer service, customer service' I am finally transferred to India (or maybe I was in India all along). How do I know it was India? Since I couldn't understand what the person was saying I asked if he was in the United States. He wasn't. I said thank you and hung up.

Of course, if there hadn't been phone problems and if he could have spoken a version of English understandable to me, then I would never have known where he resided and would just have told my story. Once you get beyond the crappy automated phone system at least one should be able to expect reasonable easy communication about a joint Amex and CostCo card. Shouldn't one?

Guess not ...