Best of the Austin blogs: Week of Dec. 5

Props for reading NSC!

re: Grits for Breakfast:

The animation is pretty funny, but I do think it's targeted at the wrong "enemy." Most people fail to recognize the fact that it isn't Visa they should be upset with. Its the banks. Credit card companies make no money off your interest rates. The bank the issued the card does. They set those rates and they charge late fees and they mark your credit report and they call you 25 times a day. Not Visa. Credit card companies (like Visa) make their money by providing secure transactions between consumers and merchants. Merchants pay a small fee to for those transaction services. So really, if people are going to be mad at the actual credit card companies, it should only be because merchants probably have a small mark up to cover those fees (that's why small stores have CC minimums).

Anyway, I don't own a credit card because I agree and understand the core message in the animation...but I think its doing a disservice by feeding misinformation to consumers about who they should be addressing.

Hey, I like this new feature!