Thursday, April 23, 2009

Blame it on the Credit Card Companies!

USA Today has an article today called "White House and Congress Target Credit Card Rates". The article talks about how President Obama and congress are going to go after the Credit Card companies to force them to stop raising their rates. I have to admit that I was not pleased when my credit card rate recently went from 12% to 18%. However, I knew that could happen when I got the credit card. America's financial system is built on credit. There are always risks involved in borrowing money or launching business ventures. Pure capitalism rewards hard work and sound investment over the long run. When our government bails out people who have made poor choices the system fails to work. Now credit card companies and banks are trying to save there own bacon by probing ways of increasing income. I understand why they would do that. Our goverenment wants to hyper regulate all of this to make sure that everyone can get out of whatever jam that they are in.

I have to ask a question at this point, wouldn't it be better to let people suffer from poor decisions and hopefully learn their lesson? If someone runs up $50,000 worth of credit that they can not afford and begins missing payments shouldn't they be penalized. We are quickly becoming an absolutely "no fault" society. People want to live however they want and then have no responsibilty for their actions. Our government now seems to want to facilitate this. When we ask for government to do this we better be ready for where that will take us.

The real problem is as always a spirtual problem. We are all sinners and left to our own devices we will make poor choices. If we make poor choices and we have no consequences we will make worse choices. This is why God has given us government: to reward good and punish evil. It is time for us as Americans and as people in general to realize that we are responsible for our own actions, not somone else.

Look at this text and see what God says about responsibility:

Romans 6:23 The wages (just due) of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NASB)

We all deserve eternal punishment because of our rebellion aginst God, but God freely chooses to give us eternal life in Christ. We have to own up to the fact that we deserve God's punishment because of our sin. Then and only then can we turn to Christ to save us from our sin through His death on the cross in our place, and His ressurection which made the way for life for us!

Take responsibility and then receive grace: then be a responsbile Christian!