On Saturday, Sep 27, 2003, at 22:21 US/Mountain, Johann wrote:
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Michael Torrie wrote:
Ever wonder why we all hate Microsoft so much for skimming money off the
top of every computer system on the market when we don't have such a
problem with VISA skimming off part of a percent of almost all
transactions world-wide.
Actually, I strongly disapprove of a very few credit card franchises
becoming middlemen for a large percentage of financial transactions.
(Though you vastly overstate it by saying "almost all" -- by some
estimates between 50-75% of all trackable transactions are by check.) I
use cash whenever possible, including in small amounts for mailorder. No
fee to the middleman, no trail, no bounced checks or overdraft with a
check card, no bill to pay at the end of the month, no interest charges,
no shopping habits recorded, easy to hand over to individuals without a
credit card terminal. Not as good as something backed by real valuables,
but still, a lot better than credit cards for many situations.
Having said all that, the fee the credit card companies charge is pretty
reasonable if they're acutally adding value: facilitating faster
ecommerce, constraining corporate spending to certain dollar limits or
categories, or giving me a relatively low-interest loan on demand, without
having to talk to a bank employee every time. Those are all worth
something, but they're relatively rare occurrences and have nothing to do
with my regular buying groceries, gas, etc.
Johann
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