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Thursday, May 1, 2008
People names its “Most Beautiful”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Don’t ask us why we’re obsessed with People magazine’s “World’s Most Beautiful People” issue. It features the same old stunners
who we already knew were beautiful: Kate Hudson (duh!), Jessica Alba (duh!), Salma Hayek (double duh!).
Right: Actress Kate Hudson, beautiful as always.
But People magazine carries weight in the industry. The mag staged some impressive photo shoots, got a bunch of actresses to go without makeup (admittedly, the actresses are young and flawless to begin with), and persuaded sneaker-loving Sarah Silverman to wear stiletto heels.
Besides, where else would we find out that Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard has 500 swimsuits? Or that NBA star Tony Parker calls his wife’s favorite shoes (Uggs) “Hugs”?
Get a sneak peek of the “World’s Most Beautiful People” here.
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Have you tried to lower your credit card rates?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When it comes to credit cards, we’ve always been told to look for the best rate. That’s particularly important for those of us who choose to carry a balance because all that interest adds up.
Let’s assume you have a credit card balance of $5,000 at 8.99 percent interest. If you didn’t charge anything else to that account and simply paid the monthly minimum balance, it would take you about nine years and 10 months to get a zero balance and would have had $1,122.54 in interest.
For those of you with good to great credit, you can get rates ranging from 6.25 percent to 17 percent.
But have you ever wondered how high interest rates can go? There’s practically no limit because many of the largest credit card lenders are in South Dakota or Delaware and other states with no usury laws on their books or liberal caps that set the maximum rate pretty high.
For example, Chase Bank and Citibank right now charge as much as 29.24 percent interest to those customers who fail to make their monthly payments on time to any of their creditors. Bank of America charges up to 29.99 percent for those customers, while American Express’ Blue card and Discover demand 27.24 percent and 30.99 percent respectively.
If you think that’s high, try being someone with bad credit in the United Kingdom. One British institution, Vanquis Bank charges anywhere from 19.94 percent to 59.94 percent on purchases depending upon how dinged the applicant’s credit is. And if that customer chooses to get a cash advance, the rate for that — which is calculated separately from purchases, as is common with credit cards — ranges from 33.97 percent to 74.75 percent.
Bankers say higher risk customers need to be charged more to mitigate that risk and they have a point. But where should they draw the line? If someone is such a bad risk that they have to pay 59 percent interest is a credit card company being responsible? What rates are you paying on your cards? Are you finding it hard to get your companies to lower your rates?
