Financial news of the world

The Guardian did a story on a British company charging 50%-70% interest on a new credit card it plans to market to the poor. Don't you think at some point, people won't pay their bills simply because you have quickly doubled or tripled what they've spent? I suppose the idea is not to be embarassed when you go somewhere and everyone else whips out their card to pay for dinner or something.

To find customers, Vanquis will trawl through the files of private credit rating agency Experian - it holds data on almost everyone in Britain - to identify individuals rejected by other lenders often because they have run into debt problems in the past.

My favorite part of this is their writing style:

It expects the typical customer to have an income of half the national average. Provident Financial's executive directors last year earned from £376,000 to £583,000, while the chief executive saw his pension fund rise from £916,000 to £1.3m.

You wouldn't get that understated comparison in most American papers. Facts speaking for themselves, rather than us being beaten over the head with them. After getting into the habit of being bludgeoned with facts, information, and pre-drawn conclusions, it's no wonder we have to be repeatedly assaulted in a similar way. I'm sure we're pretty much deaf to subtlety by now.