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Watch the full version here: www.youtube.com The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis. By Jonathan Jarvis. Crisisofcredit.com JonathanJarvis.com

In “Secret History of the Credit Card,” FRONTLINE® and The New York Times join forces to investigate an industry few Americans fully understand. In this one-hour report, correspondent Lowell Bergman uncovers the techniques used by the industry to earn record profits and get consumers to take on more debt. “The almost magical convenience of plastic money is critical to our famously compulsive consumer economy,” Bergman says. “With more than 641 million credit cards in circulation and accounting for an estimated .5 trillion of consumer spending, the US economy has clearly gone plastic.” Millions of American families use their personal, general-purpose credit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover to make ends meet; credit cards have been a discreet lifeline for families in financial straits. But other consumers, like actor and author Ben Stein, use plastic purely for convenience. While it would appear that Stein — who says he charges a small fortune every month on his credit cards — is the ideal customer, in reality, he is what some in the industry call a “deadbeat.” That’s because he pays his balance in full every month. The industry’s most profitable customers, the ones being sought by creative marketing tactics, are the “revolvers:” the estimated 115 million Americans who carry monthly credit card debt. Ed Yingling, incoming president of the American Bankers Association, tells FRONTLINE that revolvers are “the sweet spot” of the banking …

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Executives from the financial institutions who received funds from the 0 billion banking bailout faced their critics on the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday February 11, 2009 in Washington. The chief executives at the hearing are: Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America, Robert P. Kelly of Bank of New York Mellon, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, John J. Mack of Morgan Stanley, Ronald E. Logue of State Street, and John G. Stumpf of Wells Fargo. Their silent response to the questioning tells the whole story. Since this time, these companies have offered little relief to consumers. In fact, they have raised rates on millions of more Americans to help pay for growing credit card losses. The apathy of the American public to this additional “taxation” by the banks is beyond belief. Add to this the fact that Executive pay at the banks is going back up in 2009 (NYTIMES APRIL 25th 2009), and you see we are no longer a nation that believes in “United We Stand,” but rather “Everyman for Himself.”

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