Word: credit-card
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...when the Federal Reserve announced that it was dismantling some of the credit control apparatus it had built in March. At that time, the Federal Reserve began charging major banks a three-point interest-rate surcharge on funds they borrowed from it; that levy was eliminated last week. There were also strong expectations that Washington might be preparing to discard the rest of the credit curbs initiated two months ago. Fed Chairman Paul Volcker had been opposed to the measures, which included reserve requirements on new credit-card borrowings and on money-market funds. Observers expected that Volcker would...
America's $55 billion love affair with plastic money was on the ropes last week. Big retailers and banks began sharply reducing the borrowing clout of credit-card holders. J.C. Penney stiffened credit requirements, curtailed card promotions and hiked the minimum purchase eligible for time payments from $19 to $200. Banks, which had been deluging customers with Visa and MasterCard (formerly Master Charge) applications, suddenly throttled back the flow of easy credit. New York's Bankers Trust Co. slapped a $500 credit limit on new accounts and froze ceilings on existing credit lines. Chase Manhattan Bank said...
Though the immediate cause of alarm was the Federal Reserve action two weeks ago that forced credit-card issuers to place a sum equal to 15% of new loan money into a noninterest bearing account, the lenders have been suffering pinched profits or even losses for months. Banks in most states are caught in a squeeze between high interest rates and local usury laws. In New York, for example, the maximum interest on credit-card purchases is 18% on an annual basis for the first $500 and 12% on everything above that. But banks are now paying as much...
Carter's program is open to serious question on some other grounds. Controls on credit-card debt, in the opinion of many economists, will have only a marginal impact on inflation. The wage-price guidelines have been very ineffective, and there is little reason to think their impact will increase. And the Administration's fee on imported oil will immediately force up further the item that is already rising faster than anything else in the consumer price index. Gasoline prices went up 60% between early 1979 and early 1980 (see chart...
...Budget Office, the deficit for the current year might climb to a stunning $47 billion, more than $7 billion bigger than the Administration's latest projection. And forget broad credit controls: there will be no outright limits on the sums that banks can lend to businesses, and certainly no restrictions on how much consumers can borrow to buy houses or cars. Only a requirement that consumers pay credit-card bills more speedily-maybe...