Word: credit-card
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...Service like that used to be the purview of upscale hotels, private bankers and credit-card companies. But concierge firms catering to what Elliot calls the "cash-rich, time-poor" are now springing up all over. Katharine Giovanni, chairwoman of the U.S.-based International Concierge and Errand Association, says membership in her organization has doubled in the last two years, to around 650 companies. And Giovanni says those firms are no longer catering exclusively to the leisure class. Many concierge clients these days are harried two-career families who simply need an extra hand planning a child's birthday party...
...Some might say Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, took a huge risk when he left a successful career at Bain & Co. to help start the company. But Cook figured otherwise. "The worst thing that could happen to me is that I would spend a few years paying off credit-card debt. To me, it looked like a risk-free decision," he said...
...solution? Weil is a great believer in talking frankly about the problem. But some of her proposed conversations just don't sound real. For example, here's her suggestion for how a workaholic spouse should confront a partner about secret credit-card bills: "You must be so stressed and lonely. I know my working late nights and on weekends contributed to this, big time! I want to help you with a plan for the credit card debt that's accumulated, probably from your 'weariness.'" Words not likely to ever be spoken. But Weil argues persuasively that from the beginning...
Meanwhile, with home equity credit lines drying up, Americans have also become more reliant on their credit cards than ever. Overstretched consumers might be forced to bail on their mortgage - even if it means losing their home - but they'll continue to make the minimum payment on their credit cards, because that is their only safety net left. While default rates on subprime mortgages can be as high as 30%, the highest default rates being reported by card issuers is just 5%. Despite fears that the credit-card industry is poised to become the next subprime debacle, it is still...
...times to go public. One is that Visa makes its money (a $424 million profit in the last quarter of 2007, up 70% from a year earlier) from transaction fees, not lending, so it doesn't have to worry nearly as much as banks do about people making their credit-card payments. Another is that the banks that own Visa stand to make more than $10 billion from the IPO--JPMorgan Chase alone should clear $1 billion--and they need the money...