Word: interest
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...impressive riff, but is it a tune for today? Brown is coming out with an old-fashioned general-interest magazine, like Look or LIFE, at a time when publishing is gaga for websites and niches. Yet if anyone could dust off the genre, it's probably Brown, one of America's most successful magazine editors--if you're measuring in buzz rather than bucks. She's the one who put the glitz into Vanity Fair and the news into the New Yorker. When an editor who's won an astonishing 14 National Magazine Awards decides to cook from scratch, expectations...
...expiration dates of teaser rates and how long it would take to pay off a balance with only the minimum. (For instance, if you paid just the minimum 2% on a $5,000 balance at 15%, it would take you 32 years, and you'd pay $7,700 in interest.) "This is an industry that's run amuck," says Frank Torres, legislative counsel at Consumer Union. "Fees are another way to squeeze money out of consumers...
...bombarding customers with ATM and service fees, giants like Citigroup, MBNA, Bank of America and American Express are raising fees, to $20 or $30, for being late or over limit. They're also shortening and rigidly enforcing grace periods on bill payments, upping foreign-transaction fees and imposing penalty interest rates of 20% or more. Some bewildered customers are being punished for not charging enough (inactivity fees). And even if you pay your MasterCard, say, but fall behind on your Discover charge, the MasterCard issuer might raise your interest rate, because you're deemed a greater credit risk...
...some extent, the industry is trying to wriggle out of a trap of its own making. Competition has knocked down interest rates, and thus more people can pay down debt. Annual interest income has grown from $52 billion in '96 to $58 billion last year, while charges have risen twice as fast, from $798 billion to $975 billion. In March consumers repaid some 15% of their outstanding balances, a 10-year record, according to Moody's Investors Service. "Since they can't get it at the front end, they get it at the back end," says Robert McKinley...
According to a Treasury Department official, the Clinton administration agrees with the repeal of the 60-month time limit on interest tax credits for higher education loans and the extension of tax exclusions on employer-provided educational assistance programs for all levels of higher education...