Another day with Barack Obama as President of the United States, and another media report on how he is going to save us from ourselves.
On NBC's May 14 "Nightly News," NBC identified a new problem facing society: credit card companies that use marketing gimmicks and low interest rates to lure in young borrowers. The solution, of course, is to continue the evolution toward a government that protects the individual womb-to-tomb.
"It is commencement season, which brings to mind all the joys of college graduation, and these days all the debts," "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams said. "First, the student loans. But so often now, graduates enter the world with awful credit card debt and a chum - a crummy job market. President Obama talked about the problem today, urging Congress to crack down on companies that make the credit cards so enticing to students in the first place."
ABC chief investigative correspondent Lisa Myers explained college graduates were entering the work force with high amounts of credit card debt due to their "inexperience."
"A recent study found that college students with credit cards graduated with an average of $4,138 in card debt," Myers said. "Critics accuse companies of targeting the financially inexperienced."
One of those critics - Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, who recently said credit card users facing higher fees and interest rates under the current economic malaise were facing a "double whammy" in the May 13 New York Times.
"Everybody ought to be doubly troubled when anybody takes advantage of a consumer who is underage," Levin said to "Nightly News."
But, according to the lone spokeswoman for the banking industry, Nessa Feddis of the American Bankers Association, at age 18 you're able to enter a contract, join the military - "but you're not competent to have a credit card?"
Nonetheless, government under Obama will save the unsuspecting college student from credit card companies.
"Today the president criticized universities, some of which get fees when students sign up for cards," Myers said.
"And we also need to clean up practices at universities to protect students from getting stuck in debt before they even get started in life," Obama said in a speech aired on "Nightly News. "That's important."
The "victim" in the story - Sarah Fightmaster, was shown throwing away credit card offers. She claimed to have learned her lesson about credit cards because her parents were forced to extend their working years beyond retirement to bail her out of credit trouble.
"Fightmaster still gets lots of card offers and takes responsibility for her own plight," Myers said. "Her advice to students - think twice before you swipe."
But that begs the question - if Obama is going to save us all, why even bother thinking.
