Oct 09 2007
Free money
My 6-month CD at 5.12% matured today, netting a profit that amply covers a dinner for four at Masa or Le Bernardin. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out this spread, but shows how Americans deal with finances: credit, credit and more credit. I don’t think the credit card industry is betting on the cc holders taking their line of credit running to a bank. The trend is spending it, then after the teaser rate period, paying high interest rate. My economic training stops at Economics for Dummies (seriously, when I have time, I’d like to go back to school for Economics, Finances and History), so I don’t know the pros and cons for a country holding trillions of US T-bill and a country heavily in debt. Do I need to know?