[shawnee_]

That, sir, is a very noble answer to an issue that doesn't deserve to be treated nobly. For most people, the snowballing effect of fees on maxed-out credit cards' interest rates + fees = impossibility, and bankruptcy is the only option. For a long time there was no cap and no limit on how much credit cards could gouge people, and that alone was the profit engine of banks. The fact that the US government made it much more difficult to declare bankruptcy (2005 or so) does not help.