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Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:53
FEATURE: The ugly truth behind your fancy rewards credit card
The US financial system is racked with inequities that's a quote from an article I read by Emily Stewart. She wrote an article for Vox called The Ugly Truth Behind Your Fancy Rewards Credit card Card. And it really purports the idea that we all agree with that there's something really crazy wrong with the credit card world, but we can't always point to what it is and how it really works because it seems really confusing. There's bank fees
Emily Stewart
@EmilyStewart · 2:39
So what we see happening is that everybody's eating these price hikes to a certain extent. But if I'm paying with a rewards card, I'm getting some of my cash back. Whereas the person behind me in line isn't. And what researchers will say is that obviously a lot of people have credit Pardes. A lot of people have rewards cards, but in general, more high income people. Owen, people are likelier to pay with credit cards
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:32
I also think you ask us a little bit to wonder and to kick the tires and to know what systems were inside of. I think that's the value here is that we just can't go into things blindly and think, oh, this is all working great. And how wonderful without taking responsibility for what we're contributing to and being accountable to the systems that we might be complaining about later on. So it's just awesome. Thank you. And let's see if more voices come on here
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Tim Ereneta
@Tim · 0:44
I would be curious to know the volume of these Swipe fees compared to the volume of interest charged. Because it seems to me I just had always assumed that my rewards came from the 40% of credit card users who revolve their balance and pay interest every month. And given the exorbitant interest fees I'm paying on my card, I'm assuming that that is a major revenue generator for the credit card companies. But given your research, I wonder if that pales in comparison to the Swipe fees
Owen Hinrichs
@owen.hinrichs · 0:31
Hi. I actually briefly saw something similar to this. There's a new series on Netflix. I think it's actually produced by Vox. And it's called Money Explained, and they're kind of talking exactly what you're talking talking about in one of the episodes about credit Pardes and how the whole system is just a little bit weird