pockets to pick

Ed at Gin & Tacos:

It is not really debatable that credit card issuers make very little money off of the wealthy.

For people with ample resources who pay their balance monthly, the only way a credit card company is making money is from an annual fee (which is a drop in the bucket to the wealthy) and merchant fees for purchases, usually 3%. There’s no reason to give a rich person a credit card beyond the hope that they will buy a lot of expensive things and rack up fees at the point of sale – fees that are paid by retailers and are invisible to consumers.

No, rich people with $250,000 credit limits aren’t of much use. Giving a bunch of poor people a $2,000 limit and then assholing them with late fees and 28% APRs is where it’s at.

This is common knowledge.

What is not as widely recognized is the redistributive effect.

Exorbitant interest rates on high-risk borrowers effectively subsidize the interest rates paid by the more affluent.