The “personal finance” blogs seem to be about avoiding debt. The trading and investing blogs seem to be about benefiting from disparities in markets. Read whatever you want. But trust me there’s a whole other world out there.

Study the carry trade.

I suppose it can be said that some are “smarter” than the lottery system, because one day they bought one ticket and one big. But just because something works for 1/10 of 1% doesn’t make it a sound system for building wealth.

which is fine.

but i use credit cards in a novel way that earns a return. so i dispute that they serve one purpose, and must also dispute that they’re smarter than i am.

basically i earn ten dollars a day with credit cards.

study the carry trade.

2. “Very Few Pay Their Bills Off”: A complete lie. In fact, the MAJORITY of credit card users pay their bills off every month. I’ve repeatedly seen the statistic that 57% of credit card users pay off their balance every month. Yes, it sucks that 43% do not, but you’ve made a very misleading blanket statement here.

3. “There’s No Maximum Interest Rate”: False. Credit card companies are bound by competition and the fear of federal legislation if they charge too high of any interest rate. Ironically, many low income credit card users would be better served if interest rates were higher, not lower. This is because extremely high rates for high risk individuals would discourage them from taking on more debt than they could handle.

4. “Credit Card Debt Correlates to bankruptcy”: I imagine it does, since why else would one want to file bankruptcy in the first place? Mortgage debt is secured (ie, you don’t pay, you lose the house) and student loan debt can’t be discharged through bankruptcy. So credit card debt is really the main reason someone would declare bankruptcy now. Note that this doesn’t mean that you will go bankrupt if you have credit card debt.

5. “Late payment fiascos”: This is why part of using credit cards responsibly is leaving yourself some margin for error and paying early enough that you can correct things if they don’t credit your payment BEFORE it comes up late. Paying online via ACH transfer allows you to verify this, and eliminates the problem of checks not making it there or companies holding your check.

6. “Statistically, Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt”: There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. This statistic doesn’t reflect the fact that the median credit card debt is much lower than that scary sounding figure. Just because it’s the “average” doesn’t mean that most Americans have anywhere near that amount of debt. Instead, it’s a relatively small group of people dragging up the average. The debt distribution is NOT uniform, which seems to be the implicit assumption in your post here.

7. “Most reward programs aren’t worth it”: This is the most egregious lie in your entire list. You selectively chose a rewards program that is a bad deal just to make your point, which is extremely intellectually dishonest. Most rewards cards that are actually popular don’t have “membership fees” or annual fees or anything like that. I get thousands of dollars a year in free money off of rewards, since I pay no “fees” or “finance charges”. The same goes for any other members of the aforementioned 57% that have good rewards cards. In fact, YOU are paying for my rewards in the form of higher prices everywhere that takes credit cards! Haha!

8. “Credit cards serve only one purpose”: Wrong again. Credit cards are convenient, give you free float, better protection than cash or debit cards, extended warranties, and more. I PAY NOTHING and never have to use a credit card. I’ve never paid interest on one.

9. “Statistically you spend more”: There are those lying statistics again. Just because some idiots do this does not mean everyone does…the statistic is spreading out this “percentage” over everyone. Also a lot of these studies that claim this were done in the early 1980′s when CC’s were not so common…so you would get different results today. And you would get different results if you compared the group of responsible CC users with the irresponsible ones. I feel the opposite of what you describe, because with my CC I have to account for all my spending in my budgeting software after I download my transactions. I analyze my spending and know where my money goes.

10. “You can’t outsmart the credit card industry”: It’s not “outsmarting” them…it’s really just taking advantage of the rules they lay out. The rules are all there in the open, so if you get suckered then it’s your own fault. I’m not adding “risk” to my life by making money off my credit cards, because I always have the money available before I spend it to pay the card off. In fact, I’m reducing my risk because I’m better protected in the case of fraud or disputes with merchants.

Look, I’m just asking that you be honest with your readers. You have a rabid,radical anti-credit agenda, and you don’t seem to mind lying or selectively using misleading statistics in order to make your point. Lying is not a very Christian attribute, you know.

You could easily make your same point if you would just say come out and say something like that you’re against debt because you think it’s against your religion and because you got burned by it when you used it foolishly in the past. There’s no need to lie and falsely claim that your opinions are universal and apply to everyone – you could simply state that this advice is intended for those who can’t handle debt psychologically. Actually, I don’t know if you’re a liar or just ignorant and foolish (and spewing stuff you heard from someone else). Either way, I’ve responded because I think your “advice” is dangerously uninformed and incorrect.

In fact, you are wrong (or dishonest) about a great many things you’ve posted on this blog. I’m only posting anonymously because I don’t want to bother registering an account just to respond to your nonsense.