frontline: secret history of the credit card | PBS

These Frontline series are great, you can watch them online, which is a huge bonus. The web content is worth checking out, lots of extras.

Here's a snippet from the site: eight things a credit card user should know.
(visit the title link for all the interesting facts.)

» Many Americans are inattentive about their credit card accounts.

Approximately 35 million Americans pay only the required minimum -- as low as 2 percent -- of their balance each month. Sticking to that rate, it could take years to clear their debt and they'll end up paying far more than the cost of the items or services they bought.

However, many of these 35 million cardholders could pay more than the minimum, and could possibly even pay off in full their balance some months. But they don't -- even though the interest rate they are paying on their credit card balance is considerably higher than what they pay on other things and compared to what they're getting in interest income from their savings account. Is this "financial illiteracy," or just human beings' "irrational behavior?" (Read our report, Credit Cards and Personal Responsibility. Or, try our "Payment Calculator" to see how long it would take you to pay off a balance if you paid just the 2 percent minimum each month.)