Did you know?
When gas is $3.50/gallon, credit card companies make $0.07/gallon. Here is proof that it's true:
Credit card companies make lots and lots of money no matter what. Everyone knows that a failure to make credit card payments results in enormous owed interest, and in this way credit card companies make their most obvious money. Not so obvious is that credit card companies are making oodles of money off of us even when we always make our payments on time. For every purchase that is made with a credit card, the credit card company gets a percentage of the transaction price. According to this morning's gas pump, that percentage is 2%. This is a 2% credit card tax that we pay on everything. Most people pay with credit cards, therefore the price on everything needs to be raised in order so that vendors can recoup the 2% loss on most purchases. If you try to fight it by using cash, then you are paying that 2% tax outright. If you pay with a credit card, then you might get a cash-back bonus, offsetting some of the extra cost. Our choice is to either pay in cash and give up our cash-back bonus, or to use the credit card and save some money, while at the same time giving more money to the credit card company. The vendor gets to pay for it all. It's a pretty nasty trap that they have us in.