That's a lot of cabbage!

The other day I got one of those pre-approved American Express applications in the mail, and, like most Americans, I actually thought about filling it in and sending it off. I mean, come on, unlimited spending power right before the holidays?!? Who wouldn't? Even my recently ex-girlfriend had prodded me at one point to get an AMEX card (she used hers frequently for travel). So, for a few hours (I was at work when I opened it) I actually thought about it.

That is, however, until I read the fine print. Even if I didn't use it, after the first year, I would have to fork over a $150 for their annual fee (since, well, you know AMEX doesn't charge interest - you pay the entire loan off when the bill comes), plus $35 per card, for a total of $185 a year! To you and well, you, cause, that's a lot of money for me to spend, just to have the privelege to retain their card in my wallet, that might not seem like much. But when you figure that there's approximately 294 million people in the US and, say, one in ten (a good estimate considering the population growth) has an AMEX card, they are making 5.4 BILLION dollars of our hard earned money - and that's not even considering business owners who have a card for corporate purchases.

5.4 billion dollars.

Now that's a lot of cabbages!