I heard a commercial on the radio recently talking about how credit card companies prey on good people having  bad time, luring them in with low introductory rates. More predatory lending hype, I thought, and then realized this industry does plenty to feed that myth.

I don't mean through any practices. I mean by saying over and over, "We help good people who are having a bad time." No, you serve people who are unable for some reason to mange their credit. It may be cultural, psychological or just a lifestyle choice, but that is who they are.

So stop saying that. Stop talking about credit repair in one sentence and then talk about repeat business in the next. Let's be honest about who the subprime and buy-here, pay-here customers really are. They may be good people, but this bad time goes on for quite a long spell. And after a while, people are going to start saying that's your fault.

I'm writing this while sitting in Ft. Worth at the NVLA conference and one hot topic is whether people's flights will be delayed. That was a major topic last week when I was in Chicago, but the issue then was a natural disaster. This time, it's a man-made one.

I have no problem with the idea of a sequester. It was supposed to force the hands of both parties (that didn't happen). Also, in theory, it should have had a limited effect. But now the goal is pain. Air travelers vote, so stick it to them. Of course, there are plenty of airports the FAA could furlough air traffic controllers from that would have limited the problems. But that won't get anything done.

Reuters recently took a hatchet to Exeter Finance in the latest attempt to portray the robust auto credit market as the next great bubble. This is nothing new. About 10 years ago, one journalist described AmeriCredit as "the next Enron."

My poor brethern. They continued preaching the conventional wisdom that "a house is the best investment you can make" while hot money was starting a fire that would burn down the mortgage market. They missed it, just as they spent too much time fantasizing about a Jetsons-like future to see the dot-com bubble for what it was.

Auto credit is not housing credit. Auto credit is backed by actual collateral that is fairly easy to repossess and redeem. But for some reason many folks don't like the idea of poor people driving cars. Maybe our intrepid reporters should be looking somewhere for the next disaster, like say state pension funds.

Southern Indiana, spending time at a waterpark with my kids. Now, I'm back and blogging again. Visiting the area was interesting. When people talk about travel broadening their minds, they mean visiting some foreign land and seeing exotic sites. But I find you learn more driving down a backroad in Indiana.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about a bakery owner considering a move to having tablets shoppers can use to place orders. Her reason: the potential increase in minimum wage makes workers too expensive. If I sold expensive items to the working poor, which is what many used-car dealers do, I'd be very worried about this trend. A few years ago, McDonald's experiemnted with order screens at its stores in Grand Rapids, Mich. Nothing came of it at the time, but I can see a day when the drive through resembles an ATM. In Europe, where labor costs are much higher, technology is more prevelant in the service industry. Waiters use wireless devices to place orders, for example. This increases the number of tables they can handle. The insurance mandate, higher minimum wages and other factors will probably mean fewer low-skill jobs in the future. That's a problem for an industry where your paycheck is your ride.